Description: At the 2009 SOA Annual Meeting in Boston, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shared some thoughts on Black Swans, operating in the fourth quadrant, and living in the world of Extremistan versus Mediocristan during his keynote speech, all of which can be found in his published work. The follow-up session, summarized in this article, addresses the real question: What do we actuaries do about these phenomena?

Description: The main focus of this article revolves around pension plans and their funding levels.

Description: Book review – this book is a concise look at the evolution of formal investment theory and related financial forecasting, with continual contextual references to its ties to gambling and to organized crime.

Description: The author reviews the book, The Perfect Swarm: The Science of Complexity in Everyday Life, by Len Fisher. He provides his own interpretation of the power of the swarm and touts the book as a straightforward and informative introduction to various aspects of complexity science.

Description: A review of the Bridging the Gap Series: Application of Predictive Modeling in VA/FIA Risk Management at the Equity Based Guarantees Conference in Chicago.

Description: Read the December 2017 issue of Predictive Analytics & Futurism published by the Predictive Analytics & Futurism Section.

Description: Summary of all issue articles, with theme of recognizing limits of classical actuarial methods.

Description: A summary of the risk that the use of spreadsheets pose, along with key controls to reduce the risk.

Description: Impact investing is investments in “companies, organizations and funds with the intention to generate social impact alongside a financial return”.

Description: There is a growing amount of “off-balance sheet” talent in the US and Global workforce. This spans from consultants and contractors, to gig workers and the crowd (both curated crowd and open crowd). One such example is Uber and Lyft workers. Insurance companies and the Actuarial profession have started to experiment with platforms such as Kaggle and this will continue to grow and evolve. This article explores these new sources of talent for companies, the implications to the actuarial function, benefits and challenges of the evolving workforce.