Bloomberg News: Did Psychopaths Take Over Wall Street?

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Full article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-0 ... cohan.html

In case you're like me, who thinks "psychopath" is interchangeable with "slasher flick ax murderer", the proper academic definition is:

The theme of the article:


My first reaction: what a load of sensationalized bollocks. The lynchpin characteristic of success in high finance is the ability to work with people, and since high finance is chock-full of smart people, they can smell manipulation and Machiavellian behaviour from miles away - woe betide the manager who thinks he can charm his way to the top. A broker, trader, investment banker is valued by his Rolodex and how well he uses it. The article over-eagerly tars all the minions of finance with the same brush, from the lowly desk analyst to the CEO - all psychopaths! - because it fails to acknowledge that, just like any other industry, it has its own plethora of high flyers and ordinary workers.

Second reaction: High finance does attract a lot of people who like to work in a no-holds barred, hyper-aggressive environment. In the markets, everybody is out to get everybody else's money, and nobody has any intention of giving their own money away for nothing - everything and everyone who jumps into the market of their own accord is fair game. I suspect lion tamers have an easier job dealing with the lions.

I'd deduced this myself; maybe most of those who left finance in self-described disgust the last few years, such as a former work colleague and a former schoolmate of mine, did so because they weren't sufficiently sociopathic (I prefer this term for the reason you gave at the start of your post!) to cope.

I'm in two minds, though, as to whether these 'people' (I use inverted commas given the description quoted above) are justified in contining and succeeding in their trajectory of wiping out all Humanity through mass starvation in the name of debt repayments. Humans are too intelligent to cope with their mammalian emotions, therefore - as James Lovelock has pointed out - they have become a world-destroying plague, too fixated on their sense of pity to allow the natural destruction of their weaker numbers (which would also be a mercy to them on balance if it weren't for the unlimited capacity of complex-brained creatures like human beings to find fulfilment in the most genotype-irrelevant situations). Mother Nature, it seems, has found a means of pest control.

As their opposite numbers, we autistics, egoistically self-absorbed and sometimes self-obsessed due to our condition if not exactly egoTistically self-centred like them, can perhaps better understand them than NTs.

Sociopaths, while able to feel some self-focussed feelings such as pride and desire, are apparently unable to experience anxiety, as if they had been produced via an inversion of autism's intense conscious experience - It seems their unconscious processing is so finely-tuned and consummate that it is able to reject everything unnecessary to reproductive success before it reaches conscious or even semi-conscious experience. The emotional subconscious - even the size of the amygdala according to studies - is stunted, and its capacity given over to other uses of brainpower. Secondary, 'moral' feelings such as 'conscience' therefore lack the opportunity to develop, leaving insight into others' experiences crystal-clear but lacking in bite. Rather than an originally normal outlook coupled with an abnormal relationship with the world which may distort that (which I feel characterises autism - see Tony Attwood's recently-quoted ''cure for autism" joke and the "Intense World" theory), sociopaths typically display a normal relationship with the world coupled with an abnormal attitude, leading them to be described by their (impotent) critics as superficial. However, with the economic system now breaking down as it appears to have done in 3'rd-century Rome, society as a self-organising structure is losing the ability to harness them to creative ends, such that their carrying on the same as they have done will lead to dire consequences for the human race proper, or else dire consequences for themselves if they cannot. {Assuming they exist, they lack the capacity to chose a course of action that appears to weaken them.}

Wandering dangerously into David Icke territory but with a tad less superstition or paranoia, sociopaths seem to be described by many names in many cultures, typically as superhuman demi-gods (aesir / titans / olympians / nephilim / annunaki / rakhshasas / devas / demons), BUT EQUALLY - given the limited scope of their experiences and limited aim of their lives & actions - as subhuman apes. For instance, Buddhism places its 'Asura' realm (google Trungpa Asura for an interesting description) either immediately above or below the Human realm in its classification of six types of sentient being, depending on the writer, the issue being a minor quibble in that system of thought. So although sociopaths experience finer detail in their perceptions of the social realm, enabling them to lead richer lives, their experience of their lives lacks richness or depth and seems overly dependent on their actions in the present momment, leading them to desperate and often self-destructive thrill-seeking activity such as mountaineering, and to the compulsive destruction of the minds and lives of others, leading them to eventually be destroyed themselves on occasions like the French Revolution or perhaps indeed the current phase of human history. {I always imagine the psychopathic torturer to get his kicks from relief at the fact that he is free, as an unsympathetic individual, from greatest suffering he is able to present himself with.}

Said to 'mellow' (i.e. weaken) in old age, the less intelligent sociopaths must face a double-edged sword of humiliation on the one hand or utter boredom on the other.

As to your argument, it semms the writer you quoted has indeed missed the point that sociopaths would not need to deceive if surrounded by other sociopaths. This, though, would surely make life easier for them, although their factual deceptions (as oppsed to displays of charm etc.) might need to become more cryptic, as appears infact to have happened.

yes, but they took over everything else too.

Psychopaths invented wallstreet.

Not all of them are "american psycho" grade crazy, but people who are unable to connect cause and effect make very dynamic, fearless leaders.

People with psychopathic personality disorders rule the modern world.

Regardless of your political orientation, it is common knowledge that high functioning tend to end up on Wall street or major corporations, and lower functioning psychopaths tend to end up in state prison. Narcissists tend to often favor politics. There is such a thing as a narcissistic psychopath. It's called pathological narcissism. Our president is the most widely known example in modern times (I'm not making this up), though most of the other famous examples are infamous dictators of the 20th century.

IMHO, Blagojevich was an even better example of a pathological narcissist in office; he really thought he could just talk his way out of things because no one could possibly catch him right up until they put the cuffs on.

And that jackass is still wondering why he is in jail.

As to the bankers and financial types, they grew up in a cocoon of unreality. They mistake the symbols of wealth (bank balances and current worth of portfolios) as reality instead of being symbolic. The reality is matter and labor. Individuals using mind guided labor on matter produce real wealth. The bankers and the financeers, for the most part never took part in that process, or if they did, they forgot about it later in their careers. That is why the bankers and financial types are so dangerous. They have not got a single clue how damaging they are to the commonwealth.

ruveyn

Dude, you may have fallen into your own trap...you've mentioned before that it's the market that decides value, not the labour theory of value which doesn't take into account resultant equilibrium from supply and demand. People have the idea that the "real workers" of the world are the likes of the mechanic, the agriculturist. The free market proves otherwise on a daily basis.

While a barter system of trade may have once upon a time given credence to the idea that the mechanic's work is more noble and valuable to the banker's, introducing credit into the system changes the whole game. Now we trade credit for credit upon credit; the only people who trade, soy bean futures are...um...soy bean consumers...?

If you're American (not directly at u, ruveyn, just a unilateral proclamation), standing at a distance, tut-tutting at the derivatives of mass destruction and the crying woe at the moral laxness (or complete lack thereof) of Wall Street, you are quite right. But you are also one of the richest nations in the world because of them, considering that you have a comparative advantage in nothing other than brains, financial services, and tuna.

Unfortunately, the reason why the status quo will continue is twofold: a.) regulators are too laggard to catch up and b.) no single snowflake believes that it is personally responsible for the avalanche of destruction. Quite a pickle.

Markets can be distorted beyond reality. Look at the market in tranches which are junk bond of very dubious value. You can trust markets when:

1. Many sellers are there
2. Many buyers are there
3. Genuine competition exists.
4. Buyer and seller both have some comprehension of the good or service being traded.

Otherwise markets are not particularly good estimators of value. Example: The Tulip Bulb Bubble of the 16 th century. It damn near ruined the Netherlands for two generations.

Bottom line:

Markets are NOT magic.

ruveyn

We may have a fundamental difference in premises.

I infer that you believe that there's some intrinsic value to, maybe, all goods traded in the market, that might be, but not necessarily, be reflected in the market-clearing price. This isn't too far from the truth - it's theoretically reasonable to measure the value of goods by a caloric standard, if practically impossible (because the amount of calories any human needs is pretty much the same, and doesn't change much).

I don't believe that this concept of intrinsic value exists on a large scale. As individuals we recognize it very urgently, simply in terms of the size of our bank accounts. But accounting for individuals and accounting for companies, conglomerates, nations is very different - nations must issue debt in order to grow for instance, unlike individuals who should stay as debt-free as possible. In your original post you were playing it pretty fast and loose with the term "real" in "real wealth" and "reality". Not something I expected from you, since you sound like you've got a solid grounding in economics.

I believe in utility or use value. Goods and services are for satisfying wants and needs.

Real wealth is material entities that are useful to some end user, particularly for maintaining life, health, liberty and well being. Ditto for services. For example medical services and the delivery of mail.

Real wealth is not numbers on a piece of paper or tallies in a computerized account.

Real wealth is Out There in the real world of flesh and blood humans.

What the bankers and financial types are doing at this juncture is running a legalized casino. If they would do something like providing monetary capital for productive enterprises and industries we would all be a damn sight better off.

ruveyn

I wanna agree, but also disagree man. I fully agree with your sentiment. My bank account doesn't. Neither does my grocer.



You're thinking of, drum roll, investment banking and consumer banking! Not exactly the fingers behind the trigger of the subprime crisis, but close.

Truth be told, I also feel that the market should value enmities that have a real and direct impact on an end user. But it clearly doesn't. Damned if I know why.

Phallic narcissism is your basic, garden-variety pathological narcissism (narcissistic personality disorder). Malignant narcissism is halfway between narcissistic personality disorder. After malignant narcissism comes the more severe antisocial personality disorder, the more severe form being called psychopathy; after psychopathy comes sadistic personality disorder and paranoid personality disorder (paranoid personality disorder obviously isn't inherently more dangerous than psychopathy or sadistic personality disorder, but the personality is considered to be further "regressed").

Wait. Doesn't phallic refer to...