Looking at the Bank of International Settlements website, one can see the scale of the debt that nations are carrying

http://www.bis.org/statistics/secstats.htm

Looking that the UK, the numbers are worrying.

http://www.bis.org/statistics/c1.pdf

$2,539 bn = £1,656 bn = UK Government Debt:
$2,739 bn = £1786 bn = UK Financial Corporations
$594 bn = £387 bn = Non-Financial Corporations

TOTAL = $5,877bn = £3,834bn

Large numbers…..that is growing each day with punishing interest.