It is OBVIOUS why other countries' debt tracks ours, and it does not involve the idiot "let us print and be merry, and we will never die" conclusion Krugman makes. It is because the dollar was, until recently, the world's sole reserve currency. Every good worldwide (most importantly petroleum) could be priced directly in dollars.
It is mutually-assured economic destruction. Except now, China, Russia, and others have begun to use a different reserve currency (their own, or gold) in trade.
Of course sovereign debtors won’t default. Default would do slightly more violence to such debtors than hyper-inflation would so they will always inflate their way out of debt rather than default.
Krugman chooses a simple argument to defend; one that no one is making. The threat isn’t default but hyper-inflation. He’s got no defense for that one.
Krugman is a raving lunatic.
The Fed is buying up mortgage debt to "keep rates low". Ignore for a moment that their policy is insane and will only make the economy worse and distorts the mortgage market sustaining an unsustainable bubble. The real reason they are doing that is to keep rates on treasuries low so that the politicians of both parties can keep borrowing and spending (albeit D more than R). The low yield on treasuries causes demand in other sovereign debt markets which forces their rates down. So not only do our politicians benefit from the Fed's insanity, but European politicians as well.
A second and more serious problem with the Fed's low rates is that they loan money at essentially zero interest and proclaim that they want to weaken the dollar. The carry traders borrow at that low rate, invest in "guaranteed" sovereign debt like Britain, and hope to repay the loans with cheaper dollars. The ploy works until it unwinds with the dollar rapidly strengthening against the foreign currency and the investors bailing out of those foreign bonds driving their prices down, a double whammy. Japan has been doing this to the rest of the world for 20 odd years adding fuel to bubbles and worsening the subsequent crashes (e.g. the 2008 worldwide crash was made much worse by the skyrocketing yen).
Krugman’s like the economists in the Soviet Union who told everyone that the capitalist countries were doing worse! Look at the charts! The charts I just drew with my magic marker pen!
This man is a joke, a communist, and a laughing stock to most people. Didn’t he offer financial advice to ENRON at one point? I wish only the worst for him.
Countries that print at will, don't keep being able to borrow in their own currencies. Lenders aren't idiots like Krugman.