The "Economics is Not a Zero-Sum Game" myth

[Le Jacquelope]

Anyone wanna chance a guess as to why it's wishful thinking to say that economics is not a zero-sum game?

There are two reasons, packed into one.

See ya tomorrow.

 

[Pure]

jacq, the process of life, too, in a larger sense, is zero sum. nothing is free.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

jacq, the process of life, too, in a larger sense, is zero sum. nothing is free.

Bingo. You landed on the grill hotter than a new york steak at high noon on the 4th of July, but yer not quite crispy yet.

Just a little closer...

 

[trysail]

Here's a Financial Literacy Quiz for Congress:
Commentary by Caroline Baum
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aGgfjnmySQKc&refer=home

April 22 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government is making a push to improve financial literacy in this country. Whether you're investing your 401(k) retirement account, buying a home or choosing the right mortgage, a working knowledge of economics and finance has become a necessity.

Financial literacy begins at home, which means those who write the laws we live by should understand the unintended consequences. With members of Congress rushing to craft legislation to help folks hurt by the housing bust, they should first be required to pass a simple, multiple-choice test before they can send a bill to the president...

...6. Crude oil prices seem to reach new highs every day. The national average gas price set a record last week of $3.39 a gallon, cutting into the consumer's discretionary spending. Congress should:

a) Accuse Big Oil companies of collusion and threaten to enact a windfall profits tax;

b) Sponsor a field trip to a state-of-the-art offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico to see why it costs more than half a million dollars a day to drill in 5,000 feet of water and through 15,000 feet of rock;

c) Open an E-Trade account to trade crude oil futures in the Senate cloak room;

d) Buy a Prius and leave the worrying to someone else.

7. The housing bubble was caused by:

a) Stock speculators, who had to find another playground once the Internet and technology stock mania collapsed in 2000;

b) Used car salesman, who found gainful employment as mortgage lenders when the U.S. auto industry hit a speed bump;

c) The belief that soaring home prices were a sign of ``froth,'' not a bubble, according to Greenspan, a distinction that might elude the average condo-flipper in Miami;

d) Congress, because of its efforts to eliminate the practice of ``redlining,'' or discriminating against low-income, inner-city families. The lawmakers who are up in arms about predatory mortgage lending now are probably the same ones who pressured banks in previous decades to lower loan standards and extend credit to folks with a checkered repayment history.

8...

...The answers to the quiz and lawmakers' grades will be published in the 2009 federal budget. That would be an incentive to wade through the document -- for perhaps the first and last time in their long and illustrious careers.

 

[gauchecritic]

Because economics is a measure not a tool.

The ones that think they can manipulate it are tools.

 

[3113]

Anyone wanna chance a guess as to why it's wishful thinking to say that economics is not a zero-sum game?

Why don't you first tell us who thinks it is NOT a zero-sum game and why they think this?

Ultimately, a zero-sum game usually applies to one resource and rules equally applied to all the players. To say that "economics" is or is not a zero-sum" doesn't make much sense. Economics is a word that means a huge, complex web of interaction with a lot of resources and rules not always known or fairly applied. So why would anyone believe it was or was not a zero-sum game in the first place?

But evidently some people do believe this. So, instead of playing guessing games with us--which might be a lot of fun for you but just tend to piss me off--why don't you explain WHO holds this myth, about what exactly, why they hold it and why you're bringing it up at all. Then maybe you'll have given us enough information to give a shit and want to maybe play your stupid guessing game. Which isn't, by the way, zero-sum as you're holding all the cards...or think you are.

 

[Liar]

Anyone wanna chance a guess as to why it's wishful thinking to say that economics is not a zero-sum game?

In order for it to be wishful thinking, someone must first wish it to be so.

In order to wish it to be a zero-sum game, one must understand what the hell that actually means, in theory and practice.

And I'll bet if you're clever enough to fully grasp the concept, you're clever enough to see it's not something to wish for.

 

[gauchecritic]

double entry book keeping.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Oh puh-lease.

There are more people on the planet than ever, and every last one of them has a standard of living that is either equal to the subsistence levels at which the entire world population existed just a few hundred years ago, or is many orders of magnitude greater. So economics sure as hell is not a zero-sum game, or this reality could not exist.

 

[gauchecritic]

Oh puh-lease.

There are more people on the planet than ever, and every last one of them has a standard of living that is either equal to the subsistence levels at which the entire world population existed just a few hundred years ago

Now that is just blatantly untrue.

 

[rgraham666]

She means everyone important, gauche.

 

[foolishlittleone]

Of course economics is a zero-sum game. Our planet has a finite set of resourses. You get more, I get less. That's exactly what zero-sum means. See, for example, this.

There are any number of people who would object, saying that "Oh, no, everybody can have anything they are willing to work for." But that implies infinite resources and is, to me, obviously unrealistic. I believe that those who think economics are not zero-sum, are exactly those on the "winning side" -- since they've gotten more, they want to keep it under any future circumstances, even it that means the utter destruction of the world as we know it.

 

[Pure]

you are right, fooolish

but economics does NOT consider the entire resources of the planet.

it looks at the resources extracted and what'st done.

for certain resources, MORE can be extracted, e.g. oil, up to a point. hence the oil market is not yet (quite) zero sum.

 

[gauchecritic]

for certain resources, MORE can be extracted, e.g. oil, up to a point. hence the oil market is not yet (quite) zero sum.

Most oil fields have passed zero sum already.

The oil cost of extraction is greater than the oil extracted, hence the price shift. (in terms of motive oil)

 

[foolishlittleone]

you are right, fooolish

but economics does NOT consider the entire resources of the planet.

it looks at the resources extracted and what'st done.

for certain resources, MORE can be extracted, e.g. oil, up to a point. hence the oil market is not yet (quite) zero sum.

Yeah, exactly the problem. Our economic system doesn't include the entire resources of the planet or the degradation of them. Peak oil, increasing population, increasing desire for meat.... None of that is balanced against declining oceaning fishing, soil degradation, CO2 emissions, etc. We're in deep trouble and few wich to acknowledge it.

 

[WRJames]

Of course economics is a zero-sum game. Our planet has a finite set of resourses. You get more, I get less. That's exactly what zero-sum means. See, for example, this.

There are any number of people who would object, saying that "Oh, no, everybody can have anything they are willing to work for." But that implies infinite resources and is, to me, obviously unrealistic. I believe that those who think economics are not zero-sum, are exactly those on the "winning side" -- since they've gotten more, they want to keep it under any future circumstances, even it that means the utter destruction of the world as we know it.

Back in the seventies everyone was convinced that we were running out of resources -- the good times were over and done. There was an palpable aura of despair -- and high energy prices, stagflation, a crisis of confidence in our national pride, a failed presidency -- does all this seem familiar?

I just hope we aren't going to see leisure suits come back!

In any case, the issue of limited resources is a very tricky one, and while it may be time for despair, most likely it is not, quite yet. So far we have been clever enough to work around our limitiations.

And, really, we are not limited to earthly resources any longer. We are not so far away from being to exploit lunar resources -- possibly asteroids and comets as well. As far as energy is concerned -- we have abundant energy resources available, we just need the will to make use of them. Oil prices have to get high enough to force us to look at some of these alternatives.

Having recently visited some "developing" countries, I am astonished at the amount of economic growth that is occuring in places we tend to dismiss as backaward -- Honduras, Belize, Egypt.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Now that is just blatantly untrue.

Is it? If you insist so then you have no clue about how our ancestors actually lived. Key word: Subsistence. One bad harvest from disaster, and none too-full bowls even when the harvest was good. We don't have a clue just how good we have it today.

The only exceptions to the above was a tiny fringe of aristocracy - less than 5 percent of the population, probably 2-3 percent, actually. People in unreformed third-world countries today live very much like our ancestors did everywhere up until just a few hundred years ago - say the late 18th C or so.

She means everyone important, gauche.

I notice that the tiniest little "thrown elbow" by Box in the Obama had you blubbering about "insults," but you don't bat an eyelash at accusing me of the worst kind of malicious elitism.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

The universe is not a zero-sum game myth.

Someday it will either burn up all its fuel and be nothing but worn-out cinders hurtling into the oblivion of infinity, or all the energy and matter will suck itself back into a singularity to start the whole thing over in a new big bang.

Who cares; life is short, and you only get one chance to enjoy it. "Enjoy it" doesn't mean party until you puke, but living the good life: Enjoy both pleasure and the satisfactions of accomplishment, add value to the lives of both your loved ones and your community, and in the end meet your fate knowing that the world is a better place for your having been in it, and grateful for the enjoyment you took from it.

That's all.

 

[gauchecritic]

Is it? If you insist so then you have no clue about how our ancestors actually lived. Key word: Subsistence. One bad harvest from disaster, and none too-full bowls even when the harvest was good. We don't have a clue just how good we have it today.

Do you not read what you type Roxleby?

There are more people on the planet than ever, and every last one of them has a standard of living that is either equal to the subsistence levels at which the entire world population existed just a few hundred years ago

and then

People in unreformed third-world countries today live very much like our ancestors did everywhere up until just a few hundred years ago - say the late 18th C or so.

So all the charities that regularly advertise on television begging for money to dig and maintain wells in unreformed (whatever that means) third world countries show film of hundreds of thousands of people dying from malnutrition and you think that's a better standard of living than tribal villages and farms as they'd lived since time immemorial?

 

[WRJames]

Someday it will either burn up all its fuel and be nothing but worn-out cinders hurtling into the oblivion of infinity, or all the energy and matter will suck itself back into a singularity to start the whole thing over in a new big bang.

Who cares; life is short, and you only get one chance to enjoy it. "Enjoy it" doesn't mean party until you puke, but living the good life: Enjoy both pleasure and the satisfactions of accomplishment, add value to the lives of both your loved ones and your community, and in the end meet your fate knowing that the world is a better place for your having been in it, and grateful for the enjoyment you took from it.

That's all.

Of course, a theme in my novels is that God gets fed up with humankind because we are endangering the rest of Creation -- so we probably need to temper that enjoyment with a proper respect for the fact that life on Earth has been around for billions of years before us, and probably will be around for billions of years after we are gone. Assuming we don't wipe it all out in a fit of hubris.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Do you not read what you type Roxleby?

and then

So all the charities that regularly advertise on television begging for money to dig and maintain wells in unreformed (whatever that means) third world countries show film of hundreds of thousands of people dying from malnutrition and you think that's a better standard of living than tribal villages and farms as they'd lived since time immemorial?

Oh, today's third world certainly doesn't come close to the standards of the typical utopian fantasy of what life was like back in those happy pre-industrial days. Those happy times when an iron kettle cost a year's wage or more, when a rough woolen shift or suit was not much less, when shoes were a luxury for the tiny fringe of aristocracy, when early spring brought the stimulating challenge of deciding whether to satisfy your aching empty belly by eating the dwindling seed-grain, or hanging on for another six-eight weeks so you could plant and hope for a harvest next year. (Did you know that the ratio of food-to-seed grain in pre-modern times was like 3-1?) When a simple impacted wisdom tooth meant the terrors of the damned, and childbirth - you don't even want to think about it.

Malnutrition unique to today's third world? Gauche - why the heck do you think people were so much smaller in pre-modern times? To repeat, we don't have a clue how good we have it, and how much we take for granted.

"Zero sum?" You've got to be kidding.

My sarcasm is not targeted at you personally, dear Gauche, but at the general sense of unreality that people have about the nature of the blessings that modernity and industrial civilization have poured forth upon us, and the true nature of life in pre-modern times.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Of course, a theme in my novels is that God gets fed up with humankind because we are endangering the rest of Creation -- so we probably need to temper that enjoyment with a proper respect for the fact that life on Earth has been around for billions of years before us, and probably will be around for billions of years after we are gone. Assuming we don't wipe it all out in a fit of hubris.

Actually, it won't be around for billions of years after we're "gone." In just a few hundred million years the sun will expand and turn this planet into a cinder, incinerating every living thing on or under its surface.

We, of course, being homo sapiens (or our successor species), will have split for other star systems tens-of-thousands of years previously in huge multi-generation ships, and any other earthly creatures that survive will owe their lives to our brains and foresight.

 

[foolishlittleone]

Back in the seventies everyone was convinced that we were running out of resources -- the good times were over and done. There was an palpable aura of despair -- and high energy prices, stagflation, a crisis of confidence in our national pride, a failed presidency -- does all this seem familiar?

I just hope we aren't going to see leisure suits come back!

In any case, the issue of limited resources is a very tricky one, and while it may be time for despair, most likely it is not, quite yet. So far we have been clever enough to work around our limitiations.

And, really, we are not limited to earthly resources any longer. We are not so far away from being to exploit lunar resources -- possibly asteroids and comets as well. As far as energy is concerned -- we have abundant energy resources available, we just need the will to make use of them. Oil prices have to get high enough to force us to look at some of these alternatives.

Having recently visited some "developing" countries, I am astonished at the amount of economic growth that is occuring in places we tend to dismiss as backaward -- Honduras, Belize, Egypt.

Oh, my! Another clueless individual. Really, I'm only a little surprised. Not wanting to offend, but this sort of thinking is purely juvenile. That's fine when it come to erotic fiction, yet deadly when applied to real world issues.

Egypt is having food riots. Belize is one of the poorest places on the planet. It's foolish to cite these places as bastions of economic growth.

And you're going to exploit lunar resources? Please, we need clear thinking to solve our problems, not science fiction.

Wheat, rice, corn reserves are at record lows, their prices nearing record highs. Oil has hit all time highs with no end in sight. CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions are at record highs. There's nothing good in any of this. We've never faced anything like it before. And we're adding nearly 80 million people per year to the planet, far more than the population of the UK, every year.

This isn't a left versus right or moderate versus neocon issue. We are now facing exactly what people back in the 70's were talking about: limits to growth. They may have been off by a few years but they were not fundamentally wrong in trying to raise an alarm. The ocean fisheries are dying. For the first time ever salmon fishing on the US west coast between Alaska and Mexico has been cancelled due to a drastic and inexplicable decline in spawning. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico persists, likely due to pesticide runoff into the Mississippi. Coral reefs have been dying off for years with no sign of rebounding. Rain forests continue to decline.

Please, don't try to spin this as something good for the world economy.

 

[Oblimo]

Economics is a negative-sum game. For liberals, the negative sum comes from excessive profit taking. For conservatives, the negative sum comes from taxes.

 

[rgraham666]

Economics is a negative-sum game. For liberals, the negative sum comes from excessive profit taking. For conservatives, the negative sum comes from taxes.

They're probably both right.