[akiselev]

GDP is the total value of goods flowing through the economy (more or less), not the total value of all property so it's not a very meaningful comparison. By this measure, Vanguard's $1.7 trillion assets under management account for over 10% of US GDP but obviously that's incorrect, that money is just parked across a bunch of assets.

The US manufacturing industry is about $3 trillion a year in actual industrial production and the tech industry has way less leverage, let alone political clout.

Edit: the total market cap of the S&P 500 broke $15 trillion in 2013 and as of 2015, all of the companies in that index didn't even employ a fifth of US workers. Add in all the spending and investment property that doesn't make it into S&P figures (govt taxes + bonds, real estate, etc) and I bet the total number is probably >$100 trillion.