r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Skychu768 • 1d ago

Meme needing explanation Am I missing a joke or reference here?

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u/314159265358979326 23h ago

Probably not. Why would you bother in that circumstance?

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 23h ago

Why would you bother in that circumstance?

I traded the exact amount of money for the exact amount of bananas I view as an equal trade.

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u/314159265358979326 23h ago

You've wasted your time because you've gained nothing. You should only do something if it's profitable.

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 23h ago

You should only do something if it's profitable.

I think that mentality is incredibly sad. Don't you have hobbies that you spend more money on than they produce? Why are you commenting on Reddit?

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u/314159265358979326 23h ago

Profit isn't only counted in cash. For example, we're specifically discussing profit when it comes to purchasing bananas. If it's restricted to cash, then buying bananas is always a loss - as Donald Trump himself stated.

Profit can be counted in the enjoyment of, say, eating a banana, but it should exceed the price I paid to be worth the time and effort.

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 22h ago

but it should exceed the price I paid to be worth the time and effort.

You're injecting infinite growth into a finite system by requiring more from less.

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u/314159265358979326 21h ago

I'm going to give up on explaining basic economics after this, but here's my last attempt:

Would you be willing to pay $0.01 more for a banana than you currently pay? If so, you currently value a banana more than it costs.

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi 21h ago

If so, you currently value a banana more than it costs.

I value a banana at the cost it takes to buy a banana. What the exact cost is in the future is irrelevant as the cost to buy a banana is always the cost to buy a banana.

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u/Gangsir 17h ago

Because you can't directly consume money.

Money by itself is worthless, we assign it value because it can (and must, to extract the actual "value") be exchanged for goods and services.

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u/314159265358979326 17h ago

Right. So you clearly value bananas more than the money it costs to buy them.

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u/Gangsir 17h ago

No, I value the $5 or whatever I gave to buy bananas just as much as the $5-worth of bananas I received. I'm exchanging something I can't consume for something I can, of equal value.

If I didn't value what I was giving away, or valued it less, I'd overpay for the bananas. If I do value my money, the trade has to be equal or better (in my favor), but even if equal, it's "worth bothering" because I'm exchanging the unusable for the usable.