Michael Lewis has Eight Things I Wish for Wall Street. Blogger Jason Kottke highlighted #2 on his blog:
2. No person under the age of 35 will be allowed to work on Wall Street.
I like this one a lot, but I like #3 even better:
3. Women will henceforth make all Wall Street trading decisions.
Men are more prone to financial risk-taking, and overconfidence, and so will be banned from even secondary roles on Wall Street trading desks — though they will be permitted to do whatever damage they would like in their private investment accounts. Trading is a bit like pornography: Women may like it, but they don’t like it nearly as much as men, and they certainly don’t like it in ways that create difficulties for society. Put them in charge of all financial decision-making and the decisions will be more boring, but more sociable. Of course, this raises a practical question: How will our society find enough women older than 35, with no special intellectual ability, to fill all of Wall Street’s trading jobs? Well …
I would like to take it one step further. Or a million steps further.
I believe that the world would be a far better place if women were in charge. Therefore, I would support the immediate replacement of all male members of the House of Representatives and the Senate with women.
I’d do the same with every state governor, and if I could, every mayor as well.
I would also support the immediate replacement of the all of the male CEOs of all of the Fortune 500 companies with women.
I routinely charge my female students with the task of charging forward and taking over the world. I tell them that I will be disappointed if women are not ruling this country, if not the world, by the time I am a spry 100 years old.
I suspect that Michael Lewis would agree.
