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Comment by skyberrys | Hacker News Reader

Am I supposed to take away from these plots that we are all good since it's been steadily above the prior record in 1940 since 2020? Or is everything okay since it was really going up and it did course correct to a bit more of a straight line recently?

The article seems to be communicating that this rate of spending is not sustainable.

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Japan debt/GDP is more than twice the US's.

https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/11792/what-lev...

Not to say that it's okay, and Japan's economy certainly has issues with stagnation due to the debt load, but it's also not a "we have imminent hyperinflation" kind of thing either.

The concern with the past five months isn't so much the level of debt, it's the rate of change - we're increasing it faster than in the past... and this isn't a COVID-level crisis or a 2008-style deep recession either where Keynesian logic might make more sense.

Is Japan still the largest creditor in the world???

> Japan debt/GDP is more than twice the US's.

Japan borrows on 0.75% interest rate compared to current US's 3.5%.

This is old information. Japan's borrowing costs have spiked and are ~2.18% as of this comment. Yields are surging due to their debt load (currently ~240% of GDP).

Citations:

https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/government-bond-yield

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/business/jgb-trade-excite...

https://www.axios.com/2026/01/26/japan-bond-market-dollar-ye...

https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/2026012067/japa...

https://robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/how-japan-can-escape-its...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2dz11pykwno

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