Err, really?
We would never describe deposits with a bank as a threat to its viability and something that they must urgently pay back or limit in amount. So, in that case, why on earth are we saying that about this national savings bank?
Isn’t, umm, that the definition of whether a bank is bust or not? That it can, or cannot, pay back the deposits? That is, this is the very thing we do worry about with banks?
That’s only because we know that, like all savings accounts, the person depositing the money can at some time ask for it back. But we don’t say banks are in debt because they also owe the money saved with them back to depositors. So why do we do that in the case of governments?
Actually, we do, yes. Deposits are liabilities on bank balance sheets. They’re what the bank owes to other people. This is the basic point of double entry bookkeeping for banks.
To put it another way, almost everything politicians say about the economy is made up of convenient myths that they create that have not a single element of truth within them.
Snigger. Physician, heal thyself.