I have never owned Steinhoff shares. I was surprised then, when going through some old blog uploads (dealing with a separate copyright issue that I may touch on in another post) to find this share price graph of Steinhoff from 2007 I don’t remember looking at this, but the blog entry was actually about insider …
Author archives: David Kirk
Teaching critical thinking
I walk my daughter to school many mornings. On the way up the hill, we play a game. I tell three stories and she has to tell me which is untrue. So far it’s clearly been too easy as she gets them every time. That’s okay, I still plan to beat her at Carcassonne someday. …
The future is not as old as we thought
Expectations of future UK life expectancy have declined for several years now. This is not to say that current life expectancy has decreased, but rather than estimates of future mortality improvements are being lowered, pushing down future estimated life expectancy. One report indicates this change may roll back a year of expected mortality improvements. So …
Orange is the new orange
Orange is a colour. Right? Yes, but it was a fruit before it was a colour. Before then the colour we know as orange was described as a shade or mix of yellow and red. Ideas become words and then words become ideas all on their own.
Not this old outcry again
Life expectancy is one of those funny measures with a cavernous gap between those who think they understand it and those who do. The latest controversy arose a few days ago a year ago (this post has been in draft for a long time…) because Russia is planning to increase the normal retirement age from …
Illusory truth
I’ve been using snopes.com to fact check dubious stories since before fake news was a term. I still recommend it to everyone. I also teach elements of critical thinking in some of the actuarial normative skills workshops I run. By the time students get to me there, they are often already pessimistic and cynical when …
Just what are ancillary own funds?
Reading the Financial Soundness Standards for Insurers (FSIs) is an exercise that can only end in madness. I’m sufficiently familiar with them now that I mostly refer back to them for particularly tricky or thorny issues. Without fail, the words fail to clearly communicate exactly what was intended. Take ancillary capital as an example. To …
A private exhumation
Is this blog dead? No, but you could be forgiven for thinking so. I will be posting a little more frequently than over the last year. That isn’t a high bar. Given the long silence, there are quite a few topics I’ve been thinking about and discussing with friends and colleagues. You’ll have to check …