Maureen Dowd's NYT column "Blue Eyed Greed?" convinced me to sit down and take a vaguely systematic stab at figuring out the ethnic backgrounds of the people whose names come up these days in relation to the universe of American finance.
I first wasted time some time squinting at pictures of Angelo Mozilo and Bernie Madoff trying to figure out what their eye colors were, but then I gave that up as hopelessly literal-minded. Obviously, Dowd (a red-haired Irish Catholic who felt undervalued because she has brown eyes) is using the code terms "blue eyed" and "white bread bankers" to refer to Northern European Protestants. So, it made more sense to look up ancestry, religion, and self-identification directly.
But, who to look up? I ended up making up a list of 40 figures important in the finance story of the last couple of years, drawn from both my writings and a list of about a dozen Wall Street figures sent me by a reader who long worked on Wall Street.
This is not the proper way to do it. The better way is to be staring at somebody's list of the Top Whatevers and then have it suddenly dawn on you that you could use this list to answer a question that the people who made up the list never considered. But, I already had my question and I didn't have a list. Also, I'm not sure if I could find a list that would fit my needs. So, I made up a list, trying not to be biased. It's not a very good list, but it's a start. It's got Wall Street bosses, national bankers, politicians, bureaucrats, and crooks on it.
So, here's what I found.
- The old stereotype that the financial world is run by Northern European Protestants from the Northeast appears outmoded. I came up with six WASPs out of 40, but three were politicians (George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Phil Gramm, only one of whom grew up wealthy); one was an accused crook of working class rural origin (Sir Allen Stanford); one was a Southern army sergeant's son (Ken Lewis of Bank of America); and one was from the Northeastern media elite, Daniel Mudd of Freddie Mac, son of newscaster Roger Mudd and a descendant of the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth's broken leg, who has managed to make the family name mud again. (If you want to count Barack Obama as half-WASP, you can make it 6.5.) This 6 out of 40 feels a little low, but that's what I've got.
- A lot of people assume that anybody with a German name who is famous for anything having to do with money was raised Jewish, but both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Clinton adviser and former Fed chairman Paul Volcker were raised Protestant. I'm also guessing that Kerry Killinger of Washington Mutual is gentile German by background. So, that's three German gentiles.
- There was one Presbyterian Scotsman: John Thain of Merrill Lynch.
- There was one Norwegian name -- Treasury secretary and Goldman Sachs boss Hank Paulson (who was raised as a Christian Scientist).
So, I come up with 11 out of 40 names on the list being Northern European Protestants.
- Jewish individuals make up the largest single ethnic group on the list, but they might be less numerous than you'd think: 11 out of 40: Roland Arnall (Ameriquest subprime mortgages), Ben Bernanke (Fed), Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs), Rep. Barney Frank, Dick Fuld (Lehman Bros.), Hank Greenberg (AIG), Alan Greenspan (Fed), Bernie Madoff (Ryker's Island), Robert Rubin (Treasury and Citigroup), Larry Summers (Treasury), and Sandy Weill (Citigroup).
- There were four Irish, largely in political roles: Sen. Chris Dodd, John Taylor of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Richard Syron of Freddie Mac, and Sheila Bair of the FDIC (I'm just guessing with her because her middle name is Colleen).
- There were three blacks: Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae, President Barack Obama, and Joy Jackson of Stripper Fraud Mortgages. And there was one Mexican-American, Henry Cisneros of HUD.
- Two Asians: Vikram Pandit of Citigroup and rocket scientist statistician David X. Li.
- That leaves 8 of the 40 names belonging to one general group that has been overlooked in most ethnic theorizing about finance: Mediterranean gentiles.
- Two Italians: Angelo Mozilo (Countrywide) and Joe Cassano (AIG Financial Products).
- Two Lebanese Christians: John Mack (Morgan Stanley) and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Black Swan)
- And four Greeks. Two are whistleblowers: Harry Markopolos, who tried to get the SEC after Madoff, and David Andrukonis, the chief risk officer of Freddie Mac, who clashed with his boss Richard Syron. Two are Wall Street big shots: Tom Kalaris of Barclay's and Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase.
So, what does it add up to?
Well, first, Maureen Dowd's media stereotype about the financial world as dominated by an Old Boy's Network of blond, blue-eyed WASPs is badly out of date. Finance has evolved from an old Relationship Model to a newer Transaction Model about who can make you the most money in a New York minute.
Second, as the largest single group, Jews tend to set the tone, yet don't seem to be as dominant as some posit.
Third, the large numbers of Jews and Mediterranean gentiles suggests, unsurprisingly, that the financial world has a quite New York City flavor to it, with a lot of Outer Boroughs as well as Park Avenue.
Fourth, there is a sizable meritocratic element in the financial world. Of course, the emphasis on keeping objective score can lead to some of the problems we've seen, such as paying bonuses at the end of the year for transactions that appear profitable in the short run that might blow up the company in the long run.
A note about looking up ancestral backgrounds: if bigshots have parents or grandparents who were immigrants, they will generally boast about them to reporters. The people who tend to be hard to figure out are the Midwesterners like Killinger and Bair.
I first wasted time some time squinting at pictures of Angelo Mozilo and Bernie Madoff trying to figure out what their eye colors were, but then I gave that up as hopelessly literal-minded. Obviously, Dowd (a red-haired Irish Catholic who felt undervalued because she has brown eyes) is using the code terms "blue eyed" and "white bread bankers" to refer to Northern European Protestants. So, it made more sense to look up ancestry, religion, and self-identification directly.
But, who to look up? I ended up making up a list of 40 figures important in the finance story of the last couple of years, drawn from both my writings and a list of about a dozen Wall Street figures sent me by a reader who long worked on Wall Street.
This is not the proper way to do it. The better way is to be staring at somebody's list of the Top Whatevers and then have it suddenly dawn on you that you could use this list to answer a question that the people who made up the list never considered. But, I already had my question and I didn't have a list. Also, I'm not sure if I could find a list that would fit my needs. So, I made up a list, trying not to be biased. It's not a very good list, but it's a start. It's got Wall Street bosses, national bankers, politicians, bureaucrats, and crooks on it.
So, here's what I found.
- The old stereotype that the financial world is run by Northern European Protestants from the Northeast appears outmoded. I came up with six WASPs out of 40, but three were politicians (George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Phil Gramm, only one of whom grew up wealthy); one was an accused crook of working class rural origin (Sir Allen Stanford); one was a Southern army sergeant's son (Ken Lewis of Bank of America); and one was from the Northeastern media elite, Daniel Mudd of Freddie Mac, son of newscaster Roger Mudd and a descendant of the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth's broken leg, who has managed to make the family name mud again. (If you want to count Barack Obama as half-WASP, you can make it 6.5.) This 6 out of 40 feels a little low, but that's what I've got.
- A lot of people assume that anybody with a German name who is famous for anything having to do with money was raised Jewish, but both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Clinton adviser and former Fed chairman Paul Volcker were raised Protestant. I'm also guessing that Kerry Killinger of Washington Mutual is gentile German by background. So, that's three German gentiles.
- There was one Presbyterian Scotsman: John Thain of Merrill Lynch.
- There was one Norwegian name -- Treasury secretary and Goldman Sachs boss Hank Paulson (who was raised as a Christian Scientist).
So, I come up with 11 out of 40 names on the list being Northern European Protestants.
- Jewish individuals make up the largest single ethnic group on the list, but they might be less numerous than you'd think: 11 out of 40: Roland Arnall (Ameriquest subprime mortgages), Ben Bernanke (Fed), Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs), Rep. Barney Frank, Dick Fuld (Lehman Bros.), Hank Greenberg (AIG), Alan Greenspan (Fed), Bernie Madoff (Ryker's Island), Robert Rubin (Treasury and Citigroup), Larry Summers (Treasury), and Sandy Weill (Citigroup).
- There were four Irish, largely in political roles: Sen. Chris Dodd, John Taylor of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Richard Syron of Freddie Mac, and Sheila Bair of the FDIC (I'm just guessing with her because her middle name is Colleen).
- There were three blacks: Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae, President Barack Obama, and Joy Jackson of Stripper Fraud Mortgages. And there was one Mexican-American, Henry Cisneros of HUD.
- Two Asians: Vikram Pandit of Citigroup and rocket scientist statistician David X. Li.
- That leaves 8 of the 40 names belonging to one general group that has been overlooked in most ethnic theorizing about finance: Mediterranean gentiles.
- Two Italians: Angelo Mozilo (Countrywide) and Joe Cassano (AIG Financial Products).
- Two Lebanese Christians: John Mack (Morgan Stanley) and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Black Swan)
- And four Greeks. Two are whistleblowers: Harry Markopolos, who tried to get the SEC after Madoff, and David Andrukonis, the chief risk officer of Freddie Mac, who clashed with his boss Richard Syron. Two are Wall Street big shots: Tom Kalaris of Barclay's and Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase.
So, what does it add up to?
Well, first, Maureen Dowd's media stereotype about the financial world as dominated by an Old Boy's Network of blond, blue-eyed WASPs is badly out of date. Finance has evolved from an old Relationship Model to a newer Transaction Model about who can make you the most money in a New York minute.
Second, as the largest single group, Jews tend to set the tone, yet don't seem to be as dominant as some posit.
Third, the large numbers of Jews and Mediterranean gentiles suggests, unsurprisingly, that the financial world has a quite New York City flavor to it, with a lot of Outer Boroughs as well as Park Avenue.
Fourth, there is a sizable meritocratic element in the financial world. Of course, the emphasis on keeping objective score can lead to some of the problems we've seen, such as paying bonuses at the end of the year for transactions that appear profitable in the short run that might blow up the company in the long run.
A note about looking up ancestral backgrounds: if bigshots have parents or grandparents who were immigrants, they will generally boast about them to reporters. The people who tend to be hard to figure out are the Midwesterners like Killinger and Bair.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
51 comments:
In defense of poor aggrieved blue-eyed persons everywhere (I am one, but distinctly NOT of WASP of origin, but from closer to the Baltic Sea the ancestral home of blue eyes), I merely quote General de Gaulle:
"Brazil is the country of the future - and always will be".
Well, you are leaving out quite a few major players from the hedge fund and private equity space.
But I guess that's the point of hedge funds and private equity firms.....to keep the real movers and major players obscure and unknown to the little guys.
Steve, instead of focusing on people who just happen to belong to the most moral faith,why don't you take a humbling lesson of diversity?
Steve,
have you written about how much of the Fannae Mae Fannae Mac went to the Chinese?
WOW. I had some idea of the disproportion, but I urge everyone to click those links by Anonymous. What is amazing is just how recent most of those are.
If you really just hit every fraud case, what fraction of "white collar criminals" would be from that category? And is it disproportionate to their representation in the professions?
Anonymous, I'll see your links and raise you one...
http://www.forward.com/articles/13523/
Proudly Israeli, Even With a Second Passport
A recent survey by the Jerusalem-based Menachem Begin Heritage Center found that 59% of Israelis had approached or intended to approach a foreign embassy to ask for citizenship and a passport. (Interestingly, though, only 22% acknowledged actually considering leaving the country for even a limited period of time.) The 41% of Israelis not lining up for a second passport presumably either cannot prove sufficient parental roots in a new Eastern European member state of the European Union like Romania or Hungary, or find this to be an unpatriotic or tainted act, somehow akin to Olmert’s taking first-class flight tickets and hotel suites from Talansky.
Why can’t we just rely on ourselves? Why do Israelis want second passports?
The most obvious reason is that, like the shnorr, you can’t easily get the Diaspora out of the Jews.
...
I also have an acquaintance or two who are trying to collect third and even fourth nationalities, based on their parents’ origins and children’s places of birth — just for the sport of it. Does all this rush for passports diminish our identity as Israelis? Is there something sleazy about it, like Talansky slipping Olmert an envelope holding $5,000 in greenbacks?
I doubt it. On the contrary, one could probably just call it another national characteristic.
You listed Richard Fuld as being Jewish. This is not true. His name is Richard Fuld, Jr. and Jews do not names their kids "Jr.". Also you mention a hut named John Taylor. "Taylor " is an English and not Irish name.
Aren't Paulson and Dimon both Jewish?
Seems I read somewhere (Wiki?) that certainly Paulson is, and Dimon is an Anglicized Diamond.
Greek Americans are only 1/4 as numerous as Jewish Americans, so they are actually even more over-represented on the list, per capita, than are Jews. Lebanese Americans are, in turn, more over-represented than Greeks.
On the other hand, the two Italian names on the list aren't that surprising considering that 6% of America is Italian. They're right about where they "should" be. And there are apparently no French, Spanish (exc Cisneros), or Portuguese names on this list. So the over-representation seems confined to the eastern Mediterranean, or more specifically, the area around Israel, while the western Mediterranean has under-representation.
Now obviously the proportions are affected somewhat by selective migration, and by the business-oriented cultures the immigrants bring with them, but I'm not convinced there isn't some genetic effect going on here too.
"There were four Irish, largely in political roles": some things are slow to change.
I might have the list you need. I had my RA collect a list of CEO's of the 100 biggest banks. If I get time, or he wants to do dissertation work on the topic, I'd like to check out what's happening to them. The file is up at
http://rasmusen.org/t/2009/bankers.csv
Kevin Seok's description:
"I finished collecting the names of CEO's for the 100 biggest banks in the United States.
I collect Total Asset, Company Name, and Foreign Incorporation Code from the Compustat - Bank - Fundamentals Annual.
Because 2008 data is not sufficient (less than 100), I used 2007 total asset data to rank the firm.
Then, I chose the firm which is currently active and in top 100 ranks by total asset.
Excel file contain 105 firm firms. However, 5 firms are acquired, merged, or difficult to collect data.
The firm which has 2005 CEO name changed its CEO in 2006.
From 2006 to 2009, 36 firms have changed their CEO."
"So, that's three German gentiles."
Someone who is ethnically (genetically) Jewish is not a gentile, even if s/he is raised as one. And vice-versa, of course.
Third, the large numbers of Jews and Mediterranean gentiles suggests, unsurprisingly, that the financial world has a quite New York City flavor to it, with a lot of Outer Boroughs as well as Park Avenue.
Your list had all of the NY ethnics that were in the city in 1970 except one: Puerto Ricans. It seems that the children of illegal Mexicans are outperforming the PRs, even though the PRs have been here longer and are US citizens. The Mexicans can claim Cisneros, but the PRs have no one.
Oh come on Steve - where are you getting this stuff from?
Geithner's father is Jewish, his wife is Jewish, and his children [God bless their little hearts] are being raised as Pharisees.
Furthermore, Geithner's [Jewish] father-in-law insists that Geithner is an atheist.
And here is Paulson's background:
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com
As far as I can tell, the Paulsons were Jewish jewelers [in Chicago & Palm Beach] who appear to have married Goyish wives [Gallauer ??? & Merritt].
But all you need to know about this cabal was exposed by the Prowler last fall:
Fanny, Freddie, and Obama
By The Prowler on 9.8.08 @ 12:08AM
spectator.org
When President George W. Bush nominated Henry Paulson to serve as Treasury Secretary, Republicans raised a red flag that Paulson, who, along with his wife, has strong ties to the Democrat party, would not be an honest broker with Republicans.
That seems to have been borne out, with sources inside of Treasury reporting that Paulson briefed Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign advisers on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout plan before offering such a briefing to the McCain campaign...
Talks Implode During a Day of Chaos; Fate of Bailout Plan Remains Unresolved
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, CARL HULSE and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: September 25, 2008
nytimes.com
WASHINGTON — The day began with an agreement that Washington hoped would end the financial crisis that has gripped the nation. It dissolved into a verbal brawl in the Cabinet Room of the White House, urgent warnings from the president and pleas from a Treasury secretary who knelt before the House speaker and appealed for her support...
No Bailout Deal After McCain, Obama, Bush Meeting
By JENNIFER LOVEN and JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press | September 25, 2008
nysun.com
...The day's earlier apparent breakthrough, announced with fanfare at midday, was followed by a White House summit bringing together President Bush, Senators McCain and Obama, and top congressional leaders. But that meeting, aimed at showing unity in resolving a national financial crisis, broke up with conflicts in plain view...
Paulson and Obama
By The Prowler on 9.26.08 @ 9:49AM
spectator.org
When Sen. Barack Obama was given the floor to speak during White House negotiations, according to White House aides, he did so raising concerns about a House Republican alternative to the Paulson/Bernanke $700 billion bailout. But those concerns weren't necessarily his, as he was not aware of the GOP plan before reviewing notes provided him by Paulson loyalists in Treasury prior to entering the meeting.
According to an Obama campaign source, the notes were passed to Obama via senior aides traveling with him, who had been emailed the document via a current Goldman Sachs employee and Wall Street fundraiser for the Obama campaign. "It was made clear that the memo was from 'friends' and was reliable," says the campaign source.
The memo allowed Obama and his fellow Democrats to box in Republican attendees and essentially took what President Bush had billed as a negotiating meeting off the rails.
"Paulson and his team have not acted in good faith for this President or the administration for which they serve," says a House Republican leader who was not present at the White House meeting, but who instead is part of the team hammering out the House GOP alternative. "We keep hearing about how Secretary Paulson is working with Democrats on this or that, yet he never seems to consider working with the party that essentially hired him. Perhaps he's auditioning for a Democratic administration job. Our proposal didn't just spring forth fully formed; we've been working on this for several days, and Treasury staff has known about it."
PS: If you want to learn about the walking disaster that is Timothy Geithner, then go here:
Obama's economic saviour savaged as Keating lets rip
Peter Hartcher
March 7, 2009
smh.com.au
...In a speech to a closed gathering at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Thursday, Paul Keating gave a starkly different account of Geithner's record in handling the Asian crisis: "Tim Geithner was the Treasury line officer who wrote the IMF [International Monetary Fund] program for Indonesia in 1997-98, which was to apply current account solutions to a capital account crisis."
In other words, Geithner fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem. And his misdiagnosis led to a dreadfully wrong prescription.
Geithner thought Asia's problem was the same as the ones that had shattered Latin America in the 1980s and Mexico in 1994, a classic current account crisis. In this kind of crisis, the central cause is that the government has run impossibly big debts.
The solution? The IMF, the Washington-based emergency lender of last resort, will make loans to keep the country solvent, but on condition the government hacks back its spending. The cure addresses the ailment.
But the Asian crisis was completely different. The Asian governments that went to the IMF for emergency loans - Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia - all had sound public finances.
The problem was not government debt. It was great tsunamis of hot money in the private capital markets. When the wave rushed out, it left a credit drought behind...
Compare:
Robert Rubin
en.wikipedia.org
Robert Edward Rubin (born August 29, 1938) served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during both the first and second Clinton administrations. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs...
WHERE DOES GOLDMAN SACHS GO FROM HERE?
BusinessWeek: March 20, 1995
businessweek.com
John L. Weinberg, the semiretired senior chairman of Goldman, Sachs & Co., had planned to take a day or so off around Thanksgiving. But he changed plans when he learned the turmoil that had engulfed the firm two months earlier with the sudden resignation of his successor, Chairman Stephen Friedman, had reached crisis proportions...
PESO PUMMELED. Goldman now has some egg on its face in Mexico as well, though not to the extent it does in China and Russia. For one thing, in the wake of the Dec. 20 peso devaluation, deals it touted have plummeted in value. Like many other firms, Goldman admits to having been caught unawares. Friedman, for one, acknowledges being shocked by the size of the devaluation. But he says that by that time Goldman was positioned "cautiously" in peso-related holdings. Says Corzine: "We're not going to walk away from Mexico. But we have to think differently about how to manage currency risk today than we might have anticipated 16 months ago"...
Information on the Mexican Peso Bailout
UNITED WE STAND AMERICA
LEGISLATIVE ALERT #4
TO: UWSA TEAM
FROM: Russ Verney
DATE: January 20, 1995
SUBJECT: Proposed Bailout of the Mexican Peso
uwsa.com
...In recent years the Wall Street investment firm of Goldman Sachs has served as the investment banker for the Mexican government. Robert Rubin was co-chairman of Goldman Sachs during that time. Robert Rubin was recently appointed as Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. As Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Robert Rubin is the architect of the U.S. taxpayer backed bailout of the Mexican government...
In an Uncertain World
Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington
Written by Robert Rubin and Jacob Weisberg
randomhouse.com
CHAPTER ONE
The First Crisis of the Twenty-first Century
ON THE EVENING OF January 10, 1995, I stood on the Great Seal woven into the carpet of the Oval Office and swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States as Secretary of the Treasury. Confirmed earlier that day, I had been waiting all afternoon for the official document that would allow me to take the oath of office. Once the papers arrived from Capitol Hill, a small group of family, friends, and colleagues assembled at the White House for a hasty ceremony.
As soon as the formalities were over, I said good-bye to my wife, Judy, and our other guests and remained behind with President Bill Clinton, Treasury’s top international official, Larry Summers, and a few of Clinton’s senior advisers, for an emergency meeting about the financial crisis in Mexico.
I told the President that the Mexican government faced an imminent threat of default and that, in the hope of preventing it, we were recommending that he support a massive, potentially unpopular, and risky intervention: providing billions of dollars to the Mexican government to avoid a collapse in its currency and economy...
And just in case you've forgotten already, you wrote about the aforementioned Larry Summers not six days ago:
Oligarchization
Steve Sailer
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
isteve.blogspot.com
Warsh writes: ...And yet it did happen – a story straight out of a Tom Clancy novel. EP readers don’t need to be reminded of how Summers’ protégé, Andrei Shleifer, was hired by the US Agency for International Development to head a Harvard mission to provide advice to the Russian government of Boris Yeltsin, but quietly went into business for himself in violation of his contract, got caught and fired, but retained the sympathy and protection of his mentor, even as Summers served as Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard. A US District Court judge ultimately found Shleifer and Harvard to have committed fraud. The episode has become a standard item in Russia’s anti-American lore...
I mean, seriously - I could go on and on and on in this vein for days - until you ran out of bandwidth and hard drive space to host the documentation.
Allowing these people to come within a country mile of the global financial markets is like handing the fox the keys to the hen house.
It's insanity.
I found a video that documents who the bankers really are.
Bernard Madoff (Rikers Island)----LOL
Impressive work Steve
You listed Richard Fuld as being Jewish. This is not true. His name is Richard Fuld, Jr. and Jews do not names their kids "Jr.".
This is no longer a reliable rule.
Of course both Jews and Italians can have blue eyes (granted Frank's mama came from Genoa and not Sicily). And Northern Europeans can have dark brown eyes.
And with colored contact lenses even Lula could get blue eyes. (And with a sex change operation Lula could become Lulu)
This is just sooooo confusing.
---"Anonymous, I'll see your links and raise you one...
http://www.forward.com/articles/13523/
Proudly Israeli, Even With a Second Passport"---
Just to let you all know, this one seemed to go down the Orwellian memory hole.
Check it for yourself.
well, i suppose this somewhat corroborates my hypothesis that east asians, despite having high intelligence, are risk averse, and the overwhelming majority of them stick to high ROI pursuits, finance not being one of them. making big money in finance involves massive risk, and on average they don't have the stomach for that. there are some east asians in finance, but not nearly as many as their mean IQ would suggest. it seems most east asians would rather go with "slow and steady wins the race".
they are industrious, and assume the risk of building enterprise, but in their own way, growing at a slow and steady pace, insulated as much as possible from industry variation, only occassionally making bold moves.
this calculated risk is much different from the risk one takes with their life on a career in the hollywood film industry, or the NFL, hoping to start at the bottom and rise to the top through superior intelligence. almost like clockwork, you can envision the east asian parents frowning in unison at their child's choice to do that instead of studying medical books for 6 years. "This will never work out. Stick to the proven path. Become an engineer. Get the $40,000 a year entry level job."
as i pointed out previously, they are basically totally absent from professions where high intelligence is useful, but in which many of the elements of success are not something that can be learned from a book. there are many ashkenazi jews who've had great success in sports, music, and film, but few east asians. (i've talked about the defense industry before, not much reason to cover it again here, other than to note the huge, HUGE disparity in achievement between ashkenazi jews and east asians in yet another high IQ field.)
the first asian head coach of any type in the NBA is eric spoelstra, the 38 year old half white half filipino guy who is in his first year as the miami heat head coach. he was willing to risk his career on becoming nothing more than the video guy for a basketball team. 10 years later, he had risen to head coach.
despite east asians outnumbering ashkenazi jews something like 100 to 1, i'm not expecting them to reproduce the success of jewish sports coaches, jewish musicians, or jewish directors in film. it could happen, no specific barrier preventing it. but it seems that most of the guys who might be able to do it, would rather not take the chance. i suppose we can go on and on all day and night about how much smarter east asian men are than the 32 NFL and 117 NCAA coaches and coordinators who are paid millions of dollars to win football games, the most popular sport in the most powerful, most wealthy nation. you certainly don't have to have been a player yourself, only an interest in making over a million dollars a year to out draft and out scheme the other guy. so until lots of east asians step up, the ways jews like marv levy stepped up, it's not much different than the rest of the babbling that goes on here about how the east asians are "obviously smarter" and could have been exploring space a century before europeans, if they had been interested in such mundane things.
According to the YNet article Obama mulls naming Jewish economist secretary of treasury
Born to a Jewish family in New Jersey in 1927, Volcker attended Princeton University, Harvard and the London School of Economics. In January of 2008, he endorsed Barack Obama's presidency bid and was his closest financial adviser.
This isn't too surprising because he looks very Jewish.
The Wikipedia article dances around his ethnicity by never mentioning his Jewish origin and only stating:
As a child, Volcker attended his mother's Lutheran church, while his father went to his Episcopal church.
Notice that YNet still considers Volker to be Jewish in spite of his attending Christian churches during childhood.
---"And here is Paulson's background:
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com
"As far as I can tell, the Paulson's were Jewish jewelers [in Chicago & Palm Beach] who appear to have married Goyish wives [Gallauer ??? & Merritt].---"
Lucius,
Wow, what an article you posted! For someone as obviously gifted as you in the research dept. should read his sources a bit more carefully:
Nowhere does it say in the genealogy link which you provided that the early Paulson clan were Jews.
Coming from a family of jewelers and having 'strong ties' to the Democrat party does not make one a anymore a Jew than
someone growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut who went to Andover or Phillips Exeter; or even membership in 'Skull & Bones' doth make one a WASP.
And if one has strong ties to the Republicons I guess that must be a real clue into WASPness too, right?
C'mon, the neoCON g-dfathers, the Kristols' and the Podhoretz', not only have 'strong ties' to the Republicrud party: they virtually control it ideologically.
Believe me, I am not attacking ya man, just that it gets a little, nay, a lot silly, to think that virtually EVERY nefarious person in the government of "our" country, Mystery Babylon, must be a Chosenite.
Ever hear of the term Shabbes Goy?
As a matter of fact, this makes the Paulsons of this world far worse than even their f-ckups and their overall job incompetence would betray:
Worst of all this makes them TRAITORS!
@Anonymous said:
You listed Richard Fuld as being Jewish. This is not true. His name is Richard Fuld, Jr. and Jews do not names their kids "Jr."
According to nndb.com and
answers.com, Richard Fuld IS Jewish.
This is a link to Geithner's genealogy:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~battle/celeb/geithner.htm
There is no evidence that he is Jewish from that data.
Likewise, did you bother to read the genealogy for Henry Paulson to which you linked? For example, "Haagen Paulson: b. Oct 1840 Norway; imm. 1859; m. c1865/6." There were _very_ few Jews in Norway at that time. I didn't realize that being a jeweler required Jewish ancestry.
You made no mention of Bear Stearns and the various tribal members who ran things, including Jimmy Cayne, Allen Schwartz and Joe Lewis. These guys were at ground zero of this debacle/heist.
Also, Jun is correct. A jew is still a Jew, whether raised as one or not, so Geithner and Paulson belong with the other Chosen Ones.
Fuld is definitely a Jew despite what Anonymous says.
Dimon is an interesting case. The name sure looks like an anglicized 'Diamond', but he claims Greek. Wikipedia says his grandfather was a Greek immigrant from Turkey (could he be a Domne?!!!) His early mentor was Sandy Weill (would he mentor a goy?) but was fired by Weill at Citigroup because he wouldn't promote Weill's daughter. Not sure what to make of Dimon.
Anonymous: Believe me, I am not attacking ya man, just that it gets a little, nay, a lot silly, to think that virtually EVERY nefarious person in the government of "our" country, Mystery Babylon, must be a Chosenite.
Dude, did you think I didn't run these Google searches before I posted that?
paulson temple beth: 11,300 hits
paulson beth israel: 15,500 hits
Give me just a little credit here.
It's interesting that the Ynet article claims Paul Volcker was born to a Jewish family given this information in the wiki entry:
"As a child, Volcker attended his mother's Lutheran church, while his father went to his Episcopal church." Without additional information, it's not certain that Volcker is Jewish either by ancestry or religion.
Re: "Also, Jun is correct. A jew is still a Jew, whether raised as one or not"
To a WN on racial grounds or a strictly orthodox Jew on the basis of Jewish law, I suppose that's true. But viewed from the perspective of the apostates, some ethnic Jews converted out of the faith or were raised outside of the faith by converted parents to avoid stigma and persecution. Some of these folks weren't at all eager to associate themselves with anything Jewish. That dovetails with much of the angst over intermarriage in Jewish circles, i.e. that intermarriage represents a desire to escape Judaism. That may have been the case with more intermarried Jews in the past but is still true of a segment of them.
Steve Sailer: Hank Greenberg (AIG)... Joe Cassano (AIG Financial Products)
If someone wanted to undertake a really interesting project, then they could try to calculate AIG's CDS exposures both before and after Eliot "Slam Bam Thank You Ma'am" Spitzer decided to frog march Hank Greenberg out of AIG.
Apparently Spitzer & the DEMs threw the book at Greenberg because he was making so many donations to the GOP [what with him having witnessed Dachau and all].
it's not much different than the rest of the babbling that goes on here about how the east asians are "obviously smarter" and could have been exploring space a century before europeans, if they had been interested in such mundane things.
Le Griffe is referenced on this website on a regular basis. If you had any reading comprehension, jody, you would have absorbed the specific reason that Asian high IQ is not the worldbeater (tragically sabotaged by risk aversion!? nope) you believe it to be.
But don't bother comprehending this comment either. Just keep obsessing over why China hasn't always ruled the world, and why China won't always rule the world in the future. The reason must be your idiotic Asian Risk Aversion Theory. Yes. Keep telling yourself that until the end of time.
"---Dude, did you think I didn't run these Google searches before I posted that?---"
None of the links whatsoever say that Paulson, or his tribal lineage, is Jewish.
And frankly, it really isn't super important.
It is CLEARLY well-established that the 'General Staff' if you will, the 'officer corps' of high finance is Jewish;
it is also clearly well-established that there are plenty of greedy, avaricious status-seeking & supplicating 'Goys' willing to 'work' for them and do their bidding.
All the links you provided demonstrate just that Hank 'the skank' showed up to a few Zionist/Jewish 'prayer' dinners or some kind of Israel-First-and-Last function at a Temple or something.
Not very uncommon for a member of the "American' 'elite" wishing to keep their job. Just ask any Congress'man' or Senator. Look at the last major AIPAC meeting; you'd think they were holding an emergency session of Congress at their headquarters!
No, don't get fanatical with this "even the Pope is Jewish" tripe. It is even likely to be a 'Zionist tactic', if you will, to discredit legitimate discourse and dialogue.
Again, Paulson and his types are 'Jethrite' social climbers, like almost 88.5% of "our" Congress'men',
or, more aptly, Congress'boys';
or, even more simplified:
HOUSE GOYS.
Lucious,
I'm not seeing much of anything in those links of yours that suggests that Hank Paulson is Jewish.
To add to Jody's observation. I notice one high risk area that East Asians seem to excel in is fashion design. Among the young notable designers, many of them are Chinese guys who look like they otherwise would have gone into an electrical engineering program.
"The reason must be your idiotic Asian Risk Aversion Theory. Yes. Keep telling yourself that until the end of time."
Chill out. I don't think he or she is East Asian.
Why is Jody's theory so implausible? (You seem rather hostile to the possibility. Could it be for ethnocentric reasons?)
Lucious, I'm not seeing much of anything in those links of yours that suggests that Hank Paulson is Jewish.
Lucius assumes that being in the jewelry business = Jew.
Irrelevant anyway. It's OK for Maureen Dowd to point out a supposed blue-eyed link to the financial meltdown, but she would not be allowed to mention the J word, as in "30-40-60% of the folks most responsible for the meltdown are J's.".
Your list mentions names connected with the meltdown without actually focusing on the people (and ethnicities) of those who acually caused it. You left out the Jewish Sandlers, for instance, whose Golden West Financial sank Washington Mutual. The Sandlers' impeccably timed sale of Golden West, combined with their well-timed sale of the WaMu stock they got for selling Golden West, suggests that they knew full well what they were getting rid of. Yet their hard-left credentials (ACLU, Human Rights Watch, ACORN, Center for American Progress) have prevented them from catching much media scrutiny.
What's interesting is how establishment figures, Jewish or not (I am not blaming it on the J's) who have solid PC, multiculti creds when things are going groovy suddenly morph, in the media's presentation, into die-hard, trickle down, paleoconservatives when the going gets tough. I'll bet not one of the 40 people most responsible for this mess is in favor of immigration enforcement, for example. I'll bet not one is opposed to affirmative action. I'll bet not one is opposed to CRA. (For that matter, I'll bet not one is pro-life.) But that's how they'll all be presented in the press - as die-hard, trickle down conservatives. Thus the real problem we have is that the people who are supposed to fix the mess have the same flawed, multiculti worldview as the people who caused it. It's not the eyes they see the world with that matters, but the way they see the world - and that vision is pure open-borders Davos Man.
Maybe Steve should require a minimum IQ level before some people post on these boards. They find a "Jew" everywere and anywere. Henry Paulson is of Norwegian background. Norwegian names have a large number of them that end in "sen". Many Scandanavian immigrants changed the "sen" to "son" to fit more into America. Jamie Dimon is of Greek ancestry and people assumed it was anglicized from "Diamond". I bet it was changed from something like, "Dimonopolous". Many Greek-Americans have last names that end in the letter "n". This happens as they did not anglocize their names but chop off the end of their names, just like Jennifer Anaston and Susan Anton. Timothy Geitherner is of German Protestant background. His wife is Israeli. But ipso facto, that m akes him a "Jew" also. As far as Paul Volker, if his parents were Jews who converted to otehr faiths it is unheard of even today, that the parents convert to different faiths. Many Jewish men back then convert to become and Episcopalian as it was Upper Crust WASP faith. I bet his mother was not Jewish. As far as some guy linking a site that says Richard Fuld is Jewish, this is a case of "assumption". I bet alot of people assume, Joy Behar, Jason Biggs, Ringo Star, Peter Ustinov, Lawrence Eagleburger are also Jewish even though they are not. Like I said Steve, minumum IQ level please.
Not bad Jody.
Although I would disagree. I don't feel that Asian under representation in fields such as athletics, high finance and sports has to do with being risk adverse.
When I lived in Los Angeles, I used to work at one of the city casinos. Being Los Angeles, it was a mixed race clientel but I would say that 50% of the gamblers were Asian, many of the dealers/ employees spoke Mandarin and/or Cantonese to take advantage of this and tour busses, basically straight from the airport would show up at all hours. What was remarkable about this to me is that the casino was in COMPTON and this was back when it was still almost all black! Seeing market owners from Taiwan sitting next to pimps on a Twenty-One table took a while to get used to.
IMO, Asians do not go into the aforementioned careers because they take a certain level of chest-thumping display of confidence and that just is not the Asian way. Football coaches, venture capitalists and movie actors/directors do not get where they are without proving that they are the Big Swinging Dick.
rather with these fields attracting
Steve Sailer: I'm not seeing much of anything in those links of yours that suggests that Hank Paulson is Jewish.
1) Until a few weeks ago, Paulson's Wikipedia entry asserted that he was the son of a Jewish jeweler.
2) His father was a jeweler in Palm Beach Florida and his grandfather was a [wholesale] jeweler in Chicago.
3) PAULSON IS A JEWISH NAME:
Temple Beth Am, Seattle, WA... Just Congregations Leadership Group: Allan PAULSON, Diane Baer, Paul Kasprzyk, Susan Picard, Tom Buchanan, Steve Krafchik, Rob Stern...
'Where have all the men gone?'; As the role of women increases in Judaism, questions swirl about a gender imbalance; By Michael PAULSON... Boston Globe
Creative Arts Temple Talk... Sherman Oaks, CA... March Birthdays... Daniel PAULSON
Congregation Beth Israel... Austin, Texas... What is Rosh Chodesh?... For more information, please contact Susan Rae PAULSON
The Chronicle... North Central Florida’s Jewish Community Newspaper... Chanukah gift bags were assembled by Mary PAULSON, Nadine Schatz and Linda Dassa...
ETC ETC ETC
Now whether Hank Paulson himself is an atheist, or an agnostic, or believes that Jesus is the Messiah, or believes that Jesus is NOT the Messiah but that God did make a covenant with Abraham and that God did speak through the burning bush to Moses, or whether Hank Paulson subscribes to any other of myriad possible beliefs and/or belief systems - I know not.
But it's pretty darned obvious to me that Paulson came from Jewish stock and is a card-carrying member of the cabal.
PS: Please take the time to read the Prowler items I posted above.
Israelis getting passports for every place on the globe is explained in a book that I imagine is a favorite here - Sociobiology, by Wilson. The reason it won't be able to go on forever is explained in another favorite, The Selfish Gene, by Dawkins. Not that you'll see any mention of them by name. You just have to understand the biological paradigm, and apply where warranted.
When Flynn examined extensive amounts of IQ data on the children of pre-1965 middle-class Chinese-American and Japanese-American immigrants, he found they consistenly scored at about the white mean. No higher and perhaps even slightly lower. Their academic achievement though was superb, which he credited to strong study habits and a high pressure home environment. He found their IQs underpredicted their college attainment.
He also concluded that Asian IQs tend to be a raised a few points due to the rigorous, intellectually stimulating home environments that their demanding parents create. So while the descendants of middle-class Asian laborers didn't enjoy an IQ boost because their home environments weren't particularly stimulating (due to their own parents' lack of education), their children grew up with the rigorous environments that their educated parents created and a small IQ boost. In Asia, where the intellectual/academic climate is even tougher, IQs are even higher.
Furthermore, to the extent that Asians (Chinese, Japanese) outearn whites, it's due to their superior educational attainment. Once education is adjusted for, native born Chinese and Japanese earn no more (or perhaps even slightly less) than whites. Overseas Asians in Japan and Taiwan academically do quite well on international tests, but economically do not outperform Westerners either.
It seems that Asians and whites are for the most part comparable in human/success capital, but Asians exceed whites quite a bit on the metrics of studiousness and education (though IQ is not responsible for this). Therefore, they will do better in any field that has a high threshold for education and book-learned expertise.
The two major Asian players on Wall Street are a Chinese-American statistician and an Indian-American CEO who previously was a finance professor. If we take into account that Chinese and Indians combined are 2% of the nation's population and are really recent immigrant groups (meaning they haven't had much time to climb into Wall Street), they really overrepresented at the top.
Both these Asian guys have extensive specialized knowledge/expertise in their own respective fields, which they obtained through years of diligent study and education. Once again, we see that education and study provide Asians a competitive advantage.
Steve, Neel Kaskhari is 2nd generation Indian-American. Perhaps you could add him to your list. If we do add him, it's interesting to note that the largest non-white group on Wall Street will be Indians.
Lots of the quants on Wall Street are Indian too.
Lucius,
Are you Jewish by any chance?
Just wondering.
"When Flynn examined extensive amounts of IQ data on the children of pre-1965 middle-class Chinese-American and Japanese-American immigrants, he found they consistenly scored at about the white mean. No higher and perhaps even slightly lower"
I think the optimal part of that is "pre-1965". Referencing an era when GM was the most powerful corporation in the world to prove a point about modern-day performance might not be the way to go, sport.
"Truth", the Flynn effect also works with pre-1965 data. I suppose you don't think the Flynn effect is real either then.
PAULSON IS A JEWISH NAME
There are several Jews with my surname, but that does not make it Jewish. Between intermarriages and name changes there are apt to be a few people named Paulson or Paulsen who are Jews. The ones I've known, though, weren't. It's a common Scandinavian name.
Great post by Anonymous 03/30/09 with all of the links to the stories about the various Jews who have been busted for white-collar crimes.
Someone here already mentioned the Sandlers (Herb and Marion) of Golden West Financial, who were instrumental in the downfall of Wachovia (one of America's largest banks) and its sale to Wells Fargo, itself which was massively expanded by German-American Jews, including the Schiffs and Warburgs (who also helped to set up the Federal Reserve).
Lately there have been many Jewish "mini Madoffs" popping up; see: http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/09/1003564/mini-madoffs-facing-federal-fraud-raps
Also no mention of Marc Dreier, a Jewish lawyer accused of a massive amount of fraud: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dreier
Even Allen Stanford, who is decidedly non-Jewish, donated majorly to Jewish charities - http://www.jewishboca.org/index.php?src=news&refno=654&category=Womens%20Division&PHPSESSID=a - which seems to be a prerequisite to being accepted in to high-finance circles.
The famous rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote an article in December declaring that "Rancid materialism is corrupting our [Jewish] community" - http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1228728209076&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull - saying: "The Jewish community better get serious about the cancer that's growing inside it. The devastation on Wall Street carries a lot of Jewish names, from firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers to individuals such as Bernard Madoff, whose $50 billion Ponzi scheme collapsed over the weekend, and lawyer Marc Dreier, arrested last week for defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. On the Internet more and more people who don't like us are beginning to connect the dots, pointing out that there are an awful lot of Jews who bear responsibility for Wall Street's fall."
The fact is that Jews are disproportionately white-collar criminals; just a quick glance at the Wikipedia entry for American white-collar criminals confirms that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_white-collar_criminals
Jews as a disproportionate number of white-collar criminals has been noted in MANY countries and is a major reason for their persecution in a number of countries, especially Russia and throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, the UK, France, and so on.
The list here, in Steve's post, and elsewhere barely scratches the surface - but if you look in to this subject deeply you will find a disturbingly large number of Jewish names therein.
shorter jody: asians aren't *really* smart because they don't coach the robbers and rapists in the NBA and NFL!
HAHAHAHAHA. Excuse me while I die laughing.
Of course, the *real* lesson of the financial crisis is that the Chinese are the only ones laughing all the way to the bank. Their economy is "only" growing at 6.5% this year. Forget about Europe, they're done...it's just the G2 now:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article5993143.ece?openComment=true
And soon there will only be one.
The US is very soon going to be a hollowed out country ala Russia 1991. We'll have nukes, just like they did. And just as they had vodka to dull the sins, we'll damn sure have the overpaid criminals in the NBA for jody to idolize.
But we won't be very smart. Or wealthy. Or sophisticated. Or interested in the books that jody so disdains.
Is the "Russian" mob any more "Russian" than the Russian Revolution was...?
--------------------------
Russian Mafia in bed with Wall Street, CEO says
By: Dan Treasure
Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: News
Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com, discusses the shady underpinnings of
Media Credit: Aaron Schwendiman
Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com, discusses the shady underpinnings of "naked short selling."
Every day, thousands of Americans look to invest their money in stocks, and many of them go through brokers and traders to simplify the process.
Unfortunately, according to Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, a majority of those purchasers will be victims of Wall Street's criminal tactics and will help line the pockets of corrupt brokers and lawyers. Byrne, a Utahn who founded Overstock.com, talked to a crowd in the Union on Monday about how New York financial media and law firms have teamed up with big-wig business elites to create massive amounts of profit at the cost of American consumers........
http://www.dailyutahchronicle.com/news/russian-mafia-in-bed-with-wall-street-ceo-says-1.342694
""Truth", the Flynn effect also works with pre-1965 data. I suppose you don't think the Flynn effect is real either then."
I do think the Flynn effect is real. If you'll re-read the original post, it is obvious that the author of it doesn't.
Why would Paul-son be considered a Jewish name when John-son and Jack-son aren't?
Jews as a disproportionate number of white-collar criminals has been noted in MANY countries and is a major reason for their persecution in a number of countries, especially Russia and throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, the UK, France, and so on.
I don't know whether this is true or not (though it was certainly true in post-Communist Russia) but it strikes me that while we often assume that the major reason for the decline in anti-Semitism is the aftermath of the holocaust, another major reason is the growth of the faceless multinational. It used to be when you dealt with a business (especially a lender) that you weren't more than a few steps removed from the guy at the top. Now you may be several dozen steps removed. Most borrowers haven't the faintest idea who the CEO or the major stockholders are at Lender XYZ.
"The US is very soon going to be a hollowed out country ala Russia 1991. We'll have nukes, just like they did. And just as they had vodka to dull the sins, we'll damn sure have the overpaid criminals in the NBA for jody to idolize. "
Maybe Americans should hire Vladimir Putin to put America back on track again. Or make Ron Paul dictator for 10 years.
Volcker and Geithner are German gentiles. Paulson is Norwegian (and a Christian Scientist who used to work in the White House for Erlichman and Haldeman who were both CS). Dimon is Greek (originally Papademetriou). Fuld is Jewish. Any more questions?
Centro in August reported a narrower fiscal full-year loss after writedowns on its properties shrank. The shortfall was A$652.7 million in the 12 months ended June 30, compared with a loss of A$3.5 billion a year earlier. Centro wrote down A$487.9 million on its properties, down from A$2.7 billion a year earlier
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