Brain Drain

So people in financial services receive undue incomes and are part and parcel of the so-called "brain drain" of the top minds, from the top schools to wall street. Agree? Let me go ahead and break this down for you. What I will do is first: agree and second: provide a list of professions which rival or exceed wall street in the qualities of rent seeking, undeserving incomes, questionable achievements, and contribution/participation in/to the continuation of the 1%. Yeah wall street folks make alot of money, but at least occasionally they allocate resources from those who have - to those who need for productive purposes. But I shall proceed:

1.  The ultimate brain drain? The greatest scientific minds of the 20th century got together and created the most destructive force known to man (not named Republican or colonialism <disease>)? Sorry Japan, wish these guys would have went to wall street eh? And even now in the 21st century, let's posit that there's a 2:1 wall st to defense industry ratio. Oh what you say? Think it's more like 5:1? OK. How about I give you 10:1. There's still a large amount of "brain drain" from top schools to the defense industry to go kill shepherds in Afghanistan  or some kids in Iraq. Best and brightest to go kill some 300,000 people in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan in the last 15 years - or to wall street to create credit default swaps? I'll take the latter. "Wow, today I put together an MBS that ended up getting a family evicted from their house on Christmas day." "Oh yeah, I helped design a patriot missile that killed one terrorist and 45 innocent family members." roflcopters
2. Artists. An career in probably the last 500 years that was only made possible by technological innovation elsewhere that allowed some of our less productive members of society create something that is only defined by the fact that it was created with the attention of being "art." Consequently, art is only a plaything of the rich and famous and it's proliferation is only a derivative of such. Art exists because of the excessive disposable income of the 1% and of the excess of time/energy of their progeny to study/create it.I will differentiate between it's many manifestations below - as I believe some are less a plaything of/for the 1% than others. In their most pure form - art in museums and the like meet this qualification.
3. Athletes. If you subscribe to the school of thought that a) People are born with athletic ability or b) not a, but that people are born with the unique ability to dedicate efforts, and have a work ethic that allows one to realize unique athletic abilities (NBA, MLB, etc) then you can somewhat agree with me. Some people are born 6'4 and can run sub 4.3 40's and can dunk a basketball and some can't - so those that were lucky enough to be born with these qualities deserve millions - and those that aren't, don't? Is this consistent with the concept of meritocracy? Or perhaps you realize that at the end of the day these athletes are just entertainers; providing a diversion whenever we seek. Are their abilities deserving of such salaries? Where's the outcry against these guys versus what Joe Six-Pack makes? "Thanks LeBron for entertaining me for a few hours, now I'll go back to the rest of my life struggling to feed 4 kids - and you have fun popping bottles and co-eds in the greater Miami area." How come I gotta pay $100 to go see you - so I can fund your life of absolute excess? Laker fan my whole life but did not go to one game with the entire family because it is simply prohibitively expensive. Hope that 54th bottle of Ciroq tastes nice. 
4. Actors. The argument is much the same as 3 above - but the difference is that they take themselves that much more serious than athletes. Turn on any award show from January to February (of which they are bountiful) and you will hear them expounding on their life altering colleagues or performances. These guys are making millions and millions and they're making it from Joe Six Pack trying to take his wife and kids out for less than 60 bucks for the lot. Thanks Brad, your performance was very compelling and I thought about it's life implications for 5 - 10 minutes after the movie until I realized that my daughter isn't going to be able to have the new iPhone and the implications this may have for her life-long self confidence and that I hope she doesn't become a prostitute simply because I wanted to give my kids a chance to be able to say "yeah I saw that too" on Monday morning when all of their friends had two weeks prior. Yes, (insert screenwriter name) you are amazing at what you do - but don't forget you are just a function of my entertainment. Very few people, if any, go to the movies to see a life changing performance - thats what real life and intelecutally challenging books are for. The movies? Where young people go to try to feel up on a girl - and where old people go to so that they feel like they accomplished something during the weekend. In fact, you are the entertainment source that is the easiest. If there was an easier way to get entertainment that required even less effort than sitting in a chair in silence for a few hours, than people would do that instead. Have fun with your eleventy houses Johnny Depp.
5. Lawyers. An arms race that mostly (simply) depends on who has the better lawyer. A profession that exists due to the increasingly (and tacitly complicit) complexity of the law. I am not talking about your day to day prosecutor/defense lawyer - I am talking about the ability of a profession to have outsized income due to the ability of other 1%ers to pay them so they can most benefit from the esoterities of the law. In a simple sense: I have a more expensive lawyer than you, the evidence could go either way -> I win. Multimilionare lawyers not helping further justice, the american dream, the access to happiness - but helping the Kardashian's contruct a bullet proof LLC. Some insight to the psyche of these guys can be seen here. (note go down to the blue text to read).