I asked this question, and based the responses I think I may have de-emphasized the type of 'fat-financial' system and its effects that I was getting at. I was

I asked this question, and based the responses I think I may have de-emphasized the type of 'fat-financial' system and its effects that I was getting at. I was mainly talking about the expansion of credit (creation of the american consumer) and advanced financial engineering that has allowed that. The housing bubble wouldn't have occurred without MBS product. Credit would not be as easy without ABS. I don't think there is a 'clear' answer, but personally I think the tech world has benefited very much from these innovations. Creating consumers of technology, access to credit, access to financial tools that allow large corporations to use as profit seeking enterprises (i.e. Google has an interest rates trading team). After thinking about this for a bit, without a definition for what "all the growth in the financial system" means, its really hard to distill what the affects would have been and what financial innovations we'd be without. A better question would be without the MBS market... or, without IRS...