guest column:Eddie Cross THIS past Sunday, our church sermon was taken from Nehemiah Chapter 10 and focused on the instructions given to the tribes of Israel which had returned to Israel from exile in Babylon about 400 years before Christ. It is clear from this account that the leaders of the Jewish people at that time were determined to establish a Jewish nation in the region and that this nation should follow the basic principles laid out for these people in the first five books of the Bible. As an economist and someone who has spent his whole life connected in one way or another to agriculture, I was particularly taken by the admonition that the nation should observe two economic principles — that of rest on the seventh day of the week and the seventh year for all agricultural land. The other principle was that of the Jubilee — the forgiveness of all debt every seven years. Nothing could be more central to contemporary economics than the issue of debt. The Asian Tiger economies — so described because they have been able to almost universally drag themselves out of poverty in less than 50 years through a process of export-driven growth fuelled by debt. The levels of debt that they have accumulated is staggering and historically unparalleled. Japan and China lead the pack with national debts of 2,5 times their gross domestic product (GDP). In other words, if these two countries spent their entire economic output on paying back their debt, it would take them nearly three years. All of the Asian Tiger States have followed this route. By contrast, the national debt of the United States is about equal to their national GDP — only 40% of the debt levels of the Asian States even after the massive expenditure following the global bank crisis and now the attempt to hold the economy steady during the COVID-19 crisis. The other great advantage of the United States is that its debt is in its own currency. The debts of most nations are mostly held in United States dollars and are, therefore, much more vulnerable to global shifts in values. I would not be surprised if total global debt, held by nation States does not now exceed global economic output. We owe others more than we produce. In simple terms we are living on a limb, supported by nothing more than massive amounts of debt that we can never hope to repay. The astonishing thing is that the debt issue does not end with national debt, it extends to corporate debt and to individual debt. I understand that credit card debt in an advanced country is often greater than its national debt. We are wallowing in a sea of debt and very few countries could maintain their standard of living without debt. Zimbabwe stopped servicing its national debt a long time ago — perhaps more than 20 years ago and we are now in default with all multilateral agencies and with most countries. Almost nobody will lend us money and we are being charged penalty rates of interest on all our historical liabilities. I was astounded to discover the other day that of our main national debt of about US$10 billi