Keith wrote: > Steve is quite right. In strictly monetary terms the whole market is a > zero-sum game
But Steve's claim was that only the closed circuit of voluntary gamblers is a zero-sum game -- not the whole market/globe, which is full of INvoluntary participants/losers (=everyone who uses the de-valued currencies, pension funds etc. and everyone who eats the food that got more expensive by speculations). > If, at the time of > Lehman's collapse, the whole economic world could have been placed in a > state of suspended animation while all the paperwork was followed through > (which would take several years!) then half the financiers would have > become rich and half would have lost their shirts. But it would also be the > case that half the governments of countries would have survived and half > would have collapsed into bankruptcy. It would also be the case that half > the businesses would have collapsed and half of workers' pension funds > would have been empty also. Using the word "half" every time shows a poor understanding of statistics. Due to the strong INequality in size (wealth) of the market participants, the median is very much below the average, so it is NOT "half", but a tiny "elite" of winners (billionaires) stands against a vast majority of losers. It's almost like in the lottery, where ONE of Keith's fellow Brits reaped 100 Million Euros last Friday, paid by MILLIONS of losers with 2 Euros each. But Keith would say that "HALF the lotto players won and HALF lost"! With such a poor understanding of statistics/maths, of course it's easy to fall for the stone-age PR spread by the billionaires. It has nothing to do with philanthropy, but everything with self-serving greed. To understand the difference between median and average, explained in cavemen's terms, read http://www.darwinsfinance.com/median-mean-definition/ Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
