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It is eminently fitting that the Greeks who gave us their word for “speaking fair” should also have supplied us with the ultimate exemplification of its use. They were wont to refer to the Furies, a group of avenging goddesses, as the Eumenides or “The Fair Ones.” Since the Furies were imagined as having a batlike shape which was adorned with a profusion of snakish hair, they were not fair at all, but rather terrifying, intimidating in the highest degree. To euphemize a phenomenon is to call it something other than what it most particularly is, anything at all provided the new designation is gentler, milder, less offensive, less threatening. It is even possible, as in the case of the Furies renamed Fair Ones, to effect a 180‐degree reversal of meaning.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

The author forecasts the likely changes to accident recording and reporting and assesses some of the unexpected consequences and implications of the SSP legislation.

Decimalisation, value added tax, metrication, the Industrial Relations Act—perhaps the four most outstanding individual training subjects in the last decade. Do we now, with the death of the Industrial Relations Act, need a de‐briefing?

Pre‐retirement activities, ranging from man‐to‐man counselling to weekend “bargain breaks” in hotels, are expanding. The most active organisation in the field is the Pre‐Retirement Association, covering the scope of personnel, education and training. Core contents of all seminars in this area tend to be similar, covering finance, health and fitness, and retirement activities. (List of commercial organisers included.)

No one needs help to get into trouble At the beginning of 1975 that is a quotation to be remembered by people as far apart as ex‐President Nixon, ex‐Lord Mayor of London Sir Dennis Lowson, and Fred who cleans our offices—but never satisfactorily.

Refers to previous research on the accuracy of financial analysts’ earnings forecasts and explores the differences in accuracy for loss making and non‐loss making firms using 1985‐1993 US data. Finds an optimistic bias for both types of firms (smaller for more recent forecasts); which is greater for loss making firms even after controlling for forecast horizon, year of forecast and industry. Considers possible explanations for this finding and consistency with other research.

We examine whether discretionary accruals of firms obtaining substantial external financing can be explained by managerial manipulation or managerial overoptimism. Insider trading patterns and press releases around equity and debt financing suggest that managers are more optimistic about their firms around debt financing. Consistent with earlier studies, we find that discretionary current accruals peak when firms obtain equity financing. However, we also find that discretionary accruals peak when firms obtain debt financing. Moreover, discretionary accruals are higher for firms that rely on debt rather than on equity financing. The results are robust to controlling for firm characteristics, excluding small and distressed firms, and using alternative measures of discretionary accruals. These findings support the hypothesis that managerial overoptimism distorts financial statements of firms obtaining external financing.

Ask young executives what they think management is, and one is given a vague and somewhat confused answer: linking together the work of a lot of people by such techniques as organisation and meetings.

The Royal Assent to the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 received a sixteen line paragraph in Topics for September. In dozens of journals it did not even rate a mention. But if what Lord Robens in his 1972 Report saw as necessary for securing better standards of health and safety at work is to be realised, the education and training programme necessary is wide and deep.