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Which nation states might you consider more politically stable than the US, even now?
by loeg 9mo ago
Which nation states might you consider more politically stable than the US, even now?
- toomuchtodo 9mo agohttps://www.cfr.org/trackers/cfr-sovereign-risk-tracker https://www.cfr.org/trackers/cfr-sovereign-risk-tracker https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/ctryprem.html https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile...
- loeg 9mo ago> The CFR Sovereign Risk Tracker can be used to gauge the vulnerability of emerging markets to default on external debt. Sort of definitionally, nothing in that list is going to be more politically stable than the US. In the second link, the author gives slightly lower country risk premiums (0% vs 0.2%) to Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, and Switzerland. Setting aside the practicality of these recommendations (how much debt does Liechtenstein issue? or Germany, for that matter?): in a world where the US is unstable, it's hard to imagine Canada being risk-free.
- epgui 9mo agoNothing is risk-free. But Canada is certainly more politically stable than the US.
- vkou 9mo agoCanada is more internally stable, but is less externally stable, given that invasion and occupation is on the table. Canada needs to pursue further armament (Carney is pursuing a doubling of its defense budget) and training in asymmetrical warfare.
- loeg 9mo agoWhat makes you say "certainly," especially in the hypothetical scenario where the US is unstable? Canada has a relatively much shorter history as an independent nation. Canada heavily benefits from its southern neighbor, and has a host of domestic economic issues (low wages, high housing prices; whatever the farmers are on about) that could cause instability as well. I think Canada is reasonably stable, I just quibble with "certainly" and "more" politically stable as compared with the US.
- toomuchtodo 9mo agoCanada will not invade allies and will adhere to the rule of law. Their forward looking economics are more favorable as they strengthen ties with China and Europe. By decoupling from the US, their economic risk declines, and their sovereign debt risk is downstream of that.
- AnimalMuppet 9mo agoUnder current conditions, though, they may be invaded and/or annexed. That's a risk.
- overfeed 9mo agoThat's one way to invite asymmetric warfare[1] on the mainland - the border with Canada is something that mostly exists on maps. 1. As recently wargamed by the Canadian military.
- ben_w 9mo agoI'm remembering an old painting, and briefly wondered if we'd see a repeat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_President%27s_House_by_George_Munger%2C_1814-1815_-_Crop.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_President%27s_House_b... Then I remembered the building works, and thought "If it happened, how would anyone even notice?"
- epgui 9mo agoThis has nothing to do with Canada's political stability.
- CamperBob2 9mo agoAll historically-stable Western nations seem to be subject to the same influences that brought us Trump, though. They (we) are all under attack.
- abdullahkhalids 9mo agoOn the first page, I see 9 countries which it claims have a default risk of 50% or higher in the next 5 years. Which means a probability of at least 1-0.5^9=0.998 that at least one of them will default. That's a crazily high confidence prediction. What is their track record? What did they predict 5 years ago and how did those predictions bear out?
- loeg 9mo agoTo be clear, those countries are: Argentina, Belarus, Ghana, Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Ukraine, and Venezuela. It would not be shocking if any of those countries defaulted. Also: your math assumes events are independent, but at least the Belarus/Russia/Ukraine events are probably not independent. Edit: whoops, CFR only gives Russia a 9/10 score, not the full 10/10 score of 50% default probability.
- blitzar 9mo agoIran
- thatguy0900 9mo agoI'm not sure a country can survive running out of water no matter how many revolutions they put down
- blitzar 9mo ago> more politically stable than the US
- Braxton1980 9mo agoAlmost every 1st world country has a more predictable and honest leader right now
- loeg 9mo agoYou've answered a different question than the one I asked. I think the US will continue to pay its debts, under this president and the one who replaces him in three years.
- vkou 9mo agoThis president has publicly mulled not paying its debts. It's time to stop magical, wishful thinking about how you want the world to be, and deal with the world as it is.
- loeg 9mo agoThe president can mull whatever he wants; he doesn't have the authority to not pay.
- vkou 9mo agoHe can mull all he wants and half the time, that mulling turns into reality. In practice, he has the authority to do anything he wants. Who is going to stop him? You? His pets in Congress? JPow's private hit squad? Clarence Thomas? The first rule of neo-America is that you're playing the Chairman's Game[1], and there are no more rules. Its counterparties should bargain with it accordingly. --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_(card_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_(card_game) [2] [2] The Chairman's Game is a game invented in a university. Some say it was invented at Stanford, while others say it was invented at MIT. It was inspired by a formerly prominent, but now somewhat disgraced Chinese politician that was famous for coming up with a lot of interesting new rules for his subjects to follow, and enforcing those rules very harshly, without necessarily informing those subjects what those rules were. It's a little bit like Uno, a little bit like Crazy Eights, and the only thing that I can tell you about it is that there are times, when playing this game, when it is not a good idea to speak.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]