| Champagne moment puts fizz back into marital status
My problem concerns the non-application of Life Assurance Premium Relief (LAPR), to a 25-year joint endowment policy that has recently matured. We were originally sold this Standard Life policy as "the most tax-efficient mortgage package available" through a building society. Early in 1982, we had applied and been accepted for a "joint low-cost endowment mortgage" and "approved" life assurance in our original names, albeit with an impending marriage. We got married in the same year and the policy commenced two months later at the same time as we completed on our first house. Given the timings, the titles to the house and the policy in question were written in our original names. WM, Godalming, Surrey Although all the parties, including the building society and Standard Life and the Inland Revenue, knew you were married, LAPR worth £5.92 monthly was not applied.
the has-been
With a Republican Party that loses elections as gracefully as Willkie and loses wars as pre-emptively as Chamberlain, America will forget the Bush presidency ever happened. ... 1:54 P.M. (link) Thursday, May 3, 2007 Animal Farm: As if the GOP needed any more bad omens, this week the Philadelphia Zoo became the latest to join a national trend—giving up on elephants. Now the press can start looking for the next sign of the Republican apocalypse: gun owners turning in their pickup trucks and riding donkeys to work. Perhaps because zoos represent the world the way man would have made it, they have long been a leading political indicator. In retrospect, China's seemingly innocent gift of pandas to the United States three decades ago should have been an obvious warning of its desire for global economic hegemony.
Crude Realities: Looking Down The Barrel
Arens wisely saw the writing on the wall and the $100 trade was his swan song. "The magic figure was hit apparently on the back of a single trade, rumored to be a local intent on fame," Sucden analysts wrote in a commentary on the record-breaking deal. Here's what the New York Times' Daily Intelligencer had to say: "Trader Richard Arens, who runs a brokerage named ABS, made a vanity trade in order to push oil past the $100/barrel milestone. We're sure the girls at the bar will be real impressed." The word on the trading floors now is that the ticket that he wrote the trade on is up for auction. The odd irony about the trade was Arens lost $600 on the deal. He offered $100,000 on the New York market for 1,000 barrels of oil, producing the much talked of $100 a barrel. Those triple-digits sparked anguish across the financial markets.
Centro shares continue to fall
SECURITIES in Centro Properties Group continued to head south today as analysts pondered what assets the besieged property trust could sell to refinance its maturing debt. Australia's second largest shopping centre owner needs to refinance $3.9 billion in debt by a February 15 deadline and is considering selling assets to raise capital and reduce its high gearing levels. Centro securities slipped about 30 per cent yesterday after it announced it was still trying to get an extension on the February 15 deadline.It also announced it had replaced its chief executive Andrew Scott with the head of its US operations, Glenn Rufrano. By 3.13pm AEDT, Centro securities had lost another 10.5 cents, or 17.5 per cent, to a record low of 49.5 cents. Its listed retail trust, Centro Retail Group, shed two cents to 30.5 cents after touching a record low of 27 cents.
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