Stocks are down this morning, on concerns about the health of the financial sector. But the foreclosure business is booming, on optimism of more and more and more foreclosures!

The agents who handle foreclosures for banks are doing great. They're lounging around a fancy conference in Palm Desert in beach gear, which makes for fabulous color for the New York Times reporter there.

This, you see, proves that capitalism works. The profits flowing into the foreclosure industry will offset, for example, the profits flowing out of the auto industry. Who needs a car when they can't even pay their mortgage, anyhow? Efficiency. Economics is all about re-allocating capital to where it can be used most effectively. So while towns in Michigan are facing such bleak times that even the mayor is saying "There isn't any light at the end of the tunnel right now," other places in our interconnected global economy are doing just fine: North Korean missile repair depots! Baghdad car bomb manufacturers! Extortionate health insurance providers! And, of course, Somali pirates!

This is what the liberal media always 'forgets' to print: capitalism is a perfect system. When one thing dies, another comes into glorious being. The buggy industry crumbled; automobiles rose. Railroads crumbled; Airlines rose. Newspapers are crumbling; somebody else is probably making money on journalism somewhere, somehow, instead (Romenesko?). So all you Marxist Chomskies out there, save your cries about how greedy bankers have gone and destroyed America's institutions with wild overleveraging and irresponsible risk management. Consider the balance factor, will you? Out: jobs. In: gun nuttery, everywhere.
[Pic via]