ExxonMobil CEO Says Oil Price Should Be $60 To $70 A Barrel

No, I'm suggesting that you are conflating betting with speculation (in the context of market activity).  The stock market is indeed just a "casio" if we follow your assertion to its natural conclusion.

youre going to have to articulate the difference in plain language, as the definition you posted is inclusive with respect to speculation. The options market isnt a casino, but they both offer gambling services.

Definition From HA:  A bet is the engagement to risk money or other things against another man on the result of an event about the outcome of which we know only so much as can be known on the ground of understanding. 

Now, this is not just a matter of semantical definitions because the very act of speculation  (which is essentially every human action on the market!) is an entirely different type of engagement then stated in the above definition suitable for all type of gamings, i.e., casinos, horse races, etc.......

please explain. Do speculators know more than "can be known on the ground of understanding"? Or do you assert that options and futures traders dont "risk money or other things against another man on the result of an event"? Lay it out for me.

Market activity is not men betting against each other as bogart had suggested (regarding at least some types of exchanges he referred to), where you always have a loser and a winner.

do you assert that betting is not market activity? Do you assert that voluntary exchange always and necessarily involves zero losers and plural winners? In what time frame? Is your claim that gambling is not speculation because it necessarily results in one party as a "loser"?

This entire argument should have ended once the false assertion was made (perhaps carelessly) that speculation is a zero-sum game

I must have missed that, I will go back and look

zero-sum game (as is the case for gambling)

gambling is not always zero-sum. Sometimes, indeed most of the time, individuals derive psychic profit from their actions. Sometimes this is the result of the exchange of probable outcomes (which includes risk transference), the very same profit that one or both parties derive from futures trading and stock options.

Malachi:

Lay it out for me

I kinda already did but I'll say this.

If you are to remain logically consistent with your main assertion that speculation is basically like betting in a casino, then you must insist that all business and not just this or that speculation activity is nothing but one big casio where there are losers and there are winners.  After all, all human action is speculation.  All market exchange involves speculation.  No outcome of human action is certain!  So the market to you is one big casino.  

But again, this is can't be so because a casino game always results in a winner and a loser.   And we're not talking about the outcome of the exchange itself that brought about the game into existence in the first place.   We're talking about the outcome of the game itself.  You seem to be now conflating those two different things also, introducing even more confusion into the argument.

 

 

 

 

If you are to remain logically consistent with your main assertion that speculation is basically like betting in a casino...

Betting on what in a casino?  Not all games you bet on in a casino are equal in terms of the odds of outcomes, and again, gambling on the whole is not a "zero-sum" game.

No outcome of human action is certain!

Are you 100% certain you'll wake up tomorrow?

Seriously, you're taking this way further than is even reasonable.
 

myhumangetsme:

Betting on what in a casino? 

You're missing the point.

myhumangetsme:

Not all games you bet on in a casino are equal in terms of the odds of outcomes,

You're missing the point.

myhumangetsme:

and again, gambling on the whole is not a "zero-sum" game.

You too are now conflating two entirely differnet things.  

1.  The initial exchange - two friends exchange their time to play a game.

2.  The game itself - beat your opponent (or the house, or the machine, or whatever....)

The former always results ex-ante in gain for both parties

The latter always has a winner and a loser.

It is simply an intellectual error to conflate the two as is often done by popular opinion.  I suggest you and a few other here familiarize  yourself better with the Austrian-Misesian take on this topic before you reject something you obviously are not familiar with.  I suggested a good starting place up thread.

 Particularly, you want to familiarize yourself with Mises' insight on the two different types of probabilities - Class probability and case probability.

 

 

You're missing the point.

Then enlighten me oh Swaminanda of Mises knowledge, what's the point?  That you now wish to shift definitions as a convenience to an argument you failed to make until now?

And are you 100% certain you'll be getting up tomorrow?

What's a good beginner level introduction to this topic? Does The P.I.G. To Capitalism touch on this?

I have to deal with somebody who constantly rants about how the middle class is screwed because of Wall Street's unfair advantage in futures markets and oil prices and how CEOS want to screw everybody and yada yada and the government "should do"... well, of course this person has no goddamn idea what they should do but they sure love to watch MSNBC and listen to Paul Krugman every day.