Brian Dixon wrote:one that doesn't get into debt in the first place.
And why not? Let's be more like North Korea for example? Oh hang on. No-one will risk lending them any money!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
An interesting example of sensible fiscal policy is Norway where Oil Revenue has been invested in the world's largest Sovereign Wealth Fund (whereas we used ours to keep taxes low so that voters would vote for whoever would give them the opportunity to buy even more shiny shiny new toys).
Their “Pension Fund Global” is worth $882 billion, more than double national GDP. No sovereign-wealth fund is bigger. It owns more than 2% of all listed shares in Europe and over 1% globally. Its largest holdings are in Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft and Nestlé, among 9,000-odd firms in 78 countries YET they have a national debt of 34% of GDP.
The obvious reason for this is that they can borrow money cheap on international markets whilst relying on their investments to make money at a much higher rate, but what would I know about macro-economics?
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