Private and public debt levels are high and possibly unsustainable.

Private leverage levels, as much as the public debt burden, must therefore be treated as crucial economic variables.

Many African countries have used the past decade to put in place sound and sustainable economic policies that have delivered robust growth and low inflation. Together with debt relief, these policies have resulted in low levels of public debt, relatively sound financial systems, and most important rising living standards.

The country is also burdened with high levels of debt and limited resources.

It virtually guarantees that Greece, Spain, and others with large private and public debts will be condemned to years of economic decline and high unemployment.

This will require an extensive swap of private debts for equity.

They could contrast their high growth rates with Europe s high levels of debt.

Fiscal deficits must be cut to reduce debt levels.

That is why countries build up debt levels that put them in the danger zone.

In Europe, the market for Greek debt has frozen, and interest rate spreads between Irish and German euro denominated debt recently reached alarming levels.

The main reason for the lag is not simply low demand or large debts.

The average high debt episodes since 1800 last 23 years and are associated with a growth rate more than one percentage point below the rate typical for periods of lower debt levels.

This means extending the maturity dates of debts and reducing the interest rate on the new debt to levels much lower than currently unsustainable market rates.

Currently, they are wrestling with widening sovereign debt problems and high unemployment.

We reduced them through debt write off and debt relief, as well as through the method of reducing our own debts.

The stock imbalances include large and rising public and private debt as a share of GDP.

A long term alternative requires some capacity to write down debt where it has reached excessive levels.

Five years on, public, private, and external debt are at record levels in many countries.

In Brazil, the consequences of those crises were an inflationary spiral and an increase in foreign debt to stratospheric levels.

Even private debt payment mechanisms via courts didn t work.

It is an even less direct way to address the private, related debt overhang.

Such profligacy has led to levels of debt that will become unsustainable if we do not act.

The first is how to navigate out of the current overhang of both private and public debt.

In 2006, the accounting policy on the treatment of provision for bad debts will be revised.

Unsustainable private debt problems must be resolved by defaults, debt reductions, and conversion of debt into equity.

Paying down private and public debt simultaneously depresses growth.

This could then have been complemented by a simultaneous agreement to restructure private debts.

Reinhart and Rogoff s research broadly shows that GDP growth is slower at high levels of public debt.

This is my global public debt clock, and, as you can see, it's 32 trillion and counting.

First, as Lee Buchheit, the attorney who oversaw the Greek private restructuring, has proposed, maturities on official Greek debt could be greatly extended.

Lowering private and public consumption in order to boost private savings, and implementing fiscal austerity to reduce private and public debts, aren t options, either.

But, for now, a complete meltdown seems distinctly less likely than gradual stabilization followed by a tepid recovery, with soaring debt levels and lingering high unemployment.

Bank deposits, along with most other private and public debts, were denominated in that national currency.

As a result, large and potentially unsustainable stocks of private and public debt remain.

But Portugal s debt levels are still highly problematic by historical benchmarks (based on my research with Carmen Reinhart).

First, high levels of debt will limit both welfare benefits and future governments ability to swap favors for votes.

These subsidies are dangerous they encourage excessive risk taking and very high leverage meaning a lot of debt relative to equity for each bank and far too much debt relative to the economy as a whole.

Unfortunately, however, ideas for debt restructuring mechanisms remain just that purely theoretical constructs.

By nationalizing private debts, Europe is following the path of the 1980 s debt crisis in Latin America.

In this year s report, the estimated rise is 38.5 centimeters on average.

First, different countries have different capacities to sustain public debt, depending on their initial deficit levels, existing debt burden, payment history, and policy credibility.

But now sovereign spreads in the peripheral eurozone countries have returned to the levels seen at the peak of the crisis in May.

Great Britain, Belgium, and even France find themselves at a debt level that does not leave much hope that they will escape unscathed.

As the crisis gathered pace, Ukraine was completely cut off from international financial markets, despite sound public finances and low foreign debt.

For the first year after the Gleneagles meeting, aid numbers were padded by misleading accounting on debt cancellation operations.