Is this how the great international borrowing spree ends?

SPEAKER_C

That's basically what some of the richest countries in the world have been doing.

SPEAKER_C

Over the past decade and a half, their governments have been racking up record amounts of debt.

SPEAKER_C

After decades of heavy spending, the Canadian government now owes more than a trillion dollars in debt.

SPEAKER_B

And that is why a lot of economists are paying very close attention to France right now.

SPEAKER_C

Why are investors so spooked by France specifically?

SPEAKER_B

Or is the better question, why haven't investors gotten spooked by all the rest of us, all the other countries that are also on this runaway borrowing spree?

SPEAKER_H

If I write in Le Monde that this could happen and this is how it could happen and the steps, it would give more concreteness to an idea that people have not perceived.

SPEAKER_C

Another possibility is that if things start to get much worse, the European Central Bank could come to the rescue.

SPEAKER_C

Though, it's never had to bail out a country this big.

SPEAKER_G

Now, the thing is, if you don't if you do it stupidly and you have to do it very fast, you might end up cutting spending more than you would have to.

SPEAKER_B

I think that the unnerving thing about what we're seeing in France is that what's happening there rhymes with a lot of what's been happening here in Washington.

SPEAKER_B

You think France is running huge budget deficits every year, we are running even bigger deficits.

SPEAKER_B

But the most important thing that the US still has right now is credibility.

SPEAKER_B

mehow, people still think that despite all our government borrowing, all our deficit spending, all our political dysfunction,