From: "Matti Lamprhey" 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: House Prices to Plunge 40% (for Sam)
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 10:51:06 +0100

"Ronald Raygun"  wrote...
> Matti Lamprhey wrote:
>
> > "For everyone trading down someone else must trade up"?  That's
> > simply not the case.
>
> Yes it is.  It doesn't necessarily mean that for every two trading
> down two must trade up, of course, but it could be a 3-member cyclic
> swap with 2 going down and one up, or vice-versa.

No -- you're misusing the standard phrase "for every A there is a B",
which implies the same number going up as going down.  Extending it as
you are now doing is to destroy the interest-rate point you built on it.

Matti

> OK, I know I only said "most", and then proceeded as though I had said
> "all" [properties are occupied], and you may chide me for that if you
> wish.  But if all are occupied, you can't have linear chains but only
> loops, and unless those loops are "horizontal" [involving no
> participants moving upmarket or downmarket] they can't all move up or
> all down; at least one must go in the opposite direction to at least
> one other.