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29 Minn. J. Int'l L. 243 (2020)
Ahead of the Next International Financial Crisis: Contextualizing Sovereign Default and Proposing an Improvement to the Restructuring Process

handle is hein.journals/mjgt29 and id is 529 raw text is: Ahead of the Next International Financial Crisis: Contextualizing Sovereign Default and Proposing an Improvement to the Restructuring Process Lindsey Schwalbach* INTRODUCTION Imagine living in a country where the economy is booming, capital is flowing in, and families are happy.1 Now imagine waking up in the same place one year later and finding that, due to sovereign default, basic groceries cost five times the minimum wage, 93 percent of the country's population cannot afford food, over 90 people have been killed during demonstrations demanding international food aid, and hyperinflation has risen to 720 percent.2 Unfortunately, this scenario is not only the story of Venezuela's suffering economy in 2017, but is the all too common, very dismal picture of many countries that have experienced default.3 Worse yet is the fact that it can take fifteen * J.D. Candidate, 2020, University of Minnesota Law School; M.B.A., 2019, Carlson School of Management. I would like to thank Professor Christopher Soper for his expertise and thoughtful feedback throughout this process. I would also like to thank the Minnesota Journal of International Law editors and staff members for all of their time and effort in greatly improving this Note. Finally, my most heartfelt thanks to my family and friends for their unwavering support and encouragement throughout law school. Tony, thank you for being the absolute best and most supportive partner, you are simply amazing. 1. See Rocio Cara Labrador, Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN REL., https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/venezuela-crisis (last updated Jan. 24, 2019). 2. Mercy Benzaquen, How Food in Venezuela Went from Subsidized to Scarce, N.Y. TIMES (July 16, 2017), https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/ 2017/07/16/world/americas/venezuela-shortages.html. 3. See, e.g., Niki Kitsantonis, Greece, 10 Years into Economic Crisis, Counts the Cost to Mental Health, N.Y. TIMES (Feb. 3, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/world/europe/greece-economy-mental- health.html; Elizabeth Melimopoulos, Argentina's Crisis: What Went Wrong and What Is Next, AL JAZEERA (Sept. 16, 2018), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/ 2018/09/argentina-crisis-wrong-180914154523757.html; Laura Sullivan, How Puerto Rico s Debt Created a Perfect Storm Before The Storm, NPR (May 2, 2018, 7:10AM ET), https://www.npr.org/2018/05/02/607032585/how-puerto-ricos-debt -created-a-perfect-storm-before-the-storm. 243