A wonderful, must-read piece over at Naked Capitalism on the morality of math. Well, when you put a $ or a € in front of the numbers, at least. It’s a funny story involving a class and marbles and an economic system run amok.
From her commanding heights at the ECB Teacher promptly begins distributing per capita grants of euros to all the classmates in the eurozone, and soon everybody has enough marbles to pay their debts and keep their game of “money economy” happening, to the delight of all parties. Greeks are smiling in their new Mercedes and Germans are revelling in their fat bank accounts as they soak up the Greek sun on vacation. And all’s right with the world.
Except for some Austrians, who confront Teacher, “So where are you getting all the marbles you’re distributing willy nilly throughout euroland? That seems pretty immoral to us! Unsustainable, too. Vigilantes will come an’ git you. And you won’t like that, nosiree!”
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