Description: This article summarizes the responses of nine readers who answered The Actuary’s April Query, on the assertion by two Harvard economists that government deficits are being exaggerated unless allowance is made for the declining value of the dollar.

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: The author notes that “many considerations enter into the determination of investment strategy. Important among these considerations is the maximization of investment income on an after-tax basis rather than on a before-tax basis.” The article then discusses how starting in the early 1960’s insurers, using a marginal tax rate approach, invested heavily in tax exempt bonds. The author, expressing his belief that a major depression is likely to occur in the next 10 years, recommends insurance companies divest of their holding in tax exempt instruments, based on the macroeconomic analysis he presents.

Description: Minor changes in the Internal Revenue Code would encourage corporations to use Trust Fund financing, thus fueling economic prosperity without population expansion. However, even without these changes, a number of companies have found that establishing an employee trust is the answer not only to their capital requirements, but also to their employees’ increasing demands for a “piece of the action.”

Description: The abstract for the paper The Impact of The Equity Risk Premium and Population Aging on The Canadian Retirement Savings System.

Description: This presentation is a section meeting from the 1991 Annual Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held October 20-23 in Toronto. The guest speaker discusses prospective returns on financial assets, noting that the past, particularly the 1980s, is in many respects irrelevant in making projections of future returns, noting the decade of the 1980s was a nonrecurring and unsustainable period. He provides his thoughts in terms of projected real economic growth, projected inflation, projected real interest rates, and using that data makes projections of returns from a variety of financial assets. Discussion from participants is included. From the Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 17, No. 4B.

Description: Evan Borisenko looks at previous challenging environments for the life insurance industry, such as the a period of severe stagnation in the 1930s, the increased inflation in the 1980s and a catastrophe like the Spanish influenza after the World War I. Evan explains that "while each event described above challenged the life insurance industry in a unique way, each event stimulated an equally unique solution." The article concludes that we "fight to repeat history" in a way that we as actuaries should be able to propose unique solutions with when faced with crisis in the future.

Description: It summarizes the activities that took place on the “Day of reflection and evaluation of insurance in Argentina” held at the School of Economic Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires (FCE-UBA) on October 17th. The main objective of the Day was to present the progress achieved through the National Strategic Plan for the Insurance Industry (PlaNeS 2012-2020) launched in 2012. The audience included the Superintendent and Vice Superintendent of Insurance, Juan Bontempo and Santiago Fraschina, as well as the Dean of the FCE-UBA, Professor Alberto Barbieri, and authorities of all insurance chambers and industry trade bodies.

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: This is a discussion from the 1982 SOA Spring Meeting on economic issues and inflation and the decay of the American financial system including debt, the crash in house prices and implications for the insurance industry. From Record of the Society of Actuaries 1982, Volume 8, No.1.