I think there's something in the fact that it's hard to be good looking and funny. You have to have an oddball quality people have to sympathise with you to find you funny.
There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour the beauty the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.
I have a lot of trouble understanding all the detail of finance and administration - but if you combine intellectual and professional capacity with a social conscience you can change things: countries structures economic models colonial states.