The Three Scariest Words In Risk Management.

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 9:30AM

oh its just very en vogue to rag on the french right now but really as we have seen through $40 billion of losses in 9 months they do not have a monopoly on poor risk management

Posted by AJ, Feb 06, 2008 9:39AM

@9:30: Just right now? I thought the French were always a good target... and have been, well, forever

cheese eating surrender monkeys...

Posted by sledgehammer, Feb 06, 2008 9:43AM

French Investment Bank - 3 lies in one

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 9:44AM

Freedom Fries!

Posted by lurker, Feb 06, 2008 9:51AM

The frogs are always fun to bash, but seriously, Carney, you gotta at least try to think of your own material.

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 9:57AM

American AAA Housing Credit - $450 billion lies in one

Posted by Comic Professor, Feb 06, 2008 10:19AM

@9:51, don't you see, by being derivative about derivatives, Carney is being ironic while still making a droll statement.

Highbrow comedy at its finest.

Posted by Spleen, Feb 06, 2008 10:21AM

AJ: Actually, it would be fairer to say that the French have been a good target only since they lost the Franco-Prussian War about a century and a half ago. Before that they conquered most of Europe during the Napoleonic Wars and built up a vast empire; millions of people in South America and Africa still speak French as a result. Go back even further and they were the last people to successfully invade Britain in the 11th century, nearly a millennium ago now.

But hey, who the hell cares about a period of history unless Tom Hanks has been in a movie about it.

Posted by French Ron Paul Supporter, Feb 06, 2008 10:25AM

My name is Jacques and I am a cheesemaker in France. I am voting for Ron Paul in the primeires this election season.

Posted by 1-2, Feb 06, 2008 10:29AM

Spleen, you know what they say, "what have you done for me lately"?

In the case of the French the answer is a pretty obvious goose-egg "nothing"...and i have a broad definition of "lately", which ironically goes back to a period just after the Franco-Prussian war.

I do love how their is a General Eisenhower avenue right next to the Champs D'Elyse. Apparently the french definition of "lately" only goes back about 60 years.

Sorry france.

Posted by Random Banker, Feb 06, 2008 10:34AM

Here Here spleen.

However, it wasn't really the "french" so much as it was the Normans who were themselves transplanted swedes. Now the really interesting fact here is that before the King Harold lost to the Normans at hastings he defeated an invasion by the vikings at Stamford bridge and wheel round south to attempt to repel the Normans. So the English defeated one group of vikings only to be defeated by another group of viking decedents a few days later.

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 10:35AM

To paraphrase a great man France, You Lose! Flawless Victory!

Yes the French traders suck, it is true. It is not genetic or anything just the system incents anyone with talent and brains in finance to move to london, geneve, or even new york god help us

Posted by Booyah, Feb 06, 2008 10:48AM

Yeah you can swing $70 billion of junk around but we'll only pay you $150k yippeeee! sign me up for that idiocy

Posted by Anal_yst, Feb 06, 2008 11:05AM

monkey biz blog has arguably the worst, most unreadable color scheme of any website I can remember, jeeeze

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 11:06AM

10:35 and 10:48 hint at the heart of the French problem. People there just don't make huge salaries. Its a more egalitarian place. Upside is that they all generally eat well, look good and don't work real hard. They live modest and pleasant lives (except for the immigrants, that is, who are essentially in another place).

Posted by s7.5, Feb 06, 2008 11:08AM

Consider yourself lucky, I can't even read it it crashes on my browser

RB did you just wikipedia that or are you just an early english history geek?

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 11:10AM

11:06 - Maybe the french are just afraid of money.

Posted by Long gamma, Feb 06, 2008 11:14AM

going to war with the French as allies is like going deer hunting with an accordian player going to war with the French as allies is like going deer hunting with an accordian player

Posted by Long gamma, Feb 06, 2008 11:14AM

going to war with the French as allies is like going deer hunting with an accordian player going to war with the French as allies is like going deer hunting with an accordian player

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 11:14AM

Ron Paul 2012

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 11:15AM

@11:10 They would say that they know what's important in life. A variation on the all you need in life is loose shoes, tight p***y, warm place to sh!t argument.

Posted by Long gamma, Feb 06, 2008 11:16AM

going to war with the French as allies is like going deer hunting with an accordian player

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 11:16AM

Save your votes for Ron Paul in 2012 & 2016!!!!

Posted by lurker, Feb 06, 2008 11:17AM

OMG the frog kissing going on in a few of these posts brings tears of joy to my eyes.

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 11:20AM

loose shoes huh?

Posted by Frog legs, Feb 06, 2008 11:21AM

Actually, it would be fairer to say that the French have been a good target only since they lost the Franco-Prussian War about a century and a half ago. Before that they conquered most of Europe during the Napoleonic Wars and built up a vast empire; millions of people in South America and Africa still speak French as a result. Go back even further and they were the last people to successfully invade Britain in the 11th century, nearly a millennium ago now

A hundred years of too much wine and cheese and Camus and Sartre and Derida and worst of all , De Gaulle ..... and there goes the Empire

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 11:31AM

Really? France lost the Gallic wars. Lost the hundred years war. Lost the Italian wars. Lost the wars of religion vs the huguenots. Lost the French and Indian War. Lost the War of Spanish Succession. This is not exactly a stellar record here, prior to the wars of Napoleon (incidentally, not a frenchman)

Posted by To The Hilt, Feb 06, 2008 11:37AM

Long gamma,

None of your three posts make sense.

First, one does not go to war with French allies; one bails them out when they have been conquered.

Second, is an accordian player a person, or is it an instrument? Are you saying that the French are too loud, so they would scare away the enemy and you could not kill them? Are you saying that they would give away your position so the deer could come kill you?

Perhaps a better analogy would be: going to war with the French as allies is like buying Feb 08 MBI 40 calls, because you are likely to lose.

Unless you know something I don't know....

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 11:50AM

Damn. Is everybody having problems reading Monkey Biz Blog? Reading it I mean...not the content.

Posted by rockhead, Feb 06, 2008 11:53AM

To the Hilt

CHIMP

Posted by Anon, Feb 06, 2008 11:54AM

what two things do they issue you when you enlist in the french army? a uniform and a white flag

Posted by anon, Feb 06, 2008 11:54AM

a baguette and a cheese wheel

Posted by anon, Feb 06, 2008 12:05PM

Roquefort and Antourenein Noir

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 12:06PM

1. Scissors (for cutting off your manhood)

2. Tampons (because you're now a puss*y)

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 12:06PM

a beret and a small poodle

Posted by guy-jean-francois-jacques-jean-paul, Feb 06, 2008 12:07PM

Côtes du Rhône and fromage

Posted by Random Banker, Feb 06, 2008 12:08PM

@Series 7.5:

I'm a nerd. But I find in our english centric education system Hastings gets all the press as some sort of tour de force by the Iron Duke (william the conqueror). The reality of the politics of the day was far more complicated and involved four factions all vying for the thrown of england.

Of course the norman conquest also sows the seeds of the the 100 years war and thusly subsequent english french hostility, which persists in our dialog to this day.

People give France a hard time, but they forget that France was the dominant land power on the continent essentially from the fall of the Roman Empire until the unification of Germany just 130 years ago. Through brilliant political maneuvering the French kept the German princes warring amongst themselves keeping them weak and decentralized.

It is only Waterloo and not the Franco-Prussian war (which came later) that will lay the foundation for German ascendancy. Before that Napoleon had served Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine and the De Facto Successor to the Holly Roman Emperor.

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 12:10PM

I love french chicks because they are hairy. au natural

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 12:11PM

Random: you should move to NY. You must be the only smart person out where you live. Do you have anyone to talk to there?

Posted by Random Banker, Feb 06, 2008 12:25PM

I don't recall saying where I lived. All I said was that I didn't grow up in New York and there for do not like New York sports teams.

Posted by Froggy, Feb 06, 2008 12:34PM

The people of Haiti are grateful

Posted by sledgehammer, Feb 06, 2008 12:42PM

It is astonishing that Germany managed to hold France with so few divisions considering that everyone who wasn’t draining Germany’s resources by the clever maneuver of surrendering en masse and forcing the Germans to feed them was vigorously and bravely engaged in the Resistance. Is there a village without a Place de la Resistance? But one has to be fair: one has to understand the Gallic notion of resistance. Any hotelier who overcharged a German was in the Resistance. Each whore who gave a German soldier the clap was a freedom fighter. All those who obeyed while viciously withholding their morning “bonjours” were heroes of liberty. They are a ridiculous people, just as one must confess that the British are bungling, the Italians incompetent, the Americans neurotic, the Germans romantically savage, the Russians barbaric, the Arabs vicious and the Dutch make cheese. Take the particular manifestation of French ridiculousness that makes them attempt to combine their myopic devotion to money with their pursuit of phantom gloire. The same people who willingly dilute their burgundy for modest profit willingly spend millions on the atomic contamination of the Pacific Ocean in the attempt that they will be seen as technological equals of the Americans. Sadly for their image abroad, the rest of the world views their actions as the ludicrous egotism of the amorous ant climbing a cow’s leg assuring her that he will be gentle.

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 12:43PM

The people of Algeria are grateful.

Posted by , Feb 06, 2008 1:01PM

Comments on this website seem to be a blend of eloquent regurgitations of college econ classes blended with horrible and superfluous analogies.

Posted by Anal_yst, Feb 06, 2008 1:33PM

@ 1:01

you forgot blatent wikipedia rips and innappropriate jokes/insults

Posted by s75, Feb 06, 2008 2:03PM

@sledgehammer i love that quote, where on earth did you dig up that passage?

@RB it was my impression that france of that period was not really a unified entity and would not even have identified itself as such until unified much later during the rise of sun-like kings although there was a very loose feudal system in place, nest-ce pas?

Posted by g-man, Feb 06, 2008 2:03PM

Why are we besieged by so many books titled like "How I Became a Quant", "Why I AM A Quant", "My Life As a Quant", "I'm A Quant and You Aren't", etc. Who gives a fuck about these piss ant egomaniacs? The past year (stat equity & risk managment) demonstrated all the stochastic math and copulas are invisble clothes these midget mathematical emperors wear. So they weren't smart enough to cut it math and physics departments and they made a little money as one eyed men in the land of the blind. They should be first fired and last hired.

Posted by Random Banker, Feb 06, 2008 5:15PM

s75:

You are correct. I'm including the time as the Frankish kingdom in my references to "france". While this was certainly not modern France, I consider them french. Similarly I consider the Byzantines to have been Romans.

I find it quite odd that historians make this distinction between France and the frankish kingdoms. No one claims that the Tokugawa Shogunate was not Japan. It really makes no sense at all.

Though they clearly operated under the feudal system, the Franks were certainly the most centralized and strongest land power of their day.
Thus we get Charlemagne and his progeny. After all it was the French Heavy Cavalry with its "frankish charge" that allowed the European to win the first crusade and establish crusader kingdoms, despite being vastly out summered and well behind enemy lines.

Further Frances population was far greater than of any other kingdom. This is why during the 100 year war the English simply could not hold more than 60% of france at a time. They simply did not have the man power. Again, France would continue to be the dominate power and largest population in Europe until the unification of germany.

Its an important lesson. The nation with the largest population wins. Its something we should keep in mind as our companies industrialize China's infrastructure for them.

And for anal_yst. What can I say i watch the History Channel and listen History classes on podcast. And, I'll guarantee i out scored yo back in the day on the World History AP exam. I'm a dork, fine. The 1066 Stamford bridge vs. Hastings thing has always been a pet peeve of mine.

Posted by transparency is for negligees, Feb 06, 2008 5:46PM

to diverge slightly from the millenium overview of french history:

napoleon (the corsican) kicked ass but otherwise reversion to the "cheese eating surrender monkey" mean.

and back to the thesis...

would a french bank approach market losses with the same stern regulator driven transparency as truly international banks or would they hide most of their losses (if at all possible) behind the back of the radiator to avoid any fuss and unwelcome scrutiny...

given that insufferability is almost next to godliness for a french banker is it any surprise that a truly monumental market loss was greeted by their international peers as a warm and entertaining diversion from the pre-recession blues.

but sadly we are still abit blue can any of the other french banks do a party piece?

Posted by Oui? Pah! Non!, Feb 08, 2008 9:57AM

Sorry to have missed this debate.

I was at a celebratory lunch, of frogs legs, Camembert, vin rouge and garlic snaps, and only returned to turn off my computer before it overheats prior to a long weekend.

We forget that indeed the Royal family of England spoke French as a main language until the Hanoverian House rule. Additionally all Royal families of Europe (including the Russian) spoke French as their first language, and the other European Languages were spoken by the prolitariat (plebian manual workers).

Almost all of Europe is French or Viking by descent, apart from the pasta munching reverse gear Italians who are Romans or Moorish descendants.

The French have given us Europe, they have given us culture, art, cheese and red wine, beautiful women, romance, St Tropez and the Cote D'Azur, kissing in public, .

I for one have alot to be grateful for to the French....

This apart...the French army of old, was populated by mercenaries, who won their wars for them, the moment a Frenchman has had to fight his own war they loose.

The foreign legion is the modern day equivalent, tough jonny foreigners, who actually do Frances dirty work.

nuff said

Bon weekend a tous.