As the global debt crisis continues, how is debt burden arrived at?

Measuring debt burden
As I proceed with the discussion of the debt crisis, the first issue that should be clarified is how to determine the burden of public or sovereign indebtedness among countries. Countries vary widely in both their economic size and the value of public or sovereign debt that they carry. Obviously, therefore, one billion US dollars worth of public debt would weigh more heavily on a small country like Guyana, than it would on a large country like the United States.