According to the episodes I saw, a few sincerely tried their hands at trading. They all failed miserably. Maybe something to do with the psycho/sociopathic tendency to fail to learn from mistakes, or to accept blame for any screw ups.
There is an important distinction between psychpathic personality and psychopathic organizational systems. As true psychopaths are believed to be just 2% of the population, they can and do make other people do as they think, especially when risen to the ranks of power. A real trader is an expert at playing the market. A real psychopath is an expert at playing YOU. Chances are if you think someone is a pscyhopath, you're 98% likely to be wrong or inaccurate. Psychopath test: http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/psychopathy.htm 2! Congratulations for not being a psychopath today! Study shows traders to be worse than psychopaths. A class of their own? http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisbarth/2011/09/26/new-study-old-news-stock-traders-are-psychopaths/
I used to read all of the enforcement actions by the NFA, CFTC, SEC, etc, etc...I won't argue that there weren't some earnest individuals who tried their hand at trading, lost big and then the cover-up began...I suppose there are too many examples of fraud to make generalizations...It still does seem to attract far too many sociopath's (psychopath's).
It's involved with money. I think all fields involved with money are extremely attractive to sociopaths and psychopaths. Banker equals bankster these days.
Which may explain the cop listing. Supposedly most cop applicants have to pass a psych evaluation, which should weed out most sociopaths. But if a cop shop is itself a sociopathic organization, then all bets are off. Disagree. A psychopath isn't automatically a Svengali or a criminal mastermind. Some are so antisocial, they stick out like sore thumbs. The average convict IQ is well below 100. Of course there are exceptions, but again nobody mistook Al Capone or Whitey Bulger for saints.
Interestingly, the "Psychopath Test" linked to earlier: http://psychcentral.com/cgi-bin/psychopathy-quiz.cgi contains the following at the end:
I saw all of that. My comment was specifically in response to the so-called "police brutality." By the way, my comment wasn't racist....just true.
They probably never seriously tried trading, they only saw it as something to be tied up with a scam - a way to easy money. Psychopaths thrive in corporations because if their plans are successful they take credit - when unsuccessful they use manipulation to blame others for the failure, they can't lose. Being a big fan of American Greed and having watched all the episodes, none of the supposed "traders" were successful in it, they didn't seem to try too much either as they found out it's much easier just to take suckers' money. Many of course only pretended to trade, never doing even one trade live.
I agree, d08 There are very few...'true traders'...out there. I don't necessarily consider Wall St guys traders...they're more ...stock salesmen. Commission collectors. they could careless what direction it goes. A 'true trader' to me...is someone who can grow his own individual, relatively small account...into a large one.
Just about everyone in government is a psychopath; the most dangerous are in the Obama administration... the nightmare is almost over.