Do you understand ....

[Coldicote]

.... the European debt crisis? I know this has featured before on AB and perhaps I'm being naïve but, put simply, isn't it a matter of living on borrowed money and having to pay for it rather than being usefully productive? We hear talk of economic recovery but that sounds to me like a pipe dream and I wonder what it means in practice and whether it is achievable.

[boxtops]

No, I don't. It seems simply that countries borrow money from each other, then can't afford to pay it back, hence the crisis. Is any country in the world in full world credit? - I would be interested to know which countries operate fully in the black, so that we can learn from them.

[Craftypig]

This list might not be up to date but it gives some idea of "external debt" some of these countries will also be "owed" more than they "owe" if that makes any sense.
http://en.wikipedia.o...ries_by_external_debt

[boxtops]

Interesting - five countries owing nothing...... I wouldn't mind having sight of my £144K which the UK has borrowed on my behalf!

[Coldicote]

What an alarming picture! Thanks for bringing it to notice. The world appears to be governed by banking systems. The age of cave dwelling is almost attractive.

[Wak]

I can't really understand how they can regulate individual countries when they all have the same currency!
In the old (pre-Euro) days if Germany was a bit on the weak side you just got a few more Marks for your Pound and Germany was left to sort itself out but now that Greece is at fault you can't devalue it in any way apart from increasing it's already overloaded debt with another loan.
Seems all wrong to me somehow!

[Coldicote]

Wak, You've made some very valid points and I do agree with you. Thank you. I dread to think what would happen if our government was daft enough to join the euro - we have enough problems as it is.