Studying economics is a bit like learning to pot a ball on a pool table: a flat, perfectly predictable surface where you can see every pocket.
Then you try to use that knowledge in the real world and discover you’re on a golf course. With a dimpled golf ball instead of a pool ball which is smooth and larger. Unlike in pool, you can never see the hole from where you start. And to hit the ball, you’ve got golf clubs, not a cue.
What’s more, you aren’t even the golfer. You’re the caddy, advising someone else who takes the actual shot. If you’re lucky, you might get voted in to take a shot yourself on the odd hole.
In this alternate reality, no golfer plays with their own money. Ordinary people chip in to pay for you and your golfer to play each hole.
So when you win a hole (and here, winning just means making par), there’s a long queue behind you of everyone who paid in. Following traditional economics, you insist that the winnings, minus green fees and equipment costs, go to the person at the front. You then expect them to take their share and pass the rest back down the line.
What do we think is going to happen?