Today financial transactions are 72 times as large as merchandise trade. However, foreign exchange trading only accounts for about one-quarter of the speculative economy. Cybermoney Most transactions in today's financial economy take place through the electronic exchange of money, allowing vast sums to move around the globe in seconds. Stores of wealth no longer take the form of printed bank notes or pieces of gilded paper that represent bonds and stock certificates. They only exist by social convention.
Financial instruments are worth something only as long as people maintain confidence in the system.
Nevertheless, speculators grow very wealthy doing nothing more tangible than rearranging zeroes and ones on computer chips as they buy and sell cybermoney. Meanwhile, much of what is truly valuable, that which sustains human life and natural ecosystems, is treated as worthless unless it can be bought and sold as a commodity. When investors build factories, buy machines and hire workers to produce a product or a service, the real economy is said to expand. When investors multiply their profits by trading in financial assets, or just collect interest on bonds, the financial economy grows. In this new stage of capitalism, there is no longer a commitment to full employment and enhanced social welfare.