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If puts and calls open Pandora's Box, unless a safe remedy can be found, I would ban them, had I the power.
Yet doing so if you could would open you up to the counterargument that these options are just insurance, eg why should ordinary people or companies be exposed to the full risk of owning stocks with fluctuating prices when an option can limit the potential fluctuations for its holder, and thus bring a measure of financial certainty in planning for the future? You must be able to answer this question (convincingly) in the negative or the proponents of the markets can use this argument.

In some ways this is as difficult as the gun debate, namely how do you convince people that nobody should be allowed to own guns, when the gun lobby responds by asking why should people live at the mercy of burglars and armed attackers with no protection?

If most of the financial industry were to disappear it would mostly mean that a lot of people would have to start making honest livings.
I doubt it. I believe it would involve a lot of pain and misery throughout, which I'm ok with. But clearly, governments around the world have been scared to death of the pain it would bring to their countries, which is why they largely preferred to guarantee the gamblers' debts.

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$E(X_t|F_s) = X_s,\quad t > s$
by martingale on Thu Jul 30th, 2009 at 02:54:24 AM EST
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