> If Alice values potatoes at 1.01 apples and Bob values apples at 1.01 potatoes, and they trade, maybe they've created 0.01 apples worth of value but they cert

> If Alice values potatoes at 1.01 apples and Bob values apples at 1.01 potatoes, and they trade, maybe they've created 0.01 apples worth of value but they certainly have not created two, they started with two and ended with approximately two. If they change their mind and trade back, they've not created 0.02 apples worth of value, they've revealed that the whole thing was a waste of time. Selling used goods often leads to valuations like this because human preferences change over time. Consider a used bookstore where people buy books they haven't read before, sell them back when they are done, and then buy some of them yet again much later to reread. The same physical items can trade hands multiple times and keep creating value. > No, it's the farmer who starts with dirt, water, sunshine and diesel and grows the apples and potatoes who is creating value. "Efficiency of resource allocation" are a lot of big words that do little more than justify the speaker diverting a little of the revenue stream to themselves. Isn't the farmer just efficiently allocating the solar system's resources? If not apples and potatoes, grass and trees would grow. If the farmer produces value by directing 1KW/m^2 in a certain way then why can't Jeff Bezos create value by directing a company in a certain way?