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Ask HN: Why are Europeans less concerned about their national debt?

2 points by 0xDEF ↗ HN
I have been reading about US national debt recently and noticed other developed countries have similar or higher national debt per capita but people in those countries seem far less concerned about.

Why are people in other developed countries less concerned about their national debt?

4 comments

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seren
I don't think we are, there are budget rules at Europe level to keep the annual deficit under a certain threshold (which is not enough in itself if you want to reduce the debt level), and after 2008 Greece and Portugal were under heavy constraint to reduce their debt level.

I think there was a kind of pause during COVID where it was pretty must admitted that no one was going to keep a tight budget, but I would say it is back in the news now that COVID seems to be behind us.

What is different maybe it is generally not used as blackmail to gain points against the other team.

stop50
And usually the ruling parties also have the required majority in the required gemiums/Parliments.
amadeuspagel
I'm not sure how much genuine concern there is about debt in the US vs how much drama due to the debt ceiling. (Many countries have some limit on debt, but only the US and denmark have it as an absolute amount, and only in the US that amount is so low that it needs to be raised constantly.)
RattlesnakeJake
I'm not convinced anyone's really concerned about it. It only gets this much coverage because it lets the parties fling poo at each other for political points.