Corporate private debt is maybe the next worst, but as I said corporations have many more tools for dealing with it especially if they are otherwise healthy. There's a huge market out there for equity in healthy and especially growing companies.

I have heard the interesting view that government debt and private debt are not even the same thing.

When you think about it: the government prints its own money (or authorizes the entity that does, e.g. the Fed). How can you truly owe a debt in your own sovereign (fiat) currency? How is debt still a meaningful concept there?

It seems to me (and IANAE) that government debt is more like equity in the nation. Owning a bond is like owning stock in the USA, but with the caveat that you are forced to resell this stock at its maturity date. Maybe something closer to a weird kind of convertible note.

I still think debt is a meaningful concept there, in that that that debt is going to be relied on by the holders to provide an income in the future that they are thinking of in terms of a reasonable increase in the general money supply and inflation. It's not a black and white situation as with personal debt and I'm certainly more sympathetic than I used to be to the idea that excess sovereign debt isn't a serious issue (as long as the sovereign controls the underlying currency, looking at you Greece).

On the other hand, I think the same analysis tells us that the sovereign should just print the money and distribute it (via, say, a citizens dividend or Keen's modern debt jubilee) rather than rely on the banks debt-creation mechanism.