Venezuela -- Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock -- February 25, 2016

Being reported at CNN Money today: Venezuela is shipping gold to pay its debts. Russia is selling a lot of gold:

Venezuela sent $1.3 billion worth of gold bars to Switzerland in mid-January, according to data from the Swiss Federal Customs Administration.

That gold was shipped out just weeks before two big debt payments due this month, totaling $2.3 billion. On Friday alone, Venezuela has to pay bondholders $1.5 billion.

Venezuela is running out of cash and many experts believe there's a high chance it will default by this fall when a string of big debt payments are due.

"It's a question of when Venezuela will default, not if," says Russ Dallen, managing partner at LatInvest, a firm that invests in Latin America. "They're running out of options." 

Actually, there is another option: sell its oil reserves to Russia:

Russia's major oil company Rosneft has signed an agreement with Venezuela's PDVSA for an additional investment of $500 million in the development of the Orinoco oil belt project.

Maybe we've gone from "tic-tic-tic" to "tick-tock-tick-tock."