George Gilder

The early years of the twenty-first century saw what might be termed a hypertrophy of finance and an atrophy of enterprise.  Why did 30 percent of the economy’s profits during the mid-2000s come not from the positive-sum benisons of productive investment and entrepreneurial risk, but from the zero-sum games of speculative investment and fiduciary risk shuffling? Why does the public debt, under Parkinson’s Corollary, expand to absorb and stultify all other means of finance? Why is the government guaranteeing everything- mortgages, deposits, pensions, health care, industrial conglomerates, leviathan banks, solar plants, small business loans, waterfront property, corn prices, college tuitions, windmills, light bulbs- but not guaranteeing the value of its currency, which since the time of Alexander Hamilton has been its job?

From the new edition of Wealth and Poverty by George Gilder.  Originally published in 1980 the new version is updated with 40,000 words and views on the current scene.  It was a classic then and is even better now.

HKO
The growth of the financial sector was excessive and the shakeout will return it to a more normal course.

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