Public Debt, Japan, And Wilful Blindness

Scoop

3 days ago

I just heard on Radio New Zealand a claim by a British commentator, Hugo Gye (Political Editor of The i Paper), that the United Kingdom (among other countries) has a major public debt crisis, and that if nothing is done about it (such as what Rachel Reeves – Chancellor of the Exchequer – is wanting to do), then in 2070 the public debt to GDP ratio would reach an 'extreme' level of 270% of GDP (gross domestic product). He added for good measure that no country in the world has public debt at a level anything like that. (Refer UK: Macron meets the King, RNZ, 10 July 2025.)
So I checked the International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database, April 2025, and found the following about Japan, the world's fourth-largest national economy, looking at years from 2010 to 2024, with respect to government gross debt and general government financial deficit:
minimum debt 206% (in 2010)
maximum debt 258% (in 2020)
average debt 234%
current debt 237% (in 2024)
projected debt 232% (in 2030)
minimum deficit 2.3% (in 2023)
maximum deficit 9.1% (in 2010)
average deficit 5.3%
current deficit 2.5% (in 2024)
projected deficit 5.3% (in 2030)
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Japan does not have a 'cost of living crisis'. Below is a list of Japan's interest (source: tradingeconomics.com) and inflation rates (again the reference period is 2010 to 2024):
Japan is a prosperous country, with high life expectancy (85, the highest in the world for large economy nations), a very high ratio of retired people to working-age people, low inflation, and low interest rates. It was able to host the Olympic Games in 2021 without any financial fuss, and is about to host World Expo 2025. It has some of the world's most sophisticated infrastructure.
Despite its high government debt – actually, to a large extent because of its high government debt – Japan's is a creditor economy. Japan is not in debt to the rest of the world. Japan's national debt is non-existent. Japan's government debt is widely acknowledged, however, to be the world's highest. Too many commentators – using wilful laziness – conflate national debt with government debt.
Japan's is the world's most successful twenty-first century large economy. It operates by Japanese savers lending much of their savings to their government at very low interest rates; those savers prefer to lend to their government rather than to pay high taxes to their government. Prosperous Japanese people are not greedy in the way that many rich westerners are. Their mantra is 'private wealth, public wealth'; not 'private wealth, public poverty'. Japan's is not a zero-sum economy; in a zero-sum economy the prosperity of some comes at the expense of the impoverishment of others.
Hugo Jye was negligently dishonest – a case of wilful blindness or ignorance – in claiming that no countries had anything like 270% of GDP government debt. Western economists and financial commentators are likewise wilfully negligent in failing to alert their countries' governments that there is an alternative – in plain sight – to our woeful policies of financial suffocation.
Note about three other economies
Within the European Union, it is rare for professional commentators to sing the praises of Spain and Italy. Spain, with 101% public debt, is enjoying a low inflation economic boom. It has a life expectancy of 83, higher than all European Union countries other than Malta and Luxembourg. Spain has had only government budget deficits since the surpluses of the years leading up to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (a crisis which hit Spain particularly badly). Despite – no, because of – these accumulated deficits, Spain's public debt (as a percent of GDP) has been falling since 2020; the deficits stimulated GDP. Spain had one year of high inflation (8.3% in 2022; the next highest since 2020 were 3.05% in 2011 and 3.0% in 2021); it recovered very quickly from that one year. Spain's current interest rate is 2.15%.
Italy had 135% government debt to GDP in 2024. Its people's life expectancy is high, marginally lower than Spain's and slightly higher than New Zealand's; significantly higher than Germany, Netherlands and the United States. Italy's economy has been growing faster than the European Union average. Its public debt (compared to GDP) has been falling despite government deficits.
Spain and Italy are doing relatively well despite having among the highest older-person to younger-person age ratios in Europe. Spain is pro-actively utilising immigrant labour, whereas Northern Europe is scapegoating immigrants. And Spain, unlike most of Europe, is not looking to its 'Defence' budget to boost future growth.
Türkiye's public debt has fallen from a high (since 2006) of 40% in 2021 to under 30% in 2023. This is despite double-digit inflation since 2016 and an average budget deficit since 2011 of 5.3%. While high inflation has benefitted Türkiye by bringing about negative real interest rates (meaning interest payments effectively flow from richer to poorer, generally benefitting indebted Turkish businesses and households), current interest rate settings look like suffocating for Türkiye for the remainder of the 2020s. (This monetary policy of suffocation is also true for Australia in 2025, with its particularly hawkish Reserve Bank at present.)
Despite challenging geopolitical and climatic circumstances, Türkiye has, at least until 2024, managed to achieve rising living standards for a substantial majority of its people. Unlike the United Kingdom and some northern European countries, Türkiye has not been a crisis economy despite (or because of) a reputation for unsound public finance.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Keith Rankin
Political Economist, Scoop Columnist
Keith Rankin taught economics at Unitec in Mt Albert since 1999. An economic historian by training, his research has included an analysis of labour supply in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and has included estimates of New Zealand's GNP going back to the 1850s.
Keith believes that many of the economic issues that beguile us cannot be understood by relying on the orthodox interpretations of our social science disciplines. Keith favours a critical approach that emphasises new perspectives rather than simply opposing those practices and policies that we don't like.
Keith retired in 2020 and lives with his family in Glen Eden, Auckland.