This is unusual. I mean, the people on the internet who talk about Batman the most generally turn out to know a lot more about Batman than I do. And the people on the internet who talk about tae kwan do the most turn out to know more about tae kwan do than I do. But for economics it is, for some reason, the other way around.
The short answer is an excellent understanding of human psychology leading to good marketing. Most criminals think they aren't doing something wrong. Most people can be trained to do very damaging (even evil) actions by acculturation and habituation. Americans have been re-educated in the past fifty years to think that all sorts of things are okay that they never would have thought when we were the industrial superpower that invented and produced everything imaginable (e.g. car, plane, tv, space shuttles, etc.). Of course, most of these changes in American thinking aren't politically correct to mention.
Nowadays people either go into finance or work on some little web startup in the hopes they will make a billion dollars -- but at least that is better than being a patent troll. The AirBnB scandal is in fact a great example of the present dynamic. It is a great service on top of existing infrastructure. That's basically all Americans do these days -- a service economy on top of actual products that are increasingly being produced elsewhere. Sometimes those services are good, sometimes not so good, but barely anyone actually builds anything that is made to last -- nor do they seem to care.
Wake up America!
Thus, we are already out of the perfect world imagined by Austrian economists and exposing the simplistic lie that their worldview entails -- the social union that is the state is not merely a machine but, in the American republic, exists by the consent of the governed. Consequently, it has the power to issue additional regulations deemed to be in the interests of the governed, of which one might be that there be a single national currency, a single national language, etc. This is because our state is rooted in a Lockean social contract (with undoubtedly a good sprinkling of Hobbes).
Now, the precise nature of the regulations and whether or not they serve the people and whether or not they are consistent with the founding documents and accompanying intentions of the Republic is not always clear. Nonetheless, I think it is clear enough that at least in the American republic (if not a Randian inspired anti-state) that regulations are sometimes an answer to various problems.
Consequently, I would argue that if the SEC was able to attract and retain top talent and execute on its mandate it would have been able to stop this sub-prime nonsense in its tracks long before the present bubble burst and infected the rest of the economy with its TARPy bile. This is exactly why it existed -- because history tells us that banks like Goldman cannot be trusted to regulate themselves and act within the interests of the American people.
Nope. Gold and bitcoins come from the market.
The Fed system actually somewhat regulate the currency supply based on the market. When you take a loan to start a business, new currency is created at the same time that a new productive enterprise is created. Gold and Bitcoin don't come from the market at all. The amount of Bitcoin added to the economy has nothing to do with the underlying economy --- its based on an arbitrary formula.
Do you mean to argue that no currency ever has or should have been created by a government?
1) The US financial system is unsustainable. Specialize in it and you will find yourself out of a job eventually.
2) It's unethical. If you understand that your excess salary is coming from wealth that is stolen from people through the mechanism of inflation, then you may want to opt out of the corrupt system for peace of mind.
3) If the people actually understood how much they were screwed by this system, they would come after bankers, and that might include programmers at banks. This sort of happened in 2008 when bankers received threats. If the US system collapsed, they might receive more than threats. Note that, although traders and bankers are not the same, traders often use leverage with new money created by the banks and the Fed, and thus are just one hop away from the new money and are almost as culpable as the bankers. And besides, the angry hordes might not make such a subtle distinction; anyone associated with finance would be subject to retribution.
As for ethics: Perhaps the reason they are paid so much is because they, unlike you, are able to put aside petty issues like that.
Maybe you've never heard of the French revolution. Such a thing is definitely not unprecedented.
Like I said, melodramatic.
Economics is not a morality play. Your "currency" isn't worth squat without someone to accept it as a medium of exchange.
Don't forget that gold was at times an inflationary currency that also happened to have the nasty side effect of destroying populations located in areas with good mines. Like, I dunno, most of what is now Mexico, for instance.