Justice vs. Corruption "Taking PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY to uphold what is pure, right, and true"     JUSTICE - A One-Minute Testimonial Announcement Faith Committee, Character Council of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Contributed from Encyclopedia of 15,000 Illustrations BARINGS BANK BANKRUPT BY 28-YEAR-OLD On February 26, 1995, Barings, the oldest bank in Britain, announced it was seeking bankruptcy protection after losing nearly one billion dollars in a stock gamble. At the time Barings went under, the bank held assets for Queen Elizabeth, some $100 million according to Time magazine. In late 1994, the chief trader at Barings’s Singapore office began betting big on Japan’s Nikkei market. Then disaster struck. An earthquake hit Kobe, Japan, and on January 23, 1995, the Nikkei plunged more than one thousand points. Barings Bank lost big money. But instead of cutting his losses, Barings’s Singapore trader doubled his investment, apparently hoping that the Nikkei would rebound. It didn’t. As the Nikkei continued to plummet, Barings’s London office put up nearly $900 million to support its falling position on the Singapore investments. Finally Barings ran out of capital and declared bankruptcy. How could one twenty-eight-year-old trader in Singapore lose nearly a billion dollars and ruin a 233-year-old British bank? According to Time, the problem was lack of supervision. —Craig Brian Larson [Reproduced with permission from Encylopedia of 15,000 Illustrations, by Paul Lee Tan, Communications, Inc., Dallas, TX, 1998, #1828]   This material is published by the Faith Committee of the Character Council of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Reproduction and Adaptation is encouraged.