As the OP, I should say that speculation can be harnessed to produce some social value. A publicly traded stock market is economically useful. Commodities markets, well run, smooth out price variation. Derivatives let people get rid of risk in their business. E.g., if you're a wheat farmer it's handy to be able to lock in a price for your wheat even before it's harvested. And if you're a bread maker, it's valuable to insulate yourself from market price swings.

That said, I believe the industry's total value to others could be produced at far, far less total cost than now. And a lot of those very smart, very motivated people could be out there actually creating value for others.

I can think of a few arguments, albeit with gaping holes, as to how money is a good proxy for social value, but would you mind expanding on that a little?

Also, I am curious as to what you mean when you refer to retail trading as printing money. Don't know anything about it (why I'm curious), but from what I have heard about trading in general, it seems to have some reasonable level of risk.

The classic example of the divide between social value and monetary value is volunteering. Volunteers create social value, often to the detriment of their financial standing. I know some people who would dedicate all their time to volunteering (they already dedicate at least half) if they didn't have to do gigs from time to time to make ends meet.

By retail trading, I meant that I'm not what you'd call a big-time trader. I use a broker that is available to retail clients (i.e. everyone). I didn't mean to imply that trading and speculation aren't risky. Trading is like printing money, because while you make money without producing any value, the guy next door makes money by actually producing something. Socially, it's freeloading, like stealing is freeloading. You get value, without providing value. A double-spend attack.

Of course it does. Financing a revolutionary company by buying it's stock allows it to raise money and change our lives for the better.

There seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding of finance in this thread, even from those that have worked in financial companies.

"First, Finance" is an extremely nebulous term, encompassing many subfields.

At its core, a financial firm like a proprietary trading company that invests money creates value by attempting to optimize the allocation of capital.

Do we give money to Google and trust that they will turn it into something more or do we give it to Elon Musk?

It turns out that this is really hard to do. If this were easy, pro sports players wouldn't go broke funding terrible projects.

While they don't have a direct hand in product design, creation, or sales, they have an indirect one.

Of course, there are firms that really abstract themselves from this process and basically just play the market as a game, with 100% technical analysis and short term positions and no fundamental analysis.