"Young people might not remember this, but finance used to be the industry you would track into if you were a high achieving member of the intelligentsia. The i

"Young people might not remember this, but finance used to be the industry you would track into if you were a high achieving member of the intelligentsia. The industry was viewed as being staffed to the gills with the best-and-brightest and was afforded anodyne coverage from the establishment media." Speaking as someone who was born before the 80s, my perception is that you have misread this situation. The rise of finance was a consequence of the "greed is good" 80s, which meant that disproportionate rewards went to financial industries, which was both a cause and a consequence of the collapse of every other career open to the intelligentsia. You see a similar situation on a smaller scale in the rise of Silicon Valley's start up culture, where that is seen as the most valid or only career choice in spite of asymptotically levelling benefits. The demonstration that "the best and brightest" operating open loop without regulation leads to spectacular busts is left as an exercise to the reader.