"Unlucky."
Steve Haag heard our podcast about Crazy Eddie and the minds of financial criminals in KNAU land. Haag writes that he wants to hear more about morality in money management:
I don't hear it talked about much. Maybe it's not sexy enough. The economic crisis reads like a whodunit crime novel. Risk capitalists seem motivated by how much they can get away with and how cleverly they can think up schemes for leveraging money and not get stuck being accountable for losses.
Maybe morality is boring. Maybe the notion of setting up banking systems for long-term stable growth falls flat in terms of interesting story line. The collective consciousness seems to like big spikes and big dips, big winners and big losers, big secret dealings, big government interventions, big excuses from Wall Street, big shock and horror from the populous at large, big fears about what horrible thing might happen next. Maybe it's the thirst for adventure and a lot of very smart people chomping at the bit to see what innovative way they can play the system, just for the fun of playing it, like a board game where everyone's protecting their own advantages and hoping to dominate the other players.
Your guest in this episode was a great example of someone who's gotten a clear ego rush from playing the odds, calculating all the variables for striking it rich, quite aside from what impact it may be having on the whole.
Morality seems to not have much of a chance against all the excitement of playing the money game. In that case, I guess we can keep expecting more and more sly trickery to keep coming along, like a carnival laying out new track on their giant roller coaster. And willing customers keep lining up to take the ride.
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