Comments on: Bankers Will Be Boys

By: Ted K

Ted K — Mon, 25 May 2009 04:14:53 +0000

So, Apparently Canadian men, German men, and Saudi Arabian men don’t have testosterone???? This Anne Sibert woman has really deep analysis. Deep…….right up to my neck in something.

By: Elmer Rich III

Elmer Rich III — Sun, 24 May 2009 00:42:32 +0000

We already have a very successful model for dealing with hi-testosterone, young males – sports. Clear rules, refs, goals, penalties, etc.

The brains/hormones/biology ain’t gonna change.

We need type-a, hi-testosterone guys…and women…just don’t give them the ball and say “OK, run anywhere.”!?

‘Course they hate it but, that’s OK too. Every game has rules, dudes!

Cheers

By: q

Fri, 22 May 2009 02:08:54 +0000

if testosterone is the problem, there is an easy solution. if money is the most important thing in your life, you will not have a problem with this.

By: archi

archi — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:42:49 +0000

Though anecdotal, i would like to offer some experience from a recent visit to shanghai, where the local society seems to be both aware and quite comfortable with the elephant in the room.

On an average street off the bund adorned with hanging poultry and beef, i found what looked like an an open-door betting parlor, walked in. It was filled with middle-aged citizens glued to the the vast number of monitors, and a huge board on the back wall. Complete with cash desk (behind bars), individual work stations (a la poker machines) with all sorts of charts and graphs, stadium seating and ‘fire in their eyes’ 60-somethings having some good ‘ol fashion gambling fun.

It was the stock exchange, open to the masses. I could sworn it was a race track.

As far as I could tell, they use red for + and green for -. Beyond that blasphemy, I have to say that it was a refreshing case of loving it for what it is.

Oh, and this talk of male/female trading issues is such a nothingburger.

Can we get back to revealing stealing and cheating in our financial and political systems please?

By: Stuart Levine

Stuart Levine — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:00:27 +0000

I have downloaded a copy of the article and created a pdf. If anyone wants a copy, merely let me know via an email address posted as a response to this comment. In order to prevent spamming, etc., list the email address as johnsmith[the "at symbol"]name.com

By: Tuesday: {{snort!}} “Testosterone Poisoning is REAL” « The Confluence

Wed, 20 May 2009 13:00:35 +0000

[...] out this must read from James Kwak at Baseline Scenario on risky behavior in the banking industry. He cites another post at VoxEU by Anne Siebert [...]

By: EKCP

EKCP — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:32:14 +0000

Can we get off this friggin’ topic? It’s getting sophomoric. I do not think a boys vs. girls debate is what this blog is supposed to be about. Let’s move on people to issues that really matter.

By: Why did bankers behave badly? « Beats and Pieces

Why did bankers behave badly? « Beats and Pieces — Wed, 20 May 2009 02:47:09 +0000

[...] is all well and good but as James Kwak over at Baseline Scenario notes, none of it is new. Some are intractable and for others there are relatively simple solutions: the [...]

By: Thomas Fanning

Thomas Fanning — Wed, 20 May 2009 02:09:51 +0000

Why doesn’t anybody mention the insatiable desire of American Women to spend, spend, spend?

Women make over 85% of the consumer purchases in the United States.

http://bit.ly/18piEH

Too much estrogen is the problem; not too much testosterone.

I’m surprised the Flag of United States of Femerica isn’t colored Pink at this point.

By: Top Posts « WordPress.com

Top Posts « WordPress.com — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:47:53 +0000

[...] Bankers Will Be Boys Apparently, Anne Sibert has written an article at VoxEU describing three types of bad behavior committed by bankers [...] [...]

By: Min

Min — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:08:30 +0000

MB: “The elephant in the room is gambling.”

Amen, brother!

By: al

al — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:12:53 +0000

If you had been writing about some highly paid profession “X” where the situation, based on male/female physiology and behavioral differences were reversed, and you had said instead “so the potential solution is to have more male X-ers” you’d no doubt be relegated to the hate-crime-o-sphere.

Certainly provocative. Not sure why you chose to go there, Larry Summers, Steven Pinker, et al notwithstanding.

Every time you start to psychologize, or analyze the sociological factors, etc, I start to lose interest. Damn.

By: Matt Fahrner

Matt Fahrner — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:31:26 +0000

One concern I have is we’re lumping it all on the bankers. Sure, they deserve to be tied to the spit, but let’s face it, this was a society-wide pandemic.

That is, the bankers were high on testosterone, the brokers were high on testosterone, the realtors were high on testosterone, and the buyers/investors (ie: us) were high on testosterone. Everyone was busy trying to get in on the buck, and that includes the vast majority of Americans. It was group-think (or a “shared testosterone high” as it were).

The great guy that I am, I have to say I was not (but only because I was high on this stuff in the dot com bubble and actually learned my lesson).

It’s like the Iraq war and torture. Suddenly everyone is against it, when in truth it happened because of the tacit support of all Americans (albeit, again, not me in my greatness).

Or maybe it’s more like Nixon – if as many people didn’t vote for him as claimed they didn’t vote for him, Humphrey would have been the 37th president. Somehow when we get to these things, we have collective amnesia.

By: MB

MB — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:22:35 +0000

The elephant in the room is gambling. Throughout the meltdown it has been compared to a “casino”, lenders made “bad bets”, etc. Yet the gambling issue is alluded to but hardly acknowledged. People are not recognizing that the financial system has been driven under by the same drama that can overwhelm individual families when an excessive risk-taker gambles away the family’s financial security and leaves innocent bystanders stuck holding the bag. Gambling behavior is a form of cognitive impairment (dementia is another cognitive impairment that also causes extreme behaviors with money). So it’s worth looking into the testosterone theory but it’s useful to examine the full spectrum of behaviors. All of the hand wringing about was it the fault of regulation or the fault of the media or the fault of money in politics is like the blind men with the elephant. I think we should view the financial excesses of the last few decades as like an epidemic, an infection of human behaviors that threatened a system central to human survival. The tools of public health used to identify and track epidemics might be helpful with this issue, in part because it’s based on gathering facts and somewhat neutral about class or gender warfare. The elephant here is that very wealthy risk-takers, mostly white men, were well capitalized with other people’s money (the flood of 401K payroll deductions, in particular), engaged in behaviors that endangered the public, and were enabled through elaborate methods of regulation that were easily manipulated. The gambling issue is enormously complex so I won’t be able to finish my thought here without ruining my own job by taking too much time to post a blog comment. I just want to say that bus drivers are regularly screened for the influence drugs and alcohol (behaviors that cause cognitive impairment and endanger the public), but money managers seem to never be examined for problematic behaviors that might signal risks for addictive gambling (with other people’s money). The euphoria of gamblers on a winning streak might be among the other distorted incentives in our financial system that feed the bubbles of our economy. We should find out.

By: mk

mk — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:21:44 +0000

Well James, in the past there were even more, in fact all male bankers and on top of testoserone, they were allowed to smoke and drink during the work day. I don’t know about you, but I’m always willing to take more chances after a few drinks then before. So what does this all mean?

Modify the regulatory structure and compensation system. Change what you can change.