Where is the money coming from, hmm? The author describes finance as a &quot;tax on the population&quot;, but how could such taxation possibly work? The HFT firms are taxing ordinary people&#x27;s retirement accounts by... undercutting the human market-makers, providing a much better service while employing fewer traders? Um, yeah.<p>No doubt there are inefficient companies - those with an excess of management (say) or some other kind of employees in &quot;bullshit jobs&quot; that aren&#x27;t adding value. That&#x27;s ok; those companies will be competed out of the marketplace. We&#x27;re already seeing plenty of SV companies experimenting with different management models, for example.<p>In some cases &quot;bullshit jobs&quot; are forced upon companies. If we have so many more lawyers than Japan, maybe we need to simplify or otherwise improve our legal system. Or maybe not - maybe the Japanese have a worse quality of life as a result - certainly I&#x27;ve heard complaints about e.g. the treatment of people who suffer serious injuries, or even the ability of small businesses to break into markets that are dominated by racketeers.<p>But in many cases, if a job really is &quot;bullshit&quot;, who is paying for it, and why? It&#x27;s not like banking isn&#x27;t competitive - you only have to look at the recent quarterly results to see how much effort the industry has put into cutting costs (much of which comes in the form of employing fewer people).