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I firmly believe that Google "is Evil". But not that-evil. Nowhere near Goldman Sachs[2]. GS is the Master of Puppets[1]. Quotes like "Finance is the place you

by atmosx 13y ago

I firmly believe that Google "is Evil". But not that-evil. Nowhere near Goldman Sachs[2]. GS is the Master of Puppets[1]. Quotes like "Finance is the place you can make your mark on the world. It has to be a personal commitment, because you won’t get credit for it. . . But you will know inside that you have made things happen on a bigger scale than you could at Google." are plain ridiculous. I can think of several good things done by Google. Maybe not for the good of man-kind or some other honorable cause, but I can't recall a single finance giant acting for the good of ANY community. Stiglitz and Krugman wrote many articles (and books) describing how wall street is heavily flawed, praising arrogance and malpractices by paying huge totally undeserved bonuses to people who never did any real work in their lifespan. Working in finance, is like saying that you create money out of thin air, because that's what you do actually. The better you are at convincing people that shit is gold, the better you are, the more money you make and so on... [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEL6_SuQCu8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEL6_SuQCu8 [2]: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american...

riggins 13y ago
but I can't recall a single finance giant acting for the good of ANY community. Consider another interpretation. I don't think Shiller is saying that finance acts altruistically. I think that Shiller is claiming that finance does add intrinsic value to world. personally, I think that most banking professionals can't clearly articulate the value of finance. But there is clearly huge value to society of having skilled financial professionals. The trouble is its usually intangible. The invisible hand and all. To think up one hypothetical example ... say we had ethical and talented bankers who foresaw the housing bubble and therefore steered their banks away from financing home development in the Nevada desert. That could be immensely valuable and could have saved society billions of dollars that was wasted on homes no one wants.

by atmosx 13y ago

riggins 13y ago

but I can't recall a single finance giant acting for the good of ANY community. Consider another interpretation. I don't think Shiller is saying that finance acts altruistically. I think that Shiller is claiming that finance does add intrinsic value to world. personally, I think that most banking professionals can't clearly articulate the value of finance. But there is clearly huge value to society of having skilled financial professionals. The trouble is its usually intangible. The invisible hand and all. To think up one hypothetical example ... say we had ethical and talented bankers who foresaw the housing bubble and therefore steered their banks away from financing home development in the Nevada desert. That could be immensely valuable and could have saved society billions of dollars that was wasted on homes no one wants.