Do we really need stock markets???
However, even though you say this so sarcastically, the tragedy is that most people simply don't see through the fog of the media and free-market / stock market zealots.
Being somewhat of a computer geek I often surf computer centric / silicon valley centric sites and I have noticed two things there:
guess that means my diary is superfluous...
You've said you don't want to eliminate capitalism, which I take to mean corporate capitalism ("retaining" capitalism in the sense of eliminating corporate capitalism and instituting individual capitalism in its place would be about as wrenching a change as to syndicalism or communalism or resource feudalism), so what you are talking about is the same things going no, but with less accountability and more going on behind closed doors.
Indeed the bulk of the direct problems traced back to stock exchanges would be corrected by banning payment of executives in stock options maturing in under five years time and banning the incorporation of investment banking ... the problems from games played by derivatives traders are the problems of regulating any other casino, and are not due to the particular real or financial asset that the derivative is based on. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
