Letting The Psychopaths Run The Asylum

Bloomberg's William D. Cohen asks if psychopaths have taken over Wall Street:

[A]ccording to Boddy’s “Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis,” these men were “able to influence the moral climate of the whole organization” to wield “considerable power.”

They “largely caused the crisis” because their “single- minded pursuit of their own self-enrichment and self- aggrandizement to the exclusion of all other considerations has led to an abandonment of the old-fashioned concept of noblesse oblige, equality, fairness, or of any real notion of corporate social responsibility.” [...] These psychopaths “present themselves as glibly unbothered by the chaos around them, unconcerned about those who have lost their jobs, savings and investments, and as lacking any regrets about what they have done. They cheerfully lie about their involvement in events, are very convincing in blaming others for what has happened and have no doubts about their own worth and value. They are happy to walk away from the economic disaster that they have managed to bring about, with huge payoffs and with new roles advising governments how to prevent such economic disasters.”

One of the most important differences between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats understand we need a big and capable government by the people to regulate these psychopaths. Republicans on the other hand, not only want to destroy governments' ability to watch over these transnational robber barons, they want to let them rule.