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Paul B. Farrell
July 27, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EDT · Recommend (3) · Post:
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Goldman's new dream-inception technology
First Take "º
Possible Dow Theory buy signal at Monday's close
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Yes, Wall Street has a death wish, secretly trying to self-destruct. Can't stop. Don't get it. Wall Street's culture, mindset, brain, psyche -- whatever you call it -- has a saboteur locked deep in the unconscious. Not only are they hell-bent on self-destruction, they're taking America down with them.
Why? It's a "guy thing." Alpha-males have the power. Worse, their death spiral can't end till Venus conquers Mars and its killer instinct -- until we see a new era where women rule not only Wall Street, but Washington and Corporate America. This is a race against time: Alpha-males versus Venus and the feminine mystique. Guys love games. Are women up to it? To win, they must change the rules of the game.
Amid a constructive earnings season, investors remain skittish about equity investing, says Barrons.com's Bob O'Brien.
First, the historical context: Why did we nod yes when we read Stephen Gandel's summary of a new Wall Street in Time?
"Of all the causes of the financial crisis, one of the biggest was a power shift on Wall Street that left the traders in charge," and "with a trader, the goal of every minute of every day is to make money ... So if running the economy off the cliff makes you money, you will do it, and you will do it every day of every week."
Traders are the "guy thing" on steroids. Imagine a million little Napoleons. Wall Street's macho ego trip went ballistic after 2008 when they scammed Congress, the Fed and Treasury out of trillions. Then they accelerated to warp speed recently, overpowering Washington, sucking the life out of financial reform with hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of lobbyists.
The Alpha-males running America are textbook examples of the Oedipus complex in action. Men? No, inside they're still little boys who secretly want to win mommy's favor by knocking off big daddy. Basic psychology, except they're overdosing the real world with too much edgy testosterone ... aggressive, arrogant, narcissistic ... bullies on the playground overcompensating for an inferiority complex ... they love games, fights, contests, winning, deals, risks, wars, anything to prove they're king-of-the-hill ... like owning truckloads of money, enough for several lifetimes ... think Liar's Poker, they play for bragging rights, to tell "the guys" how they beat "the other guys" on the playing field ... but psychologically they really are just little boys in big-boy costumes playing "grown-up" ... especially the new breed of Wall Street traders gambling in history's greatest casino, the $700 trillion global shadow banking system for derivatives.
This conclusion needs no esoteric psycho-babble. Anyone who's read "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" is way ahead of little boys inhabiting the brains of Blankfein, Paulson, Summers, Bernanke, Geithner and all the other so-called leaders whose secret, collective death-\ wish is taking America down with their childish games: Beating daddy, winning mommy's favor. Yes, too much testosterone is killing our world.
Yes, Wall Street's in a death spiral that's accelerated rapidly since my investment banking days at Morgan Stanley. My first year I read "The Denial of Death" and "Escape from Evil" by Pulitzer Prize-winning psychologist Ernest Becker. Recently I was drawn back, reread them. They reveal Wall Street's dark secret, their psychological pathology.
How? Becker goes deeper than Wall Street's aggressive, narcissistic and dangerously obsessive inner child. Becker's views expose Wall Street's blind, insatiable death wish ... why it exists ... why they deny it ... why it's growing ... and ultimately why this "guy thing," their out-of-control macho testosterone culture is hell-bent on more than self-destruction ... why Wall Street secretly wants to destroy American capitalism and democracy ... and why, unless Venus conquers Mars ... unless women gain more power on Wall Street, Washington and Corporate America ... unless a new collective Venus triggers a paradigm shift, soon ... Mars, Wall Street, the Alpha-male will continue winning ... and killing capitalism and democracy. Becker's opening paragraph cuts deep:
"The prospect of death ... woefully concentrates the mind ... the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else. It is the mainspring of human activity -- activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man."
Get it? Humans will do anything to avoid death. Hate thinking about death. "The Denial of Death" exposes the sin Wall Street is hiding. Our hatred of death. "Emotional Intelligence" author Daniel Goleman, captured this overpowering human fear in "Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception:" "Thousands of years ago in the ancient epic, the "Mahabharatta," a sage poses a riddle, 'What is the greatest wonder of the world.' The answer: 'That no one, though he sees others dying all around, believes he will die.'"
The philosopher Sam Keen, author of thought-provoking works as "Fire in the Belly" and "Faces of the Enemy," builds on this eternal truth in his foreword to Becker's book, challenging us to read and deny his message, if we can:
"The world is terrifying ... the basic motivation of human behavior is our biological need to control our basic anxiety, to deny the terror of death. Human beings are naturally anxious because we are ultimately helpless and abandoned in a world where we are fated to die ... the terror of death is so overwhelming we conspire to keep it unconscious ... Every child borrows power from adults and creates a personality by introjecting the qualities of the godlike being. If I am my all-powerful father, I will not die."
Paul Farrell writes the column on behavioral economics. He's the author of nine books on personal finance, economics and psychology, including "The Millionaire Code," "The Winning Portfolio," "The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing." Farrell was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley; executive vice president of the Financial News Network; executive vice president of Mercury Entertainment Corp; and associate editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He has a Juris Doctor and a Doctorate in Psychology.
That tantalizing possibility comes on the interpretation of none other than Richard Russell, editor of Dow Theory Letters.
4:52 p.m. July 26, 2010 | Comments: 39
- Nonsequitor | 12:17 a.m. Today12:17 a.m. July 27, 2010
"Wall Street armageddon: Alpha-male vs. Venus http://on.mktw.net/9nCYRt" 11:16 p.m. EDT, July 26, 2010 from MKTWFarrell
"Goldman's new dream-inception technology http://on.mktw.net/adGnNP" 11:22 p.m. EDT, July 19, 2010 from MKTWFarrell
"Lazy Portfolios at 10: A winning decade http://on.mktw.net/b9hnoj" 11:39 p.m. EDT, July 12, 2010 from MKTWFarrell
"Conspiracy of Weasels is killing real reform http://on.mktw.net/9lbCWM" 11:49 p.m. EDT, July 5, 2010 from MKTWFarrell
"Don't sit like a monk! Beat stress like a jock http://on.mktw.net/9xIjY7" 11:45 p.m. EDT, June 28, 2010 from MKTWFarrell
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