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Yep, fair enough. Must try harder not to fall into the trap of easy targets I suppose.
However, is it fair to blame the recessions of the last 20 years on the financial industry? Or is that a broader symptom of ever growing corporate power and greed?
bashthebox-
By the last 20 years do you mean the post 9/11 slump and the 2007 Financial Crisis?
I think you can mainly lay the blame for 9/11 with the perpetrators. The paralysis post is a fairly natural reaction as the markets never react well to unknowns.
Obviously just my 2p but I think anyone who blames any one group for the 2007 Financial Crisis is probably incorrect. To me it was a clear systemic failing at every level.
hugo7
In short, no.
I (generally) love making generalisations and sweeping statements, but you've gone seriously all out there. It's a bit like saying all English working class people are lazy.
First off, saying financial sector is like saying the service industry. You're starting from too broad a base.
Second, à huge number of people are employed at every level, from cleaners, to facilities managers, to back office admin teams all the way through to the tiny number of people leading giant financial institutions.
In terms of where the benefit goes, as well as employment, tax, and funding complementary jobs lots of areas of FS provide gains to lots of people - interest on your bank account, pensions, funding for start-ups. Yes, of course there are certain areas that you can say don't generate any "new" revenue and simply continually move money between different groups. But as a proportion of the whole market I'd guess that is tiny.
It would have been great if we'd retained some of our manufacturing infrastructure, but in terms of our position as one of the wealthiest and influences countries in the world a large part of that is due to London being the financial capital of the world.