French Banky-Hanky Panky
Restraining Sarkozy's Bling
In a somewhat surprising development the 31 year old Jerome Kerviel, hedged his bets and lost the French Bank Societe Generale billions has become somewhat of a celebrity in France.
The young Kerviel is being celebrated in a world wide movement as the hero who's run on the French Bank is being touted as a good spanking to the anti-socialist President Sarkozy, who is red faced with embarrassment over the banks loss of standing. Sarkozy is defiant, stating that he will not let his bank be bought! Touche!
Herectics and rebels around the world are celebrating Jerome Kerviel as their new hero.
Is the young provincial making fools of the French Banking Establishment, seen as by some as soulless uber-capitlists intentionally
embarassing pro-Bush French President Sarkozy?
When the markets went whacky on Jan. 21st, many are saying it was because of the young rogue trader,
hedging bets pitting real accounts with fantasy funds, playing with 73Billion, costing the bank of high repute 4 billion in losses, and
shaking confidence in the venerable French institution.
While Kerviel has been behind closed doors, and was being questioned by the police, about his activities,
he has become suddenly famous to many in France who despise western anglo-capitalist values.
It is of note that French President is red faced and spitting mad at the public embarrassment
and his new found status in the world of the 'Big League Players'. Sarkozy is furious.
As I mentioned yesterday this story is salicious.
Of course, in my view, all this banky hanky panky is a direct result of Alan Greenspan's, battle cry....... never regulate the markets.
Tres pity. The detectives on the case can't even find the trades, the risks or the offsets, saying it will take months to unravel this scheme.
"On the political front, Kerviel and his bank will have helped revive the Socialists and their devotion to restraining the capitalist beast."
Jerome Krievel, is he a hero or a fool.
The teeth of the French establishment are on edge. No more bling bling for Sarkozy.
Sticking in the knife and twisting it the liberal French newspapers taunt....
The tale of the five billion euro man has removed what gloss remained on Sarko and his bling-bling style. Sticking in the knife, Libé calculated today that Jérôme's loss could buy Sarkozy 35,714,285 of his favourite Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses.
It's not like this story isn't hot even for the French.
Let them eat cake!
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Comments :
Some of the articles make it sound easy
He sounds like a fool to me (got caught, didn't he?) but hopefully the unraveling of his scheme will prevent future such fraud.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
They make it too easy......!
This is the titilating talk of the town. The fear by some is a popular outcry for regulations.
He was a trader, previous so he knew how to 'work' the system.
What remains unclear is the motive.
It is the economy, stupid.
Yeah, most of the articles seem to suggest
he just wanted to make a name for himself, get more power and influence, not even steal money.
How in the world you lose several billions of dollars as if you're playing with Monopoly money is just beyond me. What kind of a disconnect from reality does it take to gamble with those stakes?
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
Nice strawman...
That's really an absurd statement. Congratulations.
But the trader committed fraud. Regulation against fraudulent behavior seems like a good regulation. There aren't many capitalists out there who would argue otherwise (to include the person that you falsely assigned the position above.)
But what the heck, what specific regulation would you propose in this case?
As soon as the police
figure out how this guy hid his off balance banking schemes, and covered up his fake company to hedge his trades.......... which apparently could take months and months......perhaps folks will have a better idea of how to address this problem with some supervisory risk assessment. Unless the boss was in on it. At present it's unclear.
Meanwhile it's quite the story.... ! Is Kreivel, Jesse James rides again, or just a pawn doing the bosses bidding. Was he actually trying to take down the bank?
Meanwhile T-Shirts in France celebrating the antics of this man are on sale. I suppose you could say it's good for the T-shirt business, if nothing else.
It is the economy, stupid.
Money Quote
To quote the legendary investor George Soros:
The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom [symptom], it's basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency [underlying cause]. Now the rest of the world is increasingly unwilling to accumulate dollars.
This is the end of credit expansion [the symptom] based on the mistaken belief of market fundamentalism [the cause], that you should let markets have total freedom.
If you give the market total freedom, you create myriad opportunities for Jerome Kerviel v2.0. I assure you that he is not the only "computer genius" conducting fictitious futures trades to lift bonuses or cover up embarrassment.
How much of the world derivatives market is fiction?
Is that what Jerome Kerviel was trying to show us? I think he already did.
It is the economy, stupid.