Who's Holding all the chips ?

It does not matter as the countries you mentioned are too big to fail.

China, Japan and Middle East in that order.

OMG what have our politicians done ?

How can this have been allowed to happen ?

Simple, We are countries of profligate spenders now owned by profligate savers. Culturally in the West we have lived for too long on others means.
Are we too big to fail ? Perhaps, but we may have to eat large portions of humble pie when our creditors come calling....

Or, if as individuals we have no debts to carry, then emigrate to countries when spending over the income is not generally fashionable at the individual level or the governmental ...

ATB from George.

PS: This is still my plan in the secnd or third quarter of my life ...

I'm clueless on matters relating to finance, is there a table of debt by nation available somewhere?

I'd assume that the only countries which are debt free are Saudi, Switzerland, Lichenstein and such like? All of europe and the English speaking nations must be in serious debt...are they?

I never pay attention to financial matters on the news - does it really matter if nations are in debt? Haven't the UK been in massive debt since WW1?

And some countries in the old Soviet block in Eastern Europe, though spectacularly not Hungary sadly.

ATB from George

Interesting that George. So in effect, new streams of EU funding to address deprivation in new EU states, could well be funded by countries, who have in effect 'less' themselves.

The wider question of this thread, for econo-novices like myself is 'who actually provides the credit for countries in debt?'

That I do not know, but the old rule of nought pro cent of nought is nothing still counts.

I want, even now, to decamp to Poland before UKIP mange to force us out of Europe.

My destination will be to poor, if solvent Poland, rather than poor but totally bankrupt UK.

ATB from George

I think it is absolutely alright for the government to be in debt because if the government spends less, it means that the government will make people redundant and buy few goods from private companies, so these private companies will in turn make more people redundant and this is not good in a a recession like this one.

Too simple by half.

One does not borrow to pay off debt unless one has a cunning plan and Mr Brown is far from cunning, unlike Mr Tony B. O'liar.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:

One does not borrow to pay off debt

ATB from George

No, it is not what the US government does, what it does effectively is borrowing money to create jobs and stimulate spendings.

Borrowing what from whom to generate jobs for what end?

In other words borrowing to pay off debt. In other words excactly what I said before borrowing to pay off debt but leveraged against the labour of the poorest in society engaged to pay off the failed bets of the formerly best off in society....

It will end in tears eventually ...

I think it is naive to assume that any country is debt free, by issuing government bonds they all create debt for themselves. They owe their bondholders, therefore debt.

I also struggle to follow a logic that implies Poland is somehow more worthy than the UK from a credit perspective. Governmental bond ratings suggest otherwise. Whilst Poland has tried to adopt a more pragmatic approach to managing its pension system, it is under pressure and there would seem to be sufficient evidence to suggest that they need to further tighten policy if they are not to breach their self-determined trigger of debt greater than 55% of GDP. Whilst their GDP is numerically small for such a large country, it is still a key ratio.

That said, UK fiscal policy is pretty miserable but I wouldn't be that happy betting on Poland either.

To answer the question who is providing the credit, it is indirectly the taxpayer as they effectively underwrite the bonds issued by governments when creating debt. The biggest holders of government bonds tend to be insurance companies and banks. Then there are the major institutional investors who seek to create a sheet anchor for their riskier exposure to equities.

It is deficit rather than debt that is the key metric, I believe. Poland is under pressure in this regard no less than the UK.

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ: Borrowing what from whom to generate jobs for what end?

In other words borrowing to pay off debt. In other words excactly what I said before borrowing to pay off debt but leveraged against the labour of the poorest in society engaged to pay off the failed bets of the formerly best off in society....

It will end in tears eventually ...

I completely concur with George here, it's gonna get messy for sure!
I still don't think the well off have yet realized what is happening around them.

It's an interesting thread...

When the time comes for me to hang up my spurs, I've always thought we would return to Queensland and a block of land I picked up there 20 years ago. It's in a stunningly beautiful spot, but has one drawback which is water (although consistant wet summers should sort that that out in my lifetime). I've never worried about the world economy beyond this, and a (shameful) I'll be arlight Jack attitude. In reality though...how would this all impact on my lifestyle at that time?

What really bugs me is that many in the finance industry have been making off like bandits for years. Some have used (abused) lax regulations, lined their employer's and their own pockets at the expense of the unknowing public.

Do finance industry professionals have an ethical code ?

As an engineer I certainly work within a strict code of ethics where the good of the public outweighs everything.

Now, how interesting would it be for non-technical people if we technical types started to operate outside our codes of ethics ? Roads would crumble quicker, bridges would fall, your gasoline/petrol would only sometimes be the right quality for your engine, paint may or may not stick to walls ... all we'd have to do is add a line saying that we can't predict the future, how clean your engine is or your walls so our products might work, but you still have to pay us a huge bunch of cash even if the bridge does fall ....