In response to http://mumblingskeptic.blogspot.in/2013/02/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html it is argued that stock markets are modeled, in accordance with the Kelly criteria, as a game of repeated trials. Which in simple terms means that a young child has to repeatedly fall to learn what the safety limits of a garden swing are? Be that as it may, the young child is confident that the physical limits once learned cannot be easily tampered with. He or she and the nannies (market regulators) know in advance what the limits and restrictions are. The same cannot be said of the stock market for any rigging, which is generally transparent to the investor and its pernicious consequences are known to the investor only after the damage is done. What is worse is that the riggers know and they are the consistent gainers on the upside and the down side.



Further, without any limit to the number of players (investors) in the ring (on the other hand trapeze rings have limits to the number of artists it can hold) and with one ring being linked to another and that to another across the world, across time zones, I wonder if any of them, Kelly, Hull or White will be able to rationalize and justify the legitimized but specious gambling dens that stock markets are. It is not just the laws of physics or quantum mechanics that do not apply; the guiding principles of ethics also do not seem to apply. And as Raghuram Rajan surmises, at the crunch the nannies and curators (Stock Market watchdogs) are easily distracted by their own chatter.



It could have been so once, but in an allegedly civilized world all is no longer fair in love and war. Hundreds of the guilty may go unpunished but no innocent should be convicted. Considering the futility of war, the argument of sacrificing hundreds of foot soldiers or innocent jihadists for the larger good is no longer acceptable. The right of governments to wantonly take shelter under any eminent domain is being seriously questioned. Thus, theorists and modern day soothsayers need to factor in such maxims and tenets into their mathematical models if they are to be called civilized models and not necessary evils. It is thus not a question of romancing financial markets but that of civilizing them.

