Colombia’s total fertility rate (TFR) was about 1.06 in 2024, below Japan’s 1.15, Italy’s 1.18 and Greece’s 1.2. In 2025 it fell to about 1.0, against 1.14 in Japan. The Colombian figure is less precise than Japan’s, but the ranking is unlikely to change. United Nations and World Bank tables still show Colombia near 1.6…
Torsten Slok at Apollo asks whether an agentic bank run is coming.¹ I think the risk might go further than his warning. His point is this: once agents like Meta’s Muse can move money, they could sweep household cash out of US checking accounts paying around 0.1% into accounts paying 3.3% to 5.0%.¹ ² Banks…
Is it a factoid that the word factoid means a small, interesting fact? Yes it is. Unfortunately you and I have likely not yet effectively communicated. The Wordle answer a few weeks back was “aster”. I immediately thought of “star” in ancient Greek. Not because I studied ancient Greek or was preparing for 19th century…
Nothing is certain except death and taxes. Except taxes aren’t certain. Not the amounts, not the timing, not the rules. And once you start pulling on that thread, the list of things we treat as certain, in our models and in our heads, gets uncomfortably long. This is that list. It is not comprehensive, and…
[Last updated 15 July 2026] For both funeral policies and life microinsurance policies, the original sum assured benefit cap was set at R100,000. The rules say each escalates with inflation, but there is no consistent official source of the currently applicable amount. Is the CPI escalation really in force, enough that you can rely on…
A review of Yusuf Bodiat’s The Bottom Line. Yusuf Bodiat’s The Bottom Line asks a question that most South African policy writing tiptoes around: why does a state rich in talent and natural resources, with the formal architecture of a functioning country – constitution, treasury, reserve bank, courts, statistical agency – struggle so visibly to…
Every few years, someone in the room says it. Maybe it is the new CTO. Maybe it is a consultant. Maybe it is you, staring at a model that has been accumulating complexity since before the Global Financial Crisis. The words are always roughly the same: “We should rewrite this.” The sentiment is understandable. The…
Parametric insurance is often marketed as the “clean” alternative to traditional risk transfer. The pitch is compelling: if a hurricane hits a specific GPS coordinate at a specific intensity, a predetermined payment is triggered. No adjusters, no haggling, no years of litigation. But for many, this promise is being hindered by a foundational legal concept:…
