Comment by ineptech

> financial speculation ... provides more accurate pricing and lowers transaction costs for the actual users of the futures contracts who take delivery of the commodity.

I understand and agree, as I've said pretty explicitly in both of the comments you responded to. I'm arguing that the finance sector should ideally be smaller than it is, but you're responding as if I said it should disappear entirely.

> In my opinion, your arguments are coming from an emotional place. Try and examine futures markets from a place where you aren’t thinking about greedy rich Wall Street guys, the amount of money they make is irrelevant to futures markets being useful tools for producers and consumers of commodities.

I don't have any an animus against speculators; please try to read more charitably. The rapid growth of the finance industry over the last two generations is a result of the policies we've enacted, and the position that it should be smaller is an argument for different policies. Similarly, "it seems like we are pouring [too much] of our resources and brainpower in to designing exotic new ways to bet on the corn harvest" is a complaint about the system that incentivizes that outcome and the policies that produced it, not about the individuals acting within that system.

> I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply...

I wasn't suggesting that commodities are similar to housing in any way; I was saying that, since a lot of people seem to recognize the societal cost of speculation on housing specifically, that I was surprised to be downvoted for complaining about the cost of speculation more generally (which, I remind you again, is not the same as saying it shouldn't exist, only that our economy ought ideally to produce less of it).