Ben Franklin had his famous quote about death and taxes. He could have added debt to the list of universal things. In fact, debt is probably more universal. People have debt. Companies have debt. And countries have debt.
Countries might not have to pay taxes and they can go a long time without dying, but just like you owe your buddy that $10 bucks for KFC last week, the U.S. owes billions to China (for pretty similar reasons actually).
But given that countries can operate economies valued in the trillions of dollars, how to judge how much debt is too much? Once the numbers get that extreme, it's like hearing how much an NBA player is making. The brain loses any sense of scale and you just start thinking ahead the next draft day and/or election.
However, there is a number for judging a country's debt load (See: Debt Load). It's called the debt-to-GDP ratio.
GDP stands for "Gross Domestic Product." This number gives an overall value for a country's economy. By comparing the country's outstanding debt to the size of its economy (via GDP), the debt-to-GDP figure gives a look at how easy it is for a country to handle its level of debt.
See: Debt Per Capita.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is the Debt-to-Equity Rati...11 Views
finance a la shmoop what is the debt to equity ratio? well simply put this ratio
answers the question who owns the company like if the debt to equity ratio
is high like there's tons of debt and very little equity well, then
essentially the bank or whoever the lenders are owned the company or at [Assets transfer to bank]
least the lion's share of the assets comprising it the opposite is true as
well of course and you can imagine a well-heeled company with tons of cash
and other assets like land and oil wells and Technology IP and no debt well they
could have a debt to equity ratio of zero so why do you even track this kind
of ratio well when companies are young they tend to not have tons of equity and
over time as they grow and get good at whatever it is they do they will [Clock rapidly ticks forward]
accumulate valuable assets like cash which are tracked as equity or
shareholders equity on the balance sheet that lives right here think about it if [Balance sheet appears]
this side is assets and this side is liabilities well if you're subtracting
liabilities from assets and you still have a lot of assets left over that's a
good thing and that line is tracked right here in the shareholders equity [Shareholders equity highlighted on balance sheet]
line ..........
you have a company with two billion dollars in debt at 5% interest costing a
hundred million bucks a year to rent if the company's shareholders equity is
just 50 million dollars well, the company is essentially owned
predominantly by its debt holders or lenders should something go wrong even a [A bank vault full of money]
little bit wrong well the company will go bankrupt the debt holders would own all
that equity and well spin this around and if the company's equity comprises 10
billion dollars of cash and a bunch of other assets for a total of 20 billion
of equity well then you can imagine the debt to equity ratio of just 10% that's
the equity holders of the company, they'll sleep like babies [Man taking a nap]
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