Rogue Government Traders

[Owlet]

"Everything that is happening around the world right now reminds me of the  movie “Rogue Trader.”  In case you haven’t seen it, it is the 1999 film where Ewan McGregor plays the role of Nick Leeson, the Barings Bank trader whose trades gone bad brought down Barings Bank, the oldest merchant bank in London at the time.  The reason why this story is so compelling and why I recommend everyone go watch it is because it demonstrates what can happen when a small loss or mistake is ignored and then covered up in a futile attempt to get back to where you were.  In this case, Nick Leeson started losing money trading futures in Singapore and rather than cutting his losses he kept trading more and bigger.  Pretty quickly, the losses became so enormous he knew he would be forced to close them out if someone noticed and he might even be fired.  So what did he do?  He decided to transfer the losses to a hidden account.  The 88888 account.  He figured he would hide the losses there and then close the hidden account when he got back to even.  He never got back to even and Barings went bankrupt.
 
Any of this sound familiar?  Yes of course it does.  Unfortunately for all of us, the story of Barings bank and Nick Leeson is merely happening on a global scale.  However, rather than one trader making bad bets what we are dealing with is a gigantic credit bubble ponzi scheme created by TBTF banks, or as Bill Black more appropriately refers to them, Systemically Dangerous Institutions (SDIs) that now needs to be covered up."

Zerohedge:Rogue Government Traders