Who Killed Confederation Life?

Who Killed Confederation Life? PDF Author: Rod McQueen
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Limited
ISBN: 9780771056383
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
When Confederation Life Insurance Co. was seized by regulators on August 11, 1994, it ranked as the fourth largest insurance company in Canada, and was among the top 30 in North America. With $19 billion (Cdn.) in assets, the company's collapse wiped out 4,400 jobs, threw into disarray owners of 250,000 policies and contracts in Canada, plus another 800,000 outside the country. It also severely damaged confidence in Canada's substantial insurance industry. In a no-holds-barred account of the debacle, financial journalist Rod McQueen documents how it all happened, and shows how Confederation Life's failure was due to the combined failure of the company and the larger public sector. Directors did not hold management sufficiently accountable, officers let things get out of hand, regulators were tardy, then threatened with too small a stick, auditors missed the big picture, politicians showed neither courage nor conviction, and, rather than help, industry representatives dithered. Any one individual among those six constituencies could have affected the course of the corporation's history sufficiently to prevent its collapse. In 1994 McQueen wrote a detailed three-part article in the "Financial Post about the Confederation Life scandal. Now, having extensively researched the history of the company, and having conducted over a hundred interviews, he has written a "whodunit" tale of Canada's biggest business story of the decade.

Who Killed Confederation Life?

Who Killed Confederation Life? PDF Author: Rod McQueen
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Limited
ISBN: 9780771056383
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
When Confederation Life Insurance Co. was seized by regulators on August 11, 1994, it ranked as the fourth largest insurance company in Canada, and was among the top 30 in North America. With $19 billion (Cdn.) in assets, the company's collapse wiped out 4,400 jobs, threw into disarray owners of 250,000 policies and contracts in Canada, plus another 800,000 outside the country. It also severely damaged confidence in Canada's substantial insurance industry. In a no-holds-barred account of the debacle, financial journalist Rod McQueen documents how it all happened, and shows how Confederation Life's failure was due to the combined failure of the company and the larger public sector. Directors did not hold management sufficiently accountable, officers let things get out of hand, regulators were tardy, then threatened with too small a stick, auditors missed the big picture, politicians showed neither courage nor conviction, and, rather than help, industry representatives dithered. Any one individual among those six constituencies could have affected the course of the corporation's history sufficiently to prevent its collapse. In 1994 McQueen wrote a detailed three-part article in the "Financial Post about the Confederation Life scandal. Now, having extensively researched the history of the company, and having conducted over a hundred interviews, he has written a "whodunit" tale of Canada's biggest business story of the decade.

Driven to Succeed

Driven to Succeed PDF Author: Rod McQueen
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1459707966
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Hungarian-born Frank Hasenfratz fled his native land in 1956 after the revolution to free his nation from Soviet domination failed. He eventually settled in Guelph, Ontario, where he founded Linamar, now the second-largest maker of auto parts in Canada. This is Frank's story as well as that of the company he created.

We Have Not a Government

We Have Not a Government PDF Author: George William Van Cleve
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022664152X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
In 1783, as the Revolutionary War came to a close, Alexander Hamilton resigned in disgust from the Continental Congress after it refused to consider a fundamental reform of the Articles of Confederation. Just four years later, that same government collapsed, and Congress grudgingly agreed to support the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, which altered the Articles beyond recognition. What occurred during this remarkably brief interval to cause the Confederation to lose public confidence and inspire Americans to replace it with a dramatically more flexible and powerful government? We Have Not a Government is the story of this contentious moment in American history. In George William Van Cleve’s book, we encounter a sharply divided America. The Confederation faced massive war debts with virtually no authority to compel its members to pay them. It experienced punishing trade restrictions and strong resistance to American territorial expansion from powerful European governments. Bitter sectional divisions that deadlocked the Continental Congress arose from exploding western settlement. And a deep, long-lasting recession led to sharp controversies and social unrest across the country amid roiling debates over greatly increased taxes, debt relief, and paper money. Van Cleve shows how these remarkable stresses transformed the Confederation into a stalemate government and eventually led previously conflicting states, sections, and interest groups to advocate for a union powerful enough to govern a continental empire. Touching on the stories of a wide-ranging cast of characters—including John Adams, Patrick Henry, Daniel Shays, George Washington, and Thayendanegea—Van Cleve makes clear that it was the Confederation’s failures that created a political crisis and led to the 1787 Constitution. Clearly argued and superbly written, We Have Not a Government is a must-read history of this crucial period in our nation’s early life.

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces PDF Author: John Kennedy Toole
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802197620
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”—The New York Times Book Review A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures" (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times).

Can't Buy Me Love

Can't Buy Me Love PDF Author: Rod McQueen
Publisher: Viking Canada
ISBN: 9780670044016
Category : Businesspeople
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


Relentless Change

Relentless Change PDF Author: Joe Martin
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442697156
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Casebooks in business history are designed to instruct students in classrooms and boardrooms about the evolution of business management. The first casebook for the study of business history in a Canadian context, Joseph E. Martin's text will help students, both in the classroom and the boardroom, understand the Canadian economy and guide them in making sound decisions and contributing to a healthy, growing economy. Thirteen original case studies from the mid-nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries deal with different industry sectors as well as individual corporations and managers. Overviews provide context by examining major public policy decisions and key developments in the financial system that have affected business practices. Martin also presents eight original tables that trace the evolution of the 60 largest Canadian corporations between 1905 and 2005. Relentless Change is an invaluable resource for instructors and business students and clearly demonstrates how businesses are affected by the interaction of individual decisions, policy changes, and market trends.

The Chilcotin War

The Chilcotin War PDF Author: Rich Mole
Publisher: Heritage House Publishing Co
ISBN: 1926936302
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
This colourful account of the Chilcotin War is an insightful and absorbing examination of an event that helped to shape the course of British Columbia history. In the spring of 1864, 14 men building a road along the Homathko River in British Columbia were killed by a Tsilhqot’in (Chilcotin) war party. Other violent deaths followed in the conflict that became known as the Chilcotin War. In this true tale of clashing cultures, greed, revenge and betrayal, Rich Mole explores the causes and deadly consequences of a troubling episode in British Columbia history that is still subject to debate almost 150 years later. Using contemporary sources, Mole brings to life the principal players in this tragic drama: Alfred Waddington, the Victoria businessman who decided to build the ill-fated toll road across the territory of the independent Tsilhqot’in, attempting to connect Bute Inlet to the Cariboo goldfields of the interior, and Klatsassin, the fierce Tsilhqot’in war chief whose people had already endured the devastation of smallpox.

Bolivar

Bolivar PDF Author: Marie Arana
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439110204
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
An authoritative portrait of the Latin-American warrior-statesman examines his life against a backdrop of the tensions of nineteenth-century South America, covering his achievements as a strategist, abolitionist, and diplomat.

Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton PDF Author: Henry Cabot Lodge
Publisher: Boston : Houghton, Mifflin
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description


Life and Death in the Andes

Life and Death in the Andes PDF Author: Kim MacQuarrie
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143916892X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
“A thoughtfully observed travel memoir and history as richly detailed as it is deeply felt” (Kirkus Reviews) of South America, from Butch Cassidy to Che Guevara to cocaine king Pablo Escobar to Charles Darwin, all set in the Andes Mountains. The Andes Mountains are the world’s longest mountain chain, linking most of the countries in South America. Kim MacQuarrie takes us on a historical journey through this unique region, bringing fresh insight and contemporary connections to such fabled characters as Charles Darwin, Che Guevara, Pablo Escobar, Butch Cassidy, Thor Heyerdahl, and others. He describes living on the floating islands of Lake Titcaca. He introduces us to a Patagonian woman who is the last living speaker of her language. We meet the woman who cared for the wounded Che Guevara just before he died, the police officer who captured cocaine king Pablo Escobar, the dancer who hid Shining Path guerrilla Abimael Guzman, and a man whose grandfather witnessed the death of Butch Cassidy. Collectively these stories tell us something about the spirit of South America. What makes South America different from other continents—and what makes the cultures of the Andes different from other cultures found there? How did the capitalism introduced by the Spaniards change South America? Why did Shining Path leader Guzman nearly succeed in his revolutionary quest while Che Guevara in Bolivia was a complete failure in his? “MacQuarrie writes smartly and engagingly and with…enthusiasm about the variety of South America’s life and landscape” (The New York Times Book Review) in Life and Death in the Andes. Based on the author’s own deeply observed travels, “this is a well-written, immersive work that history aficionados, particularly those with an affinity for Latin America, will relish” (Library Journal).