Late last week, probably preparing us for the Budget Statement on February 26, Finance Minister Paula Cox delivered to the House a justification for public borrowing.

She said, inter alia: "Debt is a feature of household finance, business finance and indeed public finance. In all three spheres, debt is used to assist in the financing of assets that have a medium to long-term life."

The Minister was, of course, correct. Debt is used in that way in those spheres. Implicit in her statement was that borrowing is a good idea in each sphere. It certainly can be. Few of us would be able to afford a house without a mortgage, and a home mortgage is therefore a sensible financial tool for those who are employed at a level that will likely permit the repayment of such debt over a period of time.

Similar logic can be applied to government borrowing, as the Minister did. The question is whether a household budget and a national budget are analogous. Both are budgets, ie plans for spending available income and, if necessary, borrowing to cover any deficit, but should different logic apply to a family's financial behaviour and a government's?

I would suggest that families and governments should act differently. Your family can only borrow against what it can earn. Even if you own your company and set employee compensation without a board committee overseeing you, what you can earn is limited by what you can sell, and at what price. Governments set tax rates and so can dictate what their income will be. That's a huge difference. For a government, borrowing is more a matter of philosophy than one of need.

Criticism has been heard of a comment the Minister made later in her remarks. She said: "Other countries with which Bermuda is often compared have much higher debt/GDP ratios." She mentioned the Cayman Islands, Switzerland, the UK and the US.

Critics argued that Bermuda is not like those countries, for one reason or another. But, as the accompanying chart shows, Bermuda is not behaving like those countries. Bermuda's debt level is much lower, although it is probably growing more quickly.

In defending the Minister (as if she needed it), my own views should be made clear. I believe that for Bermuda to have borrowed anything at all is wrong. I count borrowing as the deadliest financial sin. I happen not to believe that governments should not have the right to borrow on behalf of their citizens, period. This is a minority view, often classified as fringe. It drives at the very heart of the relationship between the government and the governed.

Borrowing is using today what will have to be repaid tomorrow. For an individual, that's one thing. When governments borrow, they never repay. Debt is simply rolled over. Government borrowing thus becomes inter-generational theft. I don't have kids, but if I did, I'd have to explain to them that the public servants of my generation thought the public wanted a bunch of stuff they couldn't afford. Instead of doing without, the public servants went out and bought the stuff, landing the bill on your children's generation. My opinion, and that of only about three other people in the entire world, is that such behaviour is immoral.

In an earlier statement on debt, made on October 22 last year, the Minister said: "Bermuda's current debt is sustainable and it has been used to finance needed improvements in infrastructure and other hard assets ... that will provide service to people and businesses in our community for many years."

By "sustainable", I think she meant that the country could afford the interest payments. Again, for me and a tiny number of others, that definition of sustainable isn't good enough. It would be sustainable for me to borrow whatever I could afford to carry, but I will probably die at some point, and then my heirs (or the lender) will have to foot the bill. I'm not sustainable.

Those who support government borrowing would argue that governments don't die, so borrowing is indeed sustainable. But the people who constitute the tax base from whose pockets government will be taking the interest payments will all die eventually, to be replaced by new people whose voice could not be heard when the government decided to saddle them with the debt. The anti-borrowing brigade, of which I am a charter member, points out, again: that's immoral.

I have stressed the fringe nature of my beliefs to underline that government borrowing is considered a normal part of everyday business everywhere in the world. But, as my Mum used to say: "I don't care what other people do. If everyone else decided to stick their head in a gas oven, would you do that, too?"

In a couple of weeks, my bet is that the Finance Minister will raise the borrowing ceiling and plan to borrow more money. She will also probably raise taxes. She may have little choice, except for the one that is always overlooked by governments and a good percentage of the population in their own financing equations: cutting expenses so that additional borrowing is not required. That, too, is a minority view and not one that has ever gained much traction in Bermuda or anywhere else.

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Did you see the Who, performing at the Superbowl? Times have changed. Pete Townshend's biggest concern was news reports of some "bad antacid" circulating around the stadium.

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Had the National Trust run a competition for a new slogan for tree preservation, I would have won hands down with: "Don't axe, don't fell". They didn't run a competition, however, which I found depressing. And that's not the only reason I'm depressed. RG Magazine this week named the sexiest men and women in Bermuda, and I wasn't on the list. That's ridiculous, you say, and you're right.

My sexiness is well-known internationally. Why, just this week, I received an e-mail from a woman aboard a Bulgarian ship, who said (and I quote): "While doing an online friends research, I found you quite attractive and welcoming. I really like you and will want us to build a relationship. How old are you ? Honey, I really want to know much about you (My preferred age range is between 37 and 70 years)."

Between 37 and 70 years is exactly my own age range!

Then she asked for my full name and other details. See? I'm irresistible, even to total strangers.

RG magazine had a bunch of young, square-jawed men standing around in fur coats, which is sexy only if you're a polar bear. They had some sexy women in there, but they were married. Being married is the opposite of sexy, innit?

Women say they find brainy men sexy, but what they really want is a man with a cucumber stuck in his underpants. If women wanted a man with a giant brain, I'd be in, because I've got one. I bought it at a hospital jumble sale and keep it in the fridge. It never did me any good with the babes, though, because they were all out buying their men fur coats.

Sigh.