Stephen S. Cohen

“Finance was the leading industry to which government opened the growth gates, as it had done previously for manufacturing, railways, suburban housing, and advanced technology. Beginning seriously in the 1980s, government deliberately, piece by piece, dismantled the regulatory structure that had tamed finance into something of a utility. And as in the past, entrepreneurs rushed in and innovated. The lucrative innovations ranged from collateralized debt obligations (CDOs—called by Warren Buffett “financial weapons of mass destruction”) and the like, on through high-speed trading (to us, a robotized cousin of front-running).4 The increase of the weight of finance in America’s GDP came about not so much by increasing the numbers of those employed in the sector, but by increasing the take of those high up in the industry. During the 1970s, average pay in finance was roughly the same as in most other industries; by 2002, it was double.5 The legions of clerks and tellers remained poorly paid; the gain went to the top, most of it to the top of the top. By 2005, finance accounted for a full 40 percent of all corporate profits. And many of the very most lucrative parts of finance—hedge funds, private equity partnerships, venture partnerships—were not structured and therefore not counted as corporations. Along with the accountants and consultants, add to this profit-making machine the Wall Street law firms that are part and parcel of finance, although they do not count as finance, but rather as business services. Finance got considerably more than 40 percent.”
― Stephen S Cohen, Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy