Russia Is Spiraling Toward a $150B Default Nightmare

bloomberg.com

21 points·paulpauper··9 comments

As Russian propagandists said proudly on the state TV - "We've achieved independence from the world's financial system."

If this is true, why is the ruble relatively stable at 100 rubles to 1 usd, versus where it was a week ago at 140?

(Serious question, I'm not trying to be snarky. Does anyone understand currency trading here?)

Not every market is a free market. Also there’s not only one rubles market rate.

The ruble would fall if there enough people who ① have rubles that they ② legally may sell and ③ a need to sell them soonish even at bad rates. All three conditions are necessary.

People with rubles are either in Russia or outside it. My guess is those in Russia may not legally sell, and that few of those outside are in a hurry to sell.

I guess this answers part of it

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/how-russias-central-bank-en...

What are the repercussions of this throughout the financial system?

Who are the holders of all that debt?

These things are all interconnected, and therefore the people losing out on these loans will probably become insolvent, and then their investors will lose out, and on and on...

I'm surprised everyone is so relaxed about this, or am I just not seeing the panic?

It's a lot of money, but not beyond experience. The size is between the two Argentine defaults and the Greek one.

«While the debt is substantial, it’s probably not enough to cause a systemic problem for financial markets. That’s the view of International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, who said last weekend that banks’ exposure is “not systemically relevant.”»

China will bail them out.

Not worth it

They might take some land from Russia tho

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