News U.S. saves France from itself (again, and again, and again)

[Matthieu]

Now that you don't like France anymore

I don't understand what's with this "disliking countries". Personnaly I consider Bush's moron, however I don't think I've been saying stuff like "Americans are like this or that" or "I dislike the USA" or whatever (yet many people, and not just in France, don't bother with their brain and openly bash the Americans all day long and vice versa). Seriously people, these flame wars are so "bourgeoises" (grammar pedantic: bourgeois is accorded in gender and number and the French word for war has a feminine gender).

 

[EL]

Just for the record, when was the last time France saved the US?

I think Anttech is referring to the title of this thread.

 

[vanesch]

Just for the record, when was the last time France saved the US?

Hum, it didn't work, but when they tried to persuade you not to go into Irak ? couldn't resist...

 

[vanesch]

This Societe Generale's thing is of course the big headlines here in France, and nobody is really understanding a lot, but the financial part of the federal police is of course looking into it.

There are in fact two contradictory theses:

-according to the Soc. Gen. management, a week ago or something they FINALLY discovered one of their traders who had broken into the computer system of their control organs to dissimulate his actions (formerly, he was one of the designers of that security system apparently) and to give himself totally free lattitude. Apparently he has been doing this for months or even a year, and totalled positions for about 50 billion Euros (which he was never supposed to gamble but which he had dissimulated from the control systems). When management discovered this, they followed STANDARD PROCEDURE in their company, which is to sell IMMEDIATELY all the "fraudulent" (that is, outside of their authorised rules) positions, which... engendered 5 billion Euros of losses (or about 10%).

- according to many experts, this story is not possible unless we have James Bond or Randi in front of us, and this means that this company had accumulated knowledgingly 5 billion of losses, and were looking for a way to dissimulate this, and invented this story of the lone and fraudulent trader. They think it is unthinkable that management wasn't actively or passively endorsing his actions.

Apparently, police interviews with the trader seem to show that the first story is nevertheless correct, although the guy denies having acted fraudulently: HIS SAME TECHNIQUES allowed him to gain about 1.5 billion Euros two years ago, and he was, at that time, *congratulated* by management. Aparently, he set out to become "the best trader of all times"... his ambition was not to be fraudulent, but to show how good he was... (got this on the radio this morning).

Now, the funny thing is that Soc. Gen. did even announce modest gains this year. They were hoping in fact for about 5 billion Euros of gains, and ended up with the meager gain of a few hundreds of millions, after their covering of the losses caused by this affair.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Hum, it didn't work, but when they tried to persuade you not to go into Irak ? couldn't resist...

Heh, we even started calling French Fries, Freedom Fries, in protest of your lack of support for the invasion.

Yipper shipper, that'll show em! dur de dur

 

[mgb_phys]

Aparently, he set out to become "the best trader of all times"... his ambition was not to be fraudulent, but to show how good he was... (got this on the radio this morning).

You work in a bank, you make a loss on a trade, you have a choice
1, Tell your manager, lose bonus/get fired
2, Hide the loss by making twice as big a bet tomorrow. Repeat until you win.

Method 2 seems to be pretty common in banks. All the banks have systems to prevent it, but since the banks are in favour of (2) so long as you win the systems aren't very effective.