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Comment by 1cvmask | Hacker News Reader

I looked up the core values of Turkey. And their debt to gdp ratio is 40%. Neighboring Greece is 200%. The Turkish economy was the second fastest growing economy last year in the G20 and is on pace to be the one of the fastest growing economies this year. Turkey has had record exports and been one of the most successful in tourism both last year and this year helping the current account deficit. Yet bankrupt Greece can borrow at almost 1% interest rate with over 200% debt-to-GDP ratio. Meanwhile there is an unofficial blockade on international lending to Turkey from the US and its cluster of allies/subjects. That is the real story of the attack on the currency and the financial system. The US did the same to Chile by undermining its economy and killing its financial system before staging a coup (Obama attempt to kill Erdogan and stage a coup in Turkey failed in 2016):

https://youtu.be/EYrznlDTE_M?t=7576

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Dept to gdp of Turkey is 40%, if you believe official numbers. But they are not publishing numbers for dollar denominated guarantees to PPPs.

This is only one of the many unpublished “dept”s.

The more the Turkish lira devaluates, the more the public has to pay for the PPPs. Hence, when considering for creditworthiness, you need to account for all, not a single number.

You're looking at the wrong metrics. Instead:

- Change in foreign reserves.

- Private debt to GDP, particularly denominated in EUR and USD.

- Turkish private bank debt to FX reserves, particularly denominated in EUR and USD.

Turkey's problem is having to pay for inputs in EUR or USD and interest payments in EUR or USD at the same time such reserves and the ability to acquire such reserves are in decline & increasing in cost.

is this unexpected ? erdogan literally buys weapons from russia as a nato member, allies with putin at every occassion and disregards any civilized values. he'd like to squeeze minorities as he wants, oppress the opposition as he wants and ally with whoever he wants. at that point, people might not want to cooperate with you, a bit of diplomacy eh ?

> erdogan literally buys weapons from russia as a nato member

After US refused to sell PAC 3 despite Istanbul pleading for it since even before Erdogun

istanbul does not plead for anything, ankara may though.

The US has always put arms embargoes and blockades on Turkey, even having formal ones in the 1960s and 1970s. The US also arms the terrorists in Turkeys south to attack and terrorize the country. According to CIA agent John Stockwell and others they have been arming those terrorists since the 1970s on Kissingers orders to attack Turkey. The US also refused to sell defensive systems to Turkey under the Obama blockade. The Turks bought it then instead from the Russians. Other NATO countries also have both Russian weaponry and the S-class defensive system like Greece, Bulgaria and Hungary. Turkey is clearly not competent enough to build it itself which is why it bought it.

So, he is acting like a leader who puts his country first? How is that bad?

If US doesn't want to sell weapons to Turkey, its NATO ally, is Turkey supposed to give up and stay defenceless against terrorists that attack its borders?

> If US doesn't want to sell weaoons to Turkey

America is happy to sell to Turkey. Turkey wants to dual source. The U.S., reasonably, doesn’t want its latest stealth tech painted by Russian radars phoning home. Sometimes playing the middle ground helps. Sometimes it gets you a raw deal. In Turkey’s case, the people are losing.

US refused to sell Patriot missile system to Turkey. It also refused to sell it's F-35 fighter jets before Turkey formally requested to buy S-400 anti-air missile system.

US knows that it cannot keep Turkey on a leash like it can, for example, France or Greece. So it does not want to sell it weapons, in case Turkey ever becomes a "problem" (read too powerful to control).

> in case Turkey ever becomes a "problem" (read too powerful to control)

Is this honestly the line Turks are being fed? The concern is Turkey becoming a failed state and terrorist hotbed, for the U.S. and Russia, and a new migrant source, for the EU. If Turkey could reliably project force in the region, it would solve a lot of American strategic problems.

"The concern is Turkey becoming a failed state..."

Of course, there is a real danger of that happening. Turkey can indeed become a failed state...if USA attempts another coup or color revolution.

Look, there are multitude of concurrent attacks, both military (inside Syria by using Kurds/SDF) and economic being made agains Turkey for it's failure to be a "good NATO ally". I don't like Erdogan, and I care not about what happens to him. Turks do, though.

Many people will die if Turkey turns into another Iraq, Libya or Syria. And I don't want that to happen.

> if USA attempts another coup or color revolution

The article this thread attached to is about home-grown economic orbital bombardment. If the Anatolian elite can keep the populace distracted by phantom foreign threats, they’ll succeed in extracting their wealth before the house falls.

Erdogan may use Putin when it suits him, but when the interests no longer allies, he has no problems acting very much against Russia wishes. Like it was in the recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan or when Turkey sells weapons to Ukraine.

In the case of Armenia, the country was becoming a hotbead of CIA activity. So Putin wanted to make an example of it.

Russia allowed Azeris to win that war, just to show Armenia how vulnerable it is without Russian help. Plus, they now have troops patroling along the border with Nagorno-Karabah.

Any source on that claim that Obama was behind the coup attempt in 2016?

There are never any sources on these things until 20 years after the fact. So we really don't know. But if you'd gone ahead and assumed America had a hand in every coup in the Western world over the past century, you'd at least have a pretty good batting average.

By that logic it could also be the British.

Essentially it's unsubstantiated claims made largely out of thin air. It's useless.

You're not wrong, but it is still wrong to claim blame for specific events without evidence. The comment you are replying to clearly asked for specifics.

I don't really disagree but... Greece is backed by Germany so they're a bad comparison. Without that backing they'd be Turkey right now.

You are correct. What many here don't realize is that the current financial system is directly tied to the wimps and wants of the USA.

Speculation abounds at Wall Street, London stock exchange and other western financial institutions. They are the ones dictating the price of money, the exchange rates and asset bubbles. They have the power to financialy attack any country in the world that does trade in US dollars and euros (almost all countries in the world). As we can see, even their "allies" are not spared.

Really quickly went from 0 to 100 at the end there

You are 100% true. But erdogan did buy russian weapons after the us forbade him to buy american ones. Turkey disobeid the american golem and must pay the price

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