Deadweight Loss

When economists study gift-giving, they're very concerned with one thing: waste. Let's say hypothetically that my grandmother buys me a sweater that I hate, and your grandmother buys you a sweater that you hate. Sorry, grandmothers. Before long, we're talking about billions of dollars in waste in the economy. Economists call it"deadweight loss" and they estimate that up to 30% of the value of all gifts is wasted. That means the companies wasted time making the gift. It means the givers wasted time giving it out, and it means the recipients wasted time returning it. There's a way to fix this. There is a very specific gift that is always worth the exact same to both the gives and the receiver. It's called cash. The good thing about cash is that the receiver can always make use of 100 percent of its value. The bad thing about cold, hard cash is that... it's cold. It doesn't say anything except, "Here, take some money." So this is a conundrum.