STUMP - Death and Taxes

While the state of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health (and potential “is he alive/dead?” Schrodinger’s cat-like situation) plays out right now, I look at the real issue: there is no way to deal with incapacitated members of Congress. I look at prior situations in the Senate itself, and then I do go off on some tangents: historical situations where leaders’ deaths were covered up and more recent situati...

April is the cruelest month in dropping all sorts of awareness topics on our heads: Autism, Cancer (various types - I covered testicular cancer earlier this month), financial literacy, and poetry… suppose we become “aware” of all this? What are we supposed to do with all this awareness and knowledge? Episode Links Poems T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land I. The Burial of the Dead April is the cruellest mo...

March is Problem Gambling Awareness Month (were you aware?) — and many people are becoming aware of an increasing problem with all sorts of gambling and betting being available 24/7, in easy reach, on our phones. People wrestling with gambling debts and gambling addiction are not a new phenomenon, as these have featured as major items in literature (which I mention)… and unfortunately, too many po...

Paul Ehrlich died recently at the age of 93, best known as a Malthusian in a modern age of growth and then population decline…with no famines, except man-made ones. His best-known book was The Population Bomb , published in 1968, which was already wrong when it was published. It’s fine to attack the man’s ideas, as they were just plain wrong, he was told this when alive, and he had never admitted...

I used someone else’s podcast on “resounding gongs or clashing cymbals” as a jumping-off point of where one should be focusing one’s efforts in the world… with a shift into some Lenten themes. Yes, there’s a heavy Christian flavor to this one, but it’s also a sneaky way for me to encourage you to consume Dickens in the form of excellent miniseries production (yes, really). And a finish up with say...

Two different pieces — one from the left, one from the right — showing that wishful thinking will not get the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States through the public finance difficulties brought about by demographic realities. No, I’m not talking about immigration (legal or illegal… which also won’t fix the problem.) By all means, tinker around the edges for now. Because hard cho...

Getting back into podcasting by looking at the recent wealth tax proposals in California and the Netherlands. The Box 3 “reforms” have already passed in The Netherlands and to go into effect in 2028, and in California, the wealth tax is likely to be a ballot proposal to be put in front of voters this fall in 2026, but backdated to January 2026. I look at the proposals at a high-level, some initial...

Just some talk on why I fundraise for Movember, which I’ve been doing since 2017. I look at some of the programs funded by Movember. The need continues. Episode Links Here are the places you can donate to the Movember Foundation, which supports men’s health, specifically focusing on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health: * Mary Pat Campbell’s MoSpace – a place to donate at Mo...

Following news of a liquidity problem in the Chicago Firefighters’ Pension Fund and a stunning $11 billion pension benefit boost for police and fire, I, your friendly actuary, Mary Pat Campbell, dive into the reactions from various groups as well as the “timely” release of a report from a task force convened by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. I explore the political negligence surrounding the Tier...

Unsurprisingly, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Chicago police and fire Tier 2 pension sweetener, bringing it in line with the downstate plans. However, this is not much of a gift to Chicago… or those pensioners… if those promises are never fulfilled. I look at reactions from the usual suspects: Wirepoints, Austin Berg, Jeffrey Carter, and John Arnold. And, of course, me. There will be text p...

After a surprise hit tweet, I pull from something I wrote 25 years ago about using calculators in math class, ramble a bit about using technology in math classes in general, give some advice for people who want to patch holes in their math knowledge, and bring it back to Mathcamp, false proofs, and LLMs. I will have more to say about Mathcamp and fun math another time — I LOVE MATH! Episode Links...

Looking at the 2025 Social Security Trustees Report, which yet again shows a different exhaustion date for the Trust Fund. I address the recent increase, then drop, of Social Security payments, and as well as the revenue decrease to Social Security in the Big Beautiful Bill. Let’s look at Social Security change (not reform) proposals, too. Something will be done… but likely not until the Trust Fun...

In this episode of STUMP, I talk about the trends and sex gap in death by suicide in the U.S. This is just talking the numbers, so it’s fairly dispassionate, looking at the trend over the decades and by age groups. If you don’t want to hear the episode, you may want to look at the post on Substack (website or app), where I have posted graphs and tables, and you can download the spreadsheet with th...

In which I talk about my late husband Stuart’s experience with advanced prostate cancer (diagnosed in 2017, died in 2024) in reaction to announcements by former President Biden and Dilbert comic strip creator Scott Adams. In addition, I talk about the statistics of prostate cancer, as well as how incidence has changed with screening recommendation changes. As PSA testing was reduced in recommendat...

While many are handicapping various cardinal possibilities for the next pope, often talking about doctrinal and policy differences, I’m looking at some practical issues: money and long-term finance. Looking back at some problems in the past decade and more recent court cases surrounding Vatican financial shenanigans. Can’t anyone around here do good governance? Episode Links The Pillar 2 May 2025:...

I look at recent coverage from The Pillar, which had gotten a report from 2015 on the parlous state of Vatican pensions for lay employees, and updated reporting in 2025 on the current state of pensions. I discuss the problem of unfunded pensions from a Catholic perspective, given these are pensions sponsored by the Vatican sovereign. Episode Links The Pillar Coverage 7 April 2025: Vatican pension...

In which we look at the antithesis of DOGE (plus some other vocabulary words): the real Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the fictional Circumlocution Office, and what is the point of cutting all these rinky-dink agencies? Episode Links CONTINUING THE REDUCTION OF THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/continuing-the-reduction-of-the-federal-burea...

A look at some recent stories on ESG (Economic, Social, and Governance factors) and investments for retirement funds: one from a private sector defined contribution plan, and two states running into issues with ESG and their public pension funds. In all three cases, fiduciaries are getting squeezed by third parties (who are not fiduciaries) based on attitudes towards ESG in investment strategy. Ep...

Weaving together Linda Stratmann’s book The Secret Poisoner, on the development of forensic toxicology in Victorian England (primarily) through infamous poison murder cases, and a recent interview with outgoing Secretary of the HHS, Xavier Becerra. Trust and its loss are key themes of both stories. Episode Links The Secret Poisoner and Linda Stratmann The Secret Poisoner: A Century of Murder Murde...

After a recent overindulgence at Thanksgiving, I had some immediate retribution from my body. I’m fifty (and fat, female, fertile, and fair) — if you know, you know. I talk about dietary changes — made by my late husband Stuart throughout his life, and recent ones made by Taylor Lorenz (don’t know why she did hers) and me. I know why both Stu and I made changes, and explain. STUMP - Meep on public...

Following up a prior episode on fraud in Alzheimer’s research, I look at what has happened to two of those researchers, talk about my own experience in preventing cheating in classes as well as what academic research was like as an RA (research assistant) in physics, and then look at what current research fraud prevention in the U.S. federal government looks like with some advice for future activi...

An audio introduction to my 2024 Movember fundraising: the background to Movember internationally, its focuses of prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health and suicide, and my personal motivation: my late husband Stu’s diagnosis with advanced prostate cancer in 2017 and his 7-year struggle with cancer. Episode Links My Movember fundraising links Here are the places you can donate...

Prominent research in Alzheimer’s disease going back for decades has been found to be fraudulent, which has effects. Alzheimer’s disease has been a cause of death with an increasing age-adjusted death rate, and it’s one of the very few causes of death with a rate that’s higher for females than males (at all ages). How has this come about? And what should be done? STUMP - Meep on public finance, pe...

In looking at Kamala Harris’s 2009 book, which is rife with plagiarism (including cribbing from Wikipedia), I consider my own experiences. I’ve taught writing classes and been involved in getting a book published, in which I ran into somebody submitting material lifted wholesale from Wikipedia. However, those were years ago — we have a new problem now with generative AI creating new versions of “p...

A jokey prize ceremony has some serious points — Saul Justin Newman’s research on places with supposedly large numbers of supercentenarians won a 2024 Ig Nobel Prize for demography. I’ve covered his work before, in 2019 and this very year. Episode Links Ig Nobel Prizes DEMOGRAPHY PRIZE [AUSTRALIA, UK]Saul Justin Newman, for detective work to discover that many of the people famous for having the l...