Who's going to buy a 30 year bond from a government that has about even odds of surviving to maturity?
Even if they do get their money back, it'll be late. Who wants that kind of risk?
> Other countries or regions with a level two advisory include Algeria, Burma, Antarctica, Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark, and the United Kingdom.
Sounds not particularly serious. Also lol at Antarctica
That's pretty much the definition of "complexity hides evil".
Index funds are a bit more direct since you're owning pieces of things you may not like instead of owning a contract that could be converted to something you don't like.
It has wide applications too: you can obfuscate everything from financial issues to political events. For example, pretend the article of the Charleston white supremacist mass murderer said the following:
"Roof was involved in the controversy of the events of June 17, 2015. After a flurry of media attention, he became the lead defendant in the trial United States v. Roof (2:15-cr-00472), which was noted for the request for a bench trial..."
The above is entirely correct, and written in a neutral, flat tone, but it completely misrepresents the situation. By noting tiny, irrelevant details like the request for a bench trial and the criminal number, the article both becomes uninteresting and hides the truth. If you read the snippet you wouldn't get the idea that he was a mass murderer.
I read something earlier by James Risen about the CIA covering up a number of horrible things. One quote I found very interesting:
"But after I filed the first story, it sat in the Times computer system for days, then weeks, untouched by editors. I asked several editors about the story’s status, but no one knew.
Finally, the story ran, but it was badly cut and buried deep inside the paper. I wrote another one, and the same thing happened. I tried to write more, but I started to get the message. It seemed to me that the Times didn’t want these stories."
They didn't even have to threaten to not publish it - all they had to do was obfuscate it! Throw in a few complex words and kick it off the front page and behold, nobody will read it, even if it contains explosive information.
really massive ones probably have a pretty good relation with the host country government/politicians and can rely on state political tools for leverage