Quants: The Alchemists of Wall Street

[778 neighbour of some guy]

Quants are the math wizards and computer programmers in the engine room of our global financial system who designed the financial products that almost crashed Wall st. The credit crunch has shown how the global financial system has become increasingly dependent on mathematical models trying to quantify human (economic) behaviour. Now the quants are at the heart of yet another technological revolution in finance: trading at the speed of light.

What are the risks of treating the economy and its markets as a complex machine? Will we be able to keep control of this model-based financial system, or have we created a monster?

A story about greed, fear and randomness from the insides of Wall Street.


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[Frank V]

And just to top it all off, here's what the 1% thinks about the rest of us, courtesy of Abby Martin, "Breaking The Set", RT television network...

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I think Abby is correct: "sociopath" is a correct term for this guy...

[Frank V]

What are the risks of treating the economy and its markets as a complex machine? Will we be able to keep control of this model-based financial system, or have we created a monster?


"We" - there is no "we" - have created a monster. The Economy ™ is the new religion of the western world, and the perfect power tool. Everything else depends on it, even the military-industrial complex, the fossil fuel sector, the pharmaceutical sector, every little aspect of industrialization (including all branches of food production), and thanks to corporations like Nestlé who steal pure water from natural sources, bottle it, and then sell it back to the people they stole it from, also our drinking water.

Whether it's capitalism, mercantilism, socialism, communism, fascism or any other "ism", every exchange of goods or services is regulated by barter, and this barter exists in the form of currency - whether it's the US Dollar, the Euro, the Yen, the British Pound Sterling, or whatever other currency. And with guys in charge like the one in the RT video I've just posted above this post, it's not even about how much you have, but about who has it and who doesn't. That's the real game.

As I've told some people a while ago: Always remember that the two people who play a game of chess against each other are themselves not on the board. We are on the board. They are the players.

[Conchis]

And to top it all off, you learn that there aren't really even two players, there is just one player making the moves on both sides so that we seem to be actually doing something that has a purpose.

[Frank V]

And to top it all off, you learn that there aren't really even two players, there is just one player making the moves on both sides so that we seem to be actually doing something that has a purpose.

Absolutely, my friend. You hit the nail on its ugly head. All sides are being played by the same player - a player who thoroughly but disturbingly enjoys watching the pieces fall one by one.

Without getting into the esoteric realms and discussing whether these guys have reptilian souls or not, I would wager that the bulk of this 1% of super-wealthy people is afflicted with a condition called Dark Triad - sometimes also called a Dark Tetrad, but I will expound on that below.

The Dark Triad is a personality type comprised of three clinically psychiatric conditions, being...


psychopathy : characterized by very shallow higher-level emotions, callousness, and a lack of empathy;
narcissism : characterized by an extreme sense of self-worth and an extreme drive for satisfying the needs or desires of the self; and
Machiavellianism : characterized by a very cold, callous and extremely manipulative personality,


Three conditions, hence the name Dark Triad. However, there is also a fourth condition which has been statistically found to co-exist within about 80% of tested people who had been diagnosed as being Dark Triads, and that condition is sadism. Indeed, 80% of the tested Dark Triads seemed to get a sense of satisfaction out of hurting another person. This is why certain researchers in the field of psychiatry now opt for the term Dark Tetrad.

(In truth, nobody was hurt during the experiments, because "the victims" were simulated.)

A link to the article detailing the experiment can be found here (http://www.sott.net/article/266289-Dark-Tetrad-of-personality-traits-Everyday-sadists-take-pleasure-in-others-pain).