It’s Good to Have Dreams

Here’s the thing; I can’t even imagine having a job in which I personally had the capacity to lose seven billion dollars:

Societe Generale SA said bets on stock index futures by a rogue trader caused a 4.9 billion-euro ($7.2 billion) trading loss, the largest in banking history.

Jerome Kerviel, 31, was the trader responsible, the Paris- based bank said today. Societe Generale plans to raise 5.5 billion euros from shareholders after the loss and subprime- related writedowns depleted capital. The Bank of France, the country’s banking regulator, is investigating the alleged fraud.

The trading loss exceeds the $6.6 billion Amaranth Advisors LLC lost in 2006, and is more than four times the $1.4 billion of losses by Nick Leeson that brought down Barings Plc in 1995. An offer by Chairman Daniel Bouton to resign after the trades were discovered this past weekend was refused by Societe Generale’s board, the bank said…

The trading loss wipes out almost two years of pretax profit at Societe Generale’s investment-banking unit, run by Jean-Pierre Mustier. The company said it’s suing the trader, who had a salary and bonus of less than 100,000 euros a year and worked at the bank since 2000.

Four to five people will be fired as a result of the loss, Mustier told reporters at a press conference in Paris.

But let’s remember; private industry is more efficient, transparent, responsive, etc. etc. etc. than government.