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摘要

PITY THE finance minister who must instil confidence in Lebanon, which has the fifth-highest public-debt burden in the world, at 150% of GDP. But Ali Hassan Khalil did a staggeringly poor job of it when he told a local newspaper his country was ready to default. "It's true that the ministry is preparing a plan for financial correction, including a restructuring of public debt," he said in an interview published on January 10th. Within a day its bonds fell to a record low. Mr Khalil soon clarified that he meant rescheduling, not restructuring. For ratings agencies the distinction is moot. On January 21st Moody's downgraded Lebanon's bonds even deeper into junk.