Here's the importance of debt, compared to other Federal and local State expenditure. I've taken the interest on the debt for the fiscal year 2006, plus the amount by which total debt increased in the 12 months ending Dec 29, 2006. That's because the outstanding debt is increasing even faster than the amount of interest being paid. (Figures are in billions of US dollars.) By way of ...

No, it’s not dastardly speculators, not the CDS market, hedge funds or anything of the sort. In total, BNP Paribas, which has been at the centre of market fears connected to its exposure to eurozone sovereign debt, said it had reduced its government debt exposure by 25pc in the third quarter from €106bn (£91bn) to

A glossary of debt-related terms to shed light on defaults and restructuring

Man in a Shed must be nurturing a heart condition that the BBC has secretly discovered and is trying to push over the edge. from What else can explain their transposing the spin and line-du-jourMandelson about reducing the deficit and have them announcing that Labour will reduce the National debt. They are two different, although related things. The Deficit is the amount the country's spendin...

Interesting observation by Steve Keen: unemployment correlates closely with the amount that debt contributes to demand in the economy. Let me try to reason out the consequences, however inexpertly. So, as everyone scrambles to cut spending and get out of debt, unemployment will soar. Since there is a great deal of international trade, the hit will be felt internationally. Then government finances ...

And what about the other sort of debt? We spend so much time harrumphing about the national debt that an important point is obscured: personal debt, the amount owed by individuals, is even higher. I wrote an article on the subject for a recent issue of The Spectator, as well as the Thunderer column (£) for last Saturday's Times. But, really, a piece in the latest Spectator (subscribers h...

The Tories have been talking about "Gordon Brown's Debt", but as far as I can see, the fiscal deficit is not the problem. Consider two great debts: one is the public debt, the debt held by our government; the other is the private debt, the debt held by businesses and private citizens. Lets say that the public debt is £500 billion and the private debt is £1,500 bi...

In the PBR the Chancellor, at a stroke, doubled government debt to more than £1 trillion. The Conservatives warned at the time that this sort of economic recklessness would weaken market confidence in the UK economy. Figures released this afternoon appear to show this is already happening and as a consequence the market view of the risk of the UK Government defaulting on its debt has reached ...

One sentence explanation on a U.S. sovereign debt default Maybe two. If there is n0 increase in the debt ceiling, the United States will not default on its debt, period! Despite the fear mongering and misinformation emanating from the White House and Democrats, the debt service on US treasury debt would be paid and non-essential programs and departments would be the places where funding would have...

No shilly-shallying from the leader of the opposition. "We're in this mess because of too much banking debt, too much personal debt and too much government debt," he says. He hates debt, especially when loaded on those least able to cope with it. Don't be a "tosser", spend less, he said in 2006. A serious man with a serious message. Some say that in these circumstances he might have thou...