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Comment by johnchristopher | Hacker News Reader

> I'm sure many of us did some sort of business when we were kids.

> Trading anything with your friends (cards, etc) is a business, especially if those trades make the value of your collection go up or down. Buying these items new (cards in a pack) could sort of be an investment scheme.

> If you held onto anything worth money from your childhood, you could call that a buy and hold scheme.

> Creating in-game value by trading, selling and acquiring items in an MMORPG is a business if you could cash out that value through trading sites.

The capacity of some posters on this board to redefine simple and well known words into something entirely different in order to fit a very warped vision of things never ceases to amaze me.

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Well, this is a basic skill of a programmer, or even an engineer in general. It's not about fitting a very warped vision, it's about applying different models to the same situation. As long as you keep in mind that you're just applying models, you'll be fine. If you forget about it, you'll end up becoming a politician.

feel free to replace model with dogma, when talking about politicians

What word is that? Business?

Keep in mind that we are referring to children (under the age of 18.) These sorts of transactions are often the first steps into the realization that you can grow value (which could be physical or virtual items) through transactions with others (this could be smart trading or selling something you created.) These first steps could be powerful lessons which may shape their future.

If I sell a baseball card and I make a profit, then that profit would likely be recorded on a Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Business.

http://www.irs.gov/uac/Schedule-C-(Form-1040),-Profit-or-Los...

Just by selling that card, you are a sole proprietorship.

If you get creative, you can think of many different ways in which children participate in business activity.

ETA: Okay, I get it. My examples aren't of people starting companies. A kid selling baseball cards might be a business, but not a company (company is a group, more than one.) I wonder if that's what he actually meant though. Can a minor even hire employees?

You have just described how politics and media work these days.

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