Every once in a while I come across a stat that blows me away. I write it down on a scrap of paper, and I can’t find it again. So, since this blog is essentially a public journal, I’m going to start storing them here.
One of the reasons why the financial system can cause so much damage now: it’s gotten too damn big:
Over the past generation — ever since the banking deregulation of the Reagan years — the U.S. economy has been “financialized.” The business of moving money around, of slicing, dicing and repackaging financial claims, has soared in importance compared with the actual production of useful stuff. The sector officially labeled “securities, commodity contracts and investments” has grown especially fast, from only 0.3 percent of G.D.P. in the late 1970s to 1.7 percent of G.D.P. in 2007.
