It's hard to recall the shock that greeted reports of the young Societe General trader's scheme after the year we've been through, marked by the craven come-ons of the subprime mortgage industry, overpaid overly-optimistic CEOs, a bailout that defies the imagination (just imagine almost 8,000 tons of $100 bills) and that long weekend at Bernie's.

Bernie Madoff, that is, whose massive $58 billion Ponzi scheme continues...