Pose the question differently: would we be better off without a means to bet against housing?It's widely accepted that while short sellers of stock are despised by corporate America, they serve a useful purpose.
Insp Andy Bridgewater said: "Increased enforcement has resulted in 13 aggressive beggars being taken off the streets of the city, while legitimate sellers of the Big Issue have been able to get support and assistance".
Sheeran was closely followed by the multi-award-winning debut from Sam Smith, In the Lonely Hour, which shifted 1.25m copies, while other big sellers of 2014 included George Ezra's first album in third, Paolo Nutini, Coldplay and One Direction.
On the iBookstore, Apple effectively acts as agency by allowing publishers to set their own prices and take 70% of that rate, while sellers receive the remaining 30%.
While there are currently sellers of gold and silver on the eBay marketplace, it's tough to apply either the auction or fixed price model to these items because the value is constantly in flux in a given day.
Balinese farmers often buy land, while sellers tend to be Javanese, Toraja or members of the local Pamona population.
While sellers have, understandably, embraced the current market dynamic, it has left a lot of buyers scrambling and demoralized.
ScS Upholstery, Rosebys, Floor-2-Go and MFI have gone into administration this year, while Woolworths, seller of everything from sweets to DVDs, remains the most high-profile retail victim of the financial crisis.
In a five-minute video entitled "Tel Aviv is also a land of Muslims," the Egyptian doctor who took charge of the global terror group after Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, referred to the Palestinian Authority as the "sellers of Palestine" while urging followers to take up arms.
While buyers weren't nibbling, sellers of maintenance equipment were.
