I’m not dodging the issue. You asked if finance played a useful role in society, and I gave concrete examples where it did. Those services are more profitable

I’m not dodging the issue. You asked if finance played a useful role in society, and I gave concrete examples where it did. Those services are more profitable because they are more valuable, because they are now better at transferring risk. Sure, you can say that you don’t understand the value that a derivatives product provides, and some people are buying them when they shouldn’t, but that hardly describes the entirety of an industry. Just because you can’t imagine why someone would want borrow money in a complex way doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense to them. Let me give you another example where financial innovation has made people’s lives (slightly) better. Many people of my parents generation bought strange investment products with very high management fees from people like Fidelity and Morningstar. Today they’re more likely to buy a low fee index fund like Vanguard. Or a target retirement fund that reduces their risk as they get older. I argue that the financial products still existed 40 years ago, but they were more obtuse and a worse deal.