Bankers 'caused credit crisis for kicks'

[Tingles]

No.

[AtW]

Forget the thorny problems of risk, regulation and even reward: bankers blew up the financial system for the thrill of it, according to one British academic.

With a theory that will alarm Business Secretary Vince Cable, Dr Paul Crosthwaite of Cardiff University has argued that bankers and other investors took on excessive risks not just to make money but for the "desire" and "exhilaration" of destruction.

"For its participants and speculators alike, the crash is not simply an object of fear or anxiety, or even of mere fascination, but also of an inchoate but urgent desire," Dr Crosthwaite wrote in an article published in Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.

In Blood on the Trading Floor: Waste, Sacrifice and Death in Financial Crises, Dr Crosthwaite claims his anthropological study of investors and traders found evidence of an element of masochistic satisfaction in running up losses.

He maintains that the crisis was the modern equivalent to the traditional Native American practice of "potlatch", a ritual ceremony in which the chiefs of rival tribes competed to destroy ever greater quantities of their own possessions as an expression of power and importance.

But in one fillip for the Business Secretary, Dr Crosthwaite says his research strengthens the case for tighter City regulation. It's human nature: the bankers could do it again.

Source: Bankers 'caused credit crisis for kicks' - Telegraph

---

Nah, that's bulltulip - greed, incompetence married to short termism and ultimate lack of accountability are the key reasons.