I've been reading a book called "Makers and Takers" that's making this stuff make more sense. Everything is hyper-financialized these days; the economy is fragile & volatile; corporations prioritize shareholder profits over all else... it wasn't always this way. There was a better-regulated time after the Great Depression when the job of banks was to lend money to businesses, employees got pensions instead of stock market shares, salaries weren't stagnant, CEOs and financiers didn't make tens of millions of dollars for running companies into the ground, and businesses could focus on long-term results rather than juicing share prices. But financialization crept back in, regulators gave way to bank executives, and the focus of the finance industry shifted from lending to Main Street business to "wizardry" and speculation on increasingly risky securities. So, not having changed much even after 2008, we're now back to the same risky Wall Street playground we were in before the Great Depression...
