S&P, of the S&P 500, issued a warning to the U.S. today about it’s debt load — but it didn’t issue one to Germany. In the April 19, 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “US Warned On Debt Load” we learned that the US debt load is now 10.6 of its gross domestic product. Britain’s debt load is almost as bad at 10.4%, and they were downgraded in 2009. France’s debt is 7% of its gross domestic product. Germany — and get this! — had a debt load of only 3.3%, the lowest debt ratio in the western world among leading economic countries.

No doubt this is a legacy of Germany’s fear of inflation that dates back to its stock market collapse in 1923. This was far worse than the American stock market crash of 1929. If you held onto your stocks during the 1929 debacle, you would earn all your money back and more. If you held on in Germany in 1923, the stocks would never recover and you would lose all your money. This is the only incident like this in the entire 200 year history of the modern stock market. And it was not by chance that Adolf Hitler attempted his first “putsch” in November of 1923, the Beer Hall Putsch. It failed, but it was a warning sign for the future. It would take him ten more years to gain the title of Chancellor and finally Fuhrer one year later in 1934.

Germany learned its lesson about inflation the hard way. Does the US have to learn the hard way, too?