>There's an old joke about a repairman who is called in the middle of the night to fix a nuclear reactor.... I'm sure you're familiar with that one. The "vendor" in your example knew where to hit the machine, you didn't, ergo, you need to pay for the solution or find your own, which you apparently did.
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>that's capitalism not altruism in action, ...

It was nickel and dime capitalism. The best salesman I ever met - the guys a (very) rich investment banker - makes a couple of thousand bucks an hour - even while he sleeps or drives to the deep water of the Gulf to fish tuna - impressed me with the value af altruism and it's relation to capitalism.

One of his portfolio accounts (a customer) was on the phone - had a couple of million in cash he thought he should use to buy some bonds.

The rich alruistic salesmans says -".. you're not ready to buy bonds now - lets wait for the market to pick a direction - and then we'll decide on what purchases you need."

The guy turned down a chance to make a couple of 100K on one trade right then.

He still grabs a couple of thousand bucks an hour - even while he sleeps - and his success - so it seems - is the positve result of ethical (altristic) behavior.

An old friend once said "You can be penny rich, but dollar poor."

Somewhere in this response is a message - right now we (the US) borrow 1.5 Billion bucks a day because someone who doesn't give a bean about you or me, decided that capitalism is more important than altruistic or ethical behavior.

I guess it can cut both ways!