There are two problems with debt in the game in my opinion. It’s too easy to get into a debt crisis. I imagine this is partially to increase the challenge of the game, but the debt crisis doesn’t have any significant effect so this challenge is limited. It should be a lot harder to get into the debt crisis but it should hit a lot harder once you do get into it. First of all, interest rates for each credit rating are too high. A country with a AAA credit rating at the beginning of the game should be paying interest rates of like 0.5 percent or less. Credit rating downgrades happen too quickly compared to real life and result in larger interest rate increases compared to real life. In real life many countries’ interest rates on debt have gone down even as debt climbs higher and higher. In part this is because technology and industrialization have made people so wealthy that there’s a ton of investment cash looking to buy treasury bonds. In part it’s because of people’s higher confidence in stability of developed countries. I don’t know if stability plays a role in the credit ratings in the game currently, but if not then they should. The debt crisis should be much more severe but there should also be more options to deal with it like making a deal with the IMF, declaring bankruptcy and abandoning the currency, etc.
Thanks for everyone’s comments. Balancing the game is VERY hard 
I know that the debt crisis and similar events are not as bad as they should be, and this is on my list of things to fix.
Currently credit ratings are assessed like this:
- Debt to GDP is analyzed
- Current account surplus/deficit is analyzed.
- An adjustment is made (negatively) if either Quantitative Easing or Helicopter Money is currently active.
Stability is a good point, it should be an input to this calculation and I’ll make sure it gets added. I’m also going to spend some time on making sure the debt crisis really is a pretty bad event, rather than a speed bump.
FWIW there was a recent change that added stability as an input to corporate exodus, meaning that event may also be more likely now.
She can direct the PM to prorogue parliament. That’s one of her biggest powers. The Supreme Court overturned that, but the power hasn’t gone away. It can be done again and while parliament is prorogued, it can disrupt democracy. Actually, now that I think about it, proroguing parliament should be a dilemma which the UK should have.
In short:
Parliament is being a pain Prime Minister, do you want the Monarch to use the nuclear option?
Pew Pew!