Quote Originally Posted by Husar View Post
It's still a zero sum game even with growth because if you gain money, the other person's money is now worth less even if you didn't take any of it away nominally. It's called inflation. That's why, when a bank gets your money and gives you 1% interest p.a. and there is an inflation of 2% p.a., the bank isn't really giving you money, it only compensates 50% of your loss.
There's quite a difference between growth and inflation. Since wiki gave me the numbers to calculate with. USA got about 30% more money between 2005-2009, while the combined inflation was about 10%.

The situation you describe can happen when the banking Prime rate is low and you have high inflation.