Live within our means

Sir, – Listening to public comments over this weekend past, on the cost of this pandemic and how we as a country (Scotland) should “pay our share” shows how much knowledge the average Bill, Tam or Jean is lacking.

Mostly the comment was Scotland is “skint”, quoting the GERS £15 billion, which is disappointing due to this.

Margaret Thatcher’s messaging of the 1980s compared the economy of a country to a household budget. Living within our means was the mantra, and it still seems to be hard-wired into the older generations. For a household budget, it stands in good stead for most of us with fixed incomes.

It is, however, not how the economies of countries need to be run, however simple it appears.

If a huge unexpected event takes place, similar to a major flood or fire devastating your home, an insurance policy provides the support required for your family. For any (every) country that encounters unprecedented costs, there doesn’t seem to be a super multinational insurance company that a country can pay monthly contributions to and can turn to to get a pay out to cover these costs. There is no insurance company, but there is the market, where individuals and wealth funds can purchase bonds to fund these governments’ unexpected costs.

These infrequent events get repaid over many years, for example the UK only recently paid off the bonds issued to fund the Napoleonic Wars.

The Second Word War debt was only paid off on December 31 2006, some 61 years after.

Paying this unplanned and unprecedented cost too quickly will only hurt the poorer parts of our communities.

Alistair Ballantyne. Birkhill,

Angus.