GDP vs National Debt by Country

A World Map of National Debt…

The US now has the largest national debt in the world, with almost $9 Trillion dollars. But what does that mean? This map puts it into global context, showing the breakdown of each country’s debt, as a percent of GDP. …

Boy, I can’t wait for the stock market to recover so we can get rid of all that debt! Oh, wait. We’ll still be in massive debt to China even after that happens. Assuming it will. Read this post on mindyourpolitics and the article link about the market recovery. Financial Analysts

i am a llama

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Is it possible to state the source of this data? I am very curious to know if all major money making countries are in debt who is giving them these loans?

OK then… if so many countries have so big debts… who borrowed them so much money? I don’t get it.

This ain’t right. Canada’s debt is 467 billion, the US is over 11.3 trillion.

Co z t? Polsk???

this chart looks fishy..
Germanys GDP 2008 was 3.667 trillion Dollar
62 percent of that are 2.27 trillion and not 1.7

Wy.Yyk0o0p P0$dR@w!aAa! < 333

If everyone is in debt, then where is the actual money?

It is fair to say that the optimum ratio is somewhere between 40 and 60 percent and I expect that Italy and Japan might be able to reach that level as their economies recover, but the ratio for China is truly scary.

Will the astounding devaluation of the U.S. dollar, happening as we speak, in effect, erase or at least ‘belittle’ debt fixed to paper, making it more manageable, payable? Zimbabweans can pay one million dollar debts with one single paper bill today. I await the days of $100,000.00 bills in the U.S. being equal to a months work, and former McMansion mortgages being paid with waitresses weekly tips! Mindbending inflation is just around the corner, along with very high oil prices, the only losers appear to be the lenders, who will get back only what is fixed and written on debt documents, not adjusted for the ball-busting inflation and devaluation of the Yankee sawbuck! China is even stepping back from the fray, and no longer buying up dollars with loans to the U.S., and have even opted out of international trade with dollars, setting up instead a system in Asia using ‘Yuan’ Do the shysters, banksters, swindlers and shylocks in the U.S. realize this? You bet they do and have converted to ‘Yuan’ using the Shanghai stock exchange to buy into China! America, you folks are one toke over the line and you don’t even realize it!

[...] National Debt by Country (WORLD MAP)visualeconomics.com [...]

hmmmm… the richer you are the more debt you should have?

debt is probably not a bad thing in this type of economy we have.

[...] A tax lesson I just came across this: Source GDP vs National Debt by Country – Visual Economics GDP vs National Debt by Country Does that still make USA the richest [...]

http://www37.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=national+debt

another view

Just an FYI, in your image above you have Canada’s National debt as being a total representation of 62.3% vs. US as being 60.8%, however, the US’ dollar amount is $8.68 TRILLION, whereas Canada is at 814.26 BILLION. I’m assuming Canada’s should say TRILLION if they indeed have a higher debt then the US.

This really makes our debt look not all that bad.

The estimated US Debt is at 11.4 Trillion as of June 09 2009

Real time debt clock with stats
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

so?

What about debt as a percentage of national budget?

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[...] GDP vs National Debt by Country – Visual Economics. [...]

[...] excellent reference point. Found this via VisualEconomics. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Debt by country map and India’s national debt”, url: [...]

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why is Italy in so much debt?

[...] GDP vs National Debt by Country GDP vs National Debt by Country – Visual Economics [...]

[...] Link: http://www.visualeconomics.com/gdp-vs-national-debt-by-country/ [...]

US is going to default on this debt. Will have to print money. But not sure when. First due to deleveraging, deflation will run its course and once we realize the debt is not possible to pay at current income levels, we will crank up the printing machine really hard.

Turkey used to be upside down, how come no debt now? US should learn something.

I only have one question. Where does this money that the countries owe come from? Someone has to actuall have it to lend it to someone else.

[...] Visual of the day (from visual economics): [...]

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There is an error with Zimbabwe. Since its GDP is 1.959 Bn USD according to CIA Factbook, its debt should be around 4.725 bn USD not 472.51 bn USD. 472.51 bn USD is too much for a country with that size. Nobody lends them that much

So, more is better or less is better?

[...] (click to enlarge – map via) [...]

Andre S., correct me if I am wrong but, the percentage is of our g.d.p. gross domestic production. The U.S. has a much higher gdp. So their $ amount would be much higher.

[...] Economics has a cool map showing GDP vs National Debt by Country. It helps put the ballooning deficit in the US in some perspective. If I saw those numbers in a [...]

Andre – Canada’s GDP is less than 10% of the US’s, hence even though they have a smaller dept in absolute amounts (about 10%) as a percentage of their GDP it is larger.

Andy – in order to finance deficit spending governments issue interest bearing bonds (in the US they’re called treasury bills). These are purchased by banks, individuals, companies, etc and traded on the open market.

This doesn’t show net debt, so it’s not that useful. Norway has no net debt:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/28609695/m/744007716931?r=373002726931#373002726931

The #’s are the % of total GDP. The US has a much larger economy and therefor a much larger GDP, so 8 trillion is 60% where as in Canada 60% of the GDP is only around a tenth of that.

The U.S. figure does not include unfunded liabilities for social security, medicare, etc… That is money the government has taken from workers and promised to pay back (in the social security statements we get) but is not counted here because it is not a conventional loan. Including unfunded liabilities, our debt is closer to $53 trillion, or 360% of GDP (according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#Unfunded_obligations ).

[...] Ya?ar T.: There is an error with Zimbabwe. Since its GDP is 1.959 Bn U… [...]

[...] an even more question is the comparison of debt vs. the GDP, which is provided by this graph [...]

i think !! Indonesia is in the red !!
heehee..

Canada’s debt vs GDP ratio is 28.6% with estimates of 32.1% in the coming year.

Canada’s total public dept is 462.9 Billion at this point.

Not sure were you got your numbers from but this is what I found on various sites

Right – Lets talk India. The data looks expontial

The collapse of the dollar is coming. All fiat currencies will follow. The only way to fix this is to stop ALL social programs and payments and increase taxes on everyone. The people of the US will NEVER vote for someone to do both of those things to fix the problem. No one will sacrifice the programs they paid into or need and no one will want to pay more in income taxes – so basically we are all hosed. Buy Gold, Silver, and othe precious metals. The dollar is toast – lost 11% in 3 months – think about that people – don’t put your head in the sand.

This decline is somewhat intentional. The US will owe less to other countries if the dollar value continues to decline – so it’s not as if they (government, FED) want the dollar to gain in value – it’s doesn’t benefit them. They are robbing us of our savings as they are our liberty – WAKE UP!

Less painful way out of this debt is to grow the economy. It’s easier to do now than it was after World War 2 when our debt was over 100 % of GDP. So, stop worrying and work harder and think about how we can grow our economy and therefore our GDP. It’s simple math.

Is GDP calculated the same way in all these countries? And is it really an accurate measurement of the country’s production and thus of its ability to retire its debt?

No, GDP is not an accurate measurement of production. If it was then the US would have a much lower GDP. Government spending and private consumption is used to calculate GDP. So the more money the government spends the higher your GDP. And since the US spends billions, now trillions, more than it has I think GDP becomes misleading.

Your listed value for Canada is 332 billion higher than our national debt clock says.

We’re actually at 482 billion total.

We were at 700 billion-ish back in 1998 or thereabouts I think.

That puts us at 37%. Not bad compared to the rest of G8.

As others have pointed out, the numbers in this chart are way off so don’t put any stock in it.

The debts seems off at least for the US. Every search I do for US National debt comes out to a little under 12 trillion.

Even the CIA factbook, which apparently this website is getting its information, has the US debt at 12.25 trillion. The factbook also says the GDP is 14.29 GDP, for a debt/GDP of 85% instead of 60%.

If you are going to forge your data, please dont cite a source thats very easy to look up to see that you are simply bullshitting people.

That’s the point of the graphic, that the ability of a country to service its debt has little/nothing to do with that country’s actual production possibility frontier. It is simply a shifty method of allocating any wealth/capital in that country to work for the “creditors” instead of the citizenry.

Notice that none of those countries show a positive balance, at best they are servicing their debt at <5% their GDP. Who is receiving the payments made in service to these debts?

source CIA factbook.

Are those the same guys that gave us the ‘facts’ about Saddam Hussain’s WMD programme?

Or are they the same guys that choose to ignore the Geneva convention and tortured random Afghanies?

http://www.canadianeconomy.gc.ca/english/economy/

Source is the Canadian Government.

457 billion dollars as of 2008.

So what’s going on here?

What’s going on is that real value is being transmorified into debt by the monetary system. The System and Governments and the Debt and the Monetary System are all legal fictions of course. We have to step back from legal fictions to discover the reality that there is no debt and the only real thing that means anything is Human Beings and their actions.
Crazy thing is that Human Beings are killing and hurting and living in ‘poverty’ every day in defence of these legal fictions.

GDP is actually measured the same in every country although information is very spotty and may be part of an educated conjecture in most of the un-industrialized states (Namibia, Peru, basically all those counties not in North America, Europe, or Japan). I would like to point out to Ryan that, while the government *does* spend a lot, if it spent too much it would crowd out private investment and actually end up contracting GDP by causing a recession. I also just looked up the percentage of debt to GDP in the CIA world factbook and it gave me 60.8%, in line with what this graphic is giving us. All in all, I believe it’s important for Americans like myself to see this comparison and know that we are not the worst off, in the end what’s important is that a country keeps up an image of reliability to the world and investors will keep buying bonds of that country’s debt regardless of how much it already owes (just don’t turn out to be another Argentina).

Search for “CIA DEBT LIE”

the real ratio is 90%

These figures are not accurate for the following reasons:
- national debt should include future obligations of medicare and social security (which for the US is over 20 trillion)
- These debt figures do not take into account debts held at the state/provincial and municipal levels.

An accurate reading of US debt, for example, that included social security & medicare obligations and most importantly government debt at ALL levels of government, the debt is up past 40 or 50 trillion. Good luck with that!

I know this has nothing to do with illinois, but I am sending you this just to let you know.

Congress passed an act in 1961 which allows people to donate to the bureau of national debt. You can donate any amount of money to them.

the adress is:
Department of public debt
P.O Box 2188
Parkersburg,WV 260106-2188

If you don’t want to do the above then:
Can you please go to http://defeatthedebt.com/help-us/ and sign their petition? Also can you donate some money to them too? they are going to march around the white house to convince the president to pay down the debt.

You can do either both or none of the above listed.

Spread the word!

Send me your regards,

Thanks.

Dan – The Canadian federal debt is at 482, but here they account for the provincial debt as well.

These are statistics a couple of years ago. Just check the debt of the USA. It says it’s 8,68 trillion but at the moment it’s around 12 trillion. The debt rate in the UK is 68,8% and is going to 80% within 3-5 years because of the huge deficit.

What is going on here? On other web search, it showed India had nation debt of about 165billian and trouble was in amerecia where national debt was 11 trillian.

[...] World (aren’t we all in one boat): (to follow today) [...]

These are based on a country’s external debt, not just goverment debt. According to the CIA World Factbook–

This entry gives the total public and private debt owed to nonresidents repayable in foreign currency, goods, or services.

As of 2/12/2010 the U.S. debt ceiling has been raised to $14.3 Trillion, so that will soon enough be what our actual debt is. Less than 10 years ago it was under $6 trillion, so we’ve been on an extremely dangerous spending path since then. This country is in serious trouble unless voters start demanding fiscal responsibility from all politicians and from ourselves, meaning we need to start paying enough taxes to cover spending. If you don’t like the current level of spending, tell your representatives to STOP IT.

[...] those of you who enjoy pictures, head over to Visual Economics for a nice debt to GDP ratio by country graphic overlayed on a world [...]

the optimum ratio is to have NO DEBT at all

It's because of socialism.

Nonsense. Chine is more than socialist – they are Communist, and their debt is very low. I live in Canada, we are very socialist, and our debt is the same as the US. Get real.

It's a % of the total GDP.
Considering Canada's GDP is lower than that of the US, the graph is correct. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_…) – the table under “CIA – World Factbook”. Wiki, mate. It's useful.

The U.S. national debt is over $12 trillion dollars, according to the U.S. National Debt Clock (http://www.usdebtclock.org). Which means, as a percentage of GDP, it's more like 90%.

BTW, Canada's federal debt is less than $500 billion U.S. dollars, not $814 billion. If you are including provincial and municipal debt in Canada's 'national debt', then maybe it is that high. But then, you should include state and municipal debt for the U.S. and other countries, which you obviously haven't. So you are comparing apples and oranges.

Then why is Russia's debt so low?

There are a lot of socialist countries that have a much lower rate than Italy and a much higher standard of living. Italy has had more changes in government since WW2 and more corrupt and incompetent goverments than any other western industrialized country. Also the level of organised crime such as the mafia and cosa nostra account for about 7% of Italys GDP which is a hugh drain on the economy and a higher cost for services such as policing. You sound like a typical ill informed yank.

the UK's national debt is not 42.2 trillion. Who writes this stuff?

That is the federal debt level only. The higher rate also includes the provinces. Ontario for example is over 100 billion alone while Alberta has no debt and there are 8 more provinces and three territories with debt levels.

Reply to James about China:
Yes, China is still officially Communist, but they are waking up. They are fast becoming capitalists. Jim Rogers says in the 19th century, they place to invest because it was the economic center of the world was the British Empire. In the 20th century, it was the U.S.A. and in the 21st century, it will be China. They are growing by leaps and bounds.

Yes, China is stepping back. Did you know that the Cash-for-Klunkers program wasn't thought up by our own government? It was the brain-child of the Chinese embassy. They didn't want us to pay them in dollars and wanted scrap steel instead. They thought this up so we could send them the steel scrap from our used but still running cars. …and now we're all deeper in debt.

How did you come up with the idea that 40-60% is good? Are you just listening to our government's economists who say the recession is over and figuring “sounds good to me!” 40-60% is horrible!! We can never pay this off and we are probably past a tipping point and headed into hyper-inflation.

This must be old. The Canadian national debt is only 519 billion, or 15,000 per capita
The Us national debt is 12 trillion or 41,000 per capita.

even with gdp figured in per capita the u.s. citizen owes twice as much per capita

Your numbers above are off. Germany has a GDP comparable to the UK, but you show it smaller by a factor of 10.

Your statement is:
The amount owed varies greatly with the amount of money a country generates, its population and how much its government spends. In Germany, the national debt is $1.79 trillion. This represents 62.6 percent of Germany’s gross domestic product, or GDP. In The U.K. the national debt is $42.2 trillion. This is 47.2 percent of the GDP of the U.K.

–This can’t make sense. The US has the largest GDP in the world at only $14 trillion. If the UK has $42 trillion in debt, and that is 47% of their GDP, the UK would have a GDP over $100 trillion, or 7 times the US GDP.

Please check your figures.

andy you are a dumbass…look at the gray countries like china that have no national debt…maybe that means they have a surplus…crawl back under the rock you live under

china is becoming very capitalistic actually. That’s just western propaganda.

It comes from other countries, or it comes from the citizens which buy the country’s bonds, or from mutual funds, asset management companies, etc. But the real reason why we are in this financial crisis is because of the debt. Debt was issued to create more debt, and money is printed out of thin air.

Those numbers on this map are very outdated and should be updated

Quote: “In The U.K. the national debt is $42.2 trillion”

How is this possible when their GDP is only around $2.65 Trillion? A little mistake maybe? Or maybe I’m missing something…

The US has had many ups and downs economically. However if you imagine that our debt is so bad, you are wrong, the US debt from WW2 was astronomical. US debt if below Gremany, France and many other industrialized countries. We also have grave resoponisibilities world wide that will demand our economic generation for world development.

Not Nonsense. Socialism is a big part of it; mostly though it’s spending money you don’t have. The US has a lot of entitlement (Social) programs, but also military spending (almost as much as the rest of the world combined) and foreign aid (even to countries that hate us).

So if most major countries are in debt – who are we in debt to? Try the World Bank. Which is one reason we may see a World Currency in the near future. But I’m more concerned with WB interest rates than I am with whose picture is on the bill. Let’s face it – most funds are electronic anyway; and nobody backs it with gold anymore.

Though the concepts (and problems) are VERY real – this site’s figures are way outdated. For example the US National Debt isn’t $8.6 Trillion. Try 12.8 Trillion and our Debt:GDP ration is a catastrophic 89.6%. GRAB YOUR ASS AND HANG ON TIGHT.

The countries lend money to another…..and sometimes borrow money from independent organizations (like IMF….which may receive money from various countries for its services)….money does not necessarily mean cash……it can be the balance numbers……infact….if the total currency in this world is ASSUMED to be a few hundreds of trillion dollars….the real currency in circulation might be only half of it, the remaining amount is just represented by numbers which move up / down depending on whether they’re lending or borrowing. And all the money is’t necessarily lent / borrowed via trading accounts……debts can be valued by imports / exports, trading futures, currency valuations, bonds issued by governments, etc……

Moreover…..the above chart shows you ONLY the debts of the nations……it doesn’t give you any information about receivables of each country……so if you assume that every country has receivables……..it can substantially increase their net worth….they would be left with smaller debts in an ideal scenario…..this small debt can……subsequently lead to a little inflation…….which is very much desirable for the prosperity of any economy.

I am not a business student and the above information is just based on my perception of economy in general.

its owed to the buyers of treasury securities, mostly other countries, banks, private people, e.g. http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt

china has a communist goverment with a two tier economy. one of a wealthy class that milks the usa capital system and a very poor class. china goverment will still be communist this is not changing. if free trade ends china might not look so good.

I don’t see a date on the webpage nor on the data. How old is this??

it come from the elite bankers. This whole thing is a big scam to make countries a slave to handful of bankers

This data is quite old (at least, for Canada)
Canada has ~30%, not 62%
Please see:
http://blogs.usask.ca/the_bolt/archive/2009/01/canada_debt_gdp_2009.html

China is communist and half of their population doesnt even know what money is. Feel free to move there, screw up and get shot by the govt. and Canada does NOT have the same amount of debt as the US. Canada – 814 billion and US – 8.7 billion. way to read a fucking graph

This is seriously outdated. The national debt clock for the U.S. puts the figure at 12.9 Trillion and climbing. Could someone please update the nubers?

Who is all this money owed to?

These numbers are out of whack especially US and Canada 13 trillion and 515 billion respectively. This seems like a propoganda chart for the US, hey we aren't so bad. One suggested Canada's number included the provinces well add another 1.5 trillion for states then.

Who ever make this chart forgot to include the date or time period. It becomes meaningless if u don't have the time period. Judging from the oldest posting, it was 11 months ago. Based on today's figures, this would be a worthless chart.

But surely, although I acknowledge they are “unfunded”, the social security and medicare being paid today was also unfunded. So, likewise, in the future, your social security and medicare will be funded by the next generation paying medicare.
Therefore basically each generation pays for the prior generation – so if the population were to stay the same size, with the same size economy and taxes, then everyone would be evens. I think the real problem in this case is that when the baby boomers retire, there will be less working people to pay more social security, so yes there is some hidden debt, but not so much as what you point out – the real “unfunded” element is the loss of revenue which the US will receive due to a reduction in the size of the workforce vs amount of retirees. This maybe this puts real US debt to GDP around $11.4trn + 10% of social sec etc unfunded, = $11.4trn + ($42trn x 10%provision) = $15.4trn = ~102% debt to GDP 2010

I think to be an accurate reflection these numbers need to be “net debt” – ie total debt minus receivables. I had assumed that's what they were. Although that's a good point – what is each country's balance sheet like – ie what is their “net worth” when you take away all their debt from all of government assets – UK has £3.3trn of assets (including roads & buildings) – maybe if we sold off the government including all our roads and police stations to, say, Exxon/JP Morgan Chase (or some other large bidder) we could receive perhaps £2.5trn, easily enough to pay off our debts of £0.93trn

what is the date of this data? 2009? 1990?

No. Billion is correct. US economy is much larger than Canada so it takes less dollars in debt to represent a close percentage to US levels.

Anyone notice how the debt to gdp does not necessarily indicate the standard of living? Look at some african countries with low ratios. Who is lining up to live there?

they need to show NET debt… not just GROSS. the Japan numbers are exaggerated because of this.

I assume that the 8.7 billion is a typo should be trillion– about 61% of GDP and Canada about 63% of GDP pretty close comparason — way to understand what you read.

The map says that UK National Debt is $1.05 trillion and the text says $42.2 trillion presumably the map is correct or are we in deeper trouble than Greece and Italy?

He who has eyes let him see! If all governments and nations are in debt, then who are we in debt to? Who is this massive amount of interest going to? If it was going to other nations then those nations would be rich. There is no checks and balances!

There is only one answer and that is the Beast of the Earth (Oil) and Beast of the Sea (Central Banks). They own the nations and fund both sides of war. They have done this from the beginning and are most responsible for funding World War I and World War II. They always have some puppet that stands out such as, Hitler, who is crazy and leads the world into hell and debt. This is to mask their evil and their deception. This world needs to wake up! How can all nations be in debt? Check out this CIA website. It shows the debt to GDP ratio of the nations. Notice how there isn't one that doesn't have debt!

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-wo…

ALL COUNTRIES HAVE DEBT! Check this out dumb ass. If they didn't have debt than why would all nations assets be measured in percentage of GDP? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-wo…

For the dragon gave them power! Whoever owns the currency owns the country. There are two Beasts. One of the earth (Oil) and one of the Sea (Central Banks). The Beast of the Earth gives honor to the Beast of the Sea. Read Revelations! This has been happening since the begining and will end soon.. Both are really starting to show their ugly face!