Seriously, if it's just going to hang out at 17.0 all day, I can find better things to speculate with. 
I really hope that's what a lot of the people speculating with Bitcoins think. I'm sorry this is spoiling the fun for you - but people speculating like crazy with Bitcoins is spoiling the fun for the people actually using Bitcoins and that's the people who actually give Bitcoin true value. Driving them away is one of the things you can do to assure that Bitcoin will eventually die.
So less people speculating with Bitcoins won't hurt the Bitcoin economy. Quite the contrary.
It'll become fun for you again when the dollar dies and everyone tries to escape to Bitcoin. Let's hope this happens when Bitcoin is already more or less well established. The wise thin
I agree with you 99%. The wild swings in trading prevent merchants from adopting BTC as a useful currency; there's no easy way to price a good or service. The 1% disagreement I have regards the impact of speculators. Stability will happen only when there are more speculators; the market needs to be saturated. As more speculators enter, the more narrow the margins become. Stability follows.
Embrace greed. It is your friend.