Tony, two things: the stock market at its simplest is NOT a casino.  It’s an opportunity for Americans to own a stake in American companies and an opportunity for American companies to raise money by sharing equity rather than taking on debt.  Stockholders have the right—even the obligation—to judge very carefully the value of their stocks based on a given company’s productivity and profitability, to buy and sell on that basis.  It’s not gambling unless you say everything is gambling because no one knows the future. 
Second: the argument that we were losing business to the rest of the world and thus had to de-regulate our financial industry doesn’t hold up.  We have pretty strict building codes in this country and when there’s an earthquake (I live in L.A., know what I’m talking about) not very many buildings fall down. In most other parts of the world, it’s much easier to put up a building, you don’t really need permission—but when there’s an earthquake, tens of thousands of people can be rendered homeless or dead in an instant.  Which system do you prefer?  Do we give up sensible regulation just because someone else has done so?
And equating the futures market wherein businesses smooth out the ups and downs of commodity prices—a market that admittedly has to be kept liquid by drawing in lots of players—with the super-abstract derivatives “market” that was many generations removed from any real product, is disingenuous in the extreme.  I have a hard time thinking Mr. Blankley actually believes what he’s saying in that respect.
As usual, Tony, your arguments and statements are purely ideology driven, and reality-free.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pPQTGcEEU0

Matt Miller is charming, suave, and cute. One does not want a genius up there, any more than one wants Reb Nachman of Bratslav to MC at a Bar Mitzvah, or a winner of the Fields Medal for Mathematics to help you with your SATs. It’s radio; depth would be an occupational hazard in his job. But when he goes on the road to tell us our problem is the tyranny of dead ideas, it gets a little cloying. Though my admiration for him is genuine, this recent little live recording featuring Mr. Miller and me shows that it need not translate into a shared tenancy in the cornucopian dream where infinite growth awaits us all on this finite planet, given sufficient Yankee pluck. Happy Fourth. And don’t be hatin’...