Description: This article discusses pension plans in North America as compared to pension plans in Japan from the perspective of the author, who has lived in both places, currently residing in Japan. From Pension Section News, January 2006, No. 60.

Description: This article from The Actuary, November 1996, Volume 30, No. 9 discusses the value of the actuary. What is our value to our publics? Is it in sheepishly agreeing with statutory impositions -pension plans are a social good that should have favored status as long as they pay their fair share - or is it in sticking to, then clarifying and explaining, our principles regardless of the penalties? Our corporate agreement with the notion that there are “individually realistic actuarial assumptions.”