If this shift Chuck is talking about were a general phenomenon, you would find that aggregate investment and employment have been shifting from the non-finance industries to the finance industry."
But this (paragraph 2) wouldn't necessarily be the case. All that is required is that the financial sector wouldn't have to be as resource-intensive as the "real" sector--which is true almost by definition--and that profits available through the financial sector are quick, plenty, and all but guaranteed, which is true at certain phases of capitalist development (those phases when the financial sector can maybe best be called "the insane forms sector").
Capitalists will invest where profits can be made. That profits may be greater in the financial sector in a particular historical phase does not preclude investment in the "real" non-financial sector at the same time; in fact the state of things no doubt *requires* more intensive investment to maintain sufficient profit in the "real" sector. But those profits are harder to come by. The inherent riskiness of the financial sector doesn't seem so bad. Why, the inherent riskiness can seem to disappear! Until of course it doesn't.
"I apologize if my tone was brusque."
And I apologize for being testy.
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 9:47 AM, SA <s11131978 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/9/2011 2:58 PM, socialismorbarbarism wrote:
>
>> SA: "This is the problem: You are confusing production with distribution."
>>
...