Yes, funny indeed. The recent event at the Société Générale. That has all the elements about which we ought to be more familiar. So, we'll be going into this thing further.
This blog is not only just about railing on things related to 'oops, loops, and oops or financial gaming. It's about learning in conjunction with grappling with the truth in these high-flowing times. We cannot learn except through experience; our wisdom is supposed to mitigate the down side.
When will we learn that the financial realm needs sand-boxes? Well, it might be an uphill trek.
Actually, putting some controls on the thing is of essence, too. It cannot be like trying to fly from one place to another via a plane without the proper control surfaces. All to be defined further, in time.
It is funny that Ben blinked. Or was old Ben thinking that he was doing a Zeus-like move as he threw his lightening rod of the rate cut out on the market? Was he to know that the SocGen was unwinding some mega-Euro positions? Over here, would there may be some culpability to not reporting sooner? Dump the evidence prior to reporting to authorities?
From recent analysis, the perpetrator at SocGen was supposedly not motivated by personal greed which is more than we can say for most players. No, it was simple ambition which we Americans like.
In fact, there has been growing world-wide support (the Robin Hood thing); it's understandable; especially as we see the high-flyers taking 99% of the income leaving the rest to 'eat cake'; or we see a company (who was in ethical thralls yet who was supposedly trying - that was the message to the underlings who were forced to go to mandatory ethics training) causing a 52 year old to lose a significant portion of his pension while another in the same subdivision put millions into his (and his cronies') pockets.
On the other hand, there were supposedly the higher-order players at Soc Gen (Quants, in short), who supposedly had the jewels of the kingdom in their mathematical hands, who worried the managers. Yet, they weren't the source this time. But, the gaming aspect of finance will continue to be a problem (more on this, of course).
Soc Gen does have some 'Social Responsibility' awareness, though, according to their site.
Remarks:
08/01/2013 -- Ben cannot unwind or taper down; he has too many Doves. We'll have to get back to the king thing (yes, the divine rights of the CEO, new royalty, in other words) and dampening of these types by a new outlook (Magna-Carta'ísh).
05/22/2012 -- FB will be a focus for discussion.
08/24/2009 -- Last year, Ben blinked and panicked. He frantically pulled out all stops as if with no thought for tomorrow. Now, he has no use for 'mea culpa' big daddy that he is. Ben, start to unwind now. The Vienna School's view that these things are undecidable (which is a computational issue) is right on.
08/10/2009 -- As promised, FEDaerated is here.
07/16/2009 -- Well, effects from several months of meddling (big Ben's economy) can be analyzed. Yet, the main questions is where is all this going? Systemic issues are still there.
01/27/2009 -- Lessons to be learned (as opposed to learnt), including, by necessity, Ponzi.
11/12/2008 -- Well, things feel apart fairly quickly, starting in September of 2008. By N0vember, there was general spooking. Starting in September, movements toward nationalization sped so fast that it was easy to forget that a Republican administration was still in the White House. Talk about rewarding hubris and moral hazardness!!!!
07/31/2008 -- It's not enough to rant and spout off. So, let's start something constructive by looking a money and what it is.
06/12/2008 -- Of course, these things are not funny.
05/27/2008 -- Related to this, and the links can be found, Alan went on, at one point, about what the Fed can do to dampen the enthusiasm of the frothy market. Well, he is right in a sense about ex post facto being the better glasses, sometimes (better than 20-20 foresight). Yet, we all, as mature adults, know how to evaluate risks and act accordingly, even throwing caution to the wind sometimes.
However, when the playing-field is so un-level as we see (muddied waters), risk assessment is difficult. One would think that lessons from physics would help identify froth and that this would result in removing some of the 'dismal' from the science of economics.
Modified: 08/01/2013
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