It all depends on what you consider “the start”. Is it when the dealer buys the horse? Is it when the dealer sells the horse? When he cashes the check?
Let’s say I buy $50 in stocks. It goes up to $100, then crashes to $25. Did I lose $75 or $25? Depends on what peak you’re calculating the valley from.
He’s got a $10 horse and $10, then a $20 horse and $10, then a $30 check, then a worthless check. So it’s either 20 or 30 depending on when you want to start the situation.
From the start, when he first says “I want to buy a horse”, he’s lost $20. From time of the sale with the scammer, he’s lost $30. Either way, it’s $10 + horse.
Ah yes, I had that in my transactions list but forgot to copy it over to the final equation
Final result:
Original Horse Dealer: (-1H + 10E)
Horse Dealer: (-10E + 1H) (-1H +30C -10E) (-30C +30E) (-30E)= -20E + 0H + 0C
Man: (+1H -30C) (+10E)= 1H -30C +10E
Shop Keeper: (+30C - 30E) (+30E)
So original horse dealer gets 10 pounds and loses a horse
Our horse dealer ends up missing 20 pounds
The thieving Man ends up with a horse, 10 pounds, and liable for a false check of 30 pounds
The shop keeper ends up with 30 pounds to compensate for the thirty pounds they shelled out for a bogus 30 pound check - assuming no fees, they end up even
I don’t consider him to be out a horse, because the horse he lost cancels out the horse he gained.
This thread illustrates that the laws of mathematics are immutable and the laws of economics are infinitely variable.
The horse dealer also has an asset of the bounced cheque.