Shia LaBeouf Infected With Wall Street Disease: Gary Weiss

Aside from the three ailments I've described above, here are some others that warrant inclusion in DSM-V:

Chamber Pot Disorder. This disease strikes without warning, leaving behind a trail of weeping publicists. Its poster child is John Thain. When he became CEO of Merrill Lynch (before the infamous takeover by Bank of America(BAC)), Thain was feted as the Abraham Lincoln of Wall Street. A simple man, a Jimmy Stewart character come to life. An honest man. A smart man. Thain the Brain told everyone who would listen (including me) that he had Merrill's subprime mortgage exposure in the hollow of his manly hand. While he was feeding the public that line of bunk, this simple log-splitter from Goldman Sachs (GS) was flitting around showrooms on Madison Avenue, picking out a $35,000 commode as part of a $1.2 million ensemble of simply darling decorations for his log-cabin-like office. Chamber Pot Disorder does not necessarily imply the victim thereof is guilty of anything untoward -- Steve Schwarzman threw himself a fabulous birthday party in 2007 and was subsequently found guilty of only bad taste. But it can be symptomatic of a more debilitating underlying illness.

The Gimmes. This can run concurrently with Chamber Pot Disorder, as it did with Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco International and $15,000 umbrella stand fame. Apart from his other ailments, such as Toxic Bonus Syndrome, he had a raging case of The Gimmes when he sent out word from prison that he wanted tens of millions of dollars from his retirement account. The Gimmes can spread unchecked among vulnerable populations, as occurred in 2008 when the largest banks collectively came down with the disorder and flocked to the Fed window and the TARP program.

Dick Grasso Hubursitis. When Shia LaBeouf was in high school, Dick Grasso was showing how easy it is to ruin the reputation of an arrogant and annoying Wall Street institution by simply being--well, arrogant and annoying. Before Grasso was nailed in 2003 for accepting a $140 million compensation package, the New York Stock Exchange (NXT) floor brokers acted like kids in a candy store with the owner locked in the basement. Grasso's compensation focused attention on this wayward institution, giving rise to the famous disease that bears his name. More recently, the best-known victim of Dick Grasso Hubursitis has been Goldman Sachs. It was one thing when Goldman listed the Treasury Department in its SEC filings as a wholly owned subsidiary. But it was plain this disease was to blame when Lloyd Blankfein said Goldman was carrying out "God's work."

Salaryic Acromegaly. This disease is characterized by a peculiar form of gigantism, caused by an inflammation of the salary-control mechanism of the left brain. An overflow of gall--including the dread mutation unmitigatedus gallus--is reported in many cases. In 2009 an epidemic of this nauseating disorder was reported, as . traders in the leading firms raked in $140 billion, thanks to the taxpayer-funded bailout that preserved their jobs while impoverishing the nation.

Other Wall Street diseases will be the subjects of future columns, as my medical inquiry continues. Some of the people I'll be writing about are sick, others merely sickening. Watch this space.

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