Do not invest in British government bonds, warns the chief executive of the world’s largest bond investor, William H. Gross. “[T]he UK is a must to avoid,” says Gross, head of the Pacific Investment Management Company (pimco), in his February investment outlook. “Its gilts are resting on a bed of nitroglycerine.”

“High debt with the potential to devalue its currency present high risks for bond investors,” he writes.

Gross lists the UK as one of 10 countries in a “ring of fire.”

“These red zone countries are ones with the potential for public debt to exceed 90 percent of gdp within a few years’ time, which would slow gdp by 1 percent or more,” he says. He warns that the British economy is in a vulnerable position because it has “the highest debt levels and a finance-oriented economy.”

Earlier this month, pimco declared that there was an 80 percent chance the British government would lose its aaa credit rating. pimco’s head of global portfolio management Scott Mather said that the downgrading of Britain’s credit rating is “just a question of when … not if.”

The Trumpet has been warning for years that a debt time bomb is about to explode in Britain. Now major investors see that high debt levels mean that UK government bonds are sitting on financial nitroglycerin. America’s economy is just as combustible.

A small spark at the right time could blow Britain and America’s economies sky high. For more information on the risk in Britain, see last week’s article “Fail Britannia?”