Oversimplifications Made Simple.

Remember Monopoly? It has rules, you take turns, when you go broke you're OUT. When you want something, you have to pay for it with REAL FAKE MONEY, and in exchange you get REAL FAKE PROPERTY. This used to mirror reality; now, our REAL economy is more like Charades combined with Twister and Pick-Up-Sticks. But you have to play drunk and blindfolded. What happened? Greedy wall street brokers?? Sure... but not really. It all started with drunk blindfolded Congressman Phil Gramm, who pushed through legislation in 1999, which modernized Depression-era laws separating banking, insurance and brokerage activities. These laws were put in place to protect the economy from crazy drunk blindfolded financial dealings. But without those laws, guess what happened? Monopoly rules went out the window! Instead of just buying properties and loading up with hotels (too limiting) why not mortgage everything, keep the properties and still collect the rent. Not a problem, you're winning. Let the banker in on the deal too, he can sell the debt owed on the mortgaged properties owned by the bank. The bank can get INSURANCE, just in case you don't win and can't pay. That's fine, you can get insurance too... that way you won't have to pay if you don't win. But that's too limiting. Why not use other players' money to get MORE debt and sell it to more people, even people who don't know they're playing! But even they don't have to worry, because PARKER BROTHERS, who own the rights to Monopoly, has insurance too! They will cover most of your losses in case the dog destroys the game and eats most of the money. But guess what? The broker turned out to be a loser who couldn't pay the bank, the bank claimed a loss the insurance couldn't cover, and Parker Brothers had to make a claim to the insurance company, who couldn't cover the losses. So the dog had to take over. But, according to Nietzsche, there is no dog.