ecg
i get your point. and no, i'm not gonna keep everything in fiat money. i know the drill.
furthermore, with the filthy lucre i can set myself up and be ready for the zimbabwe option, or the everything-will-be-fine option.
just want to make the point that financial markets and speculation help companies with the liquidity they provide to hedge and raise capital. since somebody's gotta trade and provide that, i don't see why it shouldn't be me.
of course, if you feel that this is only the pursuit of money for money's sake, and wish to do away with all financial markets and speculators as well because of their 'useless' greed and because therefore they do not produce anything 'tangible', then i guess you should borrow a page from your cousin karl, as in karl marx and see how that worked out.
as long as there are people, there will always be markets and those who will find out how to use them to their benefit thereby helping making said markets more efficient, streamlined, etc etc.... which in the end helps the economy in general when and if they are not totally manipulated and skewed to one side until it all blows up miserably.
but if that can be avoided, i challenge you to show us a better system than this to keep man's folly in check.
That thinking only works as long as I accept those pieces of paper you call 'lucre'. See Zimbabwe.
At the point where a currency fails (or even starts to go beyond 'normal' inflation)... you gonna be wishing you had swapped some of those pieces of paper into real (productive) assets!
Further, if you got the brain for forex... then I can only start to imagine some of the other things that you may be capable of. Things that would possibly enrich your life and the lives of everyone around you. Surely that is more worthy than the continual accumulation of pieces of paper?