The G-20 Toronto Summit starts today. President Obama will argue for increased government spending (financed by debt) to stimulate the global economy, a distinctly Keynesian idea. The European countries will argue for restraint. It looks to be interesting.
The Economist recently published a special report on debt* and a related column on world debt. The column has a cool interactive graphic that shows debt for the major developed countries broken down by sector: government, household, nonfinancial business and financial business. Highly recommended reading.
*The special report has multiple parts. This link takes you to the first part. At that link, see the sidebar "In this special report" for links to the other parts.
Here's a quote that captures the main theme: "Borrowing has been the answer to all economic troubles in the past 25 years. Now debt itself has become the problem."
Like Keynes, The Economist is from England, but that seems to be about all they have in common. On our side of the pond, the Wall Street Journal also has an editorial today on this topic: The Keynesian Dead End.
Previous posts on this general topic: Fear the Boom and Bust (about Keynes and Hayek) and Greece's Financial Problems.
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