Single men traded less sensibly than married men, and married men traded less sensibly than single women: the less the female presence, the less rational the approach to trading in the markets. What they found, in a nutshell, is that men not only trade more often than women but do so from a false faith in their own financial judgment. Everyone knows everyone else, but when I ask Icelanders for leads, the men always refer me to other men, and the women to other women.īack in 2001, as the Internet boom turned into a bust, M.I.T.âs Quarterly Journal of Economics published an intriguing paper called âBoys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment.â The authors, Brad Barber and Terrance Odean, gained access to the trading activity in over 35,000 households, and used it to compare the habits of men and women. The Independence Party is mostly male the Social Democrats, mostly female. They donât play together but in parallel they overlap even less organically than men and women in other developed countries, which is really saying something. Watching Icelandic men and women together is like watching toddlers. The male exhibits the global male tendency not to talk to the femalesâor, rather, not to include them in the conversationâunless there is some obvious sexual motive. ".Itâs not hard to see why the Independence Party and its prime minister fail to appeal to Icelandic women: they are the guy driving his family around in search of some familiar landmark and refusing, over his wifeâs complaints, to stop and ask directions.įor the fifth time in as many days I note a slight tension at any table where Icelandic men and Icelandic women are both present. Iceland was the PERFECT demonstration site for this, given how well their genetics are characterized and how exceedingly clear their financial condition is right now.ĭon't let this company go broke. It's obvious what to do - keep the finance industry in the hands of those who are genetically protected against the extremes of financial madness and risk blindness. Given this company's work, it's now possible to see how we need to regulate the financial markets of the world to deny those with a genetic susceptibility to speculation beyond the dreams of avarice. Bankruptcy Code.Waitaminnit - aren't they in a position RIGHT NOW to clearly demonstrate that we understand the genetic basis of financial nitwittery? The assets, which includes the Islensk Erfdagreining unit that runs Decode’s giant DNA biobank and its drug discovery and development programs, will be sold off under section 363 of the U.S. The sale, subject to court approval, must first go through an auction process. ĭecode has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and has struck a deal to sell its Iceland-based subsidiary to Saga Investments LLC, comprising a group of investors that includes some of its original venture capital backers. Many other genomics companies have fallen by the wayside over the years, though one - Human Genome Sciences Inc HGSI.O - may finally be set to hit the jackpot after developing the first new drug for lupus in 50 years. But when we were halfway through development of our first compound, the market lost patience with long-term investment like that,” Stefansson said. “At the the time we started out there was very substantial support for long-term investment by biotech companies. It follow the collapse in April of attempts to sell Iceland’s Actavis, one of the world’s biggest generic drugmakers, adding to the problems facing an economy already slammed by the global financial crisis.ĭespite the bankruptcy filing, Decode Chief Executive Kari Stefansson - a tall, bearded figure whose own Viking ancestry is clear - insists the science behind his company will live on. auction-rate securities, the market for which seized up during the credit crisis.ĭecode’s fall is the second setback this year for the once high-flying Icelandic drugs sector. But its drug development programs stalled and the company’s DNA tests for diseases have not brought in much cash.Ī final blow came last year after company funds managed by Lehman Brothers were invested in U.S. Its scientists have published prolifically on genetic mutations linked to schizophrenia, cancer and other diseases. Decode blazed a trail in personal genomics by trawling Iceland’s unique genetic heritage, which has changed little since the Vikings arrived more than 1,000 years ago, to work out the links between genes and common diseases.
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