The below figures were sent to me by Investopedia.com
One of the most popular, measures is debt as a percentage of GDP. This tells you how likely it is that a nation is going to be able to pay its bills. In this sense, GDP is income, so the more GDP you have, the more debt you can service.
As far as measuring which nations are struggling, the debt to GDP is an excellent measure. The public debt to GDP listing, compiled in the CIA World Factbook, is reassuring in this sense. It’s top 10, based on 2009-2010 data includes:
1. Zimbabwe 234.10%
2. Japan 197.50%
3. Saint Kitts and Nevis 185.00%
4. Greece 142.80%
5. Lebanon 133.80%
6. Jamaica 126.50%
7. Iceland 126.10%
8. Italy 119.10%
9. Singapore 105.80%
10. Barbados 102.10%
The United States is far down the list at number 32. The U.S. has the highest GDP for a single nation, in other words, excluding the E.U.. The U.S. GDP hasn’t come in under $14,000 billion since it broke that level in 2007, so the debt situation of the U.S. isn’t as bad in this context, when compared to Japan. Japan has a GDP of around $5,459 billion and public debt over $10,000 billion.
The reason that Japan hasn’t folded, is that over half of all Japanese debt is held domestically. This gives Japan the advantage of relatively friendly hands holding its IOUs. There is also another economic advantage that economists see in the Japanese situation: most of the interest payments on the debt, make citizens wealthier and more likely to buy things domestically. This makes some sense, but the theoretical domestic buying boom either hasn’t yet hit its stride in Japan, or the debt situation has grown beyond the point where this beneficial side-effect is noticeable.
Click here to read about 10 Most External Indebted Nations
Anthony DiChi,
Your friend in Forex Currency Trading, FX Information and Forex News at TradeCurrencyNow