I have just finished a week from h-e-double hockey sticks after a similar semester. However, I am teaching a semester’s worth of classes in the next 15 work days. Sounds like fun you say? You bet. It beats being a professor in France. It will likely give me a bit more time to post and ruminate. Here is a tidbit to start the week.
On revolutionizing the meaning of actuary by (I am not making this up) “Eric the Red”….
….
When you shall die, become disabled, have a car accident, have your house destroyed, retire from work, these are all pre-determined at the corporate level even before these things ever happen! Big insurance companies then claim exclusive access to every probable outcome (using stat tables often biased in favor of their own wishes) and factor in the rate of interest, inflation, and a HUGE profit incentive package all for themselves, coming out of your pocket in the form of a leveled annual premium. You have virtually no democratic say over premium pricing and any fraud in this business is so mathematically disguised that no outsider cares or even knows how to check the reliability of the statistical models and/or re-compute his/her insurance quote dollar for dollar. When was the last time you ever asked an insurance company for a receipt of the calculations applied and the conditions assumed in deriving your quote amount?
[When was the last time one got a separate “receipt” for the transmission in a new car or on the interest rate on a CD, or on the cost of the salt in a box of crackers? ed.]
[Why won’t anyone tell me when I am going to die? I want to know!!!!!!!! If it’s all predetermined, I could really use the info. ed.]
Why can't we expand upon the nature of actuarial fieldwork for our local communities and WE THE PEOPLE!? Then perhaps we can all find the most probable and efficient ways to make the most people happy on earth, to provide friendship to the lonely, to improve the music that touches our ears, to create a direct democracy, to free our souls and our spirits and conquer the imagination while we share this great planet! How about insuring the lives of the animals who get slaughtered every day for food?
[Why can’t we all just get together to improve music and sing some songs and then sit around the camp fire and calculate the probability of life rather then death! ed.]
[How about insuring the lives of the animals we slaughter? I like that one. Every cow I kill gives me a $100 indemnity. I think we need some more cows. ed.]
May there be an unstoppable revolution of NEW ACTUARIALISM and let this be the next arctic coldfront, building up the courage to cease the corporate-driven global warming and liberate us from the sweat and labor of capitalist greed.
[Maybe we make make the tests easier so everyone can be an actuary! Then it will sooooo cool because we will have solved global warming. bob.]
via Actuary.Net. Someone needs to give Eric the Red a ticket for the clue bus.
Seems like I'm always the last to know about stuff like this. Where can I go to find out who's going to win the two hearings I'm going to this morning? Is it my insurance agent or someone higher up in my insurance company?
Posted by: David Rossmiller | May 16, 2006 at 08:39 AM
Oooookay.
So is this guy a bitter ex-actuarial student or something? Couldn't get past the life contingencies exam? (My fave exam so far, btw.)
Posted by: meep | May 16, 2006 at 12:16 PM
Just for laughs, I decided to sign up for a myspace.com account and read Eric's other blog entries.
I'm doing my best to make you all feel big. You have all been victim of this feeling that there's some huge guy or girl blocking your view, or feeling belittled or pushed or shoved or whatever else.
Well now I hope you guys see how many short people there are, and how strong and big they are when brought together.
The problem is, I can't figure out if he's speaking metaphorically or not.
Posted by: James Bowman | May 16, 2006 at 02:03 PM
James, I guess combining all those little people to make one big person could bring new meaning to the insurance term "stacking." :)
Posted by: David Rossmiller | May 17, 2006 at 08:54 AM
Nice catch James, that blog is a few bricks shy! Makes you think of a whole new process to selling insurance.
Posted by: Evan | June 23, 2006 at 12:34 AM