Originally posted by rs7
OK, a double LOL must mean I am wrong? Dark, my man, am I? All the wealth that disappeared in the stock market ended up somewhere else? It IS an net zero game?
rs7
You may be wrong but you may be right, to borrow from Billy Joel... depending on your point of view as to inputs vs outputs.
I was responding to a) your dismissal of my view before reading it and b) the notion that the question is black and white in mathematical terms.
The real question, in my estimation, revolves around how you mentally reconcile inputs vs outputs, and whether future inputs are allowed on the ledger. If future innovation and productivity increases translate into increased money flows, then fine- the pie can expand. But that extrapolation is not guaranteed.
And why are traders worried about the long term anyway? From the common 'long run' argument, it seems more apropos for the question to be is INVESTING a zero sum game.
And again I say, how do you look at it? Is energy a zero sum game? What about "unlocking" resources? Does that negate the finite energy observations of thermodynamics?
Does the balance sheet reconcile itself at the end of each trading day? Yes it does- the only conceptual monkey wrench is the fluctuation of the money supply going up and down on a regular basis as loans are called in and loans are sent out.
As Jem pointed out, it's not really that important a question and can devolve into semantics fairly quickly.
To me the value of questions like this are as a thinking exercise, as a way to shed light on how things work. I don't understand the mentality of wanting to nail the sucker down and answer it in three seconds flat and declare anything below the surface to be off limits. Why the need to pin down the answer violently and reject all attempts to look at other angles of the question? This isn't skeet shooting.
