Problems
Sovereign debt problems have been a major public policy issue since World War II, including the treatment of debt related to that war, the developing country "debt crisis" in the 1980s, and the shocks of the 1998 Russian financial crisis and Argentina's default in 2001.
Not all developing countries have been affected to the same extent. For example Yugoslavia had low government debt (perhaps because it was unable to borrow on world markets) until its breakup and the coming of democracy, when the new national governments started to borrow money from the IMF. Croatia has a government debt of $47 billion today while the whole of Yugoslavia (six times as many people as Croatia) in 1980 had debt of $14 billion.
Read more about this topic: Government Debt
Famous quotes containing the word problems:
“Hats have never at all been one of the vexing problems of my life, but, indifferent as I am, these render me speechless. I should think a well-taught and tasteful American milliner would go mad in England, and eventually hang herself with bolts of green and scarlet ribbon—the favorite colour combination in Liverpool.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
“I am always glad to think that my education was, for the most part, informal, and had not the slightest reference to a future business career. It left me free and untrammeled to approach my business problems without the limiting influence of specific training.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)
“The question of place and climate is most closely related to the question of nutrition. Nobody is free to live everywhere; and whoever has to solve great problems that challenge all his strength actually has a very restricted choice in this matter. The influence of climate on our metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration, goes so far that a mistaken choice of place and climate can not only estrange a man from his task but can actually keep it from him: he never gets to see it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)