It amazes me the gutsiness of the guys who sit on prop desks, or at hedge funds making market bets with 20x-30x-40x-50x leverage. I don't know how they do it! One wrong move and it all goes poof.
Is it ego? Is it hubris? Is it bravado? Is it incentives? Is it stupidity? Is it madness? Is it skill? Is it luck? Is it greed? Is it insecurity? Is it peer pressure? Is it culture? Is it ambition? Is it hope? Is it faith? Is it the will-to-power? Is it immaturity?
The one thing they invariably have in common is that it is someone else's money.
This penchant for risk among our financial superstars has slowly, but insipidly made its way through the system. To the point where modern Anglo-Saxon economies are a mere shell of their former financial selves.
One way or another change is coming. It may be through enlightened cultural norms (don't count on it), more likely it will be through enlightened self-interest brought on by economic necessity.
The choice is ours (if only there was leadership to help navigate the waters). We can either take our medicine now (manifest in a deep recession) or we will experience something a lot less savory later.
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