FOREWORD

Thoruburg Mortgage focused primarily on mortgages above US$400000 while General Motors and Chryster were bailed out by the U.S. Government through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). [...]the risk management problem was systemic and most firms realised that systemic risk could not be effectively predicted which prompted the U.S. Government to start implementing and improving systemic risk management practices such as stress testing. [...]the most important benefit of accrual accounting would be to reduce politicians' incentive to curry favor with today's voters at the expense of tomorrow's taxpayers. Kumara Swamy, Oil & Israel (The Economist, London: December 1, 1973) Against this background, there is an urgent need on the part of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (O.P.E.C.) and other oil producing countries in the developing world to set up without delay the Organisation of Natural Gas Producing Countries (O.N.G.P.C.) on the lines of the O.P.E.C., where by the O.N.G.P.C. would take the crucial role as natural gas price fixer and giver rather than price taker - - This step would go a long way in strengthening their monopoly right over their precious natural resource endowment. [...]there is a big question mark in ensuring regular natural gas supplies from oil producing countries to oil deficit countries and any investment plan based on short-sighted approach and clouded with political uncertainty would pose long-term risks combined with untold financial losses. [...]it may be said that it is not enough to assess a government's performance on the basis of its ability to win votes through politicians' utopian promises backed up by non-familiarity with techno-economic issues confronting the country at every election; financial economists must be willing and able to check its performance against more objective criteria, to keep the long-range targets of the Nation before every citizen.