To think that two and two are four/And neither five nor three/The heart of man has long been sore/And long ’tis like to be.” Anybody thinking about the economy needs to recall these lines by the English poet AE Housman. Things must add up. The question is how. People responsible for large economies cannot ignore this. A tragedy of the eurozone, especially of Germany’s role within it, is that the transition to thinking about how income and expenditure add up at eurozone and global levels has so far failed to occur.
“To think that two and two are four/And neither five nor three/The heart of man has long been sore/And long ’tis like to be.(大意:想到二加二等于四/既不是五也不是三/人的心已經(jīng)痛了很久/還會(huì)痛很久。)”任何思考經(jīng)濟(jì)問(wèn)題的人都需要回憶一下英國(guó)詩(shī)人A?E?豪斯曼(AE Housman)的這句詩(shī)。數(shù)字必須對(duì)上。問(wèn)題是如何對(duì)上。為大型經(jīng)濟(jì)體負(fù)責(zé)的那些人不能忽視這點(diǎn)。歐元區(qū)(特別是德國(guó)在歐元區(qū)的作用)的悲劇在于,人們迄今未能轉(zhuǎn)變思維,站在歐元區(qū)及全球?qū)用嫔纤伎际杖牒椭С鋈绾螌?duì)上。