“There is now only one big debtor in the world, the United States: its net asset position - the difference between financial assets held abroad by U.S. residents and financial liabilities to non-residents - is negative by more than $26 trillion, equivalent to 90% of GDP.” This is what the former Governor of the Bank of Italy, Ignazio Visco, says when interviewed by the weekly Affari&Finanza. “Many other countries,” the economist says, "instead have positive net financial assets, although individually much smaller in absolute terms; among creditor countries, the most important, between $3 trillion and $4 trillion, are those of Japan, Germany and China. This is mainly the result of U.S. imports exceeding their exports each year. The sum over time of the deficits has thus produced net liabilities whose value has increased extraordinarily over the past 15 years. While the trade deficits have grown in absolute terms (particularly China, which has accumulated a net goods export surplus of about $7 trillion since the turn of the century), however, it is not the trade deficits that have driven the extraordinary relative increase in U.S. net external liabilities. This increase is due in part to the appreciation of the dollar against the other currencies as a whole, but mainly to an exceptional increase of more than 370% in the stock prices of U.S. companies owned for a large share by investors from other countries”.