Good intro David. But what about how mega-banks manipulate the price of housing? Or how derivatives can have a nominal value 10 times the GDP of the planet. As an economist, I can tell you that the old adage is true, "an economist is a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing". Oh and ,by the way, free markets are myth, read Polanyi. Even when Adam Smith spoke of free markets (which was not often) he meant free from the Rentier Class.