The reason you avoid the numbers isn't math. It's shame, and shame is the one creditor that charges interest on silence.

The thought behind it

The work here is precision: calling the thing what it is instead of what it has been politely mistaken for. Under Money Mind the number is never the subject; the decision that produced it is. Watch what “shame” does here. Change it and the sentence becomes comfortable again, which is how you know it matters.