Finance and the Purpose in Life

It is no secret that Main Street suspects that Wall Street high finance provides little meaningful contribution to society. Recent history suggests to a non-financial person that finance may in fact be taking rather than contributing. This opinion is expressed everywhere from Oliver Stone’s original “Wall Street” to the more recent Greg Smith’s “Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs”. Even people in the finance industry have this nagging feeling about the purpose of life, as Matt Levine pointed out in his comment on Greg Smith’s article:

Smith is hardly the first banker to worry about whether his work makes the world a better place. Working at an investment bank involves trading off those negatives – stress, hours and a nagging sense of unfulfilled purpose – against the positive aspects of the job, which can be loosely summarized as “huge paychecks.”

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