When a nation defaults it becomes the IMF/World Bank's bitch. "Austerity" is imposed, well-connected foreign interests get to run roughshod, and that nation is systematically (oh I mean coincidentally) looted. If you ever needed proof that these loans were designed to accomplish precisely that (a way for lenders to extract wealth from those nations), look no further than the fact that here you have an article that seems to be COMPLAINING about how Venezuela is NOT defaulting.
Well, if you put it that way, the chavista governments have been doing a tremendous job at looting the country. If defaulting means having the country looted by the IMF and friends, I'm pretty sure the citizens would rather default; I can't recall the last time the IMF ran a country down to food and medicine shortages, so they're not nearly as good at this looting thing as Maduro and his lackeys have proven to be.
> I can't recall the last time the IMF ran a country down to food and medicine shortages
Among the cases where it has been argued that IMF-driven austerity measures did that are Romania in the mid 1980s, Malawi in the early 2000s, and, most recently, Egypt earlier this decade. There are probably others.
However, compare to what would have happened in these countries without IMF intervention. That "austerity" is what happens when you run out of credit. That IMF is involved is no proof that IMF "ran down to" something.
