Last Up Dated on: September 11, 2007
FIELD AGENT REPORT
Barbaric Britain
New
Haven, CT - September 7, 2007- "The decision by Great Britain's Human
Fertilization and Embryology Authority to permit the cloning of hybrid
embryos - part human and part animal - represents a staggering descent
toward high-tech barbarism," Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson said
today.
"It is a shocking assault on the fundamental dignity of the human person,
and the
utilitarian excuse given for the decision is emblematic of the utterly
amoral
'standards' that some in the scientific community are all too willing to
apply in the
field of stem cell research," Anderson continued. "It is nonsense to
claim that, having
crossed the momentous threshold of creating human/animal hybrids, it will
be somehow possible to control it with 'caution and careful scrutiny.'
Worst of all, the decision is driven by a grudging recognition that the
appetite of some stem cell researchers for human embryos far exceeds the
number that they can obtain from fertility clinics. And so British
researchers will now be permitted to compound one horror - experimentation
on live embryonic human beings - with another: the creation of
human/animal hybrids."
The Knights of Columbus, with more than 1.7 million members worldwide, is
among the most active pro-life groups in the U.S., Canada and other
countries, and provides substantial support for the National Catholic
Bioethics Center as well as for a wide variety of pro-life groups and
projects.
OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU
Greed is
not exactly a recent phenomenon - it's right there on the age-old list of
the "seven deadly sins." In any event, it's been very much in evidence
lately in the financial markets, which have been in a panic because of the
failure of some lenders who specialized in so-called sub-prime mortgages.
If the
problem was limited to companies that unwisely provided mortgages to
people who couldn't afford them, then those companies would simply either
have to change their ways or go out of business. But in practice, their
loans are sold to investors. And in the last few years, some investment
firms have packaged these risky mortgage loans into extremely complex
investment vehicles that offer modestly higher interest rates, but conceal
the real risk involved.
Some
investors, lured by the higher rates of return, and lulled into
complacency by assurances that "cutting edge" financial engineering had
minimized the risks involved, allowed a touch of avarice to cloud their
judgment. Some of those investors were banks, and some were insurance
companies.
The Knights
of Columbus insurance program has more than $64 billion of life insurance
in force and we are among the Fortune 1000. Like all such companies, we
invest the premiums paid by our certificate holders in a variety of
investment vehicles. Today we have nearly $14 billion of assets under
management. But we have always maintained very high standards for the
investments we make, putting our assets only into investment-grade bonds
and the highest-quality equities. We do not invest in high risk
vehicles such as derivatives and junk bonds, nor do we invest in the types
of structured transactions that are currently causing such turmoil in the
markets. We stay away from them not because we don't understand them -
but because we do understand them - and the risk they entail.
Ours is an
insurance program that is designed by brother Knights for
brother Knights. And we believe that your best interests are served by a
prudent and conservative investment philosophy. When Standard & Poor's
renewed our AAA rating again last month, they noted that our approach
produces "slightly lower investment yields," but found that overall, we
have "consistently generated good investment returns, with low exposure to
credit risk." And in a world where "liquidity" is suddenly a major
concern in the financial community, S&P declared that we "have very strong
liquidity," which "is further enhanced by the high credit quality of [our]
investment portfolio."
A few days
ago, A.M. Best, which also gave us its top rating again this year, asked
us to report our investment in sub-prime mortgages over the past three
years. The answer, of course, was zero. Did we have any investments
during the same time period in the types of structured bond and loan
packages that have sent shock waves through the markets? Once again, we
were able to report that we had none at all. Some companies cannot give
that answer.
