This unit has been used for different purposes, including calculating insurable livestock units in the index-based livestock insurance programmes in northern arid areas of Kenya.
Furthermore, timely disaster recovery requires these codes to be supplemented by comprehensive hazard insurance programmes.
Obviously, all insurance programmes are pure cash transfers, but equally obviously, insurance programmes, whether public or private, provide something of value: namely security, peace of mind, hedging against risk.
But for better or worse, those politicians seemed focused on expanding (or preserving) the government's social insurance programmes.
The company, said a spokesman, denies wrongdoing, although two of its mid-ranking executives were convicted last year of conspiring to defraud government health insurance programmes.
The plan also includes modest changes to Medicare and Medicaid, the US social insurance programmes Republicans have targeted for larger overhauls.
At the same time, both versions of the bill would strengthen crop insurance programmes to help protect farmers from small drops in income.
Look for similar market solutions for the big health-care programmes, Medicare and Medicaid, the public insurance programmes that pay for the treatment of old and poor people.
Mr Bookstaber knows all about this, having played a key role in the creation of, among other innovations, "portfolio insurance" programmes.
The public would be right to be outraged that a Wall Street billionaire is trying to take away the core social insurance programmes that they will be dependent on in their old age.
Assuming Franken is ultimately confirmed, the Republicans will be hard-pressed to hinder Obama's agenda, including provisions to lessen greenhouse gas emissions, expand government health insurance programmes, his $3.7tn budget, his judicial nominations, and potentially more costly fiscal stimulus measures.
