Debt By Country...

thebman

From economist:
http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock

Public debt per person:
2006: $13,431.23
2011: $38,601.78

This madness must end soon. That is one shocking statistic.

wylo

Could only find 2 countries worse, Iceland and Norway, Norway was a bit of a surprise.

SamSamSammy

er, try UK and US - much much worse.

wylo

not per head of population

thebman

Yes its the debt per man, woman and child in the state that is sickening.

And the one that matters the most to the average citizen.

To most people, its about a years wage and more in many cases that the state has borrowed in their name to fund what?

Bloated, inefficient public services and saving bankers from their own mistakes. Lovely except we'll be here in 20 years time again assuming we somehow recover from this one in the predicted 10 years

Liam Byrne

wylo wrote: »

not per head of population

A hell of a lot per head of population if that particular head didn't borrow €38,000

And given that - I would guess - most under 16's have hardly borrowed at all, it skews that statistic to €72,000 per head of population.

And that's not even taking into account pensioners and unemployed, etc.

jimmycrackcorm

thebman wrote: »

Yes its the debt per man, woman and child in the state that is sickening.

And the one that matters the most to the average citizen.

Does it though? What does it actually mean in reality? E.g. Sure I may have tax increases in the next budget but will I be back as bad as in the 80's when I was paying 48%?

wylo

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question , but I have to ask something obvious. It seems that every country in the world including China (bar the unknown data ones) is in debt.
If thats the case , alot of these countries are owed money as well no? Is that taken into account?

friendface

Really, the more stark figure is our budget deficit as a % of GDP which is not compared on the above chart. (see here for comparison). It's quite scary looking at the figures we're faced with at the moment and I really don't know if we can realistically avoid dipping into the EFSF in the new year. There's so much uncertainty at the minute in relation to our political and economic future. Was watching Vincent Browne the other night when Patrick Honohan was on saying how the NAMA loan transfers were based on Nov' 09 property prices. If that's the case, then is it not the case that NAMA will realistically be faced with higher losses than initially anticipated as prices continue to fall.

Either way, it's going to be a miserable few years to be living in Ireland faced with constant cuts to public expenditure. I certainly don't have faith in the government to achieve the 3% Debt to GDP target by 2014.

charlemont

for peats sake why ye all complaining people warned us for years about fianna fail and the shambolic policies, nobody wanted to know, now ye got what ye wanted.

ireland has amongst the lowest population density in the union yet had the most expensive land and houses, it doesn't take a genius to figure out something is wrong there..

we got inward investment because we were a low cost nation, then as soon as they were in the door , prices went up and up..

still people kept their heads under the sand..

the catholic church too played its part in helping to keep the irish docile so they and other corrupt people could take advantage of the people, everything swept under the carpet and forgotten about , don't rock the boat mentality.

hopefully some people will be put on trial, but i know deep down it will never happen..

ballsymchugh

church bashing, now available in every forum!

Justin Collery

wylo wrote: »

Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question , but I have to ask something obvious. It seems that every country in the world including China (bar the unknown data ones) is in debt.
If thats the case , alot of these countries are owed money as well no? Is that taken into account?

Countries don't lend to countries (with the exception of China and the oil states). Pension funds, companies, financial institutions and plain old people lend to governments.

murphaph

Something funny there: Norway has extensive oil and gas reserves which are in public hands (Statoil) and the country (AFAIK) has a budget surplus every year, which it has been squirrelling away like you'd expect from prudent Scandinavian types. Are they borrowing money cheaper than they are lending it out or something (hence the debt)? Norway does not NEED to borrow a penny, so there must be some reasoning behind its public debt.

scr123

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Does it though? What does it actually mean in reality? E.g. Sure I may have tax increases in the next budget but will I be back as bad as in the 80's when I was paying 48%?

Afraid your 48% was a lot more recent but your point is correct. The whingers and the moaners might try to grasp the 80's when the low rate of income tax was 35% and the high rate of VAT was also 35%. Lots of other painful things in the 80's like the introduction of VAT on telephone and electrictity. The lunacy of fear around today is hyped up by the politicos from the ABFF who can smell the blood of FF and are hapy to see our problems escalate. They like to slam FF as traitors but in reality they are the masters of treachery !
This country in the 70's and 80's developed a shocking inflation problem and this country in the noughties developed an even worse in many ways inflation problem. The only known cure for inflation is deflation and the biggest victim as ever is employment. The country is now in the process of deflation but when the problem is resolved we will start again from a base we never dreamt of in the past. The country is far from bankrupt and we will manage our national debt over time. The ABFF have gone crazy with their their war of fear and at the same time they manage to multiply their own fear of failing to win an election for the 7th time.
The real question for me is, who the hell decided we could get away with unlimited expansion of credit and unprecedented low interest rates and then who the hell decided to pull the plug without any warning to the banks around the world.
I repeat, our national debt is manageable and its time the ABFF shut up their fear mongering, they are guaranteed to win the next election so think of the country before your stupid political nonsense !!

murphaph

scr123 wrote: »

The real question for me is, who the hell decided we could get away with unlimited expansion of credit and unprecedented low interest rates

Fianna Fail, amongst others!

scr123 wrote: »

and then who the hell decided to pull the plug without any warning to the banks around the world.

without warning? Are you for real? I saw this bust coming in 2001. I'm no expert but it was patently obvious that we were living through a totally unsustainable, built on a house of cards period of "economic growth" (really just a growth in borrowing and spending, not much else).

scr123 wrote: »

I repeat, our national debt is manageable and its time the ABFF shut up their fear mongering, they are guaranteed to win the next election so think of the country before your stupid political nonsense !!

If the electorate return FF then so be it. I believe a large proportion of our electorate are just plain dumb as the yanks might say. Voting for gombeen politicians, be they FF or any other, proves that we are a shoddy, ill informed and lazy electorate. We get FF and their dreadful ways because we deserve them.

Individuals like me, who can see the wood for the trees, will continue to suffer at the hands of our idiotic electorate and FF and their ilk will continue to be elected to dangerous power.

Quite hwo you can so blindly follow your party genuinely mystifies me.

I want a Conservative type party to vote for. I am not ABFF (stupid term as it is). I will not vote for Labour in some blind hope that they can "fix" the economy because they have similar spendthrift policies to FF. FG are centrist, but the nearest thing to a Conservative party that we have, so I shall be voting for them in the hope that they become more conservative and move to the right (economically, nothing to do with kicking out foreigners etc.). FF are the epitome of populism: they have no real ethos.

whatnext

wylo wrote: »

Could only find 2 countries worse, Iceland and Norway, Norway was a bit of a surprise.

Canada, Japan Singapore.

Canada was the shocker for me

Norwayviking

murphaph wrote: »

Something funny there: Norway has extensive oil and gas reserves which are in public hands (Statoil) and the country (AFAIK) has a budget surplus every year, which it has been squirrelling away like you'd expect from prudent Scandinavian types. Are they borrowing money cheaper than they are lending it out or something (hence the debt)? Norway does not NEED to borrow a penny, so there must be some reasoning behind its public debt.

Simply to avoid the interest rates and inflation from going sky high.
If you dont keep the banks running the country is f..cked.
Norway have a fortune of 3000 billion kroner roughly(goes up and down,cause its invested in foreign businesses),and could easily erase the debt if they wanted too.