Garbage in garbage out

I heard a piece on NPR yesterday morning (at ~2:35) where the analyst or broker being interviewed blamed the current financial crisis on "rocket scientists in the backroom" playing with "Bunsen burners" and "test tubes." I don't think that it takes a rocket scientist to realize that the rate of increase in home prices was greater than the rate of increase in income. That is a freshman calculus problem and everyone on Wall Street should have taken that class. The entire model was unsustainable. (and very likely unstable if you looked at the second derivative.)

I am irritated that the incompetence of these people is swept under the rug by blaming the stereotype of a scientist in a backroom for the failings in the boardroom. No one questions this notion that scientists are inherently bad people. It feeds into a general intellectual phobia in this country where mental achievement is dismissed and mocked while monetary achievement is valued even if it is accompanied by ignorance and a lack of intellectual curiosity. I believe that this entire problem is due to greed and lack of discipline. Come on people this isn't rocket science.