Debt crisis is the general term for a proliferation of massive public debt relative to tax revenues, especially in reference to Latin American countries during the 1980s, and the United States and the European Union since the mid-2000s. As well as the Chinese debt crises of 2015.
The European debt crisis is a crisis affecting several eurozone countries since the end of 2009. Member states affected by this crisis were unable to repay their government debt or to bailout indebted financial institutions without the assistance of third-parties (namely the International Monetary Fund, European Commission, and the European Central Bank). The causes of the crisis included high-risk lending and borrowing practices, burst real estate bubbles, and hefty deficit spending. As a result, investors have reduced their exposure to European investment products, and the value of the Euro has decreased.
The Latin American debt crisis was a financial crisis that originated in the early 1980s (and for some countries starting in the 1970s), often known as the "lost decade", when Latin American countries reached a point where their foreign debt exceeded their earning power and they were not able to repay it.
In the 1960s and 1970s many Latin American countries, notably Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, borrowed huge sums of money from international creditors for industrialization; especially infrastructure programs. These countries had soaring economies at the time so the creditors were happy to continue to provide loans. Initially, developing countries typically garnered loans through public routes like the World Bank. After 1973, private banks had an influx of funds from oil-rich countries and believed that sovereign debt was a safe investment.
Between 1975 and 1982, Latin American debt to commercial banks increased at a cumulative annual rate of 20.4 percent. This heightened borrowing led Latin America to quadruple its external debt from $75 billion in 1975 to more than $315 billion in 1983, or 50 percent of the region's gross domestic product (GDP). Debt service (interest payments and the repayment of principal) grew even faster, reaching $66 billion in 1982, up from $12 billion in 1975.
The Greek government-debt crisis (also known as the Greek depression) started in late 2009. It was the first of five sovereign debt crises in the eurozone – later referred to collectively as the European debt crisis. In Greece, triggers included the turmoil of the Great Recession, structural weaknesses in the Greek economy, and a sudden crisis in confidence among lenders. In late 2009 fears developed about Greece's ability to meet its debt obligations, due to revelations that previous data on government debt levels and deficits had been misreported by the Greek government. This led to a crisis of confidence, indicated by a widening of bond yield spreads and the cost of risk insurance on credit default swaps compared to the other Eurozone countries – Germany in particular. In 2012, Greece's government had the largest sovereign debt default in history. On June 30, 2015, Greece became the first developed country to fail to make an IMF loan repayment. At that time, Greece's government had debts of €323bn.