Whether you lose your wallet or purse, or have it stolen, any cash you have in it, whether it be $100 or €100, is what you are down and what the recipient, a thief or lucky bystander, is up.   Economists would call this a zero-sum game, implying that what one party received exactly matches what the other lost.

Enter Fred Wilpon, co-owner of the New York Mets baseball team.   He is reported to have lost anywhere between $160 million and $700 million at the hands of ponzi champion Bernard Madoff and is now risking losing control of the Mets. Not exactly a small change loss for Wilpon, but it could be far worse.   As for how, imagine the strolling passerby who observes a nail in a parking lot, but decides not to pick it up, as he didn't drop it, or is in a hurry to an appointment and doesn't spare the moment to collect it. Instead of spending a few seconds to pick up the nail, a flat tire could now be awaiting an unsuspecting nearby driver.   Not always, for sure, but the chance that an investment of a few seconds could save the time-consuming flat tire was lost.   Genichi Taguchi, father of Taguchi Methods, and the loss function that bears his name, had a description for this non-zero-sum game situation.   He termed it "worse than a thief," as the amount saved by the decision to not act could result in far more loss for someone elsewhere in the system. And, to think someone could be worse than Madoff!