Total US debt (public, private & consumer) is 320% of GDP. Government alone is about 70% of GDP. Consumer debt is pushing 90-100% of GDP, historic high. Rest is

Total US debt (public, private & consumer) is 320% of GDP. Government alone is about 70% of GDP. Consumer debt is pushing 90-100% of GDP, historic high. Rest is private sector. The 320% is a never-before-in-history number, even bigger than the great depression. Income is what is used to service debt. Conventional mortgage rules limit you to 3x mortgage debt to annual income. So debt to GDP ratio is entirely appropriate. The wealth figure you quote itself is bloated by debt - think of how houses increased in value due to all those easy loans they were handing out. Debt is a mathematical fact, unless discharged in some kind of bankruptcy, while the "wealth" is an accounting opinion, and valuations change. So as the debt comes due, more of it gets impaired, which means people who owned that debt have to write their assets down, which causes asset values to fall everywhere, ... classic debt-deflation. We are witnessing it right now. The only meaningful end is when debt gets vastly reduced. By then asset valuations would be a lot lower too.