WASHINGTON — Eight years after the financial crisis, the world is suffering from a debt hangover of unprecedented proportions.Gross debt in the non-financial sector has more than doubled in nominal terms since the turn of the century, reaching $152-trillion last year, and it’s still rising, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Wednesday. The figure includes debt held by governments, non-financial firms and households.Current debt levels now sit at a record 225% of world gross domestic product (GDP), the IMF said Wednesday in its semi-annual Fiscal Monitor, noting that about two-thirds of the liabilities reside in the private sector. The rest of it is public debt, which has increased to 85% of GDP last year from below 70%.Slow global growth is making it difficult to pay off the obligations, "setting the stage for a vicious feedback loop in which lower growth hampers deleveraging and the debt overhang exacerbates the slowdown", said the Washington-based fund."Excessive privat...
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