Clicking the link with no prior context, I read this as being purely an economics lesson. And as an econ lesson, none of it makes any sense because most government debts are owned by banks and citizens, not other governments.
From the link to the journal article in the post:
>Aim. To give students experience of researching important data and to conduct a policy-relevant negotiation exercise.
The blog post isn't bad because of the author isn't informed on economics. The author is a professor in the subject. The real problem is that the post never states its purpose, and misleads everyone to think this is an econ lesson. In actuality, it is a classroom exercise about international negotiation, and the toy economic model isn't supposed to have real world utility.
Why is it described as "policy-relevant" if it's not meant to be about the real world? Economists don't control policy. If they think it's policy-relevant what they mean is, the exercise is intended to train economists to make misleading claims to politicians!
From the link to the journal article in the post: >Aim. To give students experience of researching important data and to conduct a policy-relevant negotiation exercise.
The blog post isn't bad because of the author isn't informed on economics. The author is a professor in the subject. The real problem is that the post never states its purpose, and misleads everyone to think this is an econ lesson. In actuality, it is a classroom exercise about international negotiation, and the toy economic model isn't supposed to have real world utility.