STUMP - Death and Taxes

The Federal Reserve hikes interest rates, the stock market takes a dive, the new British PM announces new policy, the pound takes a dive, and people notice that maybe the bills are starting to come due. JUST KIDDING! The politicians are still partying with current money, future money, and nonexistent money. Huzzah! STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported...

In which I promote Dominic Lee’s new site Maverick Actuary, but also look at how we geeks can be more effective in communicating with the non-geeks. 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 Maverick Actuary: I highly recommend The Maverick Actu...

In which I look at the Pioneer Institute’s campaign against a ballot proposal to amend the Massachusetts state constitution, and to wander down the route other northeastern states have trod: ever-increasing tax rates on high-income residents, driving them to lower-tax climes. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and su...

In which I give advice to those currently living as to how to consider the effects of COVID on their life expectancy (short version: yes, COVID may have had an effect; no, the CDC report provides no information on that score) and advice to the CDC to stop using period life expectancy as a metric in following population mortality trends. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more...

In this episode, I talk about the potential taxability of student loan forgiveness (for state income tax), but more about the long-term public finance problem. Those seeing a small bailout now will be expected to pay for a larger problem in just a decade. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consid...

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: July 27, 2022 Press Release: Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Initiatives to Protect Floridians from ESG Financial Fraud Governor DeSantis’ proposed legislation for the 2023 Legislative Session will: Pro...

Looking at where the highest relative increases occurred in mortality in 2021 in the U.S. (age 40-44), the causes that drove it (different for different age groups), and thinking about how that may influence future mortality trends. 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 p...

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. Related Links 2017: Friday Trumpery: The Murder-Suicide of Expertise [H]ere are the hallmarks of why “experts” are not being trusted: * The experts are not all that expert (well-credentialed, but deeply ignorant) * Th...

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. Podcast Links and Notes Main post: Twitter thread: Interesting responses from others: The picture: Now Scotland: Some prior posts on drug overdoses: Top causes of death: GoActuary thread on mortality trends: https://c...

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. Related Links: Press Release from the Pioneer Institute in June: Study Finds Pension Obligation Bonds Could Worsen T Retirement Fund’s Financial Woes A new study published by Pioneer Institute finds that issuing pensi...

Related Links A screenshot of the old Actuarial Outpost (RIP): (Sorry, fellow AOians, I only archived things important to me, which were mainly public pensions threads, Social Security, Excel, and the Moody’s Rate history . None of the drama crap.) New York Times: 2015 July 9 Bad Math and a Coming Public Pension Crisis When Jim Palermo was serving as a trustee of the village of La Grange, Ill., he...

Podcast Related Links Mark Glennon at Wirepoints on Ken Griffin: The Illinois Political Establishment’s Shameful Response To The Departure Of Ken Griffin And Citadel On a wall in Ken Griffin’s office at Citadel in Chicago, I’m told by people who worked there, hangs a thank you note from a six-year old. Like many kids that age, he was enthralled by prehistoric creatures so he wrote to thank Griffin...

Related Links Recent post on Providence, Rhode Island POBs: Older STUMP posts on POBs: 2018: Illinois Idiocy: Digesting the Presentation of the Mega Pension Obligation Bond Idea    https://stump.marypat.org/article/906/illinois-idiocy-let-s-run-some-scenarios-on-a-gargantuan-pob That was an idea of issuing a $100+ billion POB to cover the ginormous unfunded pension liabilities of Illinois. They di...

(please excuse the audio bobbles - I tried to edit them all out, but I missed a few. It was a software problem in processing the file.) Related Links CNBC: Social Security fund will be able to pay benefits one year longer than expected, Treasury says OASI Trust Fund History: 1937-2021 - I will write more about this history another time A quick graph of the ups and downs: Every time those dots dip...

Episode links Elon Musk tweets: The Total Fertility Rate graph: Musk’s followup: Musk has had 8 children, one of who died in infancy. Six of the children with his first wife. He had no children with his second wife (also divorced). And two children with ex-girlfriend. Census population change estimates This won’t embed on substack, alas. I will simply show you a few screenshots and you have to go...

Related Links The twitter thread starts here: Key tweets: From the legal filing: Next tweet: Image again: SEC press release of the fine: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-84 Defendants reduced losses under a market crash scenario in one risk report sent to investors from negative 42.1505489755747% to negative 4.1505489755747% -- by simply dropping the single digit 2.  In another example,...

Related Links: Billion Dollar Bubble: IMDB Link and Wikipedia Link an excerpt: When the company does not perform as well as expected Art [Lewis, played by James Woods] and others decide to create fake insurance policies in order to generate the necessary figures to match the expected performance, a provisional measure that is only expected to last a short time. More policies must continually be cr...

Related Links CBS News: Human skeletal remains found at drought-stricken Lake Mead days after body discovered in barrel Astral Codex Ten: Every Bay Area House Party “War insurance?” “Yeah. We pay out if there’s a war.” “Isn’t that massively correlated risk?” “Yeah. The idea is, we sell war insurance to companies who do badly if there’s a war - tourist attractions and the like. Then we sell the sam...

Thank you for reading STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more. This post is public so feel free to share it. Related links: DOSUKOI Sumo Salon — Giant-killers! available streaming for free until May 30, 2022 The Enho v Tochinoshin bout I referred to (I was exaggerating about kicking his legs in the air): Hakkeyoi! A few sumo-related posts on STUMP: Get full access to STUMP - M...

Thank you for reading STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more. This post is public so feel free to share it. Episode Links Financial Times Piece: Baby bust: economic stimulus helps births rebound from coronavirus pandemic (because of difficulties linking, it goes to excerpt I captured at my Actuarial News website) The number of births in advanced economies has largely rebounde...

Related Links: History of TIAA(-CREF): Wikipedia article Methusaleh Foundation: https://www.mfoundation.org/ Me talking about omega in December 2018: Living to 100 Symposium : A research symposium from the Society of Actuaries and, of course…. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Links from the podcast Dies Irae Wikipedia article: Dies Irae Verdi’s Requiem Dies Irae from the Met Opera Aren’t you glad I don’t use that version? Mozart Dies Irae: I said this was “sweeter” than Verdi, but that’s just relative. It’s still terrifying in its own way. NY State Budget Gov. Hochul Press Release: Governor Hochul Announces Highlights of Historic FY 2023 New York State Budget Empire St...

Sorry for the delay - I was having trouble uploading the audio file. References in the recording: The Provisional CDC WONDER Database can be found here: https://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd-icd10-provisional.html ASOP 23: Data Quality http://www.actuarialstandardsboard.org/asops/data-quality/ The time I discussed data quality 2 years ago: (Actuaries! Listen to the podcast and watch the video! Read ASOP 23!...

Let’s look at the current proposal (but not too long, our faces might melt). Reason: Biden Is Trying To Pass a Wealth Tax—Again. It Could Be Unconstitutional. Now, like a sequel to a movie that wasn't any good the first time around, a variation of the Biden-Wyden wealth tax is back for another try in the president's latest budget. This time around, the White House is trying to sell it using slick...

First, thanks to FRED, Japan’s 10-year government bond yields versus U.S. 10-year Treasury bond yields. Ugh. Yeah, you can see those negative interest rates in Japan. For 10-year government bonds. Sumo! Natto Sumo YouTube Channel - main way I watch the bouts. Video of one day of matches: NHK World — one of their Sumopedia videos, on gold star victories Two Facebook groups on Sumo: SumoSumoSumo (ve...