#Debt-to-GDP ratio

[freepressjournals]

India's Government Debt: A Beacon of Safety and Prudence

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has recently highlighted the robust and secure nature of India’s government debt, describing it as “safe and prudent.” In a series of posts on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Sitharaman emphasized that debt assessments should consider GDP growth, often overlooked in straightforward comparisons of absolute numbers.

Sitharaman contrasted the current government’s fiscal management under Prime Minister Narendra Modi with that of the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). She noted that despite facing the economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Modi administration has demonstrated superior fiscal discipline.

Addressing the promises made by Congress in its manifesto, Sitharaman questioned the fiscal feasibility of schemes proposed by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, such as the ‘Khata Khat’ initiatives. Gandhi had promised to transfer ₹1 lakh to one woman in every poor household if Congress wins the elections. Sitharaman challenged this by asking how Congress plans to finance such schemes, whether through substantial borrowing or increased taxes.

She highlighted that India’s debt-to-GDP ratio stood at 81% in 2022, which is significantly lower than that of several major economies. For comparison, Japan’s debt-to-GDP ratio was 260.1%, Italy’s was 140.5%, the USA’s was 121.3%, France’s was 111.8%, and the UK’s was 101.9%. This comparison underscores India’s relative fiscal stability.

Additionally, Sitharaman pointed out that India’s central government debt is predominantly rupee-denominated, with external borrowings accounting for less than 5% of total debt. This structure minimizes India’s exposure to exchange rate volatility. She recalled that the central government’s debt as a percentage of GDP was reduced from 52.2% in 2013–14 to around 48.9% in 2018–19 through fiscal consolidation efforts. During this period, the fiscal deficit was also reduced from 4.5% in FY14 to 3.4% in FY19.

However, the fiscal deficit surged to 9.2% of GDP in 2020–21 due to the pandemic and necessary government interventions to protect lives and livelihoods, increasing the central government’s debt to 61.4% of GDP. Post-pandemic, the Modi government has adopted a balanced approach to fiscal consolidation while maintaining economic growth, reducing the fiscal deficit to 5.8% in the Revised Estimates for FY24.

In conclusion, Sitharaman’s detailed breakdown underscores the prudent management of India’s government debt, emphasizing the country’s strong fiscal position relative to other major economies. The current administration’s focus on fiscal consolidation and economic growth post-pandemic showcases a commitment to maintaining financial stability while fostering development.

[authne]

India's Debt: Not Risky as China's, But rather Still a Concern

India’s debt is a complicated issue with a long history. The country’s debt-to-Gross domestic product proportion has been on a consistent ascent lately, and presently remains at 81.9%. This is like China’s debt-to-Gross domestic product proportion of 83%. In any case, the dangers related with India’s debt are not so perfect as China’s. India has a more youthful populace and a higher development…

[rodgermalcolmmitchell]

A Libertarian tells "the truth" about federal debt.

What follows is an article by a Libertarian, interspersed with a few whiffs of reality. The national debt is over $34 trillion. It’s time to tell the truth about the U.S. government’s finances Story by Libertarian Alvaro Vargas Llosa Yes, Mr. Vargas Llosa, it is time to tell the truth about government finances. Some might say, “Well, past time. Sadly, your article does not do it. The purpose of…

[mapsontheweb]

Debt-to-GDP ratio, 2024.

by geo.universe

[txttletale]

Hi! Do you think you could link me to some resources about the problems/ evils of the EU? Would love to find some but it's hard to know what's reliable when I have no base knowledge in this area + you seem very well informed :)

sure. let's start with what the EU does to its own member states--in 2009, the EU bailed the greek government out of severe debt on the condition that they establish brutal austerity measures, cutting public spending and welfare. these measures served to immiserate and destroy the lives of thousands of greek people:

Greek mortality has worsened significantly since the beginning of the century. In 2000, the death rate per 100,000 people was 944.5. By 2016, it had risen to 1174.9, with most of the increase taking place from 2010 onwards.

[forbes]

Since the implementation of the austerity programme, Greece has reduced its ratio of health-care expenditure to GDP to one of the lowest within the EU, with 50% less public hospital funding in 2015 than in 2009. This reduction has left hospitals with a deficit in basic supplies, while consumers are challenged by transient drug shortages.

[the lancet]

The homeless population is thought to have grown by 25 per cent since 2009, now numbering 20,000 people.

[oxfam]

the most brutal treatment, however, the EU of course reserves for migrants from the global south. the EU sets strict migration quotas and uses its member states as weapons against desperate people fleeing across the mediterranean. boats are prevented from landing, migrants that do make it to land are repelled with brutal violence, and refugees are deported back to countries where their lives are in lethal danger. these policies have led to many, many deaths--and the refugees and migrants who do survive are treating fucking inhumanely.

After a perilous journey across the desert, Abdulaziz was locked up in Triq al-Sikka, a grim prison in Tripoli, Libya. Why? Because the EU pays Libyan militias millions of euros to detain anyone deemed a possible migrant to Europe [...] A leaked EU internal memorandum in 2020 acknowledged that capturing migrants was now “a profitable business model” [...] in Triq al-Sikka and other detention centres, “acts of murder, enslavement, torture, rape and other inhumane acts are committed against migrants”, observed a damning UN report.

[the guardian]

Volunteers have logged more than 27,000 deaths by drowning since 1993, often hundreds at a time when large ships capsize. These account for nearly 80% of all the entries.

[the guardian]

Refugees and asylum seekers were punched, slapped, beaten with truncheons, weapons, sticks or branches, by police or border guards who often removed their ID tags or badges, the committee said in its annual report. People on the move were subject to pushbacks, expulsion from European states, either by land or sea, without having asylum claims heard. Victims were also subject to “inhuman and degrading treatment”, such as having bullets fired close to their bodies while they lay on the ground, being pushed into rivers, sometimes with hands tied, or being forced to walk barefoot or even naked across a border.

[the guardian]

In September, Greece opened a refugee camp on the island of Samos that has been described as prison-like. The €38m (£32m) facility for 3,000 asylum seekers has military-grade fencing and CCTV to track people’s movements. Access is controlled by fingerprint, turnstiles and X-rays. A private security company and 50 uniformed officers monitor the camp. It is the first of five that Greece has planned; two more opened in November.

[the guardian]

i could go on. i could cite dozens more similarly brutal news stories about horrific mistreatment, or any of the dozens of people who have killed themselves in the custody of border police under horrific conditions. the EU is a murderous institution that does not care about the lives of refugees and migrants or about the lives of the citizens of any member state that is not pursuing a vicious enough neoliberal political program

[argyrocratie]

"When I first went to Jamaica in 2012 as a graduate student studying the environmental politics of the Maroons, an Afro-Indigenous community who freed themselves from enslavement in the 18th century and established an autonomous society in the mountainous interior of the island, Chinese overseas development policy seemed irrelevant to my work. Yet as my field research progressed over the following eight years, first as a doctoral student in African diaspora studies and then as a post-doctoral researcher, the impact of Chinese infrastructural development and extractive industry on the Jamaican people and environment became increasingly apparent.

The timing of my field work overlapped with an unprecedented surge in Chinese economic and diplomatic engagement with Jamaica and the Caribbean as a whole.

(...)

It is beyond the scope of this article to detail the political economic dynamics and immense social impact of debt in Jamaica over the last 40 years.4 Suffice it to say that the island became a byword for structural adjustment during this period, with every new loan from the World Bank, or default on payments thereof, coming with International Monetary Fund-mandated austerity.

Health and education were notable casualties of this socio-economic assault. By the start of my field research, Jamaican child mortality had almost doubled over the span of a single decade while completion of primary school dropped from 97% to 73% in the same period. This despite the fact that Jamaica had already repaid more money than it had been lent, with continuing debt servicing accounting for a 106% debt-to-GDP ratio according to the latest World Bank figures.

All this is only a small snapshot of the catastrophic outcomes of debt wielded as a tool of neocolonialism.

With the island’s status as one of the most indebted countries on the planet, Chinese infrastructural development was received with fanfare from Jamaican elites, a possible economic lifeline out of the debt trap.

(...)

Jamaican elites may appreciate that they can pay back debts with land, and that China does not directly require broad policy changes like the structural adjustment conditions of IMF and World Bank loans.

However, even with the above and the fact that the Jamaican debt to China is small compared to that claimed by Western IFIs and private firms, Jamaican politicians are growing increasingly wary of the costs of doing business with China. In November 2019, Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced that Jamaica would no longer borrow from China, a scant seven months after formally joining the BRI.

As usual, most Jamaicans are not privy to the inter-governmental discussions and deals driving these decisions, but their government’s newfound reticence in engaging with China reflects deeper concerns among BRI partners that the initiative is a debt trap.

(...)

Almost two decades of Chinese loans and infrastructure-led development have left Jamaican workers and farmers as precarious and dispossessed as ever. The hard-fought and generational struggle for Jamaican workers’ power (trade unions were instrumental to Jamaica’s independence struggle) has been curtailed and rolled back by China’s transposed sovereignty.

Furthermore, Chinese mining interests appear poised to pick up where their Western counterparts left off in terms of irreversible ecological destruction and threats to indigenous survival. Certainly, Jamaica cannot bear another 50 years of capitalist exploitation and extractive industry.

If there is any hope in turning this dire situation into revolutionary momentum, it will be in Jamaicans making common cause with the Chinese laborers imported to the country. According to China Labor Watch, Chinese workers on overseas BRI projects are often subject to “deceptive job ads, passport retention, wage withholding, physical violence and lack of contracts” to the extent of constituting forced labor and human trafficking.

In fact, at least one Chinese worker in Jamaica has already blown the whistle on such conditions. Unfortunately, as of the time of writing this article, there appears to be no organized effort to make solidaristic alliances among Jamaican workers, Chinese workers, and Maroons. The Maroons are organized as an indigenous community seeking land and sovereign rights, rather than workers seeking class emancipation, and remain locked in a fractious political battle with the Jamaican state toward those ends.

Furthermore, the cultural and language barriers between Jamaicans and imported Chinese workers are significant. Yet both countries have rich revolutionary traditions. If Jamaican labor militancy and Maroon struggle were able to reconcile and align their interests, while cultivating strategic allies among the heavily exploited Chinese workers, a powerful relationship of international solidarity from below could be forged."

...

[datarep]

Debt to GDP ratio of the G7 since 2000

by hcrx

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

New Rule: Whoa, Canada | Real Time with Bill Maher

And finally, New Rule. If we want to save our country, we should follow the advice good liberals have given for decades and learn from other countries.

Especially those beacons of progressivism like Canada, England, and Scandinavia, and I agree we should, as long as we're honest about the lessons we're learning. And as long as we're up to date on the current data. Such as, the unemployment rate in the US is 3.8 percent. And in Canada, it's 6.1. And of the 15 North American cities with the worst air pollution, 14 are in Canada.

I'm not citing these stats because I have it out for Canada. I love Canada, and its people, and always have, but I hate zombie lies. Zombie lies. That's when things change but what people say about them doesn't. Yes, for decades, places like Vancouver, and Amsterdam, and Stockholm seemed idyllic, because everything was free and all the energy we needed was produced by riding a bike to your job at the windmill. Canada was where all the treasured goals of liberalism worked perfectly. It was like NPR come to life but with poutine.

Canada was the Statue of Liberty with a low-maintenance haircut and cross-country skis. A giant idealized blue state with single-payer health care, gun control, and abortion on polite demand. Canada was where every woke White college kid, wearing pajama pants outdoors who'd had it up to here with America's racist patriarchy, dreamt of living someday. I mean, besides Gaza.

There's only one problem with thinking everything's better in Canada. It's not. Not anymore anyway. Last year, Canada added 1.3 million people, which is a lot in one year. The equivalent of the US adding 11 million migrants in one year. And now, they are experiencing a housing crisis even worse than ours. And we're sleeping in tents. The median price of a home here is 346 grand, in Canada, converted to US dollars, it's 487. If Barbie moved to Winnipeg, she wouldn't be able to afford her dream house and Ken would be working at Tim Hortons. And because of mortgage debt, Canada has the highest debt to GDP ratio of any G7 nation. I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad.

So does their vaunted health care system, which ranks dead last among high income countries in access to primary health care and ability to see a doctor in a day or two. And it's not for lack of spending. Of the 30 countries with universal coverage, Canada spends over 13 percent of its economy on it, which is a lot of money for free health care.

Look, I'm not saying Canada still isn't a great country. It is, but those aren't paradise numbers. If Canada was an apartment, the lead feature might be "America adjacent." And if America was a rental car, Canada would be "America or similar."

And again, honestly, Canada, I'm not saying any of this 'cause I enjoy it. I don't, 'cause I've always enjoyed you. But I need to cite you as a cautionary tale to help my country. And the moral of that tale is, "Yes, you can move too far left." And when you do, you wind up pushing the people in the middle to the right. At its worst, Canada is what American voters think happens when there's no one putting a check on extreme wokeness.

Like the saga of Canadian shop teacher, Kayla Lemieux, whose pronouns are she/her and those. Kayla is now back to being a guy named Kerry, but two years ago when "they" showed up to teach children, the progressive high school "they" taught at said that they-- They, the school, not the person. Really? You couldn't have found another word? We were using that one. Anyway, okay. They were committed to a safe environment for gender expression. Safe for who? What about the children? What about the equipment in that shop class?

You know, there was once a weirdo D-list movie producer in the '60s named Russ Meyer who made low-budget B movies like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! And Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Always featuring women who look like this. His movies played in porn houses and were featured in Hustler and Playboy. Okay, fine, but who says, "No, when it comes to huge, ridiculous tits, let's save that for the kids."

And this is why people vote for Trump. They say in politics, liberals are the gas pedal and conservatives are the brakes, and I'm generally with the gas pedal, but not if we're driving off a cliff.

On the trans issue, America is no ands, ifs, or buts about it, absolutely alone in the world now. An outlier country. Last month, England's National Health Service announced that there's "not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness" of puberty blockers for third graders, and that they were going to stop fumbling around with children's privates, because that's Prince Andrew's job.

So too with all the other good place countries in direct opposition to America's choice to affirm children's wishes on switching gender, no matter the age or psychiatric history. The Far Left, which always like to use, "Well, Europe does it." Yeah, no, that doesn't work on this one anymore.

Or on immigration. Sweden opened its borders to over a million and a half immigrants since 2010. And now 20 percent of its citizens are foreign-born and its education system is tanking, and it has Europe's highest rate of gangland killings. And one result is that the far-right parties are in the government now there for the first time.

To which liberals say, "Blaming immigrants for the rising crime rate is racist." Yeah, but is it true? Of course, it's true. It's not a coincidence. The quality of life went down after the Somali gangs started a drug turf war using hand grenades.

Calling it "racist" doesn't solve the problem. It hands future elections to someone who will solve the problem, and who, I promise, you're not going to like.

==

For the record, I've said literally all of this, including making the comparison of flying off a cliff if you rely entirely on the gas pedal. Just saying.

When Trump takes office again, and he will, people will act stunned and ask, "how could this have ever happened?"

[argumate]

This is the backdrop against which we must evaluate the financial aid promised by Washington to Israel. The aid that the Biden administration and Congress are pushing, amounts to a gratuitous subsidy to the tune of $14.5 billion. If we take the Bank of Israel’s estimate of 255bn NIS as our guide, then Washington is promising to cover 20 per of Israel’s total war costs. If the cost in gross defense spending comes to 107 NIS, as the Bank estimated back in November, America’s politicians are planning to reimburse Israel for almost exactly half the cost of its campaign of destruction. And the US rushes to provide this aid, even though, as Israel’s financial technocrats insist, Israel is more than capable of paying for its own war. And were it to do so, Israel’s debt to gdp ratio would be far lower than that born by US tax payers.

The purpose of American aid is first and foremost to satisfy domestic political imperatives. For their own reasons, America’s politicians want to be seen to be spending American tax-payers dollars on Israel. As far as Israel is concerned the effect of the aid is not primarily financial or economic. Its main effect is political. Unlike Moody’s, whose downgrade puts in question the course of both Israel’s domestic and foreign policy, America’s massive support relieves the pressure on Israel’s government to revise its domestic priorities and provides lavish endorsement for Israel’s effort to erase the Palestinian question by brute force.

If as Smotrich’s says the Moody’s downgrade is based on a geopolitical worldview, one wonders whether the rating agency is not underestimating the forces that stand in support of Israel’s violent and costly campaign.

Tooze

[racefortheironthrone]

I just read your Who Stole Westeros article (great onde, btw!), and it got me thinking: how could the crown undo all the financial damage Littlefinger did?

This is something that I've discussed in bits and pieces, but I think it's a good idea to have one place where I lay out my ideas.

Accurate Intelligences

The first thing that needs to happen is that the crown needs to get an accurate understanding of its finances and make that understanding known to the necessary stakeholders. This starts with a very thorough audit of both the Crown's books and Littlefinger's books, preferably done with the participation of the Iron Bank (not only do they have the necessary expertise to see through Baelish's fraud, but bringing them into the process at an early stage will make later negotiations easier because they're more likely to feel "part of the team" and not like a bombshell's been dropped on them).

The second step is, I would argue, a document laying out, in detail, what the Crown's incomes, expenditures, and debts actually are - and the extent of Littlefinger's fraud and embezzlement - is absolutely vital for rebuilding trust from the Crown's major creditors. Think of this as a somewhat more private (and hopefully more honest) Compte Rendu. Not only is having an accurate understanding vital for future policymaking, but it's also a way of framing the overall narrative to your creditors that defines the universe of how much you can afford to pay back and how much you should pay back.

Debt Forgiveness

After the full scope of the economic damage is known, the first priority should be to A. recoup as much of the losses as possible, and B. reduce the debt that has to be paid as much as possible. As far as A goes, the absolute de minimus strategy should be to seize the entire Baelish estate - not just the gold, but also the brothels, the ships, the commodities futures, the debts of various noble houses and merchants, the lands and titles belonging to Harrenhal - and those of all of his minions in the royal bureaucracy, and use that to improve the royal income-to-debt ratio by paying off some of what's owed, with as much as possible going to principal over interest.

Secondly, there's a strong need for debt relief. That's a touchy subject around creditors, but it's still one that has to be faced - and is made somewhat easier by the War of Five Kings. So if Renly or Stannis had won, it would absolutely been in their interests to declare the Crown's debt to House Lannister repudiated on the grounds of treason, thus reducing the total owed by 50% (assuming that the Crown actually owes 3 million to House Lannister and 6 million overall). On the flip side, and this is somewhat paradoxical, it is rather surprising that at no point after the death of King Robert does the Lannister regime forgive debt it effectively owes to itself, even if that would be to its ultimate advantage.

Restructuring Finances

Ultimately, though, the nice thing about being a government is that (barring a revolution or foreign conquest) you are effectively immortal, and thus even staggeringly huge debts can be dealt with - over a long enough time horizon. Look at the example of British war debt:

It turns out, constantly fighting imperial wars and then having to fight two world wars is very expensive, but just hanging on as a going concern was enough to gradually reduce the debt-to-gdp ratio down to manageable levels. It really helps if you have a central bank, a sinking fund, and strong levels of economic growth, but just staying alive is the big ticket.

However, in order for time to heal all wounds, one of the things that has to happen is some debt restructuring aimed at reducing the interest rate owed on the royal debt. Pretty much all previous steps I've outlined, from sharing information to cultivating stakeholders to paying off as much as you can from Littlefinger's coffers, etc. are aimed at trying to soften the negotiating ground for this step, because medieval interest rates were really high (largely as a hedge against frequent defaults), around 12% on average. It's pretty hard to grow your way out of that, so bringing down those rates is the top priority. Once you've gotten them as low as you can, you want to negotiate for the longest repayment window possible.

[darkmaga-retard]

Of all the dangers that threaten the global financial system, the one most likely to topple it is the US Government’s debt trap. This article explains how and why it is becoming inevitable

By Alasdair Macleod

MacleodFinance Substack

August 30, 2024

According to the US Government, its debt stands at $35.210 trillion having grown 57% in the last five years. As the chart below shows, there was a big step up in early 2020 due to Covid. But subsequent attempts to control the deficit and therefore indebtedness have been absent.

This article looks at the dollar’s debt trap, which despite being the greatest threat to the entire fiat currency based monetary system has attracted little notice from the financial media and investment commentators. Furthermore, the mechanics of a debt trap are poorly understood. It is timely, because with signs of America’s economy slowing down and formally reliable recession indicators such as the Sahm rule being triggered, the Keynesian response is for the government to increase spending to support the economy.

The US Government’s debt to GDP is already at 130%, a record. In the wake of WW2 it stood at a high of 119%, falling to 31% by 1974. That the 1946 peak is now surpassed by excessive peacetime spending goes generally unremarked.

There was certainly more spending control in the three post-war decades. Nevertheless, Federal Government debt rose by 41% while GDP grew by 240% and the debt-to-GDP ratio fell.

Mainstream economists miss the crucial point, which is that excess government spending (the budget deficits totalled $144 billion between 1969—1974) did not lead to prices rising sharply. The reason is simple: the Bretton Woods gold standard stabilised CPI prices which increased on average by about 2% annually between 1948—1970. But something had to give, and the disparity between government deficits and price stability led to the erosion of US gold reserves, finally reaching a crisis in the late 1960s when the London gold pool was established and failed. Finally, in August 1971 the Bretton Woods arrangement was abandoned along with all anchors to the fiat dollar’s value.

[humanrightsupdates]

Kenya/IMF: Align Economic Reform with Rights

(Nairobi) – The Kenyan government and International Monetary Fund should work together to ensure that the IMF program and its implementation align with human rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The focus should be on progressive revenue generation and accountability over public funds.

Following the recent nationwide protests, President William Ruto declined to sign Finance Bill 2024, which included regressive tax measures that risked undermining rights. Any alternative measures should relieve economic pressures by addressing the root causes of protesters’ anger.

“The widespread outrage sparked by proposed taxes on goods like sanitary pads and cooking oil in a country where corporate tax evasion is endemic should be a wake-up call to the Kenyan government and the IMF that they cannot sacrifice rights in the name of economic recovery,” said Sarah Saadoun, senior researcher on poverty and inequality at Human Rights Watch. “Economic sustainability can only be achieved with a new social contract that raises revenues fairly, manages them responsibly, and funds services and programs that allow everyone to realize their rights.”

Finance Bill 2024, in the context of an IMF program with Kenya, was expected to raise US$2.7 billion in additional revenues in the upcoming fiscal year, in part to meet IMF targets. The bill included several new tax provisions, such as removing exemptions from certain food items and a mobile money transfer tax, that would increase the cost of essential goods and services and fall heaviest on Kenyans with lower and middle incomes, as well as already marginalized groups such as women.

The IMF program was approved in 2021 to support Kenya’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and global inflation, as well as devastating cycles of droughts and floods made worse by climate change. An increase in interest rates has also forced the government to spend upward of half its tax revenues to service debt.

The Kenyan government has other options to raise revenue progressively and enhance trust in the government, Human Rights Watch said. Kenya’s tax-to-GDP ratio is around 15 percent, which is the minimum threshold according to the World Bank for a viable state and economic stability.

[rodgermalcolmmitchell]

The "unsustainable," "ticking time bomb" federal debt isn't an unsustainable ticking time bomb at all

If you are a regular reader of this blog you may be familiar with this post: Historical claims the Federal Debt is a “ticking time bomb.” It describes the ongoing, relentless claims that the federal debt is “unsustainable and a “ticking time bomb. The first entry was in 1940, when the so-called “federal debt” was about $40 Billion. Today, it is about $30 Trillion, a monstrous 74,900%…

[mapsontheweb]

Government debt to GDP (%)

Worldwide, many other countries have debt that is more than their GDP. Japan consistently ranks among the top nations with a debt-to-GDP ratio exceeding 200%.

by genuine_impact

[mariacallous]

No one in Lebanon wants a war, but they may still get one.

The country has been on tenterhooks since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel amassed hundreds of thousands of troops—stationing many along its northern border with Lebanon. The scale of the Israeli response in Gaza may define Lebanon’s future as Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese militia backed by Iran, may feel compelled to join in, despite its instinct for self-preservation. The Lebanese are fully aware the conflict might spill over and push the country, long teetering on the edge, into an irretrievable abyss.

It will be “catastrophic, a final blow to Lebanese resilience,” said Nizar Ghanem, the director of research and a co-founder of Triangle, a Lebanese think tank. “Israel can destroy Lebanon,” Sami Nader, a political analyst, told Foreign Policy. During the 2006 war with Israel, “it cost Lebanon billions of dollars.”

Yet, at a time when the country is grappling with myriad crises, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has failed to get assurances from Hezbollah that Lebanon will not be engulfed in yet another conflict with Israel. “I could not get assurances about the developments from any party because the situation is constantly changing,” he said on Lebanese TV.

Lebanon has been reeling over the last few years under its worst-ever economic crisis; since mass protests erupted in 2019 over a cost of living crisis, Lebanon has faced rising unemployment and among the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the world. As the economy went into a tailspin, the local currency devalued by 90 percent, inflation skyrocketed, and pushed 80 percent of people below the poverty line.

Living standards dropped substantially, and power blackouts for 22 hours per day became routine. A sense of injustice prevailed as no one was held accountable for the catastrophic explosion in Beirut’s port on Aug. 4, 2020.

The country’s parliament has repeatedly failed to elect a president; there is only a caretaker prime minister and a temporary central bank chief. The foreign reserves have depleted from $30 billion back before the 2019 crisis to $8.6 billion today—which, incidentally, is just a billion more than the $7.6 billion raised by the international community to help Lebanon rebuild the infrastructure destroyed in the 2006 war.

If there’s another war, experts believe Lebanon may not get a chance to recover. They say an already bankrupt Lebanese state won’t be handed any loans by the international community and the wealthy Arab monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates may not want to flush Lebanon with money that could easily end up in the hands of Hezbollah, which they see as an Iranian militia training other militias in the region that present a threat to their security. “It could lead to a complete meltdown of the state,” Ghanem added. “And this time, Lebanon does not have the chance to borrow from international markets.”

In case of war, the chassis of basic infrastructure sustaining daily life may get bombed and demolished, forcing another generation of Lebanese to flee the country. There are chances of civil unrest, too. If Israel limits its operations to Hezbollah-dominated southern Lebanon, Bekaa, and Dahieh, where Shiites predominately live—many of whom support Hezbollah or are beholden to it—the people in those communities will likely flee to other parts of the country. That will further burden the civic services already under strain from the presence of Syrian refugees and could even exacerbate sectarian differences.

Khaled Zeidan, a restaurateur in a posh Christian neighborhood in Beirut, said his biggest concern is displacement—and the social tensions that could lead to: “The biggest risk is displacement from the south towards Beirut and other areas, particularly with the overwhelming problems we are currently facing.”

Even after decades of war, the country is still divided, and often members of a specific sect dominate a specific neighborhood or an entire city. There are palpable tensions in the country, with many opposing Iran’s influence through Hezbollah and long demanding the group disarm. Hezbollah’s weapons, ostensibly stockpiled to protect Lebanon from Israel, give it the power it exudes in domestic politics.

Mark Daou, a Lebanese member of parliament who taught media studies at the American University of Beirut, said the impact of the Israel-Hamas war is already being felt in Lebanon as the German airline Lufthansa has stopped flights and not all shipping lanes are open, causing shortages.

“We are starting to get tight on supplies. Lanes are not all open. It’s a struggle to get ships to send stuff to Lebanon,” he told Foreign Policy over the phone from Beirut. “This is just on the risk of war, not even an ongoing war.” (Lebanon is heavily dependent on imports—even for some basic food items.) Daou said Hezbollah has “no excuse” to go to a war that “will destroy the country.”

The key question is if Hezbollah—armed with 150,000 precision-guided missiles—including hundreds of long-range rockets that can hit anywhere inside Israel—will heed the call of Hamas, its ally in the axis of resistance against Israel. Or will Israel’s leadership, with troops already mobilized and global sympathy onside, see an opportunity in opening another front to destroy Hezbollah’s armory?

Hezbollah does not have the consent of the Lebanese people to wage a war on Israel. It also isn’t suicidal and won’t enter a conflict without gaming out an exit. Yet it is an ideological organization with thousands of fighters and reservists who were enrolled and brainwashed with anti-Israel rhetoric.

Even though the United States has sent two aircraft carriers to the Eastern Mediterranean to deter Hezbollah and Iran from expanding the conflict, the opening of another front in Lebanon cannot be ruled out. Hezbollah may enter the war with all its might in three situations: extreme bloodshed in Gaza; if Israel starts bombing Hezbollah’s stockpiles, hidden all over Lebanon; or if Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei deems it the path to be.

Elias Farhat, a retired Lebanese Army general, said the Lebanese armed forces and Hezbollah are at a high degree of readiness. He said Hezbollah is likely to intervene in the current conflict if “Israel escalates its attacks on Lebanon and targets deep in Lebanon”—presumably Hezbollah’s rockets or leadership or Lebanese cities—or if “Israel storms in[to] Gaza and commit[s] more massacres.”

Hezbollah may opt for limited involvement to assuage Hamas and save face in front of its devoted and determined cadre while still preserving itself. The group may intensify rocket shelling and send its elite Radwan commando unit to carry out raids of varying magnitude—depending on the state of affairs in Gaza—across the blue line.

Nader, the political analyst, said that in the end, the decision would be made in Tehran, depending on Iran’s calculus. “Hamas is a strategic asset for Iran and a huge instrument of pressure. It offered Iran clout inside Israel,” he said. “If they feel they are about to lose this strategic asset that they have been investing in for years, they will push Hezbollah to open another front.”

As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken went on a six-nation tour of the Middle East to prevent a regional conflict last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Beirut and Baghdad and met Hamas’s leadership in Doha to firm up the alliance among Iran’s proxies. “In light of the continued aggression, war crimes, and siege on Gaza, opening other fronts is a real possibility,” Amir-Abdollahian said in Beirut.

Hezbollah is heavily armed and a much more serious adversary for Israel. It has devoted fighters, a loyal support base, and thousands of reservists, who on any given day express a desire to move to Europe or the United States to build a better life but are still unwavering in their support to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

Both Israel and Hezbollah have warned of bombing each other back to the “stone age,” and military experts agree that it would be a destructive war for both sides.

Israel can destroy Lebanon, but Hezbollah, too, can cause a huge amount of damage and attack critical installations and population centers. It can fire volleys of rockets to overwhelm the Iron Dome air defense system and open a third front in southern Syria against the Israel-held Golan Heights. “The Syrian front will open if the situation deteriorates to a dangerous extent,” Farhat said.

In August, Nasrallah warned that it would take a “few high-precision missiles” to destroy Israel airports “civilian and military” and other targets including “the Dimona [nuclear] power station.”

The last war with Israel definitely hurt Lebanon, but it catapulted Hezbollah from a rookie militia to a “savior.” Hezbollah built a huge museum in the mountains to celebrate its performance. Tales of how it emerged from under the ground, via tunnels, and fought Israelis are the stuff of legend in villages on the border. These villages are now tense, and so are Lebanese elsewhere in the country.

So far, the exchange of fire between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces has been frequent but calibrated so as not to escalate. But that’s no comfort for people who are far too acquainted with how quickly skirmishes can turn into full-blown conflicts.

“Another collapsed Middle Eastern nation, it’s not a joke,” says Ghanem. “We hope it doesn’t happen [in Lebanon].”

[beardedmrbean]

AMay 17 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows a black and white image of several members of Congress gathered together.

The post criticized Republicans for "attacks on the poor and the sick with the threat of catastrophic debt default," then made a claim about former President Donald Trump:

"Trump increased that debt far more than any president in history," the post says in part. "Under Trump, Republicans − and Democrats − had no objection to raising the debt ceiling three times."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries shared a similar claim on Twitter that garnered over 11,000 likes. A version of that post was posted on Facebook by the left-wing account Occupy Democrats and shared more than 900 times.

Our rating: False

The total federal debt increased more under the Obama administration in terms of raw dollars than any other president, according to government data. Experts say it is difficult to determine how much debt one president is responsible for since spending and policies can carry over from one administration to the next.

Obama incurred more debt than any other president

The post comes after weeks of standstill between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the issue of raising the debt ceiling, which limits how much the government can borrow, as USA TODAY reported. 

But contrary to the post’s claim, the total federal debt increased more under former President Barack Obama than it did under the Trump administration, according to David Primo, a political science and business administration professor at the University of Rochester.

There are different ways of measuring debt, experts said. 

Using Treasury Department data, the total public debt, which includes intragovernmental holdings and public debt, increased by approximately $7.8 trillion from the start of Trump’s presidency on Jan. 20, 2017, to when he left office on Jan. 19, 2021. Under Obama, however, the public debt increased by about $9.3 trillion from when he was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, to when he left office on Jan. 19, 2017.

Some experts look at debt accumulated each fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1 of a given calendar year and ends Sept. 30 of the next year, according to Primo. That yields similar results.

Fact check: No, Trump is not required to register as a sex offender after E. Jean Carroll case

At the end of fiscal year 2016 − three months before Trump took office − the debt was about $19.5 trillion, according to historical fiscal year debt data from the Office of Management and Budget. That number increased to about $26.9 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2020 three months before Trump left office, marking a $7.4 trillion increase.

However, at the end of fiscal year 2008 before Obama took office, the debt was about $10 trillion and increased to about $19.5 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2016 before Obama left office, netting approximately a $9.5 trillion increase, according to the data. 

There are caveats to these comparisons: Trump was only in office for four years while Obama was in office for eight years. The data for the federal fiscal year overlaps. And in both cases, the debt is measured using the nominal amount added each year, so it doesn't account for inflation.

Some economists believe the debt-to-GDP ratio is a better metric for gauging debt increase because the nominal levels of debt do not matter as much as how much debt the nation has as a share of its output, Primo said. Which president ranks first in this category would depend on the method of calculation used but Trump would not have the highest figures regardless, Primo said.

"In the post-WWII era, the increases in debt as a percentage of GDP were highest during and right after WWII," Primo said. "In the modern era, it’s still not Trump."

Experts say it is hard to blame any one president on rising debt

There are several reasons why it is difficult to cast the blame for increasing debt on any one president, experts said.

Debt increases are due to policies jointly agreed to by Congress and the president, so Congress bears some responsibility, according to Primo.

For instance, Obama signed into law a 2009 stimulus package passed by Congress, which extended former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, and a tax extenders omnibus bill at the end of 2015, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Both policies worsened debt.

Fact check: Post wrongly claims new House reimbursement policy circumvents Constitution

When Trump was in office, he signed into law the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which lowered statutory tax rates on all taxable income levels and made debt soar, according to the Tax Policy Center and ProPublica.

“The country takes on debt anytime its outlays exceed its revenues,” Primo said. “This can occur due to one-time expenses such as the COVID-19 relief package or to structural changes to the budget, such as tax cuts or the creation of new government programs. In the long run, the biggest drivers of debt increases will be due to entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security.”

All presidents also inherit spending from previous administrations, noted William Hoagland, senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

For instance, the Affordable Care Act implemented under Obama carried over to Trump’s presidency. The act expands the Medicaid program and provides health insurance to low-income consumers.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the claim for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The Associated Press and PolitiFact also debunked the claim.

Our fact-check sources:

David Primo, May 23-30, Email exchange with USA TODAY

William Hoagland, May 23-30, Email exchange with USA TODAY

Steve Ellis, May 24-26 Email exchange with USA TODAY

Treasury Department, accessed May 26, Debt to the Penny

Office of Management and Budget, accessed May 26, Federal debt data

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, July 25, 2016, Has President Obama Doubled the National Debt?

Tax Policy Center, accessed May 30, Briefing Book

ProPublica, Jan. 14, 2021, Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years

Associated Press, May 18, FACT FOCUS: Who’s to blame for the national debt? It’s more complicated than one culprit