Incipient Vagabond--Verily

This economic crisis reminds me of virtual reality.  Partly, because it is.  But it also reminds me of one of the few things I learned worth mentioning in playing video games: the morality of using video game cheats.

Most video games have cheats built in.  These might be shortcuts that developers left for themselves to skip to certain parts of the game in testing, or deliberate keys made to enhance gameplay after finishing the game.  Anyone who's played more than 10 hours of video games in their life probably knows where I'm going with this.  If you use cheats, it will suck the soul out of the game.  It might mess with code, and in exploring the game, you'll come across bugs and glitches that can make it freeze up.  You mutate it.  You fall out of the game, you become infinitely rich and powerful and the rest of the world is powerless to stop you.  But it is artificial, unnatural, and cannot last; not in the real world, not in video games. 
At this point, you argue no, dummy, it will last as long as you keep the game on; there's no time limit.  In the game, people don't revolt.  But what I'm referring to is the reaction of you, the human element.  When you reach ennui in gameplay, when you get bored with it (and you will get bored with it), this is the same as what happens when real world bubbles burst.  It's a slap in the face, it's a pang of guilt.
Let me clarify that the situation I am describing is the situation that occurs when you use cheats prematurely.  It's when, before you've finished the game, when you still have plans for achieving awards and gaining merit incrementally, you use cheats.  Let's talk with Grand Theft Auto in mind, since that's probably the most recognized video game in history (aside from PacMan and Pong, of course--which also don't have cheats built in), and it fits the bill precisely. 
Grand Theft Auto even warns you: in using cheats, if you save your game, you will ruin its reality.  You can no longer proceed as planned, you have effectively mutilated it.  This is reality. 
Let's return to the other side of this analogy.  The big bankers, the multinational corporate CEO's, the business and political elite have installed and enabled the cheats in our global system.  In banking law, in global politics, in our finance systems, credit and greed and dark corners and giant unsolicited walls have given these guys space to hide in plain sight their manipulation of our reality.  These guys are virtually rich, they have more many than should be possible.  It has created an obscene gap and socio-economic cliff.  Now we have to do a system restore.