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I'm getting tired of populist vilification of finance. We went through a bubble and too many resources were devoted to finance lately, just as too many resource

I'm getting tired of populist vilification of finance. We went through a bubble and too many resources were devoted to finance lately, just as too many resources were devoted to technology in the bubble of the late 90s. However, finance is not a "talent graveyard". It is "useless" only as your circulatory system is "useless" to the "real work" of your body's organs. Allocating resources to all available investments in society is valuable, which is what finance does. It creates value even if that value is less visible than the product of the coal mines that your grandpa used to work in.

ricree 18y ago
I tend to look at it as an economic lubricant. It makes things run smoother, and as complexity increases things would break down if it wasn't there, but at the end of the day it is there to enable the parts of society that produce valuable things and ideas. I agree that it is useful and its existence is desirable, but the problem is that it is often overshadowing the parts of society that it is supposed to be supporting. Because of this, it is drawing a disproportionate number of smart people who might otherwise be having a greater impact elsewhere.
deleted 18y ago
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potatolicious 18y ago
I agree, but with a caveat: The problem of "talent" migrating to lucrative fields is universal, but is not really a problem at all. I'm going to be graduating from college soon, and I've seen many of my peers look at Wall Street, law, and even medicine (I'm an engineer). The people who do so, invariably, are hardly people I would consider top-talent. The people who take up code jobs at banks in the hope of one day becoming traders invariably can't code their way out of a wet paper bag. The people who are only after the money tend to also be the most incompetent. We're not losing that much when they all flock to the flavor-of-the-decade industry. The hackers who really care about their work continue to work in their respective interests, rain or shine, and they're the ones who are advancing their fields in leaps and bounds. As long as we do not dis-incentivize these people (e.g. pay them a non-living wage) we're doing pretty ok. I had a job offer from one of the major British banks for code, and I asked them how much real programming I could look forward to. My contact was honest and told me most of it would be front-end C# hackery, and I turned them down. I don't care if you pay me $200K a year, I'm going to hate my life if I hack C# GUI day in and day out.

ricree 18y ago

I tend to look at it as an economic lubricant. It makes things run smoother, and as complexity increases things would break down if it wasn't there, but at the end of the day it is there to enable the parts of society that produce valuable things and ideas. I agree that it is useful and its existence is desirable, but the problem is that it is often overshadowing the parts of society that it is supposed to be supporting. Because of this, it is drawing a disproportionate number of smart people who might otherwise be having a greater impact elsewhere.

deleted 18y ago

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potatolicious 18y ago

I agree, but with a caveat: The problem of "talent" migrating to lucrative fields is universal, but is not really a problem at all. I'm going to be graduating from college soon, and I've seen many of my peers look at Wall Street, law, and even medicine (I'm an engineer). The people who do so, invariably, are hardly people I would consider top-talent. The people who take up code jobs at banks in the hope of one day becoming traders invariably can't code their way out of a wet paper bag. The people who are only after the money tend to also be the most incompetent. We're not losing that much when they all flock to the flavor-of-the-decade industry. The hackers who really care about their work continue to work in their respective interests, rain or shine, and they're the ones who are advancing their fields in leaps and bounds. As long as we do not dis-incentivize these people (e.g. pay them a non-living wage) we're doing pretty ok. I had a job offer from one of the major British banks for code, and I asked them how much real programming I could look forward to. My contact was honest and told me most of it would be front-end C# hackery, and I turned them down. I don't care if you pay me $200K a year, I'm going to hate my life if I hack C# GUI day in and day out.