Random Fluctuations

IE6 no more

2009-09-22T17:07:00.003-04:00

I just came across this article, entitled "IE6 No More! Popular Web Companies Start Project to Kill IE6" and decided to add the code to my blog, so if you are using IE6, you may see a note to that effect. FireFox is the way to go anyway!

Hey, that sounds like my studying routine!

2009-09-21T16:49:00.003-04:00

In my daily perusal of the intellectual side of the news, the comics, I came across another gem, which while ostensibly applied to elementary school, may be the best actuarial study technique ever printed. Enjoy!

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/umedia/20090920/largeimage.7b0f57af9a54b45f31e113377789cccb.gif

Actuaries in the media…

2009-09-10T16:49:00.004-04:00

…well at least in cartoons. Unfortunately, even we are not immune from politics.

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/uc/20090910/largeimagepo090909.gif

Future Education Methods and the Actuarial Profession

2009-09-09T12:09:00.004-04:00

Recently, the "big three" actuarial organizations in North America, the CAS, SOA, and CIA, have promoted a proposal to radically change the actuarial education methods used to credential actuaries in the United States and Canada. Their letter describing the suggestions may be found here.

Personally, I think it is a very bad idea, and I sent the following to the feedback address at fem@actuarialdirectory.org. The deadline for responses is tomorrow, so if you have not already commented, you have one more day.

I believe that the proposed future education method (FEM) of exempting actuaries from examinations based on passing specific university courses is a bad idea, and I am strongly opposed to it.

Currently, one of the strongest elements of our profession is its being close to a true meritocracy; much more so than any given university. A candidate takes an examination simultaneously with his or her peers, has his or her exam anonymized, and then graded by anonymous referees (anonymous to the candidates) similar to a double-blind test, and has his or her results, still anonymous, compared with the results of all other test-takers. Then an pass score is set (we will leave the discussion of the score being set based on the actual distribution of results to another time) and all who have met or exceeded the score will be deemed to have net the requirements. There is very little opportunity for either "gaming the system" or for allowing any other external influence (pernicious, malicious, or otherwise) to effect the outcomes. Contrast the above with a university setting. Notwithstanding the various societies' intentions of ensuring "specific standard", it is undeniable that different teachers, and different universities for that matter, will have different standards. Furthermore, this opens the hideous potential for student-teacher relationships impacting the results, be they for good or ill. We lose the anonymity, we lose the simultaneity, we lose the ability to compare oneself to one's peers, we lose the "double-blind" nature of the exam process.

Another distinct shortcoming of the new process is the complete loss of standardization. Currently, all who pass Exam "X" in a given sitting do so with the exact same exam. Symmetrically, all those who fail Exam "X" in a given sitting, fail the same exam that those who pass have passed. When a change is made to the syllabus, and thus the exams, it will affect all sitting candidates in the same way. There is no preferential treatment possible. Under the new system, there can be many different "exams;" as many as there are approved courses. The syllabus, and any changes thereto, will not affect all candidates equally, but is completely dependant on the institution, and for that matter the teacher. This also includes the potential dilution of candidates, in that their passing is no longer controlled by the respective societies, but by external institutions.

A third distinct shortcoming of this new process, while less egregious, is the loss of its screening abilities. As a former employer of mine, a credentialed actuary, once told me in half-jest, "you do not pass actuarial exams, you win them." One of the benefits of the exam process, and I say this in hindsight having completed it, is its ability to isolate people who can deliver good answers under pressure. I cannot speak for anyone else, but to me, this is pretty much the epitome of what we as actuaries are called upon to do. We are not supposed to always have the best answer, but we are supposed to be able to help our clients (be they actual clients, employers, etc.) to address their concerns as best we can in the ever-shortening time-frames we are given. Furthermore, in actual work, we are not always given all the information "handed" to us on a platter. We need to be able to quickly identify good and useful data from bad, and use it as best we can. Exam work is very similar to this. We have to learn the material on our own—exam seminars are good refreshers, but I have never met an actuary who has only used them without other studying who has had any success—which includes triaging the material, identifying the areas on which to focus (the Brosious quartering comes to mind), and quickly "ingesting" what is needed to achieve success. In a university setting, much of this is lost. For all we know, the final can be a one week, open book, take home affair—unthinkable under the current method.

Regarding the purported benefits of such a system, I must respectfully disagree with some.

I do not see the quality of actuarial education improving any more because of institutionalized exam exceptions than it would should the current syllabus and exams be appropriately updated. Some of our syllabus papers, at least when I was a candidate, were written not for candidates but for actuaries, and experienced ones at those. What we need is a centralized effort at generating better exam material, not diffusing that effort throughout 20 or so universities, each with their own agenda and intentions.

The following, I feel, highlights a critical chasm between academic actuaries and practicing actuaries. I would like to know why "university" training in actuarial methods is considered a benefit? Many would argue that in truth it is a detriment. Universities are often known for their being "out-of-touch" with what is occurring in the "trenches" as it were. The ivory towers of academia are bastions of theory, but oft-times are highly impractical. As actuaries, most of us will practice, and not remain theoreticians, and as such, I would counter that one of the most important elements in becoming and being an actuary is the "apprenticeship" one undergoes in one's early actuarial career. Knowledge should never be confused with, or substituted for, experience, and it is experience that is key in our discipline, which at times is as much an art as it is a science (at least in my field of casualty reinsurance).

I can understand how allowing university classes to exempt students from actuarial exams would increase the career's attractiveness. However, that can be addressed by having the university courses geared towards the specific exams and preparing their students for taking said exam.

In closing, I feel that the FEM described would do far more harm than good to our profession, and I urge the societies to reject it in favor of enhancing our current process.

Thank you.

Cassini photos of Saturn and its environs

2009-04-21T00:10:00.002-04:00

Cassini photos of Saturn, its rings, and its moons, as seen here http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/cassinis_continued_mission.html, are simultaneously amazing and awe-inspiring. It is further serendipity that I am currently reading Jack McDevitt's Academy series; the one where the first book features the monument on Iapetus, whose surface is captured in glorious detail by Cassini.

Another bit.ly test

2009-04-06T10:23:00.001-04:00

Hmm, the API key didn't work. One more try.

Bit.Ly test

2009-04-06T02:18:00.002-04:00

Now that I have twitterfeed posting to ping.fm, and from there to twitter and identi.ca, I'm trying one last time to get a shortened URL that does not contain "ping.fm" in it, for people behind websense or the like. This post will check the activity of a bit.ly account (not anonymous) as the shortener in twitterfeed. Let's hope this works!

Twitterfeed Test

2009-04-05T20:37:00.001-04:00

Well, twitterfeed through Ping seemed to update both Twitter and Identica, but the url shortener has a ping domain which is blocked at work. Trying something else now. This may be a many-post day trying to get this set up.

Another test

2009-04-05T12:11:00.003-04:00

Well, it seems that Ping.fm is great for cross-posting my tweets to identi.ca but it didn't take the previous blog post. So, let's try Twitterfeed feeding Ping.

Ping.Fm and the social-interaction revolution

2009-04-05T09:56:00.001-04:00

We are witnessing a social-interaction revolution. First blogging, and then micro-blogging, have taken cyberspace by storm. With so many different options and niches, it may be difficult to manage all of one's separate service providers. There is a service, Ping.Fm, which promises to handle that. You can set it to accept feeds from one service and cross-post them to others. You can specify three different kinds of feeds (status, blog, and microblog) to decide which goes where; you can set up special tags to post to s defined subset of feeds, or you can even specify a particular feed. This blog entry is being made to test if Ping.fm is going to handle blogger posts the way I expect. Enjoy!

A single currency?

2009-03-31T00:39:00.005-04:00

On Bloomberg Surveillance this morning the concept of a single world-wide currency was discussed. Personally, I am not sure how that would even be possible. How would investors or the market be able to reflect their opinions as to the relative security and stability of various governments?

Even with a single world-wide currency, governments and countries will have different levels of output, stability, production, etc. There needs to be a way for the markets to reflect this. Currently, this can be done by the relative value of one currency versus another. Now consider every country has just one currency. The governments, natural resources, and indigenous economies are still different. Unless the currency is 100% backed by some universal commodity (gold, for example) part of the value of the currency is the "full faith and credit" in the issuing body, and that the currency note is redeemable for equivalent goods and services across national borders. That discrepancy between entities still exists regardless of shape, color, size, and portraits on the bills or coins in use.

Perhaps the discrepancies will become evident in different interest rates that need to be offered by the treasuries of the respective countries; a government with a stronger economy can offer lower rates in return for the inherent stability. Well, doesn't that make government securities in and of themselves a "shadow currency"? We can have the two bonds with the same par value, the same coupon, and the same duration with different prices, due to the perceived difference in risk and stability. I'd guess that pretty soon thereafter a market for trading these identical yet different instruments will be created, and we are pretty much back where we started.

As this is just semi-knowledgeable ramblings on my part, I'm curious to know how investors bet the German economy against the French, if both use the Euro. While an optimal currency area may be larger than a country, I'm pretty sure it is smaller than the entire world.

AIG or ARRGGHH?

2008-06-18T00:46:00.002-04:00

Interesting news today, from CNBC:

American International Group CEO Martin Sullivan stepped down from his post, as expected, after growing discontent among the board and shareholders with his management of the insurance giant.…Sullivan has come under intense criticism since AIG recently announced billions of dollars in writedowns from losses after Sullivan and the company assured investors the writedowns would be minimal.

This is another example of where a good ERM study would have exposed the asset weakness. As The Economist writes:

Mr Sullivan did himself no favours by mismanaging expectations. He and his team poo-pooed critics, insisting until this year that AIG had oodles of excess capital and that its actual (as opposed to mark-to-market) losses would be modest. The firm has since been forced to admit that its accounting models were too optimistic, after its auditors found “material weaknesses” in them

Perhaps an outside analysis of the capital model may have been a good idea?

MA INSURANCE COMMISSIONER PROPOSES BANNING USE OF SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS IN RATING AND UNDERWRITING

2007-09-04T13:37:00.000-04:00

From Insurance Journal - August 29, 2007

The draft regulation makes years of driving experience, driving record and a vehicle's model and safety features as the primary rating and underwriting factors in private passenger auto insurance.

The draft regulation bans insurers from using gender, marital status, education, occupation, national origin, religion, homeownership and other socioeconomic factors, some of which Burnes says are prohibited by statute and others which she deemed violate public policy, for either rating or underwriting.

It also forbids insurers from using information from credit reports or scores for rating for at least a year, during which time she said she would study the overall use of credit scores by insurers. It does not prohibit the use of credt scoring for underwriting.

This does mean that subsidization will still be alive and well. Let's hope that there is less of it.

Florida turbulence

2007-08-20T12:47:00.000-04:00

At least some Florida legislators are seeing the light. Florida Underwriter writes:

The resulting 91-page bill swept through the insurance code with all the fury of a major storm that left insurance representatives stunned and some legislator’s in disbelief. Representative Dennis Ross (R-Lakeland) said the bill was “as close to a socialist policy that we ever came to.” He was joined by Representative Don Brown (R-De Funiak Springs) who decried the changes to Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, which makes it certain the former residual market will be the state’s largest insurer. Speaking of the freeze of Citizens’ rates until January 1, 2009, Brown noted that the bill ensured that homeowners would be eventually face potentially crippling assessments. “A one-year rate freeze is playing Russian roulette and every year you continue the freeze you’re adding another bullet to the chamber,” he said.

Leave it to Governor Crist, however, to never confuse reality for political expediency:

But no matter how dire the message, Crist and the legislature were more than happy to press forward and place their imprint on the property market. “The Florida House and the Senate have been working very hard to bring relief to our homeowners, and I am grateful for their dedication,” said Crist . “The people have pleaded for relief, and the good men and women of the Florida Legislature have answered the call. This is the right thing to do.”

The right thing to do? For whom?!

Workers Compensation Data

2005-08-01T11:45:00.000-04:00

This is interesting, and useful. Needing to do research on workers comp rate filings, I stumbled on this site, which links to near every rating bureaus you can think of: http://www.cutcomp.com/depts.htm

Rather helpful.

The Further adventures of a failed behemoth

2005-08-01T11:08:00.000-04:00

From the Insurance Journal: August 1, 2005

Reinsurers Sue AIG Alleging Claims Fraud; AIG
Denies All Wrongdoing
A group of 18 insurers is suing American International Group and bankrupt
fronting company Trenwick America Reinsurance Corp. for allegedly scheming to
collect as much as $73 million in what the insurers claim are "grossly inflated"
workers compensation and other reinsurance claims.

The suit alleges that only about $15 million of the $73 million in claims for which AIG has demanded payment appear to be legitimate paid losses eligible for reinsurance coverage. The remaining amount reflects "highly suspect" estimates of future (incurred but not reported) losses, according to the complaint, which was filed in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston on July 6.

Click on the above link for the rest of the article.
It is amazing to see what is happening with AIG. It is even more amazing to see just how much AIG & Co. was doing sub rosa. I am very curious to see what else is unearthed. Stay tuned, this is going to develop for a long time.

The Medical Error Reporting Bill—More help or harm?

2005-07-29T11:14:00.000-04:00

Congress has recently passed a bill to enhance the reporting of medical errors.

A national system designed to increase reporting of medical errors has won final congressional approval and been sent to President Bush.

It is estimated that more than 250 Americans die every day as a result of
preventable medical errors. Health care officials say increased reporting of
such errors would make it easier to spot harmful trends and find solutions, but
the current environment punishes openness because reporting such errors could
lead to the loss of credentials or a lawsuit.

Click Here for the rest of the Insurance Journal Article

While in theory, I too agree that this is a wonderful idea, I wonder how many congresspeople truly understand the stresses and pressures of medical emergencies. Yes, many, if not most medical error are underreported, and most are preventable. As such, nothing should stand in the way of preventing them.

However, hindsight is always 20/20. In the extreme stress of a situation, every single eventuality is not always immediately apparent. The practicioner has to make the best possible decision he or she can under the circumstances. After the fact, it is always possible for a defense lawyer, with six months to prepare, to have the luxury to do research and find the best possible solution, or reasons why the chosen decision was not the best. Try doing that when a patient is hemorrhaging on the floor, within seconds of bleeding to death.

I hope that this legislation will not result in having less decisive and less confident doctors; hesitant to do anything for fear of lawsuit.

There are too many lawyers for our own good, but that is another issue.

George Will on Reading

2004-08-18T14:08:00.000-04:00

Well, I have always been a fan of George Will, not only for his political viewpoint, but for the style of his essays. He is a remarkable writer and well worth reading, even if you disagree with his politics.

On July 23, 2004, he penned a piece regarding the demise of reading in our country. I think it is important enough to quote in its entirety, and it is sobering, to say the least.

Readers' Block

By George F. Will

Friday, July 23, 2004; Page A29

The first modern celebrity -- the first person who, although not conspicuous in church or state, still made his work and life fascinating to a broad public -- may have been Charles Dickens. Novelist Jane Smiley so argues in her slender life of Dickens, and her point is particularly interesting in light of "Reading at Risk," the National Endowment for the Arts' report on the decline of reading.

A survey of 17,135 people reveals an accelerating decline in the reading of literature, especially among the young. Literary reading declined 5 percent between 1982 and 1992, then 14 percent in the next decade. Only 56.6 percent of Americans say they read a book of any sort in 2002, down from 60.9 percent in 1992. Only 46.7 percent of adults read any literature for pleasure.

The good news is that "literature," as the survey defined it, excludes serious history, for which there is a sizable audience. The bad news is that any fiction counts as literature, and most fiction, like most of most things, is mediocre. But even allowing for the survey's methodological problems, the declining importance of reading in the menu of modern recreations is unsurprising and unsettling.

Dickens, a volcano of words, provided mass entertainment before modern technologies -- electricity, film, broadcasting -- made mass communication easy. His serialized novels seized the attention of Britain's public. And America's: Ships arriving from England with the latest installment of Dickens's 1840 novel "The Old Curiosity Shop" reportedly were greeted by American dockworkers shouting, "Did Little Nell die?"

When journalists in 1910 asked an aide to Teddy Roosevelt whether TR might run for president in 1912, the aide replied, "Barkis is willin'," and he expected most journalists, and their readers, to recognize the reference to the wagon driver in "David Copperfield" who was more than merely willin' to marry Clara Peggotty, David's childhood nurse. Exposure to "David Copperfield" used to be a common facet of reaching adulthood in America. But today young adults 18 to 34, once the most avid readers, are among the least. This surely has something to do with the depredations of higher education: Professors, lusting after tenure and prestige, teach that the great works of the Western canon, properly deconstructed, are not explorations of the human spirit but mere reflections of power relations and social pathologies.

By 1995 -- before the flood of video games and computer entertainments for adults -- television swallowed 40 percent of Americans' free time, up one-third since 1965. Today electronic entertainments other than television fill 5.5 hours of the average child's day.

There have been times when reading was regarded with suspicion. Some among the ancient Greeks regarded the rise of reading as cultural decline: They considered oral dialogue, which involves clarifying questions, more hospitable to truth. But the transition from an oral to a print culture has generally been a transition from a tribal society to a society of self-consciously separated individuals. In Europe that transition alarmed ruling elites, who thought the "crisis of literacy" was that there was too much literacy: Readers had, inconveniently, minds of their own. Reading is inherently private; hence, the reader is beyond state supervision or crowd psychology.

Which suggests why there are perils in the transition from a print to an electronic culture. Time was, books were the primary means of knowing things. Now most people learn most things visually, from the graphic presentation of immediately, effortlessly accessible pictures.

People grow accustomed to the narcotic effect of their own passive reception of today's sensory blitzkrieg of surfaces. They recoil from the more demanding nature of active engagement with the nuances encoded in the limitless permutations of 26 signs on pages. Besides, reading requires two things that are increasingly scarce and to which increasing numbers of Americans seem allergic -- solitude and silence.

In 1940 a British officer on Dunkirk beach sent London a three-word message: "But if not." It was instantly recognized as from the Book of Daniel. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are commanded to worship a golden image or perish, they defiantly reply: "Our God who we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods."

Britain then still had the cohesion of a common culture of shared reading. That cohesion enabled Britain to stay the hand of Hitler, a fact pertinent to today's new age of barbarism.

georgewill@washpost.com

Vedic Math

2004-08-17T10:26:00.000-04:00

Well, you want some ancient math shortcuts? Need to find the square of 85 in two seconds flat? Take a look at Wired.Com's article on Vedic Math.

Enjoy, and by the way, what is the square root of 9724454. Too late :)