Q1.
In the farmer’s story, imagine he finds someone who is willing to trade a pair of new shoes, a sweater, and medicines — all in exchange for his ox. Do you think it would be easy to come across such a situation?
Answer
No — such a situation would be very rare. It asks for a great deal of luck all at once.
Three separate conditions would have to be true of the same person on the same day:
- They must own shoes, a sweater and medicines — three quite different trades in one pair of hands.
- They must actually want an ox, and want it badly enough to give up all three.
- Both sides must agree that one ox is a fair price for the whole bundle.
In real life the shoes come from a cobbler, the sweater from a weaver and the medicines from a healer. Each of them wants something different, and probably none of them needs an ox. That is why the farmer in the story ends up going through a chain of exchanges instead.
Why it happens: this is the double coincidence of wants in its hardest form. A single coincidence is already unlikely; here the farmer needs three coincidences to line up together.