More comes out on the Societe Generale trading scandal:
FRIENDS of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel last night blamed his $7 billion losses on unbearable levels of stress brought on by a punishing 30 hour week.Kerviel was known to start work as early as nine in the morning and still be at his desk at five or even five-thirty, often with just an hour and a half for lunch.
One colleague said: "He was, how you say, une workaholique. I have a family and a mistress so I would leave the office at around 2pm at the latest, if I wasn't on strike.
"But Jerome was tied to that desk. One day I came back to the office at 3pm because I had forgotten my stupid little hat, and there he was, fast asleep on the photocopier.
"At first I assumed he had been having sex with it, but then I remembered he'd been working for almost six hours."
As the losses mounted, Kerviel tried to conceal his bad trades by covering them with an intense red wine sauce, later switching to delicate pastry horns.
At one point he managed to dispose of dozens of transactions by hiding them inside vol-au-vent cases and staging a fake reception.
Last night a spokesman for Sócíété Générálé denied that Kerviel was overworked, insisting he lost the money after betting that the French were about to stop being rude, lazy, arrogant bastards.
The brutality of French capitalism is just totally overwhelming! Maybe they should consider what they refer to as Anglo-Saxon capitalism -- just to humanize things a bit...?
Isn't a story like this designed to stir up the proletariat against their "capitalist oppressors"? What is the purpose of such a snarky article? There are a million other success cases of capitalism happening every day, but doesn't fit Ms. McArdle's socialist agenda.
Ha ha! We still hate the French!
Last night a spokesman for Sócíété Générálé denied that Kerviel was overworked, insisting he lost the money after betting that the French were about to stop being rude, lazy, arrogant bastards.
Do you really want this to represent you, Megan? Look I'm used to the treatment I get around here and it's fine; I know precisely what they'll say. But this is beneath you and it makes me sad.
Interesting--people like Megan can never miss an opportunity to bash the French.
Sounds like she has.....um....ISSUES.
(In other words--put a sock in it, Megan. You're projecting so much RIAA is going to start charging you fees.)
Megan
It's interesting how few of your readers so far have a sense of humour.
It's interesting how many of your commenters think stereotypes are amusing.
Oh wait. No, it's actually kind of pathetic. I get those mixed up a lot.
What I always wonder about comments like the last two is, if I said "I lost money after betting that the Jews would stop being greedy, conniving, money-grubbing bastards," and someone criticized me, would you say to them "Boy! Nobody has a sense of humor anymore!" I mean if you're intellectually consistent, you'd have to say that. Right?
I agree with Freddie on this. At the very best, it isn't a very funny joke. At worst, it betrays a kind of instinctive and ill-grounded bigotry.
I AM MORE PROGRESSIVE AND TOLERANT THAN YOU! I WILL DEMONSTRATE THIS BY FLYING INTO HIGH DUDGEON ABOUT A HARMLESS JOKE ABOUT FRENCH LABOR POLICY! DON'T TRY ME, FASCIST!!!!
Freddie, there is a well-known field known as "Jewish jokes"; entire books are filled with them, and then sold to Jewish teenagers. Any college Asian group will end up with a "You might be Asian-American if..." spam on its listserver. There is no lawyer in America with more than 2 years experience who does not have a string of lawyer cartoons posted in his office. Chris Rock and Jeff Foxworthy make their living making fun of distinct groups of people. Hell, I'm a warmongering right-wing madman myself, but I still enjoy watching Stan Smith on "American Dad."
So yeah, I do find stereotype amusing, and I'm perfectly consistent about that.
Interested (and others)
There is a difference between thinking that a joke is not funny and not realising that someone is making a joke.
The earlier comments suggested to me that the commenters actually missed the fact that this was supposed to be a joke ,but speaking personally when I read " Kerviel tried to conceal his bad trades by covering them with an intense red wine sauce, later switching to delicate pastry horns.
At one point he managed to dispose of dozens of transactions by hiding them inside vol-au-vent cases and staging a fake reception", I thought that this is not a serious comment and found it mildly amusing.
The reason why I found it mildly amusing is that I have actually been living in France for the past 9 years. I have a lot of admiration for the French model, but I recognise its weaknesses.
The New York Times today has a story about efforts in Britain to define a national identity and set of values. Part of this involves a national motto. The London Times asked its readers for suggestions. The most popular submission was "No Motto Please, We're British." But my favorite is:
I AM MORE PROGRESSIVE AND TOLERANT THAN YOU!
hey prof, take this to cafe press, it really needs to be a t-shirt
The Simpsons, as always, offer a suitable quote for every occasion. In the case of a few certain comments to this entry, I submit this classic from Superintendent Chalmers: "Good grief. The rod up that man's butt must have a rod up its butt."
Yeah, the first half of the article was somewhat amusing, but the closing surrenders the satire in exchange for crude name calling. I would have quoted only the top portion, as I tend to agree with Freddie that the end is, let's say... undignified.