What you’re forgetting is you still have to deliver. If you created burgers out of thin air and sold them (you’re actually creating a promise of a burger, not a

What you’re forgetting is you still have to deliver. If you created burgers out of thin air and sold them (you’re actually creating a promise of a burger, not a real burger) then you’d have to deliver these burgers when whoever bought them calls for them. Or you’d go to jail. So how could you do this? Well you could create a burger delivery service that sells other peoples burgers. But you sell them for a bit more than what you pay for them and you can begin you’re offering “all the burgers” and connecting the sellers with the buyers. Now you’re creating burgers out of thin air to people buying them from you and you’re delivering the burger they ordered even though you don’t even own a grill. Congrats, you just created a burger exchange that sells promises of future burgers on margin out of thin air. If you’re even smarter you’d use other people’s money (which is key) to capitalize this venture instead of your own and keep an outsized share of the profits. This is what investment banks and hedge funds do. Other people’s money is key to winning and not really losing.