Why isn't the United States suffering a debt crisis like its European counterparts?

The United States has a debt of $12 trillion, yet this doesn't seem to be having the same detrimental effect on government services that debt has had on European countries (Greece, France, Scotland, Spain, etc).





Why is this?|||Debt can be thought of as taking out a loan.





Whether a loan is good or depends on several factors.





One big one is: how big is your income. A 10,000 loan is a big deal for someone on welfare, not a big deal for someone who earns 500,000 a year.





Here is a list of states with their debt and ratio of GDP (essentially "national income."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sov…





The US is about 47. (which constitutes about 50% of our income. It is analgous to having a 100,000 loan when you earn 200,000 a year.)





Greece is 5. (Their debt is more than 100% of their yearly income)


Ireland is 36...





Euro countries are also hampered by their Euro agreements which have strict rules about debt because if they all use the same currency, one country messing around with debt can mess up everyone's currency.|||That's because the Federal Reserve is forced to help the US goverment in its fiscal policy buying the debt the government issues.





On the other hand the European Central Bank is only forced to achieve price estability and buying national debt it's not one of its requirements. So basically the European governments cannot count on the ECB to solve their debt problems, which actually makes more sense from an economic theortically point of view.|||It IS having a BIG effect on the USA. Do you ever turn on the television? Read a news paper? Every state is being hit, and hit hard. Major services are being either cut back drastically, or done away with. State governments, and local governments are having to tighten their belts, getting rid of long standing employees. No raise in social security payments this yr, nor a raise next yr. I mean come on, do a little research please.





The US keeps borrowing money from China in the form of T-bills. However China is now selling these T-bills on the open market at a great loss. How much longer do you think China is going to keep propping up the USA? I can tell you this, not much longer.





The US is in no way a self sufficient country. Get ready for gas wars again (remember the 70's) and bread lines. It is coming.





Donna|||We buy more than those places do. Sad but true, didn't you see the black friday videos of people stampeding each other? As a result, oil is much cheaper here, I know it *should* be more expensive, logically, but its not because we buy larger amounts, bulk rule. Because of this we get more credit, as buying more allows you to have more credit, since creditors make more off people who do buy more. Its all simple economics.|||Unfortunately, Moody's says the Tax Cuts for the Wealthiest Americans

will lower our US Credit Rating worldwide, so who knows what will happen?



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-13…



“From a credit perspective, the negative effects on government finance are likely to outweigh the positive effects of higher economic growth, Unless there are offsetting measures, the package will be credit- negative for the U.S. and increase the likelihood of a negative outlook on the U.S. government’s AAA rating during the next two years.”



Final Analysis: We can pay the Ransom, but the world is saying it will cost us plenty if we want to deal with them after doing so!!|||Do you know what kind of interest we are paying on that debt as well? Google that, it will fry your brain.





We still have more domestically to help our economy than those countries did. They were all relying on one another because they are a part of the EU.





We hide it better because we have an administration taking us down a 'death-spiral' right now. They went straight down. I guess we like to pull the bandaid off verrrrrrrrry slowwwwwwwly. Problem is we can not see the wound to see how bad it will be so we can start fixing it, AND it is going to hurt a heck of a lot more!|||That's because China and Japan keep lending you guys money to keep you afloat. If they decided to pull the plug tomorrow the US would be finished. They don't do it because it would hurt them too. With many small EU nations, they're not integral to the world economy so other countries are less obliged to bail them out.|||We have a much larger population and much larger GDP than those countries. So carrying a large debt load is palatable to some. Not to me mind you. I want the deficit and debt to be ZERO. With Libs in charge though that is not going to happen.|||U.S. banks sold their toxic assets to European banks. Now they are choking on the bad debt we sold them. We ripped them off.|||obama|||It's coming...|||Just wait, it's coming.|||I'm broke and I know it. We just don't see it yet.|||because they are much closer to socialist nations, share the wealth!


a capitalist country can handle it better, although not for much longer as we slowly become more socialist