So there 3 major categories of debt when talking about a nation: 1. Household 2. Corporate 3. Government Each country has a slightly different mix between the

So there 3 major categories of debt when talking about a nation: 1. Household 2. Corporate 3. Government Each country has a slightly different mix between these 3. Keynesian economics (which is pretty old stuff) explains why all these 3 tend to sum to a number similar between nations. In other words, if one country has a lot of government debt there is a tendency for said country to have less household and corporate debt. This is the case in Japan where the government debt is at over 200% of GDP, but household and corporate debt is super low. In the great recession in America household debt declined a good bit. Corporate debt declined a little. And government debt went up a lot. With interest rates so low, near 0% or lower in inflation adjusted terms, holding debt is a "good thing" provided said debt is funding profitable investments. Thus you do not want households growing their debt, since they spend the money. Nor do you want government debt to increase except as a stimulus. Meanwhile corporate debt represents businesses making capital funding decisions. What has happened with ultra low rates is business are financing themselves by borrowing instead of issuing equity. Share buy backs are a big news, but more risky is leveraged buyouts. In either case it is hard to see how these borrowings are "wise investments". To the extent increased corporate borrowing is going to buybacks or LBOs, maybe those are mis-investments. I might call them simple "capital chasing rent seeking", which also occurs when real estate prices go up. Altogether corporate debt is the nicest form of debt you'll find in an economic mix. China is mostly government debt, with rising household debt and under performing corporate debt. If America's corporate debt is going to offset equity issuing while the balance books remain solid, that is different beast versus China's situation. Which leads me to the more interesting topic: the reduction in the natural rate of return on capital. GDP growth is driven by techonolical progress. Yet our recent tech progress has been in non-capital intensive indsutries. Software does not truly require lots of money. In the past, for example railroads, a good business plan was less about "can this work" than "This is how we shall bridge the risks building out this clearly attractive business". Steel mills. Oil wells. Factories. Tooling for said factories. All capital intensive. Instead today's big investments are things like-driving up property prices, or leveraged company buyouts. Things where capital is "competing" for an otherwise zero-sum flow of cash. All this I bring back to my own personal financial investing. Zero-sum competitions are boring and often leave the competitors poorer for their efforts. As such I want to find in my own local country chances to invest my time and money into value creation. In our case that means building a video game (my profession), and building a mid-scale solar power-plant (50KW).