Read this right now.
This is as good an analysis of what is really going on in the financial sector - what transactions really mean - as I have ever seen.
Pull quote:
If you don't start thinking about finance in this way--don't start by classifying those who trade into savers, borrowers, risk-bearers, risk-shedders, principals, agents, gamblers, and marks--you do not, I think, have any chance of conducting a serious analyses of modern finance.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/a-note-prolegomenon-to-any-useful-discussion-of-modern-american-finance.html
Pull quote:
If you don't start thinking about finance in this way--don't start by classifying those who trade into savers, borrowers, risk-bearers, risk-shedders, principals, agents, gamblers, and marks--you do not, I think, have any chance of conducting a serious analyses of modern finance.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/a-note-prolegomenon-to-any-useful-discussion-of-modern-american-finance.html