Posted on 02/25/2016 5:44:22 PM PST by BenLurkin
Venezuela sent $1.3 billion worth of gold bars to Switzerland in mid-January, according to data from the Swiss Federal Customs Administration.
That gold was shipped out just weeks before two big debt payments due this month, totaling $2.3 billion. On Friday alone, Venezuela has to pay bondholders $1.5 billion.
Venezuela is running out of cash and many experts believe there's a high chance it will default by this fall when a string of big debt payments are due.
"It's a question of when Venezuela will default, not if," says Russ Dallen, managing partner at LatInvest, a firm that invests in Latin America. "They're running out of options."
That's why the country is using its dwindling gold reserves to make debt payments. But experts say it has to ship the gold all the way to Switzerland for two likely reasons:
1. Switzerland is one of the largest hubs for gold in transit and has the most trusted stamp of purity. So once Switzerland verifies the quality of the gold, Venezuela can then sell it for cash.
2. Venezuela can also put up its gold as collateral in exchange for a cash loan from banks in what is known as a "gold swap."
(Excerpt) Read more at krcrtv.com ...
Which domino is going to cause all the other dominoes to fall?
fed x?
I will gladly accept all the Lyman #2 alloy they have, LOL!
Not one month ago, I read a story about how Chavez shut down a major gold mining operation in Venezuela.
How long before Obama:
1. Blames Bush
2. Apologizes for the U.S. and
3. Promises to send Venezuela a few billion dollars to bail them out?
I hear that the daughter of the late Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez, has over a billion dollars. Maybe she can kick in some money and buy some toilet paper for her people. Isn’t socialism great.
Insured?
1. Blames Bush
2. Apologizes for the U.S. and
3. Promises to send Venezuela a few billion dollars to bail them out?
Who knows? Saturday afternoon maybe? You know he will, however.
“I hear that the daughter of the late Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez, has over a billion dollars.”
I think it’s a little over 4 billion dollars.
The Venezuelan government is running out of other people’s money? What a shocker!
Nothing a free market economy couldn’t fix in less than a decade.
This is why the current low price of oil won’t stay low for long. The political and economic instability of Venezuela could result in a halt of oil exports, and that will have huge impact on the price of crude oil since Venezuela supplies a good fraction of the crude oil for Western Hemisphere.
1.3 billion in gold would have bought a hellovalotta toilet paper.
Once they go completely broke they will turn away from Democratic Socialism, break out the guns and usher in some real Communism.
TO #5. Yeah, Chavez’s “major gold mining operation” closed because sane Jews left the country and he couldn’t carry out his plan to take their gold teeth, or those from anyone else he could catch.
Don’t think that the Communists haven’t done this in the past.
Isn’t it interesting that gold can move from Venezuela to Switzerland but the Germans cannot get their gold from New York?
I looked up at random other countries we would never consider economic powerhouses and found an average ratio of 35.23%. They were Belarus, Sri Lanka, Uruguay, Uganda, Columbia, Lebanon, Honduras, Zambia, Cuba, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Peru, Puerto Rico, Angola, Albania, Egypt, Botswana, Venezuela, Chile, Philippines, Algeria, Bangladesh, and Paraguay.
Here are the links in case you want to have some fun with the numbers.
List of countries by GDP (nominal)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
List of countries by external debt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt
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