폴리매스

RICH MAN'S PARADOX

There is a very poor, quaint, little town where everyone is in a huge debt with someone but has no money to pay it back.

There is a hotel which is hardly seeing any business anymore. They are to soon shut it down. One day a very wealthy American guest shows up and wants to spend a night there. However, before he confirms, he asks for a tour of the hotel. The receptionist asks for a security deposit which the American can take back in case he doesn’t like the rooms. The guest obliges. It turns out by a matter of luck this is the exact amount that the hotel owed to the chef as salary for three months which they hadn’t been able to pay. They gave the cash to the chef.

The chef saw that this was the exact amount of cash he owed the grocer for months of groceries he hadn’t been able to pay for. He paid the grocer. The grocer realized it was the exact amount he owed the doctor for treating his wife’s arthritis, so he paid the doctor. Then the doctor paid the money to the nurse for two months of service he couldn’t pay for. The nurse was new to the town, so she had been staying in the hotel for a few days before she found a house to rent. She too was poor and couldn’t pay the hotel at that time. The money she received from the doctor was exactly what she owed the hotel, so she paid.

Now the hotel had got back the exact amount it had paid the chef. Then the guest has finished his tour of the rooms, and it turns out he doesn’t like it. He takes back his security deposit from the hotel and leaves, never to be seen again. So everyone's debt has been paid, but nothing is different from before. No one has earned anything. But now everyone is happy even though the money has done nothing but to return to its first owner. Therefore, this paradox is basically describing how nothing had changed from the start, but along the way, debts were paid, with no money.

DID THE DEBT REALLY EXISTED AT ALL?