Byrne's Eye View

A SocGen trader making less than 100,000 Euros a year dreamed big and bet bigger, and now SocGen has announced a loss of $7 billion on his unauthorized trades. I have a question: has anyone, ever, issued a press release like this: "A rogue trader at BancCo has been fired for exceeding his position size limits. He made the firm $100 million last quarter, and is the only reason they beat their estimates."

It reminds me of a point about sexual harassment: that nobody has ever been prosecuted when it turned out that his advances were wanted, after all. There should be a term for doing something wrong on average that doesn't get you punished if you're lucky enough to accidentally benefit the party you'd usually harm. For now, I'm calling them Victimish Crimes.