I don't know if I'd say 'faked'. But fundamentally flawed. Let's say we both get together tomorrow night for a drink. I lend you $10 to pay for your drink, and you lend me $10 to pay for my drink. We each charge each other a $1 'loan fee'. Under traditional measures of GDP, the loan transaction between us generated $2 in GDP. Did exchanging $10 bills amongst each other really add any value to the economy? Did it improve living standards of anyone? Of course not. Its just a ruse. In fact wealth was destroyed because now we each have to pay an accountant to account for the transaction. And we have to write down the terms of the loan on paper, which wastes paper and enriches someone with legal training.
It is, in fact, a very interesting time. I have a full time contract I am working during the day, plus 2 after hours contracts I am working for 10-ish extra hours per week each. I didn't want to take the second after hours gig, so when they asked for a quote I jacked my rate up even more than my usual obscene rate and they didn't even blink as they accepted it. This is specialized high-tech work, so maybe it is just my field... but I have friends with similar stories in other fields so I don't think it is. If the banks hadn't made a giant mess, we would be hitting new highs right now on the indexes. When the banking mess gets back to looking reasonable, my guess is that high tech will be one of the good places to be. My money is where my mouth is as I opened big GOOG and AAPL long positions late last week.
Are stock trad3r and stock_trad3r (the difference is the underscore_) two different people? Or has he/she admitted using two logins? Just wondering...