any case, this wasn't a rational Japanese-style industrial policy, just straight forward corporate welfare. It was, however, the monetary stance of the Federal Reserve that devastated US manufacturers. The sharply higher interest rates resulted in a transfer of surplus from industry to finance. Moreover, the strong dollar made US manufacturers even less competitive vis--vis their Japanese and German rivals. A major chunk of the American industrial base was wiped out, even as the coffers of the financial sector started bulging with cash. It was not just the policies followed by the US state which upturned the relationship between finance and industry. There were multiple overlapping transformations that occurred simultaneously and permanently reconfigured the alignment of forces acting on the American economic and political landscape. At this point, it is useful to make an analytical distinction between competing forces. By "market", I will mean the capital markets. Some of these are highly liquid (currencies, treasuries, oil) which can only be influenced by the big fish and that too only at the margins. Others are shallower and easily controlled (think of the stock of a medium sized manufacturer in the mid-west). By "finance capitalism", I will mean plutocrats, 'moneyed interests', and the financially active ultra-wealthy generally; the sense in which Braudel came to use Capitalism. By the "financial sector" or simply "banks" and "bankers", I will mean primarily the big New York banks run by banker-managers, the 'administrators of interest bearing capital' and providers of financial services. By "US firms" and "industry",