Sixth Largest Debt In The World???

Kintarō Hattori

I knew of course that we had government debt like just about any other country in the world but I never knew it was so much!

According to the CIA Factbook we have the 6th largest government debt in the world at a whopping $ 1,841,000,000,000 :eek::eek::eek:

1.841 trillion dollars - can this be right?

Skyuser

Actually according to that its the 6th

HarryPalmer

Ridiculous number. This government can't count that high. http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1015516.shtml

K-9

Considering we had the second lowest in Europe, it has really shot up. Maybe we are the exception with Govt. deficits and bank bail outs?

Kintarō Hattori

Skyuser wrote: »

Actually according to that its the 6th

Ahem well pointed out.

K-9

Ah, it's current borrowing, not total borrowing! Lucky we have one of the lowest total borrowing ratios in Europe.

Kintarō Hattori

And that means what to us lackies?

Senna

Our personal debt is 180 times GDP, not good when you're in a recession.

K-9

Senna wrote: »

Our personal debt is 180 times GDP, not good when you're in a recession.

Jaysus, it has really shot up! Amazing!

Link?

Edit. Do we have TOTAL Govt. borrowing to GDP Ratios?

4zn76tysfajdxp

We should aim for first.

Teg Veece

From that table, it seems that the more in debt you are, the more prosperous your country is. Can someone explain why that is? Does that debt actually mean anything at all?

K-9

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

And that means what to us lackies?

We have the one of the lowest Total Borrowing to GNP Ratios in Europe. Google is your friend.

fredzer

Madison Sweet Racquetball wrote: »

We should aim for first.

+1, no point doing this in a half assed way. Maybe start a war? Should push up the debt a notch or two!

4zn76tysfajdxp

fredzer wrote: »

+1, no point doing this in a half assed way. Maybe start a war? Should push up the debt a notch or two!

We should attack Israel, they're distracted at the moment and will NEVER expect it.

Four-Too

Teg Veece wrote: »

From that table, it seems that the more in debt you are, the more prosperous your country is. Can someone explain why that is? Does that debt actually mean anything at all?

It means we are F*CKED! Every man, woman and child in Ireland owes this debt. Lame-ass Cowan and co will have no solution to that either, you can be sure. There is nothing free in life, we joined the E.U., accepted the jewels they offered to us, but we forgot there is nothing for free in life...if your debt is not paid...OUR debt, we will have to pay for it in some other WORSE way. :eek:

Teg Veece

Teg Veece wrote: »

From that table, it seems that the more in debt you are, the more prosperous your country is. Can someone explain why that is? Does that debt actually mean anything at all?

Just imagine your mate down the road who has a McJob , earning just above the minimum wage, borrows enough to buy a ferrari!

He looks rich, then the HP bills start coming in! he borrows more to pay the car HP.

Then the credit bills come in, he borrows some more from somewhere else.

But he still appears rich to you!

Ireland is your mate!

tallaght01

That figure just about keeps my student loan debt out of the top 6 :P

K-9

Four-Too wrote: »

It means we are F*CKED! Every man, woman and child in Ireland owes this debt. Lame-ass Cowan and co will have no solution to that either, you can be sure. There is nothing free in life, we joined the E.U., accepted the jewels they offered to us, but we forgot there is nothing for free in life...if your debt is not paid...OUR debt, we will have to pay for it in some other WORSE way. :eek:

YEP, They paid it off in the good times. So we have one of the lowest Govt. debts in the EU, so can afford to borrow.

It would be far worse if we where the UK borrowing! Oh wait!

Rabies

if that is to be believed, it is will out of date.

themadchef

That's a whole lot of cabbage.

gino85

who the fup does the world owe $ 51,780,000,000,000 to?

SoWatchaWant

That's it lads, it's time to take drastic action, like all of us ducking it out in Singapore or something...

javaboy

Typo. It's supposed to be Iceland.

SoWatchaWant

gino85 wrote: »

who the fup does the world owe $ 51,780,000,000,000 to?

To the bank fat cats I think. We'd be better off persecuting them tbh

mp3guy

To be honest, with values that enornmous and spread over such huge economies and countries, those numbers lose their feeling of value. It's not like there's a single Joe Soap who lent Ireland the odd $1,841,000,000,000 down the pub one night (Since he just had it lying around) and all of a sudden is asking for it back "or else".

S.I.R

Madison Sweet Racquetball wrote: »

We should attack Israel, they're distracted at the moment and will NEVER expect it.

Israels useless anyways,


get the pdf's in there. :rolleyes:

HarryPalmer

S.I.R wrote: »

get the pdf's in there. :rolleyes:

You want to attack them with electronic books?

galwayrush

Impressive how long Bertie kept the charade going , even more impressive was how he knew when to get out .:rolleyes:

KTRIC

gino85 wrote: »

who the fup does the world owe $ 51,780,000,000,000 to?

Me, I took €20 out of an ATM on Grafton St one Saturday night and went and had a couple of pints. Must have been some bender, because when I checked my balance the next morning I was 51bn in the red !! :rolleyes:

Kold

Well that's funny because I have this picture of a spider that I value at €1.841billion, so I'll donate it to the state if you guys make it worth my while.

asdasd

who the fup does the world owe $ 51,780,000,000,000 to?

I dunno. It would be great if it were a chap called Fred, and he was a really really nice guy and said "Era. ****it. Write it off. just leave me a few million and buy me a free pint next time you see me".

Thats'd be great. The world would have no more debt and Fred would have free pints for the rest of his life.


Acutally most sovereign debt is owned by people within the country of issue, although the US sovereign debt is being snapped up everywhere. Who knows why.

There has been a huge imbalance in world trade for about a decade now - largely due to the entire transfer of tne manifacturing capabilities of the West to China, India, and Eastern Europe. I don think this can balance out until we all get as poor as China and India, or there is an average salary in common between all places.

That, or we end globalisation.

barbiegirl

Ok some of the same posters on this one as the ones giving out about the govt cuts. You want us NOT to borrow and not to cut. Where does the money then come from??? Think basic fiscal policy. In the last 15-20 years we have reduced our debts from the huge 1980's level and now, yes we need to borrow hugely, like eveyone else, but we're starting from a better position. Did we waste the Celtic Tiger, nope we paid back our loans, just like in your home budget, paying debts comes before the house extension or improvements you want, now we have to take them again, as does everyone in the world. Books have to balance people.

asdasd

Think basic fiscal policy. In the last 15-20 years we have reduced our debts from the huge 1980's level and now, yes we need to borrow hugely, like eveyone else, but we're starting from a better position.

True. That is one thing the government got right. And I dont care about borrowing. We escaped from 100% of GDP down to 36% so we have room to grow debt as a percentage of GDP now, in fact we have to. And run it down in the boom years when theuy come back.

I'm sorry, but that figure can't be right...
There's no way we've borrowed the over our whole gdp(todays) 10 times. Any economists care to shed some light on it?

Karoma

Oddly enough, Afghanistan's debt has not been updated since 2004.

*shrugs*
I'm off to Lichtenstein.

Peteee

People are getting confused.

wikipedia wrote:

External debt (or foreign debt) is that part of the total debt in a country that is owed to creditors outside the country. The debtors can be the government, corporations or private households. The debt includes money owed to private commercial banks, other governments, or international financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.

So this includes public debt (Government owed debt, which according to the CIA factbook is 24% of GDP, which is either €191 billion or €259 billion, so that gives us circa €70-80 billion of government debt, which seems to fall in line with harrypalmer numbers above.

The rest is private debt. I have no idea how the number is so high, it comes out at about €400,000 per man woman and child in the land.

ejmaztec

The debt problem would be solved if Biffo was fit enough to get to the end of a rainbow before it disappeared. Perhaps he should appoint Sonia O'Sullivan to replace Brian Lenihan.

sillymoo

Sure this is well out of date look at the date:

Ireland $ 1,841,000,000,000 30 June 2007

Surely it would have doubled now at the rate things are going at :mad:

HarryPalmer

Peteee wrote: »

...it comes out at about €400,000 per man woman and child in the land.

That's a fair number of credit cards maxed out.

BaconZombie

We should get Bertie back in power and I'll to 1st in no time.

galwayrush

This would not be a problem if Bertie was still in power, it would still be a secret.:rolleyes:

Guy:Incognito

galwayrush wrote: »

This would not be a problem if Bertie was still in power, it would still be a secret.:rolleyes:

He was in charge when the figures were collated.


Yep , all secrets.:rolleyes:(we can all use those)

Économiste Monétaire

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

I knew of course that we had government debt like just about any other country in the world but I never knew it was so much!

According to the CIA Factbook we have the 6th largest government debt in the world at a whopping $ 1,841,000,000,000 :eek::eek::eek:

1.841 trillion dollars - can this be right?

That figure is for all external debt relating to government, private citizens, and corporations. It's just a technical number which is ambiguous in its calculation. It's not the same as government debt; there's no way we could have a public debt to GDP of 1000%.

javaboy

Économiste Monétaire wrote: »

there's no way we could have a public debt to GDP of 1000%.

Never underestimate the power of Playstation Fianna Fáil.

rossie1977

irish government spending budget in 2006 48 billion euro http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10003969.shtml
irish government spending budget in 2007 54 billion euro http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10008108.shtml

how can our external debt equal nearly 2 trillion based on that?? unless you include EU grants there is no way we spent that much money never mind borrowed it, what did we spend it on, if we had a military like the US or russia i could believe that figure

Highsider

You'll talk us into a recession.;)

gurramok

Private debt is €400bn, the highest in the eurozone, we're no.1 at that

ShooterSF

I say we invade San Marino.

HarryPalmer

ShooterSF wrote: »

I say we invade San Marino.

Fcuk it, let's invade England.

galwayrush

HarryPalmer wrote: »

Fcuk it, let's invade England.

Better not, we've spent all our money on Quangos to plan the invasion.:rolleyes:

HarryPalmer

galwayrush wrote: »

Better not, we've spent all our money on Quangos to plan the invasion.:rolleyes:

Sure, we'll send them in first. It'll be grand.