I will no longer resist the urge to weigh in on the financial crisis gripping the world. Over the last several days, all of us have read a million words about the Wall Street tsunami, and many experts continue to be baffled by how this could have happened. Or, as Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath mused, how could authorities have allowed this to happen? Nath, a familiar foe to the US since the bitter rounds of Doha trade talks, cocked a snook at the Americans, saying Asia has a better regulatory environment.

Let’s get back to the story of why this happened. Many previous collapses of institutions have been famously blamed on one individual’s greed or ego. Remember the Barings Bank in the 1990s, and recently the Amaranth hedge fund which blew up because one of its trader sitting in Canada played roulette with natural gas futures, or the French bank Societe Generale, blamed again on one “rogue” trader.

But when something like what we are now witnessing, there is a lack of a convincing explanation, and certainly a reluctance to pin the collective blame on collective greed. We can’t even agree on the events unfolding. Was the US Fed right in refusing to bail out Lehman Brothers? Should it also have allowed American International Group to fall, instead of offering an aid package worth $85 billion?

The jury is out on all of this, and to be sure, it isn’t coming back in a hurry with a verdict. In all likelihood, a hung jury will emerge after months of tortuous study. Obviously, we have no need to wait until then to understand why. So, here goes…

Let me point out two things, even though they should be obvious to most. One is the presence in the world of finance of some of the sharpest brains in the world. The second is a question: So, how do such smart people, and so many of them, keep getting into a mess every few years?

I think the reason is fairly simple. It’s pure and simple greed.

Nobody would dispute that greed rules, even rages, on Wall Street. Add to it the many “rogue” leaders operating all across the industry – all Alpha males competing against one another – and you have a great recipe for disaster. Clearly, it all blows up every few years.

Any amount of policy-making inevitably fails because the guys running the businesses are far smarter, and have extraordinary abilities to work around any system. After all, even in this recent bout of crisis, it is not the Alpha Males that are the losers. For example, the dethroned Bear Sterns CEO James Cayne was playing competitive bridge when the financial services firm’s shares collapsed to $2, leading to a buyout by JP Morgan, and even today lives in a $26 million home. Only smaller investors get hurt.

What can authorities really do?

Probably not much, or certainly not enough. Doubtless, there will be a dramatic change in the financial landscape, at least in the US. Most experts compare the current scenario with the Great Depression and are unambiguous about the sweeping changes likely. But I wonder if they can do anything to make the top executives less greedy. That alone might do the trick.