Despite agreeing with MichaeL Hudson that we’re being comprehensively done over by the FIRE sector–that is, finance, insurance and real estate–I certainly don’t condemn all FIRE sector practitioners.

Isn’t this having the proverbial “two bob, each way”?

No, it’s not. I know many in the banking industry who wouldn’t disagree with the ideas that are found on this website. It’s just that they’re not at the top of the tree.

I remember a certain bank manager who was sent to the bush during the late 1980s boom because he was unable to recommend to his staff that they invest virtually everyone into a new or bigger mortgage. He was your old-style reputable banker: an avuncular Spencer Tracy type who understood the good side of banking. Fittingly, he was later called back to his major branch and his expertise acknowledged, in order to sort out the branch’s financial mess when the real estate bubble burst at the outset of the 1990s.

As for the real estate industry, I’ve known many reputable real estate agents and valuers who would “buy and sell” most economists on where the economy “is at”, and why. As in banking, many are not all into skullduggery at all.

Economists on the other hand …… there are none so blind …..