I’m back! Didja miss me? I missed you. I was in England, mainly (when I wasn’t
stuck on the tarmac at JFK), where even cafés encrypt their wifi. Most
annoying. But even if internet access was hard, I did get to pick up the Guardian
– where the Zambia
vulture fund story made the front page! If you want a great overview of
the case and the issues, however, you should read Alan
Beattie in the FT, who had the great good sense to talk to my friends Anna
Gelpern and Brad Setser, both of whom really know their onions on this sort
of thing. And while we’re in the sovereign-debt part of the markets, I haven’t
even been able to mention here that Ecuador paid its bond coupon in full and
on time! (Great headline in the IHT: "Ecuador’s
on-time bond payment confuses economists", over an AP story which quotes
the perspicacious Ramiro Crespo describing Ecuador’s debt policy as "erratic,
arbitrary, capricious and manipulative".) I think Crespo might be right
in seeing Venezuela’s fingerprints all over the decision. Venezuela’s public-finance
technocrats are rather sophisticated, and know how much a debt default would
amount to shooting oneself in the foot.