Who Knew?

Iris Mack, thats who.

So, back in 2002 this Harvard trained mathematician spotted the variety of derivatives (the very same derivatives most claim are responsible for bringing our economy to its knees) in use in the Harvard endowment fund and questioned them. And how was she rewarded?

By getting fired! Of course!

Wait, it gets a smidge better:

Who had she turned to with her concerns that led to her getting fired?
Larry "Women just don't understand science" Summers!
To finish connecting the dots, Larry is currently the White House Director of Economic Council and works with Geithner to fix our economy.

I'll summarize, eliminating my contrived questioning method above:
1.) Iris Mack graduated with a PhD in Mathematics from Harvard.
2.) A handful of months later, she accepted a position with the Harvard endowment.
3.) Within her first six months, she was positively agape at the policies and procedures in use there. It seems they were using complex derivatives that no one truly understood, in spite of the mountains of cash they were investing in them.
4.) So, she approached the guy in charge, Larry Summers, and patiently explained to Larry that if no one knew what it meant, they probably shouldn't be throwing cash at it like its going out of style. Maybe a little research first? Once we know what we are doing, maybe then we can throw all of our eggs in that basket, but until then it makes me a bit queasy. OH, and PLEASE don't expose me as being the one that raised these concerns.
5.) Larry, in turn, went straight to Iris' manager and told him to fix it.
6.) The manager fixed it by firing Iris within a few weeks of her initial report to Larry.
7.) Larry has since made a shit-tonne of money off of speaking engagements, at least occasionally explaining to all of the super-smart men that while indeed they are cute and fun to hump, women couldn't possibly understand all of the complex scientific things we menfolk know.
Many of these speaking engagements have been at organizations who are now dependent on TARP funds. In fact, he continued to speak at organizations who paid him WITH tarp funds after they had been bailed out.

As a reward for being both ignorant of the forces behind our economy's downfall and a plain ol' ignorant fool, he has been appointed as the chief economic adviser in the White House.

Find the details and some actual reporting about this story at the Boston Globe:
Ex-employee says she warned Harvard of risky moves

I don't know about you, but my confidence in the system has been strengthened. I just LOVE that they have all the same people that caused, or at least ignored this mess in positions to get us out of this mess...
Wait, wait, here's a better outro:
Giving ignorance a seat at the head of the table...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

(I wonder if Larry ever admitted that black people, like women, just aren't able to comprehend science... Not that he would admit it on tape, but I wonder... (I can just picture him laughing off the concerns of the black female that approached him as a quaint result of affirmative action))