[eugenekop]

Does anyone have data about this? I'd like to know whether the current debt levels are unique or there were already a few cycles of government debt increases through history. If there were already such cycles, I am optimistic that the current debts will some day disappear without bankruptcy, but if such high level of debts throughout the western world is unique to this period of time, then I will be more pessimistic.

[Wolfman]

I'm only aware of Debt History for the US, although I'm sure there is other information out there. What you'd notice with the US is that this is fairly unique. The last time we had this high of national debt was during and shortly after WWII. Before that our debt was fairly low and steadily decreasing. After that, it was a fairly low and steadily decreasing, and then Reagan took office, and our debt started increasing. It increased under Bush Sr, and Clinton (although our Debt as a percent of our GDP didn't do much) and it rocketed up under the last two presidents.

[Bosnjak]

There exists data in Wikipedia.

but not in relation to the GDP, so we can not compare it with the debts today.

I marked those decade fat, when US Debts reduced:

Date Debt
09/30/2010 $13,561,623,030,891.79
09/30/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25
12/31/1980 $930,210,000,000.00
12/31/1970 $389,158,403,690.26
12/30/1960 $290,216,815,241.68
06/30/1950 $257,357,352,351.04
06/29/1940 $42,967,531,037.68
06/30/1930 $16,185,309,831.43
07/01/1920 $25,952,456,406.16
07/01/1910 $2,652,665,838.04
07/01/1900 $2,136,961,091.67
07/01/1890 $1,552,140,204.73
07/01/1880 $2,120,415,370.63
07/01/1870 $2,480,672,427.81
07/01/1860 $64,842,287.88
07/01/1850 $63,452,773.55
01/01/1840 $3,573,343.82
01/01/1830 $48,565,406.50
01/01/1820 $91,015,566.15
01/01/1810 $53,173,217.52
01/01/1800 $82,976,294.35


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... ublic_debt

[Kaiserschmarrn]

This article might be of interest, although it starts quite late (1880).



For earlier periods in Europe, I imagine that the relatively frequent military campaigns - small and large - must have caused high debt. For instance, Italian city states used to regularly fight each other and were therefore quite often short on money.

[uglyduckling]

^ italy and greece are red both times in this chart

It's always been a problem, frankly. Have you ever heard of Robin Hood? Look up his time period.
Problem: too much tax,
cause: a crusade nobody cared about had to be paid for
solution: Shoot the taxman

Same story every time, it just gets a little more complicated each time

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