<blockquote>'One of the loudest creaking sounds coming from the markets right now is the global economy straining under a record pile of debt. The world has continued to borrow hand over fist since the financial crisis, adding nearly $60 trillion since 2007 in the process of pushing the worldwide debt load to $200 trillion, or nearly three times the size of the entire global economy. And that figure takes us only to 2014; we don't yet have fresh debt tallies from last year.
Hard data are often hard to find and arrives late. But no matter how you measure, global debt levels are raising alarms over whether we're on the brink of another debt-fueled economic meltdown. The potential for disaster depends on how contagious a new round of defaults would prove and whether writedowns in one part of the world could cause losses in others. That's what happened in the last two major debt crises, which rippled through the global economy.
- Matthew Philips,
The World's Debt Is Alarmingly High. But Is It Contagious? February 22, 2016</blockquote>
Context<blockquote>
'..using debt to fund growth just leads to "zombifying" economies.'No Inflation In Sight, Say Two Bond Masters - By Jonathan R. Laing</blockquote>