In the Asian crisis a few years ago, I had a list of Asian economies arranged by how corrupt the society was, most corrupt to least corrupt, the economic troubles were arranged exactly in the same order, most depressed to least depressed.
Corrupt societies are weak societies, they can be very happy for awhile but they are very weak when trouble comes along, like an economic downturn. That is exaclty what finally killed the Roman Empire, a once in 400 years economic downturn, they were so weak internally that they collapsed, the underclass killed off the corrupt ruling class (read that "professional class", attorneys and politicians). The only institution left standing after that was the Christian church leadership and the corruption followed there too.
Trading is so hard to do that I don't think we have to worry about a lot of people "corrupting" the society by not producing anything because they trade, most people in this society don't produce anything. The public sector budgets add up to 45 or 50% of the GNP, most of that money produces nothing, a lot of it pays people to produce nothing as well but the economy still struggles along, probably because of the contributions of Bill Gates and other computer pioneer-techies in increasing productivity. Watch out if the increases in productivity stop coming along!! We will all work at something for a living after that for sure, most likely hired gun or farmer!!
If somebody rants at you or despises you for being a trader, kick the s##t out of them and rant at them for being a weakling! That will change most people's opinion. I work with an enviro-nut that despises traders, rants on about people that don't work for a living, etc. He can't wait for me to fail but it looks like I will soon enough be driving the high end car and he will still be in his used truck, probably complaining bitterly about people that don't produce anything and drive sports cars with V12's.
People's opinions are worth what you pay for them.
Max
