Given the complete disasters the Belgians left in their colonial wake in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, and their Liliputian economic and military clout, you would think they would have the decency to just shut up.

the French don't.

All countries need to borrow at times, so repudiating debt would be a very, very bad thing to do to their economic futures.

Papaya:

You pose a false choice.

Maybe I'm a bit slow this morning . . . I don't understand what you mean by "false choice."

Repudiation would not negatively affect their future borrowing. Indeed, being debt free would facilitate it.

Oh, yeah? Declaring bankruptcy doesn't negatively affect a credit rating? That's news to me. Can you point to any evidence of this?

the USSR. Donald Trump. New York City. Chrysler. Britain. France. Argentina. The next batch of loans will follow within weeks of repudiating the last.

PapayaSF;

While I think OJ is being a bit optimistic on the time scale, the historical fact is that it never takes more than a decade and generally quite a bit less before a repudiation is "forgotten" and lenders are ready to come back. It took about ten years after the big wave of defaults in Latin America. Argentina was back in the borrowing business within 3-4 years.

However, it would probably be an economically good thing if most African nations couldn't borrow. That money's never improved anything, it's just one must pound of flesh extracted from the populace for the gratification of their rulers and their cronies.

Bottom line: I just can't imagine any negative repurcussions to those nations from sub-Saharan nations repudiating their debts.

The lending of any money to governments in the Third World is generally a bad idea. What should be done is to pursue the kind of microlending to individuals and small business supported inter alia by Hernando de Soto. The problem here is that much of the Third World does not have the legal infrastructure or traditions of respect for property and contractual rights that make this work.

Latin America does for the most part.

Never overestimate the intelligence of a bank or senior bankers. I recall a friend in the eighties telling me about his friend who was an EA to the president of one of the bigger banks here. Made Trump look self-effacing. He'd be reading his paper in the limo in the morning and learning about how the competition was lending more to Poland. By noon everyone knew they'd be toast if they didn't find a way to shovel gazillions to Poland by sundown.