A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

by Bruce Cannon Gibney

That is why Greece, which had a debt-to-GDP ratio of 118 percent in 2008, collapsed into chaos in 2009, spawning a quasi depression that continues still. The Greeks had no credibility when it came to payment, so bankers called in the loans. Meanwhile, Japan experienced no crisis despite having debt-to-GDP ratios significantly higher than pre-crisis Greece; China, too, had very high levels of aggregate debt and no crisis.11 Not only were these non-Hellenic countries in better economic shape, they also had political systems that seemed, at least in the eyes of lenders, capable of keeping their national finances together. It helps that these Asian nations, unlike Greece, owe much of their debt to their own citizens, rather than unforgiving foreign parties, like German bankers keen on schuld und rechnung. (For context, the United States owes foreign parties $6.2 trillion, about a third of its total debt, which doesn’t mean that “China owns the US” as some cruder thinkers have it, though it does mark a substantial increase from the roughly $1 trillion owed to overseas creditors as of 2001.12) It’s worth noting that a major component of Greece’s dysfunction was a twinned inability to generate tax revenue and to reform its overgenerous entitlement system—a situation well underway in the United States.