3 ms·

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a comment.

arthurcolle 6y ago
+1 for the Charles Babbage reference
recursive 6y ago
If you make money on trades and then spend it on food, it certainly does seem like some kind of magic trick to me. Whatever money you earned must have been lost by someone else. Or does the amount of money increase when stocks go up? Whatever the confusion is, I have it too.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  I make something and sell it to you for $5. Tomorrow, you sell it to a third person for $10. Who lost money here?
  - recursive 6y ago
    Excellent question. Really no one I think. I'm definitely wrong about something though. I need to think about it some more to figure out what.
  - recursive 6y ago
    A new interpretation came to overnight, as if in a dream. I don't know what's correct, but here it goes. You and the third person both lost money in some unknown combination. Either you're selling for a lower price, or 3rd is buying for a higher price, or probably both. In the metaphor, this is aggregated across bazillions of transactions, and ignores benefits like supply and demand are generally evened out over time.
    - runarberg 6y ago
      I think the question is flawed... Or at least irrelevant. Since we are talking about the stock market (and stock brokers don’t make anything of value) a better question would be: You hire a worker for $2 to make something you sell for $5. Someone buys it for $5 and sells it to a forth person for $10. Who lost money? Now to make this simplification more accurate, there is a system in place for the $5 to $10 transaction called The stock market where there are bazillions of these transaction. Another question arises. Who is selling something for $5 when they could sell it straight to the forth person for %10? Who has is $10 and why are they paying $10 for it? How did they get that $10? Did they make something worth $10 and sold it for $10? I think the real answer for who is loosing money is: Workers across the globe are.
      - recursive 6y ago
        Without the middleman it seems possible that some of the buyers and sellers never might have found each other. I don't know.

+1 for the Charles Babbage reference

If you make money on trades and then spend it on food, it certainly does seem like some kind of magic trick to me. Whatever money you earned must have been lost by someone else. Or does the amount of money increase when stocks go up? Whatever the confusion is, I have it too.

boring_twenties 6y ago
I make something and sell it to you for $5. Tomorrow, you sell it to a third person for $10. Who lost money here?
- recursive 6y ago
  Excellent question. Really no one I think. I'm definitely wrong about something though. I need to think about it some more to figure out what.
- recursive 6y ago
  A new interpretation came to overnight, as if in a dream. I don't know what's correct, but here it goes. You and the third person both lost money in some unknown combination. Either you're selling for a lower price, or 3rd is buying for a higher price, or probably both. In the metaphor, this is aggregated across bazillions of transactions, and ignores benefits like supply and demand are generally evened out over time.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    I think the question is flawed... Or at least irrelevant. Since we are talking about the stock market (and stock brokers don’t make anything of value) a better question would be: You hire a worker for $2 to make something you sell for $5. Someone buys it for $5 and sells it to a forth person for $10. Who lost money? Now to make this simplification more accurate, there is a system in place for the $5 to $10 transaction called The stock market where there are bazillions of these transaction. Another question arises. Who is selling something for $5 when they could sell it straight to the forth person for %10? Who has is $10 and why are they paying $10 for it? How did they get that $10? Did they make something worth $10 and sold it for $10? I think the real answer for who is loosing money is: Workers across the globe are.
    - recursive 6y ago
      Without the middleman it seems possible that some of the buyers and sellers never might have found each other. I don't know.