Portfolio Insights by Brett Arends

Which countries aren’t bust?

Commentary: Supercommittee flop isn’t unique

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Okay. Let’s get this straight.

Italy’s bust. Spain, maybe, too. Greece? Well, we know about them. France is wobbly. Portugal? Ireland? Don’t ask.

Japan is in terrible shape — gross government debts are more than twice the size of the economy.

And now, thanks to the failure of the “super” committee, America’s finances look pretty ghastly too.

Maybe it would be better to ask: Who isn’t in financial trouble?

The International Monetary Fund tracks the finances of 98 countries around the world.

The government's surveillance tools

The good news is that 84 of those countries have public finances in better shape than ours. The bad news? Eighty-four of those countries have public finances in better shape than ours.

Eighty-four. Makes you so proud, doesn’t it?

Based on the measure of “net public debt” as a percentage of GDP, most of the bottom countries are from what we like to call the “developed world” from Belgium and France to Portugal, Greece and Japan.

Net public debt may even flatter the picture. It ignores the debt that public agencies owe to themselves, even though, as in the case of Social Security, if someone else is counting it as an asset, then the government really needs to count it as a liability as well.

So, who’s in good shape?

Surprisingly, there are still some developed countries with free markets, stable politics and the rule of law which have also managed to keep their net public debts healthy. So far.

Most prominent among them is Norway, which manages to have no net debt at all. The country’s gigantic sovereign wealth fund — financed by North Sea oil revenues — means the government has the equivalent of net cash. Public assets, less government liabilities, amount to 160% of gross domestic product.

Does anybody care about the supercommittee?

The Norwegians, being socialists, failed to blow their North Sea oil windfall on flat screen TVs, fast cars, wine, women and song. Instead they saved the money for a rainy day. Crazy.

According to the IMF, the other main Scandinavian countries are also in good shape. The governments of Sweden and Finland also hold more assets than they have liabilities, while Denmark’s net debt is a mere 2% of the economy.

Elsewhere, Chile’s in balance. Saudi Arabia’s sitting on a ton of oil cash.

Australia and New Zealand have net debts of about 8% of the economy, says the IMF. Korea’s at 31% and Canada’s 35%.

Yet today the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes is 1.96%. The yield on 10-year Norwegian bonds is 2.5% and Australian bonds, 4%. Rational? You make the call.