Entertainment is essential to every civilization as the Romans discovered with their bread and circuses.
Of course you may have a point when games like World of Warcraft ruin people's lives, but from a monetary (and thus time) magnitude, wall st. has wiped out people's savings that have taken decades to build.
Why do people think Wall St took their savings? It's your own decision what you do with your money, and if someone invests in something they don't understand then it's their own fault if they get burned! The stock market has rebounded astonishingly. The people who lost their life savings panicked and that's their own decision. In 2008 I had about 2k which was invested in two stocks (my entire portfolio, everything else was going to tuition). I sold out at the bottom of the market for a 40% loss. If I held them today I would have about a 45% _gain_, not bad for 2 years! Even if the market had not rebounded that is the risk you take for investing in stocks instead of something else. Remember, Wall St is a lot more than consumer investments anyway.
Also, I didn't say there wasn't value in entertainment, I said that it probably doesn't provide more utility than Wall Street's activities although really it's comparing apples to bowling balls.
Can you honestly say that to the people who were buying triple A investments that turned out to be junk thanks to credit default swaps? Who's fault do you think that is?
Do you blame sick people for not being smarter than a doctor in diagnosing their own sickness?
Do you blame people for dying in a bridge that collapsed because they weren't smart enough to see it was poorly designed?
I could go on and on. The point is that Wall Street has somehow become the only place with no accountability, and everyone is supposed to be an expert.
Of course you may have a point when games like World of Warcraft ruin people's lives, but from a monetary (and thus time) magnitude, wall st. has wiped out people's savings that have taken decades to build.