The Wall Street Journal recently reported that household debt, including mortgages, car loans, and credit card debt, has risen all over the world. Shockingly, Switzerland leads the pack, with household debt at 127.5% of Gross Domestic Product (that means, for every $100,000 of GDP a household produces, they hold $127,500 in debt!).
The average citizen in Switzerland, which has traditionally been an extremely wealthy country, has substantial assets underpinning this debt, or at least four times more assets than the average American.
Even so, Switzerland, as well as nine other economies including Canada, Finland, and Australia, have debt levels that are high and rising quickly, at a pace that mirrors that of the US right before the housing bubble. Continue reading “The State of Your Economy”
