[quote name='lordwow']I guess here is the best place to ask...
Does anyone else wonder when the capitalism here in the US has gone "too far?"
Now, I'm about as pro-capitalism as they come, but it seems like everytime ANYTHING comes out now, with any sort of media buzz, be it gaming consoles, cheap games like the $2 thread, or even stupid stuff like the WoW Card Game. Ebayers go and literally buy out the entire stock.
I'm beginning to wonder if Ebay is artificially inflating the economy. Everything I go to look for is out of stock, except on Ebay... But if the only people who are buying this stuff are the sellers on Ebay... isn't that a bit ridiculous?[/QUOTE]
I hates 'em too, but I sincerely doubt they're artificially inflating the economy, especially when you consider that the economy's been pretty bad and/or stagnant for 7 years now.
Now, they might

up our measurement of the unemployment rate (if they're "self-employed" eBayers), but that's a measurement that's always really sucked in terms of getting a realistic picture of unemployment in this country.
Has it gone too far? Perhaps it has, in my liberal opinion, but it's nothing that's outside the boundaries of capitalistic entrepreneurship. Is it the eBayer's fault for buying it while you're at work, or is it Nintendo's fault for not making enough Wii's? Is it the eBayer or Tomy (?) for not making enough Tickle Me Elmo dolls?
It's neither, really. The biggest problem, IMO, is this

wad 'gimmiegimmiegimmie' instant gratification bullshit that pervades out culture. We demand systems at launch, instead of waiting for good titles to come out, price drops, or hardware revisions (and thank you for not pointing out the info under my avatar that shows I own all 3 next-gen systems :lol

. We have to be the first on the block to have Elmo, or the Collector's Edition Linkin Park album, or whatever it is. We, as a society, are defined by what we own, not what we do. We made ourselves that way.
It's the crux of the point: if people had any concept of delayed gratification, they'd wait for price drops, sales, or availability. If we were disciplined consumers, then eBay would still exist as a market for niche, custom, and classic/nostalgic goods, rather than as a place for a $400 Wii console. If we had common sense for ourselves and our families, and a sense of decency to have something because we wanted it (and that it's worth the wait for it!), and not because it's cool, and not because it's $1.99 at Best Buy, so

it if it sucks, then life would be a bit easier on us all.
The past two years of economic growth in the United States has been marked by negative savings. This means that the overall amount spent in the United States for 2006 was larger than the amount earned - NOT a good sign of a blooming economy, I'll say. Unless we learn to restrain ourselves from buying every new piece of shit DVD that comes out on Tuesday, or every new game that comes out, nothing will change.
Two things cause the eBayers you have problems with: limited availability and a demand for instant gratification. We can bitch at Nintendo and say "why can't you make more faster!!?!?!?," but the real problem is our selfish "gimmiegimmiegimmie" attitude - the real problem, at least, in the sense that we ignore it more than anything, and it's the one thing that we genuinely have some semblance of

ing control over.
/rant.