Being told "professional poker doesn't contribute to society."

[Jack Ruby]

People want to play against someone who will pay them if they win.

Guarantee you Roddick would prefer to play Raymer than Federer.

Entertainment, even art, is largely made legitimate by one simple question: is someone willing to pay for it?

[Dima2000123]

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lol, "nonproductive" jobs will replace the other "nonproductive" jobs.

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Completely baseless conjecture.

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You cannot simply say all will be fine and dandy when the unemployment rate will sky rocket with the consequence of millions of people becoming unemployed.

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Once again completely baseless conjecture. Jobs get created and destroyed all the time. Last year 20 or so million jobs were destroyed. Why didn't unemployment skyrocket? Because more than 20 million jobs were created. We'd all be better of on average if unproductive jobs were the ones in the express queue towards destruction.

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You are downsizing the effect it will have on the economy as a whole. Not only will you lose nonproductive jobs, productive jobs will go along with it because of reduced consumer spending.

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Yet another baseless conjecture, the premise of which I already shot down. If you're not willing to comprehend my arguments, then don't waste my time repeating the same crap over and over again.

[Gonso]

I'd agree that being a professional poker player probably doesn't contribute that much to society in general, but so what? There are a lot of occupations that could fit this category - some people could extent the argument to artists and musicians for example.

People aren't ants, we tend to do a lot of things just because. If someone else doesn't like it, hey that sucks for them.

The economics lesson is a waste of time by the way. The whole point of increased efficiency is to improve the quality of life in the first place. Sure things could be a lot more "productive", but you could take that road forever. At some point you have to be a little inefficient and enjoy the fruits of your labor instead of simply reinvesting it to further increase production.

[Bulletproof Monk]

"you need people like me so you can point your finger and go 'there goes the bad guy'. you people arent good, your just good at hiding, good at lying. me? i always tell the truth, even when i lie i tell the truth"

[Dima2000123]

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People want to play against someone who will pay them if they win.

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Do amateurs not pay you if they lose to you in poker?

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Guarantee you Roddick would prefer to play Raymer than Federer.

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May be, but Andy Beal and other whales are exceptions. Your average Joe going down to the local card room will not be as thrilled playing against a local shark as he would be playing against another average Joe.

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Entertainment, even art, is largely made legitimate by one simple question: is someone willing to pay for it?

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Do poker players have a choice? Do they go into the card room and pick 9 players to play with? Methinks you're largely stuck playing with however else wants to be playing. If the average Joe from the example above was given a choice between having the shark at his table and "paying him" for the privelege, or replacing him with another average Joe, what do you think he would do?

[Tien]

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Sooo, how would the world economy do if consumer spending all across the world were to be cut by 50% and how would the world economy be effected if people were to stop paying taxes?

I don't need to go to a college lecture to figure that answer out.

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Perhaps you need to go to college to learn to ask the right questions, which is far from a trivial skill. People don't just stop spending out of the blue, that's irrational. If they do it, they do it for a reason, like loss of income, or desire to save more (to spend more later). For what reason would people in your hypothetical scenario decide to cut spending by 50%?

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My point was that every single economy in the world is effected by consumer spending. Consumer spending is the only thing that keeps every single company known to mankind in business.

People stop spending and everything collapses. People increase spending, and more jobs are created to meet the demand in consumer expenditure.

Sure you can say the money will be spent eventually, but you have to consider, the faster the money is spent, the faster the economy is stimulated. The more people out there are making money and spending money, the more the economy grows to meet that demand in expenditure.

Your perception about how strong the economy is and how easily it will rebound from such a recession from the loss of millions of job is highly ludicrous. If you followed the news about the subprime fiasco, you would have realized how close America was to being thrown into a recession because of lack of liquidity in the markets.

It took tens of billions of dollars of world bank injections as well as half a percentage point to save America from going into the inevitable recession.

I hardly think any economy would be able to withstand a sudden unnatural loss of millions of jobs.

My point about the roll these unproductive jobs play still stands.

[Dima2000123]

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The economics lesson is a waste of time by the way, the while point of increased efficiency is to improve the quality of life in the first place.

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Oh, really? Here's another economic lesson to waste the time on: the ONLY way to improve the quality of life is to increase productivity. That's it, done, nothing else can increase qualify of life.

Getting rid of unproductive jobs and replacing them with productive jobs is a good way to increase productivity (duh!), and thus increase quality of life. My economic lesson that seemed to waste everyone's time in fact had everything to do with quality of life.

[Gonso]

My degree is in economics so I don't need an explanation, and you missed my point. Also:

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the ONLY way to improve the quality of life is to increase productivity.

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I know that, I think I just wrote it - only there's a little difference here:

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The whole point of increased efficiency is to improve the quality of life in the first place.

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[Jack Ruby]

Dima,

The average joe would prefer to skip the game altogether and just get paid.

Players have many choices when playing poker.
Game selection is a pretty big component of winning. Have read some of the pro's have people on the payroll whose job it is to call them when players like notaima sit.

Pretty sure Dallas would rather have played Buffalo again last weekend instead of New England.

What is your point?

The nature of the game is anybody with a bankroll can sit and get paid if they outplay or outluck their opponent.

The game clearly has wide appeal across the globe.

Don't see how you can say a movie actor is legitimate and a poker player is not.

Both help people pass their time.
Haven't come out of the theater too often up a couple of dimes...

Nobody is forced to sit at any table.
Players for the most part are able to pick their games. If they don't think they can hang or don't value the entertainment, no one is forcing them to stay.

[Tien]

And since when was this a job in the first place?


I thought everyone did this for fun.


A lot of things I do for fun don't contribute to society, the only difference is I don't get paid to do it. Who cares?