Analysis: The country's only barn is still full

A man who was a member of the civil defense in Skåne during the Cold War recently told me about a gigantic barn in Tågarp, packed with everything that could be needed if the war came. This is understood, of course, that emergency stocks such as these have been emptied for a long time, because the Swedish governments did not consider that they were needed. And that we now stand there without protective equipment and medicines in readiness.

Now there is only one minister who stays with the barn: the Minister of Finance. Three weeks ago, her crisis package was about a few billion Swedish kronor in expenses, but when I asked if she could spend hundreds of billions on the crisis, she absolutely did not answer and looked like a coal stove.

Now it happens, and in recent weeks she has repeatedly talked about how she "gathered in the barns", just to be prepared when the crisis comes.

In fact, she can borrow 100 billion more, in addition to the ones she has announced, if she wants to. Government debt is the lowest since 1977. As a share of GDP, it is about 35 percent. This is well below the 60% EU border, a limit that has been exceeded by several major EU countries for a long time.

Long before the Corona eruption, heavy economists felt that the state should borrow more to invest. The former chairman of the government's fiscal council, Professor John Hassler, said last fall in the SVT that the state can borrow 1,000 billion more. That would double the government debt.

Now it is no longer about borrowing to invest, but borrowing to pay expenses for employees and employers on a large scale. Of course, this is not as sustainable, especially not because the crossover in the economy will lead to a GDP race and reduced tax revenues for the state, which weakens the state finances even more.

But John Hassler, when I ask today, thinks that the state could still borrow 1,000 billion more. And several heavy-duty professors seem more afraid of what happens if the government spends too little money than too much on crisis support.

Professor Lars Calmfors, also former chairman of the Finance Policy Council, today calls for DN to take over an even larger share of the companies' salaries and rents in crisis, among other things. He believes that the government can not only, but should double the crisis support from the current level.

The reason is, of course, that the more companies that winter instead of crashing before the crisis is over, the easier the recovery for the economy will be.

But, as is usually the case with economics, something you can't even imagine will ultimately take over and dictate development completely. How is it, for example, if many countries in the world want to borrow lots of money at the same time to keep their economies under arms? Are things going well with maintained low interest rates, because the money is there and a lot of companies no longer want to borrow them? Or does it lead to global collapse of confidence in government bonds?

And how much does the Swedish economy help the state to support Swedish companies almost unlimited for a period if our major exporting countries collapse completely and no longer buy our products?

But most urgently, for the community and the residents, of course, is to get what is needed to take care of all the sick: more medical personnel, protective equipment, respirators.

A little paradoxical, then, that the only thing Sweden seems to have collected in the barns is precisely what can still be shaken up in an instant: money.