Counterintuitive problem: People in a room keep giving dollars to random others

Re:Counterintuitive problem: People in a room keep giving do... by Rotten194 on Sunday July 09, 2017 @04:45PM (#14731577)

Removing the boundary doesn't really make sense -- if you allow people to go into negative dollars but still be able to give a dollar each tick, then there's no longer a finite amount of money in the system.

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Re:Counterintuitive problem: People in a room keep giving do... by AaronFriel on Sunday July 09, 2017 @04:54PM (#14731611)

Sure there is, it's just effectively a zero interest debt instrument. Imagine that everyone is exchanging IOUs, instead of physical dollars.

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Re:Counterintuitive problem: People in a room keep giving do... by nazgul17 on Sunday July 09, 2017 @05:58PM (#14731938)

You misunderstand. The parent meant that the amount is infinite, so the property that eventually every state will happen is no longer there.

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Re:Counterintuitive problem: People in a room keep giving do... by meric on Sunday July 09, 2017 @07:49PM (#14732396)

Wow, a mathematical explanation of how uncapped debt reduces wealth mobility.

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Re:Counterintuitive problem: People in a room keep giving do... by nandemo on Sunday July 09, 2017 @09:47PM (#14732834)

You're kidding, right? No way a generic observation about a markov chain (which doesn't even model interest) implies that "uncapped debt reduces wealth mobility".

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Re:Counterintuitive problem: People in a room keep giving do... by e12e on Monday July 10, 2017 @09:59AM (#14735945)

So, with typical debt, interest rates are higher for debt than for savings. Does seem that a) removing the cap, and b) introducing interest on savings < debt would trap some people in poverty?

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Re:Counterintuitive problem: People in a room keep giving do... by barrkel on Sunday July 09, 2017 @09:25PM (#14732755)

IOUs are money, in a model this simple.

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