The CIA factbook says: $10.45 trillion as of June 30 2007.
That is four times as much per person than the USA’s national debt.
I simply cannot fathom that jolly old England has a burden effectively four times as higher than the USA. I mean they have no resources and no manufacturing.
What gives?
Not to mention that I cannot find any corroborating source of that number and my Google Fu is pretty slick.
Well, my own google fu is limited on my phone…but here is a cite that seems to be saying the debt is something like £1.3 trillion or “£53,000 for every household in the UK”.
Here is a Wiki article on the economy of the UK which has some good info in it if you want some background.
-XT
The external debt is not owed by the people of the UK in any sense. Are you sure you’re not confusing it with public debt, which is accumulated government deficits?
I could be straightened out on the matter if someone could tell me the external debt of the USA.
I assume external debt is national debt which, yes, is not owed by the people but can be put in perspective by the population.
Our national debt is 10 trillion which is 33,000 per person and their external debt is 10 trillion which is 129,000 per person… in relation… not by any law or mechanics.
Do I have it right?
Sure it is, but it’s not the same as the public debt, as you note. The external debt is the total debt held by creditors outside the UK, whose debtors are British corporations, people, the British government, etc.
The public debt, (which we usually call national debt) is the money owed by the government to all its creditors (inside and outside.) That number is much lower.
Just taking the data from the CIA factbook:
The UK public debt is 43.3% of the GDP (USD 2.756 trillion) = USD 1.19 trillion - approx the same as that quoted by xtisme.
The US public debt is 36.8% of the GDP (USD 13.86 trillion) = USD 5.10 trillion
With populations of 61M and 304M respectively this gives a public debt per person of USD 19.5k and USD 16.8k - a bit higher in the UK but not so different.
On the other hand the External Debt is USD 10.45 trillion in the UK and USD 12.25 trillion in the US. As other have noted this is not the same as the public debt. The external debt is defined as
IANA Economist but I suspect the relatively large external debt relates to the mix of high external investment and inward investment. A lot of UK money is invested overseas and a lot of foreign money is invested in the UK as compared to the US. See the figures for Stock of direct foreign investment - at home and Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad.
Maybe a real expert will come along later with a clearer explanation.
You can gain some insight into these figures from this simple bar graph from the World Bank. Toggle the country indicator to click back and forth between the UK and the US.
Notice how, with respect to government borrowing abroad, the US hugely outstrips the UK. This is a double-edged sword. If you’re an American optimist, you say, “We’ve been more successful at inducing foreigners to buy our government bonds.” If you’re a pessimist, you say we’re in hock up to our Stetsons.
With respect to corporate borrowing, the external debt is about $7 trillion for US, $3 trillion for UK. The UK figure is a little higher relative to the size of their economy, as you would expect–the US is more self-sustaining.
Now look at bank borrowing–the UK hugely outstrips the US. This is a function of the historical pre-eminence of British banking. Because of state regulation, American banks were always smaller relative to the size of our economy, and less active overseas.