OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: "Capitalism - a threat to life on Earth" OpEdNews Discussion Group 1 of 3 Lead Articles

Howard Davies, former chairman of the Financial Services Authority of
Britain and now director of the London School of Economics, said the
bank’s explanation of events seemed incomplete. “I don’t think we’ve
had the full story,”

C. Ricardo Esteves, executive director of Banco Hipotecario of
Argentina, was more blunt: “It is not credible. One person
responsible for this? I just don’t believe it.”

The OpEdNews discussion group Capitalism – a Threat to Life on Earth might seek to understand:

How does this mega-enormous ‘loss’, theft or ‘transfer’ affect the lives of ordinary citizens? Banks are public corporations, albeit of ‘Limited’ responsibility.

What is the method of raising the ‘replacement’ funds from shareholders? Are ordinary people not hurt in the sale of such debt? To what degree with the taxpaying citizens pay for a government replenishing SocGen?

Where is the $7.2 billion now? It must be in accounts of those banks, funds, institutions or individuals who bet and hedged in the opposite direction than Société Générale. No one speaks of this, nor mentions that if the market had performed other than it did, then SocGen would have 'gained' and others 'lost'. If an employee's betting success were discovered, would SocGen have made a similar announcement of the employee's hacking and fraud? Or is its existence of these monies trading on the margin intended to me somehow ephemeral and tricky?

A week later, the NY Times coverage continued, “When there is an event of this nature, it cannot remain without consequences as far as responsibilities are concerned,” the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, told reporters while on a visit to a University of Paris campus.

Henri Guaino, a top adviser to Mr. Sarkozy, went further, warning that the government would intervene if any company made a hostile move against Société Générale. “I don’t think the state would remain with its arms crossed if someone, whoever the predator, tried to take advantage of the situation,” he said Sunday night on French television.

France has a long record of protecting its landmark companies, or national champions, from takeovers and bankruptcy.

These fixtures of the French political landscape — “economic patriotism,” as it is known here — have included the bailout of another large bank, Crédit Lyonnais, at a cost of $20 billion to taxpayers in the 1990s and a series of defensive industrial mergers to stave off foreign bids in recent years.

As an arbitrageur, Mr. Kerviel was entrusted to purchase one portfolio of stock index futures and at the same time sell a similar mixture of index futures with a slightly different value, as a hedge. But while Mr. Kerviel, according to the bank, put sizable, real purchases in one portfolio, he created fictitious sales transactions in the second, offsetting portfolio. This gave the impression to risk managers that the risks in the first portfolio had been hedged when in fact they had not been.

Mr. Kerviel said he made his first fictitious transactions at Société Générale late in 2005, not long after moving to the trading desk from the risk-management department.

Mr. Kerviel also said it was “not exceptional” for traders at the bank to exceed their authorized trading limits. Mr. Marin emphasized that this did not imply that other bank
employees engaged"

$7.2 billion left SocGen, but the total of bets made was $70 billion. Why is all this mega- speculation and massive betting of forms of money representing the wealth of the world considered ethical and/or useful? Why is it still legal, despite the many proposals to make at least hedge funds and marginal trading in currencies illegal?

Why are not more people incredulous of the rigged nature of the collaboration between special powerful interests, certain grand private investments and government bailouts and profits protections?

When will post-fraud admissions of lack of transparency finally spread to include a wide confession that the present international banking system is among other things a perfectly respectable public accepted conspiracy of the wealthy, their family members and their invited-in cronies abetted by well paid hired financial hit men, government agencies, militaries, and secret services like the U.S. CIA.

In Small Is Beautiful - Economics as if People Mattered, E. F. Schumacher wrote that Americans must take heart,

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5