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: 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: 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.