The claim isn't about possible workarounds, which I'm sure are almost limitless, but about a generic requirement for owners to hold stock.

At the moment you're saying 'Yes, but to recreate a market you could...'

I'm sure this is true, but you're thinking like a market person who makes a living out of doing tricks like these.

If there's a blanket ban on all tricks - buyers must own stock, borrowing is not allowed, derivatives are only allowed for commodity deals where the buyer collects the commodity at the end of the deal - this all becomes froth and fantasy. Which is what it really is anyway.

The challenge is to couple finance back to the real economy. It does not need further schemes for further decoupling.

Currently the guiding principle is that all decoupling is good by definition, because it then becomes possible to make good money out of froth and fantasy.

If the markets are run on the principle that decoupling is very actively discouraged, irrespective of the forms it takes or may take, there's some danger of making markets manageable rather than cyclically horrific.