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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (51079)	9/12/2006 4:34:45 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Each and every futures trade is a zero sum transaction. PERIOD. It is irrelevant whether the game itself has ulterior motives or consequences. I can play for a poker pot which is a zero sum transaction. I can intentionally lose $20 or so on that pot in order to present bluffing tells that may make me a thousand in a future pot. But this does not mean I go around telling people that a pot of poker is not a zero sum transaction. "Believing that futures provide a net benefit is hardly the same as not believing "zero sum exists"." Yes, it is exactly the same. Zero sum does not provide a net benefit. It provides an equivalent loss to an equivalent gain. If you deny that then you deny the very essence of what zero sum means. Whether futures is a useful game for society to play is not the question here. The question is whether or not the futures game (each and every futures contract bought and sold in the universe) is zero sum or not. The point is that each and every futures contract IS a zero sum transaction. There was never any contention for or against the value of the futures game for society. Until you understand the nature of the game there is little point in expanding the discussion into the social value of the game.