[Festivus]

Generally to keep an economy afloat and fluid you want to spend when times are bad, and save/cut when times are good. You basically fill in the gaps left by private industry. Paying down debt can be considered saving in that situation, and is a good idea. However, there shouldn't be any question that going into debt and large deficits is okay if times are bad. It's better to keep the economy fluid with cash infusions than to cut when times are bad. Europe has done the opposite of this in the last few years with their austerity plans. North America decided on large stimulus packages instead, and saw good rebounds.

Debt is good sometimes, and bad other times, basically. By the same token, spending your temporary oil resources immediately is a bad idea. Norway has a good model, where they have very very high royalty rates, but produce less oil than they could. They save this money in a sovereign wealth fund, and will have most of the money still there when their oil runs out. We have the opposite approach where we take low royalty payments, but try to max the volume. The problem with that is that you run out of oil much more quickly, and waste the money on short-term goals, not long-term stability. Think about the future of the Middle-East when their oil runs out, for example...they will have nothing. Albert and SK could be the same if we keep relying on the boom-bust of oil.