ECF Bans Russians

[IM Jack Rudd]

Today is the day the Russians are supposed to make the $117 million payment on their Eurobond to stop the sovereign debt default which would be ruinous for their economy.

So if I owe you a great deal of money and decide not to pay it back, that is bad news for me? I think it is bad news for you.

It's bad news for both parties: the lender loses their money, the borrower will probably find it harder to borrow money in the future.

[Chris Rice]

Today is the day the Russians are supposed to make the $117 million payment on their Eurobond to stop the sovereign debt default which would be ruinous for their economy.

So if I owe you a great deal of money and decide not to pay it back, that is bad news for me? I think it is bad news for you.

There is a confidence trick going on here. If everyone says often enough and loudly enough that Russia will be mortally damaged by not handing over its money, it must be true. But it isn't.

As Jack says, the economic argument seems to run that it's bad news for the lenders/investors in the short term, bad news for the Russians in the long term otherwise why would they even bother trying to make the payment. Your argument seems to be predicated on the basis that Russia can operate on their own without the international community, that is true, for example, North Korea have done it for a long time and Iran more recently, but it's not much of an existence when you've not got any money coming in and no one wants to or is allowed to trade with you. Of course Iran have been doing back door deals with the Chinese for some time now so perhaps that's what Putin's contingency plan is but it 's unclear how much really China want to be pulled into this mess.

[Jonathan Bryant]

... the borrower will probably find it harder to borrow money in the future.

Indeed. The day Nazanin Zaghari finally returned to Britain is certainly a rather curious day to be arguing that failing to pay your debts is of no consequence.