Quacks and scam artists intentionally deceive others, generally by taking advantage of their lack of sophistication/knowledge of a particular subject matter for

Quacks and scam artists intentionally deceive others, generally by taking advantage of their lack of sophistication/knowledge of a particular subject matter for which they need a product. The classic example is the "Snake Oil Salesman" who claims to sell elixirs that can cure just about any type of health issue. He is in fact selling worthless junk with no curative properties in order to make a quick buck from a medically unsophisticated crowd. This 37rentals guy did not take advantage of an old woman with tuberculosis - he arbitraged AVIS' willingly extended offer. This is a company that knows how to run a car rental business, and it would seem that intentionally omitted rental length from the terms and conditions of the offer. What he did was not unethical, nor was it a net negative on "the whole system". He simply transferred value from AVIS to himself in a risk-free manner. The 2007 financial crisis was fueled by a lot more than "all those people flooding in to the US mortgage industry to help inflate the 2004-2008 housing bubble with dodgy loans." The underwriters behind the increasing number of subprime loans between 2004-2007 fit the description of Snake Oil Salesmen more accurately, with around 80% knowingly signing off on defective mortgages during 2007. [1] Mortgages, like medicine, can be complex and hard to understand for the average consumer. That is why we have the FDA & SEC to regulate these markets. The SEC failed to regulate the subprime lending market, and it failed to regulate all of the secondary and tertiary derivative markets where bundles of these toxic assets would be sold at leverage to investors who did not do their due diligence. The whole system should have been allowed to fail, and then been restructured under bankruptcy. It's completely unfair to compare what 37rentals did to what the underwriters and investment bankers did leading up to the financial crisis, but it was fascinating thinking about why they are different...thanks for the food for thought. [1] http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/fcic/20110310183217/http://www.fcic.gov/hearings/pdfs/2010-0407-Bowen.pdf http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/fcic/20110310183217/htt...