Re:The mystique of Goldman Sachs
by simonh on Thursday December 15, 2016 @11:45AM
(#13185899)
> But suggesting that the industry's growth in the last ~decade is about improving accuracy seems pretty questionable.
Finance companies overwhelmingly make money by more accurately allocating capital whether that's channeling investment, arbitrage, executing a trade before the other guy, whatever. In every case that's money that went to a better place to do more economic work faster. It's what finance companies are for.
Yes there's the occasional dodgy deal or rip off, but to read your post you'd think that is the only thing financial companies ever do. In reality trillions of dollars spent on research, technology, infrastructure, business growth and jobs got there via financing. Better financing means more and better quality of all of those things.
Finance companies overwhelmingly make money by more accurately allocating capital whether that's channeling investment, arbitrage, executing a trade before the other guy, whatever. In every case that's money that went to a better place to do more economic work faster. It's what finance companies are for.
Yes there's the occasional dodgy deal or rip off, but to read your post you'd think that is the only thing financial companies ever do. In reality trillions of dollars spent on research, technology, infrastructure, business growth and jobs got there via financing. Better financing means more and better quality of all of those things.