Borrowing capacity is an asset that could end up having been consumed and squandered.

The capacity to borrow at a reasonable interest rate (or the seignorage when printing money) is a very valuable strategic sovereign asset. 

It should not be squandered away by the generation in turn only to benefit its members, or with some non-productive investments. 

When public borrowings are authorized, that should come with a clear recognition that a part of that borrowing capacity is being consumed, and with an indication of who (children or grandchildren born what year) are  expected to have to pay back that debt.

Here a letter on this published by the Washington Post in 2020

PS. Here's another letter on the subject published by the Washington Post November 2022

http://unsustainabledebtsustainability.blogspot.com/2004/11/bank-regulators-are-favoring-too-much.html

PS. How much would the MMT nonsense have advanced, had banks had to hold the same amount of capital/equity against loans to the government than against loans to the citizens?

PS. Have we not already imposed a too large reverse mortgage on our economy?

PS. When in 1988 bank regulators assigned America’s public debt a 0.00% risk weight, its debt was $2.6 trillion, 50% of GDP, now way over $28 trillion, about 125% of GDP, and it still has a 0.00% risk weight. When do you think that risk weight should increase to 0.01%? 

PS. At what level does public debt turn into a bomb that cannot be defused with traditional orthodox economic political tools, something which can only end with it exploding?

PS. By assigning a zero-risk weight to Eurozone sovereign’s debts, even though none of these can print euros o their own, much of that capacity to borrow at a reasonable interest rates that could be so helpful with the outbreak of coronavirus has now been consumed?

PS. At the end of the coronavirus/COVID19 day, who is going to pay for the overconsumption of our sovereign borrowing capacity, the older or the younger? History will tell but, meanwhile, I guess we all better take cover under the bliss of ignorance.

PS. If testing for coronavirus/COVID19 is “not needed but nice to do”, how much of our sovereign’s capacity to borrow at reasonable rates should we consume doing testing?

PS. During a dangerous drought, either you have experts distributing water to those who may need it most, or you give everyone a little water for each one to manage their own, but what you don't do is water the grass... e.g. $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill/stimulus plan.

PS. MMT is a great act of economic miracle cure, peddled in the best tradition of medicine shows by those who as long as they can enjoy now what more public debt can bring them, do not care one iota about those who will have to foot the bill in the future, with high interest rates or runaway inflation.

PS. GDP can be obese or muscular. A GDP resulting from excess of carbs, such as QEs and bank regulations that favors what’s perceived or decreed as safe, e.g., sovereigns, residential mortgages and AAA rated; and the lack of proteins, such as that caused by bank regulations that disincentivizes credit to SMEs and entrepreneurs, will, almost by definition, be an obese GDP.

!!!Easy Street!!!

Bank regulators are favoring too much public borrowings

The Public Debt Balloon keeps on inflating and flying Up, Up and Away, ever since the Basel Committee cut its moorings, with their Sovereign 0% risk weight

Here part of my letter that was published November 2004 in the Financial Times:

“We wonder how many Basel propositions it will take before they start realizing the damage they are doing by favoring so much bank lending to the public sector. In some developing countries, access to credit for the private sector is all but gone, and the banks are up to the hilt in public credits.”

http://teawithft.blogspot.com/2004/11/basel-is-just-mutual-admiration-club.html

PS. For example, in 1988 when regulators assigned it a 0% risk weight, the US debt was $2.6 trillion. At end of 2017 it was US$20.2 trillion, and it is still 0% risk weighted.  If it keeps on being 0% risk weighted, it is doomed to become 100% risky.