With a single digit equity market return, a flat yield curve and the weak funding status of many pension plans, sponsors should brace themselves for another tough year.

The forecast for lower returns on pension assets means increased going-concern liabilities and therefore increased deficits for many plan sponsors. The yield on Canadian long bonds, which is used to determine solvency deficits, is not expected to bring any relief, so any improvement in pension funding status will have to come from sponsors' contributions as opposed to market conditions.

People find conspiracy theories very appealing. It speaks to the human condition. The way we have been shaped determines what we select to hear and what we think is probable.

Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.

(On Baron von Blixen:)

Six feet of amiable Swede and, to my knowledge, the toughest, most durable White Hunter ever to snicker at the fanfare of safari or to shoot a charging buffalo between the eyes while debating whether his sundown drink will be gin or whisky.

None of the characters in (the story) were distinguished ones -- not even the lion.

He was an old lion, prepared from birth to lose his life rather than to leave it. But he had the dignity of all free creatures, and so he was allowed his moment. It was hardly a glorious moment.

The two men who shot him were indifferent as men go, or perhaps they were less than that. At least they shot him without killing him, and then turned the unsconscionable eye of a camera upon his agony. It was a small, a stupid, but a callous crime.