The World’s Biggest Debtor

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Jerome Kerviel owes more money than anyone else on Earth – to his former employer. The Huffington Post has the story…

Thanks to a court ruling in late October, the former junior trader for France’s second largest bank, Societe Generale, owes the company a cool $6.3 billion — an amount so gargantuan it couldn’t possibly be repaid.

But considering an appeals court upheld the sentence after Kerviel was accused of orchestrating $73 billion in what the Atlantic politely refers to as “unauthorized trades,” it’s difficult to maintain a grounded sense of proportion.

I guess the 35-year-old can start paying it off after he serves three years in prison for fraud. I’m sure he can handle it – it’s only about 0.007 percent of the $852 billion in revolving American consumer credit debt. No big deal, right?

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