What would Hume make of our Current Theories and our Current Economic Predicament? And what should we make of his views on government debt?  

In his essay on public credit, Hume advances two arguments in favour of government borrowing and five against.  It is interesting to cast his various arguments and claims in terms of modern models, or their variants, to see how they might be formalized ‐ and thus potentially supported, or qualified, or contradicted.   Some of Hume's observations seem somewhat mistaken in the light of later and recent experience, while others appear uncannily prescient.