[gruez]

>By that yardstick, all jobs whose only purpose is moving or charging rent on money , e.g. the entire banking/finance sector, is pure bullshit waste. I tend to agree.

If you think "the entire banking/finance sector" is just shuffling money around, then the problem is that you have a simplified view of what they do, and therefore think their 10% (or whatever) contribution to the GDP is oversized. Banking/finance is far more than what you encounter day to day (ie. retail banking). They also assess risk, make forecasts, and make decisions on how capital is allocated. All of that requires staff and costs money.

>(Not that there wouldn't need to be some efficient algorithmic distribution of resources to maximise human wellbeing, of course; To each according to their need etc.)

Given how DAOs turned out in the past few years, I'm skeptical that'll ever work out.

[mikem170]

How much rent seeking and regulatory capture that goes on is enabled by modern finance?

What about bailouts for financial institutions that are too big to fail - the idea of privatizing the profits and socializing the losses?

Real wages are down and income inequality is up over the last several decades, coinciding with a lot of growth in the finance industry. Subprime and payday loans, 30 year mortgages backed by the government, leveraged buyouts, stock buybacks, tax havens, etc. Private and public debt levels are way higher than at any time prior to WWII. Right from the age of 18 we have kids signing large student loans, the banks don't care about their risk since the loans are federally backed and will follow these kids until the day they die.

A lot of people feel that the general public is being squeezed by financiers. Are they wrong?

[swatcoder]

> They also assess risk, make forecasts, and make decisions on how capital is allocated.

I think they were making a critique of neoliberal capitalism, which might be represented as:

1. Capital efficiency

2. ???

3. Social benefit

Obviously, if you've bought in, #2 doesn't feel at all vague to you. But it's not uncommon for many to step back and see the whole enterprise as an underpants gnome scheme that's on track for a lot of underpantsless global citizens.