...and I Thought We Were Bad

Country	Debt - external	Date of Information	GDP (purchasing power parity)	Date of Information	Ratio
United States	$12,250,000,000,000	30-Jun-07	$13,780,000,000,000	2007 est.	88.9%
United Kingdom	$10,450,000,000,000	30-Jun-07	$2,130,000,000,000	2007 est.	490.6%
Germany	$4,489,000,000,000	30-Jun-07	$2,807,000,000,000	2007 est.	159.9%
France	$4,396,000,000,000	30-Jun-07	$2,075,000,000,000	2007 est.	211.9%
Netherlands	$2,277,000,000,000	30-Jun-07	$645,500,000,000	2007 est.	352.7%
Ireland	$1,841,000,000,000	30-Jun-07	$191,600,000,000	2007 est.	960.9%
Japan	$1,492,000,000,000	30-Jun-07	$4,272,000,000,000	2007 est.	34.9%
Switzerland	$1,340,000,000,000	30-Jun-07	$303,200,000,000	2007 est.	442.0%
Belgium	$1,313,000,000,000	30-Jun-07	$376,500,000,000	2007 est.	348.7%
Spain	$1,084,000,000,000	30 June 2007 est.	$1,361,000,000,000	2007 est.	79.6%

This is straight from the CIA World Factbook. External debt is "the total public and private debt owed to nonresidents repayable in foreign currency, goods, or services. These figures are calculated on an exchange rate basis, i.e., not in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms."

So much for the U.S. being the source of all problems, it seems as though several countries levered up all on their own. I am not defending our profligate ways. We do not have a monopoly on greed.