Business News

Congratulations to the French for their court's successful prosecution of the Church of Scientology for fraud and levying a fine of nearly a million dollars. I have no illusions that other branches of this criminal organization will be prosecuted. I think Microsoft could avoid some of it's legal hassles by registering itself as a religion rather than a public company.






Congratulations also to the conservative splitters of the Anglican church who were upset over part of their church treating people equally. Luckily for them there is always a place for intolerance, fear, and hate with the Catholic Church who welcomed them with openish arms this week.
Since this is essentially a business story, it reads better as if it were in the Report on Business:



Vatican
(Bloomberg)
Shares of Catholic Church (TSX-OMG) were trading sharply up today as investors welcomed a new deal to buyout Anglican (B) preferred shares in a 1-1 stock swap. In the third quarter of 2007, Anglican Ltd. a junior player in the competitive religious service providers market, announced it's intentions to keep its liberal income trust (TSX-ANG.un) separate. The emergence of recent income trust rules outraged the parent company with VP operations Bishop Martin Devon suggesting that "if Anglican Ltd could not keep its assets unified, debt obligations might make operations difficult." Despite this spin by senior executives, it was widely reported by Bay Street insiders that differing management philosophies had undermined it's business model.
Investors speculate that The Catholic Church, a fully integrated religious service provider, plans to keep the successful Anglican brand. Investor relations VP Cardinal Louis D'Anglois suggested that "owing to some accounting practice harmonization, downsizing of administration would be limited during the next two quarters."