Frenchie trader loses $7 billion

[YankBastard]

Capitalism and France don't mix. :cool:

PARIS - French bank Societe Generale said Thursday it has uncovered a $7.14 billion fraud — one of history’s biggest — by a single futures trader whose scheme of fictitious transactions was discovered as stock markets began to stumble in recent days.

[HomeatHighbury]

Capitalism and France don't mix. :cool:

That's a load of cash. But you're name seems to fit you doesn't it:rolleyes:

[YankBastard]

That's a load of cash. But you're name seems to fit you doesn't it:rolleyes:

Yes it does. http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/images/icons/icon14.gif

[Pierre-Henri]

I can't imagine this guy, at age 31, was toying with a 50 billions € portfolio. That's nearly the budget of all K-12 public education, in all the country.

This guy had under his responsability enough cash to run the ministery of education during a full year ! And he was nothing but an ordinary, run-on-the-mill trader !

Is it me, or all of this is just going crazy ?

And, more important, what don't they give me an insignificant part of it ? Let's say 2 billions ?

[guignol]

Capitalism and France don't mix.capitalism being what it is today i would say that this story demonstrates the exact opposite... and that is the entire problem.

[YankBastard]

capitalism being what it is today i would say that this story demonstrates the exact opposite... and that is the entire problem.

Hey is there a site for all the guignol episodes?

[guignol]

i imagine you could look on amazon, and there's probably a pretty good selection on dailymotion or youtube... but actually there's no relation between my nickname and LGDI, which is inspired by grand guignol, not the petit.

[YankBastard]

i imagine you could look on amazon, and there's probably a pretty good selection on dailymotion or youtube... but actually there's no relation between my nickname and LGDI, which is inspired by grand guignol, not the petit.

Who is the grand guignol?

[guignol]

YB, are you really interested or are you just trying to crack wise?

in any case, looking for your answer made me a little wiser, because i used to think "grand guignol" denoted a style of satirical (and a bit racy) theater with live actors; it seems that the emphasis was very much on violence and the fantastic and it was the forerunner of horror movies...

so les guignols de l'info are really more in the tradition of mourget's puppets than otherwise.

[YankBastard]

YB, are you really interested or are you just trying to crack wise?

in any case, looking for your answer made me a little wiser, because i used to think "grand guignol" denoted a style of satirical (and a bit racy) theater with live actors; it seems that the emphasis was very much on violence and the fantastic and it was the forerunner of horror movies...

so les guignols de l'info are really more in the tradition of mourget's puppets than otherwise.

I'm not trying to crack wise. How on earth did YB ever give that impression. :cool:

[Somas of Columbus]

The irony in your post Yank Bastard is that in your avatar Hulk Hogan was rocking our to his special reggae rendition of Frère Jacques

Damn you France!!!!!

[Catel]

Hey, we're still crashing capitalism in an artisanal way, by a single person, who loves working by his own hands. We don't use those industrial, soulless, Enron-like ways that Americans use ! :D

[YankBastard]

We don't use those industrial, soulless, Enron-like ways that Americans use ! :D

And that's why you lost $7 billion. :cool:

[Friedel'sAccent]

We don't use those industrial, soulless, Enron-like ways that Americans use ! :D

Then I guess all the RATP workers strike because they're just so thrilled with le capitalisme à la française...;)

[Nanbawan]

Just wanted to precise that I'm not Kerviel...

Ha! Trop fort les Bretons ! :D

[guignol]

And that's why you lost $7 billion.first of all, it's all monopoly money (and when you put it in $ it's more like candyland money)

second, WE didn't lose anything. the SG "lost" a little over 4mds€ of which about 1.4mds€ are kerviel's positions when they "found him out" (mon oeil! :cool: ) and the rest from bouton's decision to sell au canon instead of au clairon to try to save his own ass... wasted effort. sarko has washed his hands of him and he'll certainly appear in court (on a completely unrelated money-laundering charge) as ex-CEO of the SG. bon vent mon coco!

but the real relation between these two affairs is that they show the inability of supercapitalism to regulate itself other than by catastrophe.

a banking system that hands out millions in bonuses to geniuses who don't see the subprime crisis coming (or don't care) or allows this kind of shenanigans to go on isn't just flawed, it's rotten to the core. it's not a french problem or an american problem, it's a capitalist problem.

[NicolasN.]

I had to post this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJSibmDVJBE

[Pierre-Henri]

http://www.lagiraudiere.com/resources/usa_french_flag_image.jpg
Let's start the contest :

FRANCE (http://cluaran.free.fr/dette.html)

VS

USA (http://www.babylontoday.com/national_debt_clock.htm)

Don't forget :

1) 1 $ = 0.68 €
2) France has 64 millions inhabitants , America has 303 millions.

So, US debt : $ 30 billions per 1 000 000 citizens (= € 20.6 billions)
"Official" French debt : $ 26 billions per 1 000 000 citizens (= € 18 billions )

However, the French number is somehow a fraud. It doesn't consider
a) the civil servants retirement funds.
b) the debt of public, or former public enterprises (SNCF, Crédit Lyonnais, Bull, GIAT, Alstom, Chantiers Navals and many other money holes).

Therefore, a more accurate figure, for France, would be :
$ 53 billions per 1 000 000 citizens (= € 37 billions).

Since America has much less civil servants, and almost no nationalised enterprises... I declare us WINNERS !

VIVE LA FRANCE !

[guignol]

but if you want to be fair, you have to admit in the states there's no trou de la sécu... and if you take into account the red ink this generates for the big companies who have fiiled that hole (obviously you can't have 100% of the nation without health insurance if you want to avoid gory revolution) it's a tidy sum. additionally, the 50 individual states are probably a good deal farther in debt than the régions and départements.

which is all immaterial... debt in america is gone beyond being a simple element on a balance sheet. it has become, in its own right, a growth industry. like prisons! get with it!

[Pierre-Henri]

The trou de la sécu is not that big : it's only € 110 billions. And it's normal to pay for this. It's being a part of the human community.

No, the real issue is the sheer mass of bureaucracy. Everything you do, you're dead stuck in it. See the diagram of French research, on the other thread ... and it's only a small glimpse of what the Ministery as a whole truly is. You can't imagine the number of civil servants who have no other duty than to administer other civil servants.

The old joke says : do you know why the French academic rowing team always loses ? Because it's the only one that lines up a crew of a single rower and eight coxswains.

It's the same everywhere. According to the 2005 Pébereau report on the debt, France has 50 000 political bodies : The Sénat, the Assemblée nationale, 36 000 communes, 18 000 districts (intercommunalité), 100 departments, 25 regions... In Guadeloupe and Martinique, for example, the region and the department overlap. This is sheer madness. As a whole, France has more than 600 000 elected politicians. Almost 1% of the population ! Needless to say, this is the world record.

So, the debt is one thing. But the ability to reduce it is another. As the Clinton years proved, it is possible to reduce the american debt, if politicians really wants to do it.

On the other hand, in France, I'm convinced that it's not even possible to reduce the debt, even if we wanted. Everything is so tangled, so complicated, so unmanageable, so misruled, that you can take all the right decisions you want, they won't be enforced.

It's like 1940. In the big HQ, generals were putting little flags on the map. But, on the field, nothing was moving because nothing could move anymore. French research -- and, I'm certain, the State as a whole -- is exactly in the same situation.