As well as selling out of his duff bets on the future value of European share markets, SocGen may have been forced to sell good-quality assets to pay for some of its losses - adding to the downward pressure on market prices. Some experts blamed SocGen for at least 10% of Monday's shares rout.

Sarkozy also moved to reassure the markets that there was nothing wrong with the French financial system, as SocGen's success in refinancing itself showed. 'It does not affect the solidity and reliability of the French system,' he said.

However, the mood in Paris was of anger and a widely held view that Kerviel was being made scapegoat for far wider shortcomings at the bank. Le Parisien newspaper saidmany more employees at the bank were to blame. Meanwhile, US Federal Reserve officials were today forced to launch a staunch defence of this week's dramatic cut in interest rates in the wake of the rogue trader scandal.

Will Israel Shackle the Shekel?

For decades Israelis have viewed the U.S. dollar almost as a second national currency. Everything from rents to savings were linked to the greenback, which for many people represented financial stability in a country traditionally wracked with high inflation.

But in the past two years, Israelis have undergone an unprecedented challenge as the value of their own currency, the shekel, has soared against the dollar and more recently even against the euro. The dollar bought 4.7 shekels in November, 2005. Now the greenback is worth 3.6 shekels. In other words, the shekel has risen by more than 20% in that time—and 6% in the past month alone. Now both business and labor are calling loudly for a weaker currency. On Feb. 7 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert convened an emergency meeting of the country's top economic leadership to discuss what is being dubbed the "dollar crisis." At the same time Olmert and Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On came out strongly in support of Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, who is opposed to any government intervention in the foreign currency market.

Table Talk

I never tasted anything quite as good as that first bite of vanilla.

Gladys Knight and Ron Winans have got some competition in the chicken and waffles game.

Commentary: Other agencies use DoT accounting services

The Transportation Department four years ago completed the conversion of all of its component agencies to a single state-of-the-art financial system using commercial off-the-shelf software. We now provide proven financial system and expert accounting services to other agencies as a federal shared service provider, as designated by the Office of Management and Budget. .

Buffett Puts Bump Into Stocks, Credit Markets

Warren Buffett's offer to back the municipal bond portfolios of three monoline insurers has put some bounce into stocks today, and it's also waking up the credit markets.

Dollar Rallies on Strong Empire State and Hawkish FOMC Minutes

The Bank of Japan is expected to leave interest rates unchanged tonight at 0.25 percent. No surprises are expected from Fukui who only recently confirmed his hawkish stance. The BoJ will also be releasing their monthly report. It will be interesting to see if the central bank has any comments on the Q3 GDP release. For the time being, short yen carry trades are still working, but policymakers are increasingly concerned. The Japanese government is specifically afraid that a massive carry trade unwind would send the yen skyrocketing, which in turn would cause a big blow to their export sector. Commodity Currencies (CAD, AUD, NZD) - The Commodity Currencies were all down for the day on the back of weaker economic data. Australian wages rose by a less than expected 0.8 percent in the third quarter while house price growth slowed from 3.5 percent to 2.2 percent.

The Ron Paul "Surge"

Does anyone think that other candidates have an e-mail list which they send out to their supporters with information on these votes, urging their supporters to vote? Of course not, because it means nothing. Look at any of the polls: At present, Ron Paul is carrying less than 10 percent of the electorate, and he might grow to 15 % and is not even a key force in the Republican primaries. In other words, his campaign is generating huge amounts of noise on the internet due to his shills, but he is not going to get far enough to become the Republican candidate. The Establishment elite will see to that. It's nice that he has automaton supporters who bristle at every cross word said about their hero (believe me, I'm glad they're occupying themselves on the net), but what they will likely do is split the conservative side of the "independent" vote so that the net effect will be to do for the Republicans what 'Ralph Nader' did in 2000 for the Democrats: put the opposite party candidate over the top and into office.