Reality bites

It's a mad world. Some people can virtually buy stuff in the future, without anything real actually changing hands, and make millions, while millions of others are toiling to provide goods and services in the real world, here and now, for pennies. Just for a change, it's entertaining to read about the baffled incredulity of a senior commodity trader who found that he'd accidentally bought a real commodity. 28,000 tons of coal, to be exact, sitting on a flotilla of enormous barges outside his riverside office. Brilliant. Via.