Ah, your ruminations about the impossible task of eliminating uncertainty start so very promisingly (“Bribing the Markets,” October 31, 2009). As Frank Knight wisely pointed out, and as John Maynard Keynes understood perfectly well, uncertainty is impossible to get around. It is irreducible. All the attempts to turn uncertainty into risk with known costs or benefits and their probabilities are in vain. But this is precisely why the task of eliminating uncertainty is also inescapable.  Irrepressible. And even ineradicable. Human intelligence reaching only so far, but rarely much farther than the nose, sundry and strong emotions will come into play, albeit in more presentable guises. And the market will relish them. Whence all-knowing gurus, mysterious insiders, and far-seeing astrologers. Come what may, uncertainty will be reduced to risk. By hook or by crook. For who in his or her right mind would ever admit that the market is far worse than the worst among casinos, where risk indeed reigns? God forbid! Everything is under control, at least until the next bloody crash. And this is where your ruminations should have playfully ended.