Dear Economist,
I am a regular player of Diplomacy, a Risk-type game where several players fight to gain control of the European map. The principle is that two allied players will beat a single player, but, in the end, only one can win - so treason is part of the game.
Can economics suggest a strategy? Maybe quitting the game, due to the time lost in talking through the alliances and intrigues?
Michele, Italy
Answer at ft.com, subscription free.
I work as an escort in Canary Wharf. I wonder if you might have some sound business advice on how workers in my industry should tackle the sudden drop in demand following the collapse of Lehman Brothers?
Miss C
Shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed, a Russian bureaucrat travelled to the west to seek advice on how the market system functioned. He asked the economist Paul Seabright to explain who was in charge of the supply of bread to London. He was astonished by the answer: “Nobody.”
Fifteen years later, I had thought that almost everyone had abandoned the notion that a committee could plan its way through the unimaginable complexities of an advanced economy. I was wrong...
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