Description: A summary of the Global Trends 2030 report, the fifth such report produced every four years by the National Intelligence Council. The report is based on the research and analysis of the 17 major intelligence agencies in the US. The summary covers the highlights of the report.

Description: Book Review of How to Cope with the Developing Financial Crisis by Ashby Bladen, McGraw Hill, New York, 1979

Description: The author of this article, The Actuary’s editor, notes that this article is a capsule of what may be called “the Angle/Bladen theme.” John C. Angle spoke at Hartford in April 1980 see the Record for that meeting, pp. 188-193. His investment colleague, Ashby Bladen, addressed our Annual Meeting in Montreal last October 1980. Their observations were about mutual life insurance in the United States. The article notes that the current economic environment, with interest rates “far outside the familiar 3% to 6% range,” is a difficult one for life insurers and their traditional products, that we are becoming less conservative when the risk of serious economic trouble is rising, and “a satisfactory future depends on restoring stability, not upon trying to learn how to cope with instability.”

Description: Our November Query asked which groups, in addition to debtors and those blessed with amply indexed incomes, seem to have profited most conspicuously from the past decade’s inflation. This article summarizes the results.

Description: Microinsurance mechanisms provide coverage to low income earners, but a growing middle class is often lacking adequate access to insurance services. The author explores ways in which insurance may be more accessible.

Description: Baseline illustrations for article about the Delphi project to predict economic conditions far into the future in 2024. Measures under examination are 1. Increase in CPI, 2. 10 Year T-Bill yield, 3. S&P500 rate of return and 4. Corporate Baa bond yield. See the SOA website research section for the full report on the Delphi Study of Economic Variables.

Description: While some people proclaim the imminent triumph of renewable energy, this article argues that fossil fuels will continue to be part of the energy mix.

Description: This article discusses the difficulties in how to deflate overheated economies, and at the same time to stimulate productivity and maintain high employment. It also describes the results of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's monetary and fiscal policies to achieve these goals.

Description: In this article the author argues that a falling currency is a symptom of a country’s economic problems and discusses Canada’s experience through late 1997, and concludes that the government’s fiscal and monetary policies were not the long term answer to the problem.

Description: Three consultants offer their views on a pandemic and post-pandemic economic future that awaits Mexico. COVID-19 deepened the contraction of the Mexican economy. As manufacturing and consumption bounce back, sustaineddemand for services can help recovery. But a policy push is needed. The global pandemic came at a time when the Mexican economy had contracted for five straight quarters due to avariety of factors such as deceleration in investment and private consumption and uncertainty around the free tradeagreement with the United States and Canada. The COVID-19 crisis accelerated this trend, resulting in the largest contraction since the Great Depression of 1929.