Michael Lewis wants women to rule Wall Street. I would like to take his thesis about a million steps further.

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Michael Lewis has Eight Things I Wish for Wall Street. Blogger Jason Kottke highlighted #2 on his blog: 

2. No person under the age of 35 will be allowed to work on Wall Street.

I like this one a lot, but I like #3 even better:

3. Women will henceforth make all Wall Street trading decisions.

Men are more prone to financial risk-taking, and overconfidence, and so will be banned from even secondary roles on Wall Street trading desks -- though they will be permitted to do whatever damage they would like in their private investment accounts. Trading is a bit like pornography: Women may like it, but they don't like it nearly as much as men, and they certainly don't like it in ways that create difficulties for society. Put them in charge of all financial decision-making and the decisions will be more boring, but more sociable. Of course, this raises a practical question: How will our society find enough women older than 35, with no special intellectual ability, to fill all of Wall Street's trading jobs? Well ...

I would like to take it one step further. Or a million steps further. 

I believe that the world would be a far better place if women were in charge. Therefore, I would support the immediate replacement of all male members of the House of Representatives and the Senate with women. 

I’d do the same with every state governor, and if I could, every mayor as well.

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I would also support the immediate replacement of the all of the male CEOs of all of the Fortune 500 companies with women.

I routinely charge my female students with the task of charging forward and taking over the world. I tell them that I will be disappointed if women are not ruling this country, if not the world, by the time I am a spry 100 years old. 

I suspect that Michael Lewis would agree.

The demographics of the Republican Party are astounding.

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There are currently 278 Republicans in both the House and Senate.

Every single one of them is a Christian.

Just 23 are women.

There is one African-American. That African-American, Tim Scott of South Carolina, was not elected. He was appointed to fill a vacant seat by the state’s governor.   

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In fact, the only black Republicans to Congress since 1900 have been Oscar De Priest of Illinois, Gary Franks of Connecticut, Tim Scott of South Carolina, J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, and Allen West of Florida.

Five black Republicans have been elected to Congress in the past in 114 years.

I had no idea.

I am not a Republican, but if the Republicans hope to have any influence over the political system in a near future where whites are no longer in the majority and the country is vastly more diverse, they will need to find a way to elect non-white, more religiously diverse members to Congress.

They need to find a way to do so today. While the Democrats demographics are not exactly admirable, of the 255 Democrats currently in Congress:

  • 101 are women
  • 43 are African Americans
  • 36 are non-Christians

Nothing to brag about, but also not appalling.

I still can’t believe these numbers.