Tradin' Lies

You been following this story outta France where some mastermind junior trader at a bank has managed to, allegedly, defraud the bank of more than $7 billion?

Hard not to call bullshit on the Societe Generale's claim that one "rogue trader" amassed a $7 billion fraud of "sophisticated and varied" "smaller" transactions that flew under the radar. The guy's only been authorized for solo trading two years! Hello? Probationary period, anyone? Trading caps, anyone? Fucking unreal. He's a JUNIOR TRADER! How does he get that access?

But, oh, yeah, it's all this one dude's fault that they've somehow chalked up this massive fraud.

If, however, they're right, and it is true, and this one dude did do it all, and he didn't do it for personal gain...

...Holy christ will that be a great feature film! IF this ludicrous claim of the SG is true, then his motivations have to be really, really intriguing. What if this is the banking equivalent of a hacker hacking into the Pentagon "because I could"? That'd send shivers through a very precarious industry, man.

What a wild ride this story might turn out to be. Too bad a big banking loss in France doesn't have the same sexy teeth it'd have on Wall Street, but... Still. This'll be a legendary story of fraud for the ages, I would think, depending what details emerge now that the Evil Mastermind! (Jerome Kerviel) has been taken into custody.

They're saying that the guy, when evidence of his deeds began to appear, dismissed things as computer errors or "anomalies". So, what, either way -- whether it's this kid pulling the wool over the SG brass's eyes, or the SG trying to sell this highly incredulous tale (that makes them look like bumbling oafs), it goes to show you that Hitler's old adage of telling bigger lies gets more believers, especially if you're repetitive about it. Hey, he was the master of the lie, man.

Truth really is stranger than fiction.