Wall Street serves a function in this country, the same way that eels, carp and suckerfish serve a purpose. The problem is that it now dominates our economies.
It is the variant of capitalism practiced by buying up companies, gutting them and flipping them. Not to run them, but to squeeze the meat out of them, even if it means destroying them. The 'own but do not run' variant of capitalism.
The other variant of capitalism, actually building something, barely exists anymore. A handful of examples. Apple. SpaceX. FedEx.
I would never advocate inhibiting or disallowing parasitic capitalism; bacteria cleaning up the detritus at the base of healthy forests has its function. It is necessary for displacement, and all is well in our economies if and when enough the of the waste is eventually plowed back into actually building something.
But who is it that is sprinting to be the new risk taking builder? What I've seen is, our best and brightest sprinting from the Ivy Leagues to go stare at the scoreboard on Wall Street and bet on the game. Actually building anything is for suckers.
When our economies are overwhelmed with bacteria as an ends -- when our economies are over-run with the natural action of 'decay' and cash-out and not 'build', then eventually, the bones are going to start showing. And they are.
What has exasperated this is the ugly melding of Wall Street and K-Street that is neither capitalism nor socialism, but rather, soft-fascism. At least so far, soft. Soft because the nation has largely passively tolerated it.
What a gig; great if you can keep it going. To sit on a hill three states away from the middle-class struggling up hills and to effortlessly print zeros on paper bonds for your crony friends and you to 'spend' as 'stimuls' and also, tweak the carrot and stick of 'interest rates' to 'run the economy.'
Academics don't have a word for what happens when enough folks conclude 'fuck this' and adjust their behaviours, plural, in ways that don't fit their academic models.
And so... 'liquidity traps' and other self-deflecting gibberish to paint over the fact that much of the nation has lost trust and faith in our economic system.
On the plus side, we've built a slew of multi-million dollar plus Public Servant mansions in Northern Virginia.