Pretty much by definition, the financier is not producing any fish. Their utility is in providing finance for the industry. While this does seem to have utility, in and of itself it doesn't produce anything. It is a role that exists to manipulate and imaginary construct (money).
Re:Finance is Not the Economy
by thaumasiotes on Monday September 26, 2016 @03:49PM
(#12584977)
If removing the financier causes fish production to drop, the financier was producing fish.
They mat, through directing caputal flows, have enabled more fish production. They certainly did not produce a single anchovy.
More likely, they inserted themselves into the production cycle somewhere they weren't needed, and started creaming off a proportion of the fisb trade, while actually adding nothing of value to the process.
> At some point a finance person steps in and introduces a credit lending facility
It sounds like there was already a credit lending facility? As far as I can tell, "credit lending" just means giving someone a loan now in exchange for being paid back (more, usually) later.
> At some point trading the loan securities and fishing future contracts starts paying more than humble fishing
Historically, the point at which this occurs is the introduction of loans and futures. There's no transition point.
Assuming an economy consisting solely of fishers and financiers, compensation for financiers is limited by the amount of fish produced, but it's quite possible even then that one financier produces more fish than one fisherman does. And your example presumes other classes of workers when fishing requires nets and boats as capital goods.
> This, of course, collapses at some point, but the problem is that it's hard to point out that one step that's completely irrational and bonkers
You say that like a collapse demonstrates that a mistake occurred at some point. Everything collapses some of the time.