Athens, Greece
With all the talk of Greece’s impending exit from the euro zone, debt is once again in the headlines. Greece’s massive public sector debt, coupled with its inability to devalue its currency, has put the country at risk of default. But the global economy is straining under the weight of more than just public sector debt. In the developed world, consumers, financial institutions, and other corporations have each accumulated unprecedented levels of debt — and how that total debt is managed will ultimately determine the economic fate of the global economy going forward. The following is a look at the total debt of the world’s largest mature economies — in ascending order of indebtedness — drawn from a recent presentation by Jeffery Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Funds.