Having the milk of human kindness racing through my veins I would go with "dumb as a sack of hammers."  Here we see the various incarnations of the financial press: WSJ, FT, Barrons, et.al., as work-theraphy provided by the members of the ruling elites for people who would otherwise be wandering the streets, getting run over by buses, falling down open manholes, & etc. etc. etc.

Otherwise, the complete failure of Mr Wolf to include the gah-whomping increase in M3 on the part of the Central Bankers over the past 12 years in the 'First World' in his little essay as the fuel for the "recent explosive growth in finance."  Since Mr. Wolf is mentally incompetent there is no reason to refer - yet again - to the Federal Reserve Bank of the US which, for several years, effectively gave money to Money Center Banks.  

A cynic might suggest it is somewhat easy for a financier to make a profit when someone else is paying you to haul money away so you can lend it.  And with some of that money purchase themselves a writer on matters financial or twelve.  To support this cynicism he (or she) could point to the Economist .  In that August journal, when the US Federal Reserve quit publishing the M3 statistic, their reported estimate of the growth of the money supply went 8.8%/year to 5.3% in a mere 3 weeks.  A dramatic reduction attributed to -- well ... nothing.  It just happened.  

(Lo!  A Miracle!)

But I, with the Milk of Human Kindness running through my veins, would never consider such a thesis.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre