Yes, which is why I said it wasn't like law. Law is the price of the system, the price to train lawyers, the intentional complexity of law so that there is more

Yes, which is why I said it wasn't like law. Law is the price of the system, the price to train lawyers, the intentional complexity of law so that there is more work, time, and complexity. Saying that there is extortionate pricing in finance is hard to prove given the level of competition. The areas of lowest competition, like deposit banking, are generally not "high finance", big salary stuff. And most of the barriers to entry in those areas are imposed by govt, not some natural consequence of finance (again, the author has an amazing ability to pick and choose what facts are relevant). Indeed, the main reason why the industry has consolidated was govt intervention after the GFC. I think what people mean is: oh, this person makes more money than I THINK they should have (pretty much inevitable with academics). But that is something else. Empirically, this line of thought also found no success in the 20th century. Lots of people have thought that another group of people make too much money. I am not aware of any instance where they were able to take that money costlessly (i.e. they were wrong). The point of capitalism is these decisions being decentralised, and we don't need to rely on the self-appointed geniuses to tell us who is making too much money (spoiler: they will think anyone who has more money is an evil extractor, and that they should have some for pointless work...quite why the author doesn't think they are an extractor is worth examining).