Arbitrage

Arbitrage. Now that’s a fancy word! I like to say it slowly and roll it around in my mouth. If you say it with a nice grating sound, it even makes you sound like a pirate.

“Arrr-bi-trahz”

It even means something sort of piraty. Find goods sold at a low price in one area, buy them and transport them to a high price area for re-sale in order to reap the profits. Theoretically this only goes on for a short time before everyone figures it out and starts doing the same thing. Then the low prices go up because demand is higher and the high prices come down because the supply is higher. And then you have that fancy economic term called “equilibrium.”

But before the equilibrium comes the “arr-bi-trahz.” (That’s so much fun to say!)

It’s a word Gonga loves saying. But he probably has no idea what it means. He’s still working on picking up the day-to-day lingo required to represent The Textbook Game on the street. He doesn’t need to know fancy terms like arbitrage. (Yes, I am working very hard to develop his character while I wear his suit.)

Yet Gonga has been a first-hand witness to attempts at arbitrage, even though he may not have recognized it.