Recommended: Wall Street: Aiding Economic Recovery, or Strangling It?

I have observed before that one of the serious problems with America these days is that so many of our best and brightest are diverted from careers in science and engineering, where they might produce useful innovations and advances, into careers on Wall Street, where they essentially get rich by gambling.  In this regard, the article Wall Street: Aiding Economic Recovery, or Strangling It? from Monday's Time Magazine site is of interest.

Finance has become one of the largest portions of the nation's economic activity, yet in essence it produces nothing of real value, and really is just a large scale, socially-acceptable form of gambling.  That ought to worry us.  It also ought to worry us that this shift toward non-productive financial activity occurred in Britain just before it started it's slide from first-world status.  Are we following the same path?