While Wall Street crooks here in America continue to enjoy all the comforts of regularly screwing over the American people and buying elections from Seattle to Miami, France has just taken a step that we should all applaud. Ex Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel has just been fined 4.9 billion euros (or $6.7 billion U.S.) and sentenced to five years in prison (two years suspended).
While it should be noted that Kerviel did not actually benefit financially from his crime, he did engage in practices that would make even most Wall Street hedge fund managers wince.
Kerviel, a soft-spoken and debonair man from western Brittany, has garnered considerable public appeal in France for his image of being a scapegoat for powerful corporate interests. Kerviel maintained that the bank and his bosses tolerated his massive risk-taking as long as it made money, which he did at first, racking up euro1.4 billion in profits for Societe Generale in 2007, the judge noted.
During the proceedings, both sides admitted to mistakes but Kerviel insisted his bank superiors knew what he was doing. Societe Generale's former chairman acknowledged there were problems in monitoring the trader's work.
The bank says Kerviel made bets of up to euro50 billion — more than the bank's total market value — on futures contracts on three European equity indices, though his net position appeared unremarkable because he balanced his real trades with fictitious transactions. The bank says his actions cost it euro4.9 billion.
This is yet another reminder of the fact that the global financial sector is rife with crooks who will literally bet the lives of others in the name of possible personal gain. I am still in utter disbelief that not only is no one who ran a major financial institution in September 2008 (Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs) in prison, but the ones who left their companies ran off with millions of dollars in the process. The ones who stayed even paid themselves huge bonuses because after all, they were doing such a great job (and on the taxpayer's dime, of course). As an American, I think I speak for an overwhelming majority (even including some teabaggers) who think that when people actively engage in practices that put the economy in danger of complete collapse, there should be some PUNISHMENT.
Instead, we have a system that not only rewards this behavior, but will only punish rich people if the victims happen to be other rich people (i.e. Bernie Madoff).
I hope you are taking notes, Eric Holder.