Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Talk To The Hand.......

Ever hear of 2d4d Ratio?

No?

This is the ratio of the length of your index finger to that of your ring finger.

Apparently, around 18 weeks of pregnancy a higher level of testosterone in the womb results in longer ring fingers.

There is an insane amount of chatter about this. It is used as a test of sexual preference, as in:

Finger-Length Ratios in Female Monozygotic Twins Discordant for Sexual Orientation.

Woo-hoo. Can't wait to pick that one up on Amazon. Only 21 pounds. Money, not weight....one hopes.

Or even about good hockey teams.

Anyway....The Financial Times came out with an article studying the 2D4D ratio as it relates to the financial crisis.

No....really.

It turns out that traders on the London Stock Exchange who have a lower 2D4D ratio......longer ring fingers than index fingers.....average ELEVEN TIMES more income than those with high 2D4D ratios. Like 700,000 pounds average or something. Money, not weight.

It further turns out that these low 2D4D guys are all about fast trading. They have skills to notice minute changes in the market....and bang! they strike. They hold positions for minutes.....or sometimes only seconds. And they rake in the dough....mostly.

The study did show that these low 2D4D folk often trade so much that they dilute their gains, often in just transaction fees.

The problem is this......policy is driven by profit. Low 2D4D guys are going nuts trading on the short term.....and ignoring the long term.

Low 2D4D folk also show poor impulse control.

Women tend to have high 2D4D ratios.....as to gay people.

The differing lengths of our second and fourth digits is usually explained as relative exposure to one of two hormones while in the womb. Foetuses with more exposure to oestrogen while in their mother’s womb tend to have longer index fingers while those with more exposure to testosterone have shorter index fingers, thus resulting in a relatively longer fourth finger. Excess exposure to prenatal testosterone may also lead to a tendency towards violence and aggressiveness.

“It is believed that excess testosterone promotes the growth of the right hemisphere of the brain at the expense of the left hemisphere. This can lead to impaired reading ability, but also to enhanced mathematical and musical abilities. Unfortunately, there seem to be other, less welcome effects: excess testosterone has already been implicated in the origins of migraine, autism, stuttering, schizophrenia - and now depression, too.”

“A higher level of prenatal testosterone is said to result in a more ‘male’ brain, that is, more mathematically and systematically inclined. Also resulting from higher levels of prenatal testosterone is a lowered 2D4D ratio (ie your fourth digit is longer than your second digit). Some psychologists suspect that autism is an extreme of the male brain, i.e., no social/emotional skills but more systematic. They’ve found that the 2D4D ratio follows this theory, with autistic subjects more likely to have a lower (<1) 2D4D ratio.”

Sooooo.....we have turned our financial system over to quick-twitch, autistic, poor impulse control mostly men who live in the moment and are incapable of planning or predicting or caring about the future.

Any surprises here?

For the record.....I, and every soccer playing chef I have been able to examine....have very low 2D4D ratios.

This is why we let Amanda and Nike and Liz and Vicki and Rachelle run things......

Like the checking accounts.

And the cash.

Us low 2D4D types drive the trucks, run the tractors, cut up shit like demons and are really good with fire and steel and burning fat.

We are not so good about tomorrow.....but tomorrow may never come.

Maybe our government will catch up to the Cachagua Store.

Nah.... Probably not. They all think their crackheads are cool.........

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home