Television viewers accustomed to watching stockbrokers in action on their screens have long suspected that these are people with severe personality disorders, people who exercise their crude mixture of special talent and gambling compulsion in a morality-free zone and couldn’t care less about the consequences for the rest of the world. The idea that such people may soon find themselves, if not in prison, then at least in a soup kitchen provides satisfaction to many a German who in recent years has had to bear the contempt of clever financial advisers looking down upon him as a timorous fool for passing up the chance to let his money really work for him.

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