Wealth creation in zero sum games

[Germane]

I hate to be harsh here Matt, but your logic is downright terrible. Poker will never be zero-sum because there is friction within the system. That friction has to do with dealing and fair-play, which you either pay for at the casino, or pay for with your time in a home game. Poker will never be better than zero-sum because nothing is created. It’s merely a transfer of wealth.

The friction in the market relates to trading costs such as commisions. These will never disappear either, but they do continually decrease. The market, however, isn't a zero sum game. Earth doesn't function in a zero sum system of transfers like poker does. The market doesn't create wealth simply from natural resources. It creates wealth through innovation and creative power. The earth has had the same amount of raw resources in some form or another for millions of years. Nothing enters or leaves our atmosphere (on net, in general). Wealth isn't created from the existence of raw silicon and iron in the ground, it is created from our ability to transform it into skyscrapers and computers. It is created from transforming 10 acres of desert into farmland, allowing it to feed 50 times as many people as before. The best analogy I can give is this: Where would you rather live?

1. An acre of land with a pile of building materials
2. An acre of land with a house

Human progress means that we’re always transforming materials into things that we have more use for. It means an organization of resources, not just a depletion.

Wealth is measured by goods which people ascribe meaning to or have use for. There is no limit to the amount and variety of demand that humans will have, and there is no limit to the lengths we can go to in order to satisfy this demand. This is the basis of economics and the basis of the market: Satisfying unlimited need with unlimited resources. Humans have done an amazing job satisfying needs, and they've done it all with the same resource base of our earth. Sure, eventually the universe will end. Much sooner, I'll be dead. But I'm willing to forgo consumption in order to have future consumption, and someone else out there is willing to share his creativity if I invest with him and help make his idea reality, and together we make the world more productive. This is the process of the stock market, and it’s not a zero sum process. The cooperation of ideas, work, and capital makes the world more productive.