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/
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/