Agreed on the poor choices of examples, though that Wikipedia article is terrible. There's absolutely nothing contrary to classical economics in "cost disease", and Baumol's stuff was more an analysis of the economics of a situation than a sudden discovery of some unforeseen phenomenon.

Articles like the OP link are little more than populist sensationalism. Valid and extremely strong arguments can be made for reform in the banking system, but they aren't made by expressing that banks should be "in service of the people, not the profit." Those are political talking points, and the most offensive is that he compared financial markets to casinos, which is where authors lose all credibility to anyone who understands economics.

Also:

>Price discovery is not a sexy function of markets

Hell yeah price discovery is sexy. If it isn't, what is? The entire stock market exists literally only to set prices as quickly and accurately as possible.