DEBT OF COUNTRIES

The WSJ has published an article (December 29, 2017) by Josh Zumbrun on the National Debt of the U.S. compared to other large countries:

As of 2017, the general government gross debt of the U.S. stood at 108.1% of gross domestic product, according to estimates from the International Monetary Fund. Only four large countries have more debt for the size of their economies.*

(Click on figure to enlarge)

I recall reading a report some years ago (repeated in this article) that having a large debt can be handled if the borrowing is done from within the country.*  Because Japan borrows almost entirely from inside their country, their huge debt has allowed them to continue without a national bankrupcy and to keep rates low.  Greece, however, had more outsdie borrowing and got into bad trouble.A big problem in the Third World is tha they have to borrow from foreigners, and that's when you can get into trouble.

The next three countries are Greece, Italy and Spain.

All three nations are part of the eurozone, which like the Bank of Japan has kept rates low and engaged in large stimulus programs. But unlike Japan, the three highest-debt European nations do not directly control their own currency.**
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But the country with the next-largest debt burden isn’t Spain, but rather the U.S. Spain’s debt-to-GDP climbed above 100% in 2014, but has since slowly dipped to 98.7%, about 10 percentage points lower than the U.S.**
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That’s why the new tax bill is something of a gamble. Estimates differ on how much economic growth the legislation will generate, and thus the ultimate cost is unclear. But even estimates that use the preferred Republican methodology,  and expect the new tax code to significantly boost economic growth, still estimate the legislation will grow the debt by an additional half trillion dollars.**

Another analysis is provided by The Economist (June 3, 2015) that rates how far conuntries are from their debt being dangerous.*** The safest countries, in decreasing order arre: Norway, south Korea, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Luxemburg, Autralia, Taiwan, Switzerland  the U.S. comes in 14th but still in the safe zone.

* Thomas Piketty, 2013, Capital In The 21st Century (http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014Contents.pdf)
** https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2017/12/29/just-four-large-countries-have-a-higher-debt-burden-than-the-u-s/?mod=djemRTE_h
*** https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/06/public-debt