The other thing about the 'maxing out the credit card' political correspondent meme is.... this is what the 'credit card' in this case is for.

'Sound money' as some former officials call it, is about nurturing a reputation for predictability, prudence and promise-keeping in fiscal policy.

These things are not ends in themselves, but in turn pay out when the nation confronts existential challenges, like war, depressions, or the one we are going through now.

Not 'maxing out the credit card' would make all the efforts of previous generations pointless; and greatly immiserate the lives of future generations too, bequeathed a damaged and disease-ravaged state.

The favour done to us by lenders is not entirely one way, either. Modern economies prosper greatly by not forcing savers to put things under the proverbial mattrass.

The continuity of governments, their promises, the willingness of their citizens to submit to taxes, is a service to lenders too, who might otherwise face rapacious domestic regimes, or other financial uncertainty.

In this sense, the well operated *institution of* debt is an asset!

The explosion of borrowing is not a cause for concern. The virus is. The response of government borrowing and spending is the marvel of collective endeavour and consent that we should clap not so much less heartily than we clapped the NHS.

The counterpoints are the countries who have not so well nurtured this institution and have pressing fiscal limits and are going lose more lives as a result.

We look at those countries, and shake our heads at the failure to marshal collective action and reputation to allow them to shift resources through time, wondering how they could get from where they are to where we are, and how we can stop ourselves becoming them.

And we shouldn't stop there, but instead be stepping in to substitute our own institutions' power to shift resources through time for their failing ones, and provide funds for them to get closer to the outcomes we will achieve in fighting covid. [Not reducing aid, therefore].