[jlgreco]

The US certainly has assets that other would be willing to buy. As an obviously inflammatory/terrible example: I am sure many corporations or nations would leap at the chance to buy the mineral rights of national parks. How much would the Chinese give us for the right to stripmine Yosemite? A lot I bet. (Obviously that is a horrible idea, we should never stripmine our national parks...)

[JumpCrisscross]

You own Blackberry stock. It's your largest holding. You've seen it lose 90% of its value in the last 5 years. The CEO asks if you'd like to buy a cafeteria pass, good for free meals at the company cafeteria for the next 50 years.

Most investors would say no. If a company is selling its cafeteria food to stay afloat, chances are (a) there won't be a company tomorrow or (b) it will find some way to repudiate inconvenient contracts, e.g. go bankrupt.

Some very smart people bought into an Argentinian oil and gas deal. Then the friendly government became less friendly and their deeds were worthless pieces of paper.

[bilbo0s]

What Crisscross is trying to say is...

Even if you buy assets from a government in turmoil...

what is the likelihood that any new government emerging from that turmoil will allow you to keep the assets you purchased?

Historically... the odds have not been favorable to investors.

[jlgreco]

This is true, but I don't think we are anywhere close to there yet. If we started selling off land, I suspect there would still be buyers.