Talk:Government debt

message: This section needs drastic improvement.  There is some truth but there is mostly disinformation.  I am not suggesting that the text has been contributed in bad faith, just that it is wrong
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:Main article: U.S. government debt
:This section is largely incorrect and should not be relied upon.
:Today, public debt is often denominated in U.S. dollars.  The U.S. Federal Reserve sells its long bond, a 30-year instrument (though in recent years only a 10 year bond has been sold), directly to central banks of other countries, who then often find it convenient to lend in U.S. dollars to others, or buy their bonds using those U.S. dollars.  
:This standard of deferred payment effectively insulates the U.S. from foreign exchange risk.  Seeking similar advantages, the EU issues the Euro's bonds and competes as what is called a reserve currency — that currency which is most acceptable to pay off public debts, taxes, or purchase what can be sold quickly.
:Countries that borrow in denominations of their own currency will gain very similar advantages, however, since purchasing power of the money repaid (as measured in U.S. dollars or Euros) may vary considerably from that which was expected at the commencement of the loan, a higher interest rate is always charged for such instruments.  Some countries, like China, do not allow their currency (the renminbi) to trade outside the country or on currency markets.  These must always use one of the global reserve currencies.
:During the gold standard period, which began in the 19th century and ended as an international system in 1933, public debt was most often repaid strictly in gold bullion.
:The Bank for International Settlements is an entity that sets rules to define what loans qualify as "risk free" or not. It is a very powerful institution, which has had a pivotal position in central banking since its opening in 1947.  It was formed by the Bretton Woods agreements of 1944, which in the context of World War II, specified the U.S. dollar as the universal global reserve currency, and pegged the dollar to a fixed amount in gold.  While this ability to redeem dollars in gold legally ceased in 1970, it was effectively a fiction for decades.
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Paul Beardsell 08:28, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  rewrite / deletion of section: Denominated in U.S. dollars 

message: -I rewrote the line that said "This insurance system is called PAYGO as opposed to save and invest".  I think that sentence was pretty non-controversially politically loaded.  It presents a false dilemma as if the only two alternatives were a PAYGO system (which is bad given the tone of this section) and the "save and invest" system (which is good, again, given the tone of the article).  I rephrased the section so that it said that the American system is a PAYGO system and that one alternative system could have been a 'save and invest' system.  While I still think this section is poorly written, politically loaded, and probably should be fact checked, this particular sentence is, at the very least, no longer presenting a false dilemma, so there's no obvious logical fallacy here.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.222.187 (talk) 00:40, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Implicit debt section 

message: I came to this page from a link in the following sentence "When the idea and reality of the National Debt came about during the 18th century this was also managed by the bank." on the page Bank of England. If anyone with the relevant knowledge could add something here about the history of National debts - in particular in the sense mentioned in the quote - I think that it woould be very interesting and relevant here. Regards. Thehalfone (talk) 22:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: That graphic is completely outdated; anyone got anything newer?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigbunt05 (talk • contribs) 06:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Debt as a % of GDP in the Americas 

message: I just went and chopped out more than half of the external links, per WP:NOT and WP:EL.  We want only the best, highest quality, most pertinent links in our articles.  I cut out some duplicate articles, and some articles that gave the same information in different formats.  I tried to get only 1 per country, with a few extra for the U.S.  If someone else wants to cut more of the U.S., feel free--the U.S. does have it's own article (United States public debt), so that would be a better place for more U.S. links.  By the same logic, I combined the U.S. section with the rest of the world.  When I had the choice, I preferred government sources of non-governmental sources.  I removed all news articles, as those should be either used as references or not included (so feel free to cite them somewhere in the text and include them, assuming they meet the rules for reliable sources.  Finally, I removed the tag, as I think the current list meets policy. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:31, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: The first line of this article:
"< / no include > Government debt (also known as public debt, national debt)..."
Is the bolded text (above) intentionally visible?69.225.121.96 (talk) 11:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this intentionally visible? 

message: The debt-to-GDP ratios in the graphic in the Scale section show US, Japanese and German public debt as a percentage of GDP. The US debt shown in this figure, at 180% in 2008, is inconsistent with the graphic shown in the Wikipedia page on US Debt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_debt) which looks to be ~50% in 2008 and is only ~60% in 2010. Even if you actually meant gross debt rather than public debt, by 2010 that's almost 100% on the US debt graphic so the numbers are in apparent disagreement. 
Also this graphic seems inconsistent with the 2010 figures listed in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_public_debt), where US debt is listed at 62% or 92% using CIA or IMF stats respectively. US debt has been going up not down so implausible that 2008 stats shown in this graph are accurate as they indicate a 2-3-fold decrease in debt in 2 years. This graphic seems incorrect.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guinevere12345 (talk • contribs) 16:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scale 

message: Currently it reads:
"Government debt" is money owed by a central government. 
"Sovereign debt" is debt owed by a government that is issued in bonds with a foreign currency.
I think it is hard for the reader to understand this classification. I am also not sure if this is true as the definition does not seem to be consistent. What about debt in national currency that is not owed by central government? What about debt of central government that is owed in a foreign currency? --Sustainlogic (talk) 12:34, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: What source says that "sovereign debt" = debt owed by a government that is issued in bonds with a foreign currency? I'd argue that "sovereign debt" is any debt owed by a sovereign regardless of currency denomination. For example, the ongoing European sovereign debt crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_sovereign_debt_crisis) is a "sovereign debt" crisis even though the bulk of the debt owed by the distressed member states is denominated in their domestic currency, the euro. --TuukkaS (talk) 12:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't believe this 'foreign currency' text either so, after having found a reliable source that says that GD and SD are synonymous, I am about to delete that nonsense. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unclear definition - "Government debt" - "Sovereign debt" 

message: This section is poorly written and reads biased against Keynesianism (the second paragraph especially, there is no point in the uncited discussion about war spending). It would be nice if there were different sections detailing different economic schools opinions. Unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge or credentials to correct it myself.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.69.61 (talk) 06:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues with section subtitled "Structure" 

message: I think that there are contradictions in the 3 figures
"Public debt as a percent of GDP, evolution for USA, Japan and the main EU economies."
"Public debt as a percent of GDP (2010)"
"Public debt as a percent of GDP (2011)"
The color/value presented vor the US varies between 60% and 100% and I cant imagine that this has happened within one year. I guess they are using differnt "sources", definitions or interpretations. This should be clarified (e.g. that CIA thinks US has less debts than others think).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.219.211.61 (talk) 11:03, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  colored plots for public debt/gdp contradicting each other 

message: If a nation gave the bank the right to operate under fractional reserve rules first then how can that bank then turn around and claim the nation owes it anything?  If it had nothing to lend in the first place it is owed nothing in return.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.100.90 (talk) 16:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  How can a soveiregn nation be in debt to a bank?  

message: I suspect that this section is incomprehensible to 99% of Wikipedia readers and that placing it as section 1 will probably discourage most of them from reading past the introduction.  A pity because this topic is of such crucial importance.
In my judgement it would be more appropriate as a separate page referred to in the “See also section”.  But at the very least it should be moved to the end – between “Implicit Debt” and “See also”, and probably renamed “Mathematical Appendix”.
At the same time, I  would make the section “Public debt and economic growth” into a sub-section.
If there is agreement I would be happy to do the edit.  
If you agree would you please indicate whether you think it should be a separate page.
Golux (talk) 22:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. It is not encyclopedically written or integrated into the other material, so of obscure relevance and reads like a possible copyvio. So I removed it.John Z (talk) 00:13, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathematical treatment of the debt/GDP 

message: On 5 September 2013, 199.242.0.29 vandalized the "By Country" numbers for India.  11:48, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism Detected 

message: In the section "by country", national gross debts and national net debts are mixed together, this leads to an incoherent presentation of data. Even though it is specified that the US debt figure showed in the table excludes intra-governmental debt etc., the table is not clear as for other countries the debt shown is the gross debt (e.g. Japan, Italy, Germany, France) and not the lower net debt. The section should make this distinction clear in the introduction, and also it should be specified that the 60% debt to GDP ratio required for entering the EU refers to the gross debt. BRG~itwiki (talk) 19:37, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Government debt - by country 

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ExpertIdeas (talk) 02:24, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dr. Cecchetti's comment on this article 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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*Reference : Canegrati, Emanuele, 2007. "On redistribution effects of public debt amongst single-minded generations," MPRA Paper 2254, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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thread_title:  Dr. Canegrati's comment on this article 

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thread_title:  Dr. Kempf's comment on this article 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It relies on sources from 2012 that are no longer accurate. Almost all the numbers are wrong, I don't know how to edit wikipedia but if someone who does could update that that would be nice.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brettwardo (talk • contribs) 20:35, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  By country section needs update badly 

message: "The debt is a stock variable, measured at a specific point in time, and it is the accumulation of all prior deficits."
Well, of course, accumulation of deficits DO contribute to, and is a major cause of, debt. But... no. deficits are not needed to run a debt.
For instance, Norway as a public debt (36% according to CIA factbook), despite having no deficit and a massive accumulation of SURPLUSES; that is because those surpluses were trusted to Government Pension Fund of Norway.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E35:8A8A:FEA0:B981:66D4:8C30:33E6 (talk) 23:43, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  wrong 

message: IF that were the case then the US public debt would be about 0% of GDP … the US issues very little debt denominated in pesos!
Someone copied this definition from the CIA worldfactbook… which is also wrong. 
In fact, public debt is gross debt minus debt held within the government (such as social security debt). brianevans  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.147.170.143 (talk) 17:23, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public debt is not "the total of all borrowing of a government, minus repayments denominated in a country's home currency."  

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:
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You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:39, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion 

message: This article violates NPOV with this undue focus. Also, content on the risks and problems of public debt should be incorporated in an "impact" section or a section that outlines the tradeoffs and dilemmas of public debt. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:47, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too much emphasis on "risks" and "problems" with government debt 

message: The History section covers the topic sporadically.  It begins with the establishment of the Bank of England, although government debt predates it.  A different title than "History" might be appropriate.
The mathematical model of sovereign debt which is used to illustrate the Ricardian Equivalence proposition is not likely to be understood by most readers.  Perhaps the model could be included in a Wikibook on economics (see https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Subject:Economics).  However, it could be useful to explain the Ricardian Equivalence theorem in words on the Government debt page.
The Tables with debt listed by countries probably does not need to appear on this page, as the debt data is available at the Wikipedia article: List of countries by public debt.
The discussion of debt duration relates to bonds, but not specifically to government bonds.  That discussion might be better placed in the article on bonds. Lukebayy (talk) 03:18, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consolidation of topics would be helpful 

message: പൊതു കടം 2402:3A80:192D:8469:0:0:0:2 (talk) 06:38, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public debt Malayalam videos