March 2, 2020· 53 min

How Iraq Pulled Off One Of The Biggest Sovereign Debt Restructurings Of All Time

Simon Hinrichsen

Orality

Model

69%

Oral-dominant (speeches, podcasts, storytelling)

Speaker Breakdown

HostTracy Alloway(1,483 words)

M:28%

HostJoe Weisenthal(1,321 words)

M:94%

GuestSimon Hinrichsen(5,609 words)

M:27%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic31%

literally, completely, definitely

Engagement39%

you, our, your

Memory Aids100%

listen, now, like

Repetition100%

debt (127x), they (82x), actually (67x)

Parallelism100%

And I'm Joe Wasenthal...., And, we had a whole section al..., And one of the reasons why I f...

Sound Patterns50%

44 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"

Formulaic Phrases5%

you know what, i mean

Literate Indicators

Hedging8%

quite, could, maybe

Passive Voice23%

is even, been mentioned, being enacted

Abstract Nouns23%

investment, recommendation, section

Subordination8%

because, while, whereas

Sentence Length54%

Avg: 18.5 words/sentence

Word Complexity48%

investment, analyze, anticipate

Academic Markers0%

Impersonal Style61%

349 personal pronouns found

Descriptive Style100%

literally, completely, definitely

Description

There are lots of famous debt crises in history, but the story of Iraq's government debt build-up in the 1980s and subsequent restructuring in the early 2000s is probably one of the most unusual. Iraq transformed from a net creditor to a net borrower in a single decade, tapping a bunch of unusual sources (including funds linked to the CIA) for money to finance war against Iran. All that borrowing eventually culminated in one of the biggest debt restructurings in history. On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak to Simon Hinrichsen, a doctoral candidate at the London School of Economics, and the first to trace the build-up of Iraq's debt going back to 1979. He walks us through lessons learned from the Iraq restructuring – including one big missed opportunity in the world of sovereign debt. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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