By Taiwo Agbeluyi
One of the oldest and most harmful economic fallacies is the belief that, at best, economic exchange is a zero-sum activity.
the economy is not a zero-sum game, since throughout the process of producing goods and services we are generating wealth: whether when we investigate how to convert things into goods, when we actually convert things into goods, and when we distribute the goods through commercial exchanges
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I think most people get the idea of economic growth through transforming scarce resources into things people use, if they think about it.
The real magic, that's hard for people to understand, is economic growth through transactions of produced goods.
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I think they get this because they are doing it everyday on every exchange they make. If not, it is fairly easy to explain to them.
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Free market dictates how things should be traded. When people trade willingly, each thinks they are getting the better deal, or they wouldnt trade. Maybe not better deal, but the item they need. You cant eat gold.
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You alway gain in an exchange, otherwise no exchange. It is all a matter of subjective desires of both sides of the trade. Money, of any sort, is nothing more than a way to exchange what you have for what someone else has as a intermediary. Gold is just an intermediary, BTC is just an intermediary and wampum was just an intermediary.
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Minor correction: trades aren't necessarily mutually beneficial, but each party expects to benefit from a voluntary exchange.
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I guess I have forgotten what a minor correction trade is. Could you refresh me, please?
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ex ante vs ex post
You may regret a trade, after the fact, but expected to gain from it before hand.
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People often have buyers remorse! That is called tough sh*t! The trade would not have gone off without both sides thinking they would gain on the trade. You just have to be sure of what you want before you trade.
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