<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE></TITLE>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content=text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1>
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1515" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY text=#000000 bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT size=2>I disagree. I see derivatives, including options, as
ways of dealing with risk and there's nothing parasitic about that in my
eyes. Yes, some people are deluded and are basically giving their money
away, but, used correctly, I see nothing unethical about them. In fact, in
a sense, this is no different from how many people accept a job as an employee
for a salary versus going into business for themselves. The latter
involves much more risk, but the rewards are often much higher. The former
involves much less risk, but at the cost of lower pay. (Perhaps what's
being left out here is ex ante psychic profit -- using "psychic" to mean "of the
mind" rather than some spooky mumbo jumbo. People who take the lower risk
when they know they'll get less pay are still obtaining a psychic profit in
terms of lowered risk.)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Regards,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Dan</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>From:</B> <A title=megao@sasktel.net
href="mailto:megao@sasktel.net">Lifespan Pharma Inc.</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org
href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">ExI chat list</A></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, September 04, 2005 9:51
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [extropy-chat] Re: Ethics of
contrarianism</DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT><BR></DIV>I still see options and derivatives markets
as more parasitic (in their everyday use) than enhancing the true market
valuation of goods(as is the commonly purported purpose for their
existance).</BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>