As the free market's gravitational effects become increasingly pronounced, market evangelism demands a denial of inconvenient evidence and a dulling of the critical and moral senses. As rungs of the social ladder are kicked away from above and society becomes more polarised and inflexible, those with positions to defend will inevitably offer arguments that are ever more fearful and absurd. Whatever its claims to pragmatism, modern economic theory has, for many, become a matter of faith and desperation. One of this new faith's many miracles is the severing of causal connections between possession and dispossession. To quote the words of one Charlie Chan: "Theory, like mist on eyeglasses, obscures facts.