Thanks @kiba. I was hoping there was more to the bitcoin economy than what I'm seeing in the forum.
There's some productive activities at
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade but they seem to be pretty small. It's good to know you're doing routine transactions with bitcoin and producing real stuff.
Zero-sum activites like forex and pyramid games are fine, but they're not going to grow the bitcoin economy or extend it beyond the speculator set.