Scale
Global debt is of great concern since interest payments can often place great demands on governments and individuals. This has led to calls for universal debt relief for poorer countries.
A less extreme and more innovative measure would be to permit civil society groups in every nation to buy the debt in exchange for minority equity positions in community organizations. Even in dictatorships, the combination of banks and civil society power could force land reform and overthrow unaccountable governments, since the people and banks would be aligned against the oppressive government.
Using a debt to GDP ratio is one of the most accepted measures of assessing a nation's debt. For example, in theory one of the criteria of admission to the European Union's Euro currency is that a country's debt should not exceed 60% of that country's GDP.
The debt of the United States over time is documented online at the Department of the Treasury's website TreasuryDirect.
Read more about this topic: Government Debt
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)