People tend to forget that every race to the bottom has a predictable end: hitting the bottom.
Yeah, and Spain didn't run budget surpluses and lower its public debt to 40% of GDP by 2007 while Germany kept its debt above 60% for the whole decade.
I believe this is called "the fiscalization lie" and it is popular because it is self-serving. tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
That the sum of mutual trades nets down to zero is not particularly challenging either.
And if anyone has failed to think through even something as simple as that, it would be wise to simply avoid commenting -something that PHD students should be sensitive to. You'll be surprised how often I fail to give a definitive advice about insects taxonomy. Or even about microbiology, or statistical physics, fields in which I actually hold a degree.
This is not to say that your friends are not nice people. But I remain baffled by how easily macroeconomics get treated like a religion -even by economists. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi
