Tthe global financial elite probably pose more of a menace to society than known psychopaths

i've always been convinced that advancement into the corporate, financial elite is a matter of being rewarded for how viciously you can pursue your self interest and how badly you can damage your competitors... i think there's a fine line between some of these top guys and serial killers... it's all about honing the predatory instinct... unfortunately, our society has enshrined that kind of behavior and told the rest of us that it's worthy of emulation... maybe we should take another look...

spiegel...

What makes individual stockbrokers blow billions in financial markets with criminal trading schemes? According to a new study conducted at a Swiss university, it may be because share traders behave more recklessly and are more manipulative than psychopaths.

david sirota...

Now comes a new study from Switzerland’s University of St. Gallen showing that the most successful of the global financial elite probably pose more of a menace to society than known psychopaths.

As the website Newser reported, the researchers “pitted a group of stockbrokers against a group of actual psychopaths in various computer simulations and intelligence tests and found that the money men were significantly more reckless, competitive, and manipulative.” Even more striking, the researchers note that achieving overall success was less important to the stock speculators than the sadistic drive “to damage their opponents.”

The findings build on similar research in the recent past. In 1996, investigators at Glasgow Caledonian University discovered connections between psychopathy and successful financial speculation, concluding that “with the right parenting, (psychopaths) can become successful stockbrokers instead of serial killers.” Likewise, in 2004, researchers at the University of British Columbia reacted to similar findings and created a test to help firms detect “corporate psychopaths” within their ranks. That same year, the award-winning documentary “The Corporation” used World Health Organization metrics to show that if companies really are “people,” as our Supreme Court insists, then many of them are mentally ill.

this story deserves more visibility than it's getting... what it tells me and that i've been convinced of for quite some time is that psychopathy has become the accepted norm not only in our society but in many societies around the globe... moreover, psychopathy is being glorified as something to aspire to... maybe it's time we started seeing the reality of what we're doing to ourselves...

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The 5-year increase in speculative demand for oil is almost equal to the increase in Chinese demand for oil

i posted the other day on the possibility that speculators are purposely driving up oil prices...

here's mike whitney at ich...

“Speculative activity in commodity markets has grown 'enormously' over the past several years," the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said in a news release. It pointed out that in five years, from 2003 to 2008, investment in the index funds tied to commodities has grown by 20-fold -- to $260 billion from $13 billion.”

And here's a revealing clip from the testimony of Michael W. Masters of Masters Capital Management, LLC, who addressed the issue of “Commodities Speculation” before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs this week:

“Today, Index Speculators are pouring billions of dollars into the commodities futures markets, speculating that commodity prices will increase. ... In the popular press the explanation given most often for rising oil prices is the increased demand for oil from China. According to the DOE, annual Chinese demand for petroleum has increased over the last five years from 1.88 billion barrels to 2.8 billion barrels, an increase of 920 million barrels.8 Over the same five-year period, Index Speculatorsʼ demand for petroleum futures has increased by 848 million barrels. THE INCREASE IN DEMAND FROM INDEX SPECULATORS IS ALMOST EQUAL TO THE INCREASE IN DEMAND FROM CHINA.

Index Speculators have now stockpiled, via the futures market, the equivalent of 1.1 billion barrels of petroleum, effectively adding eight times as much oil to their own stockpile as the United States has added to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the last five years.

Today, in many commodities futures markets, they are the single largest force.15 The huge growth in their demand has gone virtually undetected by classically-trained economists who almost never analyze demand in futures markets.

As money pours into the markets, two things happen concurrently: the markets expand and prices rise. One particularly troubling aspect of Index Speculator demand is that it actually increases the more prices increase. This explains the accelerating rate at which commodity futures prices (and actual commodity prices) are increasing. The CFTC has taken deliberate steps to allow CERTAIN SPECULATORS VIRTUALLY UNLIMITED ACCESS TO THE COMMODITIES FUTURES MARKETS. The CFTC has granted Wall Street banks an exemption from speculative position limits when these banks hedge over-the-counter swaps transactions. This has effectively opened a loophole for unlimited speculation. When Index Speculators enter into commodity index swaps, which 85-90% of them do, they face no speculative position limits. ... The result is a gross distortion in data that effectively hides the full impact of Index Speculation.” (Thanks to Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis; the one “indispensable” financial blog on the Internet)

ya know, i'm in no position to make any judgments on whether this is actually happening or not, but, i gotta say, do i believe it's POSSIBLE...? damn right...!

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