> You have to mentally split the "rules" defined by what I call the financial "economy" (which is rooted purely in belief), and the real economy, which is vastly more complex.

I used to do that in the past, but the more I thought, the harder it got - today, what you call the "financial 'economy'" sounds to me like a natural outgrowth of increasing specialization in the "real economy".

> Something related would be what a company focuses on: Profit/money and using what they are doing as a means to accomplish that, or having a company to actually accomplish a goal and that goal, the idea comes first.

The former are what I used to call "toilet paper companies", as in "this company is doing computers or drugs now, but if it was cheaper to retool, it would be selling toilet paper or whatever else yields better profits this moment". The latter... mostly don't exist, I think. SpaceX is about the only example I can think of.

As much as it pains me, I came to understand that most companies exist primarily to make money for their owners, secondarily to pay salaries to employees, and thirdly (at best) to do something useful - and it can hardly be the other way. Not just because companies focusing on profit beat those focusing on the product/services - but also because that's what the owners and employees want. And it's not driven by greed.

I realized that when I stopped looking at the big corporations and startup unicorns, and instead looked at the local businesses I interact with daily: bakeries, convenience stores, pharmacies, barber shops, dry cleaning, ISPs, etc. None of them are in it for the idea, for the product. All of them are in it for the profit - because that profit is what gets them and their families some semblance of security and stability in this world.

Yes, it's not ideal, it's big part of the reason why every good and service seems to get worse with time, particularly as specific niches get hit by "financialization" trends. But it won't go away as long as everyone has bills to pay, food costs money, healthcare isn't simultaneously free and easily available, etc.

> Latter opens up the possibility, given that the financial means are there, to even make losses now and then, because you want to invest (more heavily) in change for one reason or another.

The "financial 'economy'" has this covered, too. In fact, they have terms and math and virtual products that cover it. That's the reason it exists: because as the "real 'economy'" gets larger, more complex, and more thought is put into it, people want to do more complicated things, and - perhaps most importantly - everyone wants to reduce their personal risks.

Want to build a factory making much-needed goods? You need more money than everyone in your village has put together. Are you a farmer who almost went into deep poverty last year, after most of your crops fell to a disease? You want some kind of safety net. Financial sector provides all that: loans, options, futures, etc.

> The main goal there is money, and the value of that is rooted in belief. Which renders everything else on top of that also belief/speculation. But because of that it can also grow endlessly. The problem with it: It doesn't put food on the table (nor does it provide a new table should it need replacement). This also means all the rules in that space are only valid in there, and may very well not work at all outside of it.

This stars with money itself - as you say, its value is rooted in belief. This by itself is pretty natural to humans - things like "company", "tribe", "government", "society", "money" - but also "family" - are all rooted in belief. Establishing such intersubjective beliefs is arguably humanity's superpower.

As for the rules in the financial space, yes, they're all abstract and virtual. That's the point. Much like money itself is the answer to barter not scaling to support growing population and increasing specialization, a lot of those financial industry inventions are ways to optimize trade by resolving some complexities in this abstract, virtual concept space. Your grain can be traded back and forth, changing its owners 20 times in a quarter, while never physically leaving your silo. Would it be better if it had to be trucked back and forth, just for it to look like "real 'economy'"?

All this is to say: yes, there's plenty of problems and pathology in the financial space, and it does a lot of bad things. But it also does a lot of good things, and it exists not just because of greed, but also because there's real need for it, and without it, the "real 'economy'" wouldn't support its own weight anymore.