[sidicks]

Reith Lecture: 'We're mortgaging the future of the younger generation' - Telegraph

Article says:
The heart of the matter is the way public debt allows the current generation of voters to live at the expense of those as yet too young to vote or as yet unborn. In this regard, the statistics commonly cited as government debt are themselves deeply misleading, for they encompass only the sums owed by governments in the form of bonds.

But the official debts in the form of bonds do not include the often far larger unfunded liabilities of welfare schemes

Is there a constitutional solution to this problem? The simplistic answer – which has already been adopted in a number of American states as well as in Germany – is some kind of balanced-budget amendment, which would reduce the discretion of lawmakers to engage in deficit spending, much as the practice of giving central banks independence reduced lawmakers’ discretion over monetary policy.

The present system is, to put it bluntly, fraudulent. There are no regularly published and accurate official balance sheets. Huge liabilities are simply hidden from view. Not even the current income and expenditure statements can be relied upon. No legitimate business could possible carry on in this fashion.

Public sector balance sheets can and should be drawn up so that the liabilities of governments can be compared with their assets. That would help clarify the difference between deficits to finance investment and deficits to finance current consumption.

Governments should also follow the lead of business and adopt the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. And, above all, generational accounts should be prepared on a regular basis to make absolutely clear the intergenerational implications of current policy.

....There is, it is true, a third possibility, and that is what we now see in Japan and the United States, maybe also the United Kingdom. The debt continues to mount up. But deflationary fears, central bank bond purchases and flight to safety from the rest of the world keeps government borrowing costs down to unprecedented lows. The trouble with this scenario is that it also implies low to zero growth over decades.

As our economic difficulties have worsened, we voters have struggled to find the appropriate scapegoat. We blame the politicians whose hard lot it is to bring public finances under control. But we also like to blame bankers and financial markets, as if their reckless lending was to blame for our reckless borrowing.

[BISHI]

I suggest you listen to number 2 in the series where he explains what part the banking system does indeed play in the western malaise..! This is very selective reporting of Fergusson IMO .