tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post6525553432339706059..comments2024-03-28T08:37:58.136+01:00Comments on Limited, Inc.: the elementary particles and general societyRoger Gathmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-91449000684028369762008-01-28T23:12:00.000+01:002008-01-28T23:12:00.000+01:00The Houellebecq novelisation practically writes it...The Houellebecq novelisation practically writes itself! The banality of trading (lots of deliberately boring detail here, which looks like its going to be germane to the development of the plot but isn't because - aha! - the plot never really develops, as such), the low-level sneakiness of Kerviel's famed circumvention of what were obviously some <EM>very</EM> shoddy security systems, the glossy magazine fantasies of sex and success, the inability to live them out even when the money to do so was abundantly available...Dominichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17939466948420020186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-73370751367646398832008-01-26T22:53:00.000+01:002008-01-26T22:53:00.000+01:00E.A. - I'm sorta joking here - I don't think for a...E.A. - I'm sorta joking here - I don't think for a second this second tier trader lost a convenient 7 billion dollars for a bank that seemingly dodged the bullet re mortgage backed swaps. Let's call this - putting your losses in one scapegoat basket. <BR/><BR/>There's plenty of evidence somebody from S.G. made bets in January on futures and unwound them, but M. blancbec was surely getting a little "help" from a higher up. Remember, the French upper corporate grouposcule is corrupt as fuck.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-28833104247600952202008-01-26T20:52:00.000+01:002008-01-26T20:52:00.000+01:00Could his fictive nature be a consequence of objec...Could his fictive nature be a consequence of objective acts rather than subjective pressures? Gaddis' JR wasn't exceptional either—once you discount that he was in sixth grade when he built his empire—but he wasn't driven by resentment of the <I>übermenschen</I> (is that spelled right?) around him; it was a natural extention of his fondness for games and trading. M. Kerviel, at least as he is described in the linked article, is so gray as to seem anhedonic.<BR/><BR/>Could it be instead that a bunch of golden boys from whatever <I>Grande Ecole</I> it is that turns out financial hotshots got in over their heads, and found a way to book their losses to the little non-entity whose only distinguishing feature was his resemblance to Tom Cruise?<BR/><BR/>Pure speculation, of course, although the linked article has several sources who hint as much.<BR/><BR/>—et aliaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com