Math Rage

Paul Krugman
NYT

A number of my recent blog posts have involved pointing out adding-up constraints: you can’t have some people spending less than their income unless others spend more than their income, all the world’s currencies can’t devalue against each other, etc..

And judging from the responses, basic arithmetic makes people very, very angry.

My point that if you expect debtors to pay down their debt, someone must be prepared either to increase debt or to reduce assets, leads to hysterical accusations of immorality. My point that a weak dollar is a strong euro and vice versa leads to accusations that I want everyone to become Zimbabwe.

It’s kind of funny; it would be even funnier if denial of arithmetic weren’t contributing, in a very real sense, to our economic problems.

(More here.)