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The New Sheriffs of Wall Street
Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2010-05-15 20:19
Time gleefully reports here. The gender of watchdog group leaders will of course change the outcome of future possible ways that the financial system we have can get gamed by greedy people (er, sorry, that should read "greedy men"). But when that turns out to be false, next will be an insistence that financial institutions be led by women and that will fix the problem, since they have less testosterone. After that fails, the insistence will be traders and others making the deals be women now instead of men. We may see laws barring the number of men as a percentage that can be hired into such positions. Outlandish idea? A lot of things were considered outlandish until only recently.
"Testosterone-fueled". I must have read that phrase a hundred times going through articles on the financial mess the world of banking and finance has gotten us into. Meanwhile I would like to point out that speculative home purchasing and decisions about complex financial instruments made in ignorance are not subject to genderal factors, but for those seeking simple answers to complicated questions, anything, it seems, will do. Excerpt:
A few weeks back, at an event to celebrate the role of women in finance, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tried to get things started with a joke. He said he had recently come across a headline that asked, "What If Women Ran Wall Street?"
"Now that's an excellent question, but it's kind of a low bar," Geithner continued, deadpan amid rising laughter. "How, you might ask, could women not have done better?"
It is rarely noted that the financial wreckage littering our world is the creation, almost exclusively, of men, not women. And no wonder: to this day, each of the large banks, from Citigroup to Goldman Sachs, employs fewer than a handful of women in senior positions, and only 3% of Fortune 500 companies have a woman as CEO. Embarrassing tales of a testosterone-filled trading culture tumbled out of the what-went-wrong probes as the Great Recession took hold.
In itself, Geithner's joke was not extraordinary for Washington, where self-deprecating fare is the norm. But what happened next drove home a deeper point: the lectern in the marbled hall at the U.S. Treasury known as the Cash Room was cleared away so that a panel of women could take their seats. Among them was Sheila Bair, the chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and one of the first federal regulators to publicly sound the alarm about the collapse three years ago. She sat next to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Mary Schapiro, the first woman to hold that post and the deciding vote to initiate the agency's recent lawsuit against Goldman Sachs. Across the stage sat Elizabeth Warren, chair of the panel bird-dogging the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bank bailout and the chief advocate for new consumer-finance regulations that banks and their allies have spent millions to oppose. Suddenly, something else became clear: these women may not run Wall Street, but in this new era, they are telling Wall Street how to clean up its act.'
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These small-minded people
These small-minded people who write these articles don't seem to grasp the fact that, although men are responsible for the current financial crisis, because they are mostly run by men, it's not the gender that's at fault - it's human limitations - something present in all people.
Sure, you can blame men for the shortcomings you see in the world today, but you can also thank men for all the wonderful conveniences that modern technology has brought - yes, brought mostly by men. The reason why that is is because men, as a general rule, are the creative thinkers, the doers, the tinkerers, the builders, the risk takers, the ones that get things done (without expecting a pat on the back every 5 minutes), and, yes, the ones that actually do the jobs that require the skills as opposed to the ones that just manage them like many women I know do (because they don't have skills in any other area and the company needs to meet their affirmative action agenda).
Blaming men for what is going on is an incredibly short-sighted conclusion. Anybody who has ever spent any time in the workplace would know that women, as a general rule, don't offer any superior value in terms of morals, drawing logical conclusions, decision-making ability, competitive spirit that works with others as a team, etc.
Put women in the place of men and you will see inferior performance in most cases, I guarantee it. And, in the cases where there is superior performance, the women are likely single or shortly will be. ;-)
MAJ
I'm getting so sick of the
I'm getting so sick of the suggestion that when something changes for the better its because of Feminism. Supposedly before Feminism things were completely static. We never changed our values. Feminists are trying to claim anything good and attributing it to their gender. As you say these simple minded people...
When someone said that the men have failed (at running economy), what on earth did they compare it to? The only thing you can compare it to is another time but it was still run by men. Is an economy never supposed to fail? Is there some alien economy or some economy historically run by women that I don't know about which was different in nature than our own? Maybe God told that person how the economy was supposed to always be. Would we even have a global economy if it wasn't mostly men.
Then I wonder did men fail at technology. I'm just saying its mostly done by men. Are we spossed to have time travel? Where did men go wrong? In 2008 Germany lost in the Euro Cup (soccer) to Spain. Would they have won if they had some women on the team, maybe the female perspective.
It may be true, but not for the reason you think
Maybe having more women on the board, particularly if a quota is introduced as in Norway, but not for the reason you might think and it may throw an interesting light on gender politics.
Here in the UK last year, there was a series anlaysing the banking crisis presented by Will Hutton, an extremely respected journalist, which covered Lehmann Bros, RBS and Northern Rock (a well-known UK building society), amongst others. One common thread was interviews with a member, or members, of the various boards, all men, who had warned about the dangers of the policy being pursued, but who were ignored, because the others were dazzled by the short-term profits. Mainly, these people retired or resigned and had nothing more than the dubious satisfaction of being able to say "I told you so".
If the dissidents were women, and they could threaten to make a company non-compliant by resigning, maybe they would be listened to, not because they are women per se, but because they have been given this power either by legislation or the prevailing attitude that " they're only doing this to me because I'm a woman".
It may be true, but not for the reason you think
Maybe having more women on the board, particularly if a quota is introduced as in Norway, but not for the reason you might think and it may throw an interesting light on gender politics.
Here in the UK last year, there was a series anlaysing the banking crisis presented by Will Hutton, an extremely respected journalist, which covered Lehmann Bros, RBS and Northern Rock (a well-known UK building society), amongst others. One common thread was interviews with a member, or members, of the various boards, all men, who had warned about the dangers of the policy being pursued, but who were ignored, because the others were dazzled by the short-term profits. Mainly, these people retired or resigned and had nothing more than the dubious satisfaction of being able to say "I told you so".
If the dissidents were women, and they could threaten to make a company non-compliant by resigning, maybe they would be listened to, not because they are women per se, but because they have been given this power either by legislation or the prevailing attitude that " they're only doing this to me because I'm a woman".
Sorry, posted previous
Sorry, posted previous comment twice by accident.
Interesting point
In essence, Malcolm is saying that women whistleblowers in general have a better chance of being listened to because their employment is protected by the sex discrimination card.
(SIDEBAR: If the banking analysis' name were "Sutton" instead of "Hutton," that would've been an American joke too good to pass up.)
What's left for men?
Trust me, if the women take over and things go wrong, they will still blame the men. Women will not be held accountable.
There was a time I thought it fair to let women into the workforce. It seemed unfair to keep them out. But that's not enough for women. They want everything--the job, the children, the house, the car, and men's money (as child support and alimony). That leaves men with nothing.
Art of War
It might be better if men have nothing to fall back on; no place to retreat to. It would force men to take a stand; what would they have to lose...honestly. (Though of course I will try to prevent that from ever happening). Right now there are actually men who think "its a man's world". If women start becoming top leader FIGURES those men would no longer be able to keep any visage of importance. [summers has said that last part before]
Its just my guess but I doubt we will let women take over the heads of corporations by treatment based on gender like they have with other things. I think those jobs require a high iq for the most part and it is mostly men with the highest IQs. The thing I fear is that they will get advantage and their will be even more discrimination on men. I can't stand the obnoxiousness when feminists point out the few men at the very top and ignore all the men at the bottom of society.
You may have a point
The more men find themselves with nothing, the more they may begin to rebel against these limitations. What form that takes could be, well, interesting.