Huge wrote in
:
On 2008-06-08, Dan Sheppard wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Market based economies at least do not second guess societies shape:
what works tends to flourish and what doesn't falls by the wayside.
But I'm not so sure about this. Isn't this what futures and hedge
markets do?
No. Futures are a bet on which way the market will move, not an
attempt to move the market in a specific direction.

That can be a side-effect of them though. So they can perform that
function, whether or not that was the intended purpose. They could
be seen as a mechanism for ameliorating large fluctuations in
prices, regardless of whether someone designed them (for that or
any other purpose).