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Harvard had some variable-rate borrowings, and the derivatives effectively converted those debts into fixed-rate ones.
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Inflation helps too, as debts are fixed at their historical values but wages should rise with inflation.
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In deflation the nominal value of debts remains fixed even as nominal wages, prices and profits fall.
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More serious is that the price of homes or shares can fall, while debts are fixed in value.
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And since debts are fixed in nominal terms, they become less burdensome in a time of inflation (or at least the right kind of inflation) so long as interest rates don't rise.
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Because the mobile-phone companies get paid in advance, they waste no time or money on chasing bad debts, as fixed-line firms do.
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But the nominal value of mortgage debts would remain fixed.
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Debts (and in many cases interest payments) are fixed in money terms, so the faster nominal incomes grow, the smaller the burden of debt becomes.
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For one thing, it is hard to know how much companies have in fact lengthened the maturity of their debts because the interest-rate swap market allows them to swap those fixed bond payments into cheaper floating debt, a popular strategy in the investment-grade market.
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So maybe there's value for the chancellor in advertising to the world that he could if he wanted borrow with no fixed repayment date, such is the stability of British democracy and the UK's record of paying its debts.
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