Who owns whom?
Based on information available on Wikipedia (2 years out of date) the largest Debtor Nation is the USA at $8trn followed by Spain at $1trn. On the flip side the largest Creditor Nation is China and it’s territories (Hong Kong and Taiwan included) standing at $4trn followed by Japan at $2,8trn.
The simplest explanation of a Debtor nation would be a country who’s chequebook is in overdraft or alternatively a country who’s liabilities exceeds their assets (insolvency). In the real world of mice and men where the average citizen lives the bank would have called up such a large overdraft as in effect these net debts are unsecured and the only reason its allowed to balloon this way is on the premise that the USA is good for the money. The US gross national debt only represents 105% of their GDP or in more simpler terms 105% of their annual national income.
The rule of thumb for the banking fraternity is that a borrower’s total debt obligation should not exceed 300% of annual income (300% of GDP). Fortunately none of the countries listed in the graph below is close to 300% yet, but unfortunately these debts are in effect all “unsecured” and no bank will lend the average citizen so much in unsecured funds as this will be classified as “reckless lending”. The only other time in a 200 year recorded history where US Debt was at 105% of GDP was in 1947.
So as long as there is GDP growth (Income growth) one could argue that 100% of GDP is manageable, however least we forget the Great Depression and ensuing second world war as this was the last period in history where there was a sustained expansion of debt leading to a rise of debt to GDP from 16% in 1929 to 121% in 1946.
So what is different this time round? Well normally as the historical data shows Debt to GDP expands immediately following an economic contraction such as the Great Depression and more recently after the 2000 tech bubble and 2008 Debt crisis, however since 1980 Debt in the USA has continued to rise unabated and despite some brief pause prior to each economic crisis there seems to be no end to it despite the fact that the US economy (according to the stock market) is in a growth phase.
Thus lets get back to the mice and men. If your monthly expenses exceed your income you have one of two options, either increase your income or reduce expenses or the best choice do both. The worst thing to do will be to borrow more money to cover expenses, and this is exactly what the US is doing and so many other nations across the world, they are trying to borrow their way out of difficulties, and why is this, well they have ran out of options so to speak as they have done the sensible thing, they printed more money, inflated economic activity and continued spending above their means unabated so what is there left to do.
Well go to your Creditor Nation (China) and start a trade war hoping that they (China) will reduce your Debt burden so that you can keep spending. But what should happened in the normal world of finances? The Creditor must call up their loans and start liquidating assets or in this case invade the USA. So best the USA starts learning to speak Manderin, German and Japanese while the UK must sharpen up on their Arab, Indonesia will become Dutch and India Korean, while Israel will find a solution in Portugal and the little island of Mauritius may not be such a bad place after all.