The Canadian ABS Market: Where Do We Go From Here?

The asset-backed securities (ABS) market suffered a major setback during the financial crisis that began in 2007. Its role in the broader market collapse has been well documented, but the need to restore a healthy ABS market is equally clear. Indeed, North American policymakers have readily acknowledged that this market must play a major role in the global economic recovery and policymakers have recently moved beyond addressing the urgency of restarting the ABS market to considering its reform. An analysis of current reform proposals guides suggestions for a policy approach that reflects Canadian market realities. Specifically, it would be prudent in the Canadian context to impose new disclosure requirements for all public market medium-term note issuance.Financial Services, asset-backed securities (ABS), ABS market reforms, Canadian ABS market, global economic recovery

Better Barking for ABS: Reform Proposals for the Asset-Backed Securities Market

The market for asset-backed securities (ABS) – financial instruments backed by underlying assets such as mortgages – suffered a major setback in 2007, as a cascade of downgrades and defaults brought turmoil to credit markets and the world economy. Authorities in the United States have since proposed sweeping changes to the ABS market. The Canadian Securities Administrators, representing provincial securities commissions, recently released a discussion paper proposing similar reforms, which would require: (i) sharply enhanced transparency in ABS structures, (ii) CEO certification of the adequacy of such structures, and (iii) disclosure of previous asset repurchases by the securities’ sponsor.Financial Services, asset-backed securities (ABS), credit markets

Of Persons and Property: The Politics of Legal Taxonomy

To talk of law without politics or history is nonsensical. All lawyers must concede that what they do takes place in historical circumstances and has political consequences. Every piece of law-making and law-application is a governmental act; it relies on political authority and claims binding force. Moreover, all legal activity occurs within a particular historical context; it is intended to respond to or influence a past, existing or anticipated state of affairs. This means that the study of law must concern itself with politics and history generally: it must not confine itself to only the politics and history of law. To do otherwise would be to distort and trivialise any understanding of law. Within such a broad political and historical appreciation, the focus of enquiry is not so much on \u27law\u27 as on \u27law-government\u27 because the idea of law without government is almost oxymoronic.1 Law is not only a symbol and act of power; it is also a major component of the social context in which those symbols and acts of power acquire meaning, significance and effect

Of Persons and Property: The Politics of Legal Taxonomy

To talk of law without politics or history is nonsensical. All lawyers must concede that what they do takes place in historical circumstances and has political consequences. Every piece of law-making and law-application is a governmental act, it relies on political authority and claims binding force. Moreover, all legal activity occurs within a particular historical context, it is intended to respond to or influence a past, existing or anticipated state of affairs. This means that the study of law must concern itself with politics and history generally: it must not confine itself to only the politics and history of law. To do otherwise would be to distort and trivialize any understanding of law. Within such a broad political and historical appreciation, the focus of inquiry is not so much on \u27law\u27 as on \u27law-government\u27 because the idea of law without government is almost oxymoronic. Law is not only a symbol and act of power, it is also a major component of the social context in which those symbols and acts of power acquire meaning, significance and effect

Of Persons and Property: The Politics of Legal Taxonomy

To talk of law without politics or history is nonsensical. All lawyers must concede that what they do takes place in historical circumstances and has political consequences. Every piece of law-making and law-application is a governmental act; it relies on political authority and claims binding force. Moreover, all legal activity occurs within a particular historical context; it is intended to respond to or influence a past, existing or anticipated state of affairs. This means that the study of law must concern itself with politics and history generally: it must not confine itself to only the politics and history of law. To do otherwise would be to distort and trivialise any understanding of law. Within such a broad political and historical appreciation, the focus of enquiry is not so much on \u27law\u27 as on \u27law-government\u27 because the idea of law without government is almost oxymoronic.1 Law is not only a symbol and act of power; it is also a major component of the social context in which those symbols and acts of power acquire meaning, significance and effect

Operating the Lisp Machine

This document is a draft copy of a portion of the Lisp Machine window system manual. It is being published in this form now to make it available, since the complete window system manual is unlikely to be finished in the near future. The information in this document is accurate as of system 67, but is not guaranteed to remain 100% accurate. This document explains how to use the Lisp Machine from a non-programmer's point of view. It explains the general characteristics of the user interface, particularly the window system and the program-control commands. This document is intended to tell you everything you need to know to sit down at a Lisp machine and run programs, but does not deal with the writing of programs. Many arcane commands and user-interface features are also documented herein, although the beginning user can safely ignore them.MIT Artificial Intelligence Laborator

Marketing A Community: Strategic Planning and Execution

Allan C. Reddy is Professor in the Department of Marketing and Economics at Valdosta State College. David P. Campbell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Marketing and Economics at Valdosta State College

Acoustic calibration apparatus for calibrating plethysmographic acoustic pressure sensors

An apparatus for calibrating an acoustic sensor is described. The apparatus includes a transmission material having an acoustic impedance approximately matching the acoustic impedance of the actual acoustic medium existing when the acoustic sensor is applied in actual in-service conditions. An elastic container holds the transmission material. A first sensor is coupled to the container at a first location on the container and a second sensor coupled to the container at a second location on the container, the second location being different from the first location. A sound producing device is coupled to the container and transmits acoustic signals inside the container

Case-control study of arsenic in drinking water and lung cancer in California and Nevada.

Millions of people are exposed to arsenic in drinking water, which at high concentrations is known to cause lung cancer in humans. At lower concentrations, the risks are unknown. We enrolled 196 lung cancer cases and 359 controls matched on age and gender from western Nevada and Kings County, California in 2002-2005. After adjusting for age, sex, education, smoking and occupational exposures, odds ratios for arsenic concentrations ≥85 µg/L (median = 110 µg/L, mean = 173 µg/L, maximum = 1,460 µg/L) more than 40 years before enrollment were 1.39 (95% CI = 0.55-3.53) in all subjects and 1.61 (95% CI = 0.59-4.38) in smokers. Although odds ratios were greater than 1.0, these increases may have been due to chance given the small number of subjects exposed more than 40 years before enrollment. This study, designed before research in Chile suggested arsenic-related cancer latencies of 40 years or more, illustrates the enormous sample sizes needed to identify arsenic-related health effects in low-exposure countries with mobile populations like the U.S. Nonetheless, our findings suggest that concentrations near 100 µg/L are not associated with markedly high relative risks