One perspective on today’s economy from Rana Foroohar:
Americas economic illness has a name: financialization. Its an academic term for the trend by which Wall Street and its methods have come to reign supreme in America, permeating not just the financial industry but also much of American business. It includes everything from the growth in size and scope of finance and financial activity in the economy; to the rise of debt-fueled speculation over productive lending; to the ascendancy of shareholder value as the sole model for corporate governance; to the proliferation of risky, selfish thinking in both the private and public sectors; to the increasing political power of financiers and the CEOs they enrich; to the way in which a markets know best ideology remains the status quo. Financialization is a big, unfriendly word with broad, disconcerting implications.