Aping animals
Re: "Jane Goodall and the chimp wars", (Opinion, Oct 11).
It's distressing to read how columnist Gwynne Dyer used the plight of chimpanzees in such a negative way with regard to humans.
By taking isolated examples in which Jane Goodall found that even chimps can band together in groups and wage war against other tribes whom they dislike, the writer then generalises this fact towards humans, acting as if it is natural for humans to wage wars against one another. Yes, he states that wars can be prevented from occurring, but rather than believing that wars are the exception to the norm, he acts as if they are natural in the human sphere. Shame on him for doing so!
Paul
Absurd logic
Re: "Vegan future", (PostBag, Oct 23).
I read Jason Baker's (VP of PETA Asia's) religiously shifty letter which shames any of us who, like me (a Buddhist), eat meat, and when he said, "Traditional Thai cuisine never relied on cow's milk or cheese. ... and with a quick check for fish sauce or shrimp paste, you'll find countless naturally vegan dishes." This came after he put up a horror story involving torn calves and collapsing chickens.
For his information, many dishes at the Thai Buddhist temple I trained at had meat and fish in them, and when fish are hooked to eventually become fish sauce, their bodies register pain, just like our bodies do, so throwing their sauce on his fried tofu hardly creates "cruelty-free meals".
This is just more Western virtue signalling, which is devoid of deep knowledge of the Eastern religions, which he bounced around like a football for convenience; I am going to have a hamburger now, but Mr Baker may keep my ketchup and mustard.
Jason A Jellison
Get the margin
Re: "SEC toughens stance on margin accounts", (Business, Oct 24).
The most important key rule with stock margin loans is the force-sell rule, which this article does not even mention. This is the core-protocol rule of maintenance margin, where every day, closing prices of stocks bought on margin are revalued, and based on this, the margin percentage is retabulated.
If the market value falls below this daily mark-to-market threshold, a force-sell order is issued to the investor. Enough shares must then be sold or new cash (or shares) deposited to bring the account back up to above this minimum level.
If the investor ignores this, the broker not only can, but must sell stocks to cover the shortfall without delay.
This is a mighty important key rule in any stock margin account, as if not adhered to could snowball into a financial crisis, leading to a negative balance owed, and so potentially cause brokers to go out of business. This, in fact, happened during the Asian financial crisis of 1997, when many back then closed permanently.
Also, IPOs should never be allowed to be marginable securities as it promotes and induces overpricing of such and then overspeculating, only to later endure a potential price crash.
To my knowledge, no major stock exchange allows IPOs to be bought on margin.
Paul A Renaud
