Entries Tagged 'Investing' ↓

Investing is an example of pari-mutuel betting. I discussed this topic in my last post, “Investing is Not the Kind of Gambling You Think! ”  Pari-mutuel betting is based on human intelligence, not on probability or mere chance. This means the more you know about investing, the better your “odds” are for winning.

Economists and financial writers often are blissfully unaware of this difference.

They use the word “gambling” in relation to investing in inappropriate ways. They also refer to probability betting as if it applies to betting on the outcomes of activities involving living beings. It doesn’t. Probability betting applies only to inanimate objects like dice, cards, or spinning wheels. It doesn’t apply to the hand or mind that manipulates those objects. Continue reading →

Yes, a face can launch a ship, but it’s words that cause wars.

Example 1: Nature means two mutually exclusive things

A conflict between PETA and Park Service rangers can be traced back to a 19th century British philosopher, John Stuart Mill. Mill wrote a book called On Nature. In it Mill noted that we use the word “Nature” to mean two mutually exclusive things: (1) everything except “man” and (2) everything including man (i.e., we too have a human “nature” so we’re a part of Nature).

The confusion begins, said Mill, when people using the word switch back and forth between meanings of the word “Nature.” The conflict starts when people use the same word, “Nature,” to mean two mutually exclusive things.
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Money, as Karl Marx spent thousands of pages in his book titled Grundrisse trying to convince us, is not a “thing.” In modern economics this idea is expressed more succinctly. Money, we are told, is “a medium of exchange.” But an exchange of what for what?

Even though they say money is about exchange, economists usually talk about things in connection with it. “You sell me one thing. I give you money. You take my money and buy another thing. That person takes your money and buys more things, etc.”

Marx’s view of money as an medium of exchange was quite a bit more profound. Marx viewed money as a “social compact.” When the society that created and agreed to use a certain kind of money no longer functioned, neither did its money.
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