Makers and takers : the rise of finance and the fall of American business

Summary: How the misguided financial practices and philosophies that nearly toppled the global financial system have come to infiltrate all American businesses, putting us on a collision course for another cataclysmic meltdown. Economic columnist Rana Foroohar shows how the "financialization of America" - the trend by which finance and its way of thinking have come to reign supreme - is perpetuating Wall Street's reign, widening the gap between rich and poor, and threatening the future of the American Dream. Only about 15% of all the money in our market system actually ends up in the real economy - the rest stays within the closed loop of finance itself. The financial sector takes a quarter of all corporate profits in this country while creating only 4% of American jobs. The tax code continues to favor debt over equity, making it easier for companies to hoard cash overseas rather than reinvest it on our shores. Our biggest and most profitable corporations are investing more money in stock buybacks than in research and innovation. American businesses favor balance-sheet engineering and the pursuit of short-term corporate profits over job creation.