An increasing amount of US GDP simply comes from “moving money around.”
The U.S. finance industry was about 10% of total non-farm business profits in 1947, but it grew to about 50% by 2015. Over the same period, finance industry income as a proportion of GDP rose from 2.5% to 7.5%, and the finance industry’s proportion of all corporate income rose from 10% to 20%. In 2018 the share of GDP was 7.4% the equivalent of $1.5 trillion in value-added to the economy.
Man after my own heart. Indeed, banking and investment banking create ZERO wealth. It would be like if I made my income buying and selling stocks. Great for me but a big ZERO contribution to the national economy. Wall Street creates wealth - paper wealth for itself - but doesn’t produce a thing productive to the economy.