I grabbed my mackintosh last week, for a pre-dinner stroll along the Hudson River in lower Manhattan. The go-to event was a drizzly tribute to the QE2, on her swan song dance down the Hudson.

This New York harbor walk came the night after a Ferrari-owning trader explained high finance to me, over martinis at New York’s Soho Grand Hotel. FYI, our chemistry was terrible.

It’s like this, Anne. Wall Street has always been a game of musical chairs. In today’s world, someone has to lose. Forget that Ayn Rand, enlightened, greater-good argument. The Street has always been a jungle without enough stools for everybody. Each day now, another chair is pulled away. If you think anyone is thinking clearly and caring about the future of the free world, well … have another martini, my dear.”

I do remember stumbling into our Upper East Side kitchen, when my Solomon, ibanker partner was having a swig of morning vodka, preparing to face another grueling day. I said nothing, leaving the room as quietly as I came.

What if my Soho Grand guy is right? What if all my assumptions about how things work are totally wrong?

An Estrogen Mist Could Be The Street’s Financial Fix

Searching for a sense of next-day psychological security in the New York fog, I was glad my friend the QE2 was not steaming solo across the Atlantic.

Her Majesty’s gal pal on this final Atlantic Ocean crossing was another member of the Cunard royal family, the Queen Mary 2. This larger, more modern majesty stood anchored in waiting, near the Statue of Liberty.

Seeing her there brought a sense of reassuring order to my world. Tradition, reliability and duty stood tall and focused with attention in the New York Harbor.

Wiping away the evening mist on my face, I enjoyed my first laugh on a dreary, economically depressing day. The Queen Mary 2 appeared to me as a sophisticated, cultivated, reliable suitor waiting for a dance with the regal, composed, duty-driven QE2.

I could only describe them as two cruise ships going on a date. Lady bisexuals? Perhaps. It’s a major trend in female sexuality.

Seeing an ocean vessel as an impatient lover or intimate best friend, is a stretch of one’s creative imagination, but no crazier than photos of jubilant traders high-fiving on Monday and then crying in their beer two days later.

Literature implying that women have an exclusive reign over irrational, hormonal outbursts must be written and researched by men. Mars and Venus bedroom spats are one life challenge. Bringing down the global economy is another.

Perhaps the financial boy’s club is serious need of an estrogen balance?

Man Crazy

I’ll be brutally honest here. Men have treated me fabulously throughout my entrepreneurial career. In payback, no one has defended men more than have. In fact, I adore the male species to a fault, but this Wild West, swinging dick, testosterone imbalance scares the wits out of me these days.

In spite of a 24-hour financial news day in America, our masters of the universe exhibited shock, then total panic last Wednesday, with the release of September retail sales. Traders looked like deer caught in Bucks County headlights, suddenly discovering what we all know to be true. Consumers are holding back on spending.

Come on guys, this was a surprise to you?

The frenzied trading-floor photos reminded me of Jim Cramer, his proverbial arms flailing in mid-air two years ago, telling viewers to buy his numero uno favorite retail stock at $13. Eighteen months later, the stock trades at $1.18. (Update: it later hit $.56.)

As an executive consultant, I knew my client was treading water from a future revenue standpoint. Ooops, Jim.

Incidentally, I see no rational correlation between the current stock price and the value of this business either. The financial fix is as irrational and life-threatening as Cramer’s circus-ring call to buy. And men love it crazy, screaming guy with the waving arms and crow bar slamming around the TV set.

Projecting An Image of National Confidence

Reeling from this photomontage of deranged, trading-floor guys, I say, “enough is enough.” Google can do the nation a great service by taking them out of circulation. Screw the archives and need to document history.

I require a sense of stability, a dose of order, not chaos, swirling all around me. Spare me the photos as TMI.

Also, let’s have no photos of hedge fund kingpins, pondering the ocean below from the 42nd floor. These images are devastatingly bad for our national moral, offering nothing to inspire our confidence in the guys who are running the show.

Get me a Queen, please. It’s time for discipline, rigor and a stiff bustle to prop up a hurting body. Without cooperation from the captains of the Internet, it might be wise to call in the British Empire.

Helen Mirren’s Queen Elizabeth, says resolutely, after hearing the news about Princess Diana’s death: “We do things in this country quietly and with dignity.”

Returning to almost-dry land, hands on the Hudson River walkway rail, I considered the possibility that America needs our own Queen, an international consort to the Euro babes popping up everywhere on i-Phones these days.

Waiting for my favorite dame on this foggy, cold Wall Street night, she came as if on command, she came driving down the Hudon, On my command, drifting cotillion-style downriver the young-at-heart, experienced, English dowager, prepared to retire into the exotic, new world culture of Dubai.

Whatever her fears about the future, the QE2 maneuvered flawlessly in public, with her royal-pedigree, “never-let-them-see-you-sweat” demeanor. She’s my kind of girl!

Two Queens and a Dame Show Wall Street the Right Way

These two grand babes, one the old QE2, the other a young Queen Mary, greeted each other with tooting horn air kisses, before moving into perfect alignment. Meanwhile, someone struck up the band, moving all hands on deck to face the Statue of Liberty.

I experienced a strange serenity contradiction, watching these traditional, boringly stable dames locking hands on a choppy sea, while the barons of Wall Street sat a symbolic 1000 feet away, drowning in red ink.

My mind was not soggy wet in the evening rain but thinking clearly for the first time on the nation’s financial problem. Facts are facts.

There’s a lesson to be learned in this regal babe behavior.

Market Tribulations Are Mighty When Male Hormones Cloud Critical Thinking

A man’s testosterone rises dramatically under pressure, causing him to make short-term and potentially reckless decisions in stock trading. That same testosterone-level plummets end of day, explaining man’s need for the remote control and a silent wife when he walks through the door.

I’m no doctor, but this sounds like one heck of a male-brain roller-coaster ride over the course of a few hours. No wonder guys need a relaxer by 5pm.

Things may get worse.

Man’s hormonal mood swings could be further exacerbated by the flourishing distribution of porn on iPhones? The future of technology contains a lot of fresh pussy, known scientifically to cause an increasingly volatile, dopamine hit.

I have no issue with porn, but I’m not sure about it’s place in the financial markets.

Granted, computers do much of the trading, but hey — who wrote the trading programs? Not members of the British royal family.

Also, who’s minding these computers? Does anyone review their financial decisions? If the future of the universe is on technology autopilot, someone please say so.

Should Women Rule the World?

Forbes.com deputy editor of the opinions channel, Elizabeth Eaves argues: ” … there’s no reason to assume that a woman would have known better than to launch a gratuitous invasion, or that some instinct for fairness and generosity would have prevented the ladies from running Wall Street into the ground.”

Not so fast, Elizabeth.

I’m not making any argument that Dee Dee Meyers is right when she writes a book with the challenging title: “Why Women Should Rule the World”.

What harm would it do, though, to seriously review the scientific literature, in order to gain a better understanding of hormones like testosterone, estrogen and dopamine and their impact on behavior?

Gender-specific research on brains scans could also be debated, as a matter of public policy.

After decades of politically correct arguments determined to prove minimal differences between the sexes, maybe we should acknowledge the new science and harness our discoveries for the greater good of humankind.

Neither gender is holding all the cards. Together, one plus one equals three, which is a much better financial forecast than the one we’re looking at.

Personally, I want to understand the influence of testosterone spikes on financial decision-making and the future of Planet Earth. There’s no place to hide anymore from potentially life-threatening, economic realities, so let’s face the problem head on.

My Preference Is Bubbles, Not A Financial Bloodbath

The CNN Headline this minute on Friday, Oct. 23, 2008 is: “Stocks headed for a bloodbath.”

A bit of scientific research could be valuable here:

1) Women are much more cautious investors, better able to stick to trading rules and recognize the limits of their knowledge. Men, on the other hand, are much more confident, placing greater faith in their trading ability. In the end, studies have found that all-female investment clubs outperform all-male peers by 4.6%.

2) London headhunter Heather McGregor observed recently that “the UK bank that has come out of the current crisis strongest is the one that has most aggressively promoted women into positions of senior management: Lloyds TSB”.

3) When it comes to economics and business, Third World micro-loan funds like the Grameen Fund lend money almost exclusively to women-owned businesses.

4) Men in underdeveloped countries spend money on rum and whiskey, forgetting that the mortgage payment is due. This is not Anne talking, but the opinion of every global expert working in micro-loans. Most lending rules stipulate that fund money must reside in female hands.

These unworldly guys, ones who haven’t been to Harvard, forget the concept of rainy-day money, making most business decisions, based on their current need for pleasure and self-gravitation.

Back in the developed world, an Ivy League MBA supposedly eradicates this primal, macho urge to ignore the future, foraging for today’s food and a great Merlot, and to heck with the kids’ college tuition.

We’ve learned that man cannot survive on rum-drinking alone, leaving us with the man in charge image of Warren Buffet, a nurturing, responsible, provider-guy.

These days, I’m very confused about who’s my daddy.

London Calling; Midnight Sun Ice Melting

On September 30, “London Times” writer Matthew Syed suggested that Brits should feminize the City, with hopes of avoiding future financial catastrophes like this one.

Syed quoted Julia Noakes, a psychologist working with City high-achievers: “The problem in finance is that there is too much thrusting individualism and not enough femininity. A lot of women are deterred from striving for senior management positions because they don’t want to deny 50 per cent of their personalities.”

MSNBC’s writer Anthony Mirhaydari reports “the folks in Reykjavik are pointing the finger squarely at the hot-shot men that ruined that country’s financial system.”

Iceland has a $20 billion economy, yet its three largest banks maintained debts of $61 billion.

Iceland appointed two women to clean up this testosterone-fueled economic oil spill, running New Landsbanki and New Glitnir. Elín Sigfúsdóttir at Landsbanki and Birna Einarsdóttir at Glitnir are two of only three women on the combined executive teams of these banks.

The Awful Financial Regulation Word

In reality, I’ve heard very little about responsibility for the financial meltdown, perhaps for fear of making the guys feel badly.

You don’t kick a good horse, when he stumbles, or something like that. I’m not sure the country can bear seeing another magnificent racehorse like Barbaro euthanized. We Americans love winners.

UK labor law expert Michael Rubenstein is a friend of mine. Last year Mickey and I engaged in a super-charged debate on the subject of women quotas and paid pregnancy leave’s impact on small business.

Mickey defended regulation, while I argued for enlightened individualism and the progressive rewards of free markets.

Smarting painfully from our new economic reality, I threw Alan Greenspan’s audio CDs down the garbage chute 10 days ago. I’m supposedly a future thinker, anticipating yesterday’s acknowledgement by Greenspan of his flawed understanding of how our new global economic system actually works in today’s world.

Greenspan lusted for Ayn Rand as a young man, in the way that I identity with her literary heroine Dagny Taggert. Perhaps Greenspan and I are both idealists in an imperfect world, and it’s time to take stock of our ideas.

Having read “Atlas Shrugged” three times, I remain unsettled by Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, although I adore Dagny but can’t embrace the philosophy.

The laissez-faire madam joined my brain reverie in New York harbor last week, completing this anthropomorphic drama of two queens; a great dame; the movers and shakers of Wall Street; a world stage with fewer stools for testosterone-frenzied, high-finance players; and an idealist asking “what about the little people.”

“Let them eat cake” Leona just sighed from somewhere on high or low. I wouldn’t know.

Financial Lessons Learned From the British Empire

Trying to make meaning of this grandstand oracle, I just now checked the morning headlines for us.

The BBC has weighed in with their 10:22 Friday am headline: “Chaos and fear in the meltdown zone.” The Google News link to ABC’s “How Low Will They Go? Massive Stock Drops Could Trigger … ” is broken.

That’s a downright bad omen.

Donning my rose-colored glasses, I prefer the night vision of two calming, estrogen-infused Cunard cruise ships, steaming together out of New York Harbor in perfect synchronization. The two Queens were unflappable, navigating their course together into choppy waves and ocean storms.

Queens Rule!

Before the Goldman guys reinvent the American financial system in Washington, I hope science weighs in with a conclusive understanding about the relationship between hormones and financial decision-making.

The future of the world is serious business.

I’ve never been one for quotas, but we can’t ignore the fact that Europe is legislating a place for women in the boardroom and in government. Returning to Michael Rubenstein’s arguments, I find truth in his position that the laws of the marketplace don’t naturally promote women into positions of power and responsibility.

Who knows why women have failed to claim or retain significant Wall Street power stools. The numbers speak for themselves.

Should Women Really Have No Say About the Future of the Financial World?

My question is fundamentally a simple one: given the nature of this high stakes game, does it make sense that one gender is driving the decision-making bus? Does it concern anyone but me that the gender theoretically enjoying a better understanding of complex, interconnected, relationships is not even present at the intellectual table?

I’ve read the books, arguing that our 21st century world needs women’s powers of calm, rational, long-term, greater-good thinking.

Watching those two cruise ships slip into the mist, I couldn’t help asking myself: If not now, well when? I want to know when both genders will determine financial and public policy in America, and I deserve an answer.

Dedication and good work isn’t getting women where we need to be, to have a decision-making role in our own future. Assuming for one moment that it’s not all our fault: What does it take? And when will it happen?

I hate to use the word “fairness”, being a woman who has worked so well with men all these years. It just seems “not right” to me, that only one set of brain circuits is employed to solve this life-threatening, economic crisis.

I say: It’s time to bring in the girls and the self-discipline to hunker down in conference rooms, using the best brainpower around: beta, alpha and all evolutionary hybrids.

Sorry, guys; I’m no Benedict Arnold. You know I really love you, but this is serious business. We must address our national deficit in creative problem solving, perhaps throwing in an ethics discussion or two.

Is it time to re-evaluate the idea that he who has the most toys wins? What’s the bottom-line cost of such a strategy?

You have strengths, finance guys, but you also have real-world, scientifically proven shortcomings.

Gentlemen, if you want to run the show all by yourselves at the top, then disprove the science, because at the moment, you have zero credibility in your ability to do it all, at least with this babe.

Consider my idea a medicinal dose of castor oil from a good friend. You’ll thank me someday, even if you do want to puke in the morning. Come on now; it won’t be soooo bad. Anne

J’Adore: Ships Passing at Dawn: the QE2 Says Hello Before Goodbye