Why yes, yes she did:

Via Hot Air.

Two weeks ago, French bank Société Générale announced that off-balance sheet speculation by a single “rogue trader” had cost the company 4.9 billion Euros ($7.2 billion). The scandal had enormous repercussions in international markets leading some commentators to decry the rotten nature of global “casino” capitalism and to call for the reversal of financial liberalization. However, the actual circumstances of the case do not justify more government intervention in financial markets but illustrate individual moral failings and poor internal governance on behalf of the bank.

A new report also suggests that a lack of internal controls and weak enforcement of existing rules may be the real source of the problem at one of the oldest banks in France.

On January 24th, Société Générale said that it had discovered a “massive fraud” through “a scheme of elaborate fictitious transactions.” The event caused a great stir not only for the magnitude of the bank’s losses but also because it is partly blamed for the worst European stock market collapse since September 11, 2001.

Jerome Kerviel, who worked as a junior trader in the arbitrage department at Société Générale, was responsible for betting on markets’ future performances. The bank claims that he had made unauthorized and concealed bets of around 50 billion Euros on European markets. According to the New York Times, Mr. Kerviel told prosecutors that his bets would have resulted in a profit of 1.4 billion Euros for the bank if they had been cashed out by the end of December. However, at the start of this year, stock markets experienced a sharp downturn turning the projected profits into losses.

The French bank discovered the bets in mid-January when auditors in the risk management office noticed a series of fictitious trades on its books. Société Générale then conducted a dramatic market sell-off operation in order to neutralize Kerviel’s deals. Traders estimate that the bank unwound contracts in the range of 20 billion to 70 billion Euros from January 21st to 22nd.

Many suspect that selling all these positions into an already volatile European market contributed to the shocking stock market performance in Europe around that time. This in turn, provoked an unexpected and controversial interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve of 0.75 per cent in order to protect the New York Stock Exchange which had been closed on the day when European markets dived. The curious series of events was summed up by a hedge fund manager who told Reuters that: “The real story here is basically, this guy, paid 100,000 Euros a year, sitting in some office at SocGen, forces the Fed to cut interest rates by 75 basis points, which is basically what happened”.

The huge and wide-ranging market repercussions have given ammunition to the critics of financial liberalization. An editorial of the French newspaper Libération sarcastically entitled “Casino” laments that no one controls the huge sums of money moving around in financial markets and demands tighter regulation of financial markets. It also claims that the scandal embarrasses President Sarkozy’s alleged embrace of laissez-faire capitalism. Read more on ‘Casino Capitalism’ or Personal Failure?…

Pat Sangimino wrote an article for the Wichita Business Journal titled, “Documentary seeks to dispel negative images of entrepreneurs ” (subscription required). A premiere of The Call of the Entrepreneur took place in Wichita, Kan., on November 14th. Sangimino noted in his piece:

Read more on Wichita Business Journal: The Call of the Entrepreneur…

Erika Andersen reviewed the “The Call of the Entrepreneur” for Human Events in a piece titled, “Entrepreneurship Preserves Life as We Know It.” The Call premiered last week to DC audiences at the E Street Cinema, as part of the Renaissance Film Festival.

Read more on Human Events on “The Call of the Entrepreneur”…

In what is shaping up to appear like court imposed taxation, Microsoft lost its appeal in a major anti-trust case at Europe’s second highest court yesterday. The European Union’s Court of First Instance backed the European Commission’s 2004 decision to fine Microsoft and order the software giant to change its Windows operating system to make it more compatible with rival systems. The 2004 verdict imposed a record fine on Microsoft in the amount of $497 million.

Read more on The Euro-Punishment of Microsoft…

“Is American higher education doing its duty to prepare the next generation to keep America free?” Apparently not, according to researchers at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy (UConnDPP), in a study commissioned by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s (ISI) National Civic Literacy Program.

Read more on Colleges and Universities Fail at Teaching American Civics…

Do you ever walk into a business and see a license on the wall and wonder if that specific industry really needs to be licensed by the state? I know I have thought that, if just a few times. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal looks at how licensing laws hinders low prices and competition in the marketplace. In a piece titled, License to Kill Jobs, Fund also explains how over regulation has stymied job growth and the ability of new entrepreneurs to become more self reliant.

Read more on Job Licensing and ‘The Children’…

A number of comments have been floating around the blogosphere related to the news coming out of Colorado last week that a professor at Colorado Christian University was terminated because “his lessons were too radical and undermined the school’s commitment to the free enterprise system.”

Read more on Confessing Evangelical Economics…