Is there a benefit to racism?

[Bengalzona]

(08-15-2018, 09:36 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Those things are all valued based upon the estimate that someone is willing to pay for them. Your wealth in those sorts of assets is predicated on the idea that you will be taking money from someone else. The assessed value of your home or the stock valuation of your portfolio is nothing more than some finance person saying "I can make someone pay this amount for this thing to get you money."

You realize that value of your portfolio when you sell, hopefully at a high point, at which point someone will purchase those stocks and, if you did things right, lose value on them because you sold at a high point. You've now created a loser out of the person that purchased those stocks.

Your home's value works in very much the same way. The real value of the home is in the materials that make it up and what is inside of it. Anything beyond that is just speculation on what someone will pay for it. The added value isn't tangible and can be lost at any time. There are a variety of reasons to sell, but the same principal exists in real estate as it does in stocks. You sell to increase your money, hopefully at a high point in the market. If you sell at a high point in the market, then the person that buys will lose out when the market decreases.

Capitalism.

Seriously though, as an accountant, this is the way we tend to think about things. The world of finance is all about this sort of stuff. You get to see how the sausage is made in a free market.

It is interesting. You would think that after the Bush-era recession and housing market collapse, people would realize that there are points where "the winning" stops and the piper has to be paid. But human nature is such that people do not want to believe that anymore. And our culture in the U.S. is built around reinforcing the gambler's illusions.

Isn't the concept of wealth also related to the concept of scarcity? (Which, in itself, indicates winners and losers.)