guignol
20 Feb 2008, 08:16 AM
it's a sign of our times that this is now so much yesterday's news that no one cares anymore, including probably good part of the BoD at the SG. but i was tickled by this column (titled A vos ordres ma Générale!) by françois reynaert in the nouvel obs and waited for it to get online (silly people, the electronic is always a couple of weeks behind the paper edition) to share it with you:
It’s not nice to laugh at others’ misfortune. Even so, admit that this Société Générale affair has its funny side. Let’s make one thing clear; I’m not minimizing the terrible human suffering it’s caused. Put the personal problems of poor Mr. Bouton [the CEO] aside. In a magnificent gesture, as soon as the scandal was uncovered, he offered to forego six months’ salary. It was generous of him. He just forgot to mention that with the six months left he can still feed his family for the next two centuries. No, I’m thinking about the nightmare for the poor galley slaves of the company. Can you imagine the atmosphere at the teller’s window when you have to talk to a client about their 103€ overdraft, when your bank just got taken to the cleaners for a cool 5 billion.
Yes, the technical details of the affair go over all our heads; for six months they even got by a bunch of guys who are very well paid precisely to check them, so for once you don’t have to feel like an idiot for not understanding. On the other hand, everybody knows the figures very well, we repeat them endlessly: a 5 billion loss. Generally, we don’t even state what currency. Understandable. With numbers like that, whether it’s rupees, sesterces or pieces of eight, it’s a crazy hunk of change. In our usual coffee machine conversations, we only talk about sums that pass understanding twice a decade, when there’s a huge lottery winner. This time it doesn’t make anyone dream, but there are similarities. When the lotto jackpot is announced, everyone says, “If I win that, I quit working and take off for the sunshine”. In this case, the fellow who lost will also stop working. The difference is he’ll be doing it in the pokey.
The billions themselves have their humorous side; they cut some arrogant figures down to size. Take the other number that you heard over and over last week: the 78 million euro budget for the latest “Asterix”. Journalists even spoke of it as a “pharaonic sum” , which is silly since “Asterix and Cleopatra” was the last one. You could imagine the artistic creativity behind publicity like that. Wow? 78 million! Is it as good as it cost to make it? What class! Like President Sarkozy giving someone a ring. But compared to the real story of the week, it’s small beer. 70 paltry mil, and it took 50 stars to film a dud that doesn’t make anyone laugh. “The Little Trader” cost 70 times as much, but he did it all by himself, and it makes everyone laugh.
Just joking. I’m disturbed at what this says about a system where young slapheads pocket a thousand times the salary of a teacher or a doctor to bet the planet at craps. No need for me to preach, everyone, left, right, center, every world leader political or economic is in agreement. “We have to moralize the system”, they shout in chorus. They’ve got their lines down, they’ve been repeating them for thirty years. Free enterprise doesn’t come out of this looking very good. When you think that in the 80’s we privatized the banks because at least the private sector knew how to manage.
There’s still the question of our darling in the affair, the now world-famous Jérôme Kerviel. Let’s calm down. I’m not sure he’s the Robin Hood of the trading floor: they tell us he didn’t steal the billions in question from the rich, and i sincerely doubt it was ever his intention to give them to the poor. He was just like a whole bunch of his generation, UMP member [read: young republican] tireless worker, ready to work late and give up his vacation for one noble goal: get a bigger bonus. More work for more money as it were [“travailler plus pour gagner plus”, a sarkozy theme]. I know it’s wrong to generalize, but for one time where we can see where that sort of thing leads, it’s hard to repress a smile.
It’s not nice to laugh at others’ misfortune. Even so, admit that this Société Générale affair has its funny side. Let’s make one thing clear; I’m not minimizing the terrible human suffering it’s caused. Put the personal problems of poor Mr. Bouton [the CEO] aside. In a magnificent gesture, as soon as the scandal was uncovered, he offered to forego six months’ salary. It was generous of him. He just forgot to mention that with the six months left he can still feed his family for the next two centuries. No, I’m thinking about the nightmare for the poor galley slaves of the company. Can you imagine the atmosphere at the teller’s window when you have to talk to a client about their 103€ overdraft, when your bank just got taken to the cleaners for a cool 5 billion.
Yes, the technical details of the affair go over all our heads; for six months they even got by a bunch of guys who are very well paid precisely to check them, so for once you don’t have to feel like an idiot for not understanding. On the other hand, everybody knows the figures very well, we repeat them endlessly: a 5 billion loss. Generally, we don’t even state what currency. Understandable. With numbers like that, whether it’s rupees, sesterces or pieces of eight, it’s a crazy hunk of change. In our usual coffee machine conversations, we only talk about sums that pass understanding twice a decade, when there’s a huge lottery winner. This time it doesn’t make anyone dream, but there are similarities. When the lotto jackpot is announced, everyone says, “If I win that, I quit working and take off for the sunshine”. In this case, the fellow who lost will also stop working. The difference is he’ll be doing it in the pokey.
The billions themselves have their humorous side; they cut some arrogant figures down to size. Take the other number that you heard over and over last week: the 78 million euro budget for the latest “Asterix”. Journalists even spoke of it as a “pharaonic sum” , which is silly since “Asterix and Cleopatra” was the last one. You could imagine the artistic creativity behind publicity like that. Wow? 78 million! Is it as good as it cost to make it? What class! Like President Sarkozy giving someone a ring. But compared to the real story of the week, it’s small beer. 70 paltry mil, and it took 50 stars to film a dud that doesn’t make anyone laugh. “The Little Trader” cost 70 times as much, but he did it all by himself, and it makes everyone laugh.
Just joking. I’m disturbed at what this says about a system where young slapheads pocket a thousand times the salary of a teacher or a doctor to bet the planet at craps. No need for me to preach, everyone, left, right, center, every world leader political or economic is in agreement. “We have to moralize the system”, they shout in chorus. They’ve got their lines down, they’ve been repeating them for thirty years. Free enterprise doesn’t come out of this looking very good. When you think that in the 80’s we privatized the banks because at least the private sector knew how to manage.
There’s still the question of our darling in the affair, the now world-famous Jérôme Kerviel. Let’s calm down. I’m not sure he’s the Robin Hood of the trading floor: they tell us he didn’t steal the billions in question from the rich, and i sincerely doubt it was ever his intention to give them to the poor. He was just like a whole bunch of his generation, UMP member [read: young republican] tireless worker, ready to work late and give up his vacation for one noble goal: get a bigger bonus. More work for more money as it were [“travailler plus pour gagner plus”, a sarkozy theme]. I know it’s wrong to generalize, but for one time where we can see where that sort of thing leads, it’s hard to repress a smile.