March 6, 2010
Graph of the Day for March 6, 2010
"[President Obama said] ‘that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.' What? Huh? ...A better model, I'd argue, is Japan in the 1990s, which ran persistent large budget deficits, but also had a persistently depressed economy - and saw long-term interest rates fall almost steadily. There's a good chance that officials are being terrorized by a phantom menace - a threat that exists only in their minds." Paul Krugman.
Source: International Monetary Fund.
Hoven's Index for March 6, 2010
Government (all levels) debt as percentage of GDP in 2010 for various countries:
Japan: 228.6%
Iceland: 131.2%
Greece: 129.5%
Average of advanced economies: 98.3%
US: 91.8%
France: 84.9%
Ireland: 74.5%
Switzerland: 43.6%
Australia: 20.6%
Hong Kong: 0.6%
Source: International Monetary Fund.
Graph of the Day Archive.