Hans Christian Anderson wrote of a vain emperor who cared for nothing except wearing and displaying clothes. He hired two swindlers who promised him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or stupid. The emperor's ministers could not see the clothing themselves, but pretended that they could for fear of appearing unfit for their positions. The emperor marched in procession before his subjects and the townsfolk played along with the deception not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. A child, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurted out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The emperor cringed, suspecting the assertion was true, but continued the procession.
In 2010, economics professors Carmen Reinhart (University of Maryland) and Kenneth Rogoff (Harvard University) published a paper titled "Growth in a Time of Debt" in the American Economic Review. The paper concluded that advanced economies with debt in excess of 90 percent of their gross domestic product suffer "notably lower" economic growth.
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