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Thursday, March 06, 2003
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Terence R. Wilken writes: A derivative is a financial security such as an option or future whose value is derived in part from the value and characteristics of another security, the underlying asset. The underlying asset is usually a commodity, bond, stock, or currency. You “bet” that the value derived from the underlying asset will increase or decrease by a certain amount within a certain fixed period of time. A derivative is usually a contract rather than an asset. You buy a promise to convey ownership of the asset rather than the asset itself. Because the legal term of a contract is much more varied than property ownership it has a special appeal to investors. It provides for a “sophisticated” management of risk. ... This makes it just right for Companies such as JP Morgan, Citigroup, Golden Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. They are in the business of making as much money as possible for their Shareholders. ... Some of these Companies suffered major losses with the collapse of Enron, Worldcom, Global Crossing, Williams Communications, and others that ran out of money. That's because they had loaned billions of dollars to these companies. These loans were carried as "assets" on the books of the banks. But when their debtor companies collapsed, the lender “banks” are required to report these loans as non-performing. They are no longer assets for the bank, now they are losses. Billions of dollars in assets are suddenly billions of dollars in losses. Not to worry, the major money that they make is made in betting with their derivatives. JP Morgan alone has over $23 trillion of derivatives on their books. (03/06/03) | |
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Timothy Wilken, MD writes: The Trustegrities will be three with separate but complimentary missions in service to humankind. The Earth Trustegrity will provide: 1) Access to land and natural resources for personal use at minimal or no cost, and 2) Access to land and natural resources for synergic production with appropriate charges payable to the Earth Trustegrity in lease or rental fees, licensing fees, and/or revenue shares. All rental fees, licensing fees, and/or revenue shares are entrusted to the Earth Trustegrity for Humanity as Community. The Life Trustegrity will provide: 3) Safety from crime and war, and full access to: 4) Comfortable, safe, healthy housing. 5) Good nutritious food 6) Good preventitive health services and comprehensive cradle to grave medical care, and access to the privilege of Reproduction based on fairness, equality, and mutual benefit to both humanity as Individuals and humanity as Community. This would include monitoring administrating, adjudicating the Trust privilege of Reproduction. 7) Access to animals and plants including native flora and wildlife for personal use at minimum or no cost. 8) Access to animals and plants including native flora and wildlife for synergic production with approriate charges payable to the Life Trustegrity in rental fees, licensing fees and/or revenue shares. All payments made are entrusted to the Earth Trustegrity for Humanity as Community. The Time-binding Trustegrity will provide: 9) Full education to an individual’s ability and interest regardless of age, 10) The opportunity to participate in synergic organization and invest their action and leverage to earn revenue shares and acquire property throughout their full lifetime. 11) Access to communication with humanity as individuals and to humanity as community for personal reasons, for synergic production and consumption, and for synergic consensus utilizing Unanimous Rule Democracy. 12) Protection of the intellectual discoveries and inventions of Time-binding whether they be in the Time-binding Trust, or the Property of living humans. (03/06/03) | |
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New York Times -- Sales of the lucrative, gas-guzzling giants of the auto industry — the Escalades, Excursions, Suburbans and other big sport utility vehicles — are sliding, according to figures released today. Analysts said that rising gas prices and a drumbeat of criticism of S.U.V.'s figure in the slowing sales. But the biggest culprit, they said, is a new wave of small and medium-size sport utilities from Asian automakers that are chipping away at a crucial profit center for the domestic auto industry. Over all, auto sales fell to their second-lowest pace in four and a half years last month, as snowstorms and worries about a possible war with Iraq tempered buying. Sales fell 6.7 percent from a year earlier, to a seasonally adjusted annual sales rate of 15.4 million vehicles. Sales at General Motors fell 19 percent last month from a year earlier, and both Ford and G.M. said they were cutting their production levels for the second quarter, compared with a year ago. (03/06/03) | |
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New York Times -- BACK when the Peckman River was a watery dump for sewage, grass clippings and broken furniture, the notion of its becoming a trout stream seemed like a fantasy. But two sewage plants on the small river were upgraded. Residents cleared debris, then began stocking the river with trout. Lo and behold, the state wants to label this unremarkable river in the unbroken sprawl of northern New Jersey a trout stream. The moral of the tale? Be careful what you fish for. The federal Clean Water Act, filtered through the state bureaucracy, is emitting a fine mess. Officials in two towns are fighting the state's attempt to bestow on the Peckman River the rare distinction of being an urban trout stream. They fear that it would require an even cleaner river, which they estimate could ultimately cost them a combined $28 million in sewer plant improvements, partly to cool the treated sewage flowing to the river. That's more than the annual operating budgets of the two towns, Cedar Grove and Verona, combined. (03/06/03) | |
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New York Times -- In the summer of 2000, fires roared through the tinder-dry Bitterroot National Forest, cloaking the valley in dense smoke for weeks, blackening more than 300,000 acres and destroying 70 private homes in a valley that is a bedroom community for this university town. Now the restoration of the forest has become the focus of a dispute between environmental groups and the United States Forest Service. A coalition of local and national environmental groups say the agency is breaking a promise to move the restoration along quickly. The Forest Service acknowledges that the work has been delayed by budget shortages but insists that it will be completed in three to five years. An analysis by the environmental groups found that of 33,150 acres planned for reforestation, only 4,000 acres had been planted, and that watershed and road restoration was going even more slowly. The Forest Service has completed just 13 of 500 miles of road upgrades to accommodate increased timber hauling and prevent runoff from substandard roads. The agency has obliterated just half a mile of the 45 miles of roads planned for elimination. "The Forest Service always says we have to trust them," said Robert Ekey, who, as Northern Rockies regional director for the Wilderness Society, was a party to negotiations last year that produced the agreement on restoration. "This illustrates why we don't trust them. They always break their promise." (03/06/03) | |
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IAEA -- Of all the water on earth, only 2.5 per cent is freshwater, the rest is salty. Of this freshwater, most is frozen in icecaps, present as soil moisture, or inaccessible in deep underground aquifers, leaving less than 1 per cent accessible for use. Sustainable human development depends on the availability of freshwater. It is estimated that more than one third of the global food production is based on irrigation, a significant portion of which may rely of unsustainable groundwater sources. Despite progress in the last two decades to improve access to safe drinking water, some 1.1 billion people today go without. Areas of water scarcity and stress are increasing, particularly in North Africa and West Asia. In the next two decades, total water demand is expected to increase by 40 per cent. By 2025, two-thirds of the world's population may live in countries with moderate or severe water shortages. (03/06/03) | |
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John Jay writing in 1787: The safety of the people of America against dangers from FOREIGN force depends not only on their forbearing to give JUST causes of war to other nations, but also on their placing and continuing themselves in such a situation as not to INVITE hostility or insult; for it need not be observed that there are PRETENDED as well as just causes of war. It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people. (03/06/03) | |
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Westerville, Ohio is installing a 250-kilowatt fuel cell, which will power 180 homes. It is apparently the first of its kind in the U.S. (03/06/03) | |
7:23:08 AM 
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© TrustMark
2003
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
4/1/2003; 5:16:48 AM.
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