--- In LibertarianEnterprise@yahoogroups.com, "Dennis Lee Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > --- In LibertarianEnterprise@yahoogroups.com, "Zack Bass" <zakbas@> > wrote: > > > > > > No, that's not quite it. No matter HOW you arrange your Currency, > > even if you put everything in terms of Gold Grams or Platinum Ounces > > or whatever, even aside from Inflation due to overpublishing cash or > > any other cause, it is possible for the value of most stocks on the > > Market to fall (OR RISE) in value in a single day, wiping out the Net > > Worth of millions of people in an instant. Yet it STILL is a zero-sum > > game; SOME OTHER people have to be GAINING the exact same amount of > > Wealth. ? > Wealth creation is NOT a "zero-sum game". >
I very carefully stated that in the first post. I said that a MARKET TRADE is Zero-Sum. > > If I produce a book, a horse > shoe, a nail, a house --anything--the sum of the wealth of the world is > INCREASED. > Of course. And that is not a MARKET, it is PRODUCTION. > > The stock market is merely a subset, an avatar of the wealth > being created. > No, it is a MARKET. And in a MARKET TRADE, no Wealth is Produced. Duh. > > And so is paper money. And as we have seen, both those > avatars are subject to fraudulent manipulation. > > If yesterday, ABC stock sold for $100/share, everyone who owns that > stock "values" their own at that same price, i.e. the price of the last > sale. If today, nobody will buy the stock for more than $60/share, other > owners think they have lost wealth at $40/share. They still have their > shares and the shares themselves did not change, only the price of the > last trade. The same applies for a house or a horse shoe. > > In a barter economy, one in which gold or silver is bartered for houses > or horse shoes, there are very small changes in prices over time > Listen to yourself. Can't you see that the very same loss of "Market Value" will occur in the above scenario whwther Gold or FRNs is used to gauge that Value? The Stock Market can "lose" a trillion ounces of Gold Value of its stocks in a single day, or in an hour, but the WEALTH is still there. Market Value is not Wealth. For every man who suddenly cannot sell his shares of Consolidated Veeblefetzers for as much as he would like, there is a man who can now Buy those shares for far less than he could yesterday. And the Company is still just as Productive as before. Try to phrase it in terms of Land, that keeps out some of the confusing variables. If the Land Market changes one day, then some people with lots of Land cnanot sell it as high as the day before, but others can now Buy land (land which constitutes the SAME EXACT AMOUNT OF UTILITY AND WEALTH AS BEFORE) more cheaply; and those exactly cancel each other out. If this were not true, then it would be possible for Wealth to be CREATED by fiat in a single day, without limit, just as you think it can be Lost in Market Trades; we would all become one brazilian or one jillion dollars Wealthier in an instant and we'd all be driving starships. Sorry Charlie, those starships do not exist; that much Wealth simply is not there, and no Trades can make it exist. And by the same token, if there ARE all those starships and MRI machines lying around, they are still there even after a Stock Market Crash. If some formerly Fat Cat cannot now afford to hang onto them, well SOMEONE ELSE will be able to take them off his hands. Zero Sum.
