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    • Rogue traders pop up with some regularity, racking up nine- and ten-figure huge losses at well-known firms: Joseph Jett at Kidder, Peabody in the 1980s, Nicholas Leeson at Baring in the 1990s, Jerome Kerviel at Societe General in 2008. Earlier this year, Kweku Abodoli, a 31-year-old trader at UBS's London office, was busted after having notched some $2 billion in losses due to unauthorized trading.

      It turns out rogue traders are features of the system, not a bug. That's the argument made by John Gapper, columnist for the Financial Times, in his smart new e-book How to Be a Rogue Trader.

      As we discuss in the accompanying video, Gapper chalks up the persistence of rogue traders to the nature of banks, and to human nature. "When it comes down to it, banks are willing to take the risk that these individual exists within the organization," he said. Large investment banks only make money by taking risk. If they fret too much about the prospect of traders losing money, they wouldn't

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      For the third day this week, a combination of solid U.S. economic data and signs of progress in Europe has enlivened the animal spirits on Wall Street.

      The Dow was up 0.8% while the S&P and Nasdaq were each up about 1% in recent trading, building on the big gains earlier this week.

      Early enthusiasm was tempered, however, by the guts of the U.S. jobs report: An unexpected drop in the unemployment rate to 8.6% was due mainly to a sharp drop in the workforce. "Those who exited the workforce, many of whom gave up on looking for work, outnumbered the 278,000 people who found jobs," Reuters reports, citing the Labor Departments household survey, which is separate from the payrolls data. (See: November Jobs Report: Curb Your Enthusiasm)

      As with the case on Monday and Wednesday, Friday's rally was spurred by hopes for progress (some progress, any progress) in dealing with Europe's sovereign debt/banking crisis. Specifically, reports the ECB

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    • We shouldn't make too much of what seems to be a very positive November jobs report. The unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent, and 120,000 jobs were added. As has generally been the case for the last two years, the monthly snapshot contained marginally positive — but conflicting — news on the state of the labor market.

      Several key takeaways.

      Rate Games. Each month, the BLS surveys people and asks if they've been working. It creates an estimate of the total number of people working and then divides that figure into its estimate of the total civilian labor force. The number of people who said they were employed rose from 140.302 million in October to 140.58 million in November, an increase of 278,000. (Good!) But the labor force fell, as people either aged out of the workforce, or got discouraged and stopped looking. The labor force actually contracted by 315,000 in the month, according to the household survey. (Bad!) This combination of more people saying they were working even as more

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      Earlier this week, a Federal Judge denied Citigroup's $285 million settlement with the SEC, saying the deal was "neither reasonable, nor fair, nor adequate, nor in the public interest."

      Which brings us to another edition of Taken to Task.

      Judge Jed Rakoff deserves major accolades for pushing back against the SEC's standard practice of letting Wall Street firms settle charges without admitting or denying wrongdoing. The Judge said the public has a right to know about any case that "touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives."

      The Judge's decision counts as progress in the battle against the 'Too Big to Fail' banks and their enablers in Washington. But what's really depressing and debilitating is realizing how Rakoff's ruling is but a small victory in a very minor skirmish in the broader war against crony capitalism, which seems to be running amok in America.

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