{"id":29250,"date":"2017-12-30T09:48:03","date_gmt":"2017-12-30T14:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29250"},"modified":"2017-12-30T09:48:03","modified_gmt":"2017-12-30T14:48:03","slug":"debt-to-gdp-only-4-major-countries-worse-off-than-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29250","title":{"rendered":"Debt to GDP: Only 4 Major Countries Worse Off Than the US"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Debt to GDP: Only 4 Major Countries Worse Off Than the US<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Of major nations, only Japan, Greece, Italy, and Portugal have debt-to-GDP ratios higher than the US.<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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With the new tax overhaul, U.S. government debt will rise by one to two trillion dollars over the next decade. I view that assessment as majorly optimistic as it assumes no recession and unlikely growth.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Citing IMF statistics, the Wall Street Journal reports Just Four Large Countries Have a Higher Debt Burden Than the U.S.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Japan\u2019s government carries debts at 240.3% of gross domestic product, far and away the world\u2019s largest burden. Japan has struggled in recent decades to tackle its debt, in part because its economy has been stagnant. Attempts to raise revenue via higher taxes have often knocked the economy into recessions. Tax cuts haven\u2019t generated enough growth to ease debt burdens.<\/p>\n

The Bank of Japan has embarked on the world\u2019s most aggressive monetary policies, including decades of rates near zero, and the world\u2019s largest asset-purchase program. None of it has revived growth or inflation, meaning Japan\u2019s debt burden has been slowly grinding higher. (Although the low rates have meant the costs to the government of servicing that debt have remained under control.)<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s government debt has been a persistent fiscal challenge, but never quite blossomed into a full-blown crisis.<\/p>\n

The next three nations haven\u2019t been so lucky. Greece\u2019s debt-to-GDP stands at 180.2% of GDP, Italy\u2019s at 133% and Portugal\u2019s at 125.7%. When the global financial crisis struck, and government revenues plunged around the world, Greece and Portugal found themselves unable to manage debts on their own. Both nations turned to international bailouts to make it through the years of weak growth that followed. All three nations have had to bail out some of their largest banks in order to keep their financial systems from collapsing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debt to GDP: Only 4 Major Countries Worse Off Than the US \u00a0 Of major nations, only Japan, Greece, Italy, and Portugal have debt-to-GDP ratios higher than the US. With the new tax overhaul, U.S. government debt will rise by one to two trillion dollars over the next decade. I view that assessment as majorly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3725,418,14648,13390,549,827],"class_list":["post-29250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-debt-to-gdp","tag-imf","tag-michael-shedlock","tag-mishtalk","tag-national-debt","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29251,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29250\/revisions\/29251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}