Today I was thinking about our national debt in the United States, as of this entry estimated at about $9.3 TRILLION, or nearly $31,000 per person. This got me wondering whether other industrialized nations suffered from similar financial problems. So I did what any nerd with an internet connection would do, and researched my quandary on the Internet. Here’s what I found:
France has a debt as of this writing well over 1.2 trillion Euros, which is close to $2 trillion, and considering their population this is nearly $30,000 per person.
The UK, in a 2006 estimate, is around 1.3 trillion Pounds, or $2.6 trillion. That’s a hefty $43,000 per person.
Sweden, on the other hand, reported today that it expects a surplus this year of 163 billion Swedish Crowns, or $27.4 billion. They’re expecting their total national debt to fall to around 933 billion crowns by the end of 2009, or a little more than $17,000 per person.
I can has Sweden?
The last reports I read said Denmark, where my family is from, has or is about to pay off their national debt, several years earlier than anticipated. Kind of flies in the face of the argument that a cradle to grave welfare system will bankrupt a country.
You know Piet, I was actually thinking of Denmark before Sweden, since my wife spent 7 weeks there during school, but I picked Sweden because I figured more people would think of them first when they thought of Scandinavia, what with Ikea and H&M and all that.Regardless, it’s incredibly impressive if Denmark’s all settled with national debt. And they, from what I understand, also have a very high standard of living, and are one of the most (if not THE most) internet connected countries (per capita) in the world.