I am proposing to post this explanation of the nature of national debt in this blog's glossary once comments upon it have been made. I might also try to do a shorter form version once comments have been made:
National debt is one of the most difficult concepts to understand within economics, not least because there is a very good argument that it does not exist, at least as it is commonly understood in countries like the UK.
A country's national debt as conventionally described in a country like the UK, where the whole of the sum described as such is denominated in the fiat currency that is the legal tender of that jurisdiction, is the cumulative difference between the money expended by a government using the funds created for its use by its own central bank over a period of time (usually considered to have started in 1694 in the case if the UK[1]) and the net taxation revenues that it has generated over that same period.
This definition of the UK's national debt represents an accounting identity given the facts noted, i.e. it has to be true. The money created by the UK's central bank (the Bank of England) for the government that it serves is either in existence or it does not. There is no other possible state that the money in question might have.
Money created by a central bank for the government it serves always ceases to exist when tax is paid. The cancellation of money created as a result of government expenditure is, as a consequence, the primary purpose of taxation. It follows that taxation does not fund government expenditure. It does instead cancel the money created as a consequence of that expenditure taking place as a means of controlling inflation.
It is neither necessary, let alone always possible, for a government to collect tax revenues equivalent to the sum that it spends into its economy during a period. There are several reasons for this:
- The government in question might wish to leave some part of the money that it creates in circulation within the economy because doing so provides that economy with the base liquidity, or money supply, required to ensure that transactions in the fiat currency that it has declared to be the legal tender of the jurisdiction can take place.
- The government might wish to stimulate the economy for which it is responsible as a consequence of the fiscal policy that it has adopted, which means that it must leave part of the sums it has expended into the economy uncollected by way of tax charged.
- Leaving a part of that expenditure uncollected in the economy means that the balance in question can be re-deposited with it in savings mechanisms of various forms. The government's ability to vary the rate of interest paid on those savings mechanisms that it makes available provides it with the means to influence interest rates in the economy as a whole as part of its overall economic strategy that combines both fiscal and monetary policy.
- The forecasting of taxation revenues is a decidedly imprecise art and is most definitely not a science. The level of tax paid in an economy can, for example, vary considerably as a result of exogenous shocks, such as the global financial crisis in 2008 and the covid crisis of 2020, both of which massively reduced taxation yields in the years in question.
- Levels of government expenditure can also vary in unplanned ways after taxation rates have been set, with 2008 and 2020 providing further evidence in this regard.
There are two possible responses that a government might make to the injection of money that it has had newly created on its behalf by its central bank that it does not plan to recover by way of tax charges. Those choices are that it might either:
- Leave the balance that it owes to its central bank for new money created to fund expenditure as outstanding on what would, in effect, be an overdraft facility with that central bank. This was quite commonplace in the UK until 2000, the account in question being called The Ways and Means account[2].
- Induce those persons still in possession of those funds in the private sector economy to deposit them with it on savings accounts of various forms. This has been the universal practice since 2008.
The most common types of savings accounts offered by the UK (and most similar) government for this purpose are:
- Bond or gilt accounts, where a sum is saved for a fixed period at a fixed rate of interest with redemption taking place on a predetermined date at either a fixed amount or at an amount that is increased depending upon the rate of inflation within the jurisdiction from the time of issue of the bond to the time of its redemption.
- Very short-term savings accounts that are usually described as treasury bills that are only of any real interest to professional participants in the financial markets of a jurisdiction.
- Savings accounts are of a type more commonly provided by commercial banks, including instant access or term deposit facilities. In the UK, these are described as National Savings and Investments (NS&I) accounts.
- Unconventional savings products, which in the UK are best represented by premium bonds.
Some of these products are more commonly considered to be government borrowing in popular narratives, e.g. bonds and treasury bills tend to be referred to as government borrowing, whilst more conventional government-provided savings facilities such as NS&I accounts and unconventional savings products, such as premium bonds, tend to be thought of as savings accounts.
In reality, all these arrangements have a number of things in common:
- They are all intended to induce the deposit of what is, in effect, government-created money with government-backed savings agencies so that the government in question might then clear its apparent overdraft with its central bank that was created to facilitate government expenditure before taxation revenues were received, as always happens.
- All these balances are credits on the government's balance sheet. Such balances can either be considered to be liabilities, of which borrowing is a particular form, or they can be considered to be equity, i.e. sums without any fixed repayment date or obligation to pay a return.
- Because all of the savings accounts noted have an identifiable third party to whom a sum might eventually be payable, they can, correctly, be considered liabilities. This contrasts with any balance owed by the government to its own central bank, e.g., on its Ways and Means Account. Because that central bank is effectively a part of the government, there is no third party to whom liabilities are owed as a result, and as a consequence, any sum of money owed to that central bank by the government that controls it cannot be a liability but is, instead, a balance equivalent to equity capital. It should be added that since government-created money is spent into the economy via central bank reserve accounts, which are explained here, these balances are also equivalent to equity capital as they have no fixed repayment date, and there is no legal obligation to pay a return upon them, and none was until 2006.
- It follows that when a government chooses to induce people holding funds within its economy to save with it, with those sums saved effectively representing money created by it but not yet withdrawn from circulation as a consequence of taxation paid, it does, as a result, choose to substitute a liability on its balance sheet for capital on that same balance sheet. At the same time, it can be argued that it also chooses to accept a fixed obligation to a third party to make payment in compensation for their choice to hold funds with the government as opposed to having an arrangement where no such obligation exists.
The question that then arises is whether or not the decision by a government to voluntarily accept liability to third parties for sums that impose cost to their budgets can ever be an issue of economic concern within its overall microeconomic policy?
The obvious answer to this question is that this is not the case for three reasons. They are:
- Firstly, that those who have chosen to deposit funds with the government have done so voluntarily, knowing the terms on which they do so, also being aware that in the vast majority of cases repayment will not be due to them for a considerable period of time. The risk profile within this liability is, as a consequence, inherently low because the vast majority of it will not be due for payment at any point in time.
- Secondly, the vast majority of those choosing to deposit funds with the government will do so precisely because they are aware that, unlike commercial banks and deposit takers, a government possessed of its own central bank and its own currency that is acceptable for exchange within its own economy can never run out of money to make repayment to a person to whom a liability is owing by it, precisely because it can always create the necessary money to make that repayment by simply issuing a demand to its central bank to make the payment in question.
- Thirdly, within very broad parameters, the rate of interest payable by a government on its borrowing is normally its to choose because its own central bank determines the base interest rate in use in that economy at any point of time, and that base rate has significant influence upon other interest rates in use in that economy, including those payable on sums deposited with its government.
Why, then, is there an obsession, mainly on the part of politicians, with the size of the national debt that a country might have, usually expressed as a proportion of its national income or gross domestic product?
There is no rational answer to this question unless the debt in question is denominated in a currency other than that of the jurisdiction itself. This is, of course, commonplace in the case of low-income countries and those states that are, for example, dependent upon funding from international financial organisations such as the World Bank, most of whose loans are denominated in US dollars.
In those situations, it is the case that the liability owed by a government can create real financial stress for its jurisdiction because it is duty-bound to then generate revenues in the currency in which its liabilities are due. That requires that it maintain a steady flow of exports from its jurisdiction that are not matched by imports of equivalent value, and that necessarily means that a drain is imposed upon consumption within that jurisdiction to service the debt in question, the interest on which will necessarily represent a transfer of well-being from the borrowing state to that institution or state that made the loan to it. It is entirely possible in this circumstance for a country to become over-leveraged, meaning that it has borrowings in excess of its capacity to service repayments and it can, as a result, default on its obligations. However, this situation cannot be extrapolated to a jurisdiction that has borrowings solely or almost entirely denominated in its own currency, which is the circumstance of the UK, as outlined above.
For reasons that appear to be entirely political, confusion between the situations of states in these very different positions has been created. The result has been that pressure has been brought to bear on countries whose only borrowing is denominated in their own currencies to reduce or at least moderate that borrowing, even though by doing so they might:
- Restrict the necessary new money supply, and so liquidity, that their economy requires.
- Fail to undertake necessary expenditures to fulfil the demand for government services within their jurisdiction.
- Unnecessarily reduce economic growth within their jurisdiction, especially when the multiplier effects of government expenditure are taken into consideration.
These consequences do, however, explain the motivation for the imposition of the supposedly necessary limits on government borrowing in its own currency. The intention of those promoting such limits is to reduce the scale of government activity within a jurisdiction.
This is not to say, of course, that a government can, as a consequence, create money without limit. In practice, there are practical limits on a government's capacity to create money to fund expenditures, which are:
- Its ability to recover taxes due to it from the economy for which it is responsible. This ability is always constrained because no government has ever discovered a way to recover all sums owing in tax to it. The extent of that constraint is, however, to some degree under its own control, depending upon its willingness to invest in the tax authority that it gives the task of recovering sums owing to it.
- The ability of the government to induce people holding the currency that it has created within its own economy to save with it, which is necessarily constrained by the levels of interest that it thinks are appropriate to be used within that economy in combination with the economic, social and fiscal policy goals that it wishes to fulfil.
- The actual capacity of the economy for which a government is responsible to meet the demand that government creates for the supply of goods and services to it, which is a physical rather than a financial limitation.
- The exchange rate that a government wishes to maintain with other jurisdictions which can be impacted if it seeks to overinflate the scale of economic activity within its jurisdiction so that imports must be relied upon to meet the demand that a government creates.
These points, being noted, none of them alter the fact that:
- A government that only has liabilities owed to those who have deposited funds with it denominated in the currency that it has created cannot have a national debt but can only be the provider of deposit savings facilities to those who wish to make use of them.
- There can never be a risk that those deposit saving facilities will not be repaid precisely because the means of making that repayment are solely within the control of the government that created them, which is a characteristic shared by no other savings institution taking deposits in that currency.
- The interest payable on these deposits will, assuming that the physical limitations on the scale of government expenditure noted above are respected, always remain within the control of the government making them available, and those costs should never create a constraint upon its capacity to meet any other obligation as a result.
Seen in this way, a country like the UK does not, in fact, have a national debt. It does, instead, have a national savings bank or facility, which is a matter of considerable benefit to the people of the country.
It also has national equity capital, which, in the case of the UK is at present broadly represented by those government bonds now owned by the government itself as a consequence of the operation of quantitative easing policies since 2008, and although this situation has been complicated by the decision of the UK government to make payment of interest on central bank reserve account balances that is another issue, not necessarily related to the supposed national debt as such.
Endnotes
[1] See this article for an explanation as to the use of this date, which is when the UK's national debt is considered to have first been created. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/freedom-of-information/2020/details-of-the-bank-of-england-loan-to-the-government-in-1694
[2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/623a22078fa8f540ecc60532/DMR_2022-23.pdf provides evidence that the mechanism still exists. It was temporarily expanded to £20 billion in April 2020. Its use was commonplace until cash flow management was moved from the Treasury to the government Debt Management Office in 2000 and was faded out after 2008. See https://www.dmo.gov.uk/media/10808/sa240108.pdf. The pretence that the current way of managing debt is normal is, as a result, wrong: it is a recent innovation.
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….cue scatological humour.
Your mind must work in a different way to mine
”the nature of national debt in this bog’s glossary” 🙂
Now I get you
Edited
Government spends/creates in order to purchase the goods & services that it requires. Also in the welfare sector to maintain civilisation.
Government taxes primarily in order to minimise possible inflation, or from another angle to reduce the possibly inflationary competition for the purchase of those goods or services by reducing the funds available to the competitors (us, the private sphere).
There is never any need for government spending to match government taxing over any period. The supposed need to equate spending with taxing is a nonsensical Neoliberal myth, employed to allow Neoliberal governments to refuse to spend on the people.
As long as the economy is not 100% utilised, & it never will be as long as there is unemployment, the government is unconstrained in what it can spend. The only constraint on government spending is the state of the economy, if there are goods & services available for purchase then the government may purchase them.
The National Debt is nothing but a straw man target for the Neoliberals to aim at.
So, yes, Debt & Deficit is a ideological nonsense. National Debt is a nothing. As Dr (now Prof, Torrens Uni, South Australia) Steven Hail said 10 years ago talking about the Australia economically illiterate Treasurer Joe Hockey, “it is as if Chemists had forgotten about the Periodic Table & gone back to Alchemy.”
Of course under Neoliberalism private banks have been allowed to blow a housing bubble for decades without any call for “off-setting” taxation!
I think the definition has to mention that media, politicians and financial institutions refer to it also as the “public debt”, “Nations credit card”, “Governments credit card” or “Government debt”. These titles are somewhat endless and are chosen to communicate a particular meaning.
I think that the national debt is the total amount of outstanding financial obligations a government has committed to during its entire existence. These amounts can be tallied together. The exact accounting method is disputed because tallying numbers together is never as easy as it sounds. We should listen to expert opinion on such matters to inform ourselves of the problems. This list of financial obligations and commitments in the “national debt” include those that the government has made to itself.
Debt is not the same as total liabilities, which is the sum you describe
Confusing the two would not help, at all
The euphemisms deserve entires though, I agree
“These amounts can be tallied together”.
Tally sticks, made from hazel sticks I think (split in two between ‘stock’ held by the creditor and ‘foil’, held by the Government; hence the origin of the terms in finance today), were effectively the original government bonds in medieval England.
Yes. When the tallies are matched they are burnt and we arrive at 0. It is a credit based monetary system. Though Adam Smith has received criticism for spreading the belief hat money is metal. Some credit is also due. Adam Smith mentions tallies in wealth of nations in regards to the bank of England. He also observes that money is assigned value by “tale” and not its weight. He also talks about tailles, and tallage. Which he describes as a tax. It seems like he was very close to connecting the dots.
Or perhaps it was us who forgot what it all meant.
Great stuff Richard
That’s going to put the cat among the pigeons .. and trolls
Just a note hypertext link on the word “here” appears broken or missing
And “dent” instead of “debt”
Edits made
Thank you
Helpful article. Illustrates the importance of retaining sovereign control over debt obligations.
Quite long for a glossary piece! However, rather good.
In particular, the penultimate set of bullet points where you list the practical constraints on money creation.
They are an accurate description and set up the debate about for…
What happens if the tax collection system falls into disrepute? How do we avoid it?
Why do people choose to hold cash balances? Why might people change their mind and what implications are there?
Why do FX rates move? How does this feedback into the domestic economy?
How do we improve the our resources and deploy them better?
All very big and complicated questions.
Understanding the National Debt in the way you describe offers more degrees of freedom in policy making. This holds out the hope of better outcomes but it is more complicated.
Thanks Clive
It is darned complicated
I go for long walks to write these posts (they are initially dictated)
And then there is a liot of editing
And that ignores the thinking before the wall takes place
BUT, as you say, agendas are opened as a result
Thanks Richard. I read it all, but you had me at bullet 1. Looked at the other way this states that if the national debt was somehow reduced to zero, none of us would have any money to do anything with. We’d be back to a barter economy or using another country’s currency, and the govt would have minimal financial means to influence behaviour. Consequently there is no reason for govt to ever want to reduce the debt too much.
Secondly, if the government /
financial culture of a country is for individuals to enrich themselves by skimming off a small percentage (estate agents, VIP lanes & transaction fees come to mind), then a small percentage of a bigger (liquidity) number is likely to be preferred.
Taken together, one is a reason not to reduce, the another a reason to increase.
I’m only a simple Engineer rather than an economist, but I daresay there are bounds to what are reasonable thresholds for what is ‘too high’ and ‘too low’ for fiat countries, no doubt informed by population, natural resources, etc., and it’d be interesting to see where the UK sits compared to other nations. Something tells me we’re probably not as good as we’d like to think, and probably getting worse since the act of national self-harm that was Brexit.
I’m not worried about whether we have a national debt, but I do worry about the level of skimming, which is either more brazen now, or I just wasn’t so aware of it before.
I am dwarfed here by the scale of the work.
It reads like a manifesto for reality and sounds eminently correct to me.
Can we post somewhere on the internet?
Marvellous and thanks.
Where, apart from here?
Remember, this blog is pretty well read
Well, okay – be that as it may, it would be nice somehow if this piece of more invaluable information was presented to the world like that piece of shit ‘The Great Barrington Declaration’ was.
That’s all. Trying to play them at their own game. But, it’s your work, your blog.
I am not sure how to do that…..
In understanding the dichotomy of National Debt v National Savings, I always think of Stephenie Kelton’s questions, along the lines of: “Do we need to pay off the National Debt?” – Yes!……”Do you want to cash in all your bonds & treasuries?” – No!
Complicated indeed.
Haven’t studied this in enough detail (and maybe not competent to ) to offer detailed comments just now, but given the crass level of public and political and even ‘specialist’ (eg IFS, Resolution Foundation) discussion of the need to keep ‘the debt’ under control dont we need two entries?
One far shorter and succinct, emphasising your often reiterated main points and enabling engagement with the usual points made in public debate . This would include .:
1) that much of the ‘debt’ it isn’t owed – except to ourselves (govt) so its only 60% of what is often cited,
2) that it doesnt have to be ‘paid off ‘for years , and that its yearly interest cost can be reduced
3) that by reconnecting savings to investment etc , and the multiplier effect, any short term increase in ‘the debt’ can generate its own payback and grow the economy and public services (‘anything we can do we can afford’ -Keynes
4) History of UK debt and some other countries eg post WWII creation of NHS , house building and reconstruction etc.
The second entry would elaborate all the detail you give here.
I will think about that
Pleased with myself that I read all of this – and kept up with the terminology and the argument, so *many thanks*, sir, for what is obviously a fine piece of writing on a somewhat arcane but vital accounting subject.
My minor and sole comment is on the penultimate set of bullet points (thanks, Clive Parry, for wording the signpost).
The importance of governmental money creation being constrained by resources, the third bullet, seems to me to be so fundamental / foundational that it should be the first point made, not the third. Without grasp of that principle, all else falls.
Noted
Thank you
Will consider changing
An economic masterpiece, you should get it published.
surely, the only agency allowed to “create” money should be the national bank, who would create it as requested, ie: by Bank A, requesting the issue of say £1Bn for use in funding business & property loans. or say via a govt dept / manifesto spending plan to build new infrastructure. which would as you rightly point out, be repaid via taxation on the people using said infrastructure. any other way seems perverse or lacking in understanding in how central banks work? am i misunderstanding something? or do successive govts really not understand how our central govt works…please, feel free to correct me, im trying to educate myself in monetary economics.
Banks can only do this in a strictly regulated environment run by the BoE
Your suggestion is that all credit be created by the government at its risk. Is that what you really want?
Is this idea of all money creation (ie all credit, loans) being created by the central bank what Positive Money argue? Mistakenly?
No
Clearly banks can and should create money
The discussion here is on how to control Governor t created money
I might need to make that clearer
Just to clarify my remark about Positive Money, here https://positivemoney.org/2011/07/what-exactly-is-full-reserve-banking-2 – they argue for full reserve banking and banks only making loans based on time deposits. Only being intermediaries, therefore, not creating new ‘bank money’.
No need for more liquidity rules, stress tests, Basel 3 etc?
What PM don’t include is the banks’ reserve accounts at the BoE; which I think would, in PM’s system, provide banks with additional capital against which to make more loans, if government injected additional money there.
But I do understand that this Glossary entry is about base, ie government created, money – and is an explanation of reality, to debunk myths; and not a critique of PM’s proposal for an alternative reality.
So my comment was just intended to clarify the discussion not add to the Glossary. Hope it does clarify, not confuse!
Positive Money is a befuddled and frankly profoundly unwise NGO that talks utter drivel about money, about which it has precisely no understanding in my opinion, thinking it is left wing to do so.
What they are actually prescriving is an effectiuve return to gold standard austeroty or hyper infaltion: they would have no way of controlling either
See https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/05/06/why-positive-money-is-wrong/
See also https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/07/07/the-green-partys-policy-on-money-and-so-on-the-economy-is-a-work-of-econimic-fantasy/
And try this too https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/01/27/the-political-economy-of-money-and-tax/
If you want to detroy the economy support their views.
Why they have any credibility in NGO circles defeats me.
I understand what you’re saying, but I think that allowing banks to “create” money is the root of the problem. There is no rein (please dont say boe rules etc) to them doing so, they’re all businesses, in the business of providing dividends to shareholders, earnings to ceo’s etc. Its not credible to suggest that they have any built-in ethical measures to control how much they create, how its used etc. We all remember every bank crash ever. I know we disagree, but I believe that ONLY central banks should create & issue money, banks should then apply for that money with sureties & govt can and should effectively do the same when submitting demands for manifesto spending, based on ability to recoup spending on taxes.
This is the Positive Money line.
Positive Money is a befuddled and frankly profoundly unwise NGO that talks utter drivel about money, about which it has precisely no understanding in my opinion, thinking it is left wing to do so.
What they are actually prescriving is an effectiuve return to gold standard austeroty or hyper infaltion: they would have no way of controlling either
See https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/05/06/why-positive-money-is-wrong/
See also https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/07/07/the-green-partys-policy-on-money-and-so-on-the-economy-is-a-work-of-econimic-fantasy/
And try this too https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/01/27/the-political-economy-of-money-and-tax/
If you want to detroy the economy support their views.
Why they have any credibility in NGO circles defeats me.
And pelase don’t waste my time with more of such nonsense that can only cause massive harm.
Hi Richard,
Thank you for the links, I have read them & understand more your points of view re PM & their “take” on monetary policy. I also understand your various objections regards unelected BoE controller’s, inflation used as a blunt tool & the limitation of money supply, ie a defacto gold standard.
If you were to design a new system of macro monetary / economic policy, what would this look like? Apologies if this is elsewhere…
That’s the book I plan to write this year …..
May I suggest that this is indeed an ‘economic masterpiece’ – but it is therefore not a glossary entry….
I broadly concur with @ Andrew Broadbent…
In my view, the key desriptor is:
“a national debt but can only be the provider of deposit savings facilities to those who wish to make use of them” – which simply, and neatly also includes the tenner in my pocket..
Thank you
This is what I come to this blog for!
I will need to read this over and over to try and understand it though.
If the government wants to reduce the debt to zero, as the neoliberals seem to want, it means that the government has to tax all saving at 100%.
It might be a good idea to ask the neoliberals if they want to loose their savings.
I think your logic very simplistic, and probbaaly wrong
Richard, in view of the above very useful blog post, could you advise whether this idea makes sense? Would it be possible/desirable for the UK to, instead of selling Bonds, offer a sort of expanded NS&I arrangment, and provide secure savings schemes for those who buy Bonds? And then, to offer higher rates for pension funds and indivdual savings (up to an agreed limit), to protect savings for retirement/investment income until such times as State Pension is no longer the lowest in Europe? With possibly similar higher rates to accounts in line with your suggestion of savings to be invested in Green Energy projects? And do away with the “borrowing” charade for the future?
That could be done
Have you read my proposals for ISA and pension reform?
I should, it seems. Best way to find them? Use the search box?
Try here https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/The-QuEST-for-a-Green-New-Deal.pdf
There are more recent versions but this covers it
This is a great overview and logical progression (as an article, as well as a somewhat lengthy Glossary entry!)
Thanks again for your efforts, clarity and everything.
I try to publicise your work generally, on my social media, relevant WhatsApp groups and email listserv discussions. I’ll look to do that specifically for this item.
Two comments/questions:
(a) You mention HIPCs having IMF etc loans not in their own currency, usually in dollars, and the serious effects of that.
Even for a large economy like the UK, foreign owned government ‘debt’ in £ is, surely, an actual liability rather than ‘internal circulation’? Thus, is there not also an effect in the UK from financial flows from elsewhere, either buying government bonds or selling them? And consequences for the Forex market and therefore ‘imported inflation’ if the £ falls, or damage to export oriented businesses if it rises?
Or is this effect so small as to be ‘within the noise’ of the macroeconomic numbers?
(b) You reference the need for HIPCs to have net exports to try to service their external debt burden; and, in contrast, the danger of any government spending too much into the economy and that pulling in imports. To what extent does the UK’s net imports, which seem to be persistent, cause problems? Doesn’t it require other countries to continually buy more ££ in exchange for the foreign currencies we need to buy their products; with those ££ then going into UK savings deposits, commercial or government? Is this also a minor (even trivial) element in all the flows?
I see you like words (and don’t want equations or diagrams?) – but I’ll admit I’d like some sort of diagram of flows and ‘stocks’, perhaps because I’m originally (always?) an engineer and not an accountant; and an amateur in economics…
Maybe I can get a blank sheet and sharpen a pencil sometime
We have UK denominated debt
Who cres who owns it? It is traded in sterling?
These are non-issues.