ABSTRACT
Never have Keynes's words been more relevant than during the past decade, when speculation came to dominate enterprise. In the early 1980s deregulation triggered a revolution in our hitherto highly structured and regulated credit system. Financial institutions introduced a vast array of instruments and created whole new markets around them. That combination of deregulation and innovation benefited almost anyone who held excess cash, from small savers finally earning the going market rate of interest to the giant pension funds hedging risks in the futures markets. But that very revolution also helped to tum our nation into a "casino society" of investors who engaged in high-stakes financial maneuvering as a shortcut to wealth. During the Reagan era a get-rich-quick mentality took hold in our country and soon pervaded the securities markets. With the onset of recovery in late 1982, the volume of financial transactions in the United States soared to unbelievable levels, and securities trading became the fastestgrowing activity in our economy.
