In the devil's dictionary of financial descriptors, certain phrases that were once thought of as euphemisms are now stock terminology. Downward revision. Eliminating redundancies. And now, courtesy of Belize, debt rearrangement.** A DealBreaker reader writes:
We sovereign bond traders don't get to see countries actually default much anymore, so when it finally does happen you can't blame us for getting excited. I'm not even [sure] Belize counts as a real country, but I'll take what I can get. See the press release attached. Walter Wriston famously said that "countries don't go bankrupt." Very true. They don't go bankrupt, one consequence of which is that when a country stops paying its debt, it can describe such event in colorfully euphemistic ways. Belize has broken new ground, though, in calling its situation a "debt rearrangement."
Press release here. ("Belize Announces Impending Debt Rearrangement")
** Actually, we're pretty sure Donald Trump popularized this one quite a while ago.
