If you haven’t already seen it, you should check out the Nationmaster website. Virtually any government statistic you need is available on that site, conveniently split among 30 different categories, and multiple sub-categories.  In honor of the recent opening of the IOUSA documentary, I’d like to share the national debt statistics from Nationmaster.

From the graph below, the United States is listed as only the 51st worst in terms of national debt as a percentage of GDP.  The chart can be seen in its entirety by selecting the Economy category, and the Debt-External (per GDP) sub-category.  The United States national debt is 86 percent of GDP.  Notable countries ahead (in worse fiscal shape) of the United States are Ireland (758%), the United Kingdom (387%), Netherlands (329%), Switzerland (300%),  Sweden (173%), and many others.

As a side note, I don’t buy into the debt per GDP percentage calculation, and would much rather see national debt statistics measured as a percentage of government tax revenues, not GDP.  But nonetheless, the chart is below: