Most Popular Books by David Booth

The Buffalo and the Cowbird follows the commensalism between two animal friends who have their friendship criticised by other animals. The book�s main objective is to have children think about the way they make friends, and exclude others who are different. My father, a retired artist and graphic designer has provided the illustrations to compliment the story. The words are colour-coded and relate to a separate activity section for children to develop their skills further.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

An anthology of old and new poems for reading aloud or alone.

Elliot, Maska and Hayley are all members of a group called the Young Adventurers. Each hopes to receive the Winter Survival badge, the hardest badge to earn. Will any of them succeed? (From page 3)

Discount rates are essential to applied finance, especially in setting prices for regulated utilities and valuing the liabilities of insurance companies and defined benefit pension plans. This paper reviews the basic building blocks for estimating discount rates. It also examines market risk premiums, as well as what constitutes a benchmark fair or required rate of return, in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the U.S. Federal Reserve''s bond-buying program. Some of the results are disconcerting. In Canada, utilities and pension regulators responded to the crash in different ways. Utilities regulators haven''t passed on the full impact of low interest rates, so that consumers face higher prices than they should whereas pension regulators have done the opposite, and forced some contributors to pay more. In both cases this is opposite to the desired effect of monetary policy which is to stimulate aggregate demand. A comprehensive survey of global finance professionals carried out last year provides some clues as to where adjustments are needed. In the U.S., the average equity market required return was estimated at 8.0 per cent; Canada''s is 7.40 per cent, due to the lower market risk premium and the lower risk-free rate. This paper adds a wealth of historic and survey data to conclude that the ideal base long-term interest rate used in risk premium models should be 4.0 per cent, producing an overall expected market return of 9-10.0 per cent. The same data indicate that allowed returns to utilities are currently too high, while the use of current bond yields in solvency valuations of pension plans and life insurers is unhelpful unless there is a realistic expectation that the plans will soon be terminated.

We examine the choice and the offer spreads between callable and non-callable bonds. We find significant differences by industry sector so our results are segmented by financial and non-financial industries. For the financial sector, the popularity of callable and non-callable bonds is significantly related to the economic environment. Financial and high grade non-financial callable bonds are also more likely to be issued via a shelf prospectus. While firms that issue callable bonds do not consistently display the characteristics associated with severe agency problems, the issue choice for below investment grade non-financial and lower rated financial bonds, where we can expect agency problems to be more severe, is more consistent with agency theory than the issue choice for higher rated bonds.

"How will little Nia escape from the wolf?" (publisher).

"To help teachers incorporate graphic novels into the school program the authors provice strategies using different dynamics -- independent reading, literature circles, guided reading, whole class shared reading, and curriculum and media links."--Back cover.