&quot;Natural&quot; is a misleading word. Trees are natural. Earthquakes are natural. Bubonic plague is natural. Death is natural.<p>Our economy is a machine we built, and we built it to fulfill a purpose. We can build other machines with different characteristics. Markets can be important and useful components of those machines, but they are not the point.<p>A few people will always try to get around the laws. That&#x27;s not a reason to give up on laws. Viruses always try to get around our immune systems, but that doesn&#x27;t mean we give up on finding new vaccines, new treatments, new preventative measures.<p>I think the important thing is for us to distinguish between three kinds of economic activity: 1) creating customer value, 2) reducing waste, and 3) extracting wealth. The first two are useful behaviors. The third, pursued exclusively, is parasitic.<p>I used to work in the financial industry, but I likely never will again, because most of it is about wealth extraction. One practical thing we can do is to treat people differently based on the extent to which they are economic contributors versus economic parasites. In America we tend to honor wealth much more than contribution. If we reversed that, if investment banker and financial trader were lower than garbage man, I think that&#x27;d do at least as much as tighter regulation.