Th BBC is dragging up the story of Nick Leeson once again in order to portray the City in a bad light. Actually all it shows is the lax controls and one bank and the stupidity of the management at Barings.
But it is surprising that they still think that there is any interest in this story given what has happened since. Leeson got away with his dodgy dealing by false accounting. Every time he lost money, he booked the money spent as an investment rather than as an expense.
The lesson was obviously learnt by the Labour government who were apt to call every crackpot waste of money an investment as though it was going to produce a return, which they never did. But Leeson's folly only every ran to £1 billion, enough to bring down Barings but peanuts compared to Brown/Balls' epic £170 billion a year.
That was nearly 3.4 Leesons every week ad infinitum if they got the chance. Why then does the BBC go on about Lesson and not about Brown?
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