Canada vs the world…debt level comparison study

Hey, here’s an interesting stat that should make us Canadians feel good…. Our Federal govt keeps telling us to slow our personal debt levels… maybe they should start balancing their own books…  I remember when, in 1997, the Feds actually balanced the budget and even made a surplus.   Remember that?    In fact, from 1997 to 2008, the Feds reduced our national debt from $563billion to $458billion.  We seemed to be heading in the right direction.

Then the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis hit and the Feds starting spending in an attempt to avoid a major recession.   So far, it’s worked.  Our economy has performed pretty well when compared with most other countries.   But our National Debt level has now surpassed the $600billion mark for the first time ever.   How concerned should we really be?   Is our national debt level really that high?    I decided to compare out debt with a handful of other countries to see how we stacked up….

 

I selected the G8 countries along with a few other ones ….

 •Let’s start with the U.S. debt clock  .   Total debt is $16trillion debt (wow!)…. that’s $52,000 per citizen.

 •The UK debt clock shows £1.1trillion.. that’s $CAD 1.78trillion… or $24,329 per citizen.

 •France’s debt clock shows €1.8trillion.. …that’s $CAD 2.4trillion… or $36,360 per citizen.

 •Germany’s debt clock shows €2.1trillion.. that’s $CAD 2.8trillion… or $36,807 per citizen.

 •Australia’s debt clock is among the best with A$255billion.. that’s $CAD 265billion… or $11,649 per citizen….good on ya.

 •Italy’s debt clock shows €1.9trillion…that’s $CAD 2.8trillion… or $44,234 per citizen.

 •Japan’s debt clock shows ¥996trillion… that’s $CAD 9.9trillion… or $77,689 per citizen.

 •China’s debt clock shows ¥14.6trillion… that’s $CAD 2.3trillion… or $1,749 per citizen.

 •Russia’s debt clock shows p.5.8trillion.. that’s $CAD 196billion… or $372 per citizen..

 •Mexico’s debt clock shows M$5.5trillion… that’s $CAD 433billion.. or $3,883 per citizen..

 •The Canadian debt clock shows a $600billion debt….that’s $17,000 per citizen.  Not bad…especially when you compare us with the U.S… they certainly have a lot of problems down there…

(clearly Russia, Mexico, China and Australia have the lowest debt level per citizen… with the exception of Australia, these countries don’t have the high standard of living that the rest of the countries on this list have…  hats off to Australia… they seem to have their financial house in order…. they also rank as the top country to live in … seems we can all learn some lessons from the Australians.).

February 2013 — Steve Garganis