
European Union Debt by Country - kghamilton89
https://github.com/axibase/atsd-use-cases/blob/master/DataShorts/EU_Debt/README.md#european-union-debt-by-country-2005-2016
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plaidfuji
This post seems like it was meant more as a demonstration of the data viz, but
to me this is just adding an overly complicated interface to a dataset that
doesn't need interactivity. It's easy to show debt vs time for all countries
as well as the aggregate in a single plot without drop-down menus: it's called
a stacked bar plot.

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rodionos
Here's the stack chart in 23 lines.

[https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/e92a4f6c](https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/e92a4f6c)

It is in fact a demo of declarative graphics at work.

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Camillo
Could you do the stack chart by percentage of the total?

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akvadrako
This is the wrong number to look at. It's the face value of the debt, which
has no practical value; consider debt at 0% interest with a long repayment
plan vs payday loans due today.

International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) is the new
international standard and makes much more sense; it considers only the market
value of your debt, i.e. how much you could find someone to buy it for.

Here is a sample of public debt/GDP ratios from 2013. Clearly, proper
accounting drastically affects the results:

[http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=2321087](http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=2321087)

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sandstrom
I agree there is a difference between long-term and short-term debt. Obviously
if you don't have money and your payday loan matures (has to be paid) tomorrow
that's different from a loan maturing in 30 years -- when you may or may not
have money, and when inflation/deflation may have increased or decreased the
absolute value of that debt.

But the graph in your link makes it look like Greece is less indebted than the
Netherlands. As the article states, that's because the market value of Greek
debt is low (lower than nominal value).

That's because few want to buy it, since many think Greece won't repay its
debt. Yes, if Greece defaults on its loans they will go away. But it will have
consequences. For example, lending money in the future may be more difficult.

More generally, if a country borrows linearly at some point no one will
believe in their ability to repay, so market value will trend towards zero.
With your measure the indebtedness of a country will go towards zero (along
with the market value of its debt) the more it borrows.

It doesn't make sense. The debt is still there and defaulting on it will have
consequences.

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akvadrako
> That's because few want to buy it, since many think Greece won't repay its
> debt.

You don't understand - what it means is I would be willing to take on Greece's
debt obligations for an immediate financial compensation much less than the
face value. It has nothing to do with their creditworthiness.

Also, because Greece's debt is actually lower than the Netherlands, or at
least it was in 2013, I personally think lending them money would be a great
investment and I'm not the only one[1]. It's just not an option for political
reasons.

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/eurozone-greece-debt-
japonica...](http://www.reuters.com/article/eurozone-greece-debt-japonica-
idUSL6N0VC3DO20150205)

~~~
winstonewert
If I'm understanding you correctly, you're not saying its the market value to
become a creditor of greece (which would depend on the creditworthiness of
greece). Its the market value that you would have to be paid to be willing to
become the debtor in place of greece.

Am I right?

~~~
akvadrako
That's how I think of it. So according to IPSAS accounting in 2013, Greece's
debt is 18% of GDP. If they could raise that much money, they could be debt
free, assuming political will.

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sandstrom
I agree with this (though not some of the earlier things, e.g. that Greece is
less indebted than the Netherlands).

Two observations:

1\. If they started buying their own debt back en-masse the price would
probably go up (as with any other good where demand increases).

2\. The problem of Greece, and other poor countries, is that they have trouble
mustering resources. Raising 18% of GDP from a poor population isn't that
easy. If Greece was a wealthy country they probably wouldn't have the debt
they have.

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tyingq
Per capita would be interesting to show as well.

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rodionos
Here's the gross gov't debt per capita:

[https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/e92a4f6c/2/#fullscreen](https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/e92a4f6c/2/#fullscreen)

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tyingq
That is more interesting, thank you. I wonder what happened in Ireland.

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the_why_of_y
Deregulation and low tax rates created an outsized financial services industry
that fueled a housing bubble which then burst and had to be bailed out by the
state, quadrupling the public debt.

[http://crookedtimber.org/2010/11/09/cultures-of-
impunity/](http://crookedtimber.org/2010/11/09/cultures-of-impunity/)

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trevyn
Google does this quite well:
[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=ds22a34krhq5p_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=ds22a34krhq5p_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=gd_mio_eur&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:at:bg:hr:cy:cz:ee:dk:be:fi:fr:de:el:hu:ie:it:lv:lt:lu:mt:nl:pl:pt:ro:sk:si:es:uk:se&ifdim=country_group&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false&icfg&iconSize=0.5)

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marvel_boy
It is impossible to pay this amount of money. For this simple reason the
interest rate is zero, almost negative: European central bank is buying huge
amounts of national debt. Setting an interest rate of zero is just a trick to
lower debt interest payments. EU is doomed.

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EliRivers
Is it _necessary_ to pay this money?

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tehabe
No it isn't. If all the debt is paid in full, the only effect this would have
is that the income of the economy would be lower.

The interests are low now because many states don't invest as much as they
used to do. So the demand for money is low. And when the demand for something
is low, the price for it goes down.

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iagooar
Trying to wrap my head around "the demand for money is low, the price goes
down". Genuinely curious.

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lowpro
If an entity doesn't see a good way to invest money, they won't borrow money
to make money. This is what they mean when 'the demand for money is low'. If
the government borrowed money, they would not make as much on that money as
the interest payment to who they borrowed from, so they never borrow the
money.

This has the overall effect of reducing money demand, reducing the premium to
get that money (the interest rates continue to drop). Everyone though 0%
interest was a hard line and you couldn't go lower, until negative interest
rates were introduced to try and reverse this trend, which it largely hasn't.

