[Timothycquinn]

IMO, short term investing including stock options does nothing but move money from one group to another by creating artificial Flux. The stock market for the most part is a closed cycle in which a large group of investors, mostly the loosing ones, think that the stock market creates value and the ones who make the money from these ignorant "investors" are completely aware of and dependent on the loosing parties stupidity.

We should open gambling shops for those who want to day trade or deal in Stock options because that is all that they are doing.

The only stock market that promotes long term growth and profitability of businesses is one that awards long term investment.

[wyager]

The market isn’t a mechanism to let salarymen invest their retirement money in something. The market is a mechanism to plan and optimize all production and resource allocation across the entire world, all the time. This has to be fast.

If you think options (your example, not mine) are somehow inherently nothing more than gambling, it’s because you don’t understand how options work. Options are one of the least exotic and most straightforwardly useful securities.

[erikb]

Oha, you really seem to have hit a self-illusioning wound here.

And I'd say actually stock trading is the high stake gambling. If you increase the gambling sizes too high with card games etc, the public will believe it's unserious. But if you put it in a context of business, suits, and skyscrapers then it seems serious enough. That's why you cannot just make Casinos with bigger stakes and instead need to rely on that farce.