WOW!

[Horatius]

Makes you think doesn't it. All electronic impulses lol http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080124/bs_af...me_080124210445

[Gaius Octavius]

Well, at least he didn't do it for personal profit. And the chairman and his flunky are going to give up six months salary and their all too well earned bonuses. That should make everyone feel much better. How in the blazes can you have a kid on the trading desk and not know that cash is going down?

[Kosmo]

If he would have made profits from his investments nobody would have cared. Unfortunately for him and GSG the market had turned sour in the last period.

[Horatius]

If he would have made profits from his investments nobody would have cared. Unfortunately for him and GSG the market had turned sour in the last period.

I think your right Kosmo, this kid was playing with 75 Billion Dollars!! That they sold it off and only lost 7 Billion is weird. I'm not a big fan of conspiracy's but there is more to this than just Jerome Kerviel I bet.

[Kosmo]

The ammount of money he played on the market it's just mind blowing. That's more then the GDP of many countries. I can't believe that something like this was done without the bosses knowing.

[Gaius Octavius]

The ammount of money he played on the market it's just mind blowing. That's more then the GDP of many countries. I can't believe that something like this was done without the bosses knowing.

 

If this were the bankers' own money, this would never have happened. It is depositors, clients and lenders money, so it doesn't matter. Those trades didn't have to settle. Of course not! People sell things and don't expect to be paid. "Oh, look we have a billion gallons of bull****, and we didn't have to pay for it"! That is why, in the U.S., in the 1930's, investment banking (save for municipal bonds), was separated from commercial banking. The former used their own money; the later, depositors. basil reegan's deregulation, sure made things easy for the w****'s children.

Edited January 27, 2008 by Gaius Octavius

[Horatius]

I've been trying to follow this and I'm not sure I really understand what happened. This guy was making money all through 2007. The only reason they lost so much money was because they dumped all these positions on the market at once. Some are saying they crashed the markets and caused the FED rate cut. Anyone understand exactly what he was doing anyway? Are markets really that fragile and susceptible to manipulation? He was hedging his bets supposedly by using virtual companies that were nonexistent. Please someone explain lol. It's really kind of scary if the world economy is this screwed up. I'm wondering if they just ran into a person that wouldn't play ball on the whole scheme and forced their hand. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtm...ccsocgen127.xml

Edited January 27, 2008 by Horatius

[Kosmo]

They say he wanted to be a star, but how could he became one if hiding?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/28/bus...s/28kerviel.php

[Horatius]

" Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer has dubbed him a "genius of fraud" and a "computer genius," but Kerviel painted a a more mundane reality.

 

"The techniques I used were not at all sophisticated. Any correctly installed system is capable of detecting these operations. There was no Machiavellian cunning on my part," he said, adding that he had only wanted to make money for SocGen.

 

Kerviel described a "mattress" system of subterfuge that allowed him to hide his trades -- including his 1.4 billion euro profit at the end of last year.

 

"Nobody had ever achieved that kind of profit before," he said, explaining that in the end he had massaged the figures to make it look like he had a profit of "just" 55 million euros.

 

He said his managers offered him a 300,000 euro bonus for 2007, but said he wanted double that." http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080129/bs_nm/...p9Hl8MA7w5Z.3QA Curiouser and Curioser.