Description: MSAs, HRAs HSAs—what are they? This session 34 PD of the 2004 Valuation Actuary Symposium compares and contrasts consumer-driven health plans pre- and post-enactment of the new Medicare legislation. The issues involved in these plans are discussed from a managed-care company, employer and consumer perspective.

Description: This essay describes practical application of “It’s About Time: An Examination of Loss Reserve Development Time Horizons” by Professors Barth, Eastman, and Eckles.

Description: Historical and actuarial perspectives on the coronavirus events of 2020.

Description: This essay argues against the securitization of residential mortgages. The originating lending institution should have significant skin in the game when it makes a loan, but the securitization process removes this important financial control.

Description: Investment Fallacies: Extended periods of robust macroeconomic growth are healthy for investing.

Description: The world of the local S&Ls, the partner-owned investment bank and Bretton Woods isn’t coming back. So what does that leave us to do next? Part of me is persuaded by the second law of thermodynamics, which says that existence gets progressively more and more disordered with the passage of time, since any work done to address the current crisis expends more energy and causes more disorder than it fixes.