"have borrowed to make up the difference....the balance of payments defecit needs to be halted NOW!!"
Brown was an advocate of a fiat economy, that is, one based on the faith that one can and will continue to make the payments that one has signed up to.
It is perfectly reasonable to borrow money when one is able to make the repayments.
However, the other side of a fiat economy is that one is expected to exercise judgement, one has to take a realistic view of life, just as we do in karting. We do, don't we? All of the mature drivers all realise that we have to go to work on Monday morning and drive appropriately, it is only those with a different perspective who try the risky or deliberately dangerous moves like a nudge, punt or committed dive up the inside, isn't it?
But just as only the innocent end up at the side of the track, only the innocent end up on the wrong side of a financial situation. It wasn't Brown's stupidity that led to Britain's woes, it was the fact that he didn't see, didn't expect the lunge into risk from America.
The other trouble with a fiat economy is that the willingness to take risk is catching. One sees 'them' getting away with it and making a pile of money so one does it too. Again, in karting this is exactly the same as the kerb-riding discussion. Someone gets away with riding the kerb when making a mistake and gets an advantage, so they then start to do it deliberately and then everyone else has to copy them or lose out.
Yes, there are rules to prevent excess risk, just as there are rules to prevent kerb-riding and just as there are people who will claim that, despite having practised it assiduously, their use of the kerbs (the same kerb on the every lap, to the inch) was because they had a good safety-related reason, there are people who will explain that it was necessary to make / take those risky loans.
And, just as there are very fast drivers who you can trust not to punt you off the track just to get by, and others who one would not trust on the same straight, let alone close up in a corner, so there are institutions and countries that one would not trust to make or take an honest loan.
When it happens in karting, there's often a red flag with stories of 'loading up', punting and injury. When it happens in the financial markets countries go bankrupt.
There's a good case for making all politicians and bankers go karting every weekend, just to teach them a respect for risk. The trouble is, knowing them, they would claim it all on expenses, making us pay.
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