The FBI has tasked agents from its Behavioral Analysis Unit with profiling the tics and traits of a Wall Street fraudster, according to Reuters.
As is pointed out a number of times in the article, this is a difficult task, since what makes people good at business might coincide with the things that make them good at white collar crime. The FBI is using studies in pattern recognition and “victimology” – which, as the report notes, usually boils down to very well-educated people becoming blinded by greed and making very stupid decisions in the hopes of securing outsized returns on their investments. So whenever you see a bunch of people like that… run?
The article doesn’t specify whether any of the people whose questionable behavior was condemned in last week’s senate report on the financial crisis will have their behaviors analyzed, but somehow we guess not.
