As much as I despise headlines with a question mark, this one presents the intriguing possibility that a math error in an Excel spreadsheet led to the claim that a debt-to-GDP ratio of 90% is a tipping point for growth. That ratio played heavily in the news about Greek and Spanish austerity. I’m always fascinated by stories of software errors causing problems way out of proportion to the size of the error, like the Ariane 5: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5_Flight_501
Originally shared by Todd Hoff
At root, I don’t think anyone really understands money or how or why it really works. Austerity thinking thinks of the economy as a zero sum game, which makes sense from an economic POV, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. Why is that? We don’t really have any examples of successful complex systems that don’t rely on some sort of freely available commons, like the sun and earth resources. Money plays that same role in the market economy I think.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-the-excel-depression.html?_r=1