This a fascinating interactive chart of changes in country levels of private and public debt as a percentage of GDP. The size of the circles represents GDP and you can click on each circle to get specific country debt levels. It also takes you from 1990 to 2012 so you can see the changes among the countries. The only caveat is that you have to go here to play with it. This is a static picture and my programming skills don’t go far enough to allow me to show you the interactive version.
What you’ll find is that, with a few exceptions, debt both private and public continues to increase. As you read it keep in mind that national income numbers are subject to data errors and public debt is always and everywhere understated.