Standard of Admiral of Imperial Japanese Navy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The video below moves a little too quickly to be easily understood. Nevertheless, this video explains Japan’s national debt problem. It’s 200% of Japan’s GDP. ”There’s little chance of it being paid back.” That means Japan must inevitably default on some or most of it’s national debt–and perhaps not so long from now.
The US “official” national debt is $16 trillion–about 100% of US GDP and about half that of Japan’s as a proportion of the US GDP.
But John Williams (shadowstats.com) estimates the true national debt is closer to $90 trillion–over 500% of GDP–2.5 times the size of Japan’s “problem”. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the total national debt (including unfunded liabilities) to be over $200 trillion–about 1200% of GDP–six times the size of Japan’s “problem”.
If Japan has “little chance” of repaying a national debt that’s 200% of Japan’s GDP, how will the US repay a national debt that’s somewhere between 500% and 1200% of US GDP?)
video 00:06:46