[pksebben]

I'll offer a slight adjustment; "Finance in general encourages risky behavior". It is an industry explicitly dealing in moving and dealing in risk.

We periodically become very aware of this. See financial news in 1893, 1901, 1907, 1910, 1914, 1920, 1937, 1949, 1953, 1961, 1970, 1973, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1998, 2000, 2008, 2011, and so on and so on.

It's almost as if a zero-sum, value neutral industry controlling the bulk of world finance is inherently a very very bad idea.

[nox101]

What part is zero-sum?

[immibis]

The part of the world economy that moves value from one person to another, without creating any value, is zero-sum.

[namaria]

That's not what zero-sum means

[throw5959]

There's no such thing.

[hartator]

Speculative assets are by definition are zero-sum.

If they go to infinite or to zero, they still produce zero.

[npoc]

You're confusing things that you value in life with things with economic value.

Also you don't seem to see that something that stores your economic value better than anything else (the "infinite" outcome) would be of great value to your life.

[grues-dinner]

You could also see it as economic value is commonly extremely divorced from any useful human measure of value. Enough money to feed the world is "made" and "lost" though market oscillations that aren't really based in any practical reality. Like Tesla being worth more than the rest of the next 35 car companies, say. Or just one of the several apps that calls a cab being worth the GDP of Kenya. Or the value of Bitcoin.

The fiction is that the market is an infinitely rational representation of value, denominated in the same units humans buy food and shelter with, and generally correlated with their ability to do so. But it seems "the economy" has less and less to do with life on the ground.

[npoc]

Economic value is entirely rooted in life on the ground, but it is simply the demand part of the equation.

Its equal to demand (in £) divided by supply (kg/gallon/BTC etc).

Market oscillations are all based in practical reality, but if they don't make sense, you're just not aware of their cause. For example, multiple traders around the world simultaneously buying /selling with high leverage according to obscure technical analysis of the price chart.

What distorts everything is that the value of what we measure economic value in is itself devalued by 50% every decade through supply inflation. Economic value over time != price over time.

https://imgur.com/a/1ljSLgA

[grues-dinner]

I mean this is what all the textbooks say, but it's cold comfort to people who want bread, clean water, a roof and a warm bed rather than some economist-approved funny money on a graph somewhere.

Everyone's been told to trust the system, the market knows best. At this rate, I don't think they will continue to do indefinitely.

[hartator]

> You're confusing things that you value in life with things with economic value.

If you think about it, the "economic" value is just the market trying to discover what everyone value in life.

> Also you don't seem to see that something that stores your economic value better than anything else (the "infinite" outcome) would be of great value to your life.

Finding a cure for cancer will be infinite value and most people will give anything for it - including all Bitcoins in the world. This - finding the cure of cancer - is the way better store of value than anything. The reverse is not true.

[npoc]

That's only demand.

Economic value = supply / demand.

Do you value air?

It's worthless. I wouldn't buy a litre of air for even a penny. But put me at the bottom of the sea, out of oxygen (i.e. no supply), and I'd give you everything I have for it.