Our master plan for infrastructure borrows from others, for example what the Koreans are doing.
Labour are reluctant cutters, and make a crucial distinction between borrowing for capital spending on hospitals, schools and infrastructure, and borrowing for current expenditure.
Long-term interest rates on offer for the Government are currently close to historic lows and many economists have criticised Mr Osborne for failing to take this golden opportunity to upgrade the country's infrastructure through borrowing.
While it is possible that lenders and ratings agencies would recognise the difference between additional borrowing to build homes (ie infrastructure) and borrowing for, say, higher spending on welfare, there is no doubt the chancellor would either have to accept slightly higher spending and borrowing or make cuts to other programmes.
Following the civil war, Lebanon rebuilt much of its war-torn physical and financial infrastructure by borrowing heavily, mostly from domestic banks, which saddled the government with a huge debt burden.
Still, calls for sharing some spending or financial risk — such as by ramping up common spending on infrastructure, or borrowing collectively through so-called Eurobonds — is still facing a firm "no" from Germany and several other countries such as Finland and the Netherlands.
Lawrence H. Summers, Harvard professor and former economic adviser to President Obama, blames the slowness of the recovery on "austerity" and calls for "government spending, particularly on infrastructure, while borrowing costs are so cheap".
His publicly traded (in Hong Kong) company, New World Infrastructure, will borrow the money in Hong Kong.
"But the issue is whether we should pay for transportation, or cut back on spending and transportation and have less roads and poorer infrastructure, or borrow it from our kids -- debt financing it and hoping someone pays the debt off at a future date.
It is one way of explaining why – to the immense frustration of those making the case for low-carbon infrastructure – the green investment bank, set up in 2012 to fund environmentally friendly infrastructure, was forbidden from borrowing to lend, notably limiting its impact.
