On bringing down the debt-to-GDP ratio

 I quoted this recently. It is still on my mind:

... provided fiscal space remains ample, countries should not run larger budget surpluses to bring down the debt, but should instead allow growth to bring down debt-to-GDP ratios organically.

Countries should let economic growth "bring down debt-to-GDP ratios organically."

By "organically" I think they mean "naturally". Here's what I think they mean: Economic growth is the natural way to bring down the debt-to-GDP ratio, and that's what countries should do.

Two guys from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) wrote the thing I quoted. They must know what they are talking about, right? You'd think. 

But when has economic growth ever been rapid enough to bring down the debt-to-GDP ratio, and when has debt growth ever been slow enough to allow it?

Once, for about three years, beginning in 2009, something like that.

Benjamin Friedman (1986), page 21:

Indeed, a sufficient period of sustained rapid economic growth could readily shrink the economy's overall debt ratio back to its historical range, not by reducing the numerator but by enlarging the denominator.

Indeed, it could. But it doesn't. When are we gonna learn?

 

PS: Economic policy encourages the accumulation of debt. Maybe if we turn that around ...