Posted on 04/05/2022 10:22:44 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
The United States stopped the Russian government on Monday from paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600 million from reserves held at U.S. banks, in a move meant to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and eat into its holdings of dollars.
Under sanctions put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, foreign currency reserves held by the Russian central bank at U.S. financial institutions were frozen.
But the Treasury Department had been allowing the Russian government to use those funds to make coupon payments on dollar-denominated sovereign debt on a case-by-case basis.
On Monday, as the largest of the payments came due, including a $552.4 million principal payment on a maturing bond, the U.S. government decided to cut off Moscow's access to the frozen funds, according to a U.S. Treasury spokesperson.
An $84 million coupon payment was also due on Monday on a 2042 sovereign dollar bond .
The move was meant to force Moscow to make the difficult decision of whether it would use dollars that it has access to for payments on its debt or for other purposes, including supporting its war effort, the spokesperson said.
Russia faces a historic default if it chooses to not do so.
"Russia must choose between draining remaining valuable dollar reserves or new revenue coming in, or default," the spokesperson said.
JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), which had been processing payments as a correspondent bank so far, was stopped by the Treasury, a source familiar with the matter said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
One of the great myths of history from that era was that the Arab countries imposed an embargo on oil sales to the U.S. over our meddling in Middle Eastern affairs.
The real story is that they were no longer willing to sell oil for U.S. dollars because they knew the U.S. dollar was a bad investment due to Nixon's removal of the gold standard and the soon-to-become-reality day of reckoning when the bill came due for the destructive decision by the U.S. to fight the Vietnam War while simultaneously incurring massive entitlement spending obligations through the "Great Society" programs.
“We’re going to sanction Russia into our own economic grave.”
Yes. And we’re going to fight Russia until every last Ukrainian dies.
Because our corrupt as hell POTUS and IC are scared.
Why ? Because the tv told you and they aired made up propaganda . If Biden and the rest of the globohomos are for it I’m against it.
This is an act of war by the evil, corrupt, illegitimate Biden regime.
Russia MUST respond in kind!
These “popular,” sanctions are arguably acts of war. Old Puddin Head is going to F around and get us nuked.
And if you remember 2008, the credit default swaps, insurance etc... all the derivatives were gigantic compared to the mere
actual value of the mortgages in question.
The US is shooting itself in the foot at the same time.
Come back to your thread and take your beating like a man!
100% right on!
No argument? Reduced to gifs?
This whole story brings back a conversation to me that I had with someone in my profession about ten years ago. He had just returned from Singapore, where he had attended a major trade conference for the global shipping industry. He was completely demoralized. I asked him what was wrong. His answer was very illuminating:
"This is an annual conference that is attended by everyone who is a player in global shipping. I've been going there for years, and this is the first time I went through the entire conference without ever hearing a single person talk about doing business with customers in the U.S. It's like the whole world knows that the future of their industries is not here, but in Asia."
I am not supporting Biden to say this is a good idea.
Russian debt is is considered “Emerging Market” debt, and when you look at global sovereign debt they are a very small fish in a very large pond. With few exceptions this won’t rock any markets.
Will Russia default? Almost certainly. Will it hurt them? For sure. Will they turn to their friends in Iran, North Korea and China? Certainly....none of which (yes, including China) are currently flush with cash.
And I don’t care if you think the Ukrainian government was corrupt or not. What is happening to the PEOPLE of Ukraine is unacceptable and deserves worse than this for Russia.
This is going to backfire on the US. The US dollar is going to decline more and more. Things are going to get much worse here.
Okay, here’s a video:
Ukraine: Insane combat footage shows a single Ukrainian tank engaging a large Russian convoy consisting of several tanks and BTR-82A. Several Russian vehicles destroyed.
https://twitter.com/Arslon_Xudosi/status/1511376081407905793
Bad move
You are one the few here who get it.
T’ell with em
Write a check and blame the bank that won’t cash it
Or default. What are the bondholders going to do?
Seek sanctions? Seize yachts and property?
What's wrong with you?
Oh no, there goes Putin’s credit rating.
Meanwhile, the funds holding those bonds just took a big hit, eh
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