"Rent-seeking, on the other hand, is a way to expand an individual’s share of the economy, without actually producing anything new – without producing much new value. Rent-seeking is not necessarily a bad thing; I don’t begrudge an innkeeper or a landlord the fee for a bed to sleep in and a roof over my head. Nor, indeed, do I begrudge a broker her commission, or the mutual fund company their expense ratio. All of these activities can enable value creation, and everybody’s got to make a living. Rent-seeking just doesn’t really grow the economy that much, in comparison to value creation."
I left the comment:
"I remember hearing sometime in the early 80s on the morning news that 54,000,000 shares had been traded on the NYSE the day before. Friday 1.8 trillion shares were traded on the NYSE at an average price over $50. Has the economy really grown over 30,000 times in 30 years? These are not investors exchanging this many shares, probably not even live day traders, but most likely computers. Gosh, what a cash machine!"
