The United States has the biggest stock market in the world and for whatever reasons has decided in recent times to allow more and more financial speculation through hedge funds and the like, which involves derivatives, options, and just about all things that permit incredible amounts of leverage to be utilized, of which these speculators avail themselves of every conceivable angle to get any sort of edge that they can think of, all in order to chase the almighty dollar and thereby to make money, without producing anything of merit or of value. This signifies that basically financial speculation provides nothing of substance for society as a whole while if anything it increases the instability of the financial edifice.
The business of America should be the business of producing, creating, improving, and sustaining those things of substance that make for a better America, not just done for a select few, but for society, in whole. Those that make it their business to just lust for and live for the making of money and nothing else, through essentially their cleverness and deceitfulness, without adding one iota of worth to their nation, by virtue of playing a zero-sum game aren’t ever going to be people that are worthy of being emulated, let alone, being respected. Nevertheless, in a country in which wealth, seems to equate to respect, those that know how to make money through their financial speculations, get way too much respect, despite the fact that as the game is played, they are fundamentally producing nothing, while unnecessarily adding to risk of viable businesses as well as the instability of global financial institutions.
The whole point of rules and regulations in any business enterprise, has a lot to do with the protection of those institutions, from that which is inimical to those businesses. That which is speculative in nature, has got to be controlled, or it will potentially and unfairly consume, damage, or destroy that which is being speculated upon. This thus signifies that the first order of business for American governance is to protect, support, and to augment those businesses that are actually creating things of value, as opposed to simply allowing it to be open season for that which is speculative in nature so being provided with the opportunity to put their baleful influence into play upon them.
Those that make money from their ability to work the angles to put money into their own pocket, without correspondingly providing anything of substance, should be closely regulated, and should never be in the position to inflict lasting harm onto a given industry or society, in particular. Those that do not control that which prudently needs to be controlled, have let through the gates, the seeds of their own future destruction. The whole principle of hedge funds, should be completely re-evaluated, whether that be an institution as seeded by already superrich people, or something like the superrich endowments such as are at Yale or Harvard, seeded by former alumni and the like. The bottom line is speculation is the bastard child of investment, and has no legitimate function in the family of capital investments, but should be seen as the sick parasite that it is.