The Ledger — Oversized Drop-Shoulder T-Shirt

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TEE-ECO-CD-LEE-01-M-BK T-Shirt

Piece

The Ledger Oversized Drop-Shoulder T-Shirt

$ 2,345.00

Description

On 26 February 1995 Barings, with two hundred and thirty-three years of history behind it, collapsed over the positions Leeson was hiding in an error account in Singapore. The print is that account, with its number repeated.

A Author

Nick Leeson

B Subject

Operational Risk

C Aesthetic

Diagram · Typographic

Exploration

Leeson was twenty-eight and held two jobs at once: he traded in the market and settled his own trades. That combination is what every manual lists as the mistake never to make, and in Singapore it was made because the office was small and he appeared to be making money.

Account 88888 was opened to correct administrative errors. Into it he fed losses he expected to recover the next day, and each next day needed a larger position than the last.

London sent him funds to cover margin without asking what they were for. An earthquake in Kobe moved the market the wrong way and the account blew up.

A bank two hundred and thirty-three years old, which had financed the Louisiana Purchase and the Napoleonic wars, was sold for one pound.

The failure was not the fraud. It was that nobody signed the reconciliation.

Details