The amount of debt globally has soared more than 40 percent, to$100 trillion, since the first signs of the financial crisis asgovernments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession andcompanies took advantage of record low interest rates.

The $30 trillion increase between mid-2007 and mid-2013 compareswith a $3.86 trillion decline in the value of equities to $53.8trillion, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)and data compiled by Bloomberg. The jump in debt as measured by theBasel, Switzerland-based BIS in its quarterly review is almosttwice the U.S. economy.

Borrowing has soared as central banks suppress benchmarkinterest rates to spur growth after the U.S. subprime mortgagemarket collapsed and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcysent the world into its worst financial crisis since the GreatDepression. Yields on all types of bonds, from governments tocorporates and mortgages, average about 2 percent, down from morethan 4.8 percent in 2007, according to the Bank of America MerrillLynch Global Broad Market Index.