I know what you mean about the world of finance being largely non-productive. That's especially true of Derivatives, which are just layered bets on bets on bets.
A huge part of our national GDP comes from the financial sector, as opposed to manufacturing and real production. A lot of it is not only non-productive but counterproductive/damaging. Without Derivatives, the 2008 collapse would not have been the mega disaster that nearly brought down the entire global system. Today the Derivatives books are even bigger, no one knows exactly how big, but on the order of $1-2 Quadrillion, yikes. That's bigger than the value of everything in the world put together.
Derivatives were made illegal after the 1929 crash, but started creeping back in during the 1980s and then in a huge way in the late 1990s with the 'Commodity Modernization Act' and the repeal of Glass Steagall. Most Derivatives should be banned, but good luck re-regulating Wall St at this point. The finance oligarchy has achieved 'regulatory capture', and controls the regulators, politicians, the whole ballgame.
