Quote:
Originally Posted by lio45
I used the banks' money and gained more than what it cost me to use it. Same logic with governments and debt.
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In the public finance world of course this amounts to borrowing to grow the economy vs. borrowing to spend in ways that don't grow the economy. For the most part this is infrastructure development versus entitlements. There's also the public service which at this point federally is likely a net negative almost all the time (it might not be; imagine hiring an anti-money-laundering worker for $100k a year who brings in $10M a year you wouldn't otherwise have recovered from criminals).
Canada hasn't been spending enough on infrastructure and spends too much on entitlements. At this point I believe there are lots of potential construction projects that would be a huge net gain, while a lot of money is going down the drain in entitlements without much to show for it (with "pay people not to work" entitlements being some of the worst).
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