Freefall

NEED TO KNOW

VENEZUELA

Freefall

As Venezuela continues to spiral out of control, Caracas’s voracious borrowing to prop up the nation’s withering economy has economists anticipating an inevitable financial crash.

So far, President Nicolas Maduro has managed to meet payment deadlines on the $55 billion in oil-backed loans it has received from Russia and China. To accomplish that goal, he’s diverted all his foreign reserves to debt and slashed imports of food, medicine and other essentials, the Washington Post reported.

But it seems like Caracas’s days of living paycheck to paycheck are about to end.

Maduro recently missed a $1 billion payment to Russia for previous arms purchases, leaving investors fearing a default on billions in the near future.

Desperate for cash, Maduro’s regime has resorted to selling off $2.8 billion of bonds from the state oil company PDVSA for just 31 cents on the dollar to financial giant Goldman Sachs – a sharp divergenc...