> Central bank rate setting is basically an adjustable rate mortgage for states and their entire economic systems. The debt markets are complex but at a high l

> Central bank rate setting is basically an adjustable rate mortgage for states and their entire economic systems. The debt markets are complex but at a high level, this is an absurd analogy. The debt the author is worried about are largely based upon fixed interest rates for the life of the debt. As such, one can write down on a piece of paper the obligations borrowers have, and they will not change over time due to the structure of the debt. If one is going to write an article about predictions based upon the interest rate markets, one needs to do better than "wow, look at all this debt, surely it will not be possible for parties to meet their expected obligations!" If we were in a high rate environment, would one argue there is less default risk? It doesn't make sense. If you're going to make a prediction, make a prediction. Don't just say "countries will default" if you can't explain what chain of causality gets you there. High debt loads with low rates do not cause defaults: other events do, ones that are hard or impossible to predict. So the analysis contains zero real predictions or information, other than claiming that somehow an unexpected crisis will be made worse by the debt. It seems equally likely as not that debt will exacerbate whatever the next crisis is, it seems extremely unlikely that it will be the root cause.