What was the point, then?

The International Herald Tribune reports:

Societe Generale, one of the largest banks in Europe, was thrown into turmoil Thursday after it revealed that a rogue employee had executed a series of "elaborate, fictitious transactions" that cost the company more than $7 billion, the biggest loss ever recorded in the financial industry by a single trader.
Daniel Bouton, the Societe Generale chairman, said the employee, later identified by other bank employees as Jerome Kerviel, had confessed to the [euro] 4.9 billion fraud, although he did not appear to have profited personally from the trades.

This puts Rico in mind of the story of the guy who did a perfect-because-it-was-invisible electronic end-run on the Bank of America for a couple million bucks back in the 80s, but then couldn't resist bragging about it to the wrong person, lost it all, and went to jail...