If everyone is borrowing then who owing? The trick is to borrow against the future generations. Assume that it was legally allowed to borrow $1000 against the income that would be generated by your kids 10 years later. You can use this to accumulate infinite amount of debt by extending to grad-kids and so on. This is more or less what is happening.
Government made promises to pay pensions/medical benefits to large quantity of people but doesn't have that kind of money from tax income. So they borrow from the future generation by printing more money promising to pay itself back. The net result is inflation like phenomenon which rises cost of services but not the income for the new folks who enter the job market. So this debt indicates amount of hardship future generations will encounter, at least at the start of their careers.
Government made promises to pay pensions/medical benefits to large quantity of people but doesn't have that kind of money from tax income. So they borrow from the future generation by printing more money promising to pay itself back. The net result is inflation like phenomenon which rises cost of services but not the income for the new folks who enter the job market. So this debt indicates amount of hardship future generations will encounter, at least at the start of their careers.