Monday: Cocaine

This is a very quick post before I dash off to (what’s left of) work:

I finally saw Inside Job last night.  It’s a pretty good documentary, especially for anyone who’s intimidated by Michael Lewis’s book, The Big Short.  Lewis covered a lot of this information in his book so much of the material is not new except for the little bit on the heavy use of cocaine and prostitutes by the finance guys.  They *would* have to be guys.  There’s an interesting sliver of science correlating the risky trading behavior with the risky social behavior.  It turns out that rewarding a person with money has a similar effect on the brain as giving the person cocaine.  Money can be addicting.  And you can’t keep addicts in the same social environment and expect them to give up the drug easily, so expect the bad behavior to continue.

But what really got my attention was the timeline.  I know this was covered in The Big Short as well but it bears repeating.  The meltdown started in 2007 and by February and March of 2008, the market was getting a little panicky.  They knew they were headed for a breakdown.  This roughly coincides with huge contributions to Obama’s campaign.  Wall Street was placing its bets, turning on congressmen and superdelegates…

And the cocaine just keeps on coming.

I wonder if the lefties who flocked to Obama in 2008 would still have done it if they had known that September 2008 was going to lead to economic catastrophe.  Is Obama an enabler?

In other news:

Paul Krugman says the GOP is sharpening its knives for Elizabeth Warren.  She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie, Cocaine.

For some strange reason, homo sapiens evolved away from penile spines.  Go figure.

The NakedScientists summarized the Japanese Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor problems last week.  Their overview should relax the nuclear nervous nellies.  Er, but probably won’t.

And, finally, CNN has discovered that donations to Japan lag far behind the responses to Haiti and Katrina.  I can’t imagine why.  ‘gits.