The share of the private sector devoted to the narrowly constructed financial sector (investment banking and securities and commodities trading) has quintupled over the last three decades. This means that we're paying five times as much for their services relative to the size of the economy. It is not clear how the productive economy is being better served by this sector now than it was in the '50s and '60s. Remember, this sector exists to allocate capital from savers to those who want to borrow and invest. It seems hard to contend that capital is being better directed to its best uses in 2011 than in 1961. Nor does it seem credible to claim that we are more secure in our savings than was true 40 or 50 years ago. To take the trucking analogy, this would be as though the share of the workforce employed in trucking had quintupled, but goods were not getting from point A to point B any quicker or more reliably. If this were the case, any serious person would be asking what is wrong with our trucking sector. Similarly, we should be asking what is wrong with our financial sector. http://www.alternet.org/books/15272...e_can_make_the_'free_market'_work_for_the_99/
It's a bubble industry that is deflating. It's like the tech boom except that I doubt there will be any 2.0 as there wasn't really much innovation other than some esoteric derivative formulas that turned out to be bogus.
so he is comparing 2011 to 1961. what a tool. why dont we go back to typewriters, checkbooks and drinking high balls on the job also. What a moron. Of course capital is being better directed today than it was in 1961.
What a moron. Of course capital is being better directed today than it was in 1961. ---------------------------- yep, and that is why we have the Crises that is taking the world by storm because capital is "Better directed today than in was in 61". What you mean to say is there are more options for investors than back in 1961. The premises is not only wrong, but a fucking joke.