It's not as productive as it could be if people were instead engaged in the commercial activities of investing in intellectual property.
Financial assets and intellectual property are not something I can teach you in a comment box. I recommend reading these two books and then we can start the conversation back up again.
Tyler Cowen and Hernando de Soto are two economists that are held in incredibly high regard and have done a wonderful job explaining the core concepts of both what constitutes finance and how it applies to intellectual creativity in a market economy.
Financial assets and intellectual property are not something I can teach you in a comment box. I recommend reading these two books and then we can start the conversation back up again.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Everywh...
http://www.amazon.com/Praise-Commercial-Culture-Tyler-Cowen/...
Tyler Cowen and Hernando de Soto are two economists that are held in incredibly high regard and have done a wonderful job explaining the core concepts of both what constitutes finance and how it applies to intellectual creativity in a market economy.
Cue the knee-jerk rebuttal in 3... 2... 1...
"But the internet changed everything!"
Uh huh, ok, sure, whatever you say... yawn