Continental directors are fired
When Rear Admiral John Byng in 1756 failed to repel a French siege of the English naval outpost on Minorca, his superiors were at least partly to blame since they had given the officer an undersized fleet. Nonetheless, Byng was executed for neglect of duty, which prompted Voltaire to observe that among the British "it is good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others."
A similar if considerably less severe strategy was used last week by U.S. banking regulators. Chicago's Continental Illinois announced that the...
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