2017년 10월 31일 화요일

[메모: 윌라 캐서, 오 개척자여!] 에밀의 죽음, 프랭크에 대한 알렉산드라의 용서


출처 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Pioneers!

※ 발췌 (excerpt):

Part IV – The White Mulberry Tree

Emil returns from Mexico City. His best friend, Amédée, is now married with a young son. At a fair at the French church, Emil and Marie kiss for the first time. They later confess their illicit love, and Emil determines to leave for law school in Michigan. Before he leaves, Amédée dies from a ruptured appendix, and as a result both Emil and Marie realize what they value most. Before leaving for Michigan, Emil stops by Marie's farm to say one last goodbye, and they fall into a passionate embrace beneath the white mulberry tree. They stay there for several hours, until Marie's husband, Frank, finds them and shoots them in a drunken rage. He flees to Omaha, where he later turns himself in for the crime. Ivar discovers Emil's abandoned horse, leading him to search for the boy and discover the bodies.

Part V – Alexandra

After Emil's death Alexandra is distraught, in shock, and slightly out of it. She goes off in a rainstorm. Ivar goes looking for her and brings her back home, where she sleeps fitfully and dreams about death. She then decides to visit Frank in Lincoln where he is incarcerated. While in town she walks by Emil's university campus, comes upon a polite young man who reminds her of Emil, and feels better. The next day she talks to Frank in prison. He is bedraggled and can barely speak properly, and she promises to do what she can to see him released; she bears no ill will toward him. She then receives a telegram from Carl, telling her that he is back. They decide to marry, unconcerned with the approval of her brothers.


출처 2: Willa Cather. O Pioneers! eBook provided by Adeleide Univ.

※ 발췌 (excerpt):

Frank was the only one, Alexandra told herself, for whom anything could be done. He had been less in the wrong than any of them, and he was paying the heaviest penalty. She often felt that she herself had been more to blame than poor Frank. From the time the Shabatas had first moved to the neighboring farm, she had omitted no opportunity of throwing Marie and Emil together. Because she knew Frank was surly about doing little things to help his wife, she was always sending Emil over to spade or plant or carpenter for Marie. She was glad to have Emil see as much as possible of an intelligent, city-bred girl like their neighbor; she noticed that it improved his manners. She knew that Emil was fond of Marie, but it had never occurred to her that Emil’s feeling might be different from her own. She wondered at herself now, but she had never thought of danger in that direction. If Marie had been unmarried, — oh, yes! Then she would have kept her eyes open. But the mere fact that she was Shabata’s wife, for Alexandra, settled everything. That she was beautiful, impulsive, barely two years older than Emil, these facts had had no weight with Alexandra. Emil was a good boy, and only bad boys ran after married women.

Now, Alexandra could in a measure realize that Marie was, after all, Marie; not merely a “married woman.” Sometimes, when Alexandra thought of her, it was with an aching tenderness. The moment she had reached them in the orchard that morning, everything was clear to her. There was something about those two lying in the grass, something in the way Marie had settled her cheek on Emil’s shoulder, that told her everything. She wondered then how they could have helped loving each other; how she could have helped knowing that they must. Emil’s cold, frowning face, the girl’s content — Alexandra had felt awe of them, even in the first shock of her grief.

The idleness of those days in bed, the relaxation of body which attended them, enabled Alexandra to think more calmly than she had done since Emil’s death. She and Frank, she told herself, were left out of that group of friends who had been overwhelmed by disaster. She must certainly see Frank Shabata. Even in the courtroom her heart had grieved for him. He was in a strange country, he had no kinsmen or friends, and in a moment he had ruined his life. Being what he was, she felt, Frank could not have acted otherwise. She could understand his behavior more easily than she could understand Marie’s. Yes, she must go to Lincoln to see Frank Shabata.

[발췌: 윌라 캐서, 오, 개척자여] 알렉산드라의 집


출처: Willa Cather. O Pioneers!
자료: http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Willa_Cather/O_Pioneers/Part_II_Neighboring_Fields_Chapter_I_p3.html


※ 발췌 (excerpt):

Part II. Neighboring Fields

Chapter 1

( ... ... ) They drove westward toward Norway Creek, and toward a big white house that stood on a hill, several miles across the fields. There were so many sheds and outbuildings grouped about it that the place looked not unlike a tiny village. A stranger, approaching it, could not help noticing the beauty and fruitfulness of the outlaying fields. There was something individual about the great farm, a most unusual trimness and care for detail. On either side of the road, for a mile before you reached the foot of the hill, stood tall osage orange hedges, their glossy green marking off the yellow fields. South of the hill, in a low, sheltered swale, surrounded by a mulberry hedge, was the orchard, its fruit trees knee-deep in timothy grass. Any one thereabouts would have told you that this was one of the richest farms on the Divide, and that the farmer was a woman, Alexandra Bergson.

If you go up the hill and enter Alexandra' big house, you will find that it is curiously unfinished and uneven in comfort. One room is papered, carpeted, over-furnished; the next is almost bare. The pleasantest rooms in the house are the kitchen--where Alexandra's three young Swedish girls chatter and cook and pickle and preserve all summer long--and the sitting-room, in which Alexandra has brought together the old homely furniture that the Bergsons used in their first log house, the family portraits, and the few things her mother brought from Sweden.

When you go out of the house into the flower garden, there you feel again the order and fine arrangement manifest all over the great farm; in the fencing and hedging, in the windbreaks and sheds, in the symmetrical pasture ponds, planted with scrub willows to give shade to the cattle in fly-time. There is even a white row of beehives in the orchard, under the walnut trees. You feel that, properly, Alexandra's house is the big out-of-doors, and that it is in the soil that she expresses herself best.

[발췌: 윌라 캐서] 오, 개척자들이여!


출처: Willa Cather. O Pioneers! Xist Publishing 2015 ()
자료: 구글도서


※ 발췌 (excerpt):

V

Alexandra and Emil spent five days down among the river farms, driving up an down the valley. Alexandra talked to the men about their crops and to the women about their poultry. She spent a whole day with one young farmer who had been away at school, and who was experimenting with a new kind of clover hay. She learned a great deal. As they drove along, she and Emil talked and planned. At last, on the sixth day, Alexandra turned Brigham's head northwward and left the river behind.

"There's nothing in it for us down there, Emil. There are a few fine farms, but they are owned by the rich men in town, and couldn't be bought. Most of the land is rough and hilly. They can always scape along down there, but they can never do anything big. Down there they have a little certainty, but up with us there is a big chance. We must have faith in the high land, Emil. I want to hold on harder than ever, and when you're a man you'll thank me." She urged Brigham forward.

When the road began to climb the first long swells of the Divide, Alexandra hummed an old Swedish hymn, and Emil wondered why his sister looked so happy. Her face was so radiant that he felt shy about asking her. For the first time, perhaps, since that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward it with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it, until her tears blinded her. Then the Genius of the Devide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before. The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.

Alexandra reached home in the afternoon. That eveving she held a family council and told her brothers all that she had seen and heard.

"I want you boys to go down yourselves and look it over. Nothing will convince you like seeing with your own eyes. The river land was settled before this, and so they are a few years ahead of us, and have learned more about farming. The land sells for three times as much as this, but in five years we will double it. The rich men down there own all the best land, and they are buying all they can get. The thing to do is to sell our cattle and what little old corn we have, and buy the Linstrum place. Then the next thing to do is to take out two loans on our hal-sections, and buy Peter Crow's place; raise every dollar we can, and buy every acre we can."

"Mortgage the homestead again?" Lou cried. He sprang up and began to wind the clock furiously. "I won't slave to pay off another mortgage. I'll never do it. You'd just as soon kill us all, Alexandra, to carry out some scheme!"

Oscar rubbed his high, pale forehead. "How do you propose to pay off your mortgages?"

Alexandra looked from one to the other and bit her lip. They had never seen her so nervous. "See here," she brought out at last. "We borrow the money for six years. Well, with the money we buy a half-sectin from Linstrum and a half from Crow, and a quarter from Sruble, maybe. That will give us upwards of fourteen hundred acres, won't it? You won't have to pay off your mortgages for six years. By that time, any of this land will be worth thirty dollars an acre─it will be worth fifty, but we'll say thirty; then you can sell a garden patch anywhere, and pay off a debt of sixteen hundred dollars. It's not the principal I'm worried about, it's the interest and taxes. We'll have to strain to meet the payments. But as sure as we are sitting here to-night, we can sit down here ten years from now independent landowners, not struggling farmers any longer. The chance that father was always looking for has come."

Lou was pacing the floor. "But how do you KNOW that land is going to go up enough to pay the mortgages and─"

"And make us rich besides? Alexandra put in firmly. "I can't explain that, Lou. You'll have to take my word for it. I KNOW, that's all. When you drive about over the country you can feel it coming."

Oscar had been sitting with his head lowered, his hands hanging between his knees. "But we can't work so much land," he said dully, as if he were talking to himself. "We can't even try. It would just lie there and we'd work ourselves to death." He sighed, and laid his calloused fist on the table.

Alexandra's eyes filled with tears. She put her hand on his shoulder. "You poor boy, you won't have to work it. The men in town who are buying up other people's land don't try to farm it. They are the men to watch, in a new country. Let's try to do like the shrewd one, and not like these stupid fellows. I don't want you boys always to have to work like this. I want you to be independent, and Emil to go to school."

Lou held his head as if it were splitting. "Everybody will say we are crazy. It must be crazy, or everybody would be doing it."

"If they were, we wouldn't have much chance. No, Lou, I was talking about that with the smart young man who is raising the new kind of clover. He says the right thing is usually just what everybody don't do. Why are we better fixed than any of our neighbors? Because father had more brains. Our people were better people than these in the old country. We OUGHT to do more than they do, and see further ahead. Yes, mother, I'm going to clear the table now.

( ... ... )

"I dread signing my name to them pieces of paper," he said slowly. "All the time I was a boy we had a mortgage hanging over us."

"Then don't sign one. I don't want you to, if you feel that way."

Oscar shook his head. "No, I can see there's a chance that way. I've thought a good while there might be. We're in so deep now, we might as well go deeper. But it's hard work pulling out of debt. Like pulling a threshing-machine out of the mud; breaks your bac. Me and Lou's worked hard, and I can't see it's got us ahead much."

"Nobody knows about that as well as I do, Oscar. That's why I want to try an easier way. I don't want you to have to grub for every dollar."

"Yes, I know what you mean. Maybe it'll come out right. But signing papers is signing papers. There ain't no maybe about that." He took his pail and trudged up the path to the house.

Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch them, to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security. That night she had a new consciousness of the country, felt almost a new relatin to it. Even her talk with the boys had not taken away the feeling that had overwhelmed her when she drove back to the Divide that afternoon. She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that croond or buzzed in the sun. Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.


PART II. Neighboring Fields

I

It is sixteen years since John Bergson died. His wife now lies beside him, and the while shat that marks their graves gleams across the wheat-fields. Could he rise from beneath it, he would not know the country under which he has been asleep. The shaggy coat of the prairie, which they lifted to make him a bed, has vanished forever. From the Norwegian graveyard one looks out over a vast checker-board, marked off in squares of wheat and corn; light and dark, dark and light. ( ... ... )

2017년 10월 30일 월요일

[자료] 윌라 캐서의 <오 개척자들!>을 다룬 몇몇 소론


출처 1: 『오 개척자들!』에 나타난 새로운 여성 정체성의 문제 (한미야 지음)


출처 2: 미국 서부의 정체성과 윌라 캐더의 소설, 『오, 개척자들이여!』와 『대주교에게 죽음이 오다』 (윤명옥 지음. 로컬리티 인문학 9. 2013.4.)


출처 3: 서구 기독교 문명의 생태 인식의 부재와 윌라 캐더의 『대주교에게 죽음이 오다』 (박경숙 지음. 영어영문학연구 43권 2호. 2017년 여름 97-116.

[발췌] <오 개척자여!>에 나타난 알렉산드라의 대지정령과의 교감...


출처: "『오 개척자여!』에 나타난 알렉산드라의 대지정령과의 교감을 통한 공존적 삶의 실현" 변효정 지음. 현대영어영문학 58권 3호 (2014년 8월) 89-107



※ 발췌:

윌러 캐서(Willa Cather, 1873~1947)가 개척 이민자들의 생활상을 실제 기억을 되짚어 완성한 『오 개척자여!』(O Pioneers!)는 네브래스카 하노버 읍 마을로 이주한 스웨덴 이민 가족에 대한 이야기이다. 윌리엄 하워스(William Howarth)가 캐서를 "서부 변경지대로 이주한 이민세대의 대변인"이라 칭하듯 그녀는 자신의 유년시절의 경험을 토대로 이 소설 속에 유럽 이주자들의 힘겨운 생활상을 담담하게 그려내고 있다. 캐서가 친구 캐리 셔우드에게 보낸 이 작품의 속표지ㅣ에 "나는 이 소설에서 내 본령을 발견했다"(Woodress 156)고 적어 넣었듯 그녀는 소녀시절 네브래스카 초원에서 목도했던 이주자들의 험난한 생활상을 주요 소재로 삼고 있다. 맥스웰 가이즈머(Maxwell Geismar)는 그의 에세이 "윌러 캐서: 황야의 여인(Willa Cather: Lady in the Wilderness)"에서 "이 소설이 그녀만의 소설을 만들 수 있게 캐서에게 영감을 불어넣어주었던 사람드레 대한 그녀의 애정을 표현하고 있다"고 언급한다.

"이 소설은 흔히 이민자에 대한 미국의 훈훈한 수용기로 읽히는 동시에 19세기 후반에서 20세기 초반 미국으로의 이민자들의 유입에 대한 이민 배척주의자의 태도를 탐색하는" 작품으로도 회자된다. 캐서는 네브래스카 대평원에 정착한 슬로바키아, 노르웨이, 보헤미아, 네덜란드, 프랑스, 이탈리아, 독일, 러시아 그리고 스웨덴 등지에서 건너온 유럽 이주민들이 참담한 생활고에 시달리면서도 생동감 넘치는 낙천적인 모습을 보면서 깊은 감흥을 받았다. 캐서는 1923년 에세이 "네브래스카ㅡ그 첫 번째 주기의 종결(NebraskaㅡThe End of the First Cycle)에서 다음과 같이 희망의 메시지를 피력한다.

나는 언젠가 다시 나타날 그 개척자들과 함께 그 무언가가 땅속으로 들어갔으리라는 생각을 지울 수가 없다. 그 어떤 것은 강건한 성격에서뿐만 아니라 마음의 유연성, 삶의 현실에 대한 정직한 태도, 어떤 감정과 상상력에서도 나타날 수 있는 어떤 것이었다.

I have always the hope that something went into the ground with those pioneers that will one day come out again, something that will come out not only in sturdy traits of character, but in elasticity of mind, in an honest attitude toward the realities of life, in certain qualities of feeling and imagination.

캐서가 분수령(the Divide)[주]1 일대 개척지의 이민 여성들을 관찰하면서 진정한 삶의 가치를 터득했다고 밝히고 있듯 『오 개척자여!』에서 그녀는 수용적인 자세로 대지의 속성을 이해하며 부농이 되어가는 중심인물 알렉산드라 버그슨(Alexandra Bergson)의 삶에 주목한다. 개척 이민자들의 이야기를 현실감 있게 재현하고 있다는 평가를 받는 『오 개척자여!』는 특히 첫 두 개의 장인 "험난한 대지"와 "인근 농지"에 낯선 이주국 네브래스카에서 알렉산드라가 삶의 터전을 일궈가는 생생한 과정을 담고 있다. 알렉산드라는 고국에서는 만나본 적이 없는 드넓은 대지 네브래스카에서 험한 기후뿐만 아니라 가부자적인 억압에서부터 가정사의 풍파에 이르기까지 이민자로서의 애달픈 삶을 산다. 하지만 그녀는 "단호한 리더"답게 이에 굴하지 않고 분수령의 대지정령[주]2과 교감을 나누면서 생태학적 감수서을 체득하고 발현한다.

그녀는 생명 공동체에 속한 다층적인 구성원들과 진정으로 소통하며 모든 자연과의 관계회복에 주력하는 상생의 길을 모색한다. 이는 에코페미니즘의 실천가로서 알렉산드라가 여성 스스로 자신의 틀을 깨고 진정한 자연의 대행자로서 그 역할을 수행해내는 모습으로 그녀는 시종 모성의 실천과 재생산적 역할 및 양육의 자세를 지향한다.

[주]1. 분수령은 캐서 소설의 주요 장소 중 하나로 리틀 블루와 리퍼블리칸 리버 사이, 레드 클라우드 북서쪽 16마일 떨어진 곳에 위치한다. ( ... ... )

[주]2. 정령(spirit)은 숨의 의미를 담고 있는 라틴어 spiritus에서 나온 것으로 대지정령은 대지에서 자라는 모든 생명체에게 활력과 생명의 숨을 불어넣어주는 존재이다.  이 소설에서는 알렉산드라가 대지정령이 전해주는 생명의 숨으로 만물과의 교감과 합일을 이뤄 궁극적으로 에코페미니즘이 지향하는 생명체의 공존적 통합을 이뤄낸다.

( ... ... ) 주인공 알렉산드라가 "거기에 남아 있는 많은 농부들에게는 아무것도 자라지 않는 신도 버린 땅인 분수령에서 험한 날씨, 농업 지식의 부족, 부친과 남동생의 갑작스러운 죽음 그리고 뜻하지 않은 연인과의 이별 등으로 정체성의 혼란을 겪으면서도 이를 극복하는 기제로 대지정령과 전심을 나누는 교감을 통해 공존적인 삶을 실현해 나가는 과정을 살펴보고자 한다.

( ... ... ) 주인공 알렉산드라의 부친인 버그슨은 자신의 아버지가 고국에서 채권자에게 갚지 못한 빚을 청산하기 위해 스웨덴에서 네브래스카 신대륙으로 이주한 30대 중반의 이민 1세대이다. 그는 신세계에서 11년 동안 대지를 개간하고 가축으 기르며 온갖 노력을 다 기울였지만 기대만큼 성과를 내지 못한 채 46세에 과로사 하고 만다. 그의 실패의 결과는 어느 해 겨울에는 심한 눈보라 때문에 가축이 몰살당하는 어려움으로, 다음해 여름에는 다리가 부러진 말을 총으로 쐐 죽여야만 하는 상황으로, 연이어서는 콜레라에 걸린 돼지의 떼죽음을 받아들여야만 하는 상황으로 구체화되어 나타난다.

( ... ... ) 알렉산드라의 오랜 지기인 스웨덴 출신의 칼 린스트럼이 이를 대변하는 인물로 그는 "인간들이란 너무나 연약해서 대지에 어떠한 흔적도 만들 수 없는 존재"라고 생각한다. 그래서 그는 어느 가을 오후 그녀가 일하고 있는 정원에 찾아와 "우리는 정말로 떠나기로 했더"라고 말하고 마을을 떠난다. 하지만 재정적 손실에다 또 다른 이주 생활로 고배를 마신 칼은 다시금 고향을 방묺 알렉산드라에게 "내가 얼마나 너에게 부러운 존재가 되고 싶었는지 모른다"고 고백하며 뿌리를 내릴 수 없었던 지친 이주 생활에 대해 푸념한다.


"Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere. Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we hae no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarecely know where to bury him. ... All we have ever managed to do is to pay our rent, the exorbitant rent that one has to pay for a few square feet of space near the heart of things. WE have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder."

( ... ... )

2017년 10월 29일 일요일

[발췌: Dreiser's Financier] 13세 소년 프랭크 카우퍼우드의 첫 차익거래


출처: Theodore Dreiser. The Financier: The Critical Edition. University of Illinois Press, 2010.
자료: 구글도서


※ 발췌 (excerpt):

( ... ... ) He leaned over and looked curiously into the face of his young bidder.

  "Framk Cowperwood, son of the teller of the Third National Bank," replied the boy, decisively.

  " Oh yes, " said the man, fixed by his glance.

  " Will you wai while I run up to the bank and get the money?"

  "Yes. Dob't be gone long. If you're not here in an hour I'll sell it again."

  Young Cowperwood made no reply. He hurried out and ran fast; first, not to his father, but to his grocer, which was within a block of his home.

  Thirty feet from the door he slower up, put on a nonchalant air, and, strolling in, loked about for Catile soap. There it was, the same kind, displayed in a box and looking just at his soap looked.

  "How much is this a bar, Mr. Dalrymple?" he inquired.

  "Sixteen cents," replied that worthy.

  "If I could sell you seven boxes for sixty-two dollars just like this would you take them?"

  "The same soap?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Mr. Dalrymple calculated a moment.

  "Yes, I think I would," he replied, cautiously.

  "Would you pay me to-day?"

  "I'd give you my note for it. Where is the soap?"

  He was perplexed and somewhat astonished by this unexpected proposition on the part of his neighbor's son. He knew Mr. Cowperwood wellㅡand Frank also.

  "Will you take it if I bring it to you to-day?"

  "Yes, I will," he replied. "Are you going into the soap business?"

  "No, But I know where I can get some of that soap cheap."

  He hurried out again and ran to his father's bank. It was after banking hours; but he knew how to get in, and he knew that his father would be glad to see him make thirty dollars. He only wanted to borrow the money for a day.

  "What's the trouble, Frank?" asked his father, looking up from his desk when he appeared, breathless and red-faced.

  "I want you to loan me thirty-two dollars! Will you?"

  "Why, yes, I might. What do you want to do with it?"

  "I want to buy some soapㅡseven boxes of Castile soap. I know where I can get it and sell it. Mr. Dalrymple will take it. He's already offered me sixty-two for it. I can get it for thirty-two. Will you let me have the money? I've got to run back and pay the auctioneer."

  His father smiled. This was the most business-like attitude he had, as yet, seen his son manifest. He was so keen, so alert for a boy of thirteen.

  "Why, Frank," he said, going over to a drawer where some bills were, "are you going to become a financier already? You're sure you're not ging to lose on it? You know what you're doing, do you?"

  "You let me have the money, father, will you?" he pleaded. "I'll show you in a litte bit. Just let me have it."

  He was like a young hound on the scent of game. His father could not resist his appeal, it was so fascinating.

  "Why, certainly, Frank," he replied. "I'll trust you." And he counted out six five-dollar certificates of the Third National's own issue and tw ones.

  "There you are."

  "Frank ran out of the building with a briefly spoken thanks. He returned to the auction-room as fast as his legs would carry him. When he came in, sugar was being auctione, but he paid no attention to that. He made his way to auctioneer's clerk.

  "I want to pay for that soap," he suggested.

  "Now?" asked the clerk.

  "Yes. Will you give me a receipt?"

  "Yep."

  "Do you deliver this?"

  "No. No delivery. You have to take it away in twenty-four hours."

  That difficulty did not trouble him. He had some change.

  The auctioneer watched him as he went out. In half an hour he was back with a draymaㅡan idle levee-wharf hanger-on who was waiting for a job.

  Frank had bargained with him to deliver the soap for sixty cents.

  ( ... ... ) he made out his note at thirty days and gave it to him.

  Frank thanked him and pocketed the note. He decided to go back to his father's bank and discount it, as he ad seen others doing, thereby paying his father back and getting his own profit in ready money. It couln't be done ordinarily on any day after business hours; but his father would make an exception in his case. Most note-brokers kept open until nine o'clock at night in Third Street.

  He hurried back, whistling; and his father glanced up smiling when he came in.

  "Well, Frank, how'd you make out?" he asked.

  "Here's a note at thirty days," he said, producing the paper Dalrymple had given him. "Do you want to discount that for me? You can take your thirty-two out of that."

  ( ... ... )

2017년 10월 27일 금요일

[기사 메모] AMR labor needs shifted after bankruptcy - executive (Reuters, Apr 2012)


출처: AMR labor needs shifted after bankruptcy - executive (Reuters, 27 Apr 2012)

※ 발췌 (excerpt):

AMR Corp's labor relations chief acknowledged on Thursday that the company tried to "limp along" by negotiating burdensome short-term labor deals before deciding to file for bankruptcy. Testifying at a court hearing on AMR's request to abandon its labor deals, Jeff Brundage said the concessions AMR asked of its unions before its bankruptcy filing would not have "allowed us to be a viable enterprise."

Brundage was addressing criticism from labor unions that the AMR demands for concessions since filing for bankrupcy have been unfairly steep, and that it sought more drastic cuts than in earlier negotiations.

But Brundage said that is because the company's goals shifted after it filed for Chapter 11 protection. Before the bankruptcy, AMR's aim was to keep its unions from striking, and to avoid bankruptcy.

"We were governed by how hard we believed we could push to make changes and have them ratified," Brundage told a full courtroom at U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. "We were governed by the art of what we thought the possible was, not what [we?] thought necessary."

Now in bankruptcy, AMR si trying to hash out union contracts that will allow it to become viable and profitable in the long term, Brundage added.

( ... ... )

Among the unions's complaints about the new demands is that they seek deeper cuts than pre-bankruptcy proposals, in which AMR sought between $600 million and $800 million in reduction.

But AMR executive internally referred to those offers as "limp along" or "kick-the-can" methods, Brundage said, adding they were designed only to avoid bankruptcy and keep the peace with unions.

"It was not brilliant, but it was employed to meet those two goals," he said.

In hindsight, Brundage said it is clear that pre-bankruptcy offers would not have allowed the company to avoid bankruptcy. The company hoped outside factors such as an improving economy would then allow it to flourish.

"We hoped if we could get a little tailwind, rather than headwind, we could capitalize on it," Brundage said.

( ... ... )

Dic/ Kick the can down the road



출처 1: http://grammarist.com/usage/kick-the-can-down-the-road/

^Kick the can down the road^, a ubiqitous phrase in American politics over the last few years, is not a reference to the game of kick the can. It refers to the practice of kicking a can ahead of oneself while walking along a road. So, metaphorically, the phrase means ^to defer conclusive action with a short-term solution^.

  • Hancock has vowed that his administration won't continue to "kick the can down the road." 
  • "Members are overwhelmingly disappointed in the Senate's decision to just 'kick the can down the road' for two months," the aide said.
  • We can't kick the can down the road because we've run out of road.
  • The more they kick the can down the road, the worse the eventual correction will be.
  • Is it the tendency, demonstrated again over the weekend and into this week to kick the can down the road?
  • With that, I must go forward and kick the can down the road into the brave new year.

출처 2: https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/kick+the+can+down+the+road

Especially in politics, to postpone or defer a definitive action, decision, or solution, usually by effecting a short-term one instead.
  • It looks as though congress is goint to kick the can down the road again on the debt ceiling issue, but they'll have to find a lasting solution eventually.


출처 3: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/kick_the_can_down_the_road

put off confronting a difficult issue or making an important decision, typically on a continuing basis.
  • I appreciate that he doesn't want to raise taxes, but sooner or later you have to stop kicking the can down the road.

Dic/ lean in


출처 1: Words We're Watching: 'Lean in'


출처 2: 10 Things Sheryl Sandberg Gets Exactly Right In 'Lean In' (Forbes, 4 Mar 2013)


... ...

[텍스트] T.S. 엘리엇, The Dry Salvages (No. 3 of "Four Quartets")



* * *


(The Dry Salvages─presumably les trois sauvages─is a small group of rocks,
with a beacon, off the N.E. coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts.
Salvages is pronounced to rhyme with ^assuages^.
Groaner : a whistling buoy.)


I

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the rive

Is a strong brown god─sullen, untamed and intractable,

Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;

Useful, untrustworthy, as a converyor of commerce;

Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.

The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten

By the dwellers in the cities─ever, however, implacable.

Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer reminder

Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitited

By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.

His rhythm was present in the nursery bedroom,

In the rank ailanthus of the April dooryard,

In the smell of grapes on the autumn table,

And the evening circle in the winter gaslight.


   The river is within us, the sea is all about us;

The sea is the land's edge also, the granite

Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses

Its hints of earlier and other creation:

The starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale's backbone;

The pools where it offers to our curiosity

The more delicate algae and the sea anemone.

It tosses up our losses, the torn seine,

The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar

And the gear of foreign dead men. The sea has many voices,

Many gods and many voices.

                              The salt is one the briar rose,

The fog is in the fir tress.

                            The sea howl

And the sea yelp, are different voices

Often together heard: the whine in the rigging,

The menace and caress of wave that breaks on water,

The distant rot in the granite teeth,

And the wailing warnng from the approaching headland

Are all sea voices, and the heaving groaner

Rounded homewards, and the seagull:

And under the oppression of the silent fog

The tolling bell

Measures time not out time, rung by the unhurried

Ground swell, a time

Older than the time of chronometers, older

Than time counted by anxious worried women

Lying awake, calculating the future,

Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel

And piece together the past and the future,

Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,

The future futureless, before the morning watch

When time stops and time is never ending;

And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,

Clangs

The bell.



II

II

Where is there an end of it, the soundless wailing,

The silent withering of autumn flowers

Dropping their petals and remaining motionless;

Where is there an end to the drifting wreckages,

The prayer of the bone on the beach, the unprayable

Prayer at the calamitous annunciation?


  There is no end, but adition: the trailing

Consequences of further days and hours,

While emotion takes to itself the emotionless

Years of living among the breakage

Of what was believed in as the most reliable─

And therefore the fittest for renunciation.


  There is the final additin, the failing

Pride or resentment at failing powers,

The unattached devotion which might pass for devotionless,

In a drifting boat with a slow leakage,

The silent listening to the undeniable

Clamour of the bell of the last annunication.


  ( ... ... )

[메모] T. S. Eliot's "Fourt Quartets"


※ 발췌 (excerpts):

출처 1: Martin Scofield. T. S. Eliot: The Poems. Cambridge University Press. 1988.
자료: 구글도서


( ... ... ) Part III opens with one of the most awkward of Eliot's casual urbanities:

I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant─

That is bad enough in its tone of pretentious off-handedness, but to add 'Among other things' approaches the ludicrous. (It is slightly reminiscent of the anticipatory qualifications and circumlocutions of Henry James's later style.) The images that follow seem to be a rather random clutch of metaphors for the idea (which we have encounter before) of the identity of past and future─though they do add the interesting notion of a kind of nostalgia for the future (where dwelling wistfully on the future is as fruitless as dwelling on the past). But the main problem of this Part seems to be a confusion of meaning or a hovering between two meanings. The central idea would seem to be that of the value of action in the present moment without regard to the future or the ‘fruit of action’. It is this idea which Eliot takes from Krishna in the Hindu Bhagavad Gita (2.47-8), and to this is added the idea that what the mind is intent on ‘at the time of death’ is what shall ‘fructify in the lives of others’ (which adapts 8.6 of the Gita). So far the idea is clear enough. But to this Eliot adds the repeated injunction ‘Fare forward’ (which is not in the Gita, though Eliot gives the word to Krishna). ‘Fare forward’, with the images of travel which accompany it, suggests the spirit of the end of 'East Coker': 'Old men ought to be explorers'. But to fare forward is to aim at the future and a destination in time and place and would seem to suggest a different spirit from the concentration on the present moment in the idea that it is what the mind is intent on at the time of death─‘(And the time of death is every moment)’─which is the one important ‘action’. The image of being aboard ship, suspended in time, is appropriate to the idea of a consciousness of a present moment as if ‘outside time’. But the injunction ‘Fare forward’ seems to suggest another set of values. We have already been told (in line 6) that ‘the way forward is the way back’ so this insistence on a particular direction seems (in this context) perplexing. The passage ends 'Not fare well,/ But fare forward, voyagers': but leaving aside the play on  ( ... ... )


출처 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Quartets#The_Dry_Salvages

Four Quartets is a set of four poems written by T. S. Eliot that were published individually over a six-year period. The first poem, Burnt Norton, was written and published with a collection of his early works following the production of Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral. After a few years, Eliot composed the other three poems, East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding, which were written during World War II and the air-raids on Great Britain. The poems were not collected until Eliot's New York publisher printed them together in 1943. They were first published as a series in Great Britain in 1941 to 1942 towards the end of Eliot's poetic career.

Four Quartets are four interlinked meditations with the common theme being man's relationship with time, the universe, and the divine. In describing his understanding of the divine within the poems, Eliot blends his Anglo-Catholicism with mystical, philosophical and poetic works from both Eastern and Western religious and cultural traditions, with references to the Bhagavad-Gita and the Pre-Socratics as well as St. John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich.

Although many critics find the Four Quartets to be Eliot's great last work, some of Eliot's contemporary critics, including George Orwell, were dissatisfied with Eliot's overt religiosity.

( ... ... )

The Dry Salvages

Eliot began writing The Dry Salvages at the end of 1940 during air-raids on London, and managed to finish the poem quickly. The poem included many personal images connecting to Eliot's childhood, and emphasised the image of water and sailing as a metaphor for humanity.[6] According to the poem, there is a connection to all of mankind within each man. If we just accept drifting upon the sea, then we will end up broken upon rocks. We are restrained by time, but the Annunciation gave mankind hope that it will be able to escape. This hope is not part of the present. What we must do is understand the patterns found within the past in order to see that there is meaning to be found. This meaning allows one to experience eternity through moments of revelation.[22]


출처 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dry_Salvages

The poem is described as a poem of water and hope.[5] It begins with images of the sea, water, and of Eliot's past; this water later becomes a metaphor for life and how humans act. This transitions into an image of a ringing bell and a discussion on time and prayer. Images of men drowning dominate the section before leading into how science and ideas on evolution separate mankind from properly understanding the past. This ends with Krishna stating that the divine will, and not future benefits or rewards, matters. The fourth section is a prayer to the Virgin Mary for fishermen, sailors, and the drowned.[6]

The end of The Dry Salvages starts with a discussion about how people attempt to see the future through various superstitious means.[7] Then the narrator tries to convince the reader that resignation about death is necessary. However, such resignation should be viewed as pushing the self towards redemption and the eternal life in the next world. By acting properly, one would be able to overcome life and move towards the next world.[8]

2017년 10월 25일 수요일

[발췌] American Airlines: Bankrupt, Like Every Other Legacy Airline (2012)


출처: Jeffrey S. Harrison, Siri Kalburgi and Colleen Koch Reed. "American Airlines: Bankrupt, Like Every Other Legacy Airline,"  Robins School of Business, University of Richmond. June 2012.

※ 발췌 (excerpt):

In November of 2011, a giant fell. AMR, the holding company of American Airlines, American Eagle Airlines and American Connection ( ... ) filed for voluntary bankruptcy under Chapter 11 in a New York Federal Court.

( ... ... )

Thomas W. Horton, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. AMR Corporation / American Airlines Inc.

  • Thomas W. Horton was named Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AMR Corporation and American Airlines, Inc in November 2011 succeeding Gerard Arpey.
  • Horton was promoted to President--AMR Corporation and American Airlines in July 2010. In this expanded role, he oversaw finance, planning, sales and marketing, customer services, information technology and American's global alliance strategy, including its role in the oneworld alliance. 
  • Previously, Horton served as Executive Vice President--Finance and Planning and Chief Financial Officer of AMR and American. He was named to that position in March 2006 upon returning to American from AT&T Corp., where he had been Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer.


CF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_W._Horton

※ 발췌 (excerpt):

Thomas W. Horton: President of American Airlines (2010-2013), Chairman and CEO of American Airlines (2011-2013)


CF. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Arpey

※ 발췌 (excerpt):

Gerard J. Arpey was elected Chairman of AMR Corporation and American Airlines, Inc. in May 2004. Arpry had been President and Chief Executive Officer of AMR and American since April 2003. ( ... ... ) Arpey announced his retirement on November 29, 2011, coinciding with the bankruptcy filing of American Airlines parent AMR. He was succeeded by Thomas W. Horton.


※ So,
  • Period of his position of the President and CEO : 2003-2010, (in 2010, the position of the President began to be occupied by Horton). 
  • Period of his position of the Chairman and CEO: 2004-2011.

[파산 용어] automatic stay



출처 1: 자동정지제도에 관한 연구 (이혜리, 헌법재판소 헌법연구원. 인권과정의 Vol. 372)

https://www.google.co.kr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwji3Mj6_4rXAhWMUbwKHXYlD-EQFgg8MAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.koreanbar.or.kr%2Fpages%2Fcommon%2FfileDown.asp%3Ftypes%3D1%26seq%3D6106&usg=AOvVaw0_ZrLYaq2t57LC0gUmLEFJ

※ 발췌:

2005.3.31. 제정된 '채무자 회생 및 파산에 관한 법률'은 미국 연방파산법의 규정을 다수 도입하였다. '자동정지제도(automatic stay)' 또한 도입 여부에 대한 논의가 있었으나, 일시적인 채무 상황의 유예를 받기 위하여, 또는 부정수표단속법에 의한 형사처벌을 면하기 위하여 도산절차 신청이 남용될 수 있다는 이유로 도입되지 않았고, 대신 포괄적 금지명령제도가 도입되었다.

그러나 포괄적인 금지명령제도만으로는 채무자 보호나 채권자에 대한 공평한 배당의 목적을 충분히 달성할 수 없고, 위와 같은 남용의 우려는 2005.4.20. 개정 미국 연방파산법이 도입한 것과 같은 각종의 자동정치 효력제한 규정들을 도입함으ㅗ써 불식될 수 있으므로 조속히 효율적이고 선진적인 자동정지제도를 도입하여야 할 것이다.

( ... ... ) 미국 연방파산법에서는 채무자가 도산 절차를 신청한 경우에는 신청한 즉시 개시 결정의 효력이 생겨서 채권자의 강제 집행 등이 모두 중지된다.[주]5 이를 자동정지제도라고 한다. 국제기구에서 우리나라의 도산법 개정과 관련하여 강력하게 권고한 내용 중의 하나가 자동정지제도이다.[주]6 통합도산법의 제정을 위한 실무 위원회[주]7에서 도입을 지지하는 의견이 많았음에도 불구하고 결국 자동정지제도는 도입되지 못하였다. 그 이유는 자동중지제도를 도입하게 되면 일시적인 채무 상환 기한의 유예를 받기 위하여 또는 부정수표단속법에 의한 형사처벌을 면하기 위하여 도산절차 신청이 남용될 우려 때문이었다.[주]8

통합도산법은 자동정지제도를 도입하는 대신, 두 가지 방법을 통해 자동정지제도에 근접한 결과를 도모하고자 했는데, 하나는 회생절차 개시 신청 후 7일 내에 보전처분의 명령을 내리도록 기간을 명시하는 방법이었고, 다른 하나는 일본 민사재생법과 같이 포괄적 금지명령제도를 도입하는 방법이었다.[주]9 그러나 포괄적 금지명령제도는 개별적 중지명령제도의 번잡성을 일부 제거하기는 하였으나 법원의 명령에 의한 중지라는 한계성을 극복할 수 없고, 기존의 개별적 중지명령제도도 병용하고 있어 절차의 효율성에 문제가 있다.[주]10

한편, 연방파산법이 2005년 개정되면서 자동정지제도는 그 적용 범위가 제한되었다.11) 예를 들면 §362(b)에 의하면 자동정지의 대상이 되지 않는 행위들이 18개에서 29개로 증가하였는데, 이러한 예외조항의 증가를 포함하여 앞으로 살펴볼 연방파산법의 자동정지제도의 개정은 채무자의 도산절차 신청의 남용은 방지하되 본래 보호하고자 하였던 특정한 채무자들의 이익 보호에 충실을 기하는 방향으로 이루어졌다.

( ... ... ) 결론적으로는 아래에서 살펴보는 것처럼 2007년 1/4분기의 개인파산 신청자 수만 해도 45,057명으로 전년 동기의 2배로 증가하는 등 개인파산 사건 및 개인회생 사건이 급증하고 있는 우리나라로서는 자동정지제도를 도입하여 채권자의 권익 침해를 최소화하는 동시에 채무자가 채권자
의 불필요한 강압에 시달리지 않도록 해야 할 것이다.


II. 자동정지제도의 개요

채무자가 도산절차를 신청[주]12하면 법원이 별도로 어떠한 결정을 할 필요 없이 도산절차가 개시되어 채권자의 각종 개별적 권리행사가 불가능하게 되는 것이 자동정지(automatic stay)이다.

자동정지제도의 목적은 채권자에 의한 개인적인 추심을 금지함으로써 채무자의 재산의 감소를 방지하고 그 재산을 관재인의 관리하에 두거나 채무자가 보유하도록 함으로써 채무자에게 숨 돌릴 틈(breathing spell)을 제공하는 동시에 채권자들이 채무자의 재산을 두고 지나치게 다투는 것을 방지하고 공평한 청산절차를 장려하기 위한 것이다.13) 모든 추심행위의 동결은 공평한 배당을 가능케 함으로써 채권자 전체에게도 도움을 준다. 채권자들 사이에서 서로 권리가 배치되는 경우가 종종 있는데, 각각의 채권자들은 자신의 채권을 증명하고 법원의 도산절차가 진행되는 것만을 기다리면 되기 때문이다.[주]14  ( ... ... )


cf. 채권 추심 자동 정지.

출처 2: ...

2017년 10월 24일 화요일

[자료, 메모] 파산 관련 용어



출처 1: 새로운 파산법에 의거 한 파산 용어 (JP Weber, 2016)


출처 2: 회생 및 파산 절차 (대법원)


출처 3: 선진 도산법제 구축을 위한 편제 및 용어 정비 방안 연구 (서울대 법학전문대학원 김재형 교수, 2011년 법무부 연구용역 보고서)

※ 발췌:

2005년 <채무자 회생 및 파산에 관한 법률> (이하 '통합도산법')이 제정되어 2006년 4월부터 시행되고 있다. 종전에는 도산에 관한 법률이 파산법, 화의법, 회사정리법, 개인채무자회생법 4개의 법률로 나뉘어져 있었는데, 통합도산법은 이들을 하나의 법률로 통합하였다는 점에서 중요한 의미가 있다.

그러나 이 법은 기존의 파산법·화의법·회사정리법·개인채무자회생법을 단순하게 통합한 데 그쳐 다양한 용어의 혼재 등으로 이해가 어려운 한계를 안고 있다. 또한 파산절차는 도산절차의 논리적 기초인데도 현행 통합도산법은 회생절차 위주로 편제되어 있어 체계 정합성이 부족하다는 비판이 있다. 그리하여 이 법에서 사용하는 용어를 정비하고, 회생절차 위주로 되어 있는 전체 편제를 개편하여 체제 일관성을 제고함과 동시에 법률 수요자인 일반 국민과 기업의 이해를 도모하여 활용도를 높일 필요가 있다.

법무부는 2007년부터 '기업법제 개선사업'의 일환으로 통합도산법 개정작업을 수행하고 있다. 이를 성공적으로 수행하기 위해서는 도산법의 편제 및 용어 정비가 필수적이다. 도산법제의 편제 개편이나 용어 정비에 관해서는 충분한 연구가 이루어지지 않았다. 이를 위해서는 도산절차의 입법적 연혁과 비교법적 연구를 수행하고 각각의 도산절차상의 용어를 재검토할 필요가 있다.

( ... ... ) 이를 위하여 미국, 독일 및 UNCITRAL 입법지침 등 여러 입법례에 나타나는 용어를 참고하였다. ( ... ... )


1-4. 통합도산법의 편제와 용어에 관한 문제점

통합도산법의 편제와 용어가 혼란스럽다. 통합도산법의 조문이 무려 660조에 이르고 서로 준용하는 조문이 많아 도산절차 전반을 개관하기 힘들 정도로 복잡하고, 세 절차 사이에 용어도 통일되어 있지 않다. 담보권, 상계권, 부인권 등 실체법에 관련된 내용이 산재하여 혼란스럽고 통일성이 없다. ( ... ... )

그리고 도산절차들이 각각 별개의 절차로 구성되어 있고, 도산절차들 사이에 절차의 진행과 이해관계인에 미치는 영향 등에서 너무 큰 차이가 있다. 또한 회생절차와 파산절차 가운데 어느 절차를 신청할 것인지를 선택하기 어려운 경우가 있는데, 그 사이에 재산이 흩어져 도산절차의 진행에 장애가 발생할 수 있다. 이것이 바람직한 것인지는 재검토할 필요가 있다.


?-3. 법률의 명칭

법률의 명칭을 어떻게 할 것인지 문제된다. "채무자 회생 및 파산에 관한 법률"이라는 명칭은 채무자 회생절차와 파산절차를 규율하기 위한 것이라는 점을 밝히기 위하여 회생과 파산을 법률제목에 포함시키고 있다. 그러나 채무자 회생 및 파산에 관한 법률이라는 제목은 불필요하게 길다. 또한 파산절차를 앞에 둔다면, 파산 및 회생에 관한 법률이라고 법률의 명칭을 변경할 수도 있을 것이다. 그러나 이 문제는 도산이라는 용어를 정면으로 사용할 것인지라는 문제와 관련되어 있다.

회생과 파산을 포괄하는 개념으로 도산(倒産)이라는 용어를 사용하는 것이 바람직하고 법률의 명칭을 "도산법"이라고 하는 것이 좋을 것이다. 이 용어는 강학상으로 사용되고 있을 뿐 아니라 법률에서도 많이 사용되는 용어이다. 다만 도산이라는 용어가 갖고 있는 부정적 이미지가 있지만, 그렇다고 해서 통일적인 법개념을 사용하지 않는 것은 전도본말이라는 비난을 받을 것이다. 독일에서는 도산법을 제정하면서 Insolvenz라는 용어 사용하여 종래의 Konkurs(파산)이라는 용어를 대체하였다. 미국에서는 bankruptcy라는 용어를, 유엔 국제거래법위원회에서는 Insolvency라는 용어를 청산과 회생을 포괄하는 의미로 사용하고 있다. 만일 회생이라는 표현을 법률 명칭에 포함시킨다면 "파산 및 회생에 관한 법률"이라고 하더가 "파산·회생법"이라는 용어를 사용할 수 있을 것이다.

?-4. 도산신청절차의 통합문제

I. 현황

통합도산법은 도산절차의 개시원인 및 요건을 절차마다 다르게 정하고 있다. 파산절차에서는 채무자의 지급불능(insolvent)을 일반적인 파산원인으로 정하고, 채무자가 지급을 정지한 때에는 지급불능을 추정한다. 그러나 회생절차에서는 개신원인이 변제기에 있는 채무의 변제불능과 "회사에 파산의 원인인 사실이 생길 염려가 있는 때"이다. 개인회생절차에서는 파산의 원인 사실이 있거나 그러한 사실이 생길 염려가 있는 자로서 일정액 이하의 채무를 부담하는 급여소득자 또는 영업소득자가 개인회생절차의 개시를 신청할 수 있다.

( ... ... )


출처 4: 도산법에 관한 UNCITRAL 입법지침 연구 (이화여자대학교 도산법 연구센터, 2011)



출처 5: [정책토론회 자료집] 기업 구조조정 법제 개선 방안 (주최 국회의원 김기식, 경제개혁연대. 2014년)

  • 발제문 1: 통합도산법상 기업회생절차의 제도적 문제점과 대안의 모색 (이창헌 변호사)
  • 발제문 2: 부실기업 구조조정 관련 법제 개선 방안: 기업구조조정촉진법과 주채무계열제도를 중심으로 (이지수 변호사)



출처 6: ... ...

[발췌] 로버트 모리스의 파산과 미국 최초의 파산법


※ 발췌 (excerpts):


출처 1: Who's Going to Be Responsible for This?: Robert Morris

It's funny how some incredibly famous and important people are forgotten by history while others who have mae less of an impact are remembered or enshrned. Robert Morris is one of those significant figures who seems to have been lost in history. Morris is one of only two men who can claim to have signed not only the Declaration of Independence but also the Articles of Confederation and the final Constitution of the United States. ( ... ... )

At the start of the American Revolution, Robert Morris was one of the most respected and successful men in Philadelphia. His stella reputation and his keen financial mind made him the ideal choice for superintendent of finance for what was then the newly formed United States of America.

As superintendent, Morris' role was to manage the finances of the country in its efforts to support the ongoing war against Britain. With the treasury already $25 million in debt and the credit and credibility of the new nation in tatters, his job was not easy. Morris's first order of business was to create the Bank of North America. This was the first and only nationally chartered bank in the Americas. Morris lobbied hard and succeeded in persuading France to be the first depositor.

Using the unprecedented dictatorial powers, Morris set about raising money for the bank. This money would subsequently be used to fund the war effort. In order to raise the funds to be used for Washington's army, Morris needed co-sign notes as a personal guarantor. During the batter of Yorktown, Morris acted as quartermaster and personally bought or guaranteed the payment of $1.4 million in notes. Within time, Morris committed the bulk of his fortune and credit to further the cause of the revolution by funding the war. Morris commented after the battle that the war had changed from a war of bullets to a war of money.

Morris' contribution as superintendent of finance to the creation of the United States economic system was invaluable. Morris' paper "On Public Credit" was the framework that Alexander Hamilton used to form the country's financial system. Morris was the first to use the two vertical bars that go through an "S" as the insignia now universally recognized as the dollar sign indicating  the amounts for US currency.

( ... ... )

George Washington was so impressed with Morris's work as the superintendent of finance, and his backing of the war effort, that he was Washington's first pick as secretary of the treasury.

History as we know it might be different if Morris had accepted Washington's appointment. Morris was still a wealthy man, but he had depleted a large part his personal cash and credit during the war years. Morris believed that he needed to get back to work to rebuild his fortune. He turned down Washington's appointment. Morris recommended that Washington select another friend of his, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton accepted the appointment.

Morris's decision to go back to private enterprise was very rewarding, at first. Having lost over 150 of his trading ships during the war, Morris turned to land speculation to rebuild his fortune. His first transactionㅡ3,750,000 acres of land that comprised a good chuncks of western New Yorkㅡwas purchased from the state of Massachusetts for the sum of $333,333.33, after the previous borrowers defaulted on a million-dollar note. This purchase turned out to be very profitable. Morris leveraged this success into other land deals and eventually controlled over six million acres of land in the rural South and Washington DC.

Unfortunately for Morris, and for so many people before and after him, economic conditions are rarely predictable. By 1797, the young republic's economy, along with England's, collapsed. England's economy collapsed from the high costs associated with the exploding French revolutionary war. The US economy collapsed from land speculation that had raised land prices far above sustainable levels. Investors and lending institutions did not want to loan money on overpriced real estate. This resulted in a freeze in the credit markets. As notes came due, the speculators couldn't obtain sufficient funds to meet the payments.

Having invested all his money in land and the US war effort, Morris din't have enough hard currency to pay his debts to creditors when the notes came due.

Without additional credit to finance his land or the ability to sell the land, he was quick facing the prospect of debtor's prison. Morris attempted to avoid his creditors by hiding out in his home. But his creditors pursued him right up to the gates and demanded that he come out and stand trial. Morris was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for nonpayment of debts. He was sent to the Prune Street prison in Philadelphia in 1797.

( ... ... ) They [=George Washington and Alexander Hamilton] believed it was unfair that someone who had done so much for the birth of the nation should be behid bars. After all, Morris had signed his name to the Declaration of Independence, whereby, in effect, he had risked his life for his new country. He had put all his money and credit at the disposal of Washington's army. He was one of the main architects of America's financial system. ( ... ... ) Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done. Morris had to serve his prison term or pay back his debts. Seeing this as a great injustice, Morris's powerful friends began to lobby Congress for a solution. After much debate, Congress enacted a Bankruptcy Act. This act allowed debtors to avoid a debtor's prison and wipe out their debts if they liquidated their assets. The Bankruptcy Act of 1800 was instrumental in getting Morris released from debtor's prison. It was also instrumental in letting many others not pay their bills. As a result, after four short years, well after Morris was released from jail, Congress was forced to repeal the Bankruptcy Act.

It took almost a hundred years before Congree tackled this thorny subject again. Today, there is a bankruptcy law. But there is no longer a debtor's prison.


출처 2: Introduction to Bankruptcy Law

The Bankruptcy Act of 1800

The Bankruptcy Act of 1800 was enacted in response to the financial panics of 1792 and 1797, which were caused by speculatio in land, stock, and government scrip. Scrip was paper money issued in the United States in amounts of less than a dollar. These panics resulted in the imprisonment of many debtors, some of who were quite important.

( ... ... ) Morris was in a debtors' prison when the Bankruptcy Act of 1800 was passed. Morris spent three years in the prison and was released after obtaining a discharge under the Act. ( ... ... ) In 1798, he fled Pennsylvania to avoid debtors' prison and died a short time after in North Carolina.

( ... ... ) The Bankruptcy Act of 1800, which applied only to merchants, was a temporary measure designed to expire in 1805. It was repealed in 1803. For the next 38 years, the country operated without federal bankruptcy legislation.


출처 3: http://www.philadelphia-reflections.com/topic/168.htm

( ... ... ) While in prison, he reduced that (= $12 million) to $3 million, and got released under a new bankruptcy law he helped devise.

2017년 10월 19일 목요일

그 순간, 찰나의 기억


갑자기 정신이 들어 보니

내가 내 위에서 입을 맞대고 있다.

아래에 누워 있는 내가 보인다. 

잠을 자고 있는 것 같다. 

순간 애정의 물결이 밀려 온다.

'가여운 녀석, 너로구나'

곧바로 포도주 병의 코르크 마개가 빠지는 것처럼

밑에 보이는 나와는 다른 내가 붕~ 떠오른다. 

( ... ... )


[아리스토텔레스, 정치학] 1권 11장, "독점의 발생에 관하여" 중에서


출처 1: <정치학>. 아리스토텔레스 지음. 천병희 옮김. 숲 펴냄. 2009.

※ 발췌: 1권, 11장. 독점의 발생에 관하여

1258b9. 
지금까지 재산 획득 기술의 이론에 관해서 충분히 논의했으니, 이번에는 그것의 실천에 관해 살펴보아야 할 것이다. ( ... ... )

1258b33.
나는 재산 획득의 여러 분야에 관해 일반적으로 언급했다. 그것들에 관해 세세히 고찰하는 것은 실용적인 목적을 위해서는 유익하겠지만, 여기서 장광설을 늘어놓는다면 짜증이 날 것이다. ( ... ... ) 몇몇 사람들이 재산을 모으는 데 성공한 방법들에 관해 흩어져 있는 이야기들도 수집되어야 할 것이다.

1259a6.
밀레토스의 탈레스[주]43의 일화도 그중 하나다. 그것은 재산 모으는 계책에 관한 일화인데, 그가 지혜롭기로 이름이 나서 그가 생각해낸 것으로 알려져 있지만, 그 원칙은 누구에게나 적용될 수 있다. 그는 가난하다고 비난받았는데, 아마도 철학이 무용지물이라고 여겼기 때문일 것이다. 그러자 천문학에 밝던 그는 이듬해에 올리브 농사가 대풍이 들 것을 예견하고, 아직 겨울인데도 갖고 있던 얼마 안 되는 돈을 보증금으로 걸고 키오스[주]44와 밀레토스에 있는 올리브유 짜는 모든 기구들을 더 높은 임차료를 제시하는 사람이 없어 싼 값에 임차했다고 한다. 그 뒤 올리브 수확 철이 되어 올리브유 짜는 기구들이 갑자기 한꺼번에 많이 필요하게 되자 그는 임차해둔 기구들을 자신이 원하는 값에 임대하여 큰돈을 벌었다고 한다. 그리하여 그는 원하기만 하면 철학자도 쉽게 부자가 될 수 있으나 그것은 그들의 관심사가 아니라는 것을 세상 사람들에게 보여주었다. 탈레스는 그렇게 자신의 지혜를 입증했지만, 그의 재산 모으는 계책은 앞에서 말했듯이 누구에게나 적용될 수 있는 것으로서 다름 아닌 독점인 것이다. 그래서 많은 국가들이 돈이 궁하면 이 방법을 사용하는데, 말하자면 물품들을 독점해서 판매하는 것이다.

1259a23.
그 밖에 시케리아[주]46에서도 누군가 자신이 맡아두었던 돈으로 광산의 철광을 모두 사재기해두었다가 각처 시장에서 상인들이 사러 왔을 때 유일한 판매자가 되어 그다지 값을 올려 받지 않았는데도 50 탈란톤(talanton)[주]46을 투자해 100 탈란톤의 이익을 남겼다. ( ... ... ) 그러나 그의 발상은 탈레스의 발상과 같은 것으로, 두 사람 다 사적인 독점을 꾀했던 것이다. 그리고 이러한 방법은 정치가들고 알고 있는 것이 유익하다. 국가도 가정만큼 또는 가정 이상으로 재원이 필요하며, 따라서 재원을 마련할 방법들이 필요하기 때문이다. 그래서 몇몇 정치가들은 실제로 재정에 전념한다.


12장 남편의 권위와 아버지의 권위에 대한 간단한 고찰


1259a37.
앞에서 보았듯이 가사 관리 기술은 세 부분으로 나뉘는데, 그중 하나는 노예들에 대한 중인의 지배─이에 관해서는 앞에서 이미 논의했다─, 다른 하나는 아버지의 지배, 남은 하나는 결혼 관계에서 비롯되는 남편의 지배다. ( ... ... )


출처 2: Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 21, translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1944. (페르세우스 디지털 라이브러리)


1259a.
( ... ... ) so this subjects may be studied from these authors by anybody concerned to do so; but in addition a collection ought also to be made[주]2 of the scattered accounts of individuals. All these methods are serviceable for those who value wealth-getting,
1259a6(?).
for example the plan of Thales[주]3 of Miletus, which is a device for the business of getting wealth, but which, though it is attributed to him because of his wisdom, is really of universal applicaiton. Thales, so the story goes, because of his poverty was taunted with the uselessness of philosophy; but from his knowledge of astronomy he had observed while it was still winter that there was going to be a large crop of olives, so he raised a small sum of money and paid round deposits for the whole of the olive-presses in Miletus and Chios, which he hired at a low rent as nobody was running him up; and when the season arrived, there was a sudden demand for a number of press at the same time, and by letting them out on what terms he liked he realized a large sum of money, so proving that it is easy for philosophers to be rich if they choose, but this is not what they care about. Thales then is reported to have thus displayed his wisdom, but as a matter of fact this device of taking an opportunity to secure a monopoly is a universal principle of business; hence even some states have recourse to this plan as a method of raising revenue when short of funds: they introduce a monopoly of marketable goods.
1259a23(?).
There was a man in Sicily who used a sum of money deposited with him to buy up all the iron from the iron mines, and afterwards when the dealers came from the trading-centers he was the only seller, though he did not greatly raise the price, but all the same he made a profit of a hundred talents.[주]4 on his capital of fifty. ( ... ... ) Yet really this device is the same as the discovery of Thales, for both men contrived to secure themselves a monopoly. An acquaintance with these devices is also serviceable for statesmen, for many states need financial aid and modes of revenue like those described, just as a household may, but in greater degree; hence some statesmen even devote their political activity exclusively to finance.

1259a37(?).
And since, as we saw[주]7, the science of household management has three divisions, one the relation of master to slave, of which we have spoken before,[주]8, one the paternal relation, and the third the conjugal[주]9─for it is a part of the household science to rule over wife and children ( ... ... )

출처 3: ...

몸과 마음을 생각하며


의학적 증거를 통해 확인할 수는 없지만, 나 역시도 암과 여러 가지 종양에 걸렸다가 회복되기를 여러 차례 겪었고 지금도 겪고 있다고 직감한다. 사실, 복잡한 말들은 필요없지만 이런저런 자료나마 몇 개 붙여본다.


1. Scientists Just Unlocked the Catalyst for Cancerous Relapse

이 연구팀이 궁금해했던 문제는 항암 치료에서 살아남아 저항력을 갖춘 비교적 아주 작은 수의 암세포들이 아주 오랜 시간 동안 잠자듯 조용히 있다가 어떻게 해서 신체를 장악하는 치명적인 위력을 발휘하게 되는지, 즉 항암 치료 후 개선되어 가던 환자가 상당 기간 후 암이 더 위력적으로 재발하는(혹은 악화되는) 현상이 어떻게 일어나는 것인가였다.

연구자들은 항암 치료 후에 살아남은 암세포들이 면역 체계를 건드림으로써 다시 활동할 힘의 원천을 확보하여, 스스로 잠에서 깨어나 다시 증식하기 시작한다는 단서를 발견했다. 이 연구의 실험 대상은 쥐다.

결론은 면역 체계를 다루는 치료법을 도입해 이러한 암의 재발을 막는 데 적용할 수 있다는 얘기 같다.

그러니까 간단히 말해, 항암 치료를 이겨낸 암세포는─면역 체계에 새로운 구멍을 내는 능력을 갖춘다는 점에서─더욱 강력해져서 2차 공격을 기약한다고 이해해도 좋을 것 같다.

2. 면역학의 대가 아보 도루 교수, “암은 평범한 병, 심호흡만 잘해도 암세포 분열 저지”


3. "우리 몸은 약이 부족하지 않습니다" ‘자연치료‘ 택한 심장내과의 잭 울프슨
여기 이런 의사가 또 있다. 전공과는 심장 등 순환기 내과 진료. '혈압약을 처방하지 않는 의사'라는 별명으로도 유명하다. 환자가 오면 그는 1시간 넘게 진료한다. 영양상태, 수면시간, 일조량, 운동량 등을 묻는다. 심지어 어떤 세탁세제, 향수, 화장품을 쓰는지까지 파악한다. 맞는 검사방법을 찾아내, "호르몬, 멜라토닌 수치, 면역반응, 음식 과민반응 등을 검사한다."

_ 3.1 공중 보건의에서 자연 치유사로 전향한 또다른 미국의 의료인 이야기 (영문)


4. "당신의 세포에 말을 걸라" ( How to Heal Yourself by Talking to your Body )
예전부터 나름의 직감에 따라 사용하던 (일종의 명상이라면 명상) 기법인데, 최근에 수시로 눈에 띄는 암 환자 지인들에게 전하고 싶은 이야기 중 하나다.

5. ...

2017년 10월 18일 수요일

[메모] Jeff Koons and sciences

※ 발췌 (excerpts):


출처 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Koons

( ... ... ) Another example for Koon's early work is The Equilibrium Series (1983), consisting of one to three basketballs floating in distilled water, a project the artist had researched with the help of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman.[8]


출처 2: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/07/the-science-behind-the-art-of-jeff-koons/374614/

A floating basketball, a giant mound of Play-Doh, an exact replica of the Liberty Bell: His works result from artistic vision, yes, but also some physics and chemistry wizardry.

Glass, steel, sodium chloride reagent, distilled water, basketball This piece relies on the laws of chemistry and physics. Koons carefully adjusted the composition of the water to keep the basketball suspended in the center of the tank, rather than letting it float to the surface as it would normally do. “I wanted just to have water, something very, very pure,” Koons explains in an audio guide for the exhibition. “But to achieve equilibrium within the confines of an aquarium really became impossible.” Under the guidance of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman, Koons added a highly pure reagent grade sodium to the tank. Once he layered the water (the heavier saltwater sat at the bottom of the tank, while the lighter freshwater rested on top), the basketball would stay where he wanted.

[메모] Polich Tallix and Jeff Koons


출처 1: https://contested-spaces.hart.lsa.umich.edu/?p=856

※ 발췌 (excerpt):

(Polich Tallix, Rock Tavern, NY, 2016. Photograph by Shiraz Fazli)

In November 2013, Jeff Koons's orange balloon dog sold for $58.4 million at an auction at Christie's, a record breaker at the time for a living artist. Jeff Koons is one of the most successful, well known, and expensive contemporary artists working today; however, behind each one of his balloon dogs is a team of craftsmen working tirelessly to actualize Koons' vision. This past week, I had the opportunity to see these craftsmen at work at the Pollich Tallix foundry in Rock Tavern, NY.

The Pollich Tallix foundry has manufactured bronze sculptures for many major artists such as Jeff Koons and Isamu Noguchi, and even manufactures the Oscars every year for Academy Awards. When I toured with my casting class, I got a glimpse of every step of the sculpture making process.

 In the large warehouse-like space, there are dozens of craftsmen working on different sculptures. They are given enough room to work with all of the proper protection to guard against the dangers of metalworking. However, except for one woman, I only saw men working on the sculptures. All the other women I saw at the foundry were working in the office and had little to do with the actual process of making the sculptures. I assume that this is due to the physical nature of metalworking and how women are generally discouraged from living heavy objects and putting themselves in danger in the workplace. Because there are so many men working there, they may not feel comfortable accepting a job there because of the increased possibility of harassment and unequal pay. Furthermore, many of these men were people of color and working class.

Throughout the tour, our tour guide made comments about how the foundry’s clients live in a different world than those who work there because of their wealth. Although I do not know how much money the workers make, the tour guide’s comments show that they are not as wealthy as their clients. According to Salary.com, the average foundry worker makes about $15 dollars an hour. This wage is grossly disproportionate to the thousands, if not millions, of dollars the artworks are sold for. The artists are rarely present for the making of the sculptures, contributing their ideas and sketches but not their hands and physical strength. In the end, the craftsmen put all their seasoned talents and labor into making these sculptures, the artist gets all the credit for the idea which they did not work to actualize. The craftsmen’s labor is invisible to the eyes of the art world.

( ... ... )    


출처 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/nyregion/at-polich-tallix-fine-art-foundry-master-of-metals-is-artists-ally.html

※ 발췌 (excerpt):

(Photo: Metal being poured at Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry.)

Mr. Polich, 82, spends his days at Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry, the 105,000-square-foot factory in Rock Tavern, where his business has been located since 1996. A trim man with a quick wit and an intense focus, he brings a reservoir of energy as well as a range of experience to his roles as craftsman, scientist, innovator, businessman and collaborator.


출처 3: polich tallix – fine art foundry





2017년 10월 17일 화요일

[자료 ,발췌] Leveraged Buyouts



1. Leveraged Buyouts (from Inc. Encyclopedia)

※ 발췌 (excerpts):

A leveraged buyout (LBO) is the acquisition of a company in which the buyers puts up only a small amunt of money and borrows the rest. The buyer's own equity thus “leverages” a lot more money from others. The buyer can achieve this desirable result because the targeted acquisition is profitable and throws off ample cash used to repay the debt. Such transactions are also known as “bootstraps” or HLTs, i.e., “highly leveraged transactions.” Since they first appeared in the 1960s and took hold in the 1970s, LBOs have had mixed reviews from business people and other observers. Some see them as tools to streamline corporate structures, to rationalize meaninglessly diversified companies, and to reward neglected stockholders. Others see the LBO as a destructive force destroying economic and social values, the activity motivated by greed-driven predation.

TYPES OF LBOS

LBOs are typically used for three purposes, each in the category of corporate acquisitions generally. These are 1) taking a public company private, 2) financing spin-offs, and 3) carrying out private property transfers frequently related to ownership changes in small business.

Public to Private

The situation arises when an investor (or investment group) buys all the outstanding stock of a publicly traded company and thus turns the company into a priately-held entreprise ("taking priate" inreverse of "going public"). These deals may be friendly or hostile, the two terms related to management's point of view. Friendly cases typically involve the management buying the company for itself with plans to operate it thereafter as a privately-held entity. Hostile cases involve an investor or investor group intent on buying, reorganizing, and then reselling the company again to realize a high return. The sale of the company may be to another company or may be to the public in a stock offering. In the last case the situation actually amounts to a transactio more aptly labeled ^public-to-private-to-publc^. There are other variants in the disposition or in the payback of a third-party investor, although they tend to be rare, such as very high dividend payments and recapitalization by other groups.


Spin-Offs

Public or private companies often wish to sell off elements of their business to get cash. In some cases the seller may itself have been bought in an LBO and is spinning off assets to pay the investors back. ( ... ... )


Private Deals

The last situation concerns cases where a privately held operation is bought by an investor group. Such cases often arises when a smal businesses owner, having reached retirement age, wishes to divest him- or herself of the company and either cannot find a corporate buyer or does not wish to sell to a company. The buying group itself may be the company's employees or individuals associated in some way with the owner. These peope organize an LBO because they only have limited equity.


FINANCING AN PAYBACK

The target of an LBO must, almost by definition, be profitable, growing, and produce a suitably large cash flow. In acquisition jargon this is often abbreviated as EBITDA, meaning earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization─the component elements of cash flow as ordinarily defined. Why cash flow? Because repayment of the large, leveraged debt is ^from^ future cash flows of the company. Other assets, of course, are also taken into consideration. If cash flow cannot keep race with repayment, it is desirable that the company has saleable components (e.g., potential spin-ofs) or liquid assets. ( ... ... )

The leveraged portion of the LBO may be as high as 90% of the deal but can be lower. In periods of unusual frenzy, the percent has even climbed above 90%. The rest is in the form of equity. Multiple "layers" of financing are involved : senior debt, senior subordinated debt, subordinated debt, mezzanine debt, bridge financing, and finally purchaser's own equity. The instruments described here are listed in increasing order of risk. In the case of default, those holding senior debt will be paid first, owners of equity last (if at all); these security relationships are contractually built into the instruments themselves. Mezzanine financing is a hybrid between straight equity and debt, structured so that "mezzanine" holders are just barely paid something in an extremen case where equity holders lose everything. ( ... ... )

LBO risks are high because ( ... ... ) Healthy, growing, cash-rich companies purchased by an LBO therefore may lose their flexibility by losing their cash and simultaneousl acquiring a huge load of debt [??] small shocks in the past become large shocks in the present. For these reasons investors expect returns above 20% per annum.

( ... ... )


2. Private Equity Industry Overview (Street of Walls)


※ 발췌 (excerpt):

Private equity (PE) is an asset class for investing in public and non-public companies or physical assets, such as real estate. These investments typically result in either a majority or substantial minority ownership stake in a company. The investments can offer very strong return streams that are frequently much less correlated with indices than the returns available in classic public market investment opportunities.

However, the tradeoff is that these investments are much less liquid and require a longer investment period. Depending on the fund size and investment strategy, a private equity firm may seek to exit its investments in 3-5 years in order to generate a multiple on invested capital of 2.0-4.0x and an internal rate of return (IRR) of around 20-30%.

In order to amplify returns, private equity firms typically raise a significant amount of debt to purchase the assets they invest in, in order to minimize their initial equity requirement (i.e. they use leverage). This investment strategy has helped coin the term “Leveraged Buyout” (LBO). LBOs are the primary investment strategy type of most Private Equity firms.


History of Private Equity and Leveraged Buyouts

After laying fairly dormant on Wall Street for a while, private equity became explosively popular during the 1980s, with famous large buyouts being attributed to equally famous PE investors. Two examples are Jerome Kohlberg, Jr. and Henry Kravis, who formed Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), and famously purchased RJR Nabisco in a leveraged buyout by beating the CEO in a bidding war over the company. This transaction is immortalized in the book (and later made-for-TV movie), Barbarians at the Gate, which details the famous transaction. This transaction is but one of the many famous LBOs and hostile takeovers that were part of the merger and acquisition mania of the late 1970s and 1980s.

( ... ... )


Types of Private Equity Investments

1) Venture Capital

2) Growth Capital (also referred to as Growth Equity)

3) Mezzanine Financing: A private equity firm may offer mezzanine financing in the form of subordinated debt (junior to senior debt) or preferred equity, where return expectations are typically around 15%-20% per year. Mezzanine financing, in general, usually involves investor compensation in the form of interest combined with upside participation (i.e., equity or options/warrants on equity). Companies will often search for other sources of capital before turning to mezzanine capital, because it is expensive. However, this type of capital can help fill the gap between senior debt and equity when a private equity firm considers a leveraged buyout—mezzanine financing effectively lowers the required amount of equity capital invested in a leveraged buyout, and the equity capital has a higher required rate of return. Therefore, mezzanine financing, while expensive, can help reduce the overall required rate of return on the capital used to execute the LBO, by lowering the required equity investment, and thereby make some LBO deals feasible that otherwise were not.

4) Leveraged Buyout ("LBO"): A leveraged buyout is the acquisition of a publicly or privately-held company, typically characterized by the significant amount of debt financing used for the acquisition relative to the equity financing used. LBOs are the bread-and-butter investment strategy for most Private Equity firms. In an LBO transaction, a PE firm (also called a financial sponsor) or a group of firms (called a consortium or investor group) acquire the target company using debt instruments for the majority of the purchase price (debt typically represents about 60-75% of the total price). The leveraged buyout relies heavily on the future cash flows of the acquired business to service the interest expense on the debt and, additionally, pay down the outstanding debt as quickly as possible. (This pay-down is usually small at first, because the initial interest expense burden is substantial, but typically the pay-down amount grows each year as the company’s cash flow grows and as the outstanding debt balance decreases from previous pay-downs.) As the debt balance is lowered and the company’s value increases, the equity very quickly grows as a proportion of the company’s capital structure. It is this deleveraging process that can help lead to substantial gains for the equity holders in a successful LBO investment.

( ... ... ) Well-known LBO firms include KKR, Blackstone, The Carlyle Group, TPG Capital, Goldman Sachs Private Equity, and Bain Capital.

5) Distressed Buyout

Private Equity Fund Structure

A private equity fund, also known as a general partner, consists of an investment team that raises committed capital from outside passive investors known as limited partners. Limited partners typically are made up of endowments, pensions, high net worth individuals, and institutional capital.  ( ... ... )

( ... ... )

Typical Fees

Due to the specialized expertise of private equity firms, they are able to charge fees to their limited partners when managing their investments. They do so through two primary sets of fees: annual management fees across total assets under management (AUM), and a performance incentive fee based on a hurdle rate. While this varies by firm and possibly by fund, typical management fees consist of 2% of the total assets under management annually, and performance fees of 20%, which are taken from exited (“realized”) investments.

A PE firm’s performance fees are also called incentive fees, carried interest or carry. There is typically a hurdle rate (an annual required return of 7-10%) that general partners must achieve before performance fees are allowed to be taken. ( ... ... )

2017년 10월 14일 토요일

[발췌: 벤덤] Defence of Usury (1787, 1818)


출처: Jeremy Bentham. Defence of Usury. 1787 (1818).
자료: http://www.econlib.org/library/Bentham/bnthUs3.html

※ 발췌 (excerpt):


Letter XIII.

To Dr. Smith, on Projects in Arts, etc.


SIR,

1.

2.     In the series of letter to which this will form a sequel, I had travelled nearly thus far in my researches into the policy of the laws fixing the rate of interest, combating such arguments as fancy rather than observation had suggested to my view, when, on a sudden, recollection presented me with your formidable image, bestriding the ground over which I was travelling pretty much at my ease, and opposing the shield of your authority to any arguments I could produce.


3.     It was a reflection mentioned by Cicero as affording him some comfort, that the employment his talents till that time had met with, had been chiefly on the defending side. How little soever blest, on any occasion, with any portion of his eloquence, I may, on the present occasion, however, indulge myself with a portion of what constituted his comfort: for, if I presume to contend with you, it is only in defence of what I look upon as, not only an innocent, but a most meritorious race of men, who are so unfortunate as to have fallen under the rod of your displeasure. I mean projectors: under which inviduous name I understand you to comprehend, in particular, all such persons as, in the pursuit of wealth, strike out into any new channel, and more especially into any channel of invention.


4.     It is with the professed view of checking, or rather of crushing, these adventurous spirits, whom you rank with “prodigals”, that you approve of the laws which limit the rate of interest, grounding yourself on the tendency, they appear to you to have, to keep the capital of the country out of two such different sets of hands.


5.     The passage, I am speaking of, is in the fourth chapter of your second book, volume the second of the 8vo. edition of 1784. [국부론 2권 4장:]

"The legal rate" (you say) "it is to be observed, though it ought to be somewhat above, ought not to be much above, the lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain for example, was fixed so high as 8 or 10 per cent.[,] the greater part of money which was to be lent, would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the use of money no more than a part of what they are likely to make by the use of it, would not venture into the competition. A greater part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it. Where the legal interest, on the contrary, is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money, gets nearly as much interest from the former, as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A greater part of the capital of the country is thus thrown into the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage."


6.     It happens fortunately for the side you appear to have taken and as unfortunately for mine, that the appellative, which the custom of the language has authorized you, and which the poverty and perversity of the language has in a manner forced you, to make use of, is one, which, along with the idea of the sort of persons in question, conveys the idea of reprobation, as indiscriminately and deservedly applied to them. With what justice or consistency, or by the influence of what causes, this stamp of indiscriminate reprobation has been thus affixed, you and every body else, I imagine, will be ready enough to allow. This being the case, the question stands already decided, in the first instance at least, if not irrovocabley, in the judgments of all those, who unable or unwilling to be at the pains of analysing their ideas, suffer their minds to be led captive by the tyranny of sounds; that is, I doubt, of by far the greater proportion of those whom we are likely to have to judge us. In the conception of all such persons, to ask whether it be fit to restrain projects and projectors, will be as much as to ask, whether it be fit to restrain rashness, and folly, and absurdity, and knavery, and waste.


7.     Of prodigals I shall say no more at present. I have already stated my reasons for thinking, that it is not among them that we are to look for the natural customers for money at high rate of interest. As far as those reasons are conclusive, it will follow, that, of the two sorts of men you mention as proper objects of the burthen [= burden] of these restraints, prodigals and projectors, that burthen falls exclusive on the latter. As to these, what your definition is of projectors, and what descriptions of persons you meant to include under the censure conveyed by that name, might be material for the purpose of judging of the propriety of that censure, but makes no difference in judging of the propriety of the law, which that censure is employed to justify. Whether you yourself, were the several classes of persons made to pass before you in review, would be disposed to pick out this or that class, or this and that individual, in order to exempt them from such censure, is what for that purpose we have no need to enquire.

The law, it is certain, makes no such distinctions:  
  • it falls with equal weight, and with all its weight, upon all those persons, without distinction to whom the term projectors, in the most unpartial and extensive signification of which it is capable, can be applied. 
  • It falls at any rate (to repeat some of the words of my former definition), upon all such persons, as, {in the pursuit of wealth, or even of any other object, endeavour, by the assistance of wealth,} to strike into any channel of invention
  • It falls upon all such persons, as, in the cultivation of any of those arts which have been by way of eminence termed useful, direct their endeavours to any of those departments in which their utility shines most conspicuous and indubitable; 
  • upon all such persons as, in the line of any of their pursuits, aim at any thing that can be called improvement; whether it consist in the production of any new article adapted to man's use, or in the meliorating the quality, or diminishing the expence, of any of those which are already known to us. 
  • It falls, in short, upon every application of the human powers, in which ingenuity stands in need of wealth for its assistant.


8.     High and extraordinary rates of interest, how little soever adapted to the situation of the prodigal, are certainly, as you very justly observe, particularly adapted to the situation of the projector: not however to that of the imprudent projector only, nor even to his case more than another's, but to that of the prudent and wellgrounded projector, if the existence of such a being were to be supposed. Whatever be the prudence or other qualities of the project, in whatever circumstance the novelty of it may lie, it has this circumstance against it, viz. that it is new. But the rates of interest, the highest rates allowed, are, as you expressly say they are, and as you would have them to be, adjusted to the situation which the sort of trader is in, whose trade runs in the old channels, and to the best security which such channels can afford. But in the nature of things, no new trade, no trade carried on in any new channel, can afford a security equal to that which may be afforded by a trade carried on in any of the old ones: in whatever light the matter might appear to perfect intelligence, in the eys of every prudent person, exerting the best powers of judging which the falliable condition of the human faculties affords, the novelty of any commercial adeventure will oppose a chance of ill success, superseded to evey one which could attend the same, or any other, adventure, aleady tried, and proved to be profitable by experience.

9.     The limitation of the profit that is to be made, by lending money to persons embarked in trade, will render the monied man more anxious, you may say, about the goodness of his security, and accordingly more anxious to satisfy himself respecting the prudence of a project in the carrying on of which the money is to be employed, than he would be otherwise: and in this way it may be thought that these laws ^have^ a tendency to pick out the good projects from the bad, and favour the former at the expense of the latter. ( ... ... )


10.     I should not expect to see it alleged that there is any thing, that should render the number of well-grounded projects, in comparison of the ill-grounded, less in time future, than it has been in time past. ( ... ... )


11.


12.     That I have done you no injustice, in assigning to your idea of projectors so greate a latitude, and that the unfavourable opinion you have professed to entertain of them is not confined to the above passage, might be made ( ... ) by another passage in the 10th chapter of your book. "The establishment of any new manufactue, of any new branch of commerce, or of any new practice in agriculture," all these you comprehend by the name under the list of "projects": ( ... ... )


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22.    ( ... ... ) On this subject you ride triumphant, and chastise the "impertinence and presumption of kings and ministers," with a tone of authority, which it required a courage like your's to venture upon, and a genius like your's to warrant a man to assume. After drawing the parallel between private thrift and public profusion, "It is" (you conclude) "the highest impertinence and presumption therefore in kings and ministers ^to pretend to watch over the economy of private people^, ( ... ... )


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29.     I hope you may by this time be disposed to allow me, that we have not been ill served by the projects of time past. I have already intimated, that I could not see any reason why we should apprehend our being worse served by the projects of time future. I will now venture to add, that I think I do see reason, why we should expect to be still better and better served by these projects, than by those. I mean better upon the whole, in virtue of the reduction which experience, if experience be worth anything, should make in the proportion of the number of the ill-grounded and unsuccessful, to that of the well-grounded and successful ones.

30.     The career of art, the great road which receives the footsteps of projectors, may be considered as a vast, and perhaps unbounded, plain, bestrewed with gulphs, such as Curtius was swallowed up in. Each requires an human victim to fall into it ere [= before] it can close, but when it once closes, it closes to open no more, and so much of the path is safe to those who follow. If the want of perfect information of former miscarriages renders the reality of human life less happy than this picture, still the similitude must be acknowledged: and we see at once the only plain and effectual method for bringing that similitude still nearer and nearer to perfection; I mean, the framing of the history of the projects of time past, and (what may be executed in much greater perfection were but a finger held up by the hand of government) the making provision for recording, and collecting and publishing as they are brought forth, the race of those with which the womb of futurity is still pregnant. But to pursure this idea, the execution of which is not within my competence, would lead me too far from the purpose.

( ... ... )

32.     But to return to the laws against usury, and their restraining influence on projectors.[,] I have made it, I hope, pretty apparent, that these restraints have no power or tendency to pick out bad projects from the good. Is it worthwhile to add, which I think I may do with some truth, that the tendency of them is rather to pick the good out from the bad? Thus much at least may be said, and it comes to the same thing, that there is one case in which, be the project what it may, they may have the effect of checking it, and another in which they can have no such effect, and that the first has for its accomplishment, and that a necessary one, a circumstance which has a strong tendency to separate and discard every project of the injudicious stamp, but which is wanting in the other case. I mean, in a word, the benefit of discussion.


33.     It is evident enough, that upon all such projects, whatever be their nature, as find funds sufficient to carry them on, in the hands of him whose invention gave them birth, these laws are perfectly, and if by this time you will allow me to say so, very happily, without power. But for these there has not necessarily been any other judge, prior to experience, than the inventor's own partial affection. It is not only not necessary that they should have had, but it is natural enough that they should not have had, any such judge: since in most cases the advantage to be expected from the project depends upon the exclusive property in it, and consequently upon the concealment of the principle. Think, on the other hand, how different is the lot of that enterprize which depends upon the good opinion of another man, that other, a man possessed of the wealth which the projector wants, and before whom necessity forces him to apear in the chapter of a suppliant at least: happy if, in the imagination of his judge, he adds not to that degrading character, that of a visionary enthusiast or an imposter! At any rate, there are, in this case, two wits, set to sift into the merits of the project, for one, which was employed upon that same task in the other case: and of these two there is one, whose prejudices are certainly not most likely to be on the favorable side. True it is, that in the jumble of occurrences, an over-sanguine as himself; and the wishes may bribe the judgment of the one, as they did of the other. The opposite case, however, you will allow, I think, to be by much the more natural. Whatever a man's wishes may be for the success of an enterprize not yet his own, his fears are likely to be still stronger. That same pretty generally implanted principle of vanity and self-conceit, which disposes most of us to over-value each of us his own conceptions, disposes us, in a proportinable degree, to undervalue those of other men.

( ... ... )