Sri Lanka has officially defaulted on its debt payments:

The grace period for Sri Lanka to avoid defaulting on its foreign debt expired on Wednesday, as the government scrambled for dollars to top up depleted fuel supplies… Sri Lanka currently does not have a fully functioning government after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s cabinet resigned last week. Sri Lankans are suffering severe shortages of fuel, food and medicine, with multi-hour power cuts and queues for petrol and diesel. A protest movement has called on Rajapaksa to step down.

Depending on how badly a situation deteriorates, one thing which must be considered at some point is individual survivability behaviors of those in power. There are now rumors that Sri Lanka’s elites have fled the country, likely taking whatever assets they could remove. In many poorer countries, as conditions deteriorate, there may come a time in any of them when the leaders simply give up, raid the treasury, and abscond with whatever they can take.

From there, conditions will deteriorate quickly, and all investment activity will become at risk of total loss.

Clearly one will need to be on the lookout for such conditions.