The Gulf

[bcholmes]

I was speechifying this evening. Talking about the political situation in Haiti to a veeeery small crowd of 20-year-old university students. During the Q & A, we were talking about Haiti and international debt. Someone asked the question: "what would happen if Haiti just decided to say, 'we're going to stop paying our debt'?"

The answer, of course, is "We would probably manufacture an excuse to overthrow their government and install a government that will pay the debt."

To me, that answer was obvious. To the person who asked the question, the answer was inconceivable. I find that gulf between our outlooks very interesting.

Comments

[fil512.livejournal.com]

I would think the thing that would happen is the same thing that happened to Russia and Argentina. Their credit rating would get downgraded and future borrowing would have a higher interest rate.