177,536 years to pay that debt

I heard about Jerome Kerviel on NPR this morning. This guy got into all sorts of trouble while working at Societe Generale as a futures index trader. He lost A LOT of money. The actual prison term isn't that lengthy, five years with two years suspended, but the fine. Boy howdy, it's a doozy - $6.7 billion. Ouch. That smarts. At his current wage of $3,150 a month from the computer consultant job he currently has, it'd take him 177,536 years to pay back. On the one hand, thank goodness someone has been held accountable. On the other, like heck the upper management folks didn't know what was going on. It has been reported that Kerviel's activities raised red flags 74 times but nothing was ever done. Not once or twice or maybe even half a dozen times - 74 TIMES. You know what this says to me? That his bosses were complicit, which makes them accessories to the crime. Apparently there are many in France who feel the same way. There isn't one person I heard interviewed that didn't think Kerviel was a scapegoat.