[asgard1024]

Nation is very different from a household. There is lot more people, they are anonymous. You need money to track who owns to whom, in household everybody knows. The worker specialization is much more relevant in the national economy. There is labor and trade and different political interests. I could go on and on.

Addendum: It might be true that in the nation as in the household, you should be aware if you are entering an external contract with someone, like borrowing money. But the question of internal debt between the citizens of the nation cannot be reduced to household economy, there is no such thing as an austere husband lending money to his wife.

[winstonewert]

Obviously, a nation is very different from a household.

But they aren't different in the way that the post I was responding to suggested, that a household couldn't possibly overspend for future benefit whereas a nation could.

[asgard1024]

No, that's not what the quote was about, the quote was saying that their economies should be managed the same way. Your interpretation of that quote is much narrower and in particular, it only applies to foreign debt.