I wasn't too sure of where this essay was going to go, but I was pleasantly surprised. By "pleasant" is your conclusion, not the millions of people who suffer from having their economy controlled by speculators.

I remember reading an article from The Economist that explains the purpose of "arbitrage". The article tries to describes how this "great" economic leveller justifies the derivative market, providing a narrower price range for stocks and bonds to trade, providing a "fairer" price. But without arbitrage, prices would not be absurdly high or low. The derivatives are mostly a way for rich people to get richer.

Fo