Dinosaur Derivatives and Other Trades

Epilogue

“Finance is wholly different from the rest of the economy.”

—Alan Greenspan (1926–)

We've experienced in this book a type of journey through stories and analyses of some basic concepts in the financial world. Hopefully we have tried to see these ideas from a slightly oblique angle, and this has given us a certain perspective on the concepts.

The core notions we have covered (be it “value” or “risk/uncertainty” or “contracts” or “ownership” or “financial instruments” or “taxation” or “fraud” or “regulation”) are seemingly separate notions. Each appears quite discrete. But I hope you have noticed that certain ideas and philosophical themes keep recurring throughout the book. In fact, I believe there is really one stream of ideas that link most of the concepts in this book. This stream became even more apparent to me as I was writing about the individual topics that comprise each chapter. Linking them all is a single thread that in many ways connects much financial thinking, preoccupation, and dialogue.

So, as a last step, let's try to see what unifies all these separate financial notions. Let's do it again by reference to a final fiction. But rather than use a story, I'd like to describe a hypothetical game or simulation.

The game I want you to consider is a sort of gambling game. The players are kids in a computer gaming community where they're winning electronic chips ...