The big blow

Whenever there is a great robbery, he was often called by the robbery of the century but what is really the biggest blow in history?. In "The Corner" we make a list of the 10 largest thefts in history.

• Central Bank of Iraq, Iraq (2003): One Billion dollars.
• Kent Securitas Depot, United Kingdom (2006): 92.5 million.
• Lufthansa, USA (1978): 6 million.
• Dunbar Armored, USA (1997): 19 million.
• Matt Brinks warehouse, UK (1983): 45 million.
• Northern Bank, UK (2004): 60 million.
• Central Bank, Brazil (2005): 70 million.
• The Great Train Robbery, UK (1963): 74 million.
• The Security Deposit Knightsbridge, UK (1987): 111 million.
• The Museum of Boston, USA (1990): 300 million in artworks.

On the other hand, we could create a list of major gaffe, those who lose a lot of pasta but not for the benefit that commits. So far was led by Nick Leeson, whose success led to the bankrupt Barings Bank by an English bank founded in 1762. This is what made the figure as we regard this website.

On July 17 of 1992 appears to have begun the beginning of the end of the illustrious institution founded in 1762 by Sir Francis Baring, whose ultimate descendant, Peter Baring, was consoled by now in bankruptcy and ridiculed listening operas in its spacious mansion in rural Wiltshire . That day, to conceal the loss of 20,000 pounds sterling in a bad investment made by one of his employees, Nick Leeson opened a secret account (the baptise "of errors"), which numbered five-eights, because 8 is The number of luck for the Chinese.

The broad outlines of what happened are clarísimas: to hide his losses, which recorded 88,888 in the account, Leeson love reports to their heads, while increasing investment (at future) with the expectation of a hike it Compensation of losses and leave benefits.
It was a dangerous gamble: after three years when there were slight rises and falls in the shares of minced, Nick Leeson had lost about 1,500 million dollars. The financial hole erupted to light on February 27 1995, and broke the bank and volatilize savings of thousands of professors, teachers, military personnel and retirees who had bought bonds of Barings confident in the soundness of the bank and conservative image

As you have seen, the ego of a person led to bankruptcy a bank that survived two world wars and a multitude of crises.

But as history is very bloody and tends to be repeated this time the protagonist is named Jérôme Kerviel, worked for Societe Generale and the hole it has left is almost 5,000 million Euros. I would love to interview, but I am afraid we must go to Caipirinha in Brazil taking our health. Tells his story in the El Pais article titled "Ruined by an employee"

This employee of French bank Societe Generale has succeeded him alone produce a loss of 4,900 million euros in the bank, one of the largest in Europe and with a pedigree that goes back to the Second Empire. Although there are not many details on how to get such a huge amount of losses, it is likely that the parallel societies and for fraudulently concealing that mounted substantial fictitious transactions, would be wiped out by the catastrophic collapse of the stock exchanges on Monday. From what little is known of the gigantic fraud it appeared that Kerviel acted alone and that it "has not benefited" from the fraudulent organized from his position as operator of the market in Paris.

Normal behavior of the man charged with only 100,000 euros per year, according to the chairman of the bank "still has not recovered his 2007 bonus, but I doubt that demands it."

Posts to find reasons to explain what happened on Monday, many found in these operations, but the fact is that the stock crash had been brewing since late December, however, given the volume we are talking about, something surely influenced.

And the questions are obvious: How can a single person could disappoint some 5,000 billion euros a third bank of France? What control mechanisms failed to detect deception is not an employee of Société Générale?

Today legged putting other less dramatic but just as final for the employee: "The revenge of Antonio jackass Caracul: fired the employee who sent him a bill with that name"

In terms of economic news are still obsessed with the stock market, which lowered if historic, if that historic ascent, which if all goes well, that if the world is running out ... I think these are, without doubt, the symptoms of a complete ignorance of what happens in the market. And I say this with no disrespect, you just assume that nobody has any idea what is happening or what will happen.

If we look locally, we see that unemployment increased by 117,000 people in 2007 and the unemployment rate stands at 8.6% the highest since the first quarter of 2006. Therefore we have runaway inflation and unemployment rising. Bad picture for anyone who wins the elections in March ...

Good weekend to all!

Written by Carlos Lopez on Jan. 25, 2008 with 412 comments
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