Happy New Year to all. A claim has been made in the article that speculation is socially useful and maybe even harmful for the society. In the traditional sense, that is, as it has been so far, always the case; it produces nothing but excitement, often at the cost of others.

The question to ask is: Should this be the necessary outcome? On this New Year Day let me take a flight of fancy for I am not capable of much else.

At some future date the economic crisis once again strike the developed nations. Loans in large numbers were granted for production of personalised objects on 3D printers. Loans were also granted, once again in large numbers to parlours offering `experience on demand’ through virtual reality machines. All such loans were securitised and a superstructure of exotic varieties of derivatives was built upon such loans. It seems that objects produced do not have much market and cannot be sold and there are not enough consumers wanting that tailor made experience and pay for it. Banks and financial institutions have incurred huge losses and large scale nationalisation appears to be the only viable outcome, else the world economy would fold under the weight of losses on account of bad loans and the derivatives that do not have market value anymore.

At the recommendation of one Mr. Robert Healer, government declares two policies. First, by statute the strike date for derivatives is extended by a period of two years. Next the government institutes an agency. The agency takes over the objects produced by 3D printers and assigns a notional value to each object depending on the cost of production. The agency then institutes a lottery and declares that once the lottery subscriptions for any object reaches 10% over its declared notional value, a lucky draw would be held and the object would be given to the lucky winner. Companies engaged in selling customised experiences are hired by the agency to provide `learning’ experience to the younger generation. The extra 10% over the notional value of objects is transferred to experience generating companies so that they can repay their loans too. Within a period of 2-3 years, nearly all the loans are repaid.

Now the derivatives, prices of which were based on the value of loans are traded and the markets thereof are also cleared to a large extent. Overall losses to the individuals as well as the governments are now within `affordable’ range and the business confidence returns to normal and business as usual is back.