[At-Large] ICANN Keeps it Money in a Non-Interest Bearing Account!

[John R. Levine]

> This thing has got my goat.

Actually, it sounds like ICANN has learned their lesson.  A few years 
back, ICANN made an incredibly irresponsible decision to place $25 million 
of reserve funds in a broker managed stock market account, which became 
$20 million when the market burped.  Oops.  At the time ICANN's CFO 
refused to take any responsibility or to admit that they'd screwed up, or 
to explain why they'd needed $25 million of registrants' money for the 
reserve if, as he now claimed, $20M was enough.

I hope we all agree that ICANN's primary reponsibility toward its reserves 
is to be sure that the money is there when it's needed.  That means 
something with no credit risk, like US government treasury bills, which 
are currently yielding 0.16% for six month bills and 0.18% for twelve 
months.  When you subtract off even the most modest broker fees, that 
rounds to zero, so I can't blame them for just putting it in a zero 
interest account on which they can draw as needed.

What were you expecting them to do?  Do you think it is possible to find 
suitable low-risk investments that pay significantly more?

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly