Native Eskimos shoved psychopaths under the ice because they recognized that these people threatened their entire society. Americans celebrate them, from high school to the board room to state & federal houses.

(Eskimo info from the book The Sociopath Next Door)

The "recent study" was published in a financial analyst professional journal by a communication's specialist with extensive experience as a securities trader based upon interviews with several "trade psychologists."

On the basis of those interviews, the financial analyst must have carefully considered the randomness of the sample of both the psychologists and their patients and applied the most rigorous of statistical tests (with the standard deviations and discussion of analytical tools buried in the paper). She must have carefully applied the diagnostic manual's definition of "psychopath" in order to determine that 10%--presumably not 9 or 11% (or perhaps just in the range of 5.0-14.9%)--of all traders and other Wall Street employees are "clinical psychopaths."

Of course, we can assume that the cohort of "Wall Street workers" has a nice, coherent, explicit definition. And that "empathy" and its implementation has a nice, universally accepted operational definition that isn't clouded by quotas and professional standards and legal requirements.

It sounds good. It's what we want to believe. It feeds our outrage and sense of moral superiority. So it must be right.

Elliot Spitzer said this on ABC.

I respectfully disagree.

Persons are people, my friends - NOT corporations.





And every bully for himself.

I was concerned some years back when we first heard that pot use by a political candidate while in school (HS or College) was a "youthful indiscretion."
Not because pot use mattered, but because of where I saw it leading. Now a hole host of things are passed off as youthful indiscretions: reckless driving while young, drunk driving while young, and even assault and battery while young. We are told that if it happened during high school it doesn't matter.

Au contraire. It matters.

Those are formative years. Some say that our personalities are fully developed much younger even than that. I am no psychologist, but I'm guessing that teenage sociopaths are likely to carry that trait with them. Perhaps they can outgrow it or at least control it.

But to say that it is not relevant or of no consequence, particularly when the politician in question laughs it off.

Romney's years at Bain would tend to show that he carries it with him like those others Wall Street. A lack of interest in and empathy for others and an “unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication, and manipulation Appears to be a pretty good description of the Republican candidate,