Eli5: Every country has national debt. Who is it owed to?

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Hi! I was looking up the statistics about the national debt of my country and the negative implications thereof. I assumed it must be owed to other countries. Pertinently, every major economy I came across has a very high national debt, including the developed countries. Who is this national debt owed to? If it’s owed to each other, why is that a major problem? If it’s owed to the citizens of it’s own country, why is that a major problem?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s not typically owed to a single party but rather divided up amongst dozens of groups, other governments and even citizens. It’s also not necessarily true that a high national debt is bad in the same way as a high personal debt. It’s, also, also worth noting that above a certain amount of money loans and debt don’t usually work the way it does with small, people-sized amounts since there are liquidity issues and problems with definitions of repayment.

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