It might be true to say, as a social observation, that most contracts involve an exchange of approximately equal value, but this observation is decidedly misleading in respect of contract law. Very many contracts that have legally significant consequences involve the exchange of unequal values, and the effect of contract law, where such contracts are enforced, is, therefore, to bring about unequal exchanges. A contract may make a poor person rich; it may make a rich person poor; and it may make a poor person even poorer than formerly. These may be the consequences not only of contracts known to be speculative, but of ordinary contracts, such as sales of goods or land.