Venezuela is shipping gold to pay debt

krcrtv ^ | 02/25/2016 | Patrick Gillespie

[VanShuyten]

Maduro and the generals have to have some way to pay the bell boys at their new residences overseas. Gold is the metal of choice for fleeing dictators the world around.

[Moltke]

Re: Luxembourg. Read the footnote on the external debt page you linked:

“As the Bank of International Settlements explains small countries with large financial sectors tend to have disproportionately large gross external debts as well as holding large cross-border debt assets.[1] Luxembourg is a net creditor country.”

Yes, numbers can be fun.

[Retain Mike]

Thanks for the note. I went to the CIA Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/lu.html) and the definition of external debt for more information. I still could not find the assets to offset these liabilities. I might find them if their banks were publicly owned so I could see annual reports.

The financial sector, which accounts for about 36% of GDP, is the leading sector in the economy. In 2015 the government’s compliance with EU requirements to implement automatic exchange of tax information on savings accounts - thus ending banking secrecy - has depressed banking activity and dampened GDP growth.
Public debt:
21.7% of GDP (2015 est.)
22.5% of GDP (2014 est.)

note: data cover general government debt, and includes debt instruments issued (or owned) by government entities other than the treasury; the data include treasury debt held by foreign entities; the data include debt issued by subnational entities, as well as intra-governmental debt; intra-governmental debt consists of treasury borrowings from surpluses in the social funds, such as for retirement, medical care, and unemployment; debt instruments for the social funds are not sold at public auctions

GDP - composition, by sector of origin:
agriculture: 0.3%
industry: 11.3%
services: 88.3% (2015 est.)

Industries:
banking and financial services, construction, real estate services, iron, metals, and steel, information technology, telecommunications, cargo transportation and logistics, chemicals, engineering, tires, glass, aluminum, tourism, biotechnology

External debt (or foreign debt) is the total debt a country owes to foreign creditors. The debtors can be the government, corporations or citizens of that country. The debt includes money owed to private commercial banks, other governments, or international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Note that the use of gross liability figures greatly distorts the ratio for countries which contain major money centers such as the United Kingdom due to London’s role as a financial capital. Contrast net international investment position

[Moltke]

I think the more relevant statistic is on the page mentioned at the top of the one we’re talking about:

“This is not to be confused with public debts which can be found under “List of countries by public debt”.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

You can select the third column to make it display the list in order of %debt of GDP. Japan wins that one. The larger Euro countries are still well below 100%. U.S at 103%.

[Retain Mike]

Thanks. I will add that to my spreadsheet. It is raining so bad I am not even tempted to get the mail.