Rent-Seeking (Part 83,935)

clipped from www.windsofchange.net "China mostly invests in activities that raise productivity, raising the amount of goods and services that they can produce. This could be manufacturing or infrastructure or various kinds of services. Agriculture lags but continues to get some new investment. And of course they pour money into education. I'm not a fan of the Chinese way of organizing their economy or their society.... But contrast their pattern of investment in recent years with ours. What sector in our economy has expanded more than any other? ....Finance.... What has this really added in terms of productivity?" He adds: "The ATM and the credit card were great breakthroughs, but they are old. What has "financial innovation" brought us since the 1980s? ....Because financial innovation has mostly facilitated a big increase in finance. ....Rent-seeking means effectively a tax extracted by one sector from the rest of the economy.... Finance is rent-seeking.