"all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel."
JFC!
“In 2010, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/opinion/krugman-the-excel-depression.html?seid=auto&smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&_r=0
So the Reinhart-Rogoff fiasco needs to be seen in the broader context of austerity mania: the obviously intense desire of policy makers, politicians and pundits across the Western world to turn their backs on the unemployed and instead use the economic crisis as an excuse to slash social programs.
Are you listening, Mr Osbourne?