Ross Gittins, in his column this week talked about how much we seem to distrust the government because we don’t want to pay extra taxes to help flood victims, even though we are very willing to give money voluntarily. And yet Julie Bishop this week complained that the government isn’t doingContinue Reading
A few weeks ago, the Penguin family had a very enjoyable time at Rocket Car Day, in inner-city Sydney. Our car, the Silver Surfer, won its heat, and was a respectable third place in its repechage final (also in the SMH here). The day was very enjoyable. It was entirelyContinue Reading
The insurance cycle is something that is well known to general insurers (property and casualty, if you are in the US). For many classes of business, the price of insurance fluctuates much more than the underlying cost. The general consensus is that it is about availability of capital. If theContinue Reading
It’s a truism in the life insurance industry that “life insurance is sold not bought”. Meaning that people very rarely go out and seek opportunities to buy a life insurance policy without someone actively trying to sell it to them. Life insurance agents aren’t well liked, because they are trainedContinue 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
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
John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute, made a speech today talking about bushfires. I’ve been pondering one of his key points for the last two weeks, ever since the bushfires. Climate change is not just about warmer weather, it is about wilder weather. One of the lessons I learnedContinue Reading
With politicians everywhere blaming hedge funds and short sellers for the financial crisis, I guess it was only a matter of time before short selling was completely banned. Over the past week, gradual steps have been taken to make it harder. First naked short selling (selling a stock without evenContinue Reading