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<p>Oh, but there may be. Not in the short-run, to be sure, but in the long-run, things can change drastically. The notion that financiers must always be handsomely (over)paid is not an iron law. Keep in mind that it was only a few decades ago when the wages paid in finance began to diverge sharply from that of the rest of the economy, including STEM. </p>
<p>Imagine taking all of the taxpayer capital devoted to the bailouts and - more crucially - to the extraordinarily creative liquidity facilities opened by the Fed to the finance industry and instead devoting that to the tech industry. That is, instead of (or perhaps in addition to) finance firms being allowed to borrow at the Fed discount window, allow tech firms to do the same. Similarly, allow tech firms access to term loans at below-market rates. Instead of providing emergency equity capital injections to banks, provide equity capital for tech firms. And if any of that seems politically controversial to you, then fair enough, the most politically neutral solution would be to greatly increase R&D funding for basic academic science/engineering research grants through the NSF, NIH, and other scientific bodies. </p>
<p>To those who might say that the nation lacks the resources to do that in this time of austerity and sovereign downgrades, hey, we somehow managed to find large-scale resources to bailout the financial system.</p>