Throughout my career as an actuary, my crusade has primarily been about the definition of “real money”

My colleagues unanimously think that “real money” is what the regulatory capital models allow them to say they have in their holding companies.

I have argued for years that P/L and cash are real money and that their paper mark-to-model results are bullshit.

Let’s not even get into the fact that cash in dollars isn’t real money - but that’s there as well.

Bottom line - insurance companies and pensions are standing on absolute shams of actuarial opinion. They are backed by assumptions and when they are lucky enough to realize them - they are exposed to the perpetual bleed of fiat currency.