Rofl?! When all debt on the UK's books is added together the UK's debt to GDP ratio is almost 1000%. How are those social programs working out? Let me guess, this is all the fault of the US? http://www.zerohedge.com/news/pssss...want-cool-it-britain-bashing-uks-950-debt-gdp
Relationships between a government's debt and the GDP of a nation are an invalid measurement of debt. The government does not own the GDP of a nation and politicans use this invalid form of measurement in an attempt to deceive the people of the nation. Debt to annual income is the only valid measurement. Debt to GPD would be like an individual comparing their personal debt to the gross revenue of the company they work for and any economist would state that is an absurd comparison.
GDP although wildly inaccuracte, speaks to a countries ability to produce which on a very high level gives you an idea of its ability to pay back its debt via its ability to produce. So while I somewhat agree with you, I also disagree.
It in no way indicates the ability of a government to repay it's debt. For example, a country could have a $1 billion GDP but the government may only collect $5 million in total taxes (I know this is an extreme hypothetical to prove a point) and even a $100 million debt would not be realistic as far as the ability of the government to repay it. If 10% of the entire government revenue were dedicated to repayment it wouldn't even pay the interest on that debt. As most economists state a debt to annual income of over 100% is excessive and unsustainable. A major factor in the collapse of the US economy in 2008 was an average debt to annual income of 134% for Americans. Where it not for this high debt to income ratio we wouldn't have had millions of home going into foreclosure because people would have been able to pay for the mortgages they had. One of the greatest causes for the continuation of the recession is that Americans are paying down their personal debt which was excessive. We can look at US government debt today and economists foresee the future interest on that debt is soon going top $1 trillion/yr (once the Federal Reserve stops artificially suppressing the interest rates) which is equal about 2/3rds of all US government general revenues which pay the interest on that debt. That is unsustainable and will lead to an almost complete shutdown of government services (or more borrowing which merely makes the problem worse).
