Quote Originally Posted by Lemur View Post
A little perspective ...

Note that the spendthrift Irish have a per capita debt of $549,819. Yikes! Can we foreclose on the Emerald Isle?
External debt isn't the same as government debt. External debt is all money owed by citizens, corporations and the government to outside parties (and doesn't take into account money owed to them by outside parties). It's to be expected that Switzerland would have a "bad" rating in that link of yours because of its banks. Or the Netherlands, wich according to that link have an external debt rating of 268% while the government debt is well below 60%.