Finance, the art of getting capital to where it can be utilized most efficiently, has created vast, vast, vast amounts of wealth, everywhere it is practiced. Destroys industries? Please. It has created and bolstered more industry than anything you can name. It's the reason you own a car and a house. Finance is not a bad word.
Whatever you want to call the worship of ratios like "return on equity" without an understanding of the business, that practice is dumb and destroys companies that actually create value.
Dell is a great example -- be a computer manufacturer that owns almost no assets related to the business. Their Taiwanese suppliers like Asus are laughing their way to the bank as the Dell management patted themselves on the back for improving some ratios.
...which is finance. So why don't they do that, if it's just as easy? And where does the money come from to front the cost of building the car that is to be leased? Because the lessee won't cover the cost for quite some time. Yep, finance.
I realize there's a populist movement, especially among the younger crowds that frequent the interwebs, that influences people to hate everything Wall Street. But I don't think people realize what a fascinating and, more importantly fundamental, role finance has played in history. Present day Silicon Valley does not exist without it. It does, in fact, create capital.
PS: 'So why don't they do that, if it's just as easy?'
A lot of car companies do that ex: http://www.hondafinancialservices.com/. Whenever they advertise 0% interest that's the car company handling the loan. However, car companies often resell these loans to third party's to get their capital back. There is a lot of capital out there that's looking for safe investments and repackaged loans fit the bill.
I guess it is semantics: