STUMP - Death and Taxes

In a recent federal bill passed at the end of 2022, the Financial Data Transparency Act is supposedly bringing us more accessible public financial information. Will it bring better public finance decisions? I am skeptical, to understate the situation — but I am looking forward to more accessible info! Jumping off from a recent episode of the Public Money Pod. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensio...

Today, I gave a talk to the Iowa Actuaries Club, pointing out that one of the worrying death trends during 2020-2022 in the U.S. has been increasing kidney disease deaths. This reminds me of when my Aunt Pat had me teach her how to use IBM computers in the mid-1980s (though she had been working there since the 1970s), and I aided at a Kidney Foundation summer camp, which is actually related to the...

I go over how life/annuity insurers go insolvent, and why we’ve not seen any big insolvencies in the United States lately… (let’s not jinx this). Some history of insurance regulation and life insurer insolvencies. Insurers aren’t banks, you know. Episode Links December 2012: “A Tale of Two Formulas: Solvency II SCR and RBC” An article I wrote for the Society of Actuaries newsletter, The Financial...

I originally meant to talk about Japan’s demographic problem, but I decided to talk about chatGPT instead because of a footnote on an article on Japan. Ain’t that the way. So I think through how technology has changed the corporate workplace over the last 50 years….and how awful chatGPT is (currently) at doing quantitative work. Because that’s not what it’s for. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pen...

In which I review recent back-and-forth over Congressional Budget Office and Social Security Trustees projections of Social Security and Medicare solvency, as well as comments over tax increases and/or benefit cuts to shift to sustainability. Because nobody is really disputing that the programs as currently constituted are going to be able to last longer than a decade as-is. STUMP - Meep on public...

In which I discuss the mortality measure years of life lost (YLL), aspects of this measure, what it is used for, and why I don’t like it. That said, I will be using YLL in addition to my preferred measures — crude death rate and age-adjusted death rate — in upcoming mortality posts. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts...

In this episode, I commiserate with the poor sucker who wins the Chicago mayoral race, and has to deal with the pension disaster coming their way. Also, RIP for Laurence Msall, who had been President of the Civic Federation of Chicago for 21 years and died too young. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my...

In this episode, I respond to a JAMA Open Network article on COVID being the 8th top cause of death for children and “young people” from yesterday (yes, I did a post on it already) to explain more what annoyed me so much. The moral: when you do mortality analyses, you need to separate your babies from the kids, and the young adults from the kids as well. Also, picking the worst mortality period fr...

Last week, there were protests across France against higher retirement ages — from 62 to 64. I discuss the trade-offs being made, what is the “real” retirement age in the United States’ Social Security, and that time is running out on making this decision. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consi...

Let’s consider a core principle of finance, as announced by fictional character Wilkins Micawber of David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six [pence], result misery.” In short: if you continually spend mor...

In this episode, I talk through my most recent post on 2022 U.S. mortality by adult age groups, split out into three major groupings (seniors, middle-aged, young adults). Links below. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Episode Links Full Population The...

I have two ideas for 2023: learn more (and fail more); get more sleep! I’m always doing the first and never tie it to the new year — I’m always failing at the second (what can I say). I did sleep most of New Years’ Day 2023 away, so at least I have that going for me…. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my...

Have a Happy Holiday surprise! Meep regales you with a few Christmas/Winter song parodies in lieu of a normal STUMP podcast. Lyrics are below, by Meep (and some by Stu). Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas! STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Parody Lyrics (with...

I continue to rant about that correlation paper on COVID “vaccine hesitancy” and traffic risk. I leave the statistical critiques to others (and I drop the links below and to my prior post), but the correlation can be rock solid and the conclusion still be completely off. Be careful of the over-interpretation of correlative studies. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a...

In this episode, I give some background on the players in the Central States Teamsters bailout — the PBGC, ERISA, the prior attempts at fixing multiemployer plans, why multiemployer plans got into trouble compared to single employer plans - and more! STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider be...

In this episode of STUMP Death & Taxes, I look to The Tale of Melibee from the Canterbury Tales, and how Chaucer's advice on how to choose advisors is still useful 600+ years later. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Episode Links August 2015 Stepping...

In this episode, I talk about the bad trends for men and death by suicide in the U.S., the sex gap in suicide, and the importance of looking after mental health. I’m fundraising for men’s mental health, as well as prostate cancer, with my fundraising for Movember in 2022 - check out my links below! STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To r...

In this episode, I look at FTX through the lens of two Dickens novels: Martin Chuzzlewit and Little Dorrit. Wait, don’t go! I swear, it’s more interesting than it sounds. Heh. Charles Dickens knew business fraud and the boom-and-bust of the Victorian London business scene, capturing it very well in his novels. The base motives at the heart of these schemes keep rolling on. STUMP - Meep on public f...

In this episode, I talk about my Movember fundraiser, the long-term trend for U.S. prostate cancer mortality trends (up, down, then sideways), and Stu’s own experience with advanced prostate cancer. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Episode Links My M...

In this episode, I talk about two odd last-minute campaign pitches from the White House to bolster the Democratic Party's chances in the 2022 elections. The first was a boast about 2022 COLAs being the highest in a decade (actually, the highest in 40 years), and the second has to do with Republicans going to cut Social Security benefits. ' The first is an odd claim, as it highlights recent inflati...

In this episode, I talk about a recent report I wrote for the Society of Actuaries, on provisional data from the CDC on U.S. mortality in 2021, also placing it in context of 1999-2020 finalized mortality data, the three major mortality metrics used, and differences by age and sex in trend. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive ne...

In which I talk about how insurance companies (and especially life reinsurance companies) investigate mortality trends in their own business, and why individual life insurance and group life insurance differs. Yep, it’s wonky! There are differences due to age ranges in the business, sex ratios, geographic coverage, and all sorts of reasons — check it out! STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions,...

I talk about the term “liability-driven investment” (or LDI). It’s been blamed for some trouble in the United Kingdom lately during their interest rate run-up, but no such trouble has occurred in the United States as interest rates have also run up over here. It turns out, LDI is a term that can mean many different things which can differ depending on different jurisdictions and different goals. S...

In which I look at recent news where some politicians announce they’re dumping an asset manager for the public pensions over political concerns, note some comments on ESG in public pensions, and then point out that politicians aren’t fiduciaries for public pensions. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my w...

In which I tell some stories of transforming and valuing risk — and the mistake of marking it zero, when the risk is most definitely not zero. Telling the story of Long-Term Capital Management, lifecycle mutual funds versus money market funds, and more. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider...