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The reason that joke is funny is that the economists are ignoring the fact that someone has to be the first person to come across that $100 bill. One is not lik

The reason that joke is funny is that the economists are ignoring the fact that someone has to be the first person to come across that $100 bill. One is not likely be the first woman to 'come across' a single man in his 30s-40s, who has presumably been 'on the sidewalk' for 10-20+ years.

bumby 5y ago
It's a play on the idea of market efficiency. From the classical economist perspective, there's no point in trying to beat the market because if it were possible, somebody would have already discovered and exploited it, leaving you unable to do so similarly. Just like the dating claim that if somebody was desirable, they would have already been taken. My claim is that both perspectives are wrong because neither market is perfectly efficient. Ironically, taking the approach that they are efficient makes it harder to accomplish either end of beating the market or finding a mate.
- allturtles 5y ago
  I don't think the situations are at all similar. If you come across a $100 bill, chances are you are in fact the first person to come across it. You've already beaten the odds. If you come across a man in his 30s-40s who has always been single, chances are he is not a '$100 bill' man. It's possible that he is, but it's very unlikely. This is not the same as saying that there are no such thing as older '$100 bill' men, just like $100 bills do sometimes (but very rarely) end up on sidewalks.
  - bumby 5y ago
    I think you’re missing the entire point of the joke. >If you come across a $100 bill, chances are you are in fact the first person to come across it. The economist assumes you won’t be the first person because of market efficiency. Your assumption above disregards this. It seems like you are having a hard time reconciling that with the imagined scenario of seeing the bill, because the assumption is someone who noticed it previously would have picked it up. The fact that those two don’t reconcile is the whole point.
    - allturtles 5y ago
      I get the point of the joke. The equivalent would be if someone were saying "Oh I met this handsome, rich, kind, unmarried 45-year-old man last night, but there must be something wrong with him, or else someone would have married him already." But I'm not saying that and I don't think the originator of this sub-thread is either. We're saying "Only a small portion of the available older men will actually be attractive mates (on whatever dimensions) because those who are attractive will have mostly been taken already." It's like an economist saying "It's not a good use of your time to go outside scouring the sidewalks for $100 bills." That's not funny, it's just accurate.
      - bumby 5y ago
        >The equivalent would be if someone were saying "Oh I met this handsome, rich, kind, unmarried 45-year-old man last night, but there must be something wrong with him, or else someone would have married him already." We may be reading it differently but to my eyes, GP said essentially the same thing with "by definition they won't meet the highest of standards. Because if they did, they wouldn't be single." In other words, that rich, kind, high standard unmarried 45 year old must have something wrong with him or he wouldn't be single. I didn't take them to mean "there's a smaller pool to select from" because that's trivially apparent as more people get married, but it also cuts down on the competition as well. I don't think anyone would argue that the longer a buffet table is open, the less chance there is to get the best choices. But the economist was saying "That cake still on the buffet line can't be good because if it were, it wouldn't be there." That's much more aligned with the GP's statement.
- psyc 5y ago
  I suppose the dating market, much like the hiring market, is distorted by the intense aversion to false positives.
- fleddr 5y ago
  I'd guess it depends on how narrow or wide you define the "desirable" group. Research from dating sites often conclude that women select for the top 20% of men whilst largely ignoring everybody else. I imagine such a "top" man to be handsome, sociable, strong, economically successful or at least stable, funny, and whatever other quality women select for. The chance for such men to go unnoticed and unclaimed until they are 30-40 y/o has to be close to zero. Almost all female attention is channeled to them, and they're unlikely to be passive themselves. The market should be efficient here. Do you know of any hot successful men that are single due to not being discovered? If you widen the selection criteria to the best 50% of men, you're likely right that some of them in their 30s go "undiscovered". Yet it's questionable whether this is so in large numbers as time still matters: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profile-of-single-americans/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profi... In the age group of 30-49, 27% of men are single. Half of them want to be single and are not on the market, so that leaves 13.5% of remaining "supply". So a single woman in this same age group looking for a man finds 86.5% of men unavailable or not interested. Did the market perfectly select the "best" 86.5% already? No, human affairs are complex, but we also should not look away from basic dynamics. Nature finds a way, whether we like it or not. In my country (Netherlands) already from age 20, only 20% of men is single. It's unlikely that all remain with this same partner for life, but this is to point out that selection start early, and almost all "supply" is immediately taken. I don't know if the market is efficient, but it sure is fast. When trying to find your first partner in your 30s, you're a decade too late if you have high standards. In your 40s, most people have a family with kids that might be up to 10 years old, so "late" doesn't even begin to express it.
  - bumby 5y ago
    I think I'd question some of your analysis here. >The chance for [handsome, sociable, strong, economically successful or at least stable, funny] men to go unnoticed and unclaimed until they are 30-40 y/o has to be close to zero. No doubt it's a smaller pool, but close to zero? I would be skeptical about such an absolute claim unless there's actual data. The pew research article doesn't speak to this point specifically, and I'm not such how one would quantify it. >So a single woman in this same age group looking for a man finds 86.5% of men unavailable or not interested This is based on the assumption that the entire pool should be the denominator. I don't think it should, and the single men looking for a desirable mate are in the a similar situation, where over 60% of women are unavailable. If one was a highly desirable female, it would seem to they can still align with a highly desirable male because both pools are dwindling. It's not like every single female is competing with every other female. As the number of available mates goes down, so does the number of competitors, albeit at differing rates. I would expect those different rates to have an impact, but not so much that the effective ability to find a comparable mate to be driven to zero, at least not for someone in their 30s-40s. To circle back to the economist train of thought, if alignment isn't happening it could be attributed to inefficiencies (e.g., there isn't a market that allows for relatively frictionless meeting between players) or there is a misalignment of expectations that prevents agreement between players (e.g., I can't get junk bond returns at AAA bond prices/risk).

bumby 5y ago

It's a play on the idea of market efficiency. From the classical economist perspective, there's no point in trying to beat the market because if it were possible, somebody would have already discovered and exploited it, leaving you unable to do so similarly. Just like the dating claim that if somebody was desirable, they would have already been taken. My claim is that both perspectives are wrong because neither market is perfectly efficient. Ironically, taking the approach that they are efficient makes it harder to accomplish either end of beating the market or finding a mate.

allturtles 5y ago
I don't think the situations are at all similar. If you come across a $100 bill, chances are you are in fact the first person to come across it. You've already beaten the odds. If you come across a man in his 30s-40s who has always been single, chances are he is not a '$100 bill' man. It's possible that he is, but it's very unlikely. This is not the same as saying that there are no such thing as older '$100 bill' men, just like $100 bills do sometimes (but very rarely) end up on sidewalks.
- bumby 5y ago
  I think you’re missing the entire point of the joke. >If you come across a $100 bill, chances are you are in fact the first person to come across it. The economist assumes you won’t be the first person because of market efficiency. Your assumption above disregards this. It seems like you are having a hard time reconciling that with the imagined scenario of seeing the bill, because the assumption is someone who noticed it previously would have picked it up. The fact that those two don’t reconcile is the whole point.
  - allturtles 5y ago
    I get the point of the joke. The equivalent would be if someone were saying "Oh I met this handsome, rich, kind, unmarried 45-year-old man last night, but there must be something wrong with him, or else someone would have married him already." But I'm not saying that and I don't think the originator of this sub-thread is either. We're saying "Only a small portion of the available older men will actually be attractive mates (on whatever dimensions) because those who are attractive will have mostly been taken already." It's like an economist saying "It's not a good use of your time to go outside scouring the sidewalks for $100 bills." That's not funny, it's just accurate.
    - bumby 5y ago
      >The equivalent would be if someone were saying "Oh I met this handsome, rich, kind, unmarried 45-year-old man last night, but there must be something wrong with him, or else someone would have married him already." We may be reading it differently but to my eyes, GP said essentially the same thing with "by definition they won't meet the highest of standards. Because if they did, they wouldn't be single." In other words, that rich, kind, high standard unmarried 45 year old must have something wrong with him or he wouldn't be single. I didn't take them to mean "there's a smaller pool to select from" because that's trivially apparent as more people get married, but it also cuts down on the competition as well. I don't think anyone would argue that the longer a buffet table is open, the less chance there is to get the best choices. But the economist was saying "That cake still on the buffet line can't be good because if it were, it wouldn't be there." That's much more aligned with the GP's statement.
psyc 5y ago
I suppose the dating market, much like the hiring market, is distorted by the intense aversion to false positives.
fleddr 5y ago
I'd guess it depends on how narrow or wide you define the "desirable" group. Research from dating sites often conclude that women select for the top 20% of men whilst largely ignoring everybody else. I imagine such a "top" man to be handsome, sociable, strong, economically successful or at least stable, funny, and whatever other quality women select for. The chance for such men to go unnoticed and unclaimed until they are 30-40 y/o has to be close to zero. Almost all female attention is channeled to them, and they're unlikely to be passive themselves. The market should be efficient here. Do you know of any hot successful men that are single due to not being discovered? If you widen the selection criteria to the best 50% of men, you're likely right that some of them in their 30s go "undiscovered". Yet it's questionable whether this is so in large numbers as time still matters: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profile-of-single-americans/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/a-profi... In the age group of 30-49, 27% of men are single. Half of them want to be single and are not on the market, so that leaves 13.5% of remaining "supply". So a single woman in this same age group looking for a man finds 86.5% of men unavailable or not interested. Did the market perfectly select the "best" 86.5% already? No, human affairs are complex, but we also should not look away from basic dynamics. Nature finds a way, whether we like it or not. In my country (Netherlands) already from age 20, only 20% of men is single. It's unlikely that all remain with this same partner for life, but this is to point out that selection start early, and almost all "supply" is immediately taken. I don't know if the market is efficient, but it sure is fast. When trying to find your first partner in your 30s, you're a decade too late if you have high standards. In your 40s, most people have a family with kids that might be up to 10 years old, so "late" doesn't even begin to express it.
- bumby 5y ago
  I think I'd question some of your analysis here. >The chance for [handsome, sociable, strong, economically successful or at least stable, funny] men to go unnoticed and unclaimed until they are 30-40 y/o has to be close to zero. No doubt it's a smaller pool, but close to zero? I would be skeptical about such an absolute claim unless there's actual data. The pew research article doesn't speak to this point specifically, and I'm not such how one would quantify it. >So a single woman in this same age group looking for a man finds 86.5% of men unavailable or not interested This is based on the assumption that the entire pool should be the denominator. I don't think it should, and the single men looking for a desirable mate are in the a similar situation, where over 60% of women are unavailable. If one was a highly desirable female, it would seem to they can still align with a highly desirable male because both pools are dwindling. It's not like every single female is competing with every other female. As the number of available mates goes down, so does the number of competitors, albeit at differing rates. I would expect those different rates to have an impact, but not so much that the effective ability to find a comparable mate to be driven to zero, at least not for someone in their 30s-40s. To circle back to the economist train of thought, if alignment isn't happening it could be attributed to inefficiencies (e.g., there isn't a market that allows for relatively frictionless meeting between players) or there is a misalignment of expectations that prevents agreement between players (e.g., I can't get junk bond returns at AAA bond prices/risk).