Future, that is the whole point of free trade. Things don't have fixed value. We each value them differently (especially at different times).
I bought a car today. The other person valued the dollars more than the car, and I valued the car more than the cash. Nobody was taken advantage of.
Agreed.
However, the crux of the mathematical impossibility is embedded in
those dollars. Inflation, deflation, interest rates, wage differentials, exchange rates, oligarchies...take your pick but they all (and more) determine the 'real' value of the dollars in your hand. And I'm not aware of anyone on this board, not a single person, who is arguing that the persons "in charge" of the economic phenomenon named are fair, moral, focused on the prosperity of all etc. Now if you traded 2 goods, money doesn't enter the equation (although esoterically, one could argue about the compensation for those creating both sets of goods). The point is, corporations high up the economic food chain have a legal requirement to capitalize on others.
Some of us are dragged along for short to mid term benefit but in the long run, the math can't be ignored.
Ask someone in Detroit.
