Invasion of the money honeys

Ben Stein, who writes a weekly economics column in The New York Times, writes in the latest issue of Best Life magazine about how business journalism has suddenly become the domain of good-looking women, at least on TV.

He has five theories as to why that’s happened.

Stein wrote, “Think of clerks in Dickensian counting houses, and you are not far off the mark. Business is largely about counting shekels and adding them up and moving them from one pile to another. Wall Street is largely about entering trades and adding up gains and losses. It’s exciting how much money can be made, of that there is no doubt. But unless you have skin in the game and are on the edge of your seat with fear and greed, the actual process is a bit mind-numbing.

“There’s a reason economics has been known for centuries as the dismal science. It’s not exactly skydiving or climbing the Andes. If you really love Wall Street, well, you probably thought statistics and algebra II were fascinating. But throw in mouth­wateringly good-looking women, and then it’s a whole different story. Jenna Lee could be reporting about dishwashing liquid and it would be mesmerizing. As Don Henley sang, ‘She can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye.’

“The beautiful women can spice up the closing commodity prices or the spread between Treasury yields and junk-bond yields simply because they are beautiful fantasy material. You imagine them talking about money while they spread out their hair on the pillow next to you. They counter all of that boredom and routine with the thing we humans like to counter it with: thoughts of sex.”

Read more here.