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© Copyright 2000 Rogers Media. The following article first appeared in the July 2001 edition of
BENEFITS CANADA magazine.
Editorial: Good reading
Introducing BENEFITS CANADA's first Books Issue. And much more.
Happy news from the home front. Andrea Davis, our tireless associate editor, and her husband Corbin have
had their first child. Lindsay Grace arrived at 12:56 p.m. on June 11. Eight pounds, six ounces and all are
well. Three cheers for the new mom.
During Andrea's maternity leave, Deanna Rosolen will work with us as assistant editor. Deanna is a bright
young journalist whose reporting you will have already seen on benefitscanada.com. She makes her debut in
the magazine this month, as Insights/ Industry writer.
We're also welcoming a new contributing editor to benefits canada, Caroline Cakebread. As the new editor of
our sister Canadian Investment Review, Caroline will write the Investment Strategies column for us each
month.
It's a good time to show Deanna and Caroline the ropes. Our first Books Issue features excerpts from three
important new releases. All three remind us that employers--through their sponsorship of benefits and
pension plans, and by extension their investment policies--have an enormous influence on the lives of
Canadians.
Our cover story comes from Nicholas Dunbar's Inventing Money (see here). Dunbar tells the story of Long-Term Capital Management and how its Nobel Prize
winning principals (Myron Scholes, a native of Timmins, Ont., was one) nearly blew an ozone layer sized
hole in the global economy.
It is now widely held among Canadian pension plan sponsors that the equity risk premium is dead (or at
least seriously ill). They are turning to alternative investments such as hedge funds in hopes of finding
the strong returns stocks offered until recently. Dunbar's impressively detailed book is a must for anyone
following what we are beginning to think of here as the alternative investment mania of 2001.
Monica Townson's Pensions Under Attack (see here) explores "what's
behind the push to privatize public pensions." Townson believes it is coming from those who stand to gain
most--the financial services industry--and that your plan members will suffer if the system is further
privatized.
Agree or disagree, we think you should see what she has written about the Canada Pension Plan Investment
Board and the comparison she draws with the retirement income system in The Netherlands.
Danielle Pratt's new book The Healthy Scorecard is a great help to anyone building a business case for
workplace wellness. Pratt's focus (see here) is on developing the
kind of organizational productivity that benefits employees, employers and investors.
It is a special pleasure to welcome young journalists to the benefits canada team. The good ones always
bring a blast of fresh energy and ideas. We think you'll find a good measure of that in each of these three
books.
Kevin Press
kpress@rmpublishing.com
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