Jerome Kerviel Could Use a Hug

Remember this guy? He held the title for largest banking fraud in history for about 5 minutes until Bernie Madoff made his 4.9€ billion loss look like small potatoes.

Jerome Kerviel brought a distinctly French flavor to the term "rogue trader"; he elevated whining to an art form by complaining that he should have been better supervised and blamed the relentless pressure of a 35-hour work week for his downfall. (Alright, I made that last part up to be a dick, but you get the point). In a final bit of Gallic panache, he almost brought down SocGen without profiting a single penny for himself.

Now he's looking for a little help from his friends. Facing trial next month, Kerviel is hoping some Grand Balancement Pénis (Big Swinging Dicks) will testify on his behalf. So far, he hasn't had any takers.

He's facing 5 years in prison if convicted, and even if he's exonerated he's facing the remainder of his days working for a shitty computer company for $3,000 a month. Oh, how the mighty do fall. C'est La Vie!

Coincidentally, my kids are playground buddies with the kid of one the guys SocGen brought in to mop up the mess. When I ask him about it, he just rolls his eyes. I'm thinking Kerviel's judge is gonna have the same reaction.

 

In this story, Kerviel is a mere scapegoat to protect the hierarchy of the company. Everybody working within this department was aware of his behavior, and the company turned a blind eye until the day he losed big bucks.

For the record, he made at first lots of cash and nobody within Société Générale had something to say about that. Kerviel is only an epitome of one of the numerous drifts of this financial crisis.

What he currently does is quite courageous, he will be blamed for what he did even though everybody knows he was unable to do that alone...

 
Edmundo Braverman:
Jerome Kerviel brought a distinctly French flavor to the term "rogue trader"; he elevated whining to an art form by complaining that he should have been better supervised and blamed the relentless pressure of a 35-hour work week for his downfall.

Haha! That shit just made my day. Thanks Edmundo.

 

I have a question.

He had a 2 billion dollar profit when SocGen discovered his positions. They then liquidated his positions over the course of three days and had a net loss of 7.5 billion (9.5 when you consider his profit). Did SocGen liquidating the position over the course of three days cause the massive losses?

"Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."
 

^^^ I think what really happened is SocGen had a gaping hole in their books from just generally being a shitty, badly run European bank and "discovered" the positions in order to save face. I would seriously question whether Kerviel's trades really lost them 4.9bn. It's gonna pale into comparison for the losses they are going to have to swallow when Greek bonds get a haircut anyway.

 

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