That was my impression too. For those with the medieval-peasant view that moving money around is "fake work", it's an interesting basic description of the value

That was my impression too. For those with the medieval-peasant view that moving money around is "fake work", it's an interesting basic description of the value of finance. But the rest of the article isn't just useless, it's wrong-headed. There's never been any question in my mind that finance creates value. My best friend (and one of the smartest people I know) is a quant at Goldman. My complaint about the government-finance nexus is that it causes all kinds of screwed incentives (a problem any government system needs to contend with), and is constantly and transparently abused by actors within the financial system. It's incredibly weird to see the author seemingly lose 20 IQ points the minute he attempts to rebut common criticisms of finance. The author has a much worse problem with the blind spot he's describing than the hypothetical people he sneers at throughout the article.