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As yet another key debt payment date closes in on Puerto Rico, here's a primer on what you should know, and who it will affect the most ahead of the deadline. Q: If the Puerto Rico Public Finance Corporation (PFC) doesn't pay bondholders on Aug. 1, will it be considered a default? A: Yes. According to Moody's vice president and senior credit officer, Ted Hampton, if there is no payment made on Friday, it will be the first default of a U.S. state, or state-like entity, since Arkansas couldn't make its bond payments during the Great Depression in 1933. Q:...

Almost every option facing debt-drenched Greece is bad, but there is only one that will end this Greek tragedy for good. Let Greece go bankrupt. Then let this once-rich nation, hit the restart button to rebuild its economy. What I’m suggesting for Greece is what might be called the Detroit option. Put Greece under receivership and let these new authorities figure out how to manage the debt and decide who will take a haircut and how big. Pensioners, bondholders, welfare recipients, government workers, the International Monetary Fund, all will have to settle for less — maybe a lot less. It’s...

Sunday, Greeks should vote “no”!Hellenic voters are being asked whether they accept the terms offered by the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund to extend the bailout for Athens‘ troubled finances or give Prime Minister Tsipras a mandate to insist on a better deal.Those conditions include more cuts in government supported pensions, higher taxes and labor market reforms other European governments’ are often not inclined to accept in the conduct of their own affairs.Urging a Yes vote, European leaders and their supporters in private institutions claim more austerity would reinvigorate the Greek economy and permit Greeks to...

It’s axiomatic that when a socialist regime hits the skids, the left will generally try to claim that such regime is ‘right wing’ somehow. Such claims can and will be completely irrational on their face, but for the national socialist Left it’s all about talking points and a simplistic ( but ‘superior’) mentality that favors headlines and shallow thought on the subject And before you complain that I dare use the word ‘national’ next to the word ‘socialist’ I would ask that you please explain in detail (with documentation) Just how in Hades’ the word national modifies the meaning of...

United States' projected debt over the next 25 years looks a lot like Greece's over the past 25. With all the chaos unravelling in Greece, Congress would be wise to do what it takes to avoid reaching Greek debt levels. But it's not a matter of sticking to the status quo and avoiding bad decisions that would put the budget on a Greek-like path, because the budget is on that path already. A quarter-century ago, Greek debt levels were roughly 75 percent of Greece's economy — about equal to what the U.S. has now. As of 2014, Greek debt...

Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country's already bloated deficit. Greeks aren't very welcome in the Rue Alphones Weicker in Luxembourg. It's home to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office. The number crunchers there are deeply annoyed with Athens. Investigative reports state that important data "cannot be confirmed" or has been requested but "not received." Creative accounting took priority when it came to totting...

With the financial world transfixed by Greece's debt-driven meltdown, Puerto Rico announces it can't pay its $73 billion in debt. Once again, we're learning that welfare statism is no replacement for fiscal responsibility. Compared to Greece's $353 billion in debt, Puerto Rico's $73 billion doesn't sound so big. On a per capita basis, it's about a third less. But appearances deceive. Puerto Rico is in deep, owing actually much more than that amount. We learned this after a report on Monday, co-authored by former International Monetary Fund No. 2 Anne Krueger, revealed the island's finances are a shambles. The devastating...

Former US Presidential candidate and publisher of Forbes Magazine, Steve Forbes, used the platform of his magazine to pen an open letter to the prime minister and finance minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis. The full text of his letter appears below. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dear Prime Minister Tsipras and Finance Minister Varoufakis: You may have won a four-month reprieve of sorts from your creditors, but your situation is desperate, and everyone knows it, most particularly Europe’s paymasters, the Germans. As you just painfully learned, your ability to blackmail your creditors is a fraction of what it once was. Businesses,...

Greece joins Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe on the latest to be in debt to the International Monetary Fund. As Athenians rallied underneath thunderclouds to show their support for keeping Greece in the eurozone of single currency nations, their broke government defaulted on a $2.2-billion payment to the International Monetary Fund. At midnight on Tuesday, Greece joined Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe as countries in arrears to the IMF. Also at midnight, the bailout assistance package that began in February 2012 formally expired, leaving Greece without access to any emergency finances. In Washington, the IMF acknowledged that Greece had failed to meet...

<p>Greece and its principal creditors—the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund—should acknowledge that Athens will never be able to repay the €131 billion it owes, write down its debt and let the Aegean nation exit the euro gracefully.</p>

Greece banks to stay closed on Monday, Piraeus Bank chief says, after emergency meeting in Athens This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly

Like Greece, the Puerto Rican government has more debt than it can service, and some are calling for a bailout by U.S. taxpayers. The major Puerto Rican state-owned or controlled enterprises are all losing money, including the power authority which is insolvent. Puerto Rico is an American territory that was acquired from Spain in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. The island has a population of about 3.6 million, which is declining as many Puerto Ricans emigrate to the U.S. mainland or elsewhere because of the continuing economic stagnation. Puerto Ricans are American citizens, but their per capita income is about...

Humorist Lee Siegel wrote in The New York Times that he unashamedly and without remorse defaulted on his student loans. Am I a deadbeat? In the eyes of the law I am. Indifferent to the claim that repaying student loans is the road to character? Yes. Blind to the reality of countless numbers of people struggling to repay their debts, no matter their circumstances, many worse than mine? My heart goes out to them. To my mind, they have learned to live with a social arrangement that is legal, but not moral. Congratulations, Mr. Siegel.  You have figured out liberty....

There are some valid points raised in Lee Siegel's 1100 word rant against college loans (if not so much against college education). There are some bad ones. But two things are clear: the words "personal" and/or "responsibility" were used precisely zero times, and the op-ed writer, who described himself as "the author of five books who is writing a memoir about money", is hardly a glowing advertisement for an education attained (funded with either debt or equity) at one of the Ivy League's "best", Columbia University.That, or the return on money after spending nearly a decade in university and...

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a law allowing Ukraine to impose a moratorium on repayment of its foreign debt until at least July 2016, a press release on Poroshenko's official website said Thursday. The Ukrainian parliament approved the bill, which could affect repayment of the country's $3-billion debt to Russia on May 19. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier the bill de facto was an announcement of a default, casting a negative light on the professionalism of Ukraine's leadership. Moreover, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Moscow would turn to an international court if the Ukrainian president signed...

Greece cannot make an upcoming payment to the International Monetary Fund on June 5 unless foreign lenders disburse more aid, a senior ruling party lawmaker said on Wednesday, the latest warning from Athens it is on the verge of default. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's leftist government says it hopes to reach a cash-for-reforms deal in days, although European Union and IMF lenders are more pessimistic and say talks are moving too slowly for that. Greek officials now point to a race against the clock to clinch a deal before payments totaling about 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) to the IMF...

The Greek government says that a “moment of truth” is coming on June 5th. Either their lenders agree to give them more money by that date, or Greece will default on a 300 million euro loan payment to the IMF. Of course it won’t technically be a “default” according to IMF rules for another 30 days after that, but without a doubt news that Greece cannot pay will send shockwaves throughout the financial world. At that point, those holding Greek bonds will start to panic as they realize that they might not get paid as well. All over Europe, there...

Greece is preparing to take the dramatic step of declaring a debt default unless it can reach a deal with its international creditors by the end of April, according to people briefed on the radical leftist government’s thinking. The government, which is rapidly running out of funds to pay public sector salaries and state pensions, has decided to withhold €2.5bn of payments due to the International Monetary Fund in May and June if no agreement is struck, they said. High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste...

snip...According to a 2014 federal oversight report from public research group American Transparency, taxpayer-backed SBA loans are popular with businesses serving “wealthy lifestyles.” The report, which analyzed SBA loans between 2007 and 2013, found that billions of dollars flowed to businesses that, in many cases, could obtain standard loans with standard interest rates. SBA loans offer advantageous low rates. snip Many of the loans, which ranged from $1 million to $5 million, went to luxury goods retailers, exclusive clubs, Fortune 100 companies, plastic surgery clinics and even private equity firms. Found among the list of borrowers were Rolex and Lamborghini...

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has described his country as the most bankrupt in the world and said European leaders knew all along that Athens would never repay its debts, in blunt comments that sparked a backlash in the German media on Tuesday. A documentary about the Greek debt crisis on German public broadcaster ARD was aired on the same day euro zone finance ministers met in Brussels to discuss whether to provide Athens with further funding in exchange for delivering reforms. "Clever people in Brussels, in Frankfurt and in Berlin knew back in May 2010 that Greece would never...