Same world, a different worst list every time

Japan tops the pile at well over twice its yearly output — and sleeps fine. The level alone tells you almost nothing.

Debt in a currency you cannot print is the dangerous kind. Ethiopia owes three-fifths of its public debt to foreigners; India under a tenth.

In two decades China went from a rounding error to the developing world’s biggest bilateral lender. This is the official figure — loans through its commercial banks push it higher.

El Salvador sends about eighty cents of every export dollar straight back out to creditors. A quarter is the level lenders read as a warning.

Before a nurse is paid or a road is fixed, the interest comes first. Pakistan spends about sixty cents of every tax dollar on it.

Nigeria pays six and a half times as much servicing its debt as it spends on educating its children.

Six classic danger lines; Pakistan trips five. Read the dagger: a short bar can mean the crisis already came and went.

Thirteen countries hold most of the world’s defaulted debt. Venezuela alone accounts for ninety-six billion dollars of it.

When a country restructures, creditors lose about 45% on average across two centuries — almost never everything. Iraq’s lost nearly ninety.