I know that modelling has a bad rep, given the errors and lies about climate change and the like; but it will always be with us, and the latest concerns the budget from the government that gave us the China virus recession.

This one comes from the Institute of Public Opinion, a group no better or worse than other think tanks. They estimate that:

Gross Commonwealth government debt will peak at $2.05 trillion in 2045.

Gross Commonwealth government debt will not be paid off until the year 2080.

A Budget Surplus will not return until 2046.

A big problem for the kids and grandkids of the future, as the government tries to buy its way to re-election, having trashed the economy with its China virus panic and over-reaction. The debit is about double our GDP.

"The devastating lockdown measures have caused a humanitarian tragedy, and the debt Australia has gone into to pay for them will last generations,” says the IPA.

Tough times ahead - again, thanks to the drones you keep voting for.

I think some of the debt levels will be written off in coming years, by agreement.

This will be more likely in times of higher inflation and interest rates, when repayments become harder.

But the silly game we have now will keep going for a while yet, and those urging higher spending will probably win out as Aussie govts will merely keep saying our debt is lower than most others.

Whoopee do

the gw fraud and the hysterics over the China flu has shown that our education system has dumbed down the masses to the extent that Western Civilisation as we know it will not exist in 20 years. Either God will wrap up the age or China will be the dominate power. One way or another people will be looking for a Saviour to get us out of the stupid self inflicted mess Governments and academia has imposed on us. God must be laughing and crying at the god deniers total stupidity.

Ttbn,

A bit naive: no, total government debt will never be completely paid off, and there isn't any strong reason to do so. It's more a question of whether or not the debt is manageable, depending on many factors, such as the level of economic activity, the long-term inflation rate and long-term international interest rates.

Morrison and Frydenberg are not idiots: they have had to balance up the compulsions of the epidemic with the costs, short-term and long-term, of remedying that crisis. The Institute of Public Affairs seems to make too light, in my view, of the human costs of this epidemic, and the ease with which governments can control it.

Joe

Ttbn: If you think climate change models are full of errors and lies, why not think this prediction, also based on modelling, is also full of errors and lies?

Why are you rejecting worst case scenarios for climate change, but panicking about this worse case prediction for future debt?

What if there's a post-covid boom, as happened after WW2, when governmemt debt was huge? The UK only recently, in 2006, paid off its wartime debt to the USA; its economic problems seem to have got worse since then!

The results of modelling depend heavily on the assumptions made, and this is just another case of Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Indeed that's probably overestimating its significance, because what's being modelled (gross Commonwealth government debt) is utterly trivial. So it's GIGOGM:

That's garbage in, garbage out, garbage modelled!