[cowanon77]

It's similar to the problems with GDP, CPI, U-3 (Unemployment rate), etc. You really need at least 30-100 metrics or more to get a grasp of what's really happening in a complex eonomy. Debt can be good if it causes more growth in the economy, and bad if just gets trapped in a few foreign investment funds. But the number by itself doesn't tell us any of that, yet that is all that grabs the focus.

Often politicians will try to shrink or control the debt without deeply investiagting the true causes, because the real causes may be politically inconvenient.

[ptak]

That sounds a little like saying, "Don't check my bank account balance, because I've got lots of things in motion and some of them are going to pay out big." Might be true but the balance still says a lot about your general posture, how aggressive/risky you are, how defensive.