yes, i admit, i think it would have been dandy to fix up a house and then sell it for 1.5x its actual worth. however, doesn't that strike you as not only wrong, ethically, but also bad for everyone except the individual making the money?

the buyer is paying more than he/she should (in terms of real worth) and the market grows from nothing. and every balloon-priced, flipped house pushed the cost of surrounding properties up until everything was overvalued.

similarly, the stock market, and futures markets (especially) are destructive, i think. cost doesn't rise simply on supply and demand anymore, rather on expected supply and demand. even when expectations are never met, costs fluctuate. i've heard reports (within the last 48hrs) that up to 1/3d of the cost of oil right now is due to futures markets. that may be a high estimate, but regardless, a few people get to guess and speculate and make more money than they can spend while everyone else has to pay for their speculation.

and no one cares because the idea that there is a possibility that they too could exploit others and get rich is always there. granted, there is probably a 1 in 10m chance of that happening, but greed makes that first number look much bigger and that second number much smaller.

there's a chance that this downturn in the american economy could wake some people up and that they might push for change that would mean something. (healthcare, for example.) but the president, even ones beside the current one, are not financial wizards. nor are they prone to having actual beating (human) hearts. so instead of spending more money than we'll ever repay (i.e. national debt) on war while simultaneously saying to the hyperrich, "no, you go ahead and keep that money that should be turned in as tax revenue;" we could use that money for education and medicine and therapy for the disabled. the chances are probably less than the 0.00000001 above though.

les joies du capitalisme.

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