You know what game totally sucks? Monopoly. Everyone has played it, but have you actually finished a game? You're lying if you're saying you have.

Oh, Monopoly is pretty fun in its early stages, but once all the territories are purchased, it moves to a state of stasis, where you move around the board aimlessly, shifting money from one player to another without any real progress.

Why not trade, you ask? You have two blues, the other player has two reds. Let's trade the last blue for a red, it's a win-win? In theory, that might work. In reality, trades just don't happen.

In economics, there is a concept of a no-trade theorem, co-authored by Jewish Nobel laureate Paul Milgrom and non-Jewish non-laureate Nancy Stokey. The theorem states that in a state of equilibrium (and midgame Monopoly is definitely an equilibrium), no trades will happen because accepting a trade automatically puts you at a disadvantage. So no one accepts!

There is a caveat in the theorem, which happens if there are noise traders, entities who trade just for the heck of it, to bring chaos into the mix...

Honestly, if that happens in Monopoly, you might as well quit right there.