But holding stocks for the dividend is taking your rightful share of newly created value.

I'm not saying anyone shouldn't be allowed to profit on moves in stock prices. But when that's the primary mechanism by which people make money, that is gambling. And the problem with gambling, as you pointed out, is that it's not creating anything of value.

I'll accept the premise that it's good for the system to have some amount of pure speculation to provide the flexibility people need to feel safe with investing. But the current system -- whether as the goal of the regulatory structure, or as an unintended response to that structure -- is weighted heavily to profiting on the financial activities themselves. And while financial activities may enable value creation, they are not in themselves creating value.