I can't, for the life of me, come up with an explanation for why we need most of what goes on in the financial centers.  Stock exchanges -- yeah, okay, I "get" those.  But financial "innovation"?  No, not so much.  There are areas of finance that I can accept as good and necessary, but much of it is just horseshit.  And toxic horseshit at that.  I'm thinking of (say) the local financial planner who advises people on where to put their money to save for their kids' college tuition payments or retirement vs the guy peddling mortgage-backed securities at Lehman or CDOs at AIG or something.  The former is, I think, a worthy profession.  The latter is clearly, at best, almost useless; and, at worst, incredibly destructive.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin