Well, I’m not sure “the need for an escape hatch” is quite the right he thinks it is. The stock market didn’t arise from a state of nature. It’s an artificial construct (just as, the “personhood” of the corporation, limited liability, etc., are not “natural.”). It exists for the public good. When people like Peter Drucker, the father of management theory, and W. Edward Deming, the man behind the Japanese economic miracle, decry short-term stock speculation, you can be assured there’s a good business reason for it. I’m not sure they would have treated the need for an “escape hatch” as important to capital formation. What productive business—not investing—reason is there for such a short-term horizon?

As someone who co-founded a company who made the Inc. Magazine 500 a while back, I can assure you I’m not anti-business. On the contrary, business building is a noble calling. But I don’t know the good business reason why someone would need to get in and out of a stock in, say, a day, other than for purely speculative reasons. And if it’s speculative, I have no interest in it, and I don’t think most average Americans would have an interest in it, as it doesn’t serve a real productive business end. I realize there is a whole structure, hedge funds, etc., built around the exigencies of the financial system. I’m not saying they aren’t important. I’m not saying they’re useless. But when John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, can advocate a short-term tax (and mutual funds buying individual stocks just as individuals do), then I think the “system” can take it without falling apart. What we have here, I think, is an example of how the financial “game” has become sacrosanct—for no reason related to the public good it is supposed to serve.

By the way, as someone who sits on a board of a company, I agree that Sarbanes-Oxley is “ham-fisted regulation,” and it should be repealed. But the only reason it exists is because of the temptations created by excessive stock speculation.