Thursday 17 April 2008

More Women on The Trading Floor – A New World Order


Alternative Title: When coffee won’t help you wake up….


I arrived at work with about 10 minutes to spare and grabbed a croissant and a latte. While I am having breakfast, I also like to read the paper and enjoy some silence as the sun comes up. That’s too bad though, because I live and work in London, where the sun is too busy playing hide-and-seek with the clouds and looking at a screen is the most certain –if not the only – way to ‘prove’ you are actually working.

What I can do though is to login on Bloomberg and read pretty much about everything. Instead of that I chose the Most Read News category. This news category comes recommended for when having breakfast, but usually I do not opt to read what everyone else already knows. I rely on the fact that news travel fast – even when they should have stayed home.

So, I clicked on the story titled “Blame Your Sex Drive for Credit-Crunch Worries” – that sounds like fun, I thought. It must be about these sexy-feeling traders that “made love” to the financial market, until it dropped dead. And it was… well, sort of… The article reveals that neuroscientists have recently performed a (valid?) experiment which suggested that when men are thinking about sex, they are more likely to take financial risk in the hope of accumulating greater wealth to attract women.

I know what you’re thinking! No, the research did not address the sort of women targeted by this ingenious technique….. But the most interesting part comes now! Neuroscientists commenting on their findings said that women were not tested because it’s harder to find an erotic image that all respond to. That’s it! The most Mickey-Mouse scientific explanation I have ever read.

How about Johny Depp, guys? I trust him and many many other guys could do the trick! After all what you really want is to get women to think about sex not ready to have sex, right? The sex-related image shown to men was one of a couple in an erotic pose. Do you think that the same image would fail to make women think about sex? Thank goodness, I didn’t go study I the USA…..

But wait a sec! Is this the reason women were not tested? Maybe not… thinking about it twice, I reckon the real trouble must have been finding enough women on the trading floor to conduct the experiment in the fist place! ;) Gotcha!

So, instead of wasting money in research that adds no value to the industry, wouldn’t it be so much better if banks were encouraged to get more women on the trading floor? It’s obvious that men have seriously messed up the world in the absence of women. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be eye-pocket-witnessing the largest financial crisis since Great Depression, now would we? Eh, Mr Smart-Pants-Male-Trader?

Maybe, this is the quickest possible and most natural way to boost the world economy!

2 comments:

eleni said...

Ha!
an image of a Louis Vuitton handbag maybe?
But again even this is all about women's vanity to become attractive for men, no? Otherwize why they would like a piece of fine leather? Any answers to this? ( I am probably initiating a completely different subject here no?)

Anonymous said...

Yes, you are opening a different subject....but it is an interesting question you are posing here, and I would like to take a stand.

First of all, I seriously doubt that the utter purpose of women's life is to attract the right guy. And I seriously doubt that any of these women who managed to set their foot on the trading floor (and most of them are kicking...damn well!... I hear) woke up one day and thought "Oh, there's an easy way to be attractive to men!I will become a trader."

The need for physical attractiveness just wouldn't justify the opportunity cost associated to this venture. So, I think that the power that is driving these women is more likely linked to a deeper need for security and approval.

After you get these two right, then you start worrying about satisfying your needs for consistent emotional connection. And of course you buy a Louis Vuitton handbag!

Because there is no big secret in attracting men! You just need to feel good with yourself and I have to admit it that carrying a Luis Vuitton helps a lot!

:)

Thank you