Do you feel comfortable discussing your work a bit more? It's not often I see the words "finance" and "positive social value" used in the same sentence.
I think that well functioning financial markets have huge social value. Let's contrast the mortgage market in 2007 (finance gone wrong) with the stock market when it functions normally. This description is idealized and somewhat self-serving, but I think it is a useful model.
In 2007 key players (mortgage originators, banks, ratings agencies, governmental agencies and investors) only had incentives for mortgage prices to go up. It was hard to bet on prices going down, and even when you could it was hard to get enough information to realize how overpriced mortgages were. This poorly functioning market resulted in disaster.
The stock market has much more information available, and it is usually easy to bet against prices that are too high. The collective intelligence of many smart people determines stock prices using money, a powerful incentive to get things right. This results in a liquid, well-functioning market with many positive social effects. Google exists today in part because an angel investor knew that if the company succeeded there were well-functioning public markets to sell into. While it's popular to say that the stock market influences company behavior negatively, and causes "short-termism", I believe the opposite:
The market often imposes discipline on managers who would otherwise run companies for their own benefit at the expense of everyone else.
You can tell a similar story for the social benefits of lending money, and the importance of doing it well.
The world has seen a vast improvement in wealth, health, education, and safety in the last 100 years, and I think a large contributor is a financial system that has enabled and rewarded socially useful enterprises.
As I said, this is an oversimplification, and a lot of smart people completely disagree. I don't deny that there are jobs in finance that seem to me to be pure rent-seeking, with negative social value. However, I think that overall the system works well, and that the work I do makes it run a tiny bit better.
One example: TS and many hedge funds manage portfolios for large charities, university endowments, and pension funds, among other clients. This means more money for clients who do good for the world.
"Our clients are real people and include some of the world’s largest public and corporate pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, research institutions, educational endowments, healthcare systems and foundations."
