Word
How it plays
Reference
Notes
Players are
buying and selling cards, trying to make chips.
We buy, trade and sell naturally. We already know "basic economics." So how come it's suddenly so complicated?
Borrowing
Unfortunately, or fortunately there is no borrowing in the game. If you can't afford cards, you can't buy them.
Coming consumer
crunch
Does i t Pay to Borrow?
Living on cash is cheaper in the long run- but less fun?
Business
The interaction between players each taking advantage of card opportunities while trying to make the most chips.
Business is buying and selling. And making money.
Capital resources
Your cards are your capital resources. You are paying to get them and arranging them in certain ways to get paid.
Putting capital resources together in certain ways creates value.
Choice
Making decisions as to what cards and moves are important and what aren't.
A professor of choice
Since you can't make all moves at once, making some moves means not making other moves.
Competition
Players playing against to buy cards at lowest prices, make and sell more matching sets at highest prices.
Economic life is competition for scarce resources.
Consumers
Players are consumers looking for cards to fill their set-matching needs.
Everyone is trying to get
something to fill some need.
Cost-benefit
analysis
Thinking about what you have to give up to get cards and what you will get if and when you sell
those cards.
Thinking about what actions you should take to get the most chips.
Cost
Chips, some cards and time are valuable. Giving up any one of them is a cost and reduces your value.
Costs are not only paying out money. Wasted time and bad moves are also costs.
Creating value
Making matching 3-card sets are creating value.
Creating value
Putting things together in certain ways creates value. This is how economies grow.
Credit
Not in the game. But it would be as though you were able to borrow chips from the game itself, or from other players.
Credit allows borrowing- which allows you to use someone else's money. This convenience costs you money. Sometimes it costs more to use credit than the amount borrowed (debt).
Currency
Currency is money which are your chips in the game. All agree on its denominations. But the value changes as more comes into the game & players get more money.
The United States Dollar
New currency? Amero?
Currency Conversions
The value of money goes up and down based on prices how much money is circulation.
Debt
Not in the game, but imagine that you borrowed chips to buy cards. And that you had to repay the debt plus interest (debt service) before the end of the game.
Debt is the amount you borrow. Time and debt are related. The longer you take to pay back your debt, the more you have to pay. Once you go into debt, you are in a race against time to pay it back, or else you could be 'trapped.'
Decision making
When you make choices about what move to make, you are making decisions. Your reasons for your choices have become a field of study.
Decision Theory
What choices do you have? What would you benefit from each choice? What are your chances of success?
Deferred gratification
Players are always torn between cashing in for single payment or holding out for double payment. Holding out is deferring-, or delaying gratification.
Can you work now to have more fun later, or should you put off working to have fun now?
Deflation
At the start of the game, all players have few chips. Card prices are limited by what players have. Players are spending wisely.
When mostly all people have little money, prices are low. People spend very carefully.
Demand
When players want, or need a card, say to complete a set, or to prevent another from completing a set, there is demand for that card.
Demand for something increases when people want it. When people want it, since it is in limited supply, its value and its price increase too.
Economic freedom
Freedom to buy, sell or trade cards to increase your value.
You are free to do what is fair to make chips.
Economic growth
When players are putting card sets together, selling them to the game and earning chips, that is personal economic growth for the selling players.
Article: Economic Growth
Economic growth only happens for the active players who are getting money for selling what they are putting together.
Feeling good, having a lot of chips and able to get the cards you need and want.
Imagine not having to wonder if you have enough to get what you need or want.
Chips (money), cards (resources), and players (people) playing by the same rules (laws)- with similar objectives (security).
Economic systems are necessary to focus people on a common, constructive goal of managing resources.
Think of each player as an entrepreneur, starting with few chips, few cards and a dream of creating value.
A risk taker with courage, ideas, a lot of smart moves and luck.
Exchange
An exchange takes place each time cards are bought, sold or traded- and value passes hands.
Value changing hands between people or between people and 'the economy-' which is people too.
Federal Reserve System
Not in the game, but imagine having someone not in the game, using extra chips and rules changes to control the pace of players getting chips.
Economic activity is like a wheel going around. The Fed uses the money supply, interest rates and other incentives to control the speed of the wheel.
Free market
Players are free to bid to pay the price for the cards they need or want.
Free markets have limits, when for some reason, most cannot participate.
Gains from trade
Exchanging an unwanted card for a card of greater value to you- at the time.
Trade is supposed to help both equally, but often ends up helping one more than the others.
Goods
Cards are "goods." They have weight and value, and can be touched and exchanged. Goods cannot be chips (money-currency.)
Goods: non monetary objects of value which can be touched and exchanged.
Government
Not in the game, but can be thought of as player-supported protector, rules maker-enforcer watching over the play.
Government trumps all. Although we are supposed to elect the government, what the government says, goes (into law).
Gross domestic product
The sum chip total of all the players in the game.
The grand sum total of what everyone makes.
Growth
Players producing: getting more cards, making more matched sets and selling them for more chips.
Personal growth steps
Thoughts on growth
Doing better, making progress. Accumulating value.
Growth
(intensive)
Rapid build up of player wealth due to 'intensive' player activity.
Steep increase in money due to sped-up buying, trading and selling (at high prices).
Handling money
Managing your chips, saving, smart risking, sharp trading, and timely selling card sets to the 'world economy' (the game).
Tips on handling money
We all handle money. But some of us are better than others. There is a process to it, and we can get better at it.
Human capital
Human capital can be thought of as people who work, using resources and labor to accomplish a useful goal. In the game, players are human capital.
That's us- working as part of the overall economic system to increase both the economy's value and our own, personal value.
Players are manipulating cards with symbols representing resources. Some of those 'resources' represent people doing things to increase value.
We are all human and re-sources in the big picture. Each of us, like steel, machines, computers, factories, are doing what we can to increase value.
Incentives are used to excite players to action for a reason. The second Bux card excites players to sell at higher prices- and grow their personal economies.
An opportunity put there by the controller of the economy (the government and the Federal Reserve) for you to do something specific.
Chips (money) that you get by selling matching card sets to the game, or drawn card sets to other players.
Money that you get usually from something you did- in a given period of time.
When players sell many sets and get a lot of chips, bid prices increase since players have more chips to spend. Since buy prices are high and sell prices are the same, profits decrease.
Oil inflation
When most have a lot of money, money is less valuable. High prices and lower profits (incomes) decrease savings. If this lasts, buying for most becomes difficult.
Players coming up with new creative moves and ways of using cards to make chips or add value to their game worth.
When you get right down to it, it is innovation- concepts of the mind, that drives the growth of value and our economy.
Players who make innovative moves- moves that others didn't think of, are the 'inventors' in the game.
People who do new, and different things are inventors. They do not succeed in the economic sense, if their products are not in demand.
Risking chips, and making moves for cards that you hope will payoff at some time later in the game- if things go the way you hope they'll go.
Risking money to make more money later if certain things happen- at the time you think they are going to happen.
Knowing, or having an idea of what is happening with you, other players and the deck from minute to minute.
The value of knowledge capital: Strassmann
Knowledge and ideas can be valuable resources. They help grow the economy only when they are applied, combined with other resources, and sold.
Labor is the work of putting card sets together, trading, selling, bidding, bluffing, and buying cards.
Labor happens when work is done- doing something productive. Constructive labor produces income.
Legal & social framework
Players having fun together (social), in a known structure (framework), by the rules (legal).
Legal culture
Social culture
Framework
No rules. No playing together.
No fun. Chaos. Wild West law.
Might is right. Clear rules and laws offer a clear idea of what can-, and cannot be done.
Local economy
All players in the game, as a group, represent the 'local economy.' The local economy does not grow until cards are sold to the game ('world economy').
Local economy must export to grow
The local economy is the money making activity in your local region. If no one is exporting products to the 'outside,' the local economy will not grow.
Not in the game. But imagine someone going from game to game, studying what players are doing in each game and how much each game totals in the end. Then figuring out why.
Macroeconomics is a study of economic activity for a region or entire country. It is a way of understanding how people manage re-sources, and how money flows in that region or country.
On your turn, first you have to consider all your possible moves, and then figure out which is best for you- economically.
Most of us, animals too, do this naturally. We look to see what's available, what we have to do, and how we will make out best.
Players buying, trading and selling cards freely and fairly without out-side interference.
Doing what is free and fair with others, resources and money to make money.
Rules of the game which control the framework in which bidding (setting prices), buying, trading and selling of cards take place.
No structure, no market. We need clear rules for interacting with each other while we manage ourselves, our resources and our money, trying to build value.
The game table- a place where players can carry out the free exchange of chips and cards as stated in the rules.
People need a physical (or virtual) place to exchange their goods, services, money and resources. The market is that place.
Not in the game, but imagine having to convince the game to buy your matching sets for a price. The game would only buy your cards if it needed or wanted your card sets.
People don't buy things they don't know about, don't want or need. Marketing makes consumers aware of what's available, shows benefits from use, and tells the consumer where to buy.
Not in the game. But imagine someone studying each players' decisions and how much that player spends on what cards. Then figuring out why, and trying to make predictions.
Why did he or she decide to buy that? How many of what goods and services does this group of people consume? If this happens, what will they do then?
Not in the game, but imagine someone standing over the game who controls the prices paid by the game.
Volker: "Extreme intervention"
At some point the economy could get 'out of control'- meaning that for any number of reasons, most or all players could be in a slump. When this happens, we rely on monetary policy to get us back on track.
Similar to 'handling money.' How you best to use your chips (and cards) to create your maximum value.
It's about risking your money to make money.
Players agree to use chips as money. Chips then allow players to save, trade, invest, and com-pare the value of cards.
Money basics-
How to think clearly $$
Money. We all know it- and we'd like to have 'a lot' of it. But how we handle it makes the difference whether we'll get it and keep it, or not.
Chips in the game tray is the money supply. When there are no more chips, start writing paper IOU's.
The money supply isn't endless. When it runs out, due to players having tons of it in an 'overheated economy,' prices are high and paper starts being written.
Not in the game, but imagine your game tray running out of money and borrowing money from players and other games.
The national debt is what a government owes. This money, like any money that is borrowed, must be paid back at sometime. The interest on this debt is called "debt service"- and is a major expense for all.
The symbols on the cards represent resources- some resources come from the earth, which make them natural resources.
Metals, rocks, trees, oil, anything made by nature. Natural resources are not new. But increased use of resources and our economic system drives us to keep coming up with new uses for our existing resources.
You may want every card. But you can't afford them. So you make choices based on 'survival' (needs) and 'luxuries' (wants).
Needs-wants economy
Needs, you gotta have to live.
If you can't get what you need, you have difficulty existing. If you can't get your wants, you may not be happy.
Players bidding, bluffing, buying, trading and selling card sets for chips.
Doing whatever you do to make money legally- without hurting anyone.
Opportunity
Every time cards are drawn, it is an opportunity for players to get the cards they need or want. The bidding that follows determines which player gets the cards.
Many can look at the same thing. Some will see only problems (to be avoided). Some will see nothing. Few will see great opportunities and move to take advantage of them. More successful people tend to see more oppportunities.
The amount of chips you're not getting if you don't make a particular move. If you risk a trade rather than cashing in, you could lose thousands if time runs out, and you miss that sell opportunity.
Thinking of the cost of what we're not doing is not something that many of us think about. But it's there. When we don't do something that would benefit us, we lose that benefit forever. I don't know if I'm happy to learn that. But that's the deal.
Not in the game, but imagine recording the average score per player- the total score of all divided by number of players in the game.
Per capita GDP shows each person's average productivity in a country, state or region.
This figure is arrived at by totaling the incomes of all people and businesses.
Personal economy
You as an individual player are playing against "the economy" for yourself. You are on a level playing field using your own skills to survive economically.
Midschool Pers. Econ.
Yan's viewpoint
A blog of fresh sense
Economics is cool, but what does the word, "economy" mean to you personally? Regardless of what 'the economy' is doing, it's your own PE that counts most with you. You are like a little company- or a tiny country. The game's the same.
Your cards are your physical capital. It's what you are working with that you can lay your hands on.
Capital in general
The objects you manipulate to make money are your physical capital. This includes every-thing except people.
When you have 3 un-matched cards and less than 100 chips deep into the game, you feel helpless and broke. Poverty is worse- feeling this way all the time.
How do u feel about it?
In the United States
Causes of poverty
Possible solutions
Poverty is having little and always needing things. And since there are more things available- not having makes life harder for some. Reducing poverty requires a focused, dedicated, coordinated and effective effort on the part of all of us. We can do this.
Since there are only 3 same cards, the first usually costs the least, the second costs more and the third, most valu-able usually costs most.
Usually, the more available something is, (at a constant demand) the lower its price- because it's not as scarce.
The price ceiling in the game is set by the rules: twice the normal price and no more. There is no price ceiling when buying cards.
Price ceilings are set by the government for the purpose of protecting buyers when buying things they need- past examples being gasoline, apartments, natural gas, food, prescription drugs.
The price floor for buying a drawn 3-card set is 5. And when selling a matching set, the price floor is 75.
Price floors are set artificially high by the government to protect certain groups like minimum wage earners and growers of certain crops.
At the start of the game, when players only have 200, prices are stable ranging between 5 and 200. Later, prices become unstable, ranging from 5 to over 1000.
Price stability makes it possible to plan for the future. But if prices have a large range, it makes buying, selling and trading impossible since values are so unpredictable. Business dislikes uncertainty.
Prices of buying cards are set by the bidders at the auction. Buying prices in the game are always changing- depending on who needs what cards at the time.
Needs & wants (Demand), and availability (supply) force prices up and down. If no one wants something, especially if it is abundant, like leaves, it's value and it's price are low. And scarce things (gold, diamonds) are valuable with high prices.
Players who put together matching 3-card sets are producers.
Producers make things. But even though they have things to sell, they run the risk of not selling what they have made.
Production occurs when matching 3-card sets are put together.
Putting things together for the purpose of selling for a profit.
Cards that match other cards are productive resources.
What do u think?
A resource by itself has less value. But when many low valued resources are put together, say, by a gifted artist, they can be worth thousands of times the total of their individual values.
The rate at which matching card sets are made. High productivity usually means high chip income.
The rate at which useful work is being done is called productivity. High productivity is related to high income and high profits.
When you sell cards, your profit is the chip difference between what you paid for the cards, and what you got for the set at the time you sold.
Profit is very important. It is the reason for most business. Profits mean that those who worked can be paid, and there is money to advertise and grow the business.
Players are trying to get cards at lowest prices and sell at highest prices. By doing this, their profits are maximized.
Buy cheap. Sell dear. This helps to produce maximum profits.
But as you know, there has got to be more to it than just this.
In any game, players need to know the objective; what they have to do. In this game, it is to outplay others to make the most chips. Players are motivated by this challenge.
YouTube debate on p/m
Profit- giv e away?
Profit and the need to succeed is a strong motivator for many people. It may, or may not be the money, but the rewarding feeling one gets by mastering and being the best, showing proficiency and dominance by succeeding in the marketplace can be almost addictive.
There are clear rules on the protection of cards.
What incentive would anyone have to produce anything (and grow the economy) if there were no property rights- if you couldn't keep what you got?
Matching card sets have different values based on their quality. The values of quality when selling ranges from 75 to 500 chips.
Quality is put into a product during production. Quality turns to money when the product is sold. End-users appreciate quality and some will pay a premium to get it.
There are many ways cards can be matched. It's how they're matched, and the order in which they're matched that is important.
It's what you put together, how you put it together and when that a difference when competing to be the best in a rapidly changing marketplace.
The future is unknown. Players must take chances making moves, spending for cards that may-, or may not pay off. Timid players rarely win.
Choice and uncertainty
No risk, no reward
You and risk
Understanding risk
Risk-Reward. Usually the more you risk, the higher your reward if the future pans out in your favor. And the less you risk, the less you will get it the future is favorable, and the less you will lose if the future is unfavorable.
Savers
Players who prefer to save chips (money) than spend chips on risky card moves.
Money savers
Saving tips
People who put some of their income away 'for that rainy day'.
People who defer pleasures, preferring to feel secure knowing that they have cash reserves in the event of an emergency.
The chips players have are their savings. Players with more savings have more options to do what they want in the game.
If you are living in a cash world, savings is necessary for future expenses. Without savings, you can only watch opportunities go by you to someone else who is able to buy.
Scarcity means not enough for all. Since there are only 3 of each identical card, players must compete to make matching 3-card sets.
There just isn't enough for everyone. This fact is called scarcity. The competition among people for scarce resources is the basis for economics. Those who know the process usually make out better.
Not in the game, but imagine being paid for doing something for another player that does not involve cards- like going to get a snack.
A service involves no goods passing hands. A service is what a person does for another and gets paid for doing it. Most services involve skills, and many times, machines to carry out the service.
The ability to get cards, to make matching sets, to get good deals, to bluff others into overpaying are skills that can be developed. Better skills usually result in higher production and more chips.
Having a skill- the ability to do specific things, greatly increases ones productive value. Usually people with more productive skills, and people who can learn productive skills rapidly have better than average incomes. But a skill without a place to use it- for which there is no demand, has low value.
Players with a lot of chips feel good and enjoy a 'high standard of living,' since they can buy the cards they need and want.
In t he United States
SOL under pressure?
The good old days?
Where are we now?
Having a high standard of living allows freedom of choice and high quality of life. You can go where you want, when you want. And enjoy the freedom to do what you want to do. But your environment can affect your lifestyle.
The draw deck supplies resource opportunities in the form of cards, to the game. When the supply stops (at the end), the game is over.
Another definition
Supply- the opposite of demand, is the availability of resources, goods, services. There is a limit to this availability which affects our world-, and personal economies.
Not in the game, but imagine having to pay chips to 'a game judge and protector' every time you did a transaction.
Another definition
We must pay for the benefit of living in an orderly society which provides some services.
Not in the game, but imagine players playing by themselves, rarely drawing cards or trading, or using any new ideas, or talking with strangers.
There are primitive cultures which have little need for resources and have little or no money coming in from the outside. These people just want to be left alone.
Not in the game, but imagine having an electronic device that tells you the best moves to make every time, remembering all chip values under any card.
Tech -education growth
Technology helps those who use it to be more efficient and profitable. When many have the same technology, new technologies are developed to give an advantage to the early users. And so we advance. Wars and survival drives technological advancement.
Time and timing are featured. Players double their incomes only when they sell during Double Bux periods. And matching sets after the warned-but-surprise game ending are worthless.
Advanced risk-timing
"Timing is everything." The world changes from minute to minute. Things happen suddenly- like hitting the lottery, or being in an accident. Opportunities come and go. If you are paying attention and know what you need, you can often make out if your timing is right.
You could face these options: sell sets to im-prove your average, or trade for yet another set, or draw the last few cards to end the game- since you are ahead. You must decide which goal is more important.
Many decisions are easy. There is the good and right thing to do, and the bad and wrong thing to do. But most decisions aren't that easy. There are times when you have to decide between multiple good things to do- or multiple bad things to do. What do you do then? After analyzing, you must trade off among goals.
Uncertainty is not knowing the future- like the next card being drawn from the deck. So be ready to react to change- and be willing to take a risk.
All decisions would be easy if you know the future, or if you you knew all the facts. But you don't. So some decisions must be made by what you know, and what you think. Some are flat out guesses. Uncertainty is some degree of not knowing. When you don't know, you must take a risk. This is when experience comes into play.
Not in the game, but imagine if you were a factory, having to lay off people who help you put cards together, because of low sales, low profits and high costs. You would be causing their unemployment.
Unemployment is people not having jobs. There are many reasons for unemployment. Some are, companies selling products no one wants, company costs are too high, company product prices are too high, low quality products, workers have low skills, poor management practices, economic slowdown...
The big idea in the game is to put matching cards together to increase their value as sets. Cards totaling 175 if used singlely are worth 500 (or 1000) when sold as a high quality set. Sets are finished products.
Creating value is what people do to make money. Creating a car out of steel, rubber, and paint. A house from wood, nails, glass, cement and maybe bricks. A painting from paint, canvas and brushes, and a frame. These things were first imagined, then put together by people with skills.
Value is how much cards are worth to players at the time. Since cards are needed to make sets, values of cards depend on the needs of the players at the time.
Value depends on the needs of people. If no one wants some-thing, its worth, value and price are low. Value also changes from person to person. Some may value a car or a tractor way above a diamond ring although they both have the same price.
Value is not money until it is sold.
When players are making sets, they look at every card and make decisions based on the value of those cards at the time.
Decisions are made for all kinds of reasons: looks, performance, love, fun, money. All things we value. In the business and economic world, where money keeps the score, decisions are made with value as the focus.
"What's in it for me?"
Sometimes, usually when there is no choice, players exchange cards helpful to both. Otherwise players with unprotected cards have no say.
Exchanges in the marketplace are supposed to be fair and even, otherwise people wouldn't make them. That may be true if everyone had the same informa-tion. But that is not possible.
Not in the game, but imagine you are working for a player and your job is making matching card sets and you are paid 100 chips every turn, regard-less of how many chips the player makes.
Wages are regular payments for doing a job. In the work world, there are people who earn wages, and people who pay wages. Both depend on each other. Earners have almost no risk, no worries, less responsibility and get a steady, predictable paycheck and earn less, usually, than payers.
Feeling powerful and comfortable! On top of the game, having tons of chips to buy any cards you need or want without thinking about prices(?).
[Not so fast. Wealth in the game can slip away if prices and income aren't considered.]
Wealth is never needing anything you can't buy. It means having an abundance of whatever is considered valuable by the culture. Land, money, kind deeds, children, diamonds, fat... But wealth must be carefully managed, especially if many others are wealthy too- 'inflation?'
Work
Anytime anything is done related to cards or chips, work is being done- and that includes planning, doing, choosing, bidding, buying, selling...
Another definition
Work-life balance
Work requires effort. It takes thought and focused energy to get things done. The quality of the work depends on the skill of the worker doing the job. All production of goods and services requires work.
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