Other people's money : masters of the universe or servants of the people?

We all depend on the finance sector. We need it to store our money, manage our payments, finance housing stock, restore infrastructure, fund retirement and support new business.

But these roles comprise only a tiny sliver of the sector's activity: the vast majority of lending is within the finance sector.

So what is it all for? What is the purpose of this activity? And why is it so profitable?Industry insider John Kay argues that the finance world's perceived profitability is not the creation of new wealth, but the sector's appropriation of wealth - of other people's money.

The financial sector, he shows, has grown too large, detached itself from ordinary business and everyday life, and has become an industry that mostly trades with itself, talks to itself, and judges itself by reference to standards which it has itself generated. And the outside world has itself adopted those standards, bailing out financial institutions that have failed all of us through greed and mismanagement. We need finance, but today we have far too much of a good thing.

In Other People's Money, John Kay shows, in his inimitable style, what has gone wrong in the dark heart of the finance sector.