Remember, the U.S. doesn't have to pay off all its debt, and there's an easy way to fix it, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says

US Capitol dome against backdrop of dollars (Credit: Getty Images)

Ballooning U.S. debt has stirred growing alarm on Wall Street, but economist Paul Krugman isn't worried and said you shouldn't be either.

In a New York Times op-ed on Thursday, the Nobel laureate wrote that while $34 trillion is a record, debt as a share of GDP roughly matches levels seen at the end of World War II and is well below Japan's current debt burden as well as the U.K.'s postwar level, neither of which triggered a debt crisis.