SLOW LEARNERS

Even after Barings Bank went belly-up because of faulty software, the Masters of the Universe still haven't figiured out that they need more security in their systems. A trader at MF Global was just fired for losing $141.5 million in unauthorized trades. He got away with the trades because

"A failure in one of the company's retail order entry systems permitted the representative to establish significant positions in his own account which were liquidated later that (Wednesday) morning," MF Global said.

As this Bloomberg report notes, this kind of problem is likely to re-occur:

``All it takes is somebody with enough understanding of how these trading, settlement and risk-management systems fit together and where the gaps are to create a problem,'' said Adam Honore, an analyst at Boston-based financial services consulting firm Aite Group LLC. ``SocGen was another example, and this is not going to be the last.''