The annual fertility statistics were released last month. There wasn’t as much of the traditional story about how Peter Costello had single handedly forced up the fertility rate by introducing the baby bonus (here’s a story here – reasonably staid), which was so prevalent a few years ago, but I thought wasContinue Reading
On Friday, one of our major suppliers treated a few of us to a Boardroom lunch. It was very stylishly done, with good conversation about a mix of business and personal topics. Amusingly, as we were leaving, our host commented that it was a shame it was on a Friday.Continue Reading
This week, the ABS released the annual mortality statistics – the analysis of all the people who died in Australia in 2008.. Overall, at a population level, the “standardised death rate” (deaths per 1,000 population, adjusting for a standard age structure) was 6.0 per 1,000 people – the same asContinue Reading
By world standards, the Australian economy is doing very very well. Our unemployment rate was 5.8% in October, up from 4.3% a year ago. No banks have been bailed out. In May 2009, two Australian banks were in the world’s top 20 by market capitalisation (where Australia has around 1%Continue Reading
I’m not necessarily the best person to write about this. I have a very full time job. Both maternity leaves, I came back part time, and ended up full time quicker than I intended, as it just seemed easier to go in for that meeting every single day… But IContinue Reading
One of the things I’ve been doing lately at work has been setting KPIs (key performance indicators, for those readers lucky enough not to have to keep up with corporate jargon). Coincidentally, this TED talk appeared in my itunes podcast feed: Basically, Pink says that if you are asking someoneContinue Reading
I went to a conference at work recently – 60 or 70 senior people from my part of our organisation. One of the topics was how to improve the proportion of senior women (as an aside, I found it pretty amusing that all the men at my table were shockedContinue Reading
Miranda Devine had a rant this week about cyclists: But hostilities were fed by the lies told by the Government and the RTA, which gave cyclists unreasonable expectations and ideas above their station. The former roads minister Carl Scully, a vegetarian cyclist, threw $250 million at the lobby, further fuellingContinue Reading
Last week was a very cultured week for me. I hardly ever go out to live events these days, but accidentally, I found myself at two in a week. It started on Monday evening, with a Musica Viva Chamber music concert in the Angel Place Recital Hall for 1,200 people fromContinue Reading
This is the paper which provides the background behind a presentation on economic capital which I made to the Institute of Actuaries of Australia’s Biennial Convention. How and why should we measure it? Economic capital means different things to different people. But for this presentation, the purpose of economic capitalContinue Reading