What do you use to create resume?

...before you PDF it. Curious as to what's out there.

What do you use to create resume?

2014 MLB Postseason Thread

Hochevar is a funny name.



"Johnnie Smith? Your family used to shape metal. Suzie Chandler? Your family used to make candles. Hans Fleischer? Your family used to be butchers. Luke Hochevar? Um......."

2014 MLB Postseason Thread

2013 #24 QS inuring to benefit cat reins

Is the way the QS inures to benefit the cat treaties really covered in Grossi or Clark, or somewhere else? What page? I don't remember coming across how the actual calculation works.

2013 #24 QS inuring to benefit cat reins

Borrowing stuff from neighbors

This is prompted by something MPC said about a neighbor borrowing a bottle of liquor.



Would you let your neighbor "borrow" your stuff like that? I'd tell him or her to stop being parasites and go buy their own darn stuff.

Borrowing stuff from neighbors

First Ebola case confirmed in US (Dallas)

So it begins... :popcorn:



http://ift.tt/1rDR9Tw.

Quote:

The United States has one confirmed case of Ebola, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday, marking the first domestic appearance of the deadly virus that has ravaged swaths of continental Africa. The as-yet unidentified patient is located in Dallas, officials say, effectively confirming a statement issued on Monday by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas.

First Ebola case confirmed in US (Dallas)

Appropriate EL Wage request Advice

Hello,



I have an interview scheduled for later this week with a company for an entry level full-time position. The recruiting manager asked me to fill out the online application as I got the interview through having connections at the company. I have no idea what would be appropriate put down for my "Wage Request". The official title of the job is:



"Information and Actuarial Support Analyst"



and the job description includes



-evaluating report request forms for clients

-create reports and prepare data

-Analyze reports and report findings and recommendations

-Support actuarial team... and develop skills to assist with more advance project work



So basically "Very entry-level, we want to train you and give you experience".



How much do I ask for? I have passed P/1 and will be sitting for FM soon. I have not had any internship experience.



Thanks for the help.

Appropriate EL Wage request Advice

Wife Story

Maybe this is worth it's own thread. I mean if people are going to bash my wife it should be over something legit, not because she's wrong about the cause of my hair loss.



We go to Vegas about once a year and we do get some comps because of our play but also because of the Total Rewards credit card (this is tied to all Harrah's/Caesars/etc properties for those who don't know). Because of the Visa we have enough points for the 2 of us to eat at all the best CET restaurants and enough left over for whatever. For those who don't gamble or know what I'm talking about, this is like airline rewards or cash back but my points are used in Casinos for merchandise, food, hotel rooms, etc.



So a few others are going to meet us there and out of the blue my wife says isn't this great, we can pay for all your food and it won't cost us anything. I look at her with the what in the hell did you do look. She says in front of them what's you problem? What did I do? Of course I can't say anything but I did say well she doesn't know how many points we have but we can sure get our breakfasts. She looks at me and says why am I being so cheap? This is in front of everyone. I just smile. After they leave I ask her what she was doing. She said why can't we use the points for them? I said because there is just enough for us but not now. Of course she gets pissed and walks out of the room and made a big issue out of this for days, saying we should just cancel etc.



It's basically like she picked up the tab for all their meals using money we would have been able to spend on other things. Nobody offered to use their credit card points to buy us stuff in return. You would think someone would have said something like, 'oh that wouldn't be necessary, you guys put a lot of effort into accumulating your points all year, they are yours to use' or something acknowledging she just made a ridiculous offer.



Things have settled down for the most part but she basically just says I'm cheap whenever the subject of our trip comes up. WHen I try to explain that it's no different than if we didn't have these points and she offered to pay with cash. It eats into our trip budget.



For those who aren't gamblers maybe this won't seem like a big deal a good analogy might be if you have a credit card that gives you airline miles and you are planning a trip with another couple and you have enough airline points for two free tickets and your wife says out of the blue and without mentioning it to you first 'isn't this great we have two free tickets, you guys take one and we'll take one that way we each only have to pay for one airline ticket each.'

Wife Story

The FA supervisor

Does the supervisor have to be physically there when you download or upload the information?

The FA supervisor

Intense Study Buddy?

I'm located in Passaic, NJ (Northern NJ about 30 mins from Manhattan). Is anyone interested in doing one or more study sessions with me?



I envision 1 or 2 people with me in front of a white board, taking turns doing problems and just rapid fire talking about and going over all the different concepts covered, asking questions, that sort of thing - for people who already know the material pretty decently but really want to sear it in. Like a 4 - 6 hour marathon session with preferably no breaks. Anyone interested / nearby?



I have a study day tomorrow (Wednesday), and should have a lot of availability Oct. 12 - 14th.

Intense Study Buddy?

Microsoft Releasing Windows 10 in January 2015

http://ift.tt/ZpJDB7



It's Windows 9 but called Windows 10 :D

Microsoft Releasing Windows 10 in January 2015

Receding Hairline

My hairline is starting to recede. (I'm 43). Or maybe it's more accurate to say I'm noticing it now, perhaps it started years ago, I dunno.



My wife thinks it's because I trim my hair myself (with clippers) between haircuts. I do this to keep things nice and clean cut so I don't have to go to the barber every two weeks. I have no idea why she thinks there's a connection between who cuts the hair and the receding but she says because I'm not a professional stylist I essentially am 'doing it wrong' and therefore I'm losing hair. I tend not to believe her but if anyone has any evidence supporting her I'm willing to change my mind.



More importantly, any tips on how to get it to stop receding? I'm not even gray yet so I'd hate to lose it while it otherwise still looks good.



I feel a midlife crisis coming on...

Receding Hairline

driveway upgrade

So hubby and I are thinking about re-doing our driveway.



By the street it just doesn't match up to the curb... the driveway is about 2-3 inches lower than the curb, so it's annoying to drive over. Plus there are several places where the driveway is simply crumbling.



So we're debating whether to go cheap and just fix the crumbling pieces, or rip the whole thing out and start over.



If we ripped it out and got a new driveway, we would consider doing a heated driveway, because we do get some snow in the winter, and the driveway is long and on a decent slope. It would be awesome if we didn't have to shovel or use a snowblower. But I've heard that would be crazy expensive, so I don't know.



Anyone have experience doing driveway repairs? Anyone have a heated driveway? Thoughts?



Current driveway is concrete.



Many thanks!

driveway upgrade

Do Syrian like Assad?

Did you ever wonder why Assad is so evil, and why US is interested in removing him from power. Do Syrian really like him? Here is some informative article from GR.

Spoiler:

Why Syrians Support Bashar al Assad







By Prof. Tim Anderson



Global Research, September 30, 2014





Region: Middle East & North Africa



In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR?



473



41 1





552









obama-bashar-assad



The sudden reversion of Washington to a ‘war on terror’ pretext for intervention in Syria has confused western audiences. For three years they watched ‘humanitarian intervention’ stories, which poured contempt on the Syrian President’s assertion that he was fighting foreign backed terrorists. Now the US claims to be leading the fight against those same terrorists.



But what do Syrians think, and why do they continue to support a man the western powers have claimed is constantly attacking and terrorising ‘his own people’? To understand this we must consider the huge gap between the western caricature of Bashar al Assad the ‘brutal dictator’ and the popular and urbane figure within Syria.



If we believed most western media reports we would think President Assad has launched repeated and indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, including the gassing of children. We might also think he heads an ‘Alawi regime’, where a 12% minority represses a Sunni Muslim majority, crushing a popular ‘revolution’ which, only recently, has been ‘hijacked’ by extremists.



The central problem with these portrayals is Bashar’s great popularity at home. The fact that there is popular dissatisfaction with corruption and cronyism, and that an authoritarian state maintains a type of personality cult, does not negate the man’s genuine popularity. His strong win in Syria’s first multi-candidate elections in June dismayed his regional enemies, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey; but it did not stop their aggression.



Syrians saw things differently. Bashar was thought to maintain his father’s pluralist and nationalist tradition, while modernising and holding out the promise of political reform. Opinion polls in Syria had shown major dissatisfaction with corruption and political cronyism, mixed views on the economy but strong satisfaction with stability, women’s rights and the country’s independent foreign policy. The political reform rallies of 2011 – countered by pro-government rallies and quickly overshadowed by violent insurrection – were not necessarily anti Bashar.



The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and other sectarian Islamist groups did hate him, along with the secular state. Yet even these enemies, in their better moments, recognised the man’s popularity. In late 2011 a Doha Debates poll (created by the Qatari monarchy, a major backer of the Muslim Brotherhood) showed 55% of Syrians wanted Assad to stay.



Armed Islamists went further. In 2012 Reuters, the UK Guardian and Time magazine reported three ‘Free Syrian Army’ (FSA) leaders in Aleppo saying the Syrian President had about ‘70 percent’ support; or that the local people, ‘all of them, are loyal to the criminal Bashar, they inform on us’; or that they are ‘all informers … they hate us. They blame us for the destruction’. Unpopularity, of course, is fatal to a revolution; to a religious fanatic it is merely inconvenient. All three FSA groups were Islamists on good terms with al Qaeda.



None of these revelations changed the western media reliance on Muslim Brotherhood-aligned sources, ‘activists’ or ‘moderate rebels’. They relied, in particular, on the UK-based Rami Abdul Rahman, who calls himself the ‘Syrian Observatory of Human Rights’. Such sources kept ‘Bashar the Monster’ alive, outside Syria.



Central to the Bashar myth are two closely related stories: that of the ‘moderate rebel’ and the story that conjures ‘Assad loyalists’ or ‘regime forces’ in place of a large, dedicated national army, with broad popular support. To understand the Bashar myth we have to consider the Syrian Arab Army.



At over half a million, the Army is so large that most Syrian communities have strong family links, including with those fallen in the war. There are regular ceremonies for families of these ‘martyrs’, with thousands proudly displaying photos of their loved ones. Further, most of the several million Syrians, displaced by the conflict, have not left the country but rather have moved to other parts under Army protection. This is not really explicable if the Army were indeed engaged in ‘indiscriminate’ attacks on civilians. A repressive army invokes fear and loathing in a population, yet in Damascus one can see that people do not cower as they pass through the many army road blocks, set up to protect against ‘rebel’ car bombs.



Syrians know there were abuses against demonstrators in early 2011; they also know that the President dismissed the Governor of Dara for this. They know that the armed insurrection was not a consequence of the protests but rather a sectarian insurrection that took cover under those rallies. Saudi official Anwar el-Eshki admitted to the BBC that his country had provided weapons to Islamists in Dara, and their rooftop sniping closely resembled the Muslim Brotherhood’s failed insurrection in Hama, back in 1982. Hafez al Assad crushed that revolt in a few weeks. Of the incident US intelligence said total casualties were probably ‘about 2,000’ including ‘300 to 400’ members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s elite militia. The Brotherhood and many western sources have since inflated those numbers, calling it a ‘massacre’. Armed Islamists posing as civilian victims have a long history in Syria.



Quite a number of Syrians have criticised President Assad to me, but not in the manner of the western media. They say they wanted him to be as firm as his father. Many in Syria regard him as too soft, leading to the name ‘Mr Soft Heart’. Soldiers in Damascus told me there is an Army order to make special efforts to capture alive any Syrian combatant. This is controversial, as many regard them as traitors, no less guilty than foreign terrorists.



What of the ‘moderate rebels’? Before the rise of ISIS, back in late 2011, the largest FSA brigade, Farouk, the original ‘poster boys’ of the ‘Syrian Revolution’, took over parts of Homs city. One US report called them ‘legitimate nationalists … pious rather than Islamists and not motivated by sectarianism’. The International Crisis Group suggested that Farouk might be ‘pious’ rather than Islamist. The Wall Street Journal also called them ‘pious Sunnis’ rather than Islamists. The BBC called them ‘moderately Islamist’.



All this was quite false. Syrians in Homs said Farouk went into the city with the genocidal slogan: ‘Alawis to the grave, Christians to Beirut’. Shouting ‘God is Great’ they blew up Homs hospital, because it had been treating soldiers. The churches blamed Farouk for the ethnic cleansing of more than 50,000 Christians from the city, and for the imposition of an Islamist tax. Journalist Radwan Mortada says most Farouk members were sectarian Salafis, armed and funded by Saudi Arabia. They later happily worked with the various al Qaeda groups, and were first to blame their own atrocities on the Army.



Let’s consider some key accusations against the Syrian Arab Army. In May 2012, days before a UN Security Council meeting set to debate possible intervention in Syria, there was a terrible massacre of over 100 villagers at Houla. Western governments immediately blamed the Syrian Government, which in turn accused the foreign-backed terrorists. Western officials at first blamed Army shelling, changing their story when it was found most had died from close quarter injuries. One UN report (UNSMIS) was shelved while another (CoI), co-chaired by US diplomat Karen Koning AbuZayd, blamed un-named pro-government ‘thugs’. No motive was given.



Although the Houla massacre did not result in a Libyan-styled intervention, because of opposition at the UN from Russia and China, controversy raged over the authors of this atrocity. German and Russian journalists, along with the Mother Superior of a Monastery, managed to interview survivors who said that a large Farouk battalion, led by Abdul Razzaq Tlass, had overwhelmed five small army posts and slaughtered the villagers. The gang had sought out pro-government and Alawi families, along with some Sunni families who had taken part in recent elections.



One year later a detailed, independent report (by Correggia, Embid, Hauben and Larson) documented how the second UN Houla investigation (the CoI) was tainted. Rather than visiting Syria they had relied on Farouk leaders and associates to link them to witnesses. They ignored another dozen direct witnesses who contradicted the ‘rebel’ story. In short, they tried to bury a real crime with identified perpetrators and a clear motive. As Adam Larson later wrote, the ‘official’ Houla massacre story was shown to be ‘extremely ambiguous at best and at worst a fairly obvious crime of the US-supported Contras’.



Houla set the tone for a series of similar ‘false flag’ massacre claims. When 245 people were murdered in Daraya (August 2012), media reports citing ‘opposition’ activists’ said that ‘Assad’s army has committed a massacre’. This was contradicted by British journalist Robert Fisk, who wrote that the FSA had slaughtered kidnapped civilian and off-duty soldier hostages, after a failed attempt to swap them for prisoners held by the army. Similarly, when 120 villagers were slaughtered at Aqrab (December 2013) the New York Times headline read ‘Members of Assad’s Sect Blamed in Syria Killings’. In fact, as British journalist Alex Thompson discovered, it was the victims who were from the President’s Alawi community. Five hundred Alawis had been held by FSA groups for nine days before the fleeing gangs murdered a quarter of them. Yet, without close examination, each accusation seemed to add to the crimes of the Syrian Army, at least to those outside Syria.



Another line of attack was that there had been ‘indiscriminate’ bombing of rebel held areas, resulting in civilian casualties. The relevant question was, how did they dislodge armed groups from urban centres? Those interested can see some detail of this in the liberation of Qusayr, a town near the Lebanese border which had been occupied by Farouk and other salafi groups, including foreigners. The Army carried out ‘surgical attacks’ but, in May 2013, after the failure of negotiations, decided on all-out assault. They dropped leaflets from planes, calling on civilians to evacuate. Anti-government groups were said to have stopped many from leaving, while an ‘activist’ spokesman claimed there was ‘no safe exit for civilians’. In opportunistic criticism, the US State Department expressed ‘deep concern’ over the leafleting, claiming that ‘ordering the displacement of the civilian population’ showed ‘the regime’s ongoing brutality’.



As it happened, on June 5 the Army backed by Hezbollah, liberated Qusayr, driving the remnants of Farouk FSA and their al Qaeda partners into Lebanon. This operation, in principle at least, was what one would have expected of any army facing terrorist groups embedded in civilian areas. At this point the war began turning decisively in Syria’s favour.



Accusations of ‘indiscriminate bombing’ recur. In opportunist questioning, more than a year later, British journalist John Snow demanded of Syrian Presidential adviser Dr Bouthaina Shaaban why the Syrian Army had not driven ISIS from Aleppo? A few questions later he attacked the Army for its ‘indiscriminate’ bombing of that same city. The fact is, most urban fighting in Syria is by troops on the ground.



The most highly politicised atrocity was the chemical attack of August 2013, in the Eastern Ghouta region, just outside Damascus. The Syrian Government had for months been complaining about terrorist gas attacks and had invited UN inspectors to Damascus. As these inspectors arrived ‘rebel’ groups, posted videos on dead children online, blaming the Syrian Government for a new massacre. The US government and the Washington based Human Rights Watch group were quick to agree. The UN investigation of Islamist chemical attacks was shelved and attention moved to the gassed children. The western media demanded military intervention. A major escalation of the war was only defused by Russian intervention and a proposal that Syria hand over its chemical weapons stockpile; a stockpile it maintained had never been used.



Saturation reporting of the East Ghouta incident led many western journalists to believe that the charges against the Syrian Government were proven. To the contrary, those claims were systematically demolished by a series of independent reports. Very soon after, a Jordan-based journalist reported that residents in the East Ghouta area blamed ‘Saudi Prince Bandar … of providing chemical weapons to an al-Qaeda linked rebel group’. Next, a Syrian group, led by Mother Agnes Mariam, provided a detailed examination of the video evidence, saying the massacre videos preceded the attack and used ‘staged’ and ‘fake’ images. Detailed reports also came from outside Syria. Veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh wrote that US intelligence evidence had been fabricated and ‘cherry picked … to justify a strike against Assad’. A Turkish lawyers and writers group said ‘most of the crimes’ against Syrian civilians, including the East Ghouta attack, were committed by ‘armed rebel forces in Syria’. The Saudi backed FSA group Liwa al Islam was most likely responsible for the chemical attack on Ghouta. A subsequent UN report did not allocate blame but confirmed that chemical weapons had been used on at least five occasions in Syria. On three occasions they were used ‘against soldiers and civilians’. The clear implication was that these were anti-government attacks by rebels. MIT investigators Lloyd and Postol concluded that the Sarin gas ‘could not possibly have been fired … from Syrian Government controlled area’.



Despite the definitive nature of these reports, combined, neither the US Government nor Human Rights Watch have retracted or apologised for their false accusations. Indeed, western government and media reports repeat the claims as though they were fact, even falsely enlisting UN reports, at times, as corroboration.



——————-



When I met President Assad, with a group of Australians, his manner was entirely consistent with the pre-2011 image of the mild-mannered eye doctor. He expressed deep concern with the impact on children of witnessing terrorist atrocities while fanatics shout ‘God is Great’. The man is certainly no brute, in the manner of Saddam Hussein or George W. Bush.



The key factor in Syria’s survival has been the cohesion, dedication and popular support for the Army. Syrians know that their Army represents pluralist Syria and has been fighting sectarian, foreign backed terrorism. This Army did not fracture on sectarian lines, as the Takfiris had hoped, and defections have been small, certainly less than 2%.



Has the Army committed abuses? Probably, but mainly against the armed groups. There is some evidence of execution of foreign terrorists. That is certainly a crime, but probably has a fair degree of popular support in Syria, at the moment. The main constraint on such abuses seems to be the army order from ‘Mr Soft Heart’, to save the lives of Syrian rebels.



However, despite the repeated claims by sectarian Islamists and their western backers, there is no convincing evidence that the Syrian Army has deliberately bombed and gassed civilians. Nor would there be a motive for it. Nor does the behaviour of people on the streets support it. Most Syrians do not blame their army for the horrendous violence of this war, but rather the foreign backed terrorists.



These are the same terrorists backed by the governments of the USA, Britain and France, hiding behind the fig-leaf of the mythical ‘moderate rebel’ while reciting their catalogue of fabricated accusations.



The high participation rate (73%) in June’s presidential elections, despite the war, was at least as significant as the strong vote (88%) Bashar received. Even the BBC could not hide the large crowds that came out to vote, especially those that mobbed the Syrian Embassy in Beirut.



Participation rates are nowhere as near in the US; indeed no western leader can claim such a strong democratic mandate as this ‘dictator’. The size of Bashar’s win underlines a stark reality: there never was a popular uprising against this man; and his popularity has grown.



Tim Anderson is a Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Sydney. He has researched the Syrian conflict since 2011 and visited Syria in December 2013.

Do Syrian like Assad?

Rush Limbaugh Medical Terminology

...so i've been reading for political interest the article on the HHS's public website about Medicare covering people getting sex change operations and i can't stop laughing every time i recall rush talking about Addadicktomes and Chopadickoffames :crying::rofl: i'm havin' way too much fun with this.

Rush Limbaugh Medical Terminology

Most desirable city?

I want to know which city is the top destination city in the U.S.

Most desirable city?

I dreamed that I bought an M5

It was pretty awesome. Then I woke up :cry:

I dreamed that I bought an M5

How much time off are you taking before the exam?

I think I'm going to take the Thursday and Friday the week before the exam off from work, so that will give me a 4 day study-cation. It doesn't sound like enough, though.

How much time off are you taking before the exam?

Taking over Medicare/Medicaid Program

About 3 months ago our company hired an Actuary to be in charge of our Medicare/Medicaid program (do a bunch of reporting, analysis, and forecasting). The Actuary was on the other side of the country (full time telecommuter). She reported directly to the CFO. It didn't work out for various reasons, and she's put in her notice.



So now my boss is asking me to take over the Medicare/Medicaid program (I have almost been here 2 years - this is my first actuarial job). I agreed to this because I think it will be a good learning experience. Also, we are a small enough department that I'm not worried about being pigeonholed into only one line of business. I will still be doing the monthly reserving/IBNR reports, among other things. We would hire another full time employee to take over most of my other tasks.



I was just wondering, is there anything that the AO thinks I should know about this line of business? I've dealt with it before, but only enough to know the basics.



To be honest my main reason for posting this is probably just to get it off my chest. It has not been officially announced that the telecommuting Actuary is leaving yet, and my boss asked me not to tell anyone. This means that I can't (yet) discuss the shift in workload this will cause (at least until we hire someone else) with anyone.

Taking over Medicare/Medicaid Program

Senior Associate – Southeast USA – Student/ACAS w/ Supervisory experience (#43051)

DW Simpson Global Actuarial Recruitment | P&C Jobs



Large insurance firm seeks a Manager and Actuary to work in Lending Solutions business. This person could come from a life or p/c background but should be an Associate (ACAS or ASA). Supervisory experience strongly preferred as this person will have a small team reporting to him/her. (#43051)







Apply at http://www.dwsimpson.com/register OR email your resume to Tom Troceen at actuaries@dwsimpson.com and mention the position above. You may also contact any of our recruiters at (800) 837-8338 / (312) 867-2300.



Tom Troceen

DW Simpson Global Actuarial Recruitment

4121 N Ravenswood Ave

Chicago, Illinois 60613

Phone: (800) 837-8338 / (312) 867-2300





Fax: (312) 951-8386

actuaries@dwsimpson.com



www.dwsimpson.com







View and apply for this job at http://www.dwsimpson.com/jobs/15941/senior-associate-southeast-usa-studentacas-w-supervisory-experience-43051

Senior Associate – Southeast USA – Student/ACAS w/ Supervisory experience (#43051)

NFL player penalized after Muslim prayer

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/0...yer/?hpt=hp_t2



The NFL actually came out and said he should not have been penalized because religious celebrations are allowed.

NFL player penalized after Muslim prayer

Pre-Exam Rituals

http://blog.coachingactuaries.com/pre-exam-rituals/

Pre-Exam Rituals

Holder was the worst AG for the press in a generation

BoingBoing

Quote:

Attorney General Eric Holder announced he would resign yesterday, after serving as the nation’s top law enforcement official since President Obama came into office in 2009. Holder will leave behind a complex and hotly debated legacy at the Justice Department on many issues, but one thing is clear: he was the worst Attorney General on press freedom issues in a generation, possibly since Richard Nixon’s John Mitchell pioneered the subpoenaing of reporters and attempted to censor the Pentagon Papers. Holder presided over the largest legal crackdown on journalists’ sources in American history. Under his watch, the Justice Department prosecuted more sources and whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined, and many of those cases directly led to surveillance of reporters. In one, the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed twenty Associated Press phone lines, gathering information on over one hundred AP reporters. In another, the Justice Department accused Fox News reporter James Rosen in court documents of being a “co-conspirator” and “aiding and abetting” State Department employee Stephen Kim in violating the Espionage Act. Both moves by the Justice Department were personally approved by the Attorney General. After a loud public backlash, the Justice Department recently tightened its media guidelines, but that hasn’t stopped them from attempting to force one of the nation’s best national security reporters, New York Times’ James Risen, into jail for refusing to testify against an alleged source. In Risen’s case, the Justice Department caused the most damage to reporter’s privilege in decades when it convinced the Fourth Circuit to do away with the privilege in its jurisdiction altogether. Shamefully, Holder’s Justice Department argued in front of the Court of Appeals that not only did Risen not qualify for reporter’s privilege, but the privilege did not exist at all, literally comparing reporters who protect sources who tell them about sensitive information to receiving drugs from a drug dealer and refusing to talk about it. Despite all this, Eric Holder had previously promised that, “As long as I’m attorney general, no reporter who is doing his job is going to go to jail.” How the Justice Department could pursue contempt of court charges against Risen but keep him out of jail was unknown. But now the Holder is stepping down, the Justice Department is not obligated to abide by his promise. The Justice Department’s pursuit of Risen has led to a petition signed by over 100,000 citizens, and over twenty Pulitzer Prize winners issued statements condemning it. The Justice Department has still refused to drop its pursuit. And often forgotten in the Justice Department’s awful crackdown on the press, is its thesprawling, four-year grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks for publishing classified State and Defense Department documents in 2010 and 2011, under a “conspiracy to commit espionage” theory where WikiLeaks may or may not have asked source Chelsea Manning to send them the documents. Many have referred to it as the largest investigation of a publisher in American history. Despite the fact that the investigation has been widely condemned by legal experts and Constitutional scholars—former Times general counsel James Goodale said Holder might as well be investigating WikiLeaks for “a conspiracy to commit journalism”—recent courtdocuments show the grand jury is still active. Any indictment would leave all US newspapers in the perilous position of constantly under threat of prosecution when publishing supposedly “secret” information. But even without an indictment, the open-ended investigation chills WikiLeaks’ work and anyone caught in its wide net. In addition, the Justice Department's handling of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) andits aggressive tactics in court to keep basic information from journalists and the public has been deplorable, especially given Holder's promise to reform FOIA when he first came into office. Holder is also attempting to expand the controversial 'state secrets' privilege to new lengths, after promising to reform that as well. The next attorney general, whoever it is, will have a lot of issues on his or her plate. But better respecting the rights of reporters and the First Amendment should be at the top of that list.

Holder was the worst AG for the press in a generation

Credibility Criteria

I'm near positive this has been asked somewhere before, but I can't find the right search term to bring it up.



What is meant by the 3rd criterion for credibility (the percentage charge for any loss decreases in E)? I understand how to verify if the criteria is met as you just divide the credibility formula by E and take the derivative with respect to E. The part I'm stuck on is how this accomplishes a proof of what we desire.

Credibility Criteria

Obamaphone Use Grows 100x in 3 Years, Doubles Supposed Eligibility

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...mber-eligible/

Quote:

As many as 645,000 Maryland residents had so-called Obamaphones in 2012 — one hundred times as many people as there were in 2009, and double the number in that state who are supposed to be eligible for the program based on their income. The program, officially called Lifeline, is run by the Federal Communications Commission and imposes hefty fees on every paying phone company to give free phone service to low-income Americans. The profits to telecom companies from the free, government-provided phone service are so great that in Nebraska alone, 51 corporations, many of them who are not even traditional phone companies building infrastructure and attracting paying subscribers, fought for a piece of the pie. That structure allows advocates to argue that it’s not a tax and doesn’t affect the budget, and lessens the extent to which the FCC is beholden to Congress.

Another example of welfare programs being used to buy votes, with little or no consideration for long-term costs. Pretty soon (if it hasn't happened already), the people who work for a living will be outnumbered by the people who vote for a living.

Obamaphone Use Grows 100x in 3 Years, Doubles Supposed Eligibility

Just starting FAP Modules

Think I just wasted a bunch of money. Bought the companion material and stuff from actex and solution manuals.



It seems like most people here didn't even read the textbooks. I havent went thru the entire form but is that the general consensus? Do the online readings, do the EOM and pass and continue on to the next? Should I even bother opening up a text book?



And I noticed you cant talk about an IA but you can for the final assessment which seems beyond weird to me right now. We have 30 days to pass the IA and we cant talk to anybody about it? In reality does that happen if your working for a firm?



Then for the final assessment, you can talk to anybody about anything. Seems a little unfair to a non-actuary(I've been in research for the last 7 years and am just going back). I have nobody to chat with regarding the final assessment as I'm writing it.



Or in general do people in firms tend to just do them on their own cause their relatively easy anyways and dont really need to ask any questions?



Thanks guys.

Just starting FAP Modules

Job openings in China

A local P&C company in China is seeking candidates for multiple actuarial positions. Those positions are all based in Shanghai, China. Immediate need.



Ideal candidates should have the following qualifications:

- around 5 years actuarial experiences in insurance industry

- working experience in personal auto insurance

- pricing experience in personal auto products is preferred (rate filing, product development, predictive modeling)

- passed 4 or more CAS exams (or equivalent exam progress with other actuarial associations)

- must be able to speak Mandarin



Candidates with ERM and economic capital modeling experiences are also needed.



Please PM me if you are interested in those positions and I can provide more details.

Job openings in China

How to justify failing exams in an interview?

I failed P for 2nd time today. I failed the first time in July because I was overtly ambitious and didn't allow myself enough time to practice. This time, I didn't get to study much for the last 2 weeks because my grandmother was dying. She actually passed away few days ago so I've been busy helping my mother with the funeral arrangements. I know the smart thing would've been calling SOA to try to get an refund or something but I have a phone interview with a major P&C company this Wednesday and I thought having 3 exam passed would make my resume look better (I thought I had a good chance of passing.) In any case, I put I was sitting for P in Sept on my resume so they would for sure ask me about it during the interview. Should I just tell them about my family situation and hope they understand? What is the best way to ameliorate this situation?



Thanks

How to justify failing exams in an interview?

Which line of business require use of SAS frequently?

Hello,



Which line/lines of business require use of SAS frequently?



I do not see much use of SAS in personal line of business in entry level, but this may vary by positions or companies.



Do either commercial line or property insurance actuaries use more SAS?



In addition, I know Excel is essential in any line of business, which is what I am using now.



Thanks.

Which line of business require use of SAS frequently?

MSAs: What are they good for?

I'll admit that the new Govt Insurer's Note does a better job of explaining what MSAs are, but I'm still confused as to how they exactly work.



These MSA's are supposed to be (if I understand) some kind of reserve to pay losses that Medicare would pay in the future when the injured worker becomes Medicare eligible.



In their example, a 63-year-old worker is injured with an anticipated 5 years of medical payments. The claim is closed with a settlement. However, since this worker will become eligible for Medicare in a couple of years, the insurer must set aside some money?



But wait ... why doesn't the insurer already have a reserve in place? And when the worker turns 65, why would the insurer stop paying and allow Medicare to take over (only to have to pay them back)? And where exactly is this MSA held? How is it different than a regular claim reserve?



All I understand is that it's required, and Medicare has trouble collecting. I just don't understand the mechanics ... and would it really be too hard to explain how it all works?



Maybe I'm being dense ... but would love someone to provide a good AHA moment.

MSAs: What are they good for?

student at uw: major in mathematical finance or actsci?

like it says, uw has a good math finance undergrad program and a fine

actuarial science program. As I looked around a few threads regarding the major, most people do not encourage to major in actuarial science.

I am interested in both finance and math and currently studying actuarial exam. Is there any loss that I would face with regards to act sci field if I choose to major in mathematical finance due solely to my possible career change in the future into finance and strong interest in finance?

Will I be able to manage actuarial exams with a changed major (math finance?)

student at uw: major in mathematical finance or actsci?

Actuary programmer?

I recently saw some actuary ads that hire programmers.



Is it career suicide for an actuary or trainee to take this type of job?



I am a quant with c++ skills and looking to gain some actuary experience while taking exams. Is it advisable to consider these type of work? Will I be able to move to more traditional actuary work after I get ASA/FSA?



Thanks, your comments are greatly appreciated.





Example ad:



Programmer (CUDA, C++/C#), Capital Markets Hedging



JOB DESCRIPTION:



The Modeling and Analytics group, within Capital Markets Hedging is responsible for asset and liability modeling, R&D, analysis, and broad strategic quantitative support of pricing, hedging, and valuation of VA guarantees.



Responsibilities:

• Support and develop asset and liability modeling tools that utilize GP GPU technology.

• Research and implement complex interest rate, equity, and inflation models used in valuation of domestic and international products and ESG solutions across the company.

• Research and implementation of innovative methods in large scale Monte Carlo simulation.

• Support analysis and research related to implementation of hedging strategies.

• Modeling of new types of insurance products with embedded capital markets risks.

Actuary programmer?

ADAPT, 20 questions exams strategy?

A question for ADAPT users. I only talk about the multiple choice part, so I exclude the written answer questions part, but you can comment on it.





Personally, I am at C). I like to pause to make sure I understand the question and I build an appropriate solution in my head. It removes the time constraint. For example, today I scored 80% on a 3.9 difficulty exam. I moved from EL 3 to 3.96.

Pro : Good for the moral.

Contra :It overestimates my real level since I am not fast enough.

Still, I consider it normal not to complete an exam like a real one at this time 'cause you are not "suppose" to be ready 1 month before (in my opinion).



Gradually, I will move to B) and add WA questions. 1-2 weeks before the exam, I plan on answering questions without notes and in time.



P.S 1 : I am not sure how to create a poll, sorry if it fails.

P.S 2 : I am french canadian, sorry if any sentence sound weird.

ADAPT, 20 questions exams strategy?

Why is it easier to spend time on video games than studying?

"games are more fun" -:co:, but that's not even always true. Once I'm at it, I really enjoy studying. And very often games aren't even fun for me, I just need to grind out something to get to the next level or get some achievement. Why is it so easy to blow 20 hours on video games and much harder to spend 20 hours studying? What can I do to change this?

Why is it easier to spend time on video games than studying?

Lucrative Credit Card Offers

I thought this might benefit you. I have referral codes/links available for some credit cards. These are currently the best offers available in the market. Shoot me a PM with your first and last name and your email address.



------------------------------------------



Chase Business InkPlus! 70k UR points offer (Typically 50k)!!!



- Earn 70,000 Ultimate Rewards Points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months. 70,000 points are worth at least $700 if redeemed as statement credit. They can be as high as $2,000 if redeemed for air travel.

- 5x on office supplies, 2x on gas station and hotels

- Gain the ability to transfer Ultimate Rewards Points to Airline/Hotel Partners

- No foreign transaction fees and Chip Enabled

- $95 Annual fee NOT waived, but it's well worth it for that extra 20,000 UR points (at least $200)



Chase Sapphire Preferred:



- Earn 40,000 Ultimate Rewards Points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months. 40,000 points are worth at least $400 if redeemed through statement credit but can be as high as $1,100 if used for air travel.

- Earn 5,000 Ultimate Rewards Points after you add the first authorized user and make a purchase in the first 3 months

- Gain the ability to transfer Ultimate Rewards Points to Airline/Hotel Partners

- Earn 2X points on Travel and Dining at restaurants. 1 point per dollar spent on all other purchases.

- No foreign transaction fees and Chip Enabled

- $0 Annual Fee for the first year, after that $95

- A Metal CHIP CARD!



Chase Freedom:



- No annual fee.

- 10,000 Ultimate Rewards Points after $500 spend within 3 months.

- 25,00 Ultimate Rewards Points after you add the first authorized user and make a purchase in the first 3 months

- 5% cash back in quarterly revolving categories.



Marriott Rewards® Premier:



- 70,000 Marriott Reward Points after spending $2,000 in the first 3 months, and 1 Free Night Stay (Category 1-4)

- Guaranteed Elite Status

- No Foreign transaction fees

- 1 Free Night Stay every year (Category 1-5)

- A Metal CHIP CARD!

Lucrative Credit Card Offers

Has anyone Liquipelled their phone?

http://ift.tt/wX29zK



$60 and a few days to make your phone water resistant. Is it worth it?



I ask as my SGS 3 sits at the bottom of a 4' pond.

Has anyone Liquipelled their phone?

MetLife Internship Location

Hi!



I am looking into applying for an internship with MetLife, and it says their "primary" location is NYC, with "alternate" locations in other areas. I would love to work at one of the other areas. Do I have a choice where I work, or do they pick where you go at application time?



Thanks in advance!

MetLife Internship Location

Resume Review Math Major

Hi!



I'm a math/accounting double major, and I'm going to be applying for some actuarial positions. Could you guys look over my resume and let me know what you think? Thanks so much in advance!

Attached Images

OUTPOST REVIEW.pdf (74.4 KB)

Resume Review Math Major

Would an actuary who has no bachelor's degree be taken seriously?

I am interested in becoming an actuary. I've been in the insurance industry for 16 years, about half in claims and the other half as an agent. I currently hold general lines (P&C); life, health & annuities as well as claims adjuster licenses. If I passed the requisite tests without pursuing the 4-year piece of paper, would I have a shot or would my application simply be sent to File 13?

Would an actuary who has no bachelor's degree be taken seriously?

Need Help With Resume

Hi guys,



College senior starting to apply for some jobs. Looking for some help with my resume.



Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

Attached Files

Steve Actuary.doc (34.5 KB)

Need Help With Resume

DA drops charges against protesters bc he agrees w their political opinions

volokh

Quote:

Jeff Jacoby (Boston Globe) has a column on the incident (which happened two weeks ago, but which I just heard about last week), and I agree that the D.A.’s actions are appalling. As WBUR-FM reported, Defendants John O’Hara and Ken Ward were scheduled to go on trial for using a lobster boat to block freighter loaded with 40,000 tons of coal that was bound for the Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset. It’s a charge the climate activists do not deny. They would argue that the threat of global warming is so great, the two men had to act. That’s unusual enough. But then the bigger surprise came when Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter dropped the most serious charges against O’Hara and Ward. And, in front of a cheering crowd, Sutter said he agreed with the protesters. Here’s a quote from D.A. Sam Sutter: The decision that Robert Kidd and I, that['s] the Assistant District Attorney who handled this case, reached today was a decision that certainly took into consideration the cost to the taxpayers in Somerset, but was made with our concern for their children, the children of Bristol County and beyond in mind. Climate change is one of the gravest crises our planet has ever faced. Now the D.A. has said that he thinks the protesters broke the law: I have a great sympathy with what these two gentlemen did, but I do disagree with their action, obviously, because it broke the law. Yet because “this was an act of civil disobedience,” Sutter said, “this should be treated as a civil infraction.” According to PRI’s quote of one of the protesters, the protesters were required only to “pay $2,000 restitution to the Somerset police and the state police for their overtime charges essentially.” And it seems pretty clear that Sutter wasn’t just announcing a general policy that “civil disobedience” (for instance, when people blockade abortion clinics out of moral conviction) should generally “be treated as a civil infraction” even when it may constitute a crime. Sutter was acting as he did because he agreed with the protesters’ policy views, and the protesters’ sense that their policy positions were important and urgent. So the message is clear: If you are engaging in legal behavior that Bristol County D.A. Sam Sutter sufficiently dislikes, and people are criminally interfering with this behavior, don’t expect the criminal law to protect you by deterring such misbehavior; and if you are committing a crime to express a viewpoint that D.A. Sutter likes, you could be free of criminal prosecution. Next stop — no criminal prosecution of people who blockade fur shops? Gun stores? Any other business that the D.A. believes isn’t worthy of full legal protection?

DA drops charges against protesters bc he agrees w their political opinions

How hard is it to get fired?

At your company?



I think it's nearly impossible at mine.



I work with a guy who simply has not shown up to work for the last four days (he's alive, I confirmed that). No notification to anyone, just isn't here.



And this has happened multiple times recently.



But, he still has a job.

How hard is it to get fired?

Application processing time

For those of you who have gone through the process before, how long did it take between submitting the application for the FA and the response from the SOA?

Application processing time

Israel's Netanyahu: Iran poses greater threat than Islamic State

Quote:

A nuclear-armed Iran would pose a far greater threat to the world than Islamic State militants who have seized large swaths of Syria and Iraq, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday. "Make no mistake, ISIS (Islamic State) must be defeated," Netanyahu told the U.N. General Assembly. "But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war."

http://ift.tt/1vpWSO0



Worse than ISIS!?!??! :yikes:

(Tim might think i am mis-interpreting though)





SO let me see if I have it right in the ranking of danger/freedumb haters:



Iran > Khorasan > ISIS > Al Qaeda > Loch Ness Monster



right?



:usa:

Israel's Netanyahu: Iran poses greater threat than Islamic State

Playlist Help

What I'd like to do is to rip all of our CDs to a second computer and use software to create playlists based on criteria I provide.



I'd like for the software to be able to recognize the music by category (rock, classical, etc.), artist, decade, etc. and then create random playlists. Say I want a rock playlist using music from the 80's. The software would be responsible for selecting the songs without further input from me. Ideally the software would create 60 mins of music based on those two parameters. Does anything like this exist?

Playlist Help

What was the 80s equivelant of catching up on emails?

Really, pre-email. Could be 70s, I suppose. Go too far back and people weren't ever using spreadsheets so I literally can't relate to anything they did.



Reading a bunch of paper memos? From my brief working life in the early 90s before the proliferation of emails I don't remember receiving that many paper memos. Were there more meetings and phone calls? And actual face to face conversations? I suppose there were. But how did they document who said what in these meeting/calls/face-to-faces for CYA purposes!!!!!1

What was the 80s equivelant of catching up on emails?

Oldest Bar in Your State

Here's a list of the oldest bars in each state.



http://ift.tt/1vpWPBH

Oldest Bar in Your State

2014 CAS Study kit

I have the 2013 study kit but just want to check to see if they updated the ISO manual, NCCI experiance rating manual and Retro rating manual for the 2014 kit. Can someone please check the 2014 versions against mine:



My 2013 kit:

1. ISO: 2006

2. NCCI experience rating manual: it includes up to 2011.

3. Retro rating manual: it includes up to 2010.



Thank you!

2014 CAS Study kit

Civilians killed in Air Strike

It looks like Isreal is at it again, killing innocent civilians trying to get those evil ..... oh wait .... it was the U.S.



http://ift.tt/1vpWOxD

Quote:

(Reuters) - U.S.-led air strikes hit grain silos and other targets in Islamic State-controlled territory in northern and eastern Syria overnight, killing civilians and wounding militants, a group monitoring the war said on Monday. The aircraft may have mistaken the mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Manbij for an Islamic State base, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. There was no immediate comment from Washington. The United States has targeted Islamic State and other fighters in Syria since last week with the help of Arab allies, and in Iraq since last month. It aims to damage and destroy the bases, forces and supply lines of the al Qaeda offshoot which has captured large areas of both countries. The strikes in Manbij appeared to have killed only civilians, not fighters, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory which gathers information from sources in Syria. "These were the workers at the silos. They provide food for the people," he said. He could not give a number of casualties and it was not immediately possible to verify the information. Manbij sits between Aleppo city in the west and the town of Kobani on the northern border with Turkey, which Islamic State has been trying to capture from Kurdish forces, forcing tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds to flee over the frontier. Syria's army also carried out air raids in Aleppo province overnight, targeting areas east of Aleppo city with barrel bombs and other projectiles, the Observatory said. The army also carried out air strikes in Hama in western Syria. Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been battling Islamist fighters around Aleppo, which is held by a number of groups in Syria's war In eastern Syria, U.S.-led forces bombed a gas plant controlled by the Islamic State outside Deir al-Zor city, wounding several of the militant group's fighters, the Observatory said. The United States has said it wants strikes to target oil facilities held by Islamic State to try to stem a source of revenues for the group. The raid hit Kuniko gas plant, which feeds a power station in Homs that provides several provinces with electricity and powers oil fields generators, the Observatory said. U.S.-led warplanes also hit areas of Hasaka city in the north east and the outskirts of Raqqa city in the north, which is Islamic State's stronghold.

Civilians killed in Air Strike

Stolen Bike

We keep our bikes in our hallway, and honestly, should have been locking them there since its a shared space, but my roommates have lived here 5 years without an incident.



Our downstairs neighbors were having a party on Saturday night, and on Sunday, my bike was gone. It was there around 2am when I got home. There were also 6 or 7 people outside the front door of the building smoking and holding the door open. I curious if it was a party guest or some random who saw an opportunity to get inside the building.



On the bright side, I don't have to worry about my bike getting stolen anymore. Which is good; one less thing to worry about.



I have a renter's insurance policy. The bike itself was about $400, and it also had about $100 in accessories on it. My deductible is $250. Does it make sense to file a claim? Will my renewal rate go up for the policy if I do?

Stolen Bike

Do you have to retake any modules if you failed FA?

I just failed my FA but passed all my modules and my IA. Does this mean that I'll have to retake any of the modules before I can retake the Final Assessment?



Thanks.

Do you have to retake any modules if you failed FA?

Most profitable and elite property casualty firm in USA is hiring more actuaries

The most elite and profitable property casualty insurance company in USA, if not the world, is hiring more actuaries. Just thought you guys would like to know.



http://ift.tt/1pmqsxT

Most profitable and elite property casualty firm in USA is hiring more actuaries

What do you collect?

Seems like everyone collects something.

What do you collect?

dating or exams - what is harder

Exams in general. No "dating is between prelims and fellow exams."

dating or exams - what is harder

Exam Reference Materials

Hey sorry if this question has been asked/answered/is dumb and should be obvious, but where can I find a list of the reference materials that will be provided on the day of the exam?

Exam Reference Materials

General Pricing Question

HI Guys,



Could you suggest that claims history is independent of the exposure?



For example if you had the claims history for each year and seen that it was pretty stable. However The exposure metrics used increases by sat 5% a year.



Any insight may help:tup:

General Pricing Question

Buying Exam 5 Manual

Looking to purchase All10 or Actex (Murdza). I bought Mahler's, and I 'd like a complementary material for the reserving portion.



PM me with a price - thanks!

Buying Exam 5 Manual

BBA Task 7

So ... obviously BBA should pull the plug from this deal, right? Am I missing something?



The instructions just say "Review the experience and recommend any changes with regard to model assumptions"



I know the SOA doesn't like us to answer questions it doesn't ask, so would I be out of line mentioning that the profits aren't nearly what BBA was expected and BBA should strongly consider walking away?

BBA Task 7

How much can I "update" resume between call back from interview and actual interview?

I applied to a few companies for a summer 2015 internship through my university and got called back for 3 interviews. Over this past summer, I had a semi-low key "internship" at a family friend's appraisal company where I did a lot of spreadsheets and data entry.



Because it was a very relaxed job that I hardly even considered a job (crazy flexible hours, show up in sweatpants and a tank top, etc.), I didn't even think of including it on my resume. Fast forward to today and I realize I probably should have included it because it can be viewed as at least a little relevant to entry-level work.



Would it do more harm than good to update my resume at this point with this information and bring copies to the interviews? I want employers to know I'm familiar and efficient in data entry, Excel, etc., but feel that they may get suspicious as to why I didn't include it in the first place. Thoughts?

How much can I "update" resume between call back from interview and actual interview?

Has this guy been friendzoned?

Y'all have been slacking lately in the dating department, so I had to go get my fix elsewhere.

Quote:

So what do you guys think? Have I been friend zoned already? Or even dropped off the map completely? We got along amazingly right off the bat. Very flowing, meaningful conversations, tons of laughing and good times. I went out on two dates with this girl. The first was to the movies, kind of a last-second decision. We caught a late movie, but both had to work super early the next morning, so we didn't stay out afterward or anything. We didn't kiss but hugged after we left. Two days later we went Frisbee golfing, and had a blast. We were talking and laughing and having a really good time. I thought for sure we were both really into each other. I was initiating physical contact - put my arm around her a few times or touched her hair. She giggled and smiled big when I did those things, but didn't exactly reciprocate per se. My original plan was to try to kiss her at the end of the date, but partway through the day we realized we had stayed out too long and she was already late for work, so she bolted off in a big rush and I never got the chance. After that, she brought me cookies at work to apologize for running off so early. A sweet, gesture, I thought. Again, I brushed my hand on her back implicatively, and she smiled and giggled as if that was a good thing, but again didn't really attempt to do anything back. She did suggest that we try to switch our schedules around to match them up a little better so we could hang out. I was getting very mixed signals, and still kind of am. Last week she suggested us hanging out this next weekend, and so I have made a couple of suggestions this week about what we could do. But she finally responded with, "I might be busy this next weekend, but maybe some time next week. Let's make sure to not lose touch though." After that, I decided to stop texting her to see if she would text again. It's been two days now and she hasn't said anything. Is this thing over? Read more: http://ift.tt/1qNlbyV

I say it's over, OP lost the deal due to his utter lack of game. Movies, then frisbee golf? :shake:



What say you? :popcorn:

Has this guy been friendzoned?

2004 Q41 - ISO CGl

In this question, we are asked to assume

"The loss experience for the occurrence policies is fully developed."



Shouldn't the LDF for the policy effective 2001 be 0? And the ARULL be 0 as well?

2004 Q41 - ISO CGl

Obama Administration and Sotloff Family Battle Over Blame for Journalist’s Kidnapping

Quote:

Barfi’s latest account is a detailed expansion of the comments he made September 10 on CNN when he said Sotloff “was sold at the border” to ISIS for probably between $25,000 and $50,000 by “the so-called moderate rebels that people want our administration to support.” The Sotloff family was already irate at the administration for what they saw as disrespect, mistreatment, and neglect of the information they were offering as to Steven’s abduction and whereabouts. But Barfi’s shocking allegation, if true, would call into question the entire basis for the administration’s new strategy in Syria, which rests upon America’s ability to trust the moderate opposition. Perhaps that’s why Secretary of State John Kerry vigorously and publicly rebutted Barfi’s account last week—and then went a step further. Kerry, in testimony before Congress, said Barfi had been the victim of an information operation perpetrated by ISIS itself. “Actually, there is intelligence that refutes it,” Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee when asked about Barfi’s story.

http://ift.tt/1ny7fdF



bomb ISIS who is fighting al qaeda - bomb them too; don't bomb assad who is fighting al qaeda and isis and the free syrian army - arm the free syrian army so they can defeat assad, al qaeda AND isis



simple



:usa:

Obama Administration and Sotloff Family Battle Over Blame for Journalist’s Kidnapping

Anti or pro-recliner?!

This seems to be trending on my fb recently, so just wanted to get a poll going on the AO and spark some discussion.





Should people recline their seats on the plane?





:link:





I'm probably a pro-recliner. Though I understand that some people are tall and their legs have nowhere to go, and really...the seats recline by such a small angle any comfort it promises is probably just mental.

Anti or pro-recliner?!

Spring 2014 #6b

The last column of the table is "Accumulated Annual Claim Cost". Can someone help me understand what those numbers represent?

Spring 2014 #6b

which is the worst?

do 2 wrongs always make a right?

which is the worst?

Surplus Share inuring to benefit of XOL

Suppose you have a surplus share treaty with a line of 100k and 3 lines. This surplus share treaty inures to the benefit of a 100k xs 25k XOL treaty.



To exposure rate a 500k property, would I assume the IV of the property is (a) 100k or (b) 300k (since the SS only removes 200k of exposure for the insurer)?



(a) would use exposure curve from 25/100 to 125/100, or

(b) would use exposure curve from 25/300 to 125/300.



If it is (b), then I feel like I am missing the fact that the last 200k are less likely to be realized since the cedent would not pay it until after the SS is used.

Surplus Share inuring to benefit of XOL

Omaha Game'tacular Dates

Vote for the dates that work for you if you plan on attending! I'm listing the fridays but the fun will last all weekend. BTW, I'm currently 13 weeks pregnant with twins... :yikes: But don't let that scare you! We will have fun.

Omaha Game'tacular Dates

Farber's Manual, Single Employer Plan Deductible Limits

Just want to clarify a few things:



1. For the calculation of the cushion amount - 'The increase in the funding target if expected future salary increases were taken into account':



Under the PUC cost method for a salary-related plan, future salary increases are already taken into consideration for the calculation of the funding target. So the only difference should come from the unlimited 401(a) 17 limit for PBGC covered plans?



2. For plans with no more than 100 participants - 'ignore the benefit increases to HCEs due to plan amendments adopted or effective during the previous two years...'



This only applies to non-salary-related plans, correct?



Thank you!

Farber's Manual, Single Employer Plan Deductible Limits

Actuarial jobs to become obsolete?

Hello. I read recently that something like 30% of jobs will become obsolete by 2030, mostly replaced by software and robots. My question is, how susceptible is the actuary profession to technological advancements? I ask this also because my younger brother is a software engineer for a reinsurance company and he tells me they do not have any actuaries. Plus what is it with State Farm? I type "actuary" in their job search field and nothing comes up. (I see that the obsolescence question has been asked in the past, in a 2001 and 2008 thread, but I think it might be good to revisit it.)



I passed exam P last May and I am planning to sign up for FM soon, and would like to know if it is worth all the trouble of going through the exam process. I've already made the mistake of jumping through the wrong hoops once; I got my PhD in math in 2008 (Notre Dame) and since then I've been working 1-year contract teaching positions, going from one school to the next. Getting a tenure-track position in academia is very difficult, at least at the more decent schools. For example, rejection letters typically say, "We're sorry, but we had 500 other applicants..."

Actuarial jobs to become obsolete?

BBA Task 2

Instructions say CDL predicts 100 million miles and that they have no idea how many will choose miles over cash back, then says that we agree to use these assumptions in our pricing. This makes me believe that we agreed to use 100 million miles "earned", but tells us nothing about the percent that choose airline miles.



Other forums I've read have pretty much assumed to use 100 million, however, this makes absolutely no sense to me and incredibly risky. CDL said themselves that they have no idea how many will choose miles, so why assume 100%? Don't think this is part the agreement on what assumptions to use.



I've opted to use a fraction of this 100 million. Anyone else? Don't think the SOA would have said that CDL has no idea the number who will choose miles if there wasn't some uncertainty here, and this isn't clear on what our agreement with our supervisor is.



Thoughts?

BBA Task 2

Is it bad if you finish your degree with no exams?

Im halfway to finishing my actuarial science degree (in canada), i tried Exam P/1 2 times and i failed, i dont know what to do, is it bad if you finish your degree without having any exam? Please help a depressed student.

Is it bad if you finish your degree with no exams?

Saudi Arabia

Why doesn't USA ever talk about liberating saudi arabia? Or at least sanctions?

Saudi Arabia

what old exam probelms are off of the syllabus

Hi,



What old exam problems are off of the fall LP syllabus? Thanks for the help on this.

what old exam probelms are off of the syllabus

where to discuss LP exam questions

I wanted to discuss 2014 fall LP exam questions, didn't see where is the appropriate link to use? could you advise me?

where to discuss LP exam questions

Character fields in SAS slowing down the program etc

I'm relatively new to SAS. I'm working with a data set and need to get a memo field in the data to keep track of any adjustments being made to a particular policy and field along the way. It has to be big because each field can have multiple comments added into it. Right now I"m setting it at the begining of the process to be a few hundred characters long, which immediately blows up the size of the data set, and generally slows down the program. This occurrs even if I set the field to "" immediately. What is the best way to do what I'm trying to do? Basically I need:





1.a field big enough to accept whatever size comments needed

2.that somehow doesn't slow down the program and blow up the size of the data sets





Like I said I'm new so hopefully there's something obvious.

Character fields in SAS slowing down the program etc

Bond purchased at a premium

If a bond has a redemption value of 100 and is purchased at a premium of 11.52 then



Price - 100 = 11.52?



Can anyone explain further what a premium is? Why it is defined this way?

Bond purchased at a premium

Pi expressed in Base 2 doesn't appear random

3.14159265359 in Base 10

=

11.001001000011111101101010100010001000

In base 2



Or simply



2 + 1 + 1/8 + 1/64 + 1/2,048 + 1/4,096 + 1/8,192



+ 1/16,384 + 1/32,768 + 1/65,536 + 1/262,144 +



1/524,288 + 1/2,097,152 + 1/8,388,608 + 1/33,554,432



+ 1/536,870,912 + 1/8,589,934,592



But the pattern isn't random



To right of the expression of the 3 in pi

It's

001 001

00001111

110 110

10 10

1000 1000 1000



That's just up to 3.14159265359 though

Problem is all calculators start rounding off after that much so it's difficult to get more precision



But I see a non-random pattern, agree?

I think though this may be no surprise because there's an infinite series that returns pi as a coefficient

Pi expressed in Base 2 doesn't appear random

Companies that sponsor H1b visa for International Students

I a currently starting my job search for an entry level position. I've been turned down for interviews from a few companies because they are unable to sponsor an H1b visa. Does anyone know what companies are willing to sponsor h1b visa. My job search would be more efficient if I knew what companies to target.



You input is appreciated. Thanks!

Companies that sponsor H1b visa for International Students

BBA Task 6 - Formal Memo

Is it appropriate to use footnotes in formal memo, or is that too informal?



I would like mention in the memo how the model stochastically models jet fuel prices and creates 1,000 scenarios, but it doesn't really flow in any of my paragraphs. I was thinking I might just mention it in a footnote, since it's not particularly important to the overarching point of the memo.

BBA Task 6 - Formal Memo

Strategy question

Here's my question. A lot of these calculations take time to think of how to do them, and then more time to think of how to set up your answer on paper, and then more time to write down all the numbers and calculations. I've seen myself many times burn 20+ minutes on a 3 point LTD or medical claims cost calculation. A guy told me that it's smarter not to do any of the calculations. He said if you know how you would approach it, write down a few formulas and the 2 minute reader's digest version of the steps you would take to solve the problem. He said this will get you most of the points and save a heck of a lot of time. Is there any truth to this? Me being the OCD actuary who wants to nail the answer down to the 10th decimal place absolutely hates this strategy, but if it works at this point it's worth a try.

Strategy question

Do you often get a raise for lateral move in same company

In my company, there is an opening in another department for the same title that I currently have. But, it's an area I'd prefer to be in. Obviously no one can comment on the specifics of this but I'm just curious in your experience, if you've done such a thing, did you get a raise? I am closer to the lower end of my pay scale because I only got a promotion about 6 months ago.

Do you often get a raise for lateral move in same company

% calculation vs memorization?

Anyone think this exam will be more list-based than LP? Thoughts?

% calculation vs memorization?

Muslim shuts down US air traffic

http://ift.tt/1Bo4FeU I am not sure he was Muslim but I suspect he must be ISIS ...anyone know?

Muslim shuts down US air traffic

Fed sucks up to Goldman

Recordings coming soon.....I am waiting for this with more excitement than the JLAW naked pics

Fed sucks up to Goldman

what would US cops have done

http://ift.tt/YtdMOZ Drunken US solider threatens people in a hospital with a fire extinquisher - shot repeatedly in non-fatal locations. I thought firearms were only to be used by police to kill....why would they shoot not to kill? dumm german cops.

what would US cops have done

Intern Offers: Should I tell companies if their salary offer is low?

Hello AO,



I'm in the midst of my actuarial internship search and have already gotten a few offers (with deadlines still about a month away). The question I'm wondering is, let's say I have two offers that are from companies that I like similar amounts (ie the culture and employees seemed cool, interesting work, good location etc.) but one is offering a few dollars more an hour. If you were in charge of the intern program at the location offering less money, would you want to know if your offered wage was an obstacle to me choosing your company, and do you think you might be willing to up the offered wage to keep your offer competitive?



My gut feeling is that for internships I shouldn't really try to engage in negotiation, and I should just add that to the list of differentiating factors, but I am curious to hear opinions from you guys.

Intern Offers: Should I tell companies if their salary offer is low?

LRM 107

Are there solutions anywhere for LRM 107-14 questions?



Are those questions important for the exam?



Thanks

LRM 107

RIP Traficant

Quote:

The man who many saw as representing the little guy grew up like many boys in the Valley. As a teenager, Jim Traficant played football for Mooney High School in the late 50’s. Wearing the number 70, he went on to play at University of Pittsburgh and even tried out for the Steelers. Eventually he returned to his hometown working as a drug counselor before running for Mahoning County Sheriff in 1980. In an interview years later, he admitted regretting that. “I wish I had not run for sheriff because of what it has done,” Traficant said. In 1983, Traficant was put on trial in federal court for taking more than $100,000 from local mobsters. He claimed he was trying to conduct his own sting operation and didn’t trust the FBI. He decided to defend himself instead of hiring an attorney and after eight weeks of testimony and four days of deliberations, jurors returned a not guilty verdict. The victory in court launched Traficant to even greater heights. In 1984 voters sent Traficant to Congress where he stayed for more than 17 years becoming known just as much for his irreverence as he was for fighting for the Valley. His quips were the subject of amusement, but they let people know he was down to earth and endeared him to his supporters. “My throat is sore.” “I’m having some rectal disorders as a matter of fact.” “I do my hair with a weed whacker, I admit,” are just some of Traficant’s famous quotes. At one point a magazine in Washington listed Traficant as a fashion victim because of that hair and those bell bottoms and cowboy boots. He spent his days in D.C. living on a houseboat, but the Department of Justice had its eye on Traficant too and he knew it. “I was the number one target since ’83. They couldn’t live with it,” Traficant said. In 2002, Traficant was indicted once again on bribery and other charges. Among the charges were accusations that he had contractors remodel his farm house in Green Township for free and that his staff did work at the farm without pay. As he had during the first trial, Traficant chose to defend himself. Ten years later he told WKBN First News reporter Gerry Riccuitti why. “Jesus Christ couldn’t have won that trial. That trial was set up,” Traficant said. Traficant was ultimately convicted on all counts and spent seven years in prison. Some of that time was in solitary confinement. However, here at home he remained popular enough to pull 30,000 votes when he ran again for Congress from behind bars in 2002. Traficant also took up painting horse while in prison and launched his idea to pen a book. After his release, the book “American’s Last Minuteman” was published. The book contained a number of his one-minute speeches from Congress. Traficant admitted he didn’t miss Washington all that much calling it a “big phony place.” For a brief time, Traficant turned his stature into a brief radio career hosting talk shows in the area as well as in Cleveland – never losing that irreverent sense of humor. “I’m not playing with you today. I am going to tell it like it is. Put the hay where the goats can get it,” Traficant said while promoting his talk show. While Traficant’s legacy will include funding for two federal courthouses, the Covelli Centre in Youngstown and a wing of C-130s at the air station in Vienna, he may be best remembered for how he treated those he knew. Friendly, approachable and always willing to talk, a conversation with Traficant was always full of surprises. “Beam me up Scotty; there is no intelligent life down here. Take care.”

http://ift.tt/YtdO9E



That's too bad.

RIP Traficant

Probability with 4 events

If I am given the probability of 4 non-independent events A, B, C, and D, how would I go about finding the probability of the intersection of any 2 or 3 of them? Or all 4?

Probability with 4 events

Entry Level Up to ASA Level Opening

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas has an open position from entry level up to ASA level. If interested, please send your resume to: kepufude@yahoo.com.



Visa sponsorship will not be considered for this position.

Entry Level Up to ASA Level Opening

Old exam questions

I bought the MATE practice problem set, but it only contains 15 math problems. Anyone know of any other good places to get past/practice exam questions?



Better yet, does anyone have a list of past questions that are on the GHS syllabus?

Old exam questions

AER and EER components with respect to MSL

I'm reading Mahler's study guide on ISO CGL Experience and Schedule Rating and am getting confused as to which components of AER and EER are subject to MSL.



EER = expected L&ALAE subject to MSL / expected L&ALAE not sub to MSL.

The numerator of AER is subject to MSL because MSL is applied to actual losses and ARULL is hit with EER.

But what about the denominator of AER, company subject BL L&ALAE? Page 230 states that it is subject to the MSL, but would this cause a mismatch between AER and EER in calculating the mod? It seems like it would because the numerator and denominator of the AER are both subject to MSL but only the numerator and not the denominator of EER is subject to MSL.



Thanks in advance.

AER and EER components with respect to MSL

Fox practice exams

hi,



do you think Fox's problems are an accurate approximation of the types of questions that will be asked on the exam? or are they quite a bit more difficult/obscure?



TIA

Fox practice exams

January Exam - Boston area study group

Would anyone in the Boston area who's taking the P/1 exam in January be interested in starting a study group? I'm thinking we could possibly meet on weekends or whenever people are available.

January Exam - Boston area study group

Test

Test message

Test

DrWillKirby resume thread

Something looks a little off with the formatting/spacing but I can't figure out what it is.



Should I beef up computer skills even more? Couldn't figure out how to do that and I'm not sure it sound great beyond what projects I've worked on in my job bullets.



I think activities could be good to show personality and possibly have something in common with the interviewer, but maybe with a little experience applying to EL stuff my skill will be enough?

Attached Files

Kirbyresume.doc (38.5 KB)

DrWillKirby resume thread