The report was produced by the Kauffman foundation, a foundation dedicate to improve entrepreneurship. It's not exactly an unbiased piece of research.
Attacking finance is the popular theme of the days, but finance has done a huge amount in supporting global economic growth. From providing debt and capital financing to reducing foreign exchange costs.
US GDP today is seven times higher today than it was 60 years ago.
At the worst point in the recession US GDP dropped to the same level it was in 2005. Yes, the US GDP grew as much between 2005-2009 as it shrunk during the recession.
I'm relatively unfamiliar with this stuff, but do you really think GDP can grow exponentially? It looks like we're at the bottom of the skyrocket to the moon on your graph.
Ummm, growth is still happening in the U.S., and has continuously happened aside from a few quarters here and there. The point is not if we're growing, but how much faster we can grow. This is very basic economics.
"The growth has been primarily in the financial industry."
Completely false and absurd. Supply follows demand. GDP has grown throughout every industry that hasn't seen a decrease in its demand (e.g. railroads, newspapers, etc.). That includes technology, consumer goods, and technology. The economy doesn't exist in a vacuum. The finance industry provides capital to all industries.
If the financial industry hadn't been bailed out, it would have contacted. In its case, supply hasn't followed demand. Supply is artificially high, because demand has been produced by force.
Attacking finance is the popular theme of the days, but finance has done a huge amount in supporting global economic growth. From providing debt and capital financing to reducing foreign exchange costs.