The Brokers With Hands on Their Faces blog collects news-pictures of bankers, brokers and other finance types caught mid-face-palm. A sign of the times.

THE BROKERS WITH HANDS ON THEIR FACES BLOG (via Making Light)

See also: Sad Guys On Trading Floors

  • mr_josh

    I’m surprised to see this and the last post like it on BoingBoing. I just thought that this site didn’t like to make fun of people in pain, whether they were getting their comeuppance or not.

  • ggm

    So maybe now we can come into your homez and take pictures of you looking sad/stupified/asleep and mock you in public?

    get lives.

    if I am not totally mistaken, the floor monkeys are not millionaires. they do not get to do lines of coke in partygirl laps. they do not drive limos. they wear bad polyester daglo vests and have to wave their hands around a lot, and do shit work on their feet all day so that your 401k can earn money. Perhaps you’d rather day-trade your superannuation? I don’t think so..

    (I am sure there are fatcats. I am sure that the lack of downside consequences for decision-makers influenced where we are. I am just less sure that this ‘schadenfreude’ is actually a very useful place for boingboing to be. Now, laughing at steampunk, thats a different story…)

  • Takuan

    any traders (old style pit shriekers from years ago to current monitor monkeys) I have met or known never much impressed me with their sensitivity or deep concern for the fates of those whose money they moved. As a matter of fact, this particular item is mild as far their “humor” went. I also recollect the voices of those bottom rankers interviewed in “The Smartest Guys In The Room”. Laughing in disbelief at what they were allowed to get away with. In terms of deserving sympathy? About the same as car salesmen in a downturn.

  • takeshi

    I love this. Some of you have equated losing money with pain. Hate to tell you, but money’s not all that important. If and when the next Depression comes, I’ll be ready for it with the change I have in my pocket. Richer, less resourceful people may not be so lucky.

    I stopped playing the market years ago, because like everyone I hate losing money, but I don’t mind saying that many of these pictures are liquid-sprayed-painfully-from-the-nostrils funny. For me, it’s less about schadenfreude than a genuine interest in human behavior. Who are any of you to tell me what I can and can’t laugh at?

    You people who get so worked up over other people’s reactions… that’s the funniest part of all. Get some lives and stop worrying so much about what other people do. None of us are perfect, but we should all strive to be less indignant. What others find humorous is their own business. If you find it so reprehensible, feel free to share, but don’t expect others to go out of their way to soothe your anguish.

  • Antinous

    Hmmm. 6.5% of the comments in this thread have suggested that other commenters get a life. Happy National Hackneyed Invective Day.

  • Takuan

    never been unable to pay for your kid’s dentist?

  • mr_josh

    @#46

    “You people who get so worked up over other people’s reactions… that’s the funniest part of all. Get some lives and stop worrying so much about what other people do”

    In two sentences you get worked up about peoples’ reactions and then you tell people to stop getting worked up about reactions. If you truly bought in to that ideal, wouldn’t you have not posted, and probably not read the comments in the first place?

  • Modusoperandi

    1. Comment about how worked up I get seeing other peoples’ reactions.
    2. Comments about my reaction to comment about getting worked up about other peoples’ reactions being that those people should not get worked up and that they should get the life that I clearly lack myself.
    3. Pointing out that this has happened before and will happen again.
    4. Finance-centric pun about that woman’s chest.
    5. Unicorn chaser?

  • DandelionRex

    See also:

    ohnomymoneys.blogspot.com
    ohyesmymoneys.blogspot.com

  • timquinn

    And no one here questions the interpretation of these pictures? I thought BB commenters were smart and skeptical?

    These pics could have been taken any day in the last five years.

    23!

  • TEKNA2007

    “that woman needs a bra on.”

    …It’s obvious that the stocks weren’t the only thing that sank.

    Commodities sure aren’t looking as firm as they used to these days.

    She could buy you all!

    Well, two weeks ago she could have.

  • ivoras

    The sad thing is that, even if these people here learned something, anything from what’s happened, in 30-50 years the new generation will fire them as “old whiners not prepared to take a risk” and everything will happen again. Any legislature that might result from this event will be repelled, people will get careless again and the market will crash again.

    Actually, it’s kind of optimistic, isn’t it? :)

  • VictoriaPandora

    I guess people were so bothered by that woman’s failure to restrict her lymphatic system with a mini torture chamber that they didn’t notice the board in the background. If you compare what is named as Wed. Oct 8th (4th picture down) and Thursday Oct. 9th (2nd picture down) it looks like that photo was actually from the same day. Anyone else notice that?

  • skiff

    Heh, no comment’s :D

  • takeshi

    @ Mr. Josh:

    “In two sentences you get worked up about peoples’ reactions and then you tell people to stop getting worked up about reactions.”

    Not worked up at all, actually. I was laughing hysterically the entire time I wrote that. And frankly, who cares what you think? You’re righteously indignant, while I’m only winding you up.

    @ Antinous:

    “6.5% of the comments in this thread have suggested that other commenters get a life. Happy National Hackneyed Invective Day.”

    Some things can never be said too often. Happy National Scintillating Rejoinder Week.

  • Gainclone

    I love the directness of this blog. No crap. No commentary. It is a blog of brokers with hands on their faces, and it is called THE BROKERS WITH HANDS ON THEIR FACES BLOG. That is the simplest thing ever. The internet needs more of this.

  • buddy66

    Slap harder!

  • The Lizardman

    The only way these could have made me laugh harder would be if they had been holding pies when they facepalmed.

  • George Curious

    Or maybe a trombone tag, “wha wha wha whaaaaaa…”

  • Antinous

    I’m holding out for photos of faceplanting financiers.

  • nerak

    that woman needs a bra on.

  • Hentosz

    Can’t remember where I found this, begun at roughly the same time: Sad Guys on Trading Floors. With a dash of snark!

  • voline

    If it weren’t for schadenfreude, sometimes I’d have no freude at all.

  • Clayton Hove

    Damn you, frozen concentrated orange juice!

  • Chairboy

    My 401k has dropped almost 50% in value in the last week or so. Sometimes there’s a little too much schaden for all of us to have freude.

  • dderidex

    “My 401k has dropped almost 50% in value in the last week or so.”

    And you aren’t getting paid any more?

    I agree it would truly suck right now to be trying to retire, but, hell, I’ve got 30 years to go. Every 401k contribution I make right now is buying a lot more shares than it did this time last year. Not like the market won’t recover at time point…

  • flytch

    Ths s grt!!! th nly thng tht wld mk m lgh hrdr thn ths wld b thr dd mtltd bds lyng n th flr…

    These sharks need to die back a bit… and if your life was ruined by this “crash” then you need to actually get a life… the stock market is not based in reality… never has been… speculators and traders are like lawyers… we need a few… but when the population grows too much they all are doomed… this will just thin the heard a bit… your 401K will come back up… or it should be guaranteed by the government… if it is not then you were just playing the game and you lost your bet… just like with any gambling, you had a choice to play or not play… weather you win or lose is all part of the game…

    it’s all about personal responsibility… learn it…
    anytime you bet money you could lose it…

  • flosofl

    @DDERIDEX

    Precisely, I have about 25 yrs to go myself, and I just changed my 401K distribution to load up on stocks (not all of it and existing monies stay where they are). When prices start to stablize, I’ll probably switch back to the mixed risk profile I had before.

    I’m paraphrasing here, but at times like this it pays to remember what Warren Buffet has said:

    “When Wall Street is fearful, I get greedy. When Wall Street is greedy, I get scared.”

    Buffet has come out this last week and said this is the best time to buy stocks for long term investments. The return will be phenomenal. And if the economy crashes and burns, we’ll have other things on our minds than how much money we lost. Like hiding from the roving gangs of cannibals.

  • Kawentzmann

    Will the suicidal ones receive black diagonal bars across one corner?

  • RJ

    What Nerak said. That lady either needs some support or needs to roll ‘em up and tape them. Jeez. Looking through those pictures makes me feel a little worried just by association. What a terrible job they have, from my perspective.

    @12
    Inserting… an… ellipsis… after… every… thing… is… annoying… Learn… to… form… coherent… sentences…

  • scionofgrace

    Oh, thanks for this. I work in finance (no, I don’t do any trading, I’m an accounting analyst) and we just had ten people laid off. So it’s nice to see a bit of humor coming out of it all.

  • Takuan

    Some plankton gets left high and dry and slowly crisps in the sun. The huge shadows below just keep swimming.

  • minamisan

    So many of those photos look more like “immediately after internet porn masturbation” shots to me.

  • PaulR

    Is this part of the Flickr ‘Decay’ tag?

  • legotechnician

    I saw the same financier in the bottom photo on the front page of one of the free transport newspapers in Zürich (I think ’20 Minuten’) except on the cover he had a malevolent grin on his face…

  • bat21

    @ #4 Curious George:

    Sad Trombone

  • Pipenta

    Flytch,

    If you think only the people who were irresponsible are the ones who are going to be drowned by this, you are sadly mistaken. This is just going to snowball. There will be another big hit next summer, and another, and another. Tsunamis and Tsubprimes come in sets.

    Talk to me around 2013 and tell me how your sense of responsibility saved you, if it has.

    The massive ripples from this are going to flatten the innocent, the prudent and the sensible as well as the guilty and the foolish.

    Here’s hoping you know how to swim.

  • OM

    “that woman needs a bra on.”

    …It’s obvious that the stocks weren’t the only thing that sank.

  • imipak

    All that’s needed for perfection are some image macros. “I can has bailout?” perhaps. “Banking: ur doing it wrong”. “My toxic debt… let me show u it”.

  • jphilby

    “Buffet has come out this last week and said this is the best time to buy stocks for long term investments.”

    Easy for one of the world’s richest men to say. I’d be more convinced if he documented what he bought … but if he loses $20 billion he’s still in fine shape.

    IMHO, there is never a good time to buy stocks. But then, I’m not a gambler.

  • David Carroll

    I am confused about something:

    Don’t Wall street floor traders get a commission for every trade be it a buy or a sell? So why are they so freaked out? I would imagine that in the current roller coaster market, trade volumes would be at an all time high.

    Unless of course they drank the Koolaid and have their own money in the market, in which case they are as dumb as drug dealers who snort their own inventory.

    Or is it because they fear that the “firm” they work for will tank, or sack them? I surround “firm” in quotes, because a better term would be house-of-cards.

  • balzagna

    Repost

  • LB

    #40:

    Money lost in the stock market is not actually lost-lost until you sell. So recouping your losses is still possible!

  • Jamie Sue

    I’d like to see a study on facepalming across different cultural lines. Is the facepalm a universal signal of shit gone terribly wrong?

    I’m laid off starting Nov. 1st. Small business credit crunch lay off as a result of this fiasco. It’s good times. I’ll finally have my own great depression story to tell to my kid when he grows up. I don’t mean that as a sarcastic bite. I’m seriously glad that our country is being cleansed by fire right now. The kids who grew up in the last depression became part of the greatest generation. We could use a little more of that, we’ve been slacking too long.

    • Antinous

      I’m seriously glad that our country is being cleansed by fire right now. The kids who grew up in the last depression became part of the greatest generation.

      You mean the ones who didn’t die of starvation or lack of medical care? Always good to see society’s weaker elements weeded out, eh. Keeps the race strong.

  • IamInnocent

    @ JAMIE:

    For a real cleansing much more than what’s going on will have to happen. Otherwise the parasites will just go dormant somewhere in the pile of our money that the government is throwing at them, until they can resurface and take advantage of everyone’s greed once more.

    To be rid of them would take a change in mentality that is simply not… American.

    J.

  • Takuan

    You think this a repeat? Be warned: assume “everything will work out” and your “depression story” may be something else altogether.

    I couldn’t think of a better time to be rich.

  • cortana

    A ‘sister’ blog so to speak, is this one: http://sadguysontradingfloors.tumblr.com/

    More pictures but this time, sad guys on trading floors. Some of them even have their hands on their faces!!

  • Cool Products

    Haha, someone needs to load these up on MS Paint and make a nice “FAIL” text box.

  • David Pescovitz

    Indeed, I posted about Sad Guys here a couple weeks ago.

  • David Carroll

    LB #55

    A more accurate statement would be:

    Almost all of the “money” in the stock market does not actually exist. The only way to get real money out is to convince some sucker to buy your worthless paper. For this you willloose some karma points, or burn in hell if you believe in that sort of thing.. ;{)

  • Fenchurch

    When I look at that blog, why does this song start scrolling through my head? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTO7QdTmLKc

  • zuzu

    My 401k has dropped almost 50% in value in the last week or so. Sometimes there’s a little too much schaden for all of us to have freude.

    Nobody complains when their portfolio is overvalued.

    I don’t mean to belittle your position, particularly if you’re retiring in the next few years; I merely want to underscore the perceptual bias of looking at the relative change of loss.

    For example, let’s say the “true” (i.e. undistorted market) value of your IRA or other investment portfolio is 5. But, because of the artificial bubble, it was “valued” at 10. And now that the bubble has burst, it’s valued at 4. Really you’re only down by 1 because people are scrambling to adjust, but it looks like you’re down by 6 because market actors were being misled about the value of 10.

    Put another way, “don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched”.

  • Takuan
  • freeyourcrt

    #8 VOLINE Smelled the schadenfreude first, but I find it curious that some people think that the people in these photos deserve our hostility,

  • Takuan
  • Laslo Paniflex

    From the unofficial sister blog. Can anyone tell me what this is: http://media.tumblr.com/bLjlTcuJUex3zf9jIOJQKKDMo1_400.jpg

  • Takuan
  • stratojoe

    Dowkakke?

  • Chairboy

    #34, most of my contributions to my 401k have been in the last 10 years, during the ‘bubble’, so I’ve lost actual money. If I had made the bulk of my contributions _before_ then, I would have simply ‘ridden the wave’ like you mentioned, but that’s not what happened.

    I don’t retire in the next few years, I’m only 31, but I’ve seen plenty of real money disappear, and it’s sad.

    Meh. I’m not looking for sympathy, just offering a different perspective to counteract some of the joy folks have here at the sight of other folks’ misery. That’s the root concept behind schadenfreude, after all.

  • Takuan

    dowkakke!! You win ten thousand shares!

  • Brainspore

    “that woman needs a bra on.”

    …It’s obvious that the stocks weren’t the only thing that sank.

    Commodities sure aren’t looking as firm as they used to these days.