The many probably-shouldnt-be-public sheets available on the site suggest Num Sum users do not entirely understand this.
It's just transferred from the private balance sheets onto the public balance sheets.
He said "arid" statisticians were thwarting ambitions for using the public balance sheet more aggressively to support industry.
The Chancellor quoted new borrowing figures adjusted for taking housing associations onto the public balance sheet, making comparisons with the most recent published forecasts difficult.
This means that their debt does not go on the public balance sheet and they avoid being privatised in the future.
Such political values may not turn up on any public balance sheet, but it would be unwise to ignore them simply because they are invisible.
So as of this week it goes on the public balance sheet, its £34bn of debt now indelibly inked next to our names.
The Office for National Statistics has not yet incorporated the liabilities of RBS and Lloyds on to the public balance sheet, although the government also owns large stakes in them.
Many suspect that they are little more than a wheeze to get borrowing off the public balance sheet, allowing the government to spend without (officially) exceeding its public-borrowing targets.
You could only proclaim a £2.25bn loss on the public balance sheet and the surrender of £700m of dividends as a "fantastic deal for UK taxpayers", as Osborne did, if you see zero value in public activity.
