Tips for Home Care Providers on Working with a Child with Autism

NOTE BEFORE YOU READ

I sold a much shorter, clearer, and more blog-like blog on this topic to Tender Tree Home Care a little while back. Check http://www.tendertree.com/ to learn more about home care of all kinds. The "blog" you'll see below is completely different, much longer post, so it's probably worth it to check out Tender Tree's blog post first. Without further ado--here are a few tips for working with a child with autism derived from a combination of ABA training, Sunrise training, and experience living with an autistic child for 11 years.

Every child with an ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) is a little bit different, so many kids operate well in the normal world, and others have much more violent behavioral problems. Ability problem areas range from simply avoiding eye contact to never speaking; not every child will smear feces on the walls, and not every child will flap his hands like he's trying to fly. Here are a few tips for home care providers new for helping out in a family with an autistic or ASD spectrum child.

1. Understand where your tolerance and the child's needs should meet

Many children with autism have behavioral quirks that may not be actually dangerous to the child's health or to your ability to do your job as a home care provider. Caretakers often make the mistake of assuming that because a behavior is abnormal for them, it results from autism, and the child should change it. For example, a little boy once enjoyed playing with a pink fairy wand. A caretaker insisted that he could not have this wand and actually developed a behavioral plan to remove it from him. The boy's interest in the wand was neither obsessive nor obstructing his normal therapy or schedule, or even affecting his interaction with other children; she simply did not find a pink wand gender-appropriate. You should think carefully about prioritizing behavior-modification: which is a bigger problem, an autistic boy's habit of screaming when asked to perform any tasks, or his odd interest in picking fluff off blankets? Because many behavior changes become battles for children with ASD, you should pick your fights carefully. A child will often respond better to you as a caretaker if he feels safe and realizes that you aren't out to take away every little comfort from his life.

2. Identify real problem behaviors and their sources

Real problem behaviors have many different sources, and autistic children have very different behavioral responses to life in general than other children do. It's funny how even after Dr. Bernard Rimland disproved Freud's 'unloving mother' theory of autism we tend to look for normal reasons for abnormal behavior; even very well-meaning new caretakers will sometimes assume the child simply received too little discipline, or too much scolding, or some other issue resulted from the child's conniving heart or parental weakness.

Look for three major sources of a problem behavior: physiology, resistance, or social reward. Many autistic children have heightened senses and experience the world differently from you, so it's no use scolding an autistic child to wear his shirt when he won't because the fabric actually hurts him. On the other hand, coddling a child who resists the shirt because he wants to disobey and control you will only end up hurting the child's family life in the long run. The autistic child may be resisting the shirt because a response you give rewards him: you may put him on time-out, and that escape from unwanted interaction may be exactly what he wants.

How do you know what behavior has what cause? You have to chart triggers of the cause, and you have to see in what situations the behavior stops. This will take a long time of getting to know the child, and watching the problem situation over and over again, but part of the diagnosis lies in the solution.

3. Find replacement behaviors for physiological or other comfort behaviors; ignore resistance

To use our shirt example a little more, if you find the child responds better to a different material, the problem may have been physiological. You can ask a doctor as well to evaluate the child. Some autistic children with horrible allergies experience intense internal pain or even hallucinations; the child may bang his head on the wall, or shriek every few minutes, or even show fear of the floor, and the problem might actually come from something a doctor can help with. The child may smear feces on the wall because he's constipated, or because he's reaching an age where his diaper makes him uncomfortable. Try to look for every possible physiological trigger for the behavior, and if you find none, check to see if you're simply rewarding the negative behavior.

Replace desire-based problem behaviors with behaviors that fulfill the same needs. A child may smear feces just to feel the goop against the wall; replace that behavior with finger paints, and the child can experience the same sensation without the yuck. You can teach a child who likes to throw to participate in a game of catch with you. These kinds of solutions may sound silly, but finding ways to channel a child's problem behaviors will save you a lot of frustration.

For resistant behavior, negative reinforcement like taking away a favorite toy or other discipline--you need to talk to your family to understand how they feel about spanking and other controversials--may work. "Normal" kids often respond well to negative reinforcement, but you have to remember that ASD kids live in a completely different world, and negative reinforcement might actually hurt rather than help the situation. If you use negative reinforcement, you must apply it directly after the problem behavior occurs. Not ten minutes later, not before as you see it coming, but directly after. This is the best way to ensure that the child connects the negative reinforcement with the behavior. This may have to happen over and over tens or hundreds of times before the child makes the connection.

You almost have to think like an autistic child in order to make sure you aren't encouraging the problem behavior: the smallest things may become rewards. Some autistic children will actually throw or break things in order to see your anger response. This may sound ridiculous, but because most autistic children have trouble interpreting social patterns in the world around them, they cling to any pattern of normalcy or control. If you had no idea how to communicate with anyone, and everyone behaved completely unpredictably all the time, you might also take comfort in the one truth that throwing the plate makes Nana scream. Much of the time, an autistic child might actually completely tune out your yelling or frustration; at other times, the child may not understand that a particular negative reinforcer has anything to do with the problem behavior. She may just tremble under the loss with no idea as to why it's happening.

The hands-down most-ABA-recommended way to deal with a reaction-seeking problem behavior? Ignoring it. Because autistic kids can be more detail-observant than the rest of us, this means no eye contact, not a word, and if possible no change at all in your body language. Kids who are looking to make you angry will increase the intensity of the behavior for a while to see if they can finally get that response. Don't crack. If you ignore it to the end, the child will realize the response gets them nothing they want, and they will find something else.

I hope your first experience helping an ASD child is a positive one, and that the child feels loved and accepted as you embark on this new phase of your professional home care life!

Homecare for Family Members with Handicaps: What to Pay, and How to Find Help

When my cousin came over just before Christmas Eve, small talk brought up her new job working for a wealthy family member who became paralyzed in a diving accident. My cousin has to help him get dressed, eat, accompany him to the gym, and do everything else that you may have to do with your friend or family member with physical or neurological disabilities. We got around to talking about payment, and she explained she's taking a cut in pay because he's a relative.

It can be a hard question--what should you pay a caretaker who helps you with differently-abled family? How much more does it cost? Should it cost more? Many children with Down's syndrome have happier demeanors and easier "obedience ethic" than "normal" children do. On the other hand, spending a day with a stimming, high-energy autistic child has turned many a saintly caregiver into a rage-class sinner. Here are some considerations for paying a caregiver for a differently-abled family member.

1. Government aid

Families with mentally-affected family members sometimes receive government social security subsidies for care. Depending on your needs, the state you reside in, and other factors, once they've reached eighteen years of age the government may pay anywhere around $695 a month to supplement their care. This definitely factors in to any decisions the rest of us make about their care in the future. A caregiver in Hawaii can receive as much as $14.64 an hour from the government to help with home care for a young adult with cerebral palsy; you may want to pay a comparable or competitive rate even if you don't receive government money, just to attract good caregivers.

2. Volunteerism

Lower-income families not yet eligible for government aid and unable to pay government rates to their caregivers don't have to fear getting edged out of the home-care market by Uncle Sam; you can still attract good help for less. If you live near a college or university, you may take advantage of psychology or pre-med students looking for volunteer credit. "Miriam" posted an ad in the local student volunteer center asking for help with her child with autism. She trained volunteers to use the Sunshine program to play with and care for her son, held meetings every Sunday, and scheduled each volunteer for a few hours every week. The simple math reveals enough: twenty volunteers at two hours each every week equals forty hours of care, and even ten or fifteen volunteers can fill up a sizable chunk of your in-home needs.

If you don't live near a large student population, an e-mail out to your local church may even get you a long-term caregiver for ten or so hours each week who's just looking for room and board as payment. Don't feel overwhelmed, and don't give up your search--people can help you.

3. Training

This leads to the issue of expertise. It's often fairly easy to train caregivers for basic help, but if you want higher quality intensive therapy you will certainly have to pay more. An ABA therapist with a master's costs $100 an hour, but you can get good therapists working on their bachelor's for around $9.00. This is actually a criminally low rate--ABA therapists often receive much more training than non-therapeutic caregivers have, and non-therapeutic caregivers in Virginia can go for as much as $20 an hour. However, it can be tough to get even 30 hours a week of in-home therapy, and having therapists come in and out of your house may require more of your presence at home. You may need to mix and match in-home therapy and other in-home care. Many care.com special needs' experienced caregivers work for $10-$15 an hour.

Whatever your cost evaluations for in-home care, make sure you remain up-front with your caregiver about your health needs and pocketbook. When you post a special needs opening on care.com, make sure to list all the important needs and details so that you can get the right caregiver for your family. Don't be afraid to ask for free help from your church or community center, and remember that the rest of your family has needs also. Join a support group for families with differently-abled members for resources; many of us understand and sympathize with you. It's common for families with special needs to feel judged by their local community or co-workers, so finding a forum of similar families not only helps families share resources--it also allows you readier access to info about non-judgmental, experienced caregivers and friends. It's okay to ask for help if you have to stay home more while in-between caregivers or if you can't find a caregiver who meets your needs: that doesn't make you any less an educated or empowered person. Families with special needs face a lot of pressures from all different directions, and you have to feel comfortable with your own decisions to do the best for YOUR family, not some imagined ideal.

Blessings, and peace.

Book Review: M-1 Garand Assembly Guide (so where you can look to find out about modifying your M-1 Garand)

Some people learn by reading; others learn by doing.

For the gun owners who lie in the latter category, a historic firearm becomes more than a relic to hang above their fireplaces while they sit under it and read of its exploits.

For those hands-on learners, historic guns become bygone battlefields for minds and fingers to explore--a way for you to connect with whatever past soldier first field-stripped that gun years ago.

Geared towards that hands-on historic gun collector, "The M-1 Garand Complete Assembly Guide" by Walt Kuleck aims to present a simple guide for someone with no Garand modification experience, according to its introduction.

Does the book meet that goal? The specific, detailed subject may frighten brand-new general gun enthusiasts into believing they will not understand Kuleck's book: not so.

In fact, the book simplifies Garand assembly for the new owner almost to the point of the ludicrous. The author wasn't satisfied just to write the caption "note the receiver" above an image of a receiver, for example; he also wrote it again two inches away on the image with a big dark arrow pointing to the indicated part, in case the reader, a consummate idiot, still does not note the receiver.

The clear, step-by-step images take the reader through disassembly from trigger guard to buttplate, and then back through assembly. The images makes the book: I only wish I had seen these pictures before interviewing Mr. Kuleck on Garand accuracy--it would have made researching the gun much easier.

Each set of basic directions includes safety features throughout that should also provide a solid aid to new Garand owners. "Always wear your safety goggles" brings back memories of high school robotics for me, but Kuleck's story about a gun exploding on his hand reminds the young and reckless that this isn't the science fair anymore.

Also for safety, Kuleck's book recommends a full read-through before an owner makes any modifications, and a final check with a certified armorer before the owner fires the finished gun. He illustrates, with images, the unsafe way to remove a trigger assembly--with a cocked hammer--and what used or welded gun parts could prove disastrous additions to a rebuilt Garand.

Despite the simple language and safety instructions geared towards beginners, long-time Garand owners may benefit even more than newbies as Kuleck, a Garand Collector's Associaton board member, builds on established knowledge with his experienced, trial-tested tips for the best techniques, the trickiest pitfalls big and small, and ideas for saving time.

Continue reading here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48066

How to make an old gun (M-1 Garand) shoot like new. Okay, not really. How to make your historic M-1 Garand more accurate

                                                                                                                                 Image courtesy of army.mil
Reserve color guard honors World War II veterans at a football game Nov. 8, 2010 in WWII uniform, with M-1 Garands

Guns & Patriots asked Garand expert Dr. Walter J. Kuleck, a board-member of the Garand Collector’s Association and author of several authoritative gun manuals, what tweaks can give your Garand its best competition accuracy.

“First off, you need to make sure that the rifle is kept clean and lubricated with a high quality grease. If you don’t have a basic platform to start with—a clean, solidly assembled rifle--it really doesn’t matter what you do to it from there on,” said Kuleck, a doctor of psychology who spent many years as a Boeing engineer.

The former engineer said improving the accuracy of any rifle requires three critical points: the barrel, the fit of the stock, and what happens at the front end of the gun.

“If the barrel is rusted or pitted or defective in some way, you’re not going to get anywhere in terms of improving the accuracy,” he said.
The second critical accuracy point, the stock, may need adjustments to tighten its grip around the receiver, said Kuleck.

“The stock is held between the receiver and the trigger group. That is to say, when you field-strip a Garand, you swing down the trigger guard and remove the trigger group—that’s got the hammer, the trigger, the safety—the stock then comes off and you have the barrel of action, in other words the receiver,” he said.
“If that fit isn’t tight—in other words, if the receiver’s allowed to move around in the stock just a little bit—the accuracy is going to be materially affected, negatively,” he said.

When the Garand was standard military issue, finding a perfect stock for a rifle was easy for armories because they had so many Garands available, said Kuleck.

Today, when stock-fit decays, Garand owners can use glass reinforced resin or fiberglass bedding to tighten their aim, he said. “That enables you to get a perfect, lasting fit between the stock and the barrel receiver.”

Kuleck said the final focus area of the gun for accuracy enhancement lies on the front end of the gun: a study by the Marines showed that even just placing a penny on the top of the front end of the barrel by the sight would dramatically alter rifle accuracy.

“You would shift the place the bullets were hitting by feet at 600 yards,” he said.

The front end must always return to the same place with respect to the rifle--this means making sure that the gas cylinder does not bind on the barrel, because if it does, when the barrel heats up the cooler cylinder ring will bend the barrel, he said.

“On a service rifle, you want the front hand guard to rattle a little bit back and forth because as a rifle heats up, if it’s all jammed in there, it’s gonna have a similar effect—it’s gonna begin to warp as it gets hot. So on a match rifle, what you do is you secure the rear of the handguard to the metal piece that surrounds the stock, called the front-end ferrell,” he said.

Typically a gun-owner could secure the ferrell with glue, or drive screws in through the back and then glue it into place—while ensuring that the handguard does not have the freedom to touch the back of the gas cylinder, he said.

Tweaking those three critical points will help hone the inherent accuracy of the rifle, but a shooter must also find ways to reduce user error, Kuleck said.

“You can’t stop there. The interface—I hate that word, but some places it just works--between the shooter and the rifle is extremely important, and the two important elements that I’m talking about are the sights and the trigger,” he said.

Sights should enable the user to adjust placement with respect to the bulls-eye, so size matters: choose a sight that’s too big, and the shooter can’t tell where it is under the bulls-eye, while too small means hard to see through, said Kuleck.

Standardized Garand national match sights end up somewhat smaller than normal service rifle sights, and have a bit of a taper from back to front to reflect any glare forward rather than back towards the shooter’s eye, he said.

A smaller back sight aperture creates a sharper image, and for accuracy the aperture is adjustable so each click in the horizontal direction is one half minute of angle—half the normal adjustment for a battle rifle, said Kuleck.

“One minute of angle translates to one inch at a hundred yards, two inches at two hundred yards, three inches at three hundred yards, and so on,” he said.

The trigger forms the final accuracy-enhancing aspect of the gun/user interface, said Kuleck.

“If the trigger has a lot of what we call creep—in other words, you have to really move it a long way before it goes ‘bang’—rifle shooters don’t like that very much because it allows—it keeps you from discharging your rifle when you want to,” he said.

The weight and delay of pulling a single-stage four-pound trigger, for example, might cause a shooter to lose aim while the gun fires, said Kuleck.

To make a trigger pull more smoothly, Kuleck said owners can...

Can what? How can you make a trigger pull more smoothly? How not to not end a sentence. = P Keep reading here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48058

Kim Jong Il is Dead--What Next? Clinton&Genba summit, persecuted Christians, and political analysis of life after his death

Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton met Japan's Foreign Minister Dec. 19 to plan a strategy with regards to North Korea as humanitarians worldwide expressed hope--and fear--in the wake of Kim Jong Il​'s death.
   
"We share the recognition that it is important to make sure that the latest event would not negatively affect the peace and stability on the Korean peninsula," said Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba. "For this purpose we affirm to closely monitor the situation concerned and to coordinate closely with each other by sharing information."
   
Dictator Kim Jong Il died from working tirelessly for the North Korean people, said Ri Chung Hee, the same news anchor from the Korean Central News Agency who announced Kim's father's death.
   
"He died of a sudden illness on Dec. 17. We make this announcement with great sorrow," she said, dressed in black and weeping.
   
Genba said he hopes to see concrete efforts towards denuclearization of North Korea, and also expresses gratitude to the United States for raising the issue of North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens during every North Korea/US dialogue, he said.
   
"Due to the most recent developments we are seeing an increasing bubble of interest and attention to how the process of dealing with the abduction issue develops in Japan," he said.
   
Clinton said the Obama administration is relying closely on the advice of other countries in the region in the aftermath of Kim's death. "We reiterate our hope for improved relations with the people of North Korea, and remain deeply concerned about their wellbeing."
   
Prof. Ronald G. Dimberg of the University of Virginia, who teaches the history of inter-Korean affairs, said without understanding Kim's successor, Kim Jong-un, it is difficult to tell whether possibilities for healthy US/North Korea relations have improved or not.
   
"No one knows much of anything about him, including the extent of his apprenticeship. We know that his father had several years of training before succeeding Kim Il-sung, but the same is clearly not the case with Kim Jong-un," he said.
   
Kim Jong-un received part of his education in Switzerland--more exposure to the outside world than most North Koreans, including most of his family members, could imagine, said Paul M. F. Estabrooks, Canadian senior communications specialist with the humanitarian advocacy group Open Doors International.
   
"No one knows for sure if that's a positive thing in his outlook on the world," he said.
   
Dimberg said the US should tread lightly. "Of utmost importance now is to stay alert and to do nothing to raise fears and concerns in Pyongyang. Remember the importance of the year 2012 for the DPRK, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung. That was to have been, and will be, a very special year for North Korea, but now for reasons unimagined originally."
   
Dr. Carl Moeller, president of ODI, said with increased government surveillance following Kim's death; some underground Christians in North Korea have become fearful they might face more suffering. "Though this brutal dictator who was responsible for so many atrocities has died, the future is still unknown."
   
North Korean prison camps hold an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Christians, he said.
   
Todd Nettleton, spokesman for Voice of the Martyrs, another persecution advocacy group, said his contacts in North Korea do not expect much change in the government's attitude towards Christians following Kim Jong Il's death.
   
"North Korea doesn’t announce anything publicly until they are ready to deal with the situation and maintain control," he said. "So this public announcement means they think they are ready to deal with the situation and maintain control and power within the country."
   
However, officials have stepped up house raids on hidden Christians since the Oct. 2010 annunciation of Kim Jong-un as next leader, said "Simon," a Christian in North Korea whose last name was withheld for protection.

Continue reading here as "Simon" shares more of his inside view--also, the woman who stabbed herself to cry for Kim Jong Il's father http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48268

U.S. Infantry Weapons in Combat: A book review, snapshots of soldiers and the weapons they loved

                                                                                                                                 Poster image courtesy of army.mil
Foreground:(left to right) a 1945 Army tank guard with a submachine gun, a Major with an M-1 carbine, and his radioman, with an M-1 rifle.

Step inside this book, and you slip into heavy boots in muddy foxholes, stiff fingers shivering as you field strip a frozen M-1 or clean your Browning Automatic Rifle with its .45 caliber brass brush.  Look through the sights of the guns detailed in US Infantry Weapons in Combat, and you look into the soul of a bygone era.

The book, written by historic weapon enthusiast Mark G. Goodwin, consists of 65 interviews of American infantry soldiers who participated in World War II​ and the Korean War​.

The author and publisher both have deep emotional histories with World War II weapons--especially the M-1 Garand: Scott A. Duff, the book's publisher and author of its foreword, believes that the M-1 won World War II.

Stories range from the lighthearted to the morose, from the soldier ready to return home to the young man hankering to stay on the battlefield, but they all hang on the common thread of historic guns.
The gun details make Goodwin's book riveting:  "The first thing this reader must know about this book is that it is a gun book," according to the foreword by Duff.

The book shows the tension Korean War hero Jack Walentine felt 40 or 50 feet from the top of a ridge during a final charge, as he asked himself, "Did I shoot four, five, or six rounds?"

In another interview story, World War II vet Marion Throne’s M-1 clicked without firing, alerting German soldiers to his presence. "I couldn't believe I was so stupid to not tap the operating rod,” he said.

This is no cut-and-dry thesis of statistics quantifying the technological contribution of a certain gun to military achievements. Through the medium of guns, the soldiers interviewed paint vivid pictures of their personalities, American wartime culture, and war as a whole.

It's odd--and rather funny--to think that no one thought to write this book 20 years ago and make it required reading for some obscure college history class.

Modern warfare is all about guns, but most educational histories on American wars focus on strategic maneuvers, politics, or large-scale socioeconomic trends. Personal histories and war memoirs tend to focus on family stories and cultural clashes.

Yet as a trigger for starting to tell a war story, guns have a definite advantage both because of the intense detail with which infantrymen learned their weapons, and because of the emotional attachment soldiers had to the only thing between them and inflicted or inflicting death.

Infantrymen spent most of their time clutching a firearm; it's impossible to understand their thoughts and relationships with their enemies and friends without understanding their perceptions of their guns...

Continue reading here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47833

Getting better at updatin' faster: MF Global CEO says it's not his fault, it's taxes!

For those of you who don't know, MF Global failed around Halloween, costing tons of people millions of dollars.

Here's my story about the Congressional hearing.

Testifying Dec. 8 before the House Agriculture Committee, the former CEO of commodities brokerage MF Global blamed new tax laws, not his bets on European sovereign debt, nor the $1.2 billion in missing client funds for the company’s Halloween bankruptcy filing.

The company’s losses that forced the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing came from new tax regulations removing assets from the company, said Jon S. Corzine, former New Jersey governor and senator, who is an intimate member of both the Clinton and Obama political families.

“The lion’s share of the quarterly loss was a write-off of approximately $119.4 million that reflected a valuation adjustment against a deferred tax asset,” he said.

The company’s repurchase transaction derivatives, also called RTM’s, were used to facilitate its bets on high-yield debt issued by European governments and carried an asset, not a liability, he said.

“That asset had been created by years of non-RTM tax losses cumulated—mostly before I arrived at MF Global—in the firm’s United States and Japanese subsidiaries, which had allowed MF Global to recognize as an asset potential tax benefits in future years,” he said.

“Under applicable accounting rules, by the second quarter of MF Global’s 2011 fiscal year the firm was no longer permitted to recognize those tax benefits as assets, and therefore, with the advice and knowledge of its external auditor, it recognized a loss in that amount,” he said.

This bookkeeping adjustment, related to practices that predated his tenure, caused the firm’s downfall, he said.

Corzine said the company did not fail due to risky European investments, which he conceded were done at his initiative.

“In light of the attention that has been given to RTMs, and the press reports that attributed MF Global’s loss to RTMs involving European debt securities, it is important to make clear here that the loss was not related to these positions,” he said.

The fallen CEO’s testimony was preceded by appearances from Jill E. Sommers, who leads the MF Global investigation for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and James B. Kobak, Jr., counsel for the trustee appointed to execute the Securities Investor Protection Act liquidation of the firm.

Corzine was often confident and engaging during his testimony, but when he spoke about the missing $1.2 billion in client funds, he played as perplexed as the congressmen glaring at him under hot television lights.

“I was stunned when I was told on Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011 that MF Global could not account for many hundreds of millions of dollars of client money,” he said.

“I remain deeply concerned about the impact that the un-reconciled and frozen funds have had on MF Global’s customers and others,” he said.

Responding to questions from Rep. K. Michael Conaway​ (R.-Texas) about the missing funds, Corzine said that because of the turbulence in the days leading up to the bankruptcy, which came on the heels of his November 3 resignation, he only knows what is already in the public record.

“There were an extraordinary number of transactions during MF Global’s last few days, and I do not know, for example, whether there were operational errors at MF Global or elsewhere, or whether banks and counterparties have held onto funds that should rightfully have been returned to MF Global,” he said.

“I have not had access to my emails or any of the reconciliations,” he said.

Corzine said he hoped the situation will change as his attorney works to open company records to him before the end of the year.

The former CEO, who joined MF Global in March 2010, said he has no access to information on botched customer accounts.

“I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date. I do not know which accounts are un-reconciled or whether the un-reconciled accounts were or were not subject to the segregation rules,” he said. Segregation rules regulate how a company can put a client at risk against its own proprietary trading.

Sommers said MF Global’s issues revolve around customer segregated accounts: as a futures commission merchant, also known as an FCM, the firm was permitted to invest funds in protected accounts, but under certain restrictions.

“While an FCM is permitted to invest customer funds, it is important to note that if an FCM does so, the value of the customer segregated account must remain intact at all times,” she said.

“In other words, when an FCM invests customer funds, that actual investment, or collateral equal in value to the investment, must remain in the customer segregated account at all times,” she said.

Continue reading here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48036 

And a little note...why do I label all the newsposts as American History?
To make a statement, my friend...to make a statement.