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Austerity is bonkers. You say the analogy to household finance is relateable, but it's just wrong. Somehow we have to get more of the electorate economically literate. Economists almost universally consider Osborne's austerity programme to be a bad idea in the circumstances. Indeed his most recent pronouncements suggests he is starting to get this himself. You really can't criticise Corbyn from the position of having accepted Tory myths about the economy as the PLP has done. My support for Corbyn and McDonnell is largely down to them having the clearest understanding of the economic arguments and the right policies for prosperity. Lots of reading out there, this is a decent start... http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2015/04/economic-consequences-george-osborne-covering-austerity-mistake
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Malaconotus
My real point is that I'm not an economist and don't truly know whether it's a bad idea for the country to run an overdraft of up to £150 billion as it's difficult to get a straight answer on that, although on the face of it that doesn't seem like such a great plan.
But that's kind of the point - Labour lost public trust on the economy and a big part of that was because the public accepted Osborn's now established (if untrue) orthodoxy that Labour spent all the money and didn't fix the roof while the sun was shining.
His argument for a budgetary surplus - despite austerity and cuts to public services - was an easy one to make because it's such a relatable argument. If you've ever had a bank account and an overdraft you can understand it. I've been through a personal finance cycle a lot of people probably have - I started out massively overdrawn because I wasn't earning much, got paid more, slowly paid it off, built up a surplus to provide security for myself.
Even if the arguments for not maintaining a budgetary surplus are good it's difficult to argue against this premise because the public now have this analogy in their heads and it's not going away. So every time Labour attacks this policy they play into the hands of the Tories.
Also, it's lazy and a little insidious to attack fellow party members over this. Kendall's logic in making those comments was sound, if you don't like her, don't vote for her (presuming she stands again).