“Legacy of Debt”

Lots of talk about a “legacy of debt” in response to yesterday’s re-arranging of the Promissory Notes/ELA framework.  First up, governments don’t repay debt, they roll it over.  And, as well as the size of the debt, there are two things that matter for debt rollovers:

• average maturity
• average rate of interest

Today’s announcement does not change the size of the debt but the maturity and interest rate changes are very significant (and beneficial in case there is any confusion).

Yesterday, Ireland was faced with the prospect of carrying a debt of €25 billion on the Promissory Notes and needed to roll that over with payments of €3 billion every year at whatever the best available rate at the time was.

At the end of the Promissory Notes (which would probably have been around 2022) the debt would still exist and what would need to be rolled over would have been the borrowings undertaken in the interim to meet the €3 billion annual repayments.  This legacy of debt was always going to exist and would have needed to rolled over in 2025, 2035, 2045 or whenever.  Government debt is not extinguished, the burden of carrying it (the interest) is eroded through growth and inflation.

Yesterday’s announcement offers some significant benefits for Ireland on both fronts.  Firstly, the average maturity has been extended to an average of 34 years.  This means the debt has to be rolled over far less frequently and through that reduces risk.  Under the current arrangement there would be €25 billion of debt being paid off in chunks of €3 billion and these would quickly accumulate into a total of tens of billions that would need to be frequently rolled over depending on the nature of the borrowings used to fund the annual payments.

The new arrangement postpones this roll over to an average duration of 34 years.  Rolling over €25 billion of debt in 2020 could present significant difficulties.  Rolling over €25 billion of debt on a staggered basis between 2038 and 2053 will be far less onerous.

The new arrangement also offers the significant interest rate benefits.  Under the Promissory Note arrangement debt with a very low net external cost of 0.75% (the ECB MRO rate) was transformed into much more expensive debt (EU/IMF loans at 3.3%) at a rate of €3 billion per annum. 

The net external cost remains at 0.75% but the rate at which the debt is transformed into more expensive debt has been significantly reduced.  As a result of the Central Bank of Ireland selling the bonds it receives as part of the swap this will happen at a rate of €0.5 billion per year up to 2018, €1 billion a year from then until 2023 and €2 billion a year thereafter.

The €25 billion of Promissory Notes would have been turned into full interest-costing sovereign debt by around 2022.  Today’s announcement means that the full €25 billion will not become fully interest-costing until around 2032.  We have gained because the debt with a net external cost of the ECB MRO rate is now available for longer.

Future generations were always going to have a “legacy of debt” of €25 billion.  What yesterday’s announcements have ensured is that they will have access to lower interest rates for longer and will be faced with rolling over the debt less often.  In the arena of public debt both of these are a win.

Here are some figures since 2008:

• 2008: €10.9 billion
• 2009: €15.4 billion
• 2010: €11.8 billion
• 2011: €10.2 billion
• 2012*: €7.0 billion
• 2013*: €3.4 billion

This figures will give a “legacy of debt” of €58.7 billion.  This is more than €30 billion greater than the total in question in yesterday’s restructuring.  What are these figures?  They are the underlying primary deficits (the deficit net of interest costs and banking measures) that the state ran from 2008 to 2011 and the projections of what the primary deficit will be for 2012 and 2013.

This is the excess of government expenditure on public sector pay, intermediate consumption, social transfers, capital formation and subsidies for the current generation over the tax revenue the government is raising from the current generation.  Over a six- year period the government is spending nearly €60 billion more on us in services and transfers than it is collecting from us in taxes and charges.  Why is no one concerned about this “legacy of debt” for future generations?

If we could borrow this money with a zero-interest perpetual bond there would be no need to worry about future generations.  They would have to pay nothing for our borrowings.  This highlights that for governments it is not the amount of debt that matters.  With governments debt doesn’t matter, deficit spending does.

The debt only matters insofar as it generates an interest cost.  If this money has to be borrowed at 4% it will cost future generations over €2 billion a year in interest for the privilege of us spending more on ourselves than we are willing to pay in taxes.  Is this a legacy we are willing to impose on future generations?