I'm under the impression that financial innovations throughout history have generally spurred capital investment. Innovations like fractional-reserve lending have made bankers&investors wealthy, but also spurred spending on infrastructure in a way that could be a win-win for society as a whole.
The point the author was trying to get at was not that finance geeks don't provide any social utility.
Just that in any rational category of needs, the value they provide would have to rank far below the value provide by nurse practitioners (and schoolteachers, police officers, lawyers even... a zillion other working categories, in fact).
If today's financial wizards went away,
It's not just a question of "if." To all intents and purposes, the financial services sector as we know it today (both in its technical prowess, and in sheer size and scope) did not exist 30 years go. True, we didn't have Facebook or iPads then. But people managed to live healthy lives, raise children, have careers, buy houses, fight wars, etc, just the same.
So from one point of view, yes the financial services sector can be seen to grease certain wheels (like IPOs, M&A). But in the larger picture, (in the view of many) it doesn't seem to provide all that much value, in proportion to the resources (and brainpower) devoted to it. It also seems to generate no end of collateral damage (the recent mortgage crisis being just one example).
The point the author was trying to get at was not that finance geeks don't provide any social utility.
Just that in any rational category of needs, the value they provide would have to rank far below the value provide by nurse practitioners (and schoolteachers, police officers, lawyers even... a zillion other working categories, in fact).
If today's financial wizards went away,
It's not just a question of "if." To all intents and purposes, the financial services sector as we know it today (both in its technical prowess, and in sheer size and scope) did not exist 30 years go. True, we didn't have Facebook or iPads then. But people managed to live healthy lives, raise children, have careers, buy houses, fight wars, etc, just the same.
So from one point of view, yes the financial services sector can be seen to grease certain wheels (like IPOs, M&A). But in the larger picture, (in the view of many) it doesn't seem to provide all that much value, in proportion to the resources (and brainpower) devoted to it. It also seems to generate no end of collateral damage (the recent mortgage crisis being just one example).