This work addresses modern international finance - its complex financial products, instant electronic trading, which shifts billions of dollars daily, and the philosophy of the free market economy - and whether it is, in fact, a boon or a burden to the real economy which is populated and relied upon by the majority of us. Based on three illustrativ e stories, The Fisherman and the Rhinoceros, The Oyster Pearl Fisherman and Geronimo and The Genoan Merchant and the Molecule, the book suggests that the existence of complex and effective financial markets are actually of considerable benefit to trade in its widest sense.