http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
(Debt as a percentage of GDP.) The US is below a whole lot of countries, including Japan, Germany and France. I don’t really understand what all this means, though. Why did Russia need to default on its loans when its debt is only 15% of GDP? What countries are in credit? [Some of the debt is internal; half of Japan’s debt is evidently internal, which is apparently the better sort of debt to have.]