Last Call

You gotta hand it to Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo.  He may be on the way out as the UN, US and the people of the Africa's largest producer of cocoa are firmly behind his democratically elected successor, Alassane Ouattara, but Gbagbo is the guy pulling the financial strings.

Ivory Coast’s $2.3 billion of Eurobonds fell to a record low as a spokesman for Laurent Gbagbo said the country will make a missed interest payment only if creditors recognize him as victor of the disputed presidential November elections. 

If the country defaults on its debt, people are going to lose millions if not billions, and that kind of thing gets the attention of the only people that count any more:  the banksters.   Gbagbo is saying that if the UN won't reinstall him as President of Ivory Coast, maybe the banks will.

Tyler Durden is having a big, long laugh.

And so things move from the simply violently revolutionary to the outright surreal, and once again they originate in Africa where today's TheOnion reality seems to feel most at home in practice (unlike its mostly theoretical, for now, US counterpart). Ivory Coast, the biggest producer of cocoa, today told bondholders of $2.3 billion in debt that unless creditors legitimize the corrupt incumbent regime, and recognize voted out president Laurent Gbagbo, then the country will not make an interest payment on its bonds which already are in a grace period, and will essentially default, unless the political gridlock is resolved in two weeks.

A planned national strike by Ouattara supporters today will probably herald the beginning of the end of the Gbagbo regime, but he can sure do a hell of a lot of damage on the way out.