The return of the bad old days of debt

The global debt pile is bigger than ever, says the IMF. It's time to be concerned.

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Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan: causing a crisis?
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"We are heading back to the bad old days," says Ed Conway in The Times "and most of the world doesn't seem to have noticed." According to a report last week from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the global debt pile is bigger than ever. The sum of private and public debt worldwide is $164trn, or 225% of GDP. That's 12% of GDP more than in the late 2000s. "Given what happened [then], it is natural to be concerned," says the Financial Times.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.