STUMP - Death and Taxes

April is the cruelest month in dropping all sorts of awareness topics on our heads: Autism, Cancer (various types - I covered testicular cancer earlier this month), financial literacy, and poetry… suppose we become “aware” of all this? What are we supposed to do with all this awareness and knowledge? Episode LinksPoemsT.S. Eliot, The Waste LandI. The Burial of the DeadApril is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory and desire, stirringDull roots with spring rain.The Poetry Foundation, Poem Guide by Tyler Malone: The Waste LandThe initial declaration of The Waste Land—“April is the cruellest month”—is clear enough in meaning, even if it defies readers’ expectations. The opening is a subversion of the first lines of the General Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.General Prologue of Chaucer’s The Canterbury TalesWhan that Aprille with his shoures soote,The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,And bathed every veyne in swich licóurOf which vertú engendred is the flour;Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breethInspired hath in every holt and heethThe tendre croppes, and the yonge sonneHath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,And smale foweles maken melodye,That slepen al the nyght with open ye,So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;And specially, from every shires endeOf Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,The hooly blisful martir for to seke,That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.Translation of first 18 lines of the General Prologue, WikipediaWalt Whitman, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d1When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,And thought of him I love.Autism AwarenessLivejournal postsApril 2026: Autism Awareness Month, April 2026April 2011: Autism Awareness Month and DiarmuidOct 2009: I come to praise the Fred S. Keller schoolSept 2009: Breakthrough!Aug 2009: Profile of the founder of D’s school, and a few detailsSTUMP postsMar 2014: Can Disney Films Teach Social Skills? - the sole post by my late husband StuJust as no two people are alike, the son in the article, Owen, and our son, D., are different in their disabilities. D. had no language loss — because he didn’t have language skills to lose. He spoke rarely but always sang songs he loved. D. didn’t withdraw from the world and has always been loving, cuddly and interested in any adult who gives him attention. I can go on but let’s focus on a commonality between the two. They love videos.Apr 2025: Aunt Betsey & Mr. Dick — from David Copperfield [Dec 2019]Mar 2021: Cuomo Killing the Disabled and the Elderly: This Time It’s PersonalCancerThe National Cancer Institute’s latest official SEER statistics — based on the November 2025 data submission (covering diagnoses through 2023) and publicly released in April 2026 via SEER*Explorer — confirm what many in insurance and benefits have sensed: early-onset cancers among adults under 50 are accelerating, even as overall age-adjusted cancer rates remain relatively stable with only a modest recent uptick.Other AwarenessApril: Financial Literacy MonthApril 2026 Financial Literacy Month Resources at MyMoney.govResources at Council for Economic EducationDec 2024: An Actual Murderer Among the Recently Commuted by Biden (a murderer involved with life insurance fraud)May 2022: Podcast episode — Don’t sell insurance to the MafiaMay 2022: Podcast episode - Fraudulent Life InsurersJun 2024: Podcast episode — Fraud and Embezzlement! How to Prevent and DetectDec 2024: Revisiting Fraud & Embezzlement Episode: Rita Crundwell and Biden CommutationMay 2022: Podcast episode — Don’t perpetrate financial fraud in spreadsheetsNov 2022: Podcast episode — FTX, Dickens, and Business FraudSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

March is Problem Gambling Awareness Month (were you aware?) — and many people are becoming aware of an increasing problem with all sorts of gambling and betting being available 24/7, in easy reach, on our phones. People wrestling with gambling debts and gambling addiction are not a new phenomenon, as these have featured as major items in literature (which I mention)… and unfortunately, too many politicians have pointed to people’s attraction to gambling via lotteries in supposedly helping to fund governmental functions.Episode LinksNational Council on Problem GamblingFAQs: What is Problem Gambling?What is problem gambling?Problem gambling (sometimes referred to as “gambling addiction” or “gambling disorder”) is gambling behavior that is damaging to a person or their family, often disrupting their daily life and career. Anyone who gambles can be at-risk for developing a gambling problem. Gambling disorder is a recognized mental health diagnosis.Some warning signs of a gambling problem are:* Thinking about gambling all the time.* Feeling the need to bet more money and more often.* Going back to try to win your money back (“chasing losses”).* Feeling restless or irritable when trying to stop or cut down.* Feeling like you can’t control yourself.* Gambling despite negative consequences.* In extreme cases, problem gambling can cause bankruptcy, legal problems, losing your job or your family, and thinking about suicide.For more information on the American Psychiatric Association’s criteria for gambling addiction, visit DSM 5 at www.psych.org.Problem Gambling Awareness Month (PGAM)Problem Gambling Awareness Month is a nationwide grassroots campaign, held annually in March, that seeks to increase public awareness of problem gambling and promote prevention, treatment, and recovery services.PGAM Goals* To increase public awareness of problem gambling and the availability of prevention, treatment and recovery services.* To encourage healthcare providers to screen clients for problem gambling.Literary GamblingThe Old Curiosity Shop by Dickens at Project GutenbergChapter 29 excerpt to Chapter 30:The child sat by, and watched its progress with a troubled mind. Regardless of the run of luck, and mindful only of the desperate passion which had its hold upon her grandfather, losses and gains were to her alike. Exulting in some brief triumph, or cast down by a defeat, there he sat so wild and restless, so feverishly and intensely anxious, so terribly eager, so ravenous for the paltry stakes, that she could have almost better borne to see him dead. And yet she was the innocent cause of all this torture, and he, gambling with such a savage thirst for gain as the most insatiable gambler never felt, had not one selfish thought!On the contrary, the other three—knaves and gamesters by their trade—while intent upon their game, were yet as cool and quiet as if every virtue had been centered in their breasts. Sometimes one would look up to smile to another, or to snuff the feeble candle, or to glance at the lightning as it shot through the open window and fluttering curtain, or to listen to some louder peal of thunder than the rest, with a kind of momentary impatience, as if it put him out; but there they sat, with a calm indifference to everything but their cards, perfect philosophers in appearance, and with no greater show of passion or excitement than if they had been made of stone.The storm had raged for full three hours; the lightning had grown fainter and less frequent; the thunder, from seeming to roll and break above their heads, had gradually died away into a deep hoarse distance; and still the game went on, and still the anxious child was quite forgotten.CHAPTER 30At length the play came to an end, and Mr Isaac List rose the only winner. Mat and the landlord bore their losses with professional fortitude. Isaac pocketed his gains with the air of a man who had quite made up his mind to win, all along, and was neither surprised nor pleased.Nell’s little purse was exhausted; but although it lay empty by his side, and the other players had now risen from the table, the old man sat poring over the cards, dealing them as they had been dealt before, and turning up the different hands to see what each man would have held if they had still been playing. He was quite absorbed in this occupation, when the child drew near and laid her hand upon his shoulder, telling him it was near midnight.‘See the curse of poverty, Nell,’ he said, pointing to the packs he had spread out upon the table. ‘If I could have gone on a little longer, only a little longer, the luck would have turned on my side. Yes, it’s as plain as the marks upon the cards. See here—and there—and here again.’‘Put them away,’ urged the child. ‘Try to forget them.’‘Try to forget them!’ he rejoined, raising his haggard face to hers, and regarding her with an incredulous stare. ‘To forget them! How are we ever to grow rich if I forget them?’The child could only shake her head.‘No, no, Nell,’ said the old man, patting her cheek; ‘they must not be forgotten. We must make amends for this as soon as we can. Patience—patience, and we’ll right thee yet, I promise thee. Lose to-day, win to-morrow. And nothing can be won without anxiety and care—nothing. Come, I am ready.’‘Do you know what the time is?’ said Mr Groves, who was smoking with his friends. ‘Past twelve o’clock—’‘—And a rainy night,’ added the stout man.‘The Valiant Soldier, by James Groves. Good beds. Cheap entertainment for man and beast,’ said Mr Groves, quoting his sign-board. ‘Half-past twelve o’clock.’‘It’s very late,’ said the uneasy child. ‘I wish we had gone before. What will they think of us! It will be two o’clock by the time we get back. What would it cost, sir, if we stopped here?’‘Two good beds, one-and-sixpence; supper and beer one shilling; total two shillings and sixpence,’ replied the Valiant Soldier.Now, Nell had still the piece of gold sewn in her dress; and when she came to consider the lateness of the hour, and the somnolent habits of Mrs Jarley, and to imagine the state of consternation in which they would certainly throw that good lady by knocking her up in the middle of the night—and when she reflected, on the other hand, that if they remained where they were, and rose early in the morning, they might get back before she awoke, and could plead the violence of the storm by which they had been overtaken, as a good apology for their absence—she decided, after a great deal of hesitation, to remain. She therefore took her grandfather aside, and telling him that she had still enough left to defray the cost of their lodging, proposed that they should stay there for the night.‘If I had had but that money before—If I had only known of it a few minutes ago!’ muttered the old man.‘We will decide to stop here if you please,’ said Nell, turning hastily to the landlord.‘I think that’s prudent,’ returned Mr Groves. ‘You shall have your suppers directly.’Accordingly, when Mr Groves had smoked his pipe out, knocked out the ashes, and placed it carefully in a corner of the fire-place, with the bowl downwards, he brought in the bread and cheese, and beer, with many high encomiums upon their excellence, and bade his guests fall to, and make themselves at home. Nell and her grandfather ate sparingly, for both were occupied with their own reflections; the other gentlemen, for whose constitutions beer was too weak and tame a liquid, consoled themselves with spirits and tobacco.As they would leave the house very early in the morning, the child was anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired to bed. But as she felt the necessity of concealing her little hoard from her grandfather, and had to change the piece of gold, she took it secretly from its place of concealment, and embraced an opportunity of following the landlord when he went out of the room, and tendered it to him in the little bar.What next happens: Little Nell gets her coin changed in a separate room, trying to conceal the money from her grandfather and the card sharps, but after she falls asleep, somebody comes into her room and steals the money she has hidden underneath her pillow….she thinks it may have been one of the card sharps, and maybe they will attack her grandfather, so she goes to check….The idea flashed suddenly upon her—what if it entered there, and had a design upon the old man’s life! She turned faint and sick. It did. It went in. There was a light inside. The figure was now within the chamber, and she, still dumb—quite dumb, and almost senseless—stood looking on.The door was partly open. Not knowing what she meant to do, but meaning to preserve him or be killed herself, she staggered forward and looked in. What sight was that which met her view!The bed had not been lain on, but was smooth and empty. And at a table sat the old man himself; the only living creature there; his white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright—counting the money of which his hands had robbed her.The Gambler by Dostoevsky at Project GutenbergWikipedia article on The GamblerDostoevsky gambled for the first time at the tables at Wiesbaden in 1863.[2] From that time till 1871, when his passion for gambling subsided, he played at Baden-Baden, Homburg, and Saxon-les-Bains frequently, often beginning by winning a small amount of money and losing far more in the end.[2] He first mentions his interest in gambling in a letter he sent to his first wife’s sister on 1 September 1863 describing his initial success:[3]Please do not think that, in my joy over not having lost, I am showing off by saying that I possess the secret of how to win instead of losing. I really do know the secret — it is terribly silly and simple, merely a matter of keeping oneself under constant control and never getting excited, no matter how the game shifts. That’s all there is to it — you just can’t lose that way and are sure to win.Within a week he lost his winnings and was forced to beg his family for money. He wrote to his brother Mikhail on 8 September 1863:[2]And I believed in my system ... within a quarter of an hour I won 600 francs. This whetted my appetite. Suddenly I started to lose, couldn’t control myself and lost everything. After that I ... took my last money, and went to play ... I was carried away by this unusual good fortune and I risked all 35 napoleons and lost them all. I had 6 napoleons d’or left to pay the landlady and for the journey. In Geneva I pawned my watch.Dostoevsky then agreed to a hazardous contract with F. T. Stellovsky that if he did not deliver a novel of 12 or more signatures by 1 November 1866, Stellovsky would acquire the right to publish Dostoevsky’s works for nine years, until 1 November 1875, without any compensation to the writer.[2][4] Pensions and LotteriesMay 2017: Stupid Pension Trick: Let’s Use Lottery Money!This stupid trick comes courtesy New Jersey, which has been chock full of stupid pension tricks for years.They’ve issued billions in pension obligation bonds.They’ve gone chasing returns alternative assets to try to make up for undercontributions.So now… what?LET’S MONETIZE THE LOTTERY!Here’s an explainer:What you need to know about Christie plan to slash N.J. pension debt with lottery cashGov. Chris Christie’s administration on Thursday released long-awaited details of its proposal to use state lottery proceeds to boost the government worker pension fund.In a briefing with reporters, the state treasurer emphasized the impact of the proposal, saying it said would take some of the burden off the state budget to come up with more and more money each year and will do more for improve the shaky pension fund than merely contributing the full amount recommended by actuaries.The strategy is to inject a $13.5 billion asset into the pension fund and give it a guaranteed source of revenue for the next 30 years.….….Yeah, so they’re going to take away the money from the lottery to spend on the pensions, and magically that’s going to make more money available for the things the lottery money is being spent on now.FWIW, I saw people talking about this nifty idea back in April, and thought it dumb then.May 2017: Geeking Out: How Dependable are Lottery Revenues? And Government Data Sources?So I have a question: when they valued the lottery as an “asset” for the pension plan, did they assume that it would always keep growing? Linearly? Exponentially (same as constant % per year)?I’m going to guess they didn’t fit a cubic.There are a few other projections that may also make sense, assuming saturation of the lottery demand — cubic doesn’t really work, but something like a logistic function would probably be good.(The reason I used exponential and cubic was because they’re built into Excel. I’m not going to do a huge amount of work here.)June 2020: STUMP Classics: How Reliable Are Lottery Revenues?Updated New Jersey lottery proceedsIn the old post seen above, NJ lottery proceeds had been moribund for a few years, which hit its growth rate. New York, on the other hand, had steady growth.Well, this is what NJ lottery proceeds did once we add on three more years of experience:Here are the 26-year growth rates for the states:As before, New Jersey is well below the national trend.But my main point is that proceeds from the lottery have been very variable for New Jersey, though that’s not true of the U.S. overall.Treating their state lottery as a reliable asset to fund their pensions was a foolish decision.Sports Betting26 Dec 2025, Front Office Sports: 2025 Was the Year of Sports Gambling ScandalsSports betting has expanded rapidly since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal prohibition on sports betting more than seven years ago, but this year exposed vulnerabilities in the system with explosive scandals across professional and college sports.Americans have bet “well north of” $500 billion since the 2018 Supreme Court decision, according to Legal Sports Report. Currently, 39 states and Washington, D.C. allow some form of sports betting. There have been prior controversies—like the saga with Shohei Ohtani’s former translator and the lifetime ban of NBA role player Jontay Porter—but 2025 was the year major scandals kept exploding.23 Oct 2025, ESPN: Suspensions, arrests and lifetime bans: A timeline of sports betting scandals since the repeal of PASPAOn May 14, 2018, just after 10 a.m. ET, the United States Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, the federal statute that had restricted legal betting to primarily Nevada for 26 years.It was a landmark decision for two of America’s favorite pastimes: sports and gambling.States wasted little time launching -- and taxing -- legal sports betting markets, and professional leagues quickly formed partnerships with the bookmaking companies that would be taking bets on the games. Six years later, 39 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have legal betting markets, and bettors have already wagered more the $330 billion with the new state-sponsored sportsbooks. But as the betting has increased, so have the controversies that come from gambling.In the past two years, dozens of professional and collegiate athletes and coaches have been suspended or fired for gambling violations, and at least one bettor has pleaded guilty to obstruction charges related to a college baseball betting scandal. In early 2024, a pair of investigations were launched involving suspicious betting on Temple men’s basketball and on prop wagers involving Toronto Raptors reserve center Jontay Porter. The NBA banned Porter for life after its investigation revealed he had disclosed confidential information to bettors, limited his participation in at least one game while he was with Raptors and bet on NBA games while playing in the G League.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Paul Ehrlich died recently at the age of 93, best known as a Malthusian in a modern age of growth and then population decline…with no famines, except man-made ones. His best-known book was The Population Bomb, published in 1968, which was already wrong when it was published. It’s fine to attack the man’s ideas, as they were just plain wrong, he was told this when alive, and he had never admitted this. While not the only person with his ideas, he contributed to the suicide of expertise, by claiming authority in the face of his own falsity.Episode LinksMedia ObituariesNYT, 15 Mar 2026: Paul R. Ehrlich, Who Alarmed the World With ‘The Population Bomb,’ Dies at 93His best-selling 1968 book, which forecast global famines, made him a leader of the environmental movement. But he faced criticism when his predictions proved premature.Paul R. Ehrlich, an eminent ecologist and population scientist whose best-selling book, ‘’The Population Bomb,’‘ was celebrated as a prescient warning of a coming age of food shortages and famine but later criticized by conservatives and academic rivals for what they called its sky-is-falling rhetoric, died on Friday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 93.His death, at a nursing facility in the retirement community where he lived, was caused by complications of cancer, his daughter, Lisa Marie Daniel, said.As a young professor of biology at Stanford University in the mid-1960s, Dr. Ehrlich was known for his absorbing lectures on evolution, in which he described what plants and animals faced on a planet stressed by industrial pollution and rapid population growth. He distilled those lectures into an article published in December 1967 in New Scientist magazine.Six months later, encouraged by David Brower, the executive director of the environmental group the Sierra Club, to write a book on the subject, Dr. Ehrlich published ‘’The Population Bomb.’‘ In 233 pages, he asserted that the planet’s condition began to deteriorate rapidly in the 1950s, when the rate of population growth exceeded the increase in food production -- or, as he put it, when ‘’the stork passed the plow.’‘ He called on couples to limit their families to one or two children.Witty, knowledgeable and not at all reticent, Dr. Ehrlich gained a huge audience on television, especially on ‘’The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,’‘ which he appeared on roughly 20 times. His forecast of food riots in the United States and of imminent global famines caused by escalating population growth found a worldwide readership.One of the best-selling nonfiction books about the environment to date, ‘’The Population Bomb’‘ sold three million copies and transformed Dr. Ehrlich, who was 37 at the time, into one of the global environmental movement’s most recognized leaders. His influence motivated international governments to convene conferences on controlling population, and his message was heard in private homes across the industrialized world as couples conceived fewer children.Dr. Ehrlich expanded on his thesis in ‘’The End of Affluence’‘ (1974), which he wrote with his wife, Anne H. Ehrlich, who wrote or edited 15 books with him. The book forecast a ‘’nutritional disaster’‘ in the 1970s, predicting that ‘’before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity.’‘Such bold predictions, some of which turned out to be premature or in error, prompted rivals in business and academia to question the validity of his claims. In 1980, Julian Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland, challenged Dr. Ehrlich and two of his colleagues with what Stewart Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, called ‘’one of the great revelatory bets.’‘Convinced that the growing population would make natural resources ever more scarce and thus drive up costs, Dr. Ehrlich accepted Mr. Simon’s challenge, betting that the prices of five key metals would rise in the 1980s. Mr. Simon believed that innovation would drive prices down.In 1990, Dr. Ehrlich and his colleagues conceded defeat and sent Mr. Simon a check for $576.07 -- an amount that represented the decline in the metals’ prices after accounting for inflation.WSJ, editorial, 17 Mar 2026: Paul Ehrlich, the Man Who Lost an Infamous BetThe Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich, who died Friday at age 93, made his most important contribution to the world by losing a bet. It helped educate millions that his ideas about scarcity and human ingenuity were wrong.Readers of a certain age will recall that Ehrlich was one of the most celebrated public intellectuals of his time. His 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” made him famous in an era of economic and political turmoil that led to public pessimism.The book’s opening lines capture his zero-sum Malthusian thinking: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.” The idea that people having babies was impoverishing nations became an article of faith on the political left and most of the press. Untold horrors were committed by governments against their own citizens in the name of population control—most notably, China’s one-child policy.The great economist Julian Simon decided to put Ehrlich’s theories to the test. In 1980 he offered to bet on whether the price of five commodities would go down or up over the next 10 years. Ehrlich chose the five metals—chromium, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten—and took the bet.It was really a wager over human beings and free markets. If Ehrlich was right, and people were devouring the Earth’s resources, then the price of those resources would go up. If Simon was right, human beings would respond to shortages with ingenuity, and prices would, in the long term, go down. In 1990 Simon won the bet and Ehrlich paid up.First Things, Scott Yenor, 19 Mar 2026: Paul Ehrlich, False ProphetPaul Ehrlich, noted author of The Population Bomb, died last week. Few people have been so consequentially wrong as Ehrlich. Ironically, his name, translated from the German, means “honest, truthful, sincere.” It is remarkable how this PhD in butterflies and Stanford professor rose to such prominence, capitalizing on a wave of popular pessimism to attack civilization from the left.Ehrlich’s Population Bomb begins with an arresting line: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate . . .” Indeed, in the late 1960s, American society seemed to be coming apart. The threat of nuclear war loomed. Mass migration wore away borders. Disease spread. Ehrlich’s Population Bomb more caught the wave of alarmism than created it. The Rockefeller and Ford Foundations were already promoting population control across the world, especially in India and East Asia, in the early 1960s.Many ears heard Ehrlich’s prophecies. He appeared more than twenty times on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. During his 1980 appearance, Ehrlich praised Eastern European countries for reaching Zero Population Growth. Imitators arose too, most notably the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth, a book published in 1972. Limits, a cultural marker of sorts, saw several MIT professors use computer models to prove that coming population explosion would lead to resource depletion and declines in agricultural and industrial output. The only bright spot would be the rebirth of humanity after its impending collapse.….Skeptics always dogged Ehrlich. Most famous was his bet with Julian Simon, the free-market economist and techno-enthusiast. I read Simon’s The Ultimate Resource as a young man. Like others at the time, he was more worried about the world’s impending labor shortage. Fewer laborers would mean less creativity. With more people, Simon thought, human ingenuity would flourish. There would be no worries about running out of commodities like copper or tungsten. Simon allowed Ehrlich to pick five commodities that he thought would increase in price during the next decade. Each ended up decreasing in price, consistent with Simon’s prediction.Ehrlich’s predictions cannot be taken seriously today. Life expectancy climbed in most of the world after 1970. Mass famines didn’t materialize. Yet he felt no shame for being so wrong. So maybe “starvation has been less extensive than I (or rather the agriculturalists I consulted) expected,” he said in 2004. But many are still “very hungry.”Wikipedia EntryA lecture that Ehrlich gave on the topic of overpopulation at the Commonwealth Club of California was broadcast by radio in April 1967.[22] The success of the lecture caused further publicity, and the suggestion from David Brower the executive director of the environmentalist Sierra Club, and Ian Ballantine of Ballantine Books to write a book concerning the topic. Ehrlich and his wife, Anne H. Ehrlich, collaborated on the book, The Population Bomb, but the publisher insisted that a single author be credited; only Paul’s name appears as an author.[23]Although Ehrlich was not the first to warn about population issues — concern had been widespread during the 1950s and 1960s — his charismatic and media-savvy methods helped publicize the topic.[13] The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson had Ehrlich on as a guest more than twenty times, with one interview lasting an hour.[24][25]On ExpertiseMay 2017: Friday Trumpery: The Murder-Suicide of ExpertiseTHE SUICIDE OF EXPERTISEBut here are the hallmarks of why “experts” are not being trusted:* The experts are not all that expert (well-credentialed, but deeply ignorant)* The experts lack intellectual humility – they hold onto wrong claims far past reasonability as a result, and make overconfident pronouncements* The experts are intellectually dishonest* The experts aren’t the people who get hurt by what they get wrongThis has been a long-term problem. This is not new to the Trump era.Yes, I know this is a “Trumpery” post, but the point is that there have been various “experts” b******g about Trump not listening to expertise… and others saying it’s okay for experts to be deceptive, as long as it’s in the service of bashing Trump (the Ultimate Evil™).When the “experts” start saying they’re fine with lying or using politics to inform what research subjects are verboten, I really don’t want to hear about people no longer trusted their expertise.The experts have been killing the value of expertise for some time, they’ve just ramped up their intensity.THE KNIFE DRIVEN IN BY A KNOW-NOTHING MEDIAThat’s the suicide part, at any rate — the experts kept screwing up, and there wasn’t much of a negative feedback loop to keep them from getting out of hand.But the thing is, there are usually competing experts. As with the dietary advice, there were researchers who supported conflicting advice.But how do you find out about what the experts say?It’s usually via media of some sort, and the grand gatekeepers drove the knife in for reasons similar to that of the suicide of expertise.* Many media people are deeply ignorant, and can’t tell credible experts from know-nothing phonies* The media needs eyeballs — so intellectually dishonest as well as overconfident experts make for a better show* It’s not the media people who get hurt by the sensationalism they peddleThe thing is, being able to play around with words and to spin stories does sell very well — the boring expert who says “There is no nifty risk-free trick to making pensions cheaper. There’s always a trade-off” will be outdone by the bombastic person yelling “THEY WANT US TO DIEEEEEE!”Savvy people who want their specific message to get out know what to do.June 2021: To build trust: admit mistakesPerhaps some people still trust the Washington Post as a source of information. I don’t know such people.Look, I am willing to allow for mistakes — we are all human, after all. But when I come across people unwilling to admit to any mistakes, well, I am not going to trust them in the future. I’m not that foolish (or young) any more.….I have no problem with admitting I was wrong, and I try to avoid making the same mistake in the future. I made my error in the full view of whoever read my stuff, and I had to correct it in the same place, making clear what had happened.But now we have people trying to hide their screw-ups. When we remember they screwed up. It was not that long ago, dudes.Given such behavior, why would we trust such people at all?….Just frickin admit errorI’m not disappointed. That would mean I had expectations of better behavior. I can’t say I did.I’m not really angry. I save my anger for when I need energy to get things done. My energy is not going to do anything about this.I am annoyed.If these people just admitted they were wrong in the past, and will try not to make such mistakes in the future, that would go a long way in establishing future credibility.PredictionsCBO Demographic Outlook: 2026 to 2056Page of the report - published January 2026PDF of the reportHTML documentSpreadsheet of the data/projectionsAh, that lovely net immigration. Biden was saving our hash!Related Posts/EpisodesSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 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I used someone else’s podcast on “resounding gongs or clashing cymbals” as a jumping-off point of where one should be focusing one’s efforts in the world… with a shift into some Lenten themes. Yes, there’s a heavy Christian flavor to this one, but it’s also a sneaky way for me to encourage you to consume Dickens in the form of excellent miniseries production (yes, really). And a finish up with saying if we must have Daylight Saving Time, why not use that “extra” hour of daylight in the evening to build community? Nudge nudge.Episode LinksPillar PodcastBonus episode for paying subscribers: Resounding gongs or clashing cymbalsMrs. JellybyQuoting from the 2025 post:Mrs. Jellyby is one of a network of charitable do-gooders, under the heading of Christian missionary work bother one of the main characters, Mr. Jarndyce. She and the others were a thinly veiled critique of various members of the charitable societies who had bothered Dickens once he was rich and famous.Mrs. Jellyby focused on an African tribe, and her mission is described thusly, from Chapter 4, “Telescopic Philanthropy”:We were to pass the night, Mr. Kenge told us when we arrived in his room, at Mrs. Jellyby’s; and then he turned to me and said he took it for granted I knew who Mrs. Jellyby was.“I really don’t, sir,” I returned. “Perhaps Mr. Carstone—or Miss Clare—”But no, they knew nothing whatever about Mrs. Jellyby. “In-deed! Mrs. Jellyby,” said Mr. Kenge, standing with his back to the fire and casting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were Mrs. Jellyby’s biography, “is a lady of very remarkable strength of character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted herself to an extensive variety of public subjects at various times and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the subject of Africa, with a view to the general cultivation of the coffee berry—AND the natives—and the happy settlement, on the banks of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr. Jarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely to be a good work and who is much sought after by philanthropists, has, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby.”Note, the concept was they would take some of the “superabundant home population” — aka that “excess population” Scrooge notes in “A Christmas Carol” — ship them over to Africa, and then have those poor people work in African missions.….That is, she wants to ship off 50 — 200 poor families from England to Africa, supposedly to make their living by growing coffee (and Mrs. Jellyby herself consumes a great deal of coffee to power her letter-writing campaigns). They are also supposed to evangelize the people already living there to Christianity.Other “charitable” people appear, whether they are involved in the Africa scheme or not. Similarly, they abuse the responsibilities they have to their families and neighbors to supposedly do good to a larger sphere. In general, they engender resentment in their children and sometimes despair in their spouses (though, in some cases, the spouses are on board and completely smug about it all.)….The African king wanted to sell all the missionaries (all who survived the tropical diseases) into slavery for his personal benefit. After Mrs. Jellyby sighs, she moves on to women’s suffrage as her next cause, which wouldn’t be successful in the UK until well after her death. In the meantime, she has a disabled granddaughter she could have done much to help… but no, she has decided that it’s better to keep on writing letters.….But that is not nearly as grand as the “telescopic philanthropy” that is completely futile, as Mrs. Jellyby does not understand anything whatsoever about the people in Africa, what they want or need.Mrs. Jellyby could have been more effective by helping both her family and the poor who surrounded her in London, where she lived. What Esther Summerson was able to accomplish among different people directly contrasts with the futility of Mrs. Jellyby’s pile of messy letters.If Mrs. Jellyby had ordered her responsibilities properly, by her capabilities and knowledge, she could have done so much more good.Dickens AdaptationsBleak House2005 miniseries, Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock, Charles Dance as Mr. TulkinghornIMDB listing: Bleak HouseAmazon listing: Bleak HouseMartin Chuzzlewit1994 miniseries, Tom Wilkinson as Pecksniff, Pete Postlethwaite as Tigg Montague/Montague Tigg, Paul Scofield as old MartinIMDB listing: Martin ChuzzlewitAmazon listing: Martin ChuzzlewitUSCCB: Works of MercyCorporal Works of Mercy* Feed the hungry* Give drink to the thirsty* Shelter the homeless* Visit the sick* Visit prisoners and ransom the hostage* Bury the dead* Give alms to the poorSpiritual Works of Mercy* Instructing the ignorant* Counseling the doubtful* Admonishing the sinner* Comforting the sorrowful* Forgiving injuries* Bearing wrongs patiently* Praying for the living and the deadDST PostSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. 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Two different pieces — one from the left, one from the right — showing that wishful thinking will not get the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States through the public finance difficulties brought about by demographic realities. No, I’m not talking about immigration (legal or illegal… which also won’t fix the problem.) By all means, tinker around the edges for now. Because hard choices are coming, whether people like it or not.Episode LinksNY Times op-ed, 23 Feb 2026, Nicholas Bagley and Robert Gordon: Mamdani Will Need to Change How He GovernsMayor Zohran Mamdani of New York, in his inaugural address, offered a pledge to create a government “where excellence is no longer the exception.” He now must do so while closing a $5.4 billion deficit, in a state where the governor rejects higher taxes on the rich.Big budget gaps are not uncommon in American cities. Nor is New York’s high cost of living — one reason that California, New York and Illinois top the list of states with declining populations over the past five years.If blue-state governors and mayors want to get serious about delivering excellent public services, they will need to do more than battle billionaire elites or embrace abundant housing and energy.They will have to push back against a core constituency within the Democratic Party that often makes government deliver less and cost more: unions representing teachers, police officers and transit workers.Bloomberg, Matt Levine, Money Matters, 26 Feb 2026: The DOGE Doubt TradeThis product exists. It is conventionally called a “bar bet.” You can walk into a bar in the right part of Texas, say “I’ll bet anyone $1,000 that Elon Musk won’t do the thing he said he’d do on the timeline he promised,” and someone will stand up and say “them’s fightin’ words” and take your bet. And you will negotiate the terms and odds and resolution method, and in six months you’ll check back in and he won’t have done the thing and you’ll make $1,000. And you will get to say to the Musk fan on the other side of the bet, “nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah,” which is what you really wanted.Of course there is a market structure problem, which is that you have to find the right bar and then laboriously negotiate the terms of the bet, so you can’t actually pour your life savings into Being Skeptical About Elon Musk’s Promises. Or you couldn’t until recently. But now we have prediction markets, which are centralized electronic exchanges, regulated by the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission, for coordinating bar bets. Here’s a Wall Street Journal story about a guy who can justifiably say “nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah”:Alan Cole put his life savings, all $342,195.63, into a prediction-market wager. … Until Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency came roaring into the nation’s capital last year, he was largely a plain-vanilla investor or, as he puts it, a “normal, conventional Wall Street Journal-reading adult.”But Musk’s boasts and his eager fans brought an unusual opportunity into the burgeoning U.S. prediction markets: People willing to bet that the world’s richest man would transform and shrink the federal government.Cole took the opposite position, one he didn’t see as a gamble at all. If federal spending in each quarter of 2025 exceeded federal spending in the fourth quarter of 2024, he would win big. …From Cole’s perspective, even if Musk cut government contracts and shrank the federal workforce—which he did—he couldn’t meaningfully dent Social Security and Medicare benefits. And that left no plausible path for cutting overall federal spending. ...The key feature of the prediction market offered on the Kalshi website was that it measured federal spending in annualized, seasonally adjusted nominal dollars. To win, Cole didn’t need spending to stay above a past projection. He just needed federal spending to go up, as it almost always does.He made like $128,000, or 37%. Notice the features of this product:* If you have a view like “federal spending will go up,” it is immediately obvious whether and to what extent the market incorporates that view: The market price just is the market’s expected probability of that happening.* This product reflects only one fact, whether federal spending goes up or not.* Investor psychology will affect the price at which you get into the trade — if Musk’s “eager fans” think he will cut federal spending, then you will pay a relatively low price for the spending-will-go-up contract — but not the price at which you exit, because the trade resolves: Eventually, spending either goes up or it doesn’t, there’s some resolution mechanism to establish the fact, and if it went up you get paid. Tom Gara wrote on Threads: “He knew that it’s basically mathematically impossible to reduce federal spending, but he also knew Elon fanboys are often morons.” With Tesla stock, that is a problem; with prediction markets, it’s an opportunity.It is the opposite of a stock investment.I guess the point I would make here is that this is still somewhat childish. The stock market exists to allocate capital to productive businesses, and those businesses are irreducibly messy. You do not decide how to allocate capital by understanding one isolated fact about a company’s business; you have to figure out which facts are important and then do your best to understand all of them. Financial markets are not bets on individual facts; they are bets on the economic consequences of those facts.Prediction markets are a “truth machine”; they let you isolate a fact and make money by being right about it. In many ways this makes them less useful: They don’t fund economic growth, and they are imperfect hedges to real economic risks. But sometimes they do give you the satisfaction of being right.WSJ, 25 Feb 2026: The Tax Nerd Who Bet His Life Savings Against DOGEWASHINGTON -- Alan Cole put his life savings, all $342,195.63, into a prediction-market wager. He insists he’s not really a betting man.Cole is a 37-year-old tax economist with Ivy League degrees, a mortgage and a young child. Until Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency came roaring into the nation’s capital last year, he was largely a plain-vanilla investor or, as he puts it, a “normal, conventional Wall Street Journal-reading adult.”But Musk’s boasts and his eager fans brought an unusual opportunity into the burgeoning U.S. prediction markets: People willing to bet that the world’s richest man would transform and shrink the federal government.Cole took the opposite position, one he didn’t see as a gamble at all. If federal spending in each quarter of 2025 exceeded federal spending in the fourth quarter of 2024, he would win big.….From Cole’s perspective, even if Musk cut government contracts and shrank the federal workforce -- which he did -- he couldn’t meaningfully dent Social Security and Medicare benefits. And that left no plausible path for cutting overall federal spending.“It’s almost like the government has, you know, 19 elderly employees for every actual employee,” Cole said.The key feature of the prediction market offered on the Kalshi website was that it measured federal spending in annualized, seasonally adjusted nominal dollars. To win, Cole didn’t need spending to stay above a past projection. He just needed federal spending to go up, as it almost always does.This was far different, he decided, than other prediction-market options. Some of those are equivalent to betting in the already efficient sports-gambling market. Others are susceptible to competition against people with insider knowledge, like gambles on whether Lady Gaga will appear during the Super Bowl halftime show.Cole gradually amassed more than 3% of one particular $12 million federal-spending prediction market. He spread risk across several sub-bets, structured so he landed in the red only if spending declined by more than $50 billion. He wasn’t betting against Kalshi itself, just against people betting on Musk.….The government published the final 2025 figures Feb. 20. It wasn’t even close. The lowest spending quarter in 2025 was $66 billion above the bet’s target level. Cole collected $470,300, for a profit of more than $128,000, or 37%.“There’s a little bit of that feeling of vindication,” Cole said.Our World in Data: Births v DeathsOur World in Data, 5 Jan 2023: How many people die and how many are born each year?The world population has grown rapidly, particularly over the past century: in 1900, there were fewer than 2 billion people on the planet, and in 2025, there were around 8.2 billion.Two metrics determine the change in the world population: the number of babies born and the number of people dying.….As the number of deaths approaches the number of births, global population growth will endHow do we expect this to change in the coming decades? What does this mean for population growth?Population projections suggest annual births will remain around 135 million in the next two decades before declining slowly in the second half of the century.As the world population ages, the annual number of deaths is expected to continue increasing in the coming decades until it reaches a similar number as annual births, at which point the world population will stop increasing.The annual number of deaths is then expected to surpass the annual number of births. This is when the world population will start decreasing.United StatesJapanFranceSouth KoreaUnited KingdomChinaRelated PostsSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Getting back into podcasting by looking at the recent wealth tax proposals in California and the Netherlands. The Box 3 “reforms” have already passed in The Netherlands and to go into effect in 2028, and in California, the wealth tax is likely to be a ballot proposal to be put in front of voters this fall in 2026, but backdated to January 2026. I look at the proposals at a high-level, some initial responses, and what the actual goals of these taxes are.Episode NotesNetherlands Investment Tax: “Box 3”NL Times, 13 Feb 2026: Dutch parliament greenlights new Box 3 tax, set to take effect in 2028Despite considerable resistance, a large majority in the lower house of the Dutch parliament approved a new system for taxing the returns on assets, also known as the Box 3 tax. The new system, which taxes returns based on the actual increase in the value of assets, is set to take effect in 2028.The Dutch government had to change the Box 3 tax after multiple courts ruled that the current system is unlawful. The current system taxes assets based on fictive gains - how much the Tax Authority assumes assets have increased in value over the taxable period, based on past returns. The Tax Authority also calculated the tax based on an assumed distribution of assets across savings and other investments, called the “asset mix.”….The Tweede Kamer greenlighting the Box 3 reform is not the end of the issue. A majority asked the new Cabinet to, once the new system is implemented, change the way in which returns on things like stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies are taxed.The new system taxes the unrealized gains on these assets - the profits of investments that have increased in value, but haven’t been cashed out yet. Parliamentarians don’t like that this will result in people paying tax on money they don’t have yet. A majority, therefore, asked the government to come up with a way in which investors only pay tax on realized returns - money in their pocket once they sell the asset involved. They want the government to present that plan by Budget Day 2028 at the latest.The Box 3 reform is costing the government billions. Not only does it have to refund overpaid capital gains taxes, but affected taxpayers may also be entitled to interest on those repayments. The Ministry of Finance has not yet formally decided whether the interest—known as belastingrente in Dutch—will be paid.NTL Trust International, accessed 17 Feb 2026: Netherlands Box 3 Reform: Structural Shifts and the 36% TaxLiquidation ContagionBalaji Initial Post15 Feb 2026, X/Twitter: Text:LIQUIDATION CONTAGIONWealth taxes are even worse than you think. Any asset held by Californian billionaires or Dutch citizens is now at risk of experiencing forced liquidation pressure.So: it’s not just that you don’t want to hold assets as a Dutchman. You also don’t want a Dutchman to hold your assets. Because the logic of forced liquidation is contagion.Let’s think it through.(1) First, suppose there is an asset with a total market cap of $10,000, with 10 shares total, of which 1 share each is held by 10 different holders, all in the Netherlands. To simplify the math, assume the Dutch holders bought those shares at par, or close to $0.(2) Now suppose today is the unrealized cap gains tax day, and the share price is $1,000 per share. Each Dutch guy is hit with a 36% tax, and owes $360. The first guy sells his one share, gets $1,000, and pays $360 in tax while retaining $640.(3) But the first guy’s sale reduces the market price to $960 per share. So when the second guy sells, he only retains $600 after paying $360 in tax.(4) Now assume that by the 7th guy, all the selling has pushed the share price to collapse to $200 per share. This is a very reasonable scenario if 60% of the cap table has suddenly been dumped. Indeed it might go much lower.(5) At $200 per share, the 7th guy actually has to go into debt to pay the tax as he owes $360. He sells his one share, pays all $200 of the proceeds in tax. And still owes $160 more in tax.(6) The 8th, 9th, and 10th guys are even more screwed. By the time they sell, the price will likely have crashed to $100 per share or less. As with the 7th guy, even 100% liquidation will not cover their tax burden.(7) So we immediately see many negative things about the Dutch unrealized cap gains tax bill.(a) First, it will cause large simultaneous forced liquidations. Everyone must sell 36% of their stake near the same time.(b) Second, it may be literally impossible to pay if a critical mass of the cap table is all subject to it at the same time. In the example above it was 100% Dutch holders, but has it been just 60% the result would have been much the same: a collapse in the share price.(c) Third, that means it would be disastrous to have too many Dutch citizens (or Californian billionaires!) on the cap table. Their forced sales will crash your share price.(d) So, you might have to start mass blocking those resident in wealth-taxing jurisdictions from investing in your companies.(e) This in turn makes the poor Western European guy even poorer, as he gets locked out of high growth assets.To be clear: I really do feel bad for the formerly Flying Dutchmen, now Crying Dutchmen. They invented much of modern capitalism. They founded New Amsterdam, now New York. They’ve punched way above their weight. I wish them only the best.Nevertheless…they should prepare for the worst. This may be a tough century for Western Europe. The first ones out might get to freedom, while the slowest may be stuck behind a new Iron Curtain, spending a century paying off the debts their states incurred over the last century.Because the long run fruits of Western Keynesianism are the same as Soviet Communism, in the sense of wealth seizure and pauperization.I mean, if you knew the future, you wouldn’t want to co-own a farm with a Russian in 1916. For similar reasons, you might not want to co-own a share of stock with Dutch national in 2026. Or with anyone in a seizure-curious jurisdiction…which unfortunately includes much of Western Europe, Canada, and Blue America.You instead want assets that are not held by those subject to forced liquidations. Now, I grant that this is an unusual way to rank assets…Dutch holders considered harmful?!? Yet it might sadly be necessary to minimize your exposure to liquidation contagion.PS: guess which crucial stock is most held by the Dutch? ASML. So: this unrealized cap gains tax may not literally be a communist plot, but it would have the same effect.In the replies:Doesn’t tell you, of course, how one has to keep track of the investments one holds via ETFs/mutual funds via companies such as BlackRock. BlackRock, etc., “owns” these assets on behalf of OTHER people. “But it’s for a pension fund!”Which, again, is for OTHER people… but I assume pension funds are out of scope for this tax….. [maybe I shouldn’t assume… all governments are hungry for tax revenue]Cross-contamination of systems15 Feb 2026, Reddit: Box 3 in 2028: taxed on unrealized gains in NL and realized gains by US | how do people deal with this?Not copying the text — but keeping on with the having to liquidate assets theme to pay a wealth tax on UNREALIZED gains, but when liquidating, one REALIZES the gains…. which triggers REALIZED GAINS TAXES in other tax jurisdictions.WHUPSCalifornia Wealth TaxNYPost, 8 Jan 2026: Wealth tax threat prompts at least six billionaires to cut ties with California, as about 20 more mull exit: reportThe threat of a steep new wealth tax in California has reportedly prompted at least six billionaires including Larry Page and Peter Thiel to cut their ties with the state — and as many as 20 others could be heading for the exits.The half-dozen billionaires made their moves before New Year’s Day — the cutoff date to avoid a potential one-time tax of 5% on fortunes exceeding $1 billion — which California residents will vote on in November, according to Bloomberg News.David Lesperance, a tax adviser who specializes in relocating ultra-wealthy clients out of high-tax jurisdictions, told the outlet he personally helped four billionaires end their California residency before the proposal’s Jan. 1 cutoff date.Related Posts* March 2022: Podcast — Income taxes and wealth taxes* June 2023: Taxing Tuesday: Wealth Taxes in Norway and SALT Cap Review* September 2024: Taxing Tuesday: Taxes on the Ballot, Revenue Challenges, and the French Wealth Tax Impact* August 2020: Taxing Tuesday: California Nuts and New York... Whatever We’ve Got - the prior attempt in California… which failed* August 2024: Taxing Tuesday: Demonstration on Stupidity of Unrealized Gains Taxes, Illinois Property Taxes, and More* Nov 2023: Taxing Tuesday: Bezos Moves Back to Florida, Thwarting Washington State’s New Capital Gains Tax, Migration Stats Distorted by Pandemic Issues* Oct 2023: Taxing Tuesday: Gaming, Chicago Mansions go Downscale, and D*****s Tax ResearchSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Just some talk on why I fundraise for Movember, which I’ve been doing since 2017. I look at some of the programs funded by Movember. The need continues.Episode LinksHere are the places you can donate to the Movember Foundation, which supports men’s health, specifically focusing on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health:* Mary Pat Campbell’s MoSpace – a place to donate at Movember itself* My Movember Facebook fundraiser – my officially linked fundraiser, if this works better for youAnd here’s a QR code if that works better for you:While prostate cancer was my initial impetus for supporting Movember, I support all of Movember’s causes, which include men’s mental health and suicide prevention.Some Movember-funded projectsIronman Registry - USAIRONMAN is an international, population-based registry of 5,000 men with advanced prostate cancer across ten countries. It seeks to understand clinical outcomes associated with management of advanced prostate cancer and understand the biological and clinical diversity of the disease.USA - Mass market, multi-platform public media documentary series & campaignThis project uses a mass market, multi dimensional campaigns to shift populations understanding, attitudes and intentions and ultimately improve health outcomes on a large scale. Focusing on Youth Mental Health we will be working in partnership with PBS to deliver a documentary series supported with educational, digital and in person elements delivered across the USA.Veterans and First Responders - United StatesTo improve the mental health/wellbeing and prevent suicide of first responders and veterans in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand. This will be achieved through funding research proposals aimed at building the case to develop and implement effective prevention programs and/or test new evidence-based programs.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Following news of a liquidity problem in the Chicago Firefighters’ Pension Fund and a stunning $11 billion pension benefit boost for police and fire, I, your friendly actuary, Mary Pat Campbell, dive into the reactions from various groups as well as the “timely” release of a report from a task force convened by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.I explore the political negligence surrounding the Tier 2 sweetener bill and the task force’s proposed “solutions”—a mix of new taxes, fees, and the risky use of Pension Obligation Bonds (POBs)— and contrast with the argument that Chicago’s core problem is a runaway 62% spending surge since 2019. Then there’s the absurd defense of the benefit increase from State Senator Robert Martwick, who claimed it was a service to the city. Finally, there’s the question: where are pensions for Chicago (and Illinois) ultimately going, given their history of underfunding? Now, with their benefit boost? Will they go cap in hand to the federal government for a bailout (again), and should their poorly funded, non-Social Security systems be allowed to continue? The Chicago pension crisis isn’t just local news—it’s a bellwether for the rest of the nation.Episode LinksSTUMP related links* 19 Sep 2025: Chicago Pension Squeeze: Fire Pensions Get a Loan as Tax Revenue Delayed; Pritzker Warned Against Signing Sweetener Bill, Signed Anyway* 4 Aug 2025 Podcast: Chicago Pension Artificial Sweeteners* 25 July 2025 More on Chicago Pension Finance: Those Pension Sweeteners Sure are Sour* 18 July 2025 Chicago Finances Update: Other People’s Money Doesn’t Go Too Far, Does It?* 19 Apr 2020 Illinois Asks for $10B(+) for Pensions -- Most Disgusting COVID-19 Bailout Yet?* 20 Jun 2022 Podcast: Pension Obligation Bonds* 16 Feb 2015 Why are Pension Obligation Bonds OF THE DEVIL? A Lesson from the Dollar AuctionThis is why I say POBs are of the devil — whether or not you believe in a literal devil, the literary devil is the kind that helps you rationalize the bad behavior you already did and are determined on continuing.Ask Faust about how that worked out for him.Austin Berg and The Last WardState lawmakers passed—and Gov. JB Pritzker signed—one of the most irresponsible bills in modern Illinois history this year: a suite of pension sweeteners for Chicago police and fire. The sweeteners added $11 billion in new benefits to the city’s police and fire pension systems, which were already the worst-funded in the nation, with no new revenue to pay for them.In the waning days of session, sources said several leaders attempted to contact Johnson to request that he tell the governor’s team to step in and kill the bill. But the mayor was missing in action. A newly unearthed memo published this week by Paris Schutz at Fox32 confirmed Johnson’s negligence.Specifically, Chicago CFO Jill Jaworski wrote to the governor’s team that the bill would make Chicago’s police and fire pension funds “technically insolvent.”….Bloomberg broke news last week that the city was forced to provide emergency lending for Chicago’s firefighter pension fund in order to avoid asset sales. Between a delay in Cook County property tax bills4 and alarmingly low funding levels, the fund literally did not have the necessary cash on hand to pay current retirees. This is what insolvency looks like.5 And this is exactly why Jaworski and Johnson should have been screaming from the rooftops to oppose the pension sweetener bill.Bond Buyer on Chicago Task Force18 Sep 2025: Taxes and cuts advised in Chicago finance task force reportChicago should resume annual inflation-based adjustments to its property tax levy.That’s one recommendation from a task force Mayor Brandon Johnson assembled and charged with coming up with ways to strengthen Chicago’s long-term financial health.It doesn’t call for other major property tax hikes, but the report, prepared on Aug. 31 and released this week, also raises the possibility of re-amortizing and reducing pension debt, including through the issuance of pension obligation bonds.….The task force’s interim report puts forth a mix of efficiencies and revenue solutions in the $1 billion to $2.1 billion range to close the city’s $1.15 billion budget gap.The group identified between $630 million and $1.65 billion in potential revenue-related opportunities, and between $372.4 million and $455.5 million in efficiencies.As part of the efficiencies, the task force recommended extending the supplemental pension payments policy beyond 2028; re-amortizing and reducing pension debt through pension obligation bonds and pension buyouts; and shifting the timing of pension contributions.Illinois Policy 22 Sep 2025: Chicago budget rises over 2X faster than other big citiesNot enough revenue? How about too much spending. Chicago outpaces many of America’s biggest cities with a 62% spending spike since 2019. That’s what’s driving deficits.Chicago faces a $1.15 billion projected deficit in 2026, and the city’s budget task force’s answer is $1.6 billion in new tax hikes.But the numbers show the city’s true budget problem isn’t a “revenue challenge,” as Mayor Brandon Johnson and his task force claim. It’s overspending.24 Sep 2025: Uber surcharge, property taxes, liquor prices: Chicago’s push for new taxesNew taxes on Uber, automatic property tax hikes and higher liquor taxes are all being pushed as Chicago leaders seek to spend $1 billion more than they will have.Chicago is short by $1 billion what it wants to spend in its upcoming budget, so a city task force recommended new or higher taxes and fees on rideshares, property taxes, liquor and more.….Mayor Brandon Johnson has claimed the city has a revenue problem, but city spending has grown at twice the rate of other large cities.These proposals amount to the same old playbook: rather than streamlining government, leaders are again reaching deeper into taxpayers’ pockets. Chicago’s structural deficit is driven by rising pension and personnel costs that have grown faster than revenues for a decade, as well as from using temporary funds to create permanent costs.No matter how much taxpayers give up, Chicago leaders will certainly find a way to spend more.Twitter/X threads on Martwick’s “Reasons”(click on pictures to go to X — there are embedded videos you can play and see what Martwick said.)A thread (off Stu Loren’s post):STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Unsurprisingly, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Chicago police and fire Tier 2 pension sweetener, bringing it in line with the downstate plans. However, this is not much of a gift to Chicago… or those pensioners… if those promises are never fulfilled. I look at reactions from the usual suspects: Wirepoints, Austin Berg, Jeffrey Carter, and John Arnold. And, of course, me. There will be text posts forthcoming, if you’re not into audio posts.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Episode Links News on Pritzker Signing1 Aug 2025, Chicago Tribune/Yahoo: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signs police and fire pension bill expected to cost Chicago billionsCHICAGO — Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law on Friday a measure that will provide some Chicago police officers and firefighters with higher pensions, an adjustment that will eventually cost the city’s taxpayers billions of dollars.The new law aims to bring parity between Chicago and downstate first responders and help bridge a shortfall in benefits for employees hired after 2010. Chicago police officers and firefighters argued they deserved the same benefits as downstate first responders.“The legislation codifies adjustments the city of Chicago has been implementing over the years to tackle pension system challenges and represents a proactive step to prevent more significant financial or legal issues in the future,” Pritzker spokesperson Alex Gough said in a statement. “The Governor remains committed to maintaining fiscal responsibility at all levels of government and expects the city of Chicago to implement these changes with careful planning and fiscal discipline.”1 Aug 2025, Center Square: Pritzker signs 124 bill impacting Chicago pensions, AI, buses, bicycles and moreIllinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed 124 bills Friday impacting everything from Chicago police and fire pensions to the use of artificial intelligence for mental health therapy.Effective immediately, House Bill 3657 makes changes to Tier 2 Chicago Police and Firefighter pension benefits. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said the measure was incomplete when asked how the city will pay for the bill of increased pension costs for retirees hired after 2011.“Absent progressive revenue, it’s impossible to maintain that expectation, so the best way to put it is this is incomplete,” Johnson said last month before the measure was signed.The city faces a billion dollar budget deficit for the next fiscal year starting in January.Reactions from CommentersJohn Arnold on Twitter/X: [plus commenters]Austin Ward: This raises two questions:* What did Pritzker’s evaluation of the bill reveal?* Why is it not being published?Chicagoans who will be picking up the tab for billions of dollars in pension sweeteners through higher taxes or service cuts deserve answers to those questions. What they got instead was a two-sentence quote from Pritzker spokesperson Alex Gough, who tried to spin that the bill was actually responsible:“The legislation codifies adjustments the city of Chicago has been implementing over the years to tackle pension system challenges and represents a proactive step to prevent more significant financial or legal issues in the future. The Governor remains committed to maintaining fiscal responsibility at all levels of government and expects the city of Chicago to implement these changes with careful planning and fiscal discipline.”If that’s true, the governor has an obligation to prove it.2That’s why the Chicago Policy Center sent a formal demand to the governor’s office this weekend for all records related to the evaluation of this bill. You can read the full Freedom of Information Act request letter here.Jeffrey Carter:I was at a Chicago Economic Club lunch in 2007 when I first became acutely aware of it. There was a way out then. However, at that lunch, a person stood up in the Q&A and asked about the “constitutionality” of the two public company CEO proposals. Clearly, he was a government operative.Illinois Supreme Court Judge Anne Burke (Combine), and wife of convicted felon Democratic Alderman Ed Burke, put the nail in the coffin of the ballot initiative Illinois voters approved to reform pensions. From that point on, Illinois’ solution was a Tier 1 and a Tier 2 pension system based on seniority.Pritzker blew that to pieces, and now every single public sector union will want the same deal. There is no way Pritzker won’t give it to them, and there is no way the Democratic supermajority won’t give it to them.Illinois and Chicago have some of the worst-rated muni bonds in the US. I cannot fathom how the ratings agencies do not downgrade them to junk status now. That means even higher interest rates with even more covenants in the bonds, which fall directly on taxpayers. You are deceiving yourself if you think the response of all governments in Illinois will be to cut spending. It’s not happening.Government in Illinois and the towns, counties, and cities of Illinois isn’t about governing. It’s about political patronage. Patronage allows politicians to stay in power and rule like dukes, lords, and kings over citizens. It allows them to decide where the money goes. Because they have the power of government at their fingertips, they can use the tip of the spear to enforce any decision they make, and people have to bend the knee to them.Wirepoints: The whopping lie behind huge, new pension liability imposed by Springfield on Chicago – WirepointsWhich is worse, financial malfeasance or a flagrant lie to justify it? Take your pick. Both are nothing short of astonishing when it comes to Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature Friday on a bill hiking benefits for two of Chicago’s pensions that already had been bled nearly dry.A City of Chicago actuarial analysis of the bill says the change “would increase the city’s pension liabilities by more than $11 billion across the Police and Fire funds,” the Chicago Tribune reported, while dropping the funding levels of both down to less than 18%.Those funds were already desperately underfunded, having had only 25% of the money necessary to pay out pension benefits for work already performed. They have the lowest funded ratios for local pension plans in the country.They are so poorly funded that their combined unfunded liabilities are larger than 43 states — including New York, Michigan, and Florida, according to a recent study. If Chicago does nothing and lets its pension problem continue, then “Chicago becoming the next Detroit is not just a possibility — it’s inevitable.” That’s from an op-ed last week by a former chief financial officer of the city.So, what does the state, which makes the law for city pensions, do about it? It expanded benefits while providing no funding source. Next year alone, Chicago will have to come up with an extra $60 million on its $1.5 billion pension tab in 2027, and that increase will grow to more than $753 million for 2055. That’s according to the city’s actuarial analysis, but the state didn’t even bother do its own actuarial analysis on the cost.What possible excuse does the state have for the new law?STUMP posts5 Feb 2025: Chicago and Illinois Update: Job Posting, Tier 2 "Reform", Casino Shenanigans, and MoreThat has my fave Eric Allie Rahm-can-kicking gif.9 May 2015: Illinois Pensions: A Court Ruling and on How Promises Fail11 May 2015: Illinois Pensions: How Did We Get Here? The 1970 ConstitutionSome nice lettering, at least.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

After a surprise hit tweet, I pull from something I wrote 25 years ago about using calculators in math class, ramble a bit about using technology in math classes in general, give some advice for people who want to patch holes in their math knowledge, and bring it back to Mathcamp, false proofs, and LLMs.I will have more to say about Mathcamp and fun math another time — I LOVE MATH!Episode LinksHowie HuaIt was Howie’s post that I was responding to.Howie Hua puts out lots of short math education videos for a general audience, but may be especially useful for math teachers at a variety of levels. He teaches at Fresno State, and I believe he trains K-12 math teachers.Howie’s YouTube ChannelHowie’s Learning Math Facebook page (and he is a mean rifle twirler)Howie’s Twitter (X) feedMeep Links25 Aug 2000: A tirade against calculators in math classesFalse proofs: [Remember—- they’re not true!]Screenshots of the two proofs I read in the podcast:Meep’s Math Writings at my old websiteI gave some math book recommendations in prior posts, too:Richard GottesmanRichard Gottesman is the author of the first false proof (and he was a teenager when he wrote it, knowing it was false, and I thought it was a very clever false proof.Richard Gottesman’s Facebook pageI’ve shared this post from Dr. Gottesman (he’s no longer a teenager… 25 years later!)STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Looking at the 2025 Social Security Trustees Report, which yet again shows a different exhaustion date for the Trust Fund. I address the recent increase, then drop, of Social Security payments, and as well as the revenue decrease to Social Security in the Big Beautiful Bill.Let’s look at Social Security change (not reform) proposals, too. Something will be done… but likely not until the Trust Fund is nearly exhausted. Both benefit cuts and revenue increases seem likely…but maybe some targeted benefit increases as well.Episode LinksInterlude: Social Security Benefit Spike and DropBEA: National Income and Product Accounts, Monthly, 2024-May 2025Trustees ReportThe 2025 OASDI Trustees ReportThe 2025 OASDI Trustees Report, officially called "The 2025 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds," presents the current and projected financial status of the trust funds.The Trustees Report includes many tables containing historical data and projections. For convenience, we provide the reader with links to view all of these tables in one place, without the accompanying text of the report. Note that the tables in the report generally present results only for every fifth year. Therefore, we also provide links to supplemental tables by single year for readers requiring more detail. Reference should always be made to the published report for context and explanation of terminology.Projections of the OASI Trust Fund (just Social Security retirement fund operations by itself)I think the Trustees' Report figures are somewhat busy, so I’ve re-plotted them in Excel.WSJ, 18 Jun 2025: Social Security’s Potential Insolvency Date Moves Up One YearWASHINGTON—With an aging U.S. population and a smaller share of American workers who pay into it, Social Security could become unable to pay full retirement and disability benefits in 2034, one year earlier than reported last year, the program’s trustees said Wednesday.The Social Security outlook worsened for several reasons, according to the report. Notably, in a bipartisan vote, Congress changed benefit formulas in a way that is providing more money to certain public-sector workers, including many teachers, firefighters and police officers.In many cases, those retirees had faced limits on benefits because they worked for part of their careers in jobs outside the Social Security system. In addition, the government adjusted its expectations for fertility rates.Without congressional action in the next decade, elderly and disabled Americans who receive Social Security could see their payments reduced by 19% in 2034, the report found. To shore up the system, lawmakers could raise taxes, reduce benefits or reach an agreement that combines both measures.“It’s a problem that the Trump administration and the Congress need to get their arms around,” said Wendell Primus, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.OASI Trust Fund: Income and Cost HistoryProposals for Social Security Reform26 Jun 2025, Andrew Biggs: Fix Social Security, Reduce the Trade DeficitSay, imagine a high-income couple, retiring in 2025 at the full retirement age of 67. Together, they’ll collect $94,836 in annual Social Security benefits. (I kid you not.) Assuming they each live an additional 15 years and ignoring interest, that’s $1.4 million in benefits they’ll get from Social Security.Now, imagine that couple’s Social Security benefits were reduced. Is it plausible that they wouldn’t save more to make up the difference?It’s not, and research from various countries concludes there is a substantial trade-off between government pension benefits and personal savings. In the table below I summarize some of their findings.….Note that this trade-off isn’t dollar-for-dollar. Low-income individuals don’t seem to respond very much to changes to government pension benefits. If you reduce future benefits for low-income working Americans, they don’t increase their savings very much – probably because they have so little income to save, and because they may be less financially informed regarding the benefits they would receive in the future.That’s why we have a Social Security program in the first place: to ensure a decent retirement income for people who otherwise wouldn’t save much on their own.But middle- and high-income households treat government pensions more as part of their overall retirement savings portfolio. They have a rough idea of the income they need in retirement as well as the income they’ll receive from Social Security. If Social Security benefits are increased, they’ll save a bit less on their own; if benefits are cut, they’ll save a bit more. (Retirement ages may also be affected, but I’m trying to keep things simple.)January 2025, NIRS: Roadmap for the Program’s FutureThe report finds:* Americans are united in support of Social Security. Across party lines, generations, income, and education, Americans value Social Security and see it as the cornerstone of retirement security. Just four percent of Americans say it will not be important to their income in retirement.* Rather than closing Social Security’s financing gap through benefit reductions, Americans strongly prefer bringing more revenue into the system. Eighty-five percent say we should ensure benefits are not reduced, even if it means raising taxes on some or all Americans. The most strongly preferred of all options tested is eliminating the cap on payroll tax contributions for those earning more than $400,000 per year. Additionally, Americans across all groups, including a majority of Republicans, say they are willing to pay more themselves by gradually increasing the payroll tax rate to strengthen the program’s finances.* Americans are broadly opposed to benefit reductions. Given a broad set of options to address Social Security’s financing gap, respondents reject benefit reductions such as further increases to the retirement age or switching to a slower cost-of-living adjustment.* Americans want to strengthen Social Security benefits. They support several targeted improvements including adding a caregiver credit for workers who take time out of the workforce to care for young children and a “bridge benefit” to protect from the early claiming reduction of those in physically demanding jobs who may be unable to continue working up to full retirement age.* Americans need and value Social Security’s disability benefits. Ninety percent of Americans say that they will need Social Security’s disability benefits if they become disabled and unable to support themselves through work, and only four percent support cutting disability benefits. The survey also finds strong bipartisan support for updating outdated rules in Supplemental Security Income, including its $2,000 asset limit.PDF of full reportMore specific on the numbers:● Eliminate the payroll tax cap for earnings above $400,000. The existing cap, currently at $176,100, would be preserved, while those making more than $400,000 per year, and their employers, would contribute to Social Security via payroll taxes on wages above that amount. Those affected would not receive additional benefits. This policy option was the most popular of all policy options tested. ● Gradually raise the payroll tax rate from 6.2 percent to 7.2 percent for both employers and employees. A worker earning $50,000 per year would contribute an additional $42 per month. This policy option was nearly as popular as reforming the payroll tax cap. ● Adjust the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to more accurately reflect inflation and the spending habits of older Americans. ● Provide a caregiving credit for people who take time out of the workforce to care for children under 6 — a group of workers who receive significantly lower benefits than other workers under current law. ● Provide a bridge benefit for older workers with a history of physically demanding work, to protect them from Social Security’s early retirement reduction. ● Reduce benefits for beneficiaries with higher incomes in retirement. The preferred package also included an option to reduce Social Security benefits for beneficiaries whose retirement incomes, not including Social Security, are $60,000 or more per year, or for married couples, $120,000 or more per year.PDF of report on general population attitudes26 Jun 2025, American Academy of Actuaries: Highlights from the 2025 Social Security Trustees ReportWHAT CAN BE DONEThe Trustees report shows it is unlikely that demographic or economic experience will extend the life of the reserves much beyond 2034. Therefore, policy changes will be necessary to address the impending depletion of the reserve fund.Lawmakers have a range of policy options that could close or reduce Social Security's short-term and long-term financial shortfall. Policy options include increasing system revenue, decreasing system benefits, or a combination of both.Ideas for increasing revenue include increasing tax rates on all workers, removing the cap on taxable wages, and increasing taxes paid by high-wage earners.Ideas for decreasing benefits include gradually raising the full retirement age to reflect increased longevity, increasing the number of years used in the Average Indexed Monthly Earnings (AIME) calculation, and changing the inflation index used to adjust benefits. Implementing changes sooner rather than later will allow more people to share in the needed revenue increases or reductions in scheduled benefits. The chart to the left indicates the percentage of the 75-year deficit “solved” by a few selected reform changes. Check out the Academy’s Social Security Challenge for further explanation.American Academy of Actuaries’ Social Security ChallengeOther Social Security Posts* 6 Jan 2025: Social Security Tinkering: No, It's Not Been Made Fairer (or More Solvent)* 30 Aug 2024: Podcast: Social Security and Election 2024* 7 Nov 2022: Podcast: Social Security Politics* 10 Feb 2025: On Social Security Old Age Benefits Fraud(?)* 17 Feb 2025: Visualization of Social Security Fraud(?): A STUMP Geeking-Out Special* 13 Jun 2022: Podcast: Social Security Trust Fund Running Out* 27 Feb 2023: Podcast: Doing the Math on Social Security and Medicare* 6 Sept 2021: Social Security: Benefit Terminations and the Trust Fund Running out* 18 Mar 2024: Podcast: Retirement Age, Life Expectancy, and Social Security* June 2018: Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds – What’s Real? – lots of graphs!* July 2017: Social Security: The Annual Trustee Report – Cash Flows, Tardiness, and Other Views – more graphs! [I like graphs]* May 2018: A Modest Social Security Proposal – spoiler: move the minimum eligibility age up from 62 to 65.* January 2017: Actuaries on Social Security: Bruce Schobel on Reforms, Robert Myers on History, and Richard Foster on Medicare/ACASTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of STUMP, I talk about the trends and sex gap in death by suicide in the U.S. This is just talking the numbers, so it’s fairly dispassionate, looking at the trend over the decades and by age groups. If you don’t want to hear the episode, you may want to look at the post on Substack (website or app), where I have posted graphs and tables, and you can download the spreadsheet with the numbers behind these.Episode Notes and Links988 LifelineGraphsTablesSpreadsheetSelected Prior Posts* Jan 2025: 2023 U.S. Top Causes of Death by Sex and Age Group, Finalized* Nov 2023: Movember 2023: Men's Trends with Suicide by Age* Sep 2022: World Suicide Prevention Day: U.S. Suicide Trend Update through 2021* Nov 2024: Movember 2024: Veterans and Suicide* Nov 2022: Podcast — Movember 2022: Men and Suicide* May 2022: Video: U.S. Mortality Trends 2020-2022 part 8: External causes of death* Nov 2021: Movember Fundraising: Men and Suicide* May 2017: Literal Suicide and Media* July 2017: Mortality Monday: Suicide -- the Absolute Numbers* July 2017: Mortality Monday: Suicide -- Rates* Nov 2022: Read the News with Meep: On Suicide Trends by Race (and Sex) in 2021 (and Earlier)STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

In which I talk about my late husband Stuart’s experience with advanced prostate cancer (diagnosed in 2017, died in 2024) in reaction to announcements by former President Biden and Dilbert comic strip creator Scott Adams. In addition, I talk about the statistics of prostate cancer, as well as how incidence has changed with screening recommendation changes. As PSA testing was reduced in recommendations, there has been an increase in diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer in the U.S.Episode LinksBiden announcement18 May 2025, updated 19 May 2025, NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/former-president-joe-biden-diagnosed-prostate-cancer-rcna207571Former President Joe Biden diagnosed with aggressive form of prostate cancerThe cancer has metastasized to the bone, according to the former president's personal office.….Biden's personal office shared Sunday that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, prompting an outpouring of support from politicians and allies.“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms,” his personal office said in a statement. “On Friday he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.”Metastasis means the cancer has spread from its primary site (in Biden’s cancer, the prostate) to other tissue in the body.Related STUMP posts:That second one has contrasting recommendations on prostate cancer screening. Scott Adams announcement19 May 2025, The Hill: https://thehill.com/homenews/5307779-dilbert-creator-scott-adams-reveals-same-cancer-diagnosis-as-biden-says-he-has-months-to-live/‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams reveals same cancer diagnosis as Biden, says he has months to liveScott Adams, the creator of the ‘Dilbert’ comic strip, has revealed he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones.Adams, 67, brought up the diagnosis Monday during a stream on his Rumble account, while discussing former President Joe Biden’s similar prostate cancer diagnosis.“I’ve decided that today’s the day that I’m going to take the opportunity, since a lot of you are here, to make an announcement of my own,” Adams said during his podcast. “Some of you have already guessed, so this won’t surprise you all. But I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has.”“But I’ve had it longer than he’s had it. Well, longer than he’s admitted having it,” Adams added. “So my life expectancy is maybe this summer. I expect to be checking out from this domain sometime this summer.”Adams told viewers that he had been using a walker for months due to a tumor near his spine and was in near-constant pain, describing the condition as “intolerable.”“Every day is a nightmare, and evening is even worse,” he said.Livejournal links21 August 2017: https://meep.livejournal.com/2017/08/21/ An announcementWhile others were watching the solar eclipse, I was sitting at the White Plains Cancer Center.Stu has metastatic prostate cancer. He will be doing chemo & hormone therapy. No, the survival rates aren't good for prostate cancer this advanced and at his age (55). It's like getting breast cancer young -- it's more likely to be aggressive. And this one is aggressive. As far as we can tell, no tumors in the prostate itself.We will appreciate any prayers, well-wishes, etc. For those who are Catholic, St. Peregrine may be of interest.April 2019: https://meep.livejournal.com/2164910.htmlSeptember 2024: https://meep.livejournal.com/2164910.htmlNote: I really edited that one down for the podcast. There is a lot of other stuff in the original. Stu’s death was not that surprising when it came.Movember links* 17 Nov 2024: Movember 2024: Prostate Cancer Mortality Trend Update, 1968-2023* 17 Nov 2023: Movember 2023: Racial Gap in Prostate Cancer Mortality* 1 November 2024: Movember 2024 Kickoff: In Memory of StuSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

While many are handicapping various cardinal possibilities for the next pope, often talking about doctrinal and policy differences, I’m looking at some practical issues: money and long-term finance. Looking back at some problems in the past decade and more recent court cases surrounding Vatican financial shenanigans. Can’t anyone around here do good governance?Episode LinksThe Pillar2 May 2025: UK court orders Vatican to pay Mincione millions in legal costsThe High Court of England and Wales has ordered the Vatican Secretariat of State to pay millions of dollars in legal fees to Raffaele Mincione, the investment manager who sold the Vatican the building at the center of the London property scandal.19 Mar 2025: Vatican court: Auditor cannot bring ‘immoral and indecent’ evidence at appealJudges told the Vatican’s former auditor general that his termination lawsuit can not move forward unless his lawyers exclude from their case evidence that judges consider “immoral and indecent” — including evidence of alleged financial misconduct that could harm the “good name” of high-ranking Vatican officials.The directive came from Vatican City judges considering whether to admit former Vatican auditor Libero Milone’s appeal against the 2024 rejection of his wrongful termination lawsuit.15 Apr 2025: Does Pope Francis need to appoint a Vatican ‘special prosecutor’?Messages exchanged between witnesses in the Vatican financial crimes trial appear to show collusion between them as they prepared to give evidence, according to new Italian media reports.The Pillar’s Vatican Finances categorySTUMP Related Links30 March 2017: Pensions at the Supreme Court: Church PlansI am not a lawyer, but this is pretty bad that it was allowed to go along in uncertainty for so long.But there’s a reason it was never brought up legally before now.It’s because now, many of these pensions are bankrupt. And the pensioners are finding they have no backstop whatsoever, unlike with regular private pension plans, which provide cover via ERISA and the PBGC.There’s also the issue of multiple mergers, orphaned plans, etc.….I’m fine with cutting down the various departments making new law via their rules-making (and the wiggle room people have found is that the letters aren’t official offical rules-making. Though they come from the IRS. And interpret the rules.) But many government-career-types might not like this.I am not looking forward to millions if not billions of increased liabilities on Catholic parishoners in the case of an adverse ruling, but if they really are church plans, the Church needs to be fulfilling its promises.12 Sept 2018: Trying to Deflect the Blame: Calpers and the Catholic Church (and Trump!)No, you cannot be silent in the face of evil. I understand there is repentance, but ffs, when alcoholic priests were treated and repented… nobody was so foolish to tell nobody of that weakness, and definitely not to allow the priest full run of the sacramental wine. Similarly for priests who embezzled — they no longer were allowed to handle any parish finances… or ANY finances… under church authority.21 Oct 2020: Read the News with Meep: Vatican Credit Bets, Trump Taxes, Houston Pension Governance, and More!Speaking as a Catholic who has donated to not only my local parish, but also my archdiocese (New York), and global Catholic concerns (Catholic Relief Services), I have a simple question: why are any clergy running church finances? There’s a reason each parish is supposed to have a lay finance council. (The reason: actual experience with priests absconding with church funds). Indeed, I am far more likely to suspect churchmen over money than any other shenanigans, except possibly alcoholism.Given the even-swampier aspects of Vatican politics, I would be surprised if the Vatican tries Becciu on any financial shenanigans. I don’t even care if they do.Turns out, they did try Becciu, and convicted him.From farther down in that post:By the way, Today’s Mass reading is from the Gospel of Luke [Luke 12:39-48]:[47] That servant who knew his master’s willbut did not make preparations nor act in accord with his willshall be beaten severely;[48] and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s willbut acted in a way deserving of a severe beatingshall be beaten only lightly.Much will be required of the person entrusted with much,and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”The cardinals would do well to remember that. And remember why Dante placed so many cardinals and Popes in Inferno.23 Aug 2022: Podcast - Public Pensions, ESG, DeSantis, and The Catholic Church22 Nov 2024: Post-Election Public Finance and Pension Round-Up12 Apr 2025: Podcast - Vatican Pensions: Will the Participants Get Their Promised Benefits?I look at recent coverage from The Pillar, which had gotten a report from 2015 on the parlous state of Vatican pensions for lay employees, and updated reporting in 2025 on the current state of pensions. I discuss the problem of unfunded pensions from a Catholic perspective, given these are pensions sponsored by the Vatican sovereign.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

I look at recent coverage from The Pillar, which had gotten a report from 2015 on the parlous state of Vatican pensions for lay employees, and updated reporting in 2025 on the current state of pensions. I discuss the problem of unfunded pensions from a Catholic perspective, given these are pensions sponsored by the Vatican sovereign.Episode LinksThe Pillar Coverage7 April 2025: Vatican pension deficit estimated at 1.4 billion euros — 10 years agoVatican officials warned the fund would be 'unmanagable' in a decade, ten years before Pope Francis warned of 'difficult decisions' to come.The Holy See pension fund had an unfunded liability of almost 1.5 billion euros a decade ago, according to internal Vatican financial reports obtained by The Pillar.The same documents show that Vatican financial authorities proposed measures to address the pension problem in 2015, while sources say that “virtually nothing” was done to implement those measures in the intervening years.Meanwhile, the fund has continued into the red, in line with the Holy See’s broad financial crisis, raising serious doubts about the Vatican’s ability to pay the pensions of lay and clerical employees.The Vatican has not confirmed the size of the current unfunded liability, but Vatican financial officials warn that the situation has only deteriorated in recent years.The magnitude of unfunded liability — dating back years sheds — new light on Pope Francis’ decision in November last year to appoint Cardinal Kevin Farrell to oversee the fund as sole director, and to warn that the pension fund would be unable to meet its obligations “in the medium term.”22 Nov 2024: Vatican union wary of pension fund ‘maneuver’Vatican City’s trade union expressed concern Thursday at Pope Francis’ announcement of sweeping changes to the Vatican’s pension fund.The Association of Vatican Lay Workers, known by its Italian initials ADLV, complained Nov. 21 that Vatican’s management of the pension fund has long been opaque, and said employees were “exhausted by cuts.”The ADLV was responding to Pope Francis’ declaration that the Vatican needed to introduce “urgent structural measures” to ensure the sustainability of its pension fund.In a Nov. 21 letter to cardinals and heads of curial departments, the pope said independent experts had highlighted “a serious prospective imbalance in the fund,” which meant “the current system is not able to guarantee in the medium term the fulfillment of the pension obligation for future generations.”21 Nov 2024: Francis names Cardinal Farrell as Vatican ‘pension czar’Pope Francis announced Thursday that he has appointed Cardinal Kevin Farrell as the sole director of the pension fund for the Holy See, covering former employees of both the Roman curia and the Vatican city state.Francis took the decision, he said in a letter to the College of Cardinals and officials of curia, in the light of “a serious prospective imbalance of the fund” leaving it unable to meet its obligations.“Unfortunately,” said the pope, “at the end of the latest in-depth analyses carried out by independent experts, indicates a serious prospective imbalance of the fund, whose dimension tends to widen over time in the absence of interventions.”“In concrete terms, this means that the current system is not able to guarantee in the medium term the fulfillment of the pension obligation for future generations.”Pillar coverage categoriesVatican financeVatican financesPrior STUMP piecesVatican coverage in November 2024 in here:On church plans not covered by ERISA:Oh wait, what isn’t covered by ERISA?Public pensions.(also “church plans” which also controversial…. but I will drop that for now)Catholic contentCatechism for the Catholic Church: Article 7, The Seventh CommandmentArticle 7 The Seventh CommandmentTHE SEVENTH COMMANDMENTYou shall not steal.2401 The seventh commandment forbids unjustly taking or keeping the goods of one's neighbor and wronging him in any way with respect to his goods. It commands justice and charity in the care of earthly goods and the fruits of men's labor. For the sake of the common good, it requires respect for the universal destination of goods and respect for the right to private property. Christian life strives to order this world's goods to God and to fraternal charity.Other paragraphs:2410 Promises must be kept and contracts strictly observed to the extent that the commitments made in them are morally just. A significant part of economic and social life depends on the honoring of contracts between physical or moral persons - commercial contracts of purchase or sale, rental or labor contracts. All contracts must be agreed to and executed in good faith.2411 Contracts are subject to commutative justice which regulates exchanges between persons in accordance with a strict respect for their rights. Commutative justice obliges strictly; it requires safeguarding property rights, paying debts, and fulfilling obligations freely contracted. Without commutative justice, no other form of justice is possible.One distinguishes commutative justice from legal justice which concerns what the citizen owes in fairness to the community, and from distributive justice which regulates what the community owes its citizens in proportion to their contributions and needs.2412 In virtue of commutative justice, reparation for injustice committed requires the restitution of stolen goods to their owner:Jesus blesses Zacchaeus for his pledge: "If I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold." Those who, directly or indirectly, have taken possession of the goods of another, are obliged to make restitution of them, or to return the equivalent in kind or in money, if the goods have disappeared, as well as the profit or advantages their owner would have legitimately obtained from them. Likewise, all who in some manner have taken part in a theft or who have knowingly benefited from it - for example, those who ordered it, assisted in it, or received the stolen goods - are obliged to make restitution in proportion to their responsibility and to their share of what was stolen.2434 A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice. In determining fair pay both the needs and the contributions of each person must be taken into account. "Remuneration for work should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good." Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages.The Parable of the Wise and Foolish VirginsMatthew 25: 1 - 13, KJV25 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.5 While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.6 And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.9 But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.11 Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.12 But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.13 Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. 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In which we look at the antithesis of DOGE (plus some other vocabulary words): the real Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the fictional Circumlocution Office, and what is the point of cutting all these rinky-dink agencies?Episode LinksCONTINUING THE REDUCTION OF THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACYhttps://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/continuing-the-reduction-of-the-federal-bureaucracy/By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:Section 1. Purpose. This order continues the reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary.Sec. 2. Reducing the Scope of the Federal Bureaucracy.(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, the non-statutory components and functions of the following governmental entities shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law:(i) the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service;(ii) the United States Agency for Global Media;(iii) the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution;(iv) the Institute of Museum and Library Services;(v) the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness;(vi) the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund; and(vii) the Minority Business Development Agency.(b) Within 7 days of the date of this order, the head of each governmental entity listed in subsection (a) of this section shall submit a report to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget confirming full compliance with this order and explaining which components or functions of the governmental entity, if any, are statutorily required and to what extent.(c) In reviewing budget requests submitted by the governmental entities listed in subsection (a) of this section, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget or the head of any executive department or agency charged with reviewing grant requests by such entities shall, to the extent consistent with applicable law and except insofar as necessary to effectuate an expected termination, reject funding requests for such governmental entities to the extent they are inconsistent with this order.Daily Wire on FMCShttps://x.com/lukerosiak/status/190241237431892383319 March 2025, Daily Wire: Inside The Now-Shuttered Federal Agency Where Employees Lived ‘Like Reigning Kings’One of the seven small federal agencies that President Donald Trump ordered downsized or eliminated on Friday was rife with corruption, with its employees hiring friends and relatives, commissioning paintings of themselves, and using government credit cards to indulge in constant luxuries.The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) occupied a nine-story office tower on D.C.’s K Street for only 60 employees, many of whom actually worked from home, prior to the pandemic. Its managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms; one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed, while another used her bathroom as a cigarette lounge. FMCS recorded its director as being on a years-long business trip to D.C. so he could have all of his meals and living expenses covered by taxpayers, simply for showing up to the office.FMCS is a 230-employee agency that exists to serve as a voluntary mediator between unions and businesses. As an “independent agency,” its director nominally reports to the president, but the agency is so small that in effect, there is no oversight at all — and it showed, becoming a real-life caricature of all the excesses that the Department of Government Efficiency has alleged take place in government.….FMCS seemed, quite clearly, to exist for the benefit of those on its payroll, and not much else. One employee told me: “Let me give you the honest truth: A lot of FMCS employees don’t do a hell of a lot, including myself. Personally, the reason that I’ve stayed is that I just don’t feel like working that hard, plus the location on K Street is great, plus we all have these oversized offices with windows, plus management doesn’t seem to care if we stay out at lunch a long time. Can you blame me?”“Recreation and reception fund.”Top FMCS official George Cohen used a “recreation and reception fund” to order champagne and $200 coasters for his office, and to purchase artwork painted by his wife. The tiny agency commissioned paintings of its top employees — as one employee told me, “like they were reigning kings or something…I’ve never seen anything like it before.” It spent $2,402 retouching the portrait of someone who briefly held the top job in an acting capacity.….When Charles Burton retired from FMCS, he incorporated an LLC to which another FMCS employee paid $85,000 using his purchase card, listing it as a “Call Center Service,” even though the company had neither a website nor a working phone.When an accountant, Carol Booth, blew the whistle on financial abuses to the General Services Administration, which manages purchase cards and contracting, Cohen forced her to send an email (which he wrote under her name) rescinding her statement.Like something out of “The Office,” the employees spent an inordinate amount of time and money congratulating one another for being employed there and engaging in “work” that really amounted to pampering themselves.….What surprised me most about my FMCS investigation was what happened afterward: nothing. An inspector general made a referral to the FBI, but there were no prosecutions. Instead, President Barack Obama nominated a chief subject of the investigation to the top job.A decade later, Trump has done what even the agency’s own employees said should happen: shut it down.Circumlocution OfficeLittle Dorrit, Project GutenbergThere’s a good miniseries from 2008: IMDB ListingIt stars Clare Foy and Matthew McFayden. Andy Serkis is the villain.The miniseries is available on Prime: Little Dorrit - alas, I don’t think the Circumlocution Office comes up in this adaptation. That’s the benefit of reading the book. CHAPTER 10. Containing the whole Science of GovernmentThe Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government. No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office.This glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country, was first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had been foremost to study that bright revelation and to carry its shining influence through the whole of the official proceedings. Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving—HOW NOT TO DO IT.Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to overtop all the public departments; and the public condition had risen to be—what it was.It is true that How not to do it was the great study and object of all public departments and professional politicians all round the Circumlocution Office. It is true that every new premier and every new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it. It is true that from the moment when a general election was over, every returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn’t been done, and who had been asking the friends of the honourable gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn’t been done, and who had been asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be done, began to devise, How it was not to be done. It is true that the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session through, uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your respective chambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech, at the close of such session, virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have through several laborious months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do it, and you have found out; and with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest (natural, not political), I now dismiss you. All this is true, but the Circumlocution Office went beyond it.Because the Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day, keeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How not to do it, in motion. Because the Circumlocution Office was down upon any ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be by any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute, and a memorandum, and a letter of instructions that extinguished him. It was this spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that had gradually led to its having something to do with everything. Mechanicians, natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, memorialists, people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances, people who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people, people who couldn’t get rewarded for merit, and people who couldn’t get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked up under the foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office.Numbers of people were lost in the Circumlocution Office. Unfortunates with wrongs, or with projects for the general welfare (and they had better have had wrongs at first, than have taken that bitter English recipe for certainly getting them), who in slow lapse of time and agony had passed safely through other public departments; who, according to rule, had been bullied in this, over-reached by that, and evaded by the other; got referred at last to the Circumlocution Office, and never reappeared in the light of day. Boards sat upon them, secretaries minuted upon them, commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, entered, checked, and ticked them off, and they melted away. In short, all the business of the country went through the Circumlocution Office, except the business that never came out of it; and its name was Legion.Sometimes, angry spirits attacked the Circumlocution Office. Sometimes, parliamentary questions were asked about it, and even parliamentary motions made or threatened about it by demagogues so low and ignorant as to hold that the real recipe of government was, How to do it. Then would the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, in whose department it was to defend the Circumlocution Office, put an orange in his pocket, and make a regular field-day of the occasion. Then would he come down to that house with a slap upon the table, and meet the honourable gentleman foot to foot. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that the Circumlocution Office not only was blameless in this matter, but was commendable in this matter, was extollable to the skies in this matter. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that, although the Circumlocution Office was invariably right and wholly right, it never was so right as in this matter. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that it would have been more to his honour, more to his credit, more to his good taste, more to his good sense, more to half the dictionary of commonplaces, if he had left the Circumlocution Office alone, and never approached this matter. Then would he keep one eye upon a coach or crammer from the Circumlocution Office sitting below the bar, and smash the honourable gentleman with the Circumlocution Office account of this matter. And although one of two things always happened; namely, either that the Circumlocution Office had nothing to say and said it, or that it had something to say of which the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, blundered one half and forgot the other; the Circumlocution Office was always voted immaculate by an accommodating majority.[chapter passes]‘Mr Clennam?’ said Mr Barnacle. ‘Be seated.’Mr Clennam became seated.‘You have called on me, I believe,’ said Mr Barnacle, ‘at the Circumlocution—’ giving it the air of a word of about five-and-twenty syllables—‘Office.’‘I have taken that liberty.’Mr Barnacle solemnly bent his head as who should say, ‘I do not deny that it is a liberty; proceed to take another liberty, and let me know your business.’‘Allow me to observe that I have been for some years in China, am quite a stranger at home, and have no personal motive or interest in the inquiry I am about to make.’Mr Barnacle tapped his fingers on the table, and, as if he were now sitting for his portrait to a new and strange artist, appeared to say to his visitor, ‘If you will be good enough to take me with my present lofty expression, I shall feel obliged.’‘I have found a debtor in the Marshalsea Prison of the name of Dorrit, who has been there many years. I wish to investigate his confused affairs so far as to ascertain whether it may not be possible, after this lapse of time, to ameliorate his unhappy condition. The name of Mr Tite Barnacle has been mentioned to me as representing some highly influential interest among his creditors. Am I correctly informed?’It being one of the principles of the Circumlocution Office never, on any account whatever, to give a straightforward answer, Mr Barnacle said, ‘Possibly.’‘On behalf of the Crown, may I ask, or as private individual?’‘The Circumlocution Department, sir,’ Mr Barnacle replied, ‘may have possibly recommended—possibly—I cannot say—that some public claim against the insolvent estate of a firm or copartnership to which this person may have belonged, should be enforced. The question may have been, in the course of official business, referred to the Circumlocution Department for its consideration. The Department may have either originated, or confirmed, a Minute making that recommendation.’‘I assume this to be the case, then.’‘The Circumlocution Department,’ said Mr Barnacle, ‘is not responsible for any gentleman’s assumptions.’‘May I inquire how I can obtain official information as to the real state of the case?’‘It is competent,’ said Mr Barnacle, ‘to any member of the—Public,’ mentioning that obscure body with reluctance, as his natural enemy, ‘to memorialise the Circumlocution Department. Such formalities as are required to be observed in so doing, may be known on application to the proper branch of that Department.’‘Which is the proper branch?’‘I must refer you,’ returned Mr Barnacle, ringing the bell, ‘to the Department itself for a formal answer to that inquiry.’‘Excuse my mentioning—’‘The Department is accessible to the—Public,’ Mr Barnacle was always checked a little by that word of impertinent signification, ‘if the—Public approaches it according to the official forms; if the—Public does not approach it according to the official forms, the—Public has itself to blame.’Mr Barnacle made him a severe bow, as a wounded man of family, a wounded man of place, and a wounded man of a gentlemanly residence, all rolled into one; and he made Mr Barnacle a bow, and was shut out into Mews Street by the flabby footman.‘I want to know—’‘Look here. Upon my soul you mustn’t come into the place saying you want to know, you know,’ remonstrated Barnacle junior, turning about and putting up the eye-glass.‘I want to know,’ said Arthur Clennam, who had made up his mind to persistence in one short form of words, ‘the precise nature of the claim of the Crown against a prisoner for debt, named Dorrit.’‘I say. Look here. You really are going it at a great pace, you know. Egad, you haven’t got an appointment,’ said Barnacle junior, as if the thing were growing serious.‘I want to know,’ said Arthur, and repeated his case.Barnacle junior stared at him until his eye-glass fell out, and then put it in again and stared at him until it fell out again. ‘You have no right to come this sort of move,’ he then observed with the greatest weakness. ‘Look here. What do you mean? You told me you didn’t know whether it was public business or not.’‘I have now ascertained that it is public business,’ returned the suitor, ‘and I want to know’—and again repeated his monotonous inquiry.Its effect upon young Barnacle was to make him repeat in a defenceless way, ‘Look here! Upon my SOUL you mustn’t come into the place saying you want to know, you know!’ The effect of that upon Arthur Clennam was to make him repeat his inquiry in exactly the same words and tone as before. The effect of that upon young Barnacle was to make him a wonderful spectacle of failure and helplessness. Office SpaceIMDB listing for Office SpaceQuotes:Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.Bob Porter: Don't... don't care?Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.Bob Slydell: Eight?Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.Bill Lumbergh: Hello Peter, what's happening? Ummm, I'm gonna need you to go ahead come in tomorrow. So if you could be here around 9 that would be great, mmmk... oh oh! and I almost forgot ahh, I'm also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, kay. We ahh lost some people this week and ah, we sorta need to play catch up.Dom Portwood: Hi, Peter. What's happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports.Peter Gibbons: Yeah. The coversheet. I know, I know. Uh, Bill talked to me about it.Dom Portwood: Yeah. Did you get that memo?Peter Gibbons: Yeah. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. And the problem is just that I forgot the one time. And I've already taken care of it so it's not even really a problem anymore.Dom Portwood: Ah! Yeah. It's just we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that'd be great. All right!STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

A look at some recent stories on ESG (Economic, Social, and Governance factors) and investments for retirement funds: one from a private sector defined contribution plan, and two states running into issues with ESG and their public pension funds. In all three cases, fiduciaries are getting squeezed by third parties (who are not fiduciaries) based on attitudes towards ESG in investment strategy.Episode LinksAmerican Airlines, 401(k), ESG and ERISAReuters, 11 Jan 2025: American Airlines' focus on ESG in retirement plan is illegal, US judge rulesA federal judge in Texas on Friday said American Airlines (AAL.O), opens new tab violated federal law by basing investment decisions for its employee retirement plan on environmental, social and other non-financial factors.The ruling by U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor appeared to be the first of its kind amid growing backlash by conservatives to an uptick in socially-conscious investing.O'Connor said American had breached its legal duty to make investment decisions based solely on the financial interests of 401(k) plan beneficiaries by allowing BlackRock (BLK.N), opens new tab, its asset manager and a major shareholder, to focus on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors.….BlackRock, which on Thursday said it was leaving an environmentally focused investor group under pressure from Republican politicians, is not involved in the lawsuit.In November, BlackRock and two rival asset managers were sued by 11 Republican-led states who claim the firms violated federal antitrust law through climate activism that reduced coal production and caused energy costs to increase. BlackRock called the claims baseless.WSJ, 23 Nov 2022: Biden Puts Your 401(k) to ESG WorkThe Biden regulatory machine doesn’t rest, even in Thanksgiving week. On Tuesday the Labor Department finalized a rule that empowers retirement plan sponsors to invest based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and put your 401(k) to progressive political work.The Labor Department casts its rule as a mere clarification of the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (Erisa), which requires that retirement plan sponsors act “solely in the interest” of participants and beneficiaries. A Trump Labor rule barred retirement managers from considering factors that weren’t material to financial performance and risk.Asset managers and union pension plans claimed the Trump rule limited their discretion to consider such ESG factors as climate, workforce diversity and labor relations. The Biden DOL says it created a “chilling effect” on ESG investing. Its replacement rule gives plan sponsors nearly unlimited discretion and legal protection to invest based on these often political considerations.“A fiduciary may reasonably conclude that climate-related factors” including “government regulations and policies to mitigate climate change, can be relevant to a risk/return analysis of an investment,” the rule says. Ditto workforce diversity, inclusion and labor relations since they may affect employee hiring, retention and productivity.STUMP, Nov 2022: ESG and ERISA: Pity the Poor Tort Lawyers Their Lost Business as Biden Gives a Safe Harbor For NowThe ESG funds already existed, for what it’s worth. They’ve existed for decades. But they were niche, having to sell via retail, attracting customers one-by-one. Some people are willing to pay the extra fees these funds charge, but it also costs more to acquire customers one-by-one.The big money is attracting big buckets of money at a time — i.e., official retirement accounts through employment. But that’s why we have legislation like ERISA, because yes, we know that big piles of money attract all sorts of players.One of the results of ERISA is that tort lawyers can seek big paydays via class action lawsuits against ERISA fiduciaries. It keeps the fiduciaries in line, usually the deep-pocket employers, who select the fund managers and funds for private pensions and 401(k)s. In general, for 401(k) funds, the lawsuits were around fee levels being too high. There had been a few lawsuits over default fund choices.The point of all this is to help the inherent principal-agent problem at the heart of all this — the principal here is the employee who is having deferred compensation invested on their behalf, and multiple agents are acting for them: the employer and the fund managers in particular.The employer may have something of an aligned interest, but they may care more about their reputation as an “enlightened” player in using ESG funds in their pension. So watch out, those with DB pensions!As for fund managers, no, they don’t necessarily align their interests with those with 401(k)s. They get their fees as a percentage of the assets under management, usually, no matter the performance. They can lose assets if customers aren’t happy, but many people don’t change their allocations once their money is deposited.ERISA imposes a fiduciary duty on these players, and in one particular, the employers in selecting appropriate funds for default choices in 401(k)s. Before this latest move by the Biden admin, the fiduciary duty meant the focus was the financial performance of the fund (and thus focused on the investment strategy and the fees charged), and so this kept a rein on how outlandish the funds could get.The balancing powers were the tort lawyers who could break out class action lawsuits against these sponsoring employers. I have seen what I considered absurd lawsuits over a few basis point difference in fees (0.01 percentage point = 1 basis point — a standard unit for asset management fees).Given that ESG funds definitely have higher fees, and by necessity will have lower returns than other funds, of course, prior ERISA interpretations of fiduciary duty requiring a focus on investment returns would have deterred sponsors from chasing the ESG dream.Ohio Public Pensions and ESG15 Jan 2025, ALEC: New Ohio Law Follows ALEC Model to Protect Pensioners and TaxpayersIn December, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed Senate Bill 6, which codified the gold standard of state fiduciary rules to protect public pension beneficiaries and taxpayers. The legislation follows the principles laid out in the ALEC model State Government Employee Retirement Protection Act, one of the ALEC Essential Policy Solutions for 2025.Senate Bill 6 was sponsored by the late Ohio State Senator Kirk Schuring. His legislation requires that fiduciaries only consider pecuniary factors—those having a material effect on the financial risk and return—when making investment decisions. This standard ensures that funds contributed toward pension benefits are used solely for the financial interests of participants and beneficiaries. Other states including Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia have implemented similar protections.Politically motivated investment strategies do not help public pension systems provide for retirement security. In recent years, some investment firms and pension systems have focused on strategies like ESG (environmental, social, and governance) rather than maximizing returns. They have also used their control of proxy votes to influence company decisions in ways that go against the financial interests or workers, retirees, and taxpayers. The latest edition of ALEC’s Unaccountable and Unaffordable reports that state pension liabilities total nearly $7 trillion, or just under $21,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Using these funds for political crusades instead of prioritizing investment returns can exacerbate the problem of unfunded liabilities, requiring additional contributions from taxpayers and pensioners.As Andy Puzder and Mike Edleson explained in The Wall Street Journal, and as ALEC research shows, politicized investing yields lower returns than investing without political constraints – a story that California knows all too well. CalPERS, California’s largest pension system, decided to divest from all tobacco-related stocks in 2001. Two decades later, the tobacco stock divestment has cost California public sector workers and retirees at least $3.5 billion.Pensions are designed to securely provide retirement to public employees. Contributions are paid out during employment and benefits are paid out after retirement. To operate according to their design, the funds must be invested with this focus on financial risk and return. Thanks to the enactment of Senate Bill 6, taxpayers in Ohio can be sure that political and social objectives are not being prioritized over the health of public pension plans.12 Dec 2024, ai-CIO: Ohio Passes Bill Barring State Pension Funds, University Endowments From Prioritizing ESG in Investing, Stakeholder ActivismA bill passed in Ohio seeks to limit the state’s five public pension funds, the workers’ compensation bureau and university endowments in the state from perusing investments influenced by social and environmental policy. Ohio Senate Bill 6, passed on Tuesday, will also aim to ban funds from engaging in shareholder activism.The bill passed in the Ohio Senate in May 2023, by a vote of 26 to 7. The House passed the bill on Tuesday, 62 to 27, and it now awaits a signature from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.The bill cites the fiduciary duty of the governing boards of the pensions, compensation bureau and endowments and requires them to “make investment decisions with the sole purpose of maximizing the return on its investments.”It goes on to order that each of the named funds’ boards “shall not adopt a policy, or take any action to promote a policy, under which the board makes investment decisions with the primary purpose of influencing any social or environmental policy or attempting to influence the governance of any corporation.”STUMP, Dec 2024: Pensions Round-Up: ESG, Skipping Payments, Technological Debt, and More!Poor corporate governance can lead to all sorts of bad results. You want to influence corporate governance as a large investor. It will affect the value of your investment!I can give all sorts of examples — in terms of corporate governance with poor alignment with investors when you get management capture. (aka the good ole principal-agent problem.)You want to influence how the top executives are compensated (that’s governance). You want to influence how the board of directors, especially outsider directors, are selected (that’s governance). You want to make sure that interests are aligned and that you don’t get, say, a bunch of people snowed by a charismatic CEO in an area they know nothing about.Maine PERS Divestment11 July 2024, Maine Morning Star: Activists and Maine Public Employee Retirement System at odds over fossil fuel divestment progressRoughly 50 activists and beneficiaries of the Maine Public Employee Retirement System rallied in Augusta on Thursday outside the MainePERS board meeting to demand that its members make more progress in fully divesting from fossil fuels. However, according to MainePERS officials, the system has made the changes required by state law.“We felt like we were making progress but after this last rebuttal that was released, it’s clear that it was superficial progress,” said Hope Light, campaign manager for Divest Maine, the coalition of MainePERS beneficiaries and climate advocates, associated with groups such as the Sierra Club and Third Act Maine, behind the demonstration.At the request of the coalition, MainePERS had agreed to look into public equity indexing approaches that balance financial targets and lower fossil fuel exposure, which have been used by other pension funds, such as CalSTRS. However, in a board of trustees public meeting packet released this week, MainePERS concluded that its current passive approach to investing in public equities remains optimal for meeting the system’s investment goals.….In a presentation to the Legislature’s Labor and Housing Committee about divestment in March, MainePERS officials said the system’s fossil fuel investment exposure fell from 7.8% of the fund’s assets in 2022 to 6.5% in 2023, decreasing by $193 million. MainePERS’ exposure to fossil fuels is likely to decline by a third by 2026 as investments expire, the officials estimated. However, MainePERS CEO Rebecca Wyke said that fully divesting would not be in the best financial interests of beneficiaries.16 Dec 2024, P&I: MainePERS cuts fossil-fuel holdings but won't divest completely by Jan. 1, 2026, deadlineThe Maine Public Employees Retirement System, Augusta, reduced its fossil fuel investments to 6.1%, or $1.21 billion, of total pension assets for the fiscal year ended June 30, down from 6.5% for the year-ago period, said a pension system report describing the progress mandated by a 2021 fossil-fuel divestment law.Although the law directed MainePERS to divest all fossil fuel holdings by Jan. 1, 2026, the report, like previous annual reports, said total divesting by that deadline would incur significant costs and hamper the $20 billion pension system’s investment strategy.“Achieving and maintaining a completely fossil fuel-free portfolio by 2026 would require both disposing of significant existing investments as well as making undesirable fundamental changes to MainePERS’ investment approach,” said the report presented Dec. 12 at the pension systems’ trustees’ monthly meeting.“MainePERS’ holdings of fossil fuel investments are widespread, with a majority of asset classes containing at least some fossil fuel exposure,” the report said.9 Jan 2025, Maine PERS, Board of Trustees, Public Meeting PacketFiduciary Duty of Trustees As noted above, the MainePERS Board of Trustees owes fiduciary duties to MainePERS’ members, retirees, and beneficiaries. First, the Board owes a duty of loyalty, which means to follow the exclusive benefit rule established in the Maine Constitution by acting solely in the interests of the members, retirees, and beneficiaries as recipients of retirement or related benefits. This duty includes not using the Board’s position of trust for personal gain or to advance other causes. Second, the Board owes a duty of prudence. This requires the exercise of reasonable care, skill, and caution. In making investment decisions, prudence requires considering the portfolio as a whole, the role each investment plays in the portfolio, and diversification. See 18-B M.R.S. §§ 804, 902, 903. Additionally, the Board “may incur only costs that are reasonable in relation to the trust property, the purposes of the trust and the skills of the” Board. 18-B M.R.S. § 805. The fossil fuel divestment statute does not alter these fiduciary duties. Analyzing this and the for-profit prison divestment statute, the Attorney General’s Office explains: The subject statutes do not affect the Board’s exercise of its fiduciary duties. And they do not require the Board to either cease investing in or divest such holdings unless sound investment criteria and fiduciary obligations require such actions. Both statutes specifically condition their directives on “accordance with sound investment criteria” and “consisten[cy] with fiduciary obligations.” As such, they reiterate rather than modify the Board’s fiduciary obligations as a trustee – both constitutional and statutory.The Attorney General’s Office further explains: The Board’s focus should remain on adhering to sound investment criteria and fulfilling its fiduciary obligations. However, if the Board encounters a situation where the application of sound investment criteria and its fiduciary obligations neither favors nor disfavors either of two potential investment options, the Board shall pursue the option that more closely complies with the directives of [the divestment statutes]. (Appendix D). This analysis echoes that provided by the Attorney General to the Joint Standing Committee on Labor and Housing when the bills that became the divestment statutes were under consideration. (Appendix C). At that time, the Attorney General also alerted the Legislature that fiduciary duties would render the bill’s divestment requirement “essentially hollow.” “Unless a failure to divest an asset would be a breach of the Trustees’ existing fiduciary duties (i.e., not in best interest of the members), any attempt to enforce the statutory requirement to divest would be meritless.” (Appendix C).Alex Edmans on ESG via InvestOramaThe End of ESG - Alex Edmans (2/2)On ESG MetricsSo if ESG was just objective, then it'd be really hard to get a competitive edge. You wouldn't even need people, you could just have a computer algorithm doing it. So what I really think is the really exciting potential of ESG, is it's messy. You need to get your hands dirty. These are difficult things to understand, and this is where human experience and business judgment really comes to play. This is why I do believe that ESG can still outperform even in a world in which we have big data and artificial intelligence. […] Anything important about investing is subjective.On DiversityThere's so many other aspects of a person than their diversity, and in fact, this is actually bad for minorities, because then people think, okay, you're a good director because of your minority characteristic, and this actually underplays the actual experience and challenge that you might be bringing to the boardOn drivers of company value ESG is often put on a pedestal compared to other drivers of company value. ESG is very important. But many other things are important, such as strategy, operational performance, capital allocation, and so on. So why is it that we are just looking at the ESG characteristics of an investment and not all these other characteristics which could be just as or even more important than ESG?STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Weaving together Linda Stratmann’s book The Secret Poisoner, on the development of forensic toxicology in Victorian England (primarily) through infamous poison murder cases, and a recent interview with outgoing Secretary of the HHS, Xavier Becerra. Trust and its loss are key themes of both stories.Episode LinksThe Secret Poisoner and Linda StratmannThe Secret Poisoner: A Century of MurderMurder by poison alarmed, enthralled, and in some ways even defined the Victorian age. Linda Stratmann’s dark and splendid social history reveals the nineteenth century as a gruesome battleground where poisoners went head-to-head with scientific and legal authorities who strove to detect poisons, control their availability, and bring the guilty to justice. Separating fact from Hollywood fiction, Stratmann corrects many misconceptions about particular poisons and their deadly effects. She also documents how the motives for poisoning—which often involved domestic unhappiness—evolved as marriage and child protection laws began to change. Combining archival research with vivid storytelling, Stratmann charts the era’s inexorable rise of poison cases.Linda Stratmann’s website: https://www.lindastratmann.com/About Linda Stratmann:After taking my O levels, I left school, and trained to be a chemist’s dispenser with Boots. I was first married at the age of 18 and my son was born when I was 20. Whatever I was destined to be it was not a housewife, and I took my A levels and went to Newcastle University in 1971, graduating with first class honours in psychology three years later. I then joined the civil service, and trained to be an Inspector of Taxes.….In 2001 I left the civil service, and in 2002 was commissioned to write my first published book on the history of chloroform.Since then I have written several more books on historical true crime, and three biographies; also two crime fiction series set in Victorian England featuring female sleuths, Frances Doughty and Mina Scarletti. I am currently writing a series about the cases of a youthful Sherlock Holmes. I have been a member of the Crime Writers Association since 2004 and was Chair from 2019 to 2021.Washington Post Interview with Xavier Becerra12 Jan 2025, WaPo, by Dan Diamond: ‘I can’t go toe to toe with social media.’ Top U.S. health official reflects, regrets.As they entered office at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2021, Xavier Becerra and his allies had a plan to restore Americans' faith in the nation's beleaguered public health agencies.Becerra, tapped by President Joe Biden to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, empowered career government scientists and experts muzzled under the Trump administration. Biden officials took on social media posts they said spread disinformation about coronavirus vaccines, urging Facebook and other companies to remove them. The White House mounted a nationwide vaccination campaign, convinced the results would win over skeptics.…."I can't go toe to toe with social media," Becerra said in a wide-ranging interview Wednesday, arguing that even a Cabinet secretary can be hemmed in. As examples, Becerra cited the lawsuits the Biden administration faced after urging social media companies to take down posts the White House considered disinformation. And he noted that officials can't formally disclose many details about negotiations to lower prescription drug prices. "I don't get to write whatever I want," he said.….Becerra, who was a congressman for more than two decades before becoming California's top lawyer in 2017 and then the nation's health secretary in 2021, is a veteran of Washington battles.Some of the more recent fights concerned his own job: The Post and other outlets reported on internal frustrations with Becerra's leadership during the pandemic and his agency's response to unaccompanied children at the border. Some officials mused about replacing him with someone they said would be more proactive.Becerra acknowledged the learning curve when taking charge of HHS, which oversees programs such as Medicare and Medicaid; approves drugs, medical devices and vaccines; regulates hospitals, physicians and other health-care providers; and steers many other initiatives affecting food and medicine. It also plays a central role in the nation's human services, such as caring for unaccompanied migrant children."I didn't realize how vast this agency's jurisdiction is," Becerra said, reflecting on how HHS found itself at the center of various crises, such as a 2022 baby formula shortage. "Since when has HHS been the administrator and distributor of infant formula?"….Rebuilding trustBecerra acknowledged that his team struggled to win back the support of skeptical Americans, who he said are being bombarded by "instantaneous information and disinformation" on social media.The health secretary contended that the government is outmatched, suggesting that Congress should set aside more resources for his nearly $2 trillion agency."I don't have a budget that Pfizer has to do marketing and advertising," Becerra said, invoking the pharma giant that spends billions of dollars to promote its drugs. "Will [Congress] give me some money to compete out there with all the disinformation?"….Becerra said the difficulties his team faced reflect a deep distrust of institutions."Do I think the American public has come back to a point where they trust, whether it's the ACA or vaccines, as much as they trust their priest or their rabbi? No," Becerra said. "But then again, I don't think priests … have the same standing they used to have before, either."The health secretary wound down his interview with a frank plea about how public health experts can better reach Americans."I don't know what more we can do," Becerra said. "I'm more than willing to listen if somebody's got some great ideas."Gallup Polls Press Releases on Federal AgenciesSept 2024: Secret Service's Job Rating Tumbles 23 Points to New LowSept 2021: Job Ratings of Many Key Federal Agencies DeclineNov 2014: Americans' Ratings of CDC Down After Ebola CrisisMay 2013: Americans Sour on IRS, Rate CDC and FBI Most PositivelyJuly 2009: CDC Tops Agency Ratings; Federal Reserve Board LowestSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

After a recent overindulgence at Thanksgiving, I had some immediate retribution from my body. I’m fifty (and fat, female, fertile, and fair) — if you know, you know. I talk about dietary changes — made by my late husband Stuart throughout his life, and recent ones made by Taylor Lorenz (don’t know why she did hers) and me. I know why both Stu and I made changes, and explain. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Episode LinksTaylor LorenzThe tweet that started it:Comments:Real Food and Traditionally-Fermented FoodReal Food by Nina Planck - Amazon link, I get a commissionYes, Virginia, you can butter your carrots. A farmer's daughter tells the truth about cream, eggs, fish, chicken, chocolate―even lard.Everyone loves real food, but they're afraid butter and eggs will give them a heart attack―thus the culinary abomination known as the egg-white omelet. Tossing out the yolk, it turns out, isn't smart. Real Food reveals why traditional foods are actually healthy: not only egg yolks, but also cream, butter, grass-fed beef, wild salmon, roast chicken skin, and more.Nina Planck grew up on a vegetable farm in Virginia and learned to eat right from her no-nonsense parents: lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, along with beef, bacon, fish, dairy, and eggs. Later, she wondered: was the farmhouse diet deadly, as the cardiologists say? Happily for people who love food, the answer is no.In lively, personal chapters on produce, dairy, meat, fish, chocolate, and other real foods, Nina explains how ancient foods like beef and butter have been falsely accused, while industrial foods like corn syrup and soybean oil have created a triple epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Real Food upends the conventional wisdom on diet and health and explains our taste for good things.Traditionally Fermented Foods: Innovative Recipes and Old-Fashioned Techniques for Sustainable EatingHarnessing traditions from previous generations to preserve food is not only a passion for Shannon Stonger, but a way of life. Shannon walked away from a career in chemistry to raise her family. Shortly thereafter, she and her husband moved their family off the grid to discover a more simple, agrarian life. With only minimal solar-powered electricity, Shannon relies on practical food preservation techniques, such as fermentation, to provide nutritious food for her family while cutting food costs.In Traditionally Fermented Foods, Shannon shows readers how to preserve food using traditional fermentation techniques, often without refrigeration. An alternative to canning and freezing, traditionally fermented foods do not require modern technology to preserve. You can learn Shannon’s authentic preservation technique, which she depends on daily to put food on the table, so you know they work. You can also learn how fermented foods work, how to make fermented foods and how to use fermented foods in recipes. This book contains over 80 recipes with corresponding photos.Research Paper on Fried FoodsAssociation of fried food consumption with all cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality: prospective cohort studyBMJ 2019; 364 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5420 (Published 23 January 2019)Cite this as: BMJ 2019;364:k5420AbstractObjective: To examine the prospective association of total and individual fried food consumption with all cause and cause specific mortality in women in the United States.Design: Prospective cohort study.Setting: Women's Health Initiative conducted in 40 clinical centers in the US.Participants: 106 966 postmenopausal women aged 50-79 at study entry who were enrolled between September 1993 and 1998 in the Women's Health Initiative and followed until February 2017.Main outcome measures: All cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and cancer mortality.Results: 31 558 deaths occurred during 1 914 691 person years of follow-up. For total fried food consumption, when comparing at least one serving per day with no consumption, the multivariable adjusted hazard ratio was 1.08 (95% confidence interval 1.01 to 1.16) for all cause mortality and 1.08 (0.96 to 1.22) for cardiovascular mortality. When comparing at least one serving per week of fried chicken with no consumption, the hazard ratio was 1.13 (1.07 to 1.19) for all cause mortality and 1.12 (1.02 to 1.23) for cardiovascular mortality. For fried fish/shellfish, the corresponding hazard ratios were 1.07 (1.03 to 1.12) for all cause mortality and 1.13 (1.04 to 1.22) for cardiovascular mortality. Total or individual fried food consumption was not generally associated with cancer mortality.Gayelord HauserI didn’t mention Gayelord Hauser in the episode, but I came across him years ago, and I believe he was an influence on Stuart’s own nutritional research. I don’t think Stu noticed the names of people… and Hauser was well before Stu’s time. It could be that Hauser influenced the people Stu was reading.Here’s the Wiki article: Gayelord HauserBenjamin Gayelord Hauser (May 17, 1895 - December 26, 1984),[1] popularly known as Gayelord Hauser, was an American nutritionist and self-help writer, who promoted the 'natural way of eating' during the mid-20th century. He promoted foods rich in vitamin B and discouraged consumption of sugar and white flour. He rose to fame as a self-help author, popular on the lecture and social circuits, and was nutritional advisor to many celebrities.Hauser was supported by many film stars but was often in conflict with the medical community.[2] He promised people they could add years to their life by eating five "wonder foods": blackstrap molasses, brewer's yeast, skimmed milk, wheat germ and yogurt.[3] He was criticized as a "food faddist" and his dieting ideas were described by medical doctors as pseudoscientific and quackery.[3][4][5][6]Stu didn’t partake of skim milk, being a vegetarian, but definitely used brewer’s yeast as a source of B vitamins. It’s also known as nutritional yeast.Livejournal links3 Dec 2024: I have turned into Stu(note: I have not turned into Stu. This is a story of a diet change to fix a health problem.)18 Sept 2006: ....drooooooool.....[Real Food]Okay, I've got to make a book plug: Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck is a serious must-read for anybody having diet-related trouble. I picked it up a few weeks ago (I believe I mentioned it in a link to Instapundit on the matter) and Stu read it first, then I read it, and then we started implementing it. Here's a short run-down of my personal results, and perhaps Stu will post his own later.Background: Stu has had all sorts of diet-related trouble in the past, which made him go vegetarian a long time ago. He first cut out meat, and when that didn't do the trick, he cut out dairy. This would have been in the late 80s. I, on the other hand, have survived a pretty crappy diet; it wasn't so bad when I was at home (though I did get plenty out of the Chef Boyardee food group), but at NCSSM I lived off of Cheerios and apple juice (and pizza, when I could scrounge it off of people who could afford to buy it), and at State I had a taste for all things noodley. I got some money later on, and ate out a lot, opting for burgers and steak. Since I moved to NYC, the diet has run the gamut from $1.50 slices with Coke to high-end sushi.Stu’s comment on that post: More from Stu, 11 Aug 2005: On diet and prostate cancerVegan diet, exercise shown to help slow prostate cancerYou don't know how many times I've been told that as a 'true or strict or complete' vegetarian I was risking numerous health problems and possibly an early death. Ha!FWIW, I hate that the phrase 'vegan diet' is used to mean what vegetarian meant not too long ago.Speaking of veganism, did you know that most plastics (which includes pleather) are most likely made using chemicals obtained from rendered animals? That's right, plastics found in every day items such as shirt buttons, computers, TVs and most definitely cars. I'm glad to see that the inedible bits of cow, which meep can't eat, don't go to waste.Remember kids, if you can hunt and kill an animal with a sledge hammer, it's just begging to be eaten.22 Mar 2001: stupid PETA tricksi really hope the PETA people are getting adequate nutrition. When the Fishkill stink came out, Stu thought that perhaps the kiddies hadn't gotten enough B vitamins, because there seemed to be a lack of cognitive function. Of course, I would want a baseline comparison with =before= they became vegetarian, so we could get a good idea of whether there has been mental loss or perhaps (as i conjecture) a simple plateau.22 July 2008: Everyone's a hero in his own way....Reminds me of how Stu pointed out to an annoying vegan (keeping in mind that Stu was a vegetarian at this time) that there were bugs smeared all over his car. And then I had a very educational time at agriculture week at State one year, when I got to find out that yes, they use all of the cow except for the moo. Even if one carefully avoids eating any foods with animal-derived products inside, eschews wool and leather, buys cruelty-free makeup, yadda yadda, it's pretty damn impossible to buy any modern stuff that uses no animals parts at all. It's in paint, adhesives, paper manufacturing, you name it.I think there's nothing wrong with attempting to avoid as much animal products as one can, but it helps to be realistic and to not be a pain in the ass about it. Of course, the vegans and vegetarians I have personally known have been fine in terms of not being annoying (the most annoying thing a vegetarian has done to me is become a meat-eater. Dangit, Stu). It's the crazy PETA people who never do their cause any good.19 Oct 2006: Omega-3 deficiency can have some bad effectsSome dietary experiments occurring in British prisonsI have no doubt. Reminds me of previous experiments that showed that a strictly vegetarian diet had a bad effect on violent male prisoners.I have been eating a teensy more fish, but I have determined I have an iron stomach. If the crap I ate as a kid didn't kill me, I doubt my lack of sardines will kill me now.I have cut out corn, soy, and canola oil as much as I can, and did note that regular bacon had some bad effects; so I'm sticking to the raw milk cheese, grass-fed meats, and the like...early results: huge drop in blood pressure. My BP used to range from 120/60 - 130/70. Lately when I take it, it's been 100/60 or so. Haven't tested the cholesterol levels yet, but they were pretty damn low before I started this new diet (diet as in way of eating, not diet as in trying to lose weight). Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Following up a prior episode on fraud in Alzheimer’s research, I look at what has happened to two of those researchers, talk about my own experience in preventing cheating in classes as well as what academic research was like as an RA (research assistant) in physics, and then look at what current research fraud prevention in the U.S. federal government looks like with some advice for future activities. Episode LinksAlzheimer’s Research FraudDan Elton post: 20 Oct 2024Profiles:Berislav Zlokovic* Number of papers found with suspicious images - “dozens”* Influential papers with fraud - Nature Medicine (2004), Stroke (2013), The Journal of Neuroscience (2013), Frontiers in Neuroscience (2022)* Taxpayer money lost as a result - at least 30 million* Pharma company impacts - ZZ Biotech received 30 million from the NIH to explore drug candidate 3K3A-APC for stroke recovery based on Zlokovic’s work. The drug didn’t work and there were six deaths in the active group compared to one in the placebo group. Suspect papers have been cited in 49 patents by 30 companies, universities, and foundations.Notes: As explained in Science’s expose, Zlokovic is the top-ranked researcher in the world when it comes to Alzheimer’s and the blood-brain barrier, both in terms of number of papers (25) and number of citations (14,341). Suspect papers affect both the Alzheimer’s and stroke research fields. Two former lab members say that Zlokovic instructed them to make sure their lab notebooks were “clean”, meaning making sure they did not have data and results that challenged their paper’s conclusions.….Hoau-Yan Wang* Number of papers found with suspicious images - 20* Influential papers with fraud - The Journal of Neuroscience (2012)* Taxpayer money lost as a result - at least $16 million, probably a lot more.* Pharma company impacts - Cassava Biosciences based their clinical trials of Simufilam off of Wang’s work. Wang served as an advisor to the company.Notes: The fraudster remains a professor at CUNY, despite CUNY doing a 50 page investigation that found “highly suggestive” evidence that he is culpable for 14/31 allegations. A June 2024 indictment by the Department of Justice states that he also committed fraud on grant applications between 2017 to 2021. The fraudulent applications led to $16 million in grant funding to Wang from the NIH.Science: Top Alzheimer’s researcher goes ‘on leave’ amid misconduct concerns, 8 Nov 2024Berislav Zlokovic, a prominent Alzheimer’s disease and stroke researcher who has long headed a major neuroscience institute at the University of Southern California (USC), is now on an indefinite leave of absence, according to a school official. USC declined to clarify a reason for the leave, but Zlokovic has faced scrutiny since a 2023 Science investigation described evidence that he had engaged in scientific misconduct for decades. Science has also learned that a planned $30 million clinical trial of a stroke drug candidate Zlokovic helped develop has been formally called off by its company sponsor, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has required that USC return nearly $2 million in funding for the trial.USC Keck School of Medicine Dean Carolyn Meltzer announced Zlokovic’s leave in a 22 October email to USC faculty, obtained by Science. She named neuroscientist Steve Kay as acting director of the university’s Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute and its Department of Physiology & Neuroscience, both of which Zlokovic previously headed.According to a USC professor who requested anonymity, Kay has taken over Zlokovic’s laboratory. Zlokovic also stepped down as co-director of USC’s federally funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, according to its website. Zlokovic could not be reached for comment on his leave.DOJ Press Release: Professor Charged for Operating Multimillion-Dollar Grant Fraud Scheme, 28 June 2024A federal grand jury in the District of Maryland returned an indictment yesterday charging a Pennsylvania man for defrauding the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) of approximately $16 million in federal grant funds.According to court documents, Hoau-Yan Wang, 67, was a tenured medical professor at a public university’s medical school, as well as a paid advisor and consultant to a publicly traded Texas biopharmaceutical company. From approximately May 2015 through approximately April 2023, Wang allegedly engaged in a scheme to fabricate and falsify scientific data in grant applications made to the NIH on behalf of himself and the biopharmaceutical company. As alleged, the fraudulent grant applications to the NIH sought funding for scientific research of a potential treatment and diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s disease and resulted in the award of approximately $16 million in grants from approximately 2017 to 2021, part of which funded Wang’s laboratory work and salary. The indictment alleges that Wang’s work under these grants was related to the early developmental phases of the proposed drug and diagnostic test, typically referred to by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as Phase 1 and Phase 2. Wang’s alleged scientific data falsification in the NIH grant applications related to how the proposed drug and diagnostic test were intended to work and the improvement of certain indicators associated with Alzheimer’s disease after treatment with the proposed drug. Wang is charged with one count of major fraud against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, and one count of false statements. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the count of major fraud, 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud, and five years in prison for the count of false statements.  NSF OIGSemiannual ReportsMost recent report: Semiannual Report to Congress, October 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024NSF OIG page on Research MisconductResearch Misconduct by the NumbersJeremy Fox: What I learned about scientific misconduct from reading the NSF OIG’s semiannual reports, 17 Mar 2021The National Science Foundation’s Office of the Inspector General (NSF OIG) investigates misuse of NSF funds by individuals and organizations that receive awards from or conduct business with NSF. That includes, but isn’t limited to, researchers who commit scientific misconduct in the course of NSF-funded research. The OIG reports on its activities to Congress every 6 months. The reports are public, you can read them online. As part of my ongoing efforts to educate myself about scientific misconduct, I skimmed the five most recent OIG reports. Here’s what I learned. [MPC: I am shortening this to the first sentence of each bullet, except the third, so you have the link]* Misspending and fraud detected by NSF OIG amounts to something like ~0.1% of the NSF budget. * Most of the misspending and fraud detected by NSF OIG does not involve scientific misconduct. * The large majority of allegations of scientific misconduct to OIG involve plagiarism. This semi-annual report includes helpful tables (Tables 3-5) breaking down all allegations of scientific misconduct received, and investigated, by OIG from 2010-2019, and how those investigations were resolved. * Scientific misconduct allegations to OIG have dropped a lot since 2013. * OIG finds scientific misconduct in ~24% of the allegations it investigates. * As allegations of scientific misconduct to OIG have dropped, a greater fraction of allegations have been substantiated. * There’s some terrible scientific misconduct out there, and some bizarre excuses for it (even if it doesn’t cost NSF much money in the grand scheme of things). Prior Episode: “My” peer-reviewed paper:(The one I could find — the other one is a summary version, I think.)High strain rate fracture and C-chain unraveling in carbon nanotubesB.I. Yakobson, M.P. Campbell, C.J. Brabec, J. BernholcComputational Materials ScienceVolume 8, Issue 4, September 1997, Pages 341-348AbstractNanotube behavior at high rate tensile strain (~ 1 MHz) is studied by molecular dynamics using a realistic many-body interatomic potential. The simulations performed for single- and double-walled nanotubes of different helicities, and at different temperatures, show that nanotubes have an extremely large breaking strain. It decreases somewhat with increasing temperature and smaller strain rate, while the influence of helicity is very weak. At later stages of fracture, the nanotube fragments are connected by a set of unraveling monoatomic chains. The chains ‘compete’ with each other for carbon atoms popping out of the original tube segments. The interaction between chains eventually leads to a single chain, which grows up to hundreds of atoms in length before its breakage.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

An audio introduction to my 2024 Movember fundraising: the background to Movember internationally, its focuses of prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health and suicide, and my personal motivation: my late husband Stu’s diagnosis with advanced prostate cancer in 2017 and his 7-year struggle with cancer.Episode LinksMy Movember fundraising linksHere are the places you can donate to the Movember Foundation, which supports men’s health, specifically focusing on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health:* Mary Pat Campbell’s MoSpace – a place to donate at Movember itself* My Movember Facebook fundraiser – my officially linked fundraiser, if this works better for youAnd here’s a QR code if that works better for you:Movember History: WikipediaSeven Nightly News aired a story in 1999 including a group of young men in Adelaide, South Australia who coined the term "Movember" and the idea of growing moustaches for charity throughout the month of November.[16] In the news report, members of the Adelaide-based "Movember Committee" explained how they came up with the idea for Movember one night in the pub. The group started with 80 men from Adelaide and soon became a nationwide phenomenon. They also aimed to raise money for the RSPCA through selling T-shirts in what they termed "Growing whiskers for whiskers".[16]In 2004, an unrelated group in Melbourne organised an event where 30 men would grow a moustache for 30 days in order to raise awareness for prostate cancer and depression in men.[17][18] Adam Garone, Travis Garone, Luke Slattery, and Justin (JC) Coughlin inspired 26 other friends with a desire to "bring back" the trend of growing moustaches, the movement was born. The next year, nearly 500 people raised over $40,000 for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. At the time, it was the largest donation the PCFA had ever received. This group would later become the Movember Foundation charity. Three years after starting the Movember movement, the organization was granted official charity status in Australia.Straight Talk from ER DocSTUMP Movember Links1 November 2024: Movember 2024 Kickoff: In Memory of Stu2023: Movember 2023 - Current Status and Trends2022: Movember 2022: Men and Drug Overdoses (and Giving Tuesday!)2021: Movember Fundraising: Men and Suicide2019: Happy Thanksgiving! Wrapping up Movember and a Little Sumo, Books, and More  2017: Movember Campaign -- Prostate Cancer and Suicide Prevention  STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Prominent research in Alzheimer’s disease going back for decades has been found to be fraudulent, which has effects. Alzheimer’s disease has been a cause of death with an increasing age-adjusted death rate, and it’s one of the very few causes of death with a rate that’s higher for females than males (at all ages). How has this come about? And what should be done?STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Episode LinksDan Elton from More is DifferentWhen "weak links" in science matter -- high profile fraud in Alzheimer's disease researchOct 20, 2024About a year ago I wrote a post trying to gauge how much of the peer-reviewed literature in non-predatory peer-reviewed journals has deliberate fraud. A number that often comes up is 2%. However, according to forensic metascience expert James Heathers, that number is flawed and out of date. According to a recent review article by Heathers, the true number is likely around 14%.I find many people are either not aware of this issue, or they acknowledge the issue but wave it away as not important.An example is someone who I met recently who works at the National Science Foundation. From their vantage point, fraud is mostly being committed in China, not in the USA, which they described as having far superior systems for grant dispersal and oversight. This is largely true, but it doesn’t mean fraud from the US is not an important issue.One example of retracted articleOriginal articleAPP binds DR6 to trigger axon pruning and neuron death via distinct caspasesNature, 2009 Feb 19;457(7232):981-9. doi: 10.1038/nature07767.AbstractNaturally occurring axonal pruning and neuronal cell death help to sculpt neuronal connections during development, but their mechanistic basis remains poorly understood. Here we report that beta-amyloid precursor protein (APP) and death receptor 6 (DR6, also known as TNFRSF21) activate a widespread caspase-dependent self-destruction program. DR6 is broadly expressed by developing neurons, and is required for normal cell body death and axonal pruning both in vivo and after trophic-factor deprivation in vitro. Unlike neuronal cell body apoptosis, which requires caspase 3, we show that axonal degeneration requires caspase 6, which is activated in a punctate pattern that parallels the pattern of axonal fragmentation. DR6 is activated locally by an inactive surface ligand(s) that is released in an active form after trophic-factor deprivation, and we identify APP as a DR6 ligand. Trophic-factor deprivation triggers the shedding of surface APP in a beta-secretase (BACE)-dependent manner. Loss- and gain-of-function studies support a model in which a cleaved amino-terminal fragment of APP (N-APP) binds DR6 and triggers degeneration. Genetic support is provided by a common neuromuscular junction phenotype in mutant mice. Our results indicate that APP and DR6 are components of a neuronal self-destruction pathway, and suggest that an extracellular fragment of APP, acting via DR6 and caspase 6, contributes to Alzheimer's disease.Retraction noticeRetraction Note: APP binds DR6 to trigger axon pruning and neuron death via distinct caspasesThe authors have retracted this article1. Our subsequent work confirmed aspects of the article, notably that DR6 and APP interact and function in a genetic pathway involving caspases to control axon pruning and neuron death2,3. However, our later research also showed that certain conclusions reached in the article were incorrect, notably the role of caspase-3, the necessity for beta-secretase enzyme activity for APP-DR6 binding, and the model for the APP-DR6 interaction2,3.More recently, the following anomalies were identified:* Figure 1d: the NGF-deprived +IgG panel appears to be identical to the NGF-deprived, 24h + Control IgG panel of Figure 5e.* Supplementary information Figure 9c: the NGF-deprived + Bax inhibitor control panel appears to be identical to the + anti-NGF control panel of Supplementary information Figure 17c.* Supplementary information Figure 6d: the fourth beta-Actin blot for Casp-3 siRNA appears to be identical to the first beta-Actin blot for Casp-6 siRNA.* Certain biostatistical calculations underlying some figures contained errors.We believe that these additional anomalies do not affect the conclusions presented in the affected figures. However, given the lack of original data for several of these figures due to the age of the paper, and since our subsequent research showed that certain specific claims in the original article were not correct and we reported a correction for those claims elsewhere2,3, we consider that the appropriate course of action is to retract the article. All the authors agree with this retraction.Figure 1d:Figure 5e:Ben Landau-Taylor from Palladium MagazineThe Academic Culture of FraudAugust 2, 2024In 2006, Sylvain Lesné and seven coauthors published a paper on Alzheimer’s disease, “A specific amyloid-beta protein assembly in the brain impairs memory,” in Nature, the world’s most prestigious scientific journal. This was a major paper in the development of the “amyloid hypothesis,” a proposed mechanism for how Alzheimer’s disease afflicts its victims. About 50 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, more than the entire population of California, making it the world’s most common cause of dementia. This population will grow as the world’s average population gets older. There is no effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, and its pathology is poorly understood. Any progress in understanding this disease represents a massive humanitarian victory. Encouraged by this paper and other promising studies, funding and talent poured into investigating the amyloid hypothesis. By 2022, such research had received over $1 billion in government funds.That year, neuroscientist Matthew Schrag discovered doctored images in this and many of Lesné’s other papers, including others purporting to provide evidence for the amyloid hypothesis. These images had been manually edited and cropped together to falsely show support for the papers’ hypotheses. Notably, these frauds all made it through the formalized “peer review” processes of Nature and six other academic journals undetected, before eventually being uncovered by unrelated channels.Schrag’s investigation that uncovered the fraudulent papers began as a tangent from his work uncovering doctored images used in studies supporting simufilam, an experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease. The suspicion would prove vindicated when in June 2024 Hoau-Yan Wang, a paid adviser to simufilam’s developer, was indicted by a federal grand jury for fabricating data and images in simufilam studies for which he obtained $16 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants, following a 2021 petition to the Food and Drug Administration, a method of reporting research fraud which is highly unusual if not unique.Theo Baker in The Stanford DailyInternal review found ‘falsified data’ in Stanford President’s Alzheimer’s research, colleagues allegeFeb 17, 2023In 2009, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, then a top executive at the biotechnology company Genentech, was the primary author of a scientific paper published in the prestigious journal Nature that claimed to have found the potential cause for brain degeneration in Alzheimer’s patients. “Because of this research,” read Genentech’s annual letter to shareholders, “we are working to develop both antibodies and small molecules that may attack Alzheimer’s from a novel entry point and help the millions of people who currently suffer from this devastating disease.”But after several unsuccessful attempts to reproduce the research, the paper became the subject of an internal review by Genentech’s Research Review Committee (RRC), according to four high-level Genentech employees at the time; two were senior scientists and two were scientists who also served as executives. Three spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the allegations and non-disclosure agreements. The scientists, one of whom was an executive who sat on the review committee and all of whom were informed of the review’s findings at the time due to their stature at the company, said that the inquiry discovered falsification of data in the research, and that Tessier-Lavigne kept the finding from becoming public.Tessier-Lavigne denies both allegations. Genentech said in a statement that “as part of our diligence related to these allegations, we reviewed the records from that November 2011 RRC meeting and saw no allegations of fraud or wrongdoing.” The company acknowledged that “given that these events happened many years ago … our current records may not be complete.”After the review, which began in 2011, Genentech canceled research based on the paper’s findings. Till Maurer, a senior scientist at the company from 2009-2018 who said he was assigned to develop drugs based on the 2009 paper, told The Daily that his superior informed him that, in Maurer’s words, “the project is being canceled and it’s because they found falsified data.”Alzheimer’s Mortality in the U.S. via the Society of ActuariesU.S. Population Mortality Observations – Updated with 2021 ExperienceTableau dashboard:https://tableau.soa.org/t/soa-public/views/USPop2021-Final/BySex?%3Aembed=y&%3AisGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&%3Aorigin=card_share_linkTwixter CommentsThanks for reading STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more! This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

In looking at Kamala Harris’s 2009 book, which is rife with plagiarism (including cribbing from Wikipedia), I consider my own experiences. I’ve taught writing classes and been involved in getting a book published, in which I ran into somebody submitting material lifted wholesale from Wikipedia. However, those were years ago — we have a new problem now with generative AI creating new versions of “plagiarism”. What to do with “AI slop” being injected into people’s texts?Episode LinksChristopher RufoChristopher Rufo: Kamala Harris’s Plagiarism ProblemTaken in total, there is certainly a breach of standards here. Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism. They not only lifted material from sources without proper attribution, but in at least one case, relied on a low-quality source, which potentially undermined the accuracy of their conclusion.Of course, Harris, like many other public figures, may have relied entirely on a ghostwriter to draft her book. But that is not exculpatory: Harris, at the end of the day, put her name on the cover.On that point, one might recall the title of her book: Smart on Crime. There is nothing smart about plagiarism, which is the equivalent of an academic crime. The publisher, as well as the sitting vice president, should retract the plagiarized passages and issue a correction. There should be a single standard—and Kamala Harris is falling short.Kamala Harris's Book, Smart on CrimeAmazon Link: Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us SaferTwo top reviews:(I didn’t find that review very interesting)I was one of the 4 people who found the above review to be helpful. The Amazon listing of the co-author’s (Joan O’C. Hamilton) books - only 3, including Smart on CrimeJudgment in MoscowBook listing at Amazon: Judgment in Moscow: Soviet Crimes and Western ComplicityBlurbs:“Vladimir Bukovsky uses the Kremlin's own documents to show how the Soviet Union provided a false face to the world and how Soviet leaders used Western leaders as dupes or willing actors. Judgment in Moscow provides the written Nuremberg trial the Soviets never got when the USSR fell.” —Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag: A History (Pulitzer Prize)“An essential warning of the dangers of collaborating with authoritarian regimes.” — Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion and author of Winter is Coming“The most important work to appear for decades on the Soviet empire and its aftermath.” — Edward Lucas, former senior editor of the Economist, from the introductionRelated posts:Oct 2021: Remembering Vladimir Bukovsky, 1942 - 2019, Soviet DissidentOct 2022: Memorial: A Well-Deserved Nobel Peace PrizeFeb 2024: The Week in Meep, 18 Feb 2024: Navalny, Insurance Fraud, and Lent BeginsAI SlopFuturism.com by Maggie Harrison Dupré: Wikipedia Declares War on AI SlopAs 404 Media reports, a team of Wikipedia editors has assembled to create "WikiProject AI Cleanup," which describes itself as "a collaboration to combat the increasing problem of unsourced, poorly-written AI-generated content on Wikipedia."The group is clear that they don't wish to ban responsible AI use outright, but instead seek to eradicate instances of badly-sourced, hallucination-filled,  or otherwise unhelpful AI content that erodes the overall quality of the web's decades-old information repository.….In some cases, the editors told 404, AI misuse is obvious. One clear sign is users of AI tools leaving well-known chatbot auto-responses behind in Wikipedia entries, such as paragraphs starting with "as an AI language model, I..." or "as of my last knowledge update." The editors also say they've learned to recognize certain prose patterns and "catchphrases," which has allowed them to spot and neutralize sloppy AI text."A few of us had noticed the prevalence of unnatural writing that showed clear signs of being AI-generated, and we managed to replicate similar 'styles' using ChatGPT," WikiProject AI Cleanup founding member Ilyas Lebleu told 404, adding that "discovering some common AI catchphrases allowed us to quickly spot some of the most egregious examples of generated articles."June 2024, CNET: The New AI Buzzword Is 'Slop,' and It's Messing With You. What to Watch Out ForFake images of former and current world leaders getting arrested. Glue as a pizza topping. AI-generated images that just can't stop adding extra fingers to hands.  It's junk, and now there's a catch-all term for bad, useless or misleading artificial intelligence: "slop." The term is spreading across tech blogs, mainstream media and Reddit, where countless threads point out egregious instances of AI gone wrong.If slop sounds familiar both as a term and in its meaning, that may be because it's a cousin of spam, which emerged way back in 1993 as a word for unwanted, often auto-generated emails that have been clogging up digital inboxes for decades.….One problem with bad AI, however, is that people may not be able to tell it apart from legitimate content. When AI "hallucinates," or offers up bad or out-of-context information, it's not always obvious. Sometimes AI can be misled by satirical or purposefully misleading data pulled from websites or other sources, or it can simply be biased by the type of data it's been trained on. It's can be hard to verify whether an image or video is faked by AI sometimes, and with text, it's not always clear how the information is being sourced. It's always worth making sure that information offered up by, say ChatGPT is current and that it's been sourced from a reputable site or set of data.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

A jokey prize ceremony has some serious points — Saul Justin Newman’s research on places with supposedly large numbers of supercentenarians won a 2024 Ig Nobel Prize for demography. I’ve covered his work before, in 2019 and this very year. Episode LinksIg Nobel PrizesDEMOGRAPHY PRIZE [AUSTRALIA, UK]Saul Justin Newman, for detective work to discover that many of the people famous for having the longest lives lived in places that had lousy birth-and-death recordkeeping.REFERENCE: “Supercentenarians and the Oldest-Old Are Concentrated into Regions with No Birth Certificates and Short Lifespans,” Saul Justin Newman, BioRxiv, 704080, 2019. REFERENCE: “Supercentenarian and Remarkable Age Records Exhibit Patterns Indicative of Clerical Errors and Pension Fraud,” Saul Justin Newman, BioRxiv, 2024. WHO CAME TO THE CEREMONY: Saul Justin Newman2024 Paper: Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraudAbstractThe observation of individuals attaining remarkable ages, and their concentration into geographic sub-regions or ‘blue zones’, has generated considerable scientific interest. Proposed drivers of remarkable longevity include high vegetable intake, strong social connections, and genetic markers. Here, we reveal new predictors of remarkable longevity and ‘supercentenarian’ status. In the United States, supercentenarian status is predicted by the absence of vital registration. The state-specific introduction of birth certificates is associated with a 69-82% fall in the number of supercentenarian records. In Italy, England, and France, which have more uniform vital registration, remarkable longevity is instead predicted by poverty, low per capita incomes, shorter life expectancy, higher crime rates, worse health, higher deprivation, fewer 90+ year olds, and residence in remote, overseas, and colonial territories. In England and France, higher old-age poverty rates alone predict more than half of the regional variation in attaining a remarkable age. Only 18% of ‘exhaustively’ validated supercentenarians have a birth certificate, falling to zero percent in the USA, and supercentenarian birthdates are concentrated on days divisible by five: a pattern indicative of widespread fraud and error. Finally, the designated ‘blue zones’ of Sardinia, Okinawa, and Ikaria corresponded to regions with low incomes, low literacy, high crime rate and short life expectancy relative to their national average. As such, relative poverty and short lifespan constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating remarkable human age records.The Conversation: ‘The data on extreme human ageing is rotten from the inside out’ – Ig Nobel winner Saul Justin NewmanBut your work is actually incredibly serious?I started getting interested in this topic when I debunked a couple of papers in Nature and Science about extreme ageing in the 2010s. In general, the claims about how long people are living mostly don’t stack up. I’ve tracked down 80% of the people aged over 110 in the world (the other 20% are from countries you can’t meaningfully analyse). Of those, almost none have a birth certificate. In the US there are over 500 of these people; seven have a birth certificate. Even worse, only about 10% have a death certificate.The epitome of this is blue zones, which are regions where people supposedly reach age 100 at a remarkable rate. For almost 20 years, they have been marketed to the public. They’re the subject of tons of scientific work, a popular Netflix documentary, tons of cookbooks about things like the Mediterranean diet, and so on.Okinawa in Japan is one of these zones. There was a Japanese government review in 2010, which found that 82% of the people aged over 100 in Japan turned out to be dead. The secret to living to 110 was, don’t register your death.The Japanese government has run one of the largest nutritional surveys in the world, dating back to 1975. From then until now, Okinawa has had the worst health in Japan. They’ve eaten the least vegetables; they’ve been extremely heavy drinkers.What about other places?The same goes for all the other blue zones. Eurostat keeps track of life expectancy in Sardinia, the Italian blue zone, and Ikaria in Greece. When the agency first started keeping records in 1990, Sardinia had the 51st highest old-age life expectancy in Europe out of 128 regions, and Ikaria was 109th. It’s amazing the cognitive dissonance going on. With the Greeks, by my estimates at least 72% of centenarians were dead, missing or essentially pension-fraud cases.….What’s your best guess about true human longevity?Longevity is very likely tied to wealth. Rich people do lots of exercise, have low stress and eat well. I just put out a preprint analysing the last 72 years of UN data on mortality. The places consistently reaching 100 at the highest rates according to the UN are Thailand, Malawi, Western Sahara (which doesn’t have a government) and Puerto Rico, where birth certificates were cancelled completely as a legal document in 2010 because they were so full of pension fraud. This data is just rotten from the inside out.MedRXiV: The global pattern of centenarians highlights deep problems in demographyPosted 6 Sept 2024AbstractAccurate age data is fundamental to medicine, social sciences, epidemiology, and good government. However, recent and heavily disputed debates on data quality have raised questions on the accuracy of demographic data at older ages. Here, we catalogue late-life survival patterns of every country in the world from 1970-2021 using comprehensive estimates of old-age populations provided by global governments and curated by the United Nations. Analysis of 236 nations or states across 51 years reveals that late-life survival data is dominated by anomalies at all scales and in all time periods. Life expectancy at age 100 and late-life survival from ages 80 to 100+, which we term centenarian attainment rate, is highest in a seemingly random assortment of states. The top 10 ‘blue zone’ regions with the best survival to ages 100+ routinely includes Thailand, Kenya and Malawi – respectively now 212th and 202nd in the world for life expectancy, the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara, and Puerto Rico where birth certificates are so unreliable they were recently declared invalid as a legal document. These anomalous rankings are conserved across long time periods and multiple non-overlapping cohorts, and do not seem to be sampling effects. Instead these patterns suggest a persistent inability, even for nation-states or global organisations, to detect or measure error rates in human age data, with troubling implications for epidemiology, demography, and medicine.Puerto Rico Birth Certificates Law 191 of 2009 Fact SheetIn December 2009, the government of Puerto Rico enacted a new law (Law 191 of 2009) aimed at strengthening the issuance and usage of birth certificates to combat fraud and protect the identity and credit of all U.S. citizens born in Puerto Rico. The new law was based on collaboration with the U.S. Department of State (DOS) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to address the fraudulent use of Puerto Rico-issued birth certificates to unlawfully obtain U.S. passports, Social Security benefits, and other federal services. In the past, many common official and unofficial transactions in Puerto Rico unnecessarily required the submission, retention, and storage of birth certificates. As a result, hundreds of thousands of original birth certificates were stored without adequate protection, making them easy targets for theft. Subsequently, many birth certificates have been stolen from schools and other institutions, sold on the black market for prices up to $10,000 each, and used to illegally obtain passports, licenses, and other government and private sector documentation and benefits. As a result of this growing problem, approximately 40 percent of the passport fraud cases investigated by the DOS Diplomatic Security Services in recent years involved birth certificates of people born in Puerto Rico. This left Puerto Rico-born U.S. citizens vulnerable to identity theft, ruined credit, stolen Social Security benefits, and increased “random” security checks at airports, among others. Understanding the enormous risks to all individuals as well as the very significant homeland and national security concerns, the government of Puerto Rico took action to improve the security of all birth certificates and to better protect the public from fraud and identity theft.Pension Fraud StoriesDiNapoli: New York City Man Charged with Stealing Over $50,000 in Pension Benefits Meant for Deceased Sister-in-LawSeptember 16, 2024A 69-year-old Manhattan man, Randy Ray, was arrested today for allegedly stealing more than $50,000 in pension benefits meant for his deceased sister-in-law, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli announced.“Randy Ray allegedly took advantage of his sister-in-law's death to fund his lifestyle,” DiNapoli said. “I will continue to safeguard the pension system and partner with law enforcement across the state and country to prosecute those who attempt to defraud it. I thank Albany County District Attorney David Soares and the New York State Police for their partnership in bringing Ray to justice.”The pensioner, Ray’s sister-in-law, retired on disability retirement in October 1986 from the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, where she served as a confidential legal stenographer. She retired choosing the state retirement system’s single life allowance option, meaning at the time of her death in January 2019 her monthly pension payments of $1,341.78 should have ended. Instead, the retirement system was not informed of and did not learn about her death until July 2022. Once the system discovered her death, payments were stopped, and an investigation launched.A forensic analysis was completed on the bank account where the pension payments were being deposited, which was a joint account in the name of the pensioner and Ray. The investigation found that Ray diverted over $50,000 in pension payments made after his sister-in-law’s death and used the money to pay credit card bills, travel, and make online purchases.Ray was arraigned on a charge of grand larceny in Albany County Court. He is due back in court on October 30.NY Post, 2012: Mama’s boy jailed: son gets up to 41 years in ‘Psycho’ fraudHe’s not going to the Bates Motel.A “Psycho” scammer who dressed up as his dead mom so he could collect her Social Security benefits will instead be checking into state prison for 13 2/3 to 41 years after being sentenced yesterday for the bizarre Norman Bates-like stunt.Thomas Prusik-Parkin, 52 was convicted this month of grand larceny and mortgage fraud for posing as Irene Prusik for several years in order to pocket more than $44,000 of the dead woman’s benefits.“It’s amazing — it’s amazing!” Justice Vincent Del Giudice said as he sentenced the frail, bearded man. “It borders on ludicrous that you expected to get away with this.”Prusik-Parkin’s actress mom, Irene, was 73 when she died in 2003. Within days of Prusik’s death, authorities charged, her son changed her Social Security numbers and doctored other documents.The admitted Norman Bates admirer’s kooky cross-dressing caper fell apart in 2009 when he donned the matronly getup to tell Brooklyn prosecutors he was being ripped off by a man who bought out of foreclosure the $2.2 million Park Slope building deeded to him by his mom.Del Giudice shook his head as he recalled how the elderly “woman” claimed she had cataracts when an investigator from the Brooklyn DA’s Office asked why the lights in her apartment were dimmed.Jurors in the trial were shown a video of Prusik-Parkin in a platinum woman’s wig, sunglasses and a dress during a visit to a Department of Motor Vehicles office.“It just boggles the mind that you continued this plan of deceit by impersonating her and committing a fraud at the DMV,” Del Giudice said.Prusik-Parkin, maintained that it wasn’t him in the videos.During a rambling statement before he was sentenced, Prusik-Parkin insisted he hadn’t rejected a deal from prosecutors that could have sprung him from jail, rather than face up to 41 years in prison.Japan Pension FraudJuly 2010, BBC News: Tokyo's 'oldest man' had been dead for 30 yearsHe was thought to be the oldest man in Tokyo - but when officials went to congratulate Sogen Kato on his 111th birthday, they uncovered mummified skeletal remains lying in his bed.Mr Kato may have been dead for 30 years according to Japanese authorities.They grew suspicious when they went to honour Mr Kato at his address in Adachi ward, but his granddaughter told them he "doesn't want to see anybody".Police are now investigating the family on possible fraud charges.Wikipedia: Sogen Kato, AftermathAfter the discovery of Kato's mummified corpse, other checks into elderly centenarians across Japan produced reports of missing centenarians and faulty recordkeeping. Tokyo officials attempted to find the oldest woman in the city, 113-year-old Fusa Furuya, who was registered as living with her daughter. Furuya's daughter said she had not seen her mother for over 25 years.[12] The revelations about the disappearance of Furuya and the death of Kato prompted a nationwide investigation, which concluded that police did not know if 234,354 people older than 100 were still alive.[13] More than 77,000 of these people, officials said, would have been older than 120 years old if they were still alive. Poor record keeping was blamed for many of the cases,[13] and officials said that many may have died during World War II. One register claimed a man was still alive at age 186.[14]Following the revelations about Kato and Furuya, analysts investigated why recordkeeping by Japanese authorities was poor. Many seniors have, it has been reported, moved away from their family homes. Statistics show that divorce is becoming increasingly common among the elderly. Dementia, which afflicts more than two million Japanese, is also a contributing factor. "Many of those gone missing are men who left their hometowns to look for work in Japan's big cities during the country's pre-1990s boom years. Many of them worked obsessively long hours and never built a social network in their new homes. Others found less economic success than they'd hoped. Ashamed of that failure, they didn't feel they could return home,"[13] a Canadian newspaper reported several months after the discovery of Kato's body.[13]August 2019: Mortality with Meep: How to Get Lots of Supercentenarians? Pension fraud!  December 2019: Can the Government Tell If You're Dead or Alive?  STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

I talk about three big inspirations to me: Thomas Day (a North Carolina cabinetmaker, an antebellum free Black man), Candace Wheeler (the “mother” of American interior design — for the masses!), and Julia Child (I hope you already know who she is). There is plenty of beauty to be found in the product of everyday work and living.Episode LinksThomas DayWikipedia articleThomas Day (c. 1801–1861) was an American furniture craftsman and cabinetmaker in Milton, Caswell County, North Carolina.[1] Born into a free African-American family in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, Day moved to Milton in 1817 and became a highly successful businessman, boasting the largest and most productive workshop in the state during the 1850s.[1]: 1, 8, 21, 23 [2][3] Day catered to upper-class white clientele and was respected among his peers for his craftsmanship and work ethic.[1]: 27 [2][4] Day came from a relatively well-off family and was privately educated.[1]: 2, 5, 7  Today, Day's pieces are highly sought after and sell for high prices; his work has been heavily studied and displayed in museums such as the North Carolina Museum of History.[5][6][3][7] Day is celebrated as a highly skilled craftsman and savvy businessman, specifically in regards to the challenges his race posed to his success in the Antebellum South.[7][2]: 35, 58 [6][8]Smithsonian: Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color - includes videos and online galleryBook (which I own): Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color (Richard Hampton Jenrette Series in Architecture and the Decorative Arts)Candace WheelerWikipedia pageCandace Wheeler (née Thurber; March 24, 1827 – August 5, 1923), traditionally credited as the mother of interior design, was one of America's first woman interior and textile designers. She helped open the field of interior design to women, supported craftswomen, and promoted American design reform. A committed feminist, she intentionally employed women and encouraged their education, especially in the fine and applied arts, and fostered home industries for rural women. She also did editorial work and wrote several books and many articles, encompassing fiction, semi-fiction and non-fiction, for adults and children. She used her exceptional organizational skills to co-found both the Society of Decorative Art in New York City (1877) and the New York Exchange for Women's Work (1878); and she partnered with Louis Comfort Tiffany and others in designing interiors, specializing in textiles (1879-1883), then founded her own firm, The Associated Artists (1883-1907).[1][2][3][4]….Society of Decorative Art in New York[edit]Wheeler co-founded the Society of Decorative Art with Caroline E. Lamson (Mrs. David) Lane in New York in 1877.[30][31] She hired the recently widowed Elizabeth Bacon (Mrs. General George Armstrong) Custer as secretary: the two women became fast, life-long friends.[2][5][32] The Society was intended to help women support themselves through artistic handicrafts including needlework and other decorative arts. It served the thousands of women who were left indigent at the end of the Civil War. Wheeler called on prominent New York society matrons to support a shop in which the high-quality, custom-made goods could be sold to produce income; they had five hundred subscribers within three years.[30][32][23]Leading artists were hired to teach or judge exhibits at the Society in New York, including Louis Comfort Tiffany and John LaFarge. Wheeler helped to start branches in Chicago, St. Louis, Hartford, Detroit, Troy, New York and Charleston, South Carolina.[29][33] Although she described resigning in a huff from the Society of Decorative Arts in 1879, she actually remained involved and supportive for the next several years.[34]New York Exchange for Women's WorkIn 1878 Wheeler helped launch the New York Exchange for Women's Work, where women could sell any product that they could manufacture at home, including baked goods and household linens.[30][34] To serve a broader range of women, no artistic ability was required. The Exchange opened in March 1878 with a consignment sale of thirty items at the home of Exchange co-founder Mary Atwater (Mrs. William) Choate. In April, the Exchange moved to a rented facility and by May it was successful enough to employ two part-time sales women. In its first year, it paid out nearly $14,000 in commissions. By 1891, there were at least 72 Exchanges across the United States.[32] The New York Exchange continued to operate until 2003.[35]The Panic of 1873: Library of CongressThe Panic of 1873 triggered the first 'Great Depression' in the United States and abroad. Lasting from September 1873 until 1878/9, the economic downturn then became known as the Long Depression after the stock market crash of 1929. Currency in the nineteenth century was based on specie. Metal money circulated, and banks issued paper banknotes backed by the supply of gold and silver. In the United States, this system began breaking down in the face of financing the Civil War. President Lincoln authorized the printing of paper money, called "Greenbacks," to pay ballooning expenses. Widespread use of fiat External money continued into the Reconstruction Era, fueling the rapid expansion of railroads and wild speculation.Banks, especially Jay Cooke and Co. raised millions of dollars through selling bonds to finance construction. Speculators 'bet' on the railroad, gambling on the fact that settlement and opportunities to make money would follow behind the completed railway. However, construction expenses ballooned and outpaced financing. Efforts to raise more funding failed. When they could no longer pay the bills, Jay Cooke and Co. and other banking houses folded. The collapse of the railway financiers sparked high bank withdrawals, the failure of brokerage firms, and railway construction halted. By September 20th, the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading for the first time.Prior podcast mentioning Wheeler: Failure, Sunk Costs, and Candace Wheeler, June 2023Julia ChildJuly 2022: Training Lessons from the French Chef: Being Resourceful and Making MistakesJulia Child on PBS YouTube Channel - the French Chef also available at Pluto TV currentlyUPDATE: Prior post mentioning Julia Child: Oct 2022 - Geeking Out: Chatting with a Fellow Actuary about Writing - I often write (for free) for actuarial publications, and I like to push what I can get away with. (I’ve been inserting sumo references lately… and I’ve got an extended sumo metaphor I would love to try out in my next piece….)STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 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In this episode, I look at both the Democratic and Republican Party platform sections on Social Security. After all, the Trust Fund for the Old Age portion of the program is projected to run out by 2035, and the entire Baby Boom generation is Social Security eligible at this point… seems like this is something they should be addressing. The answer will surprise nobody (they don’t want to touch it at all, except perhaps to boost benefits.) The actuaries, as usual, are ignored.Episode LinksDemocratic Party PlatformParty platform pagePDF version — I know it says it’s from 2020 when you download it, but this is the document on the site, and I don’t think they’ve actually changed anything. I make no further comment about this.Screenshots from the PDF:Republican Party PlatformGOP about our partyPDF linkPDF screenshots:Separate page(s):American Academy of Actuaries on Social SecurityAcademy page on Social Security9 May 2024: Committee Releases One-pager on 2024 Social Security Trustees Report22 July 2024: An Actuarial Perspective on the 2024 Social Security Trustees ReportSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

With the Democratic Party VP nominee pick, some were trying to make hay over Tim Walz having no apparent stock ownership. However, between Walz and his wife, they have four traditional pensions, and these pensions do have stock (and other) financial markets exposure. In fact, I looked at one of these pensions earlier this year: the Minnesota Teachers Fund… and Walz is the chairman of the board of that fund. Let’s look at the components of their wealth and aspects of this fund. Episode LinksWSJ: Tim Walz’s and JD Vance’s Personal Finances Couldn’t Be More DifferentTim Walz doesn’t own a home or many investments outside of pensions and a college-savings plan, according to past financial disclosures and tax returns. Getting elected vice president as Kamala Harris’s Democratic running mate—a job that pays $235,000—would mean a more than 50% pay bump.….Tim and Gwen Walz together earned $166,719 before taxes in 2022, according to a tax return that year. About $116,000 of that came from Tim’s salary as governor. The governor’s salary has since increased to $149,550, according to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library. A little over $51,000 of the couple’s income came from Gwen’s work as an educator, which she reported as a self-owned business. She has worked at Augsburg University since 2019, where she has taught education and served as a special assistant to the president.The couple, who have two children, had a 529 plan, worth between $1,001 and $15,000 in 2019, according to a financial disclosure Walz filed for his final year as a House representative. They also held two life insurance policies totaling $30,002 to $100,000. The couple is largely relying on pensions to fund their retirement, based on his disclosures. They have four pensions with an estimated lump sum value of between $81,000 and $215,000, as of the 2019 filing.Survey of Consumer FinancesSurvey of Consumer Finances landing pageSCF Interactive ChartbookBefore-tax family income by percentile of incomeStock holdings by percentile of incomeEd Seidle and the Minnesota Teachers Pension4 April 2024: Minnesota Teacher Pension Forensic Investigation Invites Whistleblower, Expert And Public Participation18 Jul 2024: Toledo Blade Exposes National Effort to Undermine Investigations Into Public Pension Wrongdoing31 July 2024: Minnesota Governor Walz Warned Of "Many Serious Risks" Facing State Pensions Under His WatchOn March 11, 2024, Jay Stoffel, the Executive Director of the Teacher Retirement Association of Minnesota—a state pension with $28 billion in assets—blasted out an email entitled “An Important Matter” to all trustees of the TRA Board and staff. This same alarming email would, within days, be sent by him to state legislators and officials, including the offices of Governor Walz, Attorney General and Legislative Auditor. (Walz, as Governor has long been chairman of the pension board and the Attorney General is also a board member.)A “situation” posing “many serious risks to the agency and pension fund” had arisen which they “should be aware of and concerned about,” Stoffel wrote.The seriously risky situation Stoffel was warning Governor Walz and others about was a proposed forensic investigation into potential mismanagement or wrongdoing at the pension, conducted by a nationally-recognized expert and commissioned by educators who were participants in the pension.That’s right, the impending “grave danger” was: State workers and retirees who contributed their hard-earned savings to the pension and whose retirement security was potentially at risk—the very same individuals for whose exclusive benefit the plan (under applicable law) is supposed to be managed—were fundraising to get a “second opinion.”Worse still, the opinion they were seeking was that of a seasoned forensic investigator of their own choosing.7 Aug 2024: Minnesota And Kentucky Open Government Experts Applaud Ohio Magistrate's State Teacher Pension Records Decision10 Aug 2024, NY Post: Teachers’ Minn. pension fund under Tim Walz ‘cooking the books’ by vastly underreporting fees: ‘Madoff miracle’A Minnesota retirement system for public school teachers under Gov. Tim Walz  is “cooking the books” by vastly underreporting annual fees paid to Wall Street investment managers — and posting near-impossible gains tantamount to a “Madoff miracle,” a top pension investigator said.The state-run Teachers Retirement Association, or TRA, has publicly disclosed less than 10% of an estimated $2.9 billion spent on fees in the past 10 years, said Edward Siedle, a former US Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer and independent pension investigator. The TRA also posted gains claiming it beat its own custom benchmark over periods of one, five, 10, 20 and 30 years by exactly 0.2%, which Siedle called “virtually impossible.”Teacher testimony linked from NY Post piece: dated 7 Feb 2024My name is Katie Dickerson and I am 55 years old and have been teaching for 31 years. 28 teaching in Hopkins and 3 in NH. As I’am getting closer to retirement I realize the state never made improvements to our retirement system. Not only do we have a high contribution rate to TRA, but we don't have a rule and are forced to work many more years unless we are willing to be hit with huge penalties. This is not how I ever imagined educators would be treated.[More at link]Toledo Blade Editorial: 18 July 2024 STRS Minnesota meddlingA cursory look at the Minnesota Teachers Retirement Association leads to the conclusion they’re either a world class pension or they’re cooking the books. Minnesota reported investment fees on the $26.7 billion teacher pension fund of $24.1 million. The teachers fund has a $6.6 billion private equity portfolio that would be expected to pay at least $132 million a year to fund managers. Moreover, a comprehensive study of 54 public pensions from 2008 to 2023 conducted by investment expert Richard Ennis shows fees average 1 percent of assets under management. By that metric Minnesota Teachers Retirement Association would be expected to pay over a quarter billion dollars a year to fund managers.The national response from public pension advocacy agencies reflects the crisis these incredibly noteworthy numbers create. Either Minnesota has a special deal with Wall Street paying fees 90 percent under the going rate or an investment board made up of the governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and auditor, has massively massaged the truth.A long term look at Minnesota’s pension math is just as perplexing. The teachers retirement fund purports to beat a composite index they created by 0.2 percent measured over 1, 5, 10, 20, and 30 years. The odds of that level of consistency over each measure of time are infinitesimal.Earlier STUMP PodcastSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 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In light of the ongoing anger of Ohio STRS participants over the removal of COLAs (cost-of-living adjustments) in 2017, and the plan’s fairly typical asset allocation for a public plan (though better-than-peers results), I look at two recent research papers calling into question the use of alternative assets in public pensions. I have a different point to make: that the assets are not really what is at issue. The pension promises are. Episode LinksOhio STRS: Public meeting notice for July 19, 2024* Last item: Investment Committee Meeting PresentationSlide exhibits I referenced:Boston College Paper: How Do Public Pension Plan Returns Compare to Simple Index Investing?June 2024, by Jean-Pierre Aubry and Yimeng YinKey Findings:Public pension plans are increasingly relying on alternative investments and active management.But how does plan performance compare to a simple 60/40 index over various periods from 2000-2023?Over the full period, plan returns are virtually identical to the simple index strategy, but plans have done much worse since the Global Financial Crisis.If the current approach doesn’t yield higher long-term returns, a strong argument can be made for sticking with a simple, transparent strategy.Here are the key graphs from the report:Richard Ennis PaperGirard Miller: How ‘Alternative Investments’ Are Dragging Down Pension PerformanceCommenting on the Ennis paper, in case you can’t download from SSRN.SSRN Link: How Hidden Costs Undermine Public Pensions in the USAbstractPublic pension plans in the US incur exorbitant asset management costs. Most spend a lot and get nothing for it. High cost has hindered efforts to realize their actuarial return requirement. It has resulted in poor performance pretty much across the board. And yet, very few plans provide a full accounting of the costs they incur. Some still fail to net all their investment expenses from the returns they report. High cost is the Achilles heel of the public pension system in the US. It’s time to bring costs down, way down.Alternative Asset Allocation by Public Pensions … and Ohio STRSThe orange line shows the Ohio STRS allocation. Yes, it’s pretty much in line with the median allocation for the database.Prior Ohio STRS Posts6 May 2024: Public Pension Governance Drama in Ohio10 May 2024: Ohio Pension Drama Continues: Investigation Called on "Hostile Takeover"16 May 2024: Ohio State Teachers Pension Drama Continues! Board Turmoil!17 May 2024: More Ohio STRS Commentary: Alternative Assets in Pensions, Anonymous Memos, and Teachers Pensions in General [corrected/updated on May 22]1 June 2024: Corrections and Clarifications on Ohio STRS: Audits and Investments27 June 2024: Ohio STRS Drama Continues: No Bonuses and Board Member Resigns15 July 2024: Ohio STRS Update for 15 July 2024: More Legislative Action, Advisor Resignation(s), Research on Public Pension Asset ReturnsSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

I love the classics. Bobby Bonilla Day has it all: deferred annuities, too-high discount rates for a present value, Bernie Madoff, trying to avoid a “tax”, credit risk… let’s look in on my favorite sports deal while it’s still paying out, this July 1.Episode LinksCoverage of Bobby Bonilla DayFox Sports: What is Bobby Bonilla Day? Explaining the New York Mets' ongoing contract sagaMajor League Baseball might be intertwined with July 4, but another early-July holiday holds special significance for a significant portion of baseball fans.That day is July 1, also known as "Bobby Bonilla Day." It's the day when the New York Mets pay their annual deferred fee to former player Bobby Bonilla — who last played an MLB game in October 2001.Bonilla was owed $5.9 million when the Mets cut the aging player in 1999 and bought out the rest of his contract. Instead of paying him the sum up front, however, then-Mets owner Fred Wilpon cut a deal with Bonilla's camp. The Mets would pay Bonilla in installments, with annual interest, every year from 2011-2035. Those installments will eventually total nearly $30 million, much more than what Bonilla was owed, according to ESPN.But there were several upsides for the Mets to pursue this strategy as well — at least, that's the way it looked at the time. The Mets used the $5.9 million to create an annuity with a securities investor they were heavily in business with at the time that would pay them back in annual dividends. By doing so, they also freed up that money from their payroll for MLB bylaws purposes, meaning that they could use it to sign other players without adding to the total roster payroll that the league could potentially levy taxes against. The investor with whom they created the account was known for paying back those dividends with high interest, so the Mets themselves thought they would reap the profits of millions of dollars over the course of the deal even when subtracting all the money they would pay Bonilla.Just one problem — that investor's name was Bernie Madoff, and in 2009, Madoff was convicted of running the largest Ponzi scheme fraud in recorded history and sentenced to 150 years in prison. In other words, the profits that the Mets were counting on in their Bonilla strategy likely never came. The fallout of Madoff's crimes financially devastated the Mets, whose dealings with the corrupt money manager went far beyond their Bonilla agreement. The Mets struggled financially for the rest of Wilpon's tenure as owner until the team was sold to current owner Steve Cohen in late 2020.(2022) ESPN: What is Bobby Bonilla Day? Explaining why the former Met gets paid $1.19M every July 1How rare is this arrangement?Bonilla last played for the Mets in 1999 and last played in the majors for the Cardinals in 2001, but he will be paid through 2035 (when he'll be 72).Here are some other notable deferred-money contracts, courtesy of ESPN Stats & Information's Ryan Milowicki:• Bobby Bonilla (again): A second deferred-contract plan with the Mets and Orioles pays him $500,000 a year for 25 years. Those payments began in 2004.• Bret Saberhagen: Will receive $250,000 a year from the Mets for 25 years (payments also began in 2004; this was the inspiration for Bonilla's deal).• Max Scherzer: Will receive $105 million total from the Nationals that will be paid out through 2028.• Manny Ramírez: Will collect $24.2 million total from the Red Sox through 2026.• Ken Griffey Jr.: Will receive $3.59 million from the Reds every year through 2024 as the deferral from his nine-year, $116 million deal signed in 2000.• Todd Helton: Will get $1.3 million from the Rockies every year through 2023 as the result of $13 million deferred when he signed a two-year extension in 2010.Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_BonillaBonilla signed with the New York Mets during the 1991-92 offseason, becoming the highest-paid player in the league at the time, earning more than $6 million per year. However he struggled to live up to expectations with the Mets (which made the contract the subject of much criticism)[5] and throughout the rest of his career. He played with the Baltimore Orioles from 1995-1996, reaching the American League Championship Series with the team in 1996. He earned two additional All-Star appearances and helped the Florida Marlins win the 1997 World Series.[4] After being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers part way through the 1998 season, he signed for a second time with the New York Mets in 1999. When the Mets wanted to release him at the end of the year, he negotiated a settlement whereby the Mets would pay him $1.19 million every year from 2011 through 2035 on July 1, a date that has become known in Mets fandom as "Bobby Bonilla Day". He is also paid $500,000 by the Orioles every year from 2004 to 2028 due to them also having a deferred contract with him.[6] After two more lackluster seasons, one each with the Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals, he retired at the end of the 2001 season. Through his 16 years in professional baseball, Bonilla accumulated a .279 batting average, with a .358 on-base percentage and a .472 slugging percentage.Mets and Bernie MadoffCurbed, April 2021: One More Thing Bernie Madoff Helped Ruin: The MetsWhen you see Bobby Bonilla’s name trending on Twitter on a day like this, as a Mets fan, do you laugh, or do you cry?I always laugh because it’s, like, my professional requirement at this point. But you know, it starts with a cry, right? There are certain phrases in the Mets vernacular that when you see them trending your heart just sinks and you’re like, Oh, what now? So, you know, if that’s a long way of asking, did I find out that Bernie Madoff had died because of Bobby Bonilla trending — Yes, I did.ESPN, April 2021: Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme affected New York Mets, dies at 82NEW YORK -- Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme led to the former New York Mets owners being embroiled in a $1 billion lawsuit, has died in prison at age 82.Madoff burned thousands of investors, outfoxed regulators and received a 150-year prison term. He died of natural causes at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina.Among his victims were director Steven Spielberg, actor Kevin Bacon and Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. But he had ties to sports figures as well. Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax was a client. And former Mets owners Fred Wilpon, Jeff Wilpon and Saul Katz were major investors. Their involvement changed the trajectory of the franchise.Wilpon and Katz had over 500 accounts with Madoff and were sued for $1 billion by the trustee for the victims who claimed they knew, or should have known, about the fraudulent returns from Madoff's scheme, according to The New York Times.Mets and Bond RatingsFeb 2010, Reuters: New York Mets stadium debt falls deeper into junkJune 2020, Forbes: New York Mets’ Citi Field Debt Is Downgraded To Below Investment GradeIt may have just gotten a little tougher for Fred Wilpon to hang on to the New York Mets.This afternoon, credit rating agency S&P Global Ratings announced it was lowering its ratings to BB+, from BBB, on the New York City Industrial Development Agency’s series 2006 $547.4 million payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) bonds, $58.4 million installment purchase bonds, $7.1 million lease revenue bonds, and series 2009 $82.28 million PILOT bonds issued for Queens Ballpark Co. LLC (Citi Field), the baseball team’s ballpark. S&P said it was also assigning a recovery rating of 1, reflecting an expectation for very high (90-100%; rounded estimate: 95%) recovery in the event of a default.The team made a PILOT bond payment of $44 million in 2019. The BB+ rating is the first step toward being rated below investment grade. Specifically, an insurer rated BBB has good financial security characteristics but is more likely to be affected by adverse business conditions than are higher-rated insurers while an insurer rated BB or lower is regarded as having vulnerable characteristics that may outweigh its strengths.The Mets—owned by Sterling Equities, which is controlled by Jeff Wilpon, his son Jeff, and Saul Katz—have been on the block for a while. A deal with Steve Cohen broke down in February. Most recently, former MLB All-Star Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez were trying to raise money to buy the team, which Forbes valued at $2.4 billion in early April. In early May, I wrote that the couple had ended their attempt to buy the team because they couldn’t get sufficient funds. But it was reported five days ago that Rodriguez and Lopez are taking another shot.Oct 2023, Fitch Ratings: Fitch Affirms Queens Ballpark Company LLC (Citi Field, NY Mets) at 'BBB'; Outlook StableFitch Ratings - New York - 04 Oct 2023: Fitch Ratings has affirmed the 'BBB' rating for the New York City Industrial Development Agency's (NYCIDA) PILOT $551.5 million revenue bonds, series 2021; $6.0 million lease revenue bonds, series 2006; and $49.2 million instalment purchase revenue bonds, series 2006, all issued on behalf of Queens Ballpark Company, LLC (QBC). The Rating Outlook is Stable.RATING RATIONALEThe rating reflects Major League Baseball's (MLB) solid league economics and the historical franchise strength of the New York Mets which play at the Citi Field stadium in Queens, New York City. The QBC retained rights revenue stream provides strong coverage of operating costs and stadium PILOT and lease obligations, although ticket and suite revenues have shown historical variations in attendance levels based on team performance. Rating case coverage of all debt averages 3.7x from 2023-2045, while net revenue coverage of PILOT payments averages 3.3x over the same period.Older STUMP Posts/LinksDec 2023: Let's Make a Deal! Ohtani Restructures His PayGoogle spreadsheet with the present value calculation2023: Happy Bobby Bonilla('s Agent) Day 2023!2022: Happy Bobby Bonilla Day for 2022!2021: Happy Bobby Bonilla Day! In Praise of Valuable Annuities2020: Classic STUMP: Happy Bobby Bonilla Day! And Independence Day! Make Mine a Valuable Annuity!2018: Mornings with Meep: Happy Bobby Bonilla (and Bruce Sutter) Day!  2016: Happy Bobby Bonilla Day! and more Americana  STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. 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Whatever you call it: Campbell’s Law (no relation), Goodhart’s Law, or the cobra effect — when you use measures that are merely cheap stand-ins for a much more difficult result you want to get at, people will start gaming that measure. And you will often get a result you really don’t like.Episode LinksWells Fargo NewsBloomberg, Matt Levine: Wells Fargo Mouse JigglersIn 2016, Wells Fargo & Co. got in trouble for opening fake accounts. What happened was that Wells Fargo’s senior management had decided that it wanted its branch employees to cross-sell products, to push each checking customer to open up a savings account and a credit card and sign up for online banking and maybe get a mortgage, because this would deepen the bank’s relationship with the customer and ultimately lead to more revenue. But instead of hiring and training employees who would holistically assess each customer’s needs and suggest suitable products, Wells Fargo had “strict quotas regulating the number of daily ‘solutions’ that its bankers must reach,” and its managers would “constantly hound, berate, demean and threaten employees to meet these unreachable quotas.”….Ahahaha come on. You want a lot of mouse movement, you get a lot of mouse movement, but in a bad way. Imagine deciding how to measure and manage the productivity and value added of your wealth and investment management employees while they are working from home. What might you measure?….Which of those do you think is the best proxy for, like, contributions to Wells Fargo’s return on equity? Which is the simplest to measure? Which is the simplest to game?CNN Business: Wells Fargo fired a dozen people accused of faking keyboard strokesSee here: Wells Fargo this week disclosed that it had fired more than a dozen employees for “simulation of keyboard activity,” Bloomberg reported, citing filings to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. CNN confirmed that multiple people were let go after a review of allegations that they created an “impression of active work.”In other words, they were faking work, perhaps with the kind of mouse jiggler that you can buy online for $20.Those devices — which keep your screen active and move your cursor in convincingly random ways — took off during the early days of the pandemic. With employees no longer huddled together under fluorescent lighting, eating sad desk salads, bosses suddenly had to wonder whether their teams were actually working or slacking off.Even though most workers said they were more productive from home, many executives  adopted “bossware” to monitor their staff’s laptops. (And to be fair, yes — sometimes we did step away, selfishly tending to our own personal business, like walking the dog or staring out the window while contemplating our mortality. We hope you can forgive us.)….But firing people over mouse movers may not be the best way to foster a culture of trust and inclusion.“Managers often assume the worst when they see someone’s away, and so they’re looking for any type of data to show that that’s true,” Herd says. “So, team members are going to innovate around that.”Mashable: Wells Fargo reportedly fired people for alleged 'simulation of keyboard activity'There are many ways to fake being online while working, including the use of gadgets that imitate computer activity, or "mouse jigglers." Mouse jigglers are pretty easy to get; they're selling on Amazon for under £10 right now. They're mechanical devices that physically move your mouse around to prevent your computer from going into sleep mode. TikTokkers have been recommending these devices for years, while folks on Reddit have shared horror stories of being caught by their managers using them.It's unclear how the company actually figured out staff were allegedly undertaking "simulation of keyboard activity" at all. An increasing number of companies are surveilling employees since the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the rise of working from home. Some companies have installed keylogger software on their computers to recorded characters typed, and biometric monitoring is on the rise, despite privacy concerns and employee backlash.A 2021 study by Express VPN found 78 percent of employers engage in remote work surveillance, with 73 percent of employers using email, calls, messages, or videos to inform performance reviews — yes, your boss can read your Gmail drafts (and that's not all) — and 46 percent using it monitor the potential formation of workers' unions.But as Jack Morse writes for Mashable, "While your boss monitoring your every move is definitely creepy, it's perfectly legal."Reddit: r/news Wells Fargo fired a dozen people accused of faking keyboard strokesThe Various “Laws”Wikipedia: Goodhart’s LawGoodhart's law is an adage often stated as, "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".[1] It is named after British economist Charles Goodhart, who is credited with expressing the core idea of the adage in a 1975 article on monetary policy in the United Kingdom:[2]Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.[3]Campbell’s LawThe more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.[1]….In 1976, Campbell wrote: "Achievement tests may well be valuable indicators of general school achievement under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general competence. But when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways. (Similar biases of course surround the use of objective tests in courses or as entrance examinations.)"[1]Campbell's Law: Something Every Educator Should KnowThe cobra effectThe term cobra effect was coined by economist Horst Siebert based on an anecdotal occurrence in India during British rule.[2][3] The British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped. When cobra breeders set their snakes free, the wild cobra population further increased.[4] This story is often cited as an example of Goodhart's law or Campbell's law.[5]Check out the talk page:This was told by my dad, who happened to work in the central planification ministry during early socialist Czechoslovakia (until he managed to escape).Czechoslovakian crystal glass is famous worldwide, and thus chandeliers were produced, for export to get foreign currency. Problem is, there is a limited market for luxury chandeliers, which are purchased by the unit, some of them bespoke, all of them handmade, certainly not from one single design. Thus, worker productivity (very important in socialist countries, for any kind of bonus) cannot be measured by the unit, so let's measure the total weight produced... As a result, Czech crystal chandeliers grew to be so heavy, that clients were having engineering issues when trying to install those. YamaPlos talk 23:50, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]Winner’s CurseThe winner's curse is a phenomenon that may occur in common value auctions, where all bidders have the same (ex post) value for an item but receive different private (ex ante) signals about this value and wherein the winner is the bidder with the most optimistic evaluation of the asset and therefore will tend to overestimate and overpay. Accordingly, the winner will be "cursed" in one of two ways: either the winning bid will exceed the value of the auctioned asset making the winner worse off in absolute terms, or the value of the asset will be less than the bidder anticipated, so the bidder may garner a net gain but will be worse off than anticipated.[1][2] Fake Philosophy JournalsRetraction Watch: How a widely used ranking system ended up with three fake journals in its top 10 philosophy listWe checked the Scopus philosophy list and discovered three journals published by Addleton Academic Publishers – which we had never heard of – are in the top 10 of the 2023 CiteScore ranking: Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations (3rd on the list of 806 philosophy journals indexed by Scopus in 2023), Review of Contemporary Philosophy (5/806), and Analysis and Metaphysics (6/806). All three also are in the top 100 of the 2023 SJR ranking. ….How was it possible to get into the Scopus top 10 in philosophy? The trick is simple: The Addleton journals extensively cross-cite each other. For example, of 541 citations to Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations used to calculate the 2023 CiteScore, 208 come from journals published by Addleton. Additional citations come mostly from Frontiers and MDPI journals.Predatory publishing in Scopus: Evidence on cross-country differencesAbstract: Predatory publishing represents a major challenge to scholarly communication. This paper maps the infiltration of journals suspected of predatory practices into the citation database Scopus and examines cross-country differences in the propensity of scholars to publish in such journals. Using the names of “potential, possible, or probable” predatory journals and publishers on Beall’s lists, we derived the ISSNs of 3,293 journals from Ulrichsweb and searched Scopus with them. A total of 324 of journals that appear in both Beall’s lists and Scopus, with 164,000 articles published during 2015–2017 were identified. Analysis of data for 172 countries in four fields of research indicates that there is a remarkable heterogeneity. In the most affected countries, including Kazakhstan and Indonesia, around 17% of articles were published in the suspected predatory journals, while some other countries have no articles in this category whatsoever. Countries with large research sectors at the medium level of economic development, especially in Asia and North Africa, tend to be most susceptible to predatory publishing. Policy makers and stakeholders in these and other developing countries need to pay more attention to the quality of research evaluation.Quantitative Science Studies (2022) 3 (3): 859–887.https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00213STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. 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Jumping off from a recent story on embezzlement from a Florida Catholic church, I look at past stories of massive frauds, as well as some other failures and successes. I talk about: Rita Crundwell in Dixon, Illinois. Rizzo and Bell, California. The London Whale. And a happy save for TIAA before the financial crisis in 2008.Episode LinksThe Pillar: Massive parish theft calls for more internal control, expert saysThe Pillar also has been great in covering the Vatican financial problems. A few sample articles: [all articles are free — some podcasts and other items are for paid subscribers only]November 2022: February 2022:Nov 2023:Rita Crundwell and Dixon, IllinoisWikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_CrundwellRita A. Crundwell (née Humphrey; born January 10, 1953) is the former Comptroller and Treasurer of Dixon, Illinois, from 1983 to 2012, and the admitted operator of what is believed to be the largest municipal fraud in U.S. history. She was fired in April 2012 after the discovery that she had embezzled $53.7 million from the city of Dixon for over 22 years to support her championship American Quarter Horse breeding operation, as well as a lavish lifestyle away from work.[1][2][3] Crundwell pleaded guilty to her crimes and was sentenced to 19 and a half years in prison.[4]Crundwell used the stolen money to turn her Quarter Horse breeding operation, RC Quarter Horses, into one of the best-known in the country; her horses won 52 world championships and she was named the leading owner by the American Quarter Horse Association for eight consecutive years prior to her arrest.[5][6] She spent less than 8+1⁄2 years (43% of her sentence) in prison before being released in mid-2021 to serve the remainder of her sentence in home confinement at her brother's 80 acres (32 ha) farm in Dixon.Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixon,_IllinoisDixon is a city and the county seat of Lee County, Illinois, United States.[2] The population was 15,274 as of the 2020 census. The city is named after founder John Dixon, who operated a rope ferry service across the Rock River, which runs through the city.[3] The Illinois General Assembly designated Dixon as "Petunia Capital of Illinois" in 1999 and "The Catfish Capital of Illinois" in 2009.….In April 2012, Dixon Municipal Comptroller Rita Crundwell was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for embezzlement. She used the embezzled funds to pay for her lavish lifestyle and what became one of the nation's best-known quarter horse-breeding programs, among other things. Crundwell's crimes, thought to be the most substantial municipal theft in U.S. history,[8][9] impacted Dixon's finances severely. Federal prosecutors estimated the amount embezzled at $53 million since 1990.[10] The city sued the auditors who had failed to detect the embezzlement and the bank at which Crundwell maintained a secret account, and received $40 million in settlements.[11] In February 2013, Crundwell was sentenced to almost 20 years in prison.[9][12]Politico: She Stole $54 Million From Her Town. Then Something Unexpected Happened.This is a very good, in-depth article from 2023. I used this excerpt:Another intangible change: Dixon voters didn’t just throw out their council but their form of government itself, separating the legislative role of the City Council from the executive role of the city manager (whom the council appoints). Langloss, the current city manager, said the job functions like a that of a CEO, with a code of ethics not to get involved in politics. “The council really becomes a board of directors and the staff are in charge of running the operation day to day.”More checks and balances, yes, but still no matter the form of government, someone has to hold power, and there’s no inherent reason an appointed city manager would be immune from abusing it. (The former city manager of Bell, California, was convicted of corruption, along with six other city officials, in 2014.) Meanwhile, the city has also instituted new financial controls, separating out functions once all concentrated in the person of Rita Crundwell. And one study suggests that city manager-run governments are indeed less susceptible to corruption; for one thing, an appointed city manager does not depend on campaign contributions the way an elected mayor does. Then again, though, neither did Crundwell.What I did not use: the mayor died within a year, from cancer, and the whistleblower who found the issues during Crundwell’s vacation, Kathe Swanson, retired soon after all this.All this is very stressful on those exposing the wrong-doing. It’s better if the wrong-doing never happens in the first place. (This is for another time)Bell, CaliforniaWikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Bell_scandalLondon WhaleThe Modeling Platform: April 2016How to Keep Your Spreadsheets Out of the Headlines: A SummaryIn spring 2012, a prominent trader at JPMorgan was nicknamed the “London Whale” due to the size of the trading positions he took in credit default swaps. The risk management oversight for this trading desk relied on value-at-risk (VaR) limits calculated in a spreadsheet model. Within this spreadsheet, there was a key error. The formula in calculating the VaR limits inadvertently divided by the SUM of two numbers as opposed to their AVERAGE.1 As a result, the volatility measure being used in calculating VaR was off by a factor of two. That error led to a significant understatement of the trading risk. This was unlikely to be the only error in the spreadsheet, though. A report released in 2013 showed there was a series of spreadsheets being used for the risk management controls on these trades that involved several manual processes. Information was copied and pasted manually from one spreadsheet to another. The result of these errors: $6 billion in trading losses over a two-month period. To be sure, the risk management and governance problems found in this report went well beyond spreadsheets. However, lax spreadsheet practice did contribute to the loss.Baseline Scenario, Jame Kwak, 2013: The Importance of Excel: The issue is described in the appendix to JPMorgan’s internal investigative task force’s report. To summarize: JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office needed a new value-at-risk (VaR) model for the synthetic credit portfolio (the one that blew up) and assigned a quantitative whiz (“a London-based quantitative expert, mathematician and model developer” who previously worked at a company that built analytical models) to create it. The new model “operated through a series of Excel spreadsheets, which had to be completed manually, by a process of copying and pasting data from one spreadsheet to another.” The internal Model Review Group identified this problem as well as a few others, but approved the model, while saying that it should be automated and another significant flaw should be fixed.** After the London Whale trade blew up, the Model Review Group discovered that the model had not been automated and found several other errors. ….This is why the JPMorgan VaR model is the rule, not the exception: manual data entry, manual copy-and-paste, and formula errors. This is another important reason why you should pause whenever you hear that banks’ quantitative experts are smarter than Einstein, or that sophisticated risk management technology can protect banks from blowing up. At the end of the day, it’s all software. While all software breaks occasionally, Excel spreadsheets break all the time. But they don’t tell you when they break: they just give you the wrong number.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

This one is dark, so you’ve been warned. In my post last week on drug overdoses, I noted the great increase in drug overdose deaths during the pandemic, and I address the issue of drug addiction and its relationship with physical pain. Sometimes, there are no good choices. Episode Links (Updated)Matt Bivens, M.D. piece:Drug Overdose Death StatsDashboard of U.S. Population Mortality — Opioid DeathsSOA Research page: U.S. Population Mortality Observations – Updated with 2021 ExperienceHistorical ItemsLaudanum: is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine).[1] Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) in alcohol (ethanol).Innumerable Victorian women were prescribed the drug for relief of menstrual cramps and vague aches. Nurses also spoon-fed laudanum to infants. The Romantic and Victorian eras were marked by the widespread use of laudanum in Europe and the United States. Mary Todd Lincoln, for example, the wife of the US president Abraham Lincoln, was a laudanum addict, as was the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was famously interrupted in the middle of an opium-induced writing session of Kubla Khan by "a person on business from Porlock".[14] Initially a working class drug, laudanum was cheaper than a bottle of gin or wine, because it was treated as a medication for legal purposes and not taxed as an alcoholic beverage.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Ohio State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) is having some drama, as a consulting firm has resigned due to power struggles between competing interests. The plan participants, whether current teachers or retirees, are angry about STRS investment staff getting bonuses while they do not get cost-of-living adjustments for retirement benefits. All of this while in an economic environment of high inflation… they aren’t the first and will not be the last.Episode LinksOhio STRS media coverage1 May 2024, Pensions & Investment: Ohio State Teachers loses Aon as consultant amid board turmoilOhio State Teachers’ Retirement System, Columbus, has lost Aon as a governance consultant after the firm resigned from the assignment, according to people familiar with the matter.The $94 billion pension fund’s board recently tilted to a majority of self-proclaimed reformers who want to gut investment staff and move the pension fund to all index funds, citing a desire to restore a permanent 3% cost-of-living adjustment.At the April 18 board meeting, Trustee Wade Steen reclaimed his seat after the 10th District Court of Appeals earlier that day ruled that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine did not have the authority in May 2023 to remove Steen as his appointed investment expert on the STRS board before the completion of his four-year term.5 May 2024, Toledo Blade: Editorial: STRS got firedThe State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio needs a new fiduciary governance adviser. The $92 billion retirement fund for 500,000 Ohio teachers was effectively fired by Aon Fiduciary Services over the chaos on the STRS board.When the 10th District Court of Appeals ruled that Gov. Mike DeWine acted outside his constitutional authority in firing his appointed investment expert Wade Steen, there suddenly was a 6-5 board majority in support of reforms first advocated by Mr. Steen.STRS Board Chairman Dale Price, a Toledo Public School teacher, abruptly ended the April 18 meeting without the procedural norms of a motion to adjourn and a vote that supports the motion. The reform majority on the STRS Board was left to sputter in outrage as Mr. Price raced out of STRS headquarters.April 2024: Ousted STRS member makes dramatic return to board, armed with court rulingCOLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The governor overstepped his authority when he removed a member of the state teacher pension board, a court has ruled. Ohio’s 10th District Court of Appeals sided with ousted State Teachers Retirement System investment expert Wade Steen on Thursday, ruling that Gov. Mike DeWine did not have the constitutional authority to remove Steen from his position on the pension board. The decision cements a magistrate’s recommendation that Steen be reinstated to the board to complete his term.….Steen’s presence on the board gave a faction of reformers a majority, allowing them to make desired changes to the state’s teacher retirement fund. But the board chairman called a sudden adjournment of the meeting and left, effectively ending it.December 2023: Math doesn’t add up – Retired teachers denied 3% COLA increases while some STRS staff get huge bonusesThe images of smiling retired teachers on the screen painted a different picture than the reality faced by Kathy Foster, who retired after teaching 32 years in Findlay.Despite promises from the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, Foster said she has received only one 3% raise since retiring 10 years ago.“I got one cost of living wage,” said Foster, who lives in Wayne.Meanwhile, the STRS investment staff has been handsomely rewarded for their work, she said.“They have gotten millions of dollars in bonuses,” Foster said. “They lost billions of dollars last year, and they are still getting bonuses.”“We haven’t gotten the money we were promised. I just want the 3% that I was promised,” she said.STRS is not being good fiduciaries, said Foster, who in retirement has taken on a part-time job at the Wayne Public Library to make ends meet. “I’m not going to be able to work forever,” she said.“They keep asking the members and the employers for even more,” while the system is spending money on the slick public relations blitz showing teachers seemingly thrilled with their retirement benefits, Foster said, shaking her head.Public Plans Database: Ohio TeachersAll graphs sourced from the Public Plans DatabaseSTRS 2022 Actuarial Valuation ReportSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Back in December, somebody asked me how many people alive now would be alive in 75 years. The answer: about 15% (for the U.S.). This is not a trivial question — it relates to questions of political decision-making for the long-term, such as public finance. In this episode, I look at the survivorship for 10 years, 25 years, 50 years, and 75 years, and think through what this means.Graphs and spreadsheet below.Episode Links, Graphs, and MoreData and AssumptionsPopulation EstimateReleased 11 April 2024: 2023 Population Estimates by Age and SexSocial Security Mortality Cohort Projections2023 Social Security Trustees Report Life Tables, Cohort by Age and Sex, based on the Alternative 2 mortality probabilities used in the 2023 Trustees Report.Survivorship ProjectionsFirst, here are the graphs of the original population in 2023, and how many of them survive to 2033 (10 years), 2048 (25 years), 2073 (50 years), and 2098 (75 years).This is ignoring any new immigrants or births, just focusing on the current U.S. population and projecting into the future, looking at survivorship.You can see all the weird peaks, and especially, the steep drops in old age.But let me simplify the survivorship understanding with this table:While 15% of the overall population of 2023 makes it to 2098, you can see that is primarily those currently age 20 and younger. Let’s make it even more apparent:Again, this is just projecting the current population. In 75 years, of the current population still around, 93% will be those currently 20 and younger, 7% will be 21-40 years old now, and those of us over 40 will have been long gone.SpreadsheetRelated PostsMay 2015: Illinois Pensions: How Did We Get Here? The 1970 Constitution  This is the relevant section of the 1970 Illinois State Constitution:SECTION 5. PENSION AND RETIREMENT RIGHTSMembership in any pension or retirement system of the State, any unit of local government or school district, or any agency or instrumentality thereof, shall be an enforceable contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.That section has not been amended since 1970.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve got five decades on me now, and five pieces of advice/themes to share:* Be a good animal* The universe is stranger and more wonderful than you can imagine* Never pay retail!* You can try anything once OR Risk is Opportunity* It’s not about you (or me)Episode LinksBe a Good Animal2015 LinkedIn: Best Advice: Be a Good AnimalBattling Cognitive Bias, reprint in 2018Thank you for reading STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more. This post is public so feel free to share it.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I look at the most recent revelations re: Francesca Gino’s academia malfeasance, but other tales of academic malpractice. Such as: filling in missing values in datasets with Excel’s autofill functionality, and not sharing data in chemistry/material science or cancer research in what may be fraudulent research. How can we depend on the data and results from what is supposedly hard science research?Episode LinksFrancesca GinoScience, 9 Apr 2024: Embattled Harvard honesty professor accused of plagiarism by Cathleen O’GradyHarvard University honesty researcher Francesca Gino, whose work has come under fire for suspected data falsification, may also have plagiarized passages in some of her high-profile publications.A book chapter co-authored by Gino, who was found by a 2023 Harvard Business School (HBS) investigation to have committed research misconduct, contains numerous passages of text with striking similarities to 10 earlier sources. The sources include published papers and student theses, according to an analysis shared with Science by University of Montreal psychologist Erinn Acland.Science has confirmed Acland’s findings and identified at least 15 additional passages of borrowed text in Gino’s two books, Rebel Talent: Why it Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life and Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed, and How We Can Stick to the Plan. Some passages duplicate text from news reports or blogs. Others contain phrasing identical to passages from academic literature. The extent of duplication varies between passages, but all contain multiple identical phrases, as well as clear paraphrases and significant structural similarity.…Debora Weber-Wulff, a plagiarism expert at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences, says Science’s findings are “quite serious” and warrant further investigation by the publishers and universities. HBS and Harvard Business Review Press, which published Sidetracked, declined to comment. Dey Street Books, a HarperCollins imprint that published Rebel Talent, and Guilford Press, publisher of the edited book The Social Psychology of Good and Evil that includes the co-authored chapter, did not respond to a request for comment.Acland says she decided to “poke around” into Gino’s work in September 2023, after the researcher filed a $25 million lawsuit against HBS and the data sleuths who uncovered the misconduct. Acland focused on plagiarism, rather than data issues, because of her experience detecting it in student work. She searched phrases from Gino’s work on Google Scholar to see whether they matched content from other works.She says she found apparent plagiarism in the very first sentence of the first work she assessed, the 2016 chapter “Dishonesty explained: What leads moral people to act immorally.” The sentence—“The accounting scandals and the collapse of billion-dollar companies at the beginning of the 21st century have forever changed the business landscape”—is word for word the same as a passage in a 2010 paper by the University of Washington management researcher Elizabeth Umphress and colleagues.I didn’t talk about the person who found the plagiarism in this case. This is what gets me so often — the tenured profs just assume nobody will ever check.For various reasons, perhaps all the top profs shouldn’t assume that anymore. And maybe they should start crediting all their research assistants with the real work…. but that’s for another time.Prior Gino posts/episodes:Material Science/Chemistry Non-Replicable ExperimentChemistry World, 11 April 2024: Holes in the ‘holey graphyne’ storyRecently, the journal Matter published a paper describing a novel form of carbon.2 This purported allotrope, ‘holey graphyne’, is comprised mainly of cyclooctadiyne rings. Moreover, the synthesis was supposedly accomplished using a simple copper catalyst. Typically, the C–C bond-forming reactions of the kind claimed in the Matter paper require expensive palladium.The unusual structure and the unprecedented chemistry should have raised eyebrows during peer review, and ideally before this review commenced. Eight-membered rings with even a single triple bond are highly reactive (harnessing that reactivity has brought a Nobel prize to Carolyn Bertozzi). A material containing that many two-triple-bond rings would be more energetic than TNT, and likely quite prone to rapid unscheduled disassembly. Contrary to these expectations, the paper asserted perfect stability of the ‘holey’ material up to 700°C. While the reported spectroscopy was demonstrably mismatched with the claimed structure, the authors simply declared that everything fits.….Our replication is now published.4 We are grateful to the editor of Matter, as I know from experience that not every editor would even acknowledge the problem.Regrettably, this story doesn’t qualify as a decisive win for post-publication review. Following their policy, Matter allowed the authors to publish a response, which doubled down on the original dubious conclusions. For now, the ‘holey’ paper remains unretracted, though I remain hopeful.You may have come across equally troubling papers in your field. Don’t remain silent. Share your concerns on platforms like PubPeer or social media, reach out to journal editors and inform research compliance offices. This may end up being some of your most important work.Matter, 6 March 2024: The purported synthesis of “holey graphyne” fails replicationA recent article by Ryu, Lee, and co-workers claims synthesis of “holey graphyne,” a strained sp2/sp1 carbon lattice featuring a repeating dibenzo-1,5-cyclooctadiene-3,7-diyne motif. Here, we describe the replication of the key experiments from this article. We did not observe the formation of holey graphyne under the reported conditions. Furthermore, we show that the claimed copper-mediated sp2/sp1 cross-coupling chemistry fails even for undemanding model substrates.The Saga of the Iffy Excel Autofill & “Just Copy the Next Country” ImputationRetraction Watch, 5 Feb 2024: No data? No problem! Undisclosed tinkering in Excel behind economics paperLast year, a new study on green innovations and patents in 27 countries left one reader slack-jawed. The findings were no surprise. What was baffling was how the authors, two professors of economics in Europe, had pulled off the research in the first place. The reader, a PhD student in economics, was working with the same data described in the paper. He knew they were riddled with holes – sometimes big ones: For several countries, observations for some of the variables the study tracked were completely absent. The authors made no mention of how they dealt with this problem. On the contrary, they wrote they had “balanced panel data,” which in economic parlance means a dataset with no gaps.“I was dumbstruck for a week,” said the student, who requested anonymity for fear of harming his career. (His identity is known to Retraction Watch.)22 Feb 2024: Exclusive: Elsevier to retract paper by economist who failed to disclose data tinkeringA paper on green innovation that drew sharp rebuke for using questionable and undisclosed methods to replace missing data will be retracted, its publisher told Retraction Watch.Previous work by one of the authors, a professor of economics in Sweden, is also facing scrutiny, according to another publisher. As we reported earlier this month, Almas Heshmati of Jönköping University mended a dataset full of gaps by liberally applying Excel’s autofill function and copying data between countries – operations other experts described as “horrendous” and “beyond concern.”21 Feb 2024, by Gary Smith: How (not) to deal with missing data: An economist’s take on a controversial studyFor example, a student in my introductory statistics class once surveyed 54 classmates and was disappointed that the P-value was 0.114. This student’s creative solution was to multiply the original data by three by assuming each survey response had been given by three people instead of one: “I assumed I originally picked a perfect random sample, and that if I were to poll 3 times as many people, my data would be greater in magnitude, but still distributed in the same way.” This ingenious solution reduced the P-value to 0.011, well below Fisher’s magic threshold.Ingenious, yes. Sensible, no. If this procedure were legitimate, every researcher could multiply their data by whatever number is necessary to get a P-value below 0.05. The only valid way to get more data is, well, to get more data. This student should have surveyed more people instead of fabricating data.….Joelving also found that Excel’s autofill function sometimes generated negative values, which were, in theory, impossible for some data. For example, Korea is missing R&Dinv (green R&D investments) data for 1990-1998. Heshmati and Tsionas used Excel’s autofill with three years of data (1999, 2000, and 2001) to create data for the nine missing years. The imputed values for 1990-1996 were negative, so the authors set these equal to the positive 1997 value.Cancer Research FraudThe Free Press, February 2024: We’re Not Curing Cancer Here, GuysThese concerns have been brewing for a while and they are reaching a tipping point. The fact that there’s been so much plagiarism at Harvard and there’s been all this image manipulation shows that the most venerable institutions are no safeguard against malfeasance. What punishment have any of these researchers actually faced? Claudine Gay resigned, although was shuffled into a role that paid her very well. All of the authors of these disputed papers have, to my knowledge, faced no sanction. Their paper gets withdrawn, but they still get promoted. There’s no punishment. A few years ago, there was a proposal by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors arguing that every paper published in the top journals should make the raw data available. That proposal was shot down because people were worried about their careers, and that other researchers would take their data and use it to make breakthroughs before them. Sharing is the solution. You should have to make all the data available whenever you publish medical research.Research Fraud, etc. thread at GoActuaryContains links to these and other storiesSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Let’s look at the condition of Minnesota Teachers, Connecticut state funds, and Chicago pensions, and three different (actually more) proposals to fix what ails these systems.While Chicago is actually in the worst situation, the proposals for Chicago sound the most realistic in terms of fixing its problems.Edward Siedle’s linksMar 2024: Minnesota Teachers Fundraise Forensic Audit of State Pension SystemApr 2024: Minnesota Teacher Pension Forensic Investigation Invites Whistleblower, Expert And Public ParticipationMinnesota Teachers in Public Plans DatabaseMinnesota Teachers Retirement Association - contains two plans in the database: Duluth Teachers and Minnesota Teachers. Duluth is small in terms of participants, so I will just link Minnesota Teachers plan.Minnesota Teachers pension plan. Some selected graphs:Connecticut pension linksHartford Courant op-ed10 Ways to reform public pension fundsImprovements in the state's historical investment underperformance can alleviate the crushing income tax burden of transferring $7.7 billion in surplus contributions from state tax revenues to pay down the pension burden, and relieve state public employees and teachers from being docked an additional 2% of their wages each year to cover the investments hole. With even average performance in the past, Connecticut's income tax might have been sliced in half or more.Given the scale of this challenge, it is remarkable that decades of underperformance of Connecticut's pension funds escaped public notice and scrutiny for as long as it did, until last year, when we revealed in a 113-page research report how Connecticut's pension funds have had one of the worst investment track records of all 50 peer states, across all timeframes, which garnered significant attention and calls to action from across the state. Given the asset management and endowment investing expertise in Connecticut, this was a tragic paradox.Yale Business Report113-slide version: The Investment Challenges Facing Connecticut’s Pension Funds - Jan 2023.pdfShorter version: Why Connecticut’s Investments Are UnderperformingPie charts w/ the Excel defaults:They actually cleaned it up a little bit from the originals.Washington PensionsConnecticut PensionsAs you can see, there is a very salient different between the two states.And here we go:Chicago pension linksPress Release, 5 Apr 2024: Harris School of Public Policy Announces Policy Innovation Challenge's Winning Student-Led Pension ProposalOp-eds from the finalistsRead each team's op-ed via the links below: The winning team: Opinion: Here's a roadmap to financial stability with Chicago's pensionsBy Syed Ahmad , Anthony Beaupre , Liam Gluck , James Karsten , Greg RuddOpinion: To fix Chicago's pensions, consider a change in public opinionBy Eddie Andujar , Andy Fan , Andre Oviedo , Alberto SaldarriagaOpinion: Two paths to funding Chicago's pension futureBy Anna Weiss , Purva Sarkango , Devyanshi DubeySTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

That life expectancy was around 64 when Social Security was started is misleading. That is also irrelevant for making decisions for making Social Security sustainable now. The parameters involved are more complex: we need to look at life expectancy age 65, the size of the working population compared to the retired population, and how many children are coming to add to that working population. Decisions must be made within the next decade — raise taxes, cut benefits, or some combination. People will not be happy.Episode LinksPrior STUMP posts related:On Life ExpectancyThat was the claim.Here are the facts.2023 OASDI Trustees Report — Table V.A4.—Period Life Expectancy: Historical DataFirst, while period life expectancy from birth increased about 15-16 years from 1940 to 2019 (ignore the pandemic for now), the key life expectancy - from age 65 - didn’t extend quite so much — only 5-6 years. That’s because you have to survive to age 65 in the first place.A chart from the American Academy of Actuaries based on the historical, plus projected, from the report:Social Security HistoryFrequently Asked QuestionsQ1:  When did Social Security start?A: The Social Security Act was signed by FDR on 8/14/35. Taxes were collected for the first time in January 1937 and the first one-time, lump-sum payments were made that same month. Regular ongoing monthly benefits started in January 1940.American Academy of ActuariesAn Actuarial Perspective on the 2023 Social Security Trustees ReportSocial Security Committee issue brief on 2023 Social Security Trustees Report examining the latest detailed annual assessment by the federal government of the program’s solvency.(February 02, 2024)Issue Brief: Reforming Social Security Sooner Rather Than LaterSocial Security’s combined trust fund reserves are projected to become depleted around 2034,1 at which time its income would be able to pay only 80% of the benefits scheduled for its 80 million beneficiaries. It is important that Congress immediately focus on this issue because delay makes the solution more difficult, as it gradually limits the viable options to those relying on increasing taxes. (October 31, 2023)STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Looking at a recent sumo world scandal, but also looking at it from the point of view of self-regulation. Can self-regulation work? Looking at professional sumo in Japan, Equitable Life Assurance Society in the UK, and actuarial practice in public pensions in the United States.[Gyoji photo: By Eckhard Pecher (Arcimboldo) - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3381695]Episode LinksHokuseiho/Miyagino Bullying ScandalBBC News: Hakuho: Top sumo champion demoted due to protege's violenceTachiai Blog: Hokuseiho is out; Miyagino Hangs On By a ThreadJapan Times, by John Gunning: How a rethink of supervision at stables could curtail bullying in sumoWho Will Watch the Watchmen?Wikipedia article... nouiconsilia et ueteres quaecumque monetis amici,"pone seram, cohibes." sed quis custodiet ipsoscustodes? qui nunc lasciuae furta puellaehac mercede silent crimen commune tacetur.... I knowthe plan that my friends always advise me to adopt:"Bolt her in, constrain her!" But who can watchthe watchmen? They keep quiet about the girl'ssecrets and get her as their payment; everyone hushes it up.Equitable Life Assurance SocietyWikipedia articleEuropean Parliament document on the fiasco: REPORT on the crisis of the Equitable Life Assurance SocietyEquitable Life: A Decade of Regulatory FailurePublic Pension SegmentAmerican Academy of Actuaries Public DisciplineNotice on Jonathan Schwartz’s public discipline from the AcademyActuarial Board for Counseling and DisciplineSTUMP Nov 2018: Actuarial History... Which is Not Really History  While the “voodoo” remark pissed off a lot of actuaries (and thus many complained to the ABCD), he also got dinged for this shoddy work. FWIW, he already did what the Academy required of him as part of his discipline, and while he’s listed as officially retired in the Actuarial Directory, he’s still a member of the SOA and Academy, as far as I can tell.….Schwartz was there to say that defined benefit pensions aren’t obsolete, and they are affordable.And he “persuaded” that these were affordable… by fudging the numbers. Actuarial “voodoo” if you will.He actually undermined the DB plans by lowballing the cost. Only in the short run do those in the unions get their payouts, but if it turns out the costs (which are ongoing – people who retired at age 50 back in 2008 have a high probability of still being alive, for instance) are too high….dun dun DUN….STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

I reach back to a two-parter I wrote in 2012 for the Stepping Stone, the newsletter for the Leadership and Personal Development interest section of the Society of Actuaries. My argument: read the classics — they’re chock full of stories relevant to leadership. Episode LinksThe original articles:Part 1: Leadership Books - the ClassicsPart 2: The Classics, Part 2Project Gutenberg LinksPlutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans by PlutarchThe Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by SuetoniusThe History of the Peloponnesian War by ThucydidesThe Iliad by HomerSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Let’s look at the 2024 Financial State of the Cities, the annual report from Truth in Accounting. This one is based on the reports coming from FY2022, so there is a lag, as you can tell. I focus specifically on New York City, the city coming in dead last, as well as a coming development in “machine-readable” data for state and local financial reporting.Episode LinksTruth in Accounting’s FSOC 2024PDF: https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/Financial-State-of-the-Cities-2024.pdfA few graphsA couple “random” towns I didn’t talk about:In accounting terms, black is good, red is badWebinar:Financial Data Transparency ActLiz Farmer: 3 issues to watch in a landmark year for government financial data DebtBook: Get the FDTA PlaybookRelated Links2020: Taxing Tuesday Special: State of the Cities from Truth in Accounting  STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Three tales of accountability… or lack thereof. I start with a “heartwarming” tale of a supposed Excel error - $92 million error - that becomes an opportunity to strengthen the corporate team… yay! (That’s not exactly what happened, FWIW.) The second one is from Liz Farmer and involves a Virginia town with finances in a mess. And the third… is really big. But shouldn’t surprise anybody.Episode LinksLiz Farmer’s substackI was not realizing this story is free to all:Here is a quote from this free story:A commonality with all the fiscal distress laws I’ve reviewed is that decisions are to be made for the sake of the health, safety and well-being of residents. When a locality is chronically unable to manage its finances, it endangers vital public services and puts residents at risk. But state takeovers can go horribly wrong. In Michigan, studies have shown that the wide-ranging authority of the emergency manager law and the resulting lack of accountability of the manager in place in 2014 contributed directly to Flint’s devastating water crisis.This is a worst-case scenario, but it shouldn’t be dismissed as an extreme. The fear that an outsider will strong-arm duly elected local officials and subvert the will of the people is a legitimate one. The key here is accountability. Virginia’s law requires an emergency manager to submit regular reports to state and local entities, which is one mechanism for accountability.Sadly, the more common scenario is that residents suffer harm due to local officials’ inability (or unwillingness) to make the tough decisions that a fiscal crisis requires. Emergency response times tick upward, garbage litters the streets because trash pickup is unreliable, libraries and community centers operate on shortened hours—you get the point. I haven’t done a deep dive into Hopewell’s long-term financial trends, but I did stumble upon one datapoint that suggests residents here have increasingly been paying for the city’s fiscal woes. I highly recommend Liz Farmer’s work.The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund StoryFinancial Times: The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth fund’s $92 million error [paywall]ResearchGate: Anthropological gaze, stories, and reflections on NBIM cultureLast year (spring 2022) we had an off-site. One of our workshops was on “Mistakes and how to deal with them”. We wrote post-it notes, classifying them into different categories from harmless to no-goes. One of my post-it notes, I remember it vividly, read: Miscalculation of the Ministry of Finance benchmark. I placed it in the category unforgivable. When I wrote that note, I honestly couldn’t even dare to think about the consequences . . . And less than a year later, I did exactly that. My worst nightmare. It was a manual mistake. My mistake. I used the wrong date, December 1st instead of November 1st which is clearly stated in our mandate. The mistake was not revealed until months later, by the Ministry of Finance. They reported back that the numbers did not add up. I did all the numbers once more, and the cause of the mistake was identified. I immediately reported to Patrick [Global Head] and Dag [Chief]. I openly express that this was my mistake, and mine alone. I felt miserable and was ready to take the consequences — whatever they might be.Federal Debt and Entitlement IssueBabylon Bee: Senators Say They're Not Super Worried About Running Up National Debt As Most Of Them Will Die Of Natural Causes In The Next Year Or SoCharles Blahous in Discourse Magazine: Americans Should Be Less Complacent About Social SecuritySTUMP Related PostsSTUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

I cover how some people live to a grand old age — by lying about it! And why do they do that? For the money, of course! The sentinel effect, though, can prevent this from occurring. Looking at the case of the oldest man in Japan who had been dead for 30 years and more.Episode linksSecret of Supercentenarians?2009, NewScientist: Secrets of the centenarians: Life begins at 100Dying of old age"There is one, and only one, cause of death at older ages. And that is old age." So said Leonard Hayflick, one of the most influential gerontologists of all time. But dying of old age isn't just a case of peacefully losing the will to live - it is an accumulation of diseases and injuries different to those that tend to kill people at younger ages.For a start, the oldest old have very low rates of chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease and stroke. The trend is particularly apparent for cancer. The odds of developing it increase sharply as people age, but they fall from the age of 84, and plummet from 90 onwards. Only 4 per cent of centenarians die of cancer, compared with 40 per cent of people that die in their fifties and sixties.Many centenarians even manage to ward off chronic diseases after indulging in a lifetime of serious health risks. Many people in the New England Centenarian Study experienced a century free of cancer or heart disease despite smoking as many as 60 cigarettes a day for 50 years. The same story applies to people from Japan's longevity hotspot, Okinawa, where around half of the local supercentenarians had a history of smoking and one-third were regular alcohol drinkers. These people may well have genes that protect them from the dangers of carcinogens or the random mutations that crop up naturally when cells divide.So what does kill off the oldest old? Pneumonia is the biggest culprit, with other respiratory infections, accidents and intestinal problems trailing behind. "Dying of old age involves total systems failure," says Craig Willcox of the Okinawa Centenarian Study in Japan. "Centenarians avoid age-associated diseases, but you see a lot of systemic wear and tear. Almost all of them have had some problems with cataracts, they can't hear very well and have osteoarthritis. Our most recently deceased centenarian in Okinawa caught a cold and died in her sleep."2019, Vox: Study: many of the “oldest” people in the world may not be as old as we thinkWe’ve long been obsessed with the super-elderly. How do some people make it to 100 or even 110 years old? Why do some regions — say, Sardinia, Italy, or Okinawa, Japan —produce dozens of these “supercentenarians” while other regions produce none? Is it genetics? Diet? Environmental factors? Long walks at dawn?A new working paper released on bioRxiv, the open access site for prepublication biology papers, appears to have cleared up the mystery once and for all: It’s none of the above.Instead, it looks like the majority of the supercentenarians (people who’ve reached the age of 110) in the United States are engaged in — intentional or unintentional — exaggeration.….The paper also looks at the phenomenon in Italy and Japan, where something different seems to be happening.Italy keeps better vital statistics than the United States does, and has had reliable vital statistics across the country for hundreds of years — yet in Italy, too, there are clusters of the country where lots of supercentenarians pop up. Maybe the Italian supercentenarians are for real?Newman’s analysis suggests not. He starts out by noticing something fishy: The parts of Italy that claim the most supercentenarians overall have high crime rates and low life expectancy. Isn’t that weird? Why would an area generally have low life expectancy but also produce an extremely disproportionate share of the world’s oldest people?The same pattern repeats itself in Japan: Okinawa has the greatest density of super-old people, despite having one of the lowest life expectancies in the country and generally poor health outcomes.The paper puts forward a controversial proposal. It seems unlikely that living in high-crime, low-life-expectancy areas is the thing that makes it likeliest to reach age 110. It seems likelier, the paper concludes, that many — perhaps even most — of the people claiming to reach age 110 are engaged in fraud or at least exaggeration. The paper gives a couple of examples of how this might come about; some of it might be reporting error, and some of the supercentenarians might be produced by pension fraud (someone might be claiming a dead person is still alive for pension benefits, or claiming the identity of a parent or older sibling).bioRXiV: Supercentenarians and the oldest-old are concentrated into regions with no birth certificates and short lifespansAbstract: The observation of individuals attaining remarkable ages, and their concentration into geographic sub-regions or ‘blue zones’, has generated considerable scientific interest. Proposed drivers of remarkable longevity include high vegetable intake, strong social connections, and genetic markers. Here, we reveal new predictors of remarkable longevity and ‘supercentenarian’ status. In the United States, supercentenarian status is predicted by the absence of vital registration. The state-specific introduction of birth certificates is associated with a 69-82% fall in the number of supercentenarian records. In Italy, which has more uniform vital registration, remarkable longevity is instead predicted by low per capita incomes and a short life expectancy. Finally, the designated ‘blue zones’ of Sardinia, Okinawa, and Ikaria corresponded to regions with low incomes, low literacy, high crime rate and short life expectancy relative to their national average. As such, relative poverty and short lifespan constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status, and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating remarkable human age records.PDF: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v1.full.pdfJapan Pension FraudJuly 2010, BBC News: Tokyo's 'oldest man' had been dead for 30 yearsHe was thought to be the oldest man in Tokyo - but when officials went to congratulate Sogen Kato on his 111th birthday, they uncovered mummified skeletal remains lying in his bed.Mr Kato may have been dead for 30 years according to Japanese authorities.They grew suspicious when they went to honour Mr Kato at his address in Adachi ward, but his granddaughter told them he "doesn't want to see anybody".Police are now investigating the family on possible fraud charges.Wikipedia: Sogen Kato, AftermathAfter the discovery of Kato's mummified corpse, other checks into elderly centenarians across Japan produced reports of missing centenarians and faulty recordkeeping. Tokyo officials attempted to find the oldest woman in the city, 113-year-old Fusa Furuya, who was registered as living with her daughter. Furuya's daughter said she had not seen her mother for over 25 years.[12] The revelations about the disappearance of Furuya and the death of Kato prompted a nationwide investigation, which concluded that police did not know if 234,354 people older than 100 were still alive.[13] More than 77,000 of these people, officials said, would have been older than 120 years old if they were still alive. Poor record keeping was blamed for many of the cases,[13] and officials said that many may have died during World War II. One register claimed a man was still alive at age 186.[14]Following the revelations about Kato and Furuya, analysts investigated why recordkeeping by Japanese authorities was poor. Many seniors have, it has been reported, moved away from their family homes. Statistics show that divorce is becoming increasingly common among the elderly. Dementia, which afflicts more than two million Japanese, is also a contributing factor. "Many of those gone missing are men who left their hometowns to look for work in Japan's big cities during the country's pre-1990s boom years. Many of them worked obsessively long hours and never built a social network in their new homes. Others found less economic success than they'd hoped. Ashamed of that failure, they didn't feel they could return home,"[13] a Canadian newspaper reported several months after the discovery of Kato's body.[13]New York State Pension FraudJuly 2023:DiNapoli: Texas Woman Charged with Stealing Over $65,000 in NYS Pension PaymentsState Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli announced the indictment of a 53-year-old Texas woman for allegedly stealing more than $65,000 in New York state pension payments meant for a deceased acquaintance. Christy Gibson, of Smith County, Texas, was indicted by Texas prosecutors and charged with one count of theft after an investigation by DiNapoli’s office.“Christy Gibson went to great lengths to cover up the death of an acquaintance to line her own pockets,” DiNapoli said. “Thanks to the work of my investigators and law enforcement in Texas, she will be held accountable. We will continue to partner with law enforcement from across the country to protect the New York State Retirement System.”William H. Walsh Jr. retired from the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in November 1986. He elected to receive a reduced monthly retirement benefit so his wife, Mary L. Walsh, would continue to receive payments if he died before her. William Walsh died in October 2005. Mary Walsh died in December 2012 and at the time of death the pension payments should have stopped. Instead, her death was never reported to the New York state retirement system.In May 2013, the retirement system received information indicating that Walsh may have died, and pension payments were halted. In June of that year, the retirement system sought verification that Mary Walsh was still alive and subsequently received notarized verification, purportedly from Mary Walsh. As a result, the pension payments were reinstated.A later investigation by the State Comptroller’s Office found that Mary Walsh was in fact deceased, and the verification was fraudulent.In total, 70 pension payments were paid after date of death, amounting to $65,102.28.The pension payments went into a joint account in the name of Mary Walsh and Gibson that was opened in 2011. Gibson never informed the bank of Walsh’s death or removed Walsh’s name from the account. It appears that Gibson was an acquaintance of Mary Walsh through her sister-in-law and also worked at the nursing home where Walsh eventually lived.DiNapoli’s investigators determined that Gibson used the joint account to pay for entertainment and food. Gibson also made electronic transfers and cash withdrawals. The Value of the Sentinel EffectProduct Development News, October 1998, Richard L. Bergstrom, The Underwriter’s Corner, “The Value of the Sentinel Effect (Revisited)” https://www.soa.org/globalassets/assets/library/newsletters/product-development-news/1998/october/pdn-1998-iss47-bergstrom.pdf Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

In the brou-ha-ha over Chris Rufo’s masters degree from Harvard (Extension School), people expose that Harvard education is not particularly special, but that the brand comes from selectivity more than the education. I talk about the distinction between education and credentials, and my preference for separating the two.Episode LinksHarvardAbout Harvard Extension SchoolSince our founding in 1910, we have extended Harvard University to the world — to adult learners who have the curiosity and drive to be challenged. Part of the Harvard Division of Continuing Education, we serve students seeking part-time online courses and programs to advance their careers or pursue an academic passion.We are a fully accredited Harvard school. Our degrees and certificates are adorned with the Harvard University insignia. They carry the weight of that lineage. Our graduates walk at University Commencement and become members of the Harvard Alumni Association.Prof Hochschild statementshttps://twitter.com/sfmcguire79/status/1745999107569631290https://twitter.com/sfmcguire79/status/1745983162381987930https://twitter.com/Jenniferhochsc2/status/1745912823689973880Chris Rufo statementshttps://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1746301145004613819https://twitter.com/BarneyFlames/status/1745928845167821101https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1745922978553155749https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1745924111652806981Personal MBAPersonal MBA websitePersonal MBA ManifestoThe Personal MBA is a project designed to help you educate yourself about advanced business concepts. This manifesto will show you how to substantially increase your knowledge of business on your own time and with little cost, all without setting foot inside a classroom.The Personal MBA is more flexible than a traditional MBA program, doesn’t involve going into massive debt, and won’t interrupt your income stream for two years. Just pick up one of these business books, learn as much as you can, discuss what you learn with others, then go out into the real world and make great things happen.If you’re interested in educating yourself about business, The Personal MBA is the best place to start.“Get Your Personal MBA!” by Mary Pat Campbell, July 2009The Personal MBA concept revolves around a booklist, organized into categories such as communication, project management, entrepreneurship, leadership and personal development. Titles include familiar business classics:Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion There are also newer books on the list, such as Seth Godin’s Tribes, published in October 2008, which looks at the impact of new communication channels (e.g. Twitter or Facebook) on the concept of effective leadership. ….My own recommendation regarding use of the PMBA reading list is to prioritize reading the older books on the list over the newer ones. Many of the newer titles (such as the previously mentioned Tribes) are faddish and will probably not have lasting relevance. ….A personal recommendation from the PMBA reading list is Darrell Huff’s How to Lie with Statistics. Originally published in 1954, this book is a short and gentle introduction to popular distortions and misuses of statistics (and some of the numbers he quotes are good for a laugh). I read this book when I first learned statistics, and I’ve used it in my teaching of the subject since then. A good followup to this book (not on the PMBA list) are Edward Tufte’s books1 on graphical presentation of numerical data, which may help you think of effective graphical presentations in your own work. “Quit Paying For Business Education!” by Mary Pat Campbell, October 2008I come not to praise the business book, but to bury it. There is much crystallized wisdom and information in the many books in the business section of stores like Barnes & Noble (especially if “Drucker” is on the spine). However, too often I find I’ve put down good money for something that is outdated (given long publication cycles), full of lightweight prescriptions that aren’t actionable, or is based on a metaphor extended far beyond any reasonable application. I get tired of the books churned out by CEOs boosting their egos, or consultants using the books as vehicles to drum up business or speaking engagements. The book sits lifeless in my hand, its story unfolding in a linear manner, with no interaction between me and the material except a reflective one. I’ve written comments in the margins of books: “What did he mean by that?”, “Where can I learn more about this?”, “What a crock!”. But no one answers.My “No Child’s Ass Left Unkicked” IdeaJan 2007: Charles Murray response: teaching wisdomAgain, all these lessons are important for everybody, but one likely has to make special provisions for those who are extremely intelligent as they're the least likely to run into these lessons in a standard classroom. It's hard to learn humility when you're constantly lauded as the best. It's hard to learn that hard work is needed when everything is easy for you. It's hard to give others their proper respect when others are always praising your results more than others.So, in short, all kids need to have their asses kicked, but the intellectually gifted are least likely to have that done. So we've got to make sure they get what's coming to them, too.I call this plan the No Child's Ass Left Unkicked plan.Archive of my education-related posts on livejournal - oldest post on that list is 2001First Things PodcastIn this episode, Andrew Youngblood joins Mark Bauerlein to discuss his new book “Know Thyself: Catholic Classical Education and the Discovery of Self​​.”STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

In which I give some advice as to what composition teachers should do, given that students can just go to chatGPT and ask it to generate an essay on whatever. The tool is being used, and I think there are intelligent ways to use it for composition.Episode LinksPrior episode in referring to ChatGPT use in academic papersGuillaume CabanacTwitter feed: Guillaume Cabanac ⟨here and elsewhere⟩He retweeted: https://twitter.com/clementFFF/status/1745193183988871357https://twitter.com/gcabanac/status/1689334454798491648Cabanac also has a suite of tools to discover academic papers in STEM with tortured language as an indicator that something may be suspect with the method or results.Meep’s rant on calculator use in math class25 Aug 2000: Here is my tirade on calculators. In 1988, when I took trigonometry in high school, graphing calculators were an expensive new tool and calculators hadn't really been integrated into the mathematics curriculum. We mainly used calculators to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and sometimes even take a square root. However, even these most rudimentary calculators were forbidden my first quarter in trig. .... Fast forward to 1996, in which very sophisticated calculators and computer programs have been incorporated into the math curriculum, from pre-algebra to trigonometry to calculus and beyond. I spent four years as a computer consultant for the math department at North Carolina State University, which had fully incorporated the symbolic math program Maple into its Calculus curriculum. I saw many of the students doing the same thing as my fellow students from so many years before: taking the functions they had and applying all sorts of things from example Maple worksheets to it, hoping they would recognize the answer when they saw it. If they were lucky, the homework problem exactly paralleled the examples. Usually, they were not lucky, and they, like Cinderella's step-sisters trying on the dainty slipper, would hack at the problem given trying to make it fit one of the examples that had previously been done. This, obviously, is a stupid way to apply technology to math problems. Much has been made of the use of calculators and computers in math, and they are indeed very useful, powerful, and even necessary tools in modern math research. However, I feel that the focus of the use of these tools has been misplaced. Too often they are seen as something that can remove the tedium from math, as opposed to tools that remove tedious calculations that one understands very well and can do by hand one's self. People claim that many students are turned off by math early on due to excessive rote memorization of addition tables, multiplication tables, and the like. Math is about recognizing patterns, not simply arithmetic, they enthusiastically proclaim, and let us use calculators to cut through the tedium of practicing long division and graphing lines. I would agree with them -- mathematics has very little to do with arithmetic and has everything to do with finding patterns and relations and using these things to solve problems. Indeed, I rarely do long division by hand, or even integrate by hand anymore. However, I do not agree with the reasons as to why students are getting turned off from math. They get turned off because they do not understand it. STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

In which I discuss the recent brou-ha-ha over ex-President of Harvard Claudine Gay’s plagiarism in her published papers (and dissertation), the likelihood of widespread plagiarism (in certain fields), and the incentives to plagiarism and faked data in academia.Episode LinksTom Lehrer: LobachevskyTom Lehrer songs page for LobachevskyLyricsI am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize! Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes. Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, So don't shade your eyes, But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize --Only be sure always to call it please "research".Harvard, Claudine Gay, and Bill AckmanNY Post: Revealed: Harvard cleared Claudine Gay of plagiarism BEFORE investigating her — and its lawyers falsely claimed her work was ‘properly cited’Harvard cleared its president Claudine Gay of plagiarism before it even investigated whether her academic work was copied, The Post reveals today.In a threatening legal letter to The Post in late October, the college called allegations that she lifted other academics’ work “demonstrably false,” and said all her works were “cited and properly credited.”Days later Gay herself asked for an investigation and Harvard tore up its own rules to ask outside experts to review her work, saying it had to avoid a conflict of interest.CNN: Business Insider stands by reporting on Bill Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman, says stories ‘are accurate’ with ‘no unfair bias’Business Insider and its parent company, Axel Springer, said Sunday that they stood by the outlet’s reporting that Neri Oxman, a prominent former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the wife of billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, had plagiarized in her doctoral dissertation.In a note Sunday morning, Barbara Peng, chief executive of Business Insider, said the outlet had spent several days reviewing its reporting after public complaints made by Ackman. The review, Peng said, found that “there was no unfair bias” and that the “process we went through to report, edit, and review the stories was sound.”Peng said a pair of stories the outlet published earlier this month reporting that Oxman had plagiarized other scholars’ work and lifted more than a dozen sections from Wikipedia “are accurate.” She described Oxman as a “fair subject” and “has a public profile as a prominent intellectual and has been a subject of and participant in media coverage,” rebutting Ackman’s complaints that she should have been immune to coverage tied to Ackman’s recent activism.Fortune: Bill Ackman vows plagiarism checks on MIT president and faculty after wife pulled into fray: ‘We will share our findings in the public domain’Bill Ackman ramped up his campaign against Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth, saying he will begin checks on the work of all of the school’s current faculty members for plagiarism.The move, announced Friday in a post on X, comes after Business Insider expanded its allegations of plagiarism against Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman, a former MIT professor. The billionaire investor said that faculty members, including Kornbluth and MIT board members, will be subject to checks using MIT’s own plagiarism standards.“We will share our findings in the public domain as they are completed in the spirit of transparency,” Ackman said, adding that “it is unfortunate that my actions to address problems in higher education have led to these attacks on my family.”Data Colada and faked data17 Aug 2021: [98] Evidence of Fraud in an Influential Field Experiment About Dishonesty17 June 2023: [109] Data Falsificada (Part 1): "Clusterfake"20 June 2023: [110] Data Falsificada (Part 2): "My Class Year Is Harvard"23 June 2023: [111] Data Falsificada (Part 3): "The Cheaters Are Out of Order"30 June 2023: [112] Data Falsificada (Part 4): "Forgetting The Words"STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Let’s look back on the year that was 2023 at STUMP: growth in subscriptions, my top four posts from 2023, my spin-off substack in sumo statistics, and some Catholic recommendations for the new year.Episode LinksSTUMP growth(hmmm, kind of oxymoronic)That vertical leap in midyear is thanks to the substack network. I did not do any promotional drive myself.Top 4 Posts1. Top Causes of Death by Age Group, 2021: Finalized U.S. Stats2. Geeking Out: Replicating Nate Silver's COVID & Partisanship "Work"Anyway, of all the things people hold against Nate Silver, the thing I hold against him is this sloppy kind of approach to modeling, but seriously, I don’t even know why anybody is going to political affiliation if you can JUST GO TO VAX STATUS TO BEGIN WITH!Isn’t that supposed to be what this argument is about? That those stupid Republicans aren’t vaccinated and thus dying of COVID? If you had the vax info, just start with that!And why are all these people allergic to drawing graphs? There are plenty of free options if you are so cheap you can’t afford the Excel license (jeez, I mean.. what?)3. Who will bail out Chicago?Chicago is deep in debt.As the Little Red Hen might ask: Who Will Help Chicago Get Out Of That Hole?I am not going to make the mistake of Meredith Whitney — Chicago, for now, has cash flow, which to politicians means it’s not bankrupt!Anybody who looks at Truth in Accounting’s 2023 Financial State of the Cities, seeing Chicago sitting at number 74 out of 75 [and yeah, I know NYC is sitting at 75 - I will treat with NYC in time], could say: “Oh, but that’s just a balance sheet! All those debts aren’t due all at once!”But the problem is this: unlike with NYC, Chicago’s largest debt is unfunded pensions. And that debt just keeps getting larger.4. Deaths from Heat and Cold: Deception and Update for U.S. 1999-2022Sumo Spin-OffInsurance Collaboration to Save LivesCatholic RecommendationsCatechism in a Year PodcastBible in a Year PodcastThe Pillar — Catholic JournalismExamples from The Pillar:Meet Mr. Mincione - very long interview with one of the people recently convicted in the Vatican financial scandal (before convicted & sentenced). Where in the world are permanent deacons? - an example of one of their data-driven pieces:Is it still Christmas? The octave, the 12 days, and what you need to know - an example of one of their explainers. In this case - the Christmas octave vs. the 12 Days of Christmas(I joke that the Christmas decorations don’t come down until Candelmas …. but that’s because I like the lights… and I’m lazy)For a little extra, here’s me & my son Diarmuid singing the 12 Days of Christmas in 2018:STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

I look at an opinion piece by fellow actuary Larry Pollack, on the new low-default pension obligation measure that is to be added to actuarial reports for public pensions in the U.S. These should start coming out in 2024.Episode LinksLarry Pollack: New Disclosure Rules Expose Bad Actuarial Finance; Obscures Trillions of Public Pension DebtActuarial finance assumes away the cost of the guarantee, but real finance doesn’t work that way.….The Actuarial Standards Board, which defines professional standards for actuaries, finally acknowledged the criticisms and adopted a requirement for actuaries to calculate and disclose – starting with funding reports to be published (mostly) in 2024 – a liability measure more consistent with finance principles. The new measure provides valuable information not previously available, although it is not perfect, and, importantly, it will not affect actuarially-determined contributions or financial accounting.Further, many prominent and influential public pension actuaries are rejecting this opportunity to educate their clients and the public about how much worse the funding of public pensions is versus what’s commonly reported. Instead, these actuaries have aligned with major public pension advocacy groups in developing a toolkit as part of a campaign to help actuaries and public officials divert attention from the significance and implications of the new figure. Among other things, the toolkit provides model explanatory language for actuarial reports, including the misleading assertion that the difference between the new measure and the current one represents “expected taxpayer savings” from investing in risky assets, rather than heretofore hidden public debt.John Bury: New Disclosure Rules Expose Bad Actuarial Finance; Obscures Trillions of Public Pension DebtSo what is it the ASB wants actuaries to disclose? Slides from a recent Conference of Consulting Actuaries webinar provide a good overview. Excerpts below:New required calculation and disclosure when performing a funding valuation: Low-Default-Risk Obligation Measure (LDROM) (page 9)If the actuary concludes, based on the assessment required that the Contribution Allocation Procedure (CAP) or plan’s funding policy is significantly inconsistent with the plan accumulating adequate assets to make benefit payments when due, disclose that conclusion as well as an estimate of the approximate time until assets are depleted. (page 24) – wondering where they could have gotten this idea.John Bury November 2010: RNSP (2) – Drop-Dead Dates for State PensionsEarlier this year Joshua D. Rauh of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University released a paper that set drop-dead dates for selected state pension plans to which the government-plans community objected.  I too had my doubts about Professor Rauh’s methodology and assumptions and, having recently done my own study of 110 public pension plans, decided to embark on a similar study.Here are the numbers.Conference of Consulting Actuaries: ASOP 4 Updated GuidanceASOP 4: MEASURING PENSION OBLIGATIONS AND DETERMINING PENSION PLAN COSTS OR CONTRIBUTIONS3.11 LOW-DEFAULT-RISK OBLIGATION MEASUREWhen performing a funding valuation, the actuary should calculate and disclose a low-default-risk obligation measure of the benefits earned (or costs accrued if appropriate under the actuarial cost method used for this purpose) as of the measurement date. The actuary need not calculate and disclose this obligation measure more than once per year.When calculating this measure, the actuary should use an immediate gain actuarial cost method.When calculating this measure, the actuary should select a discount rate or discount rates derived from low-default-risk fixed income securities whose cash flows are reasonably consistent with the pattern of benefits expected to be paid in the future. Examples of discount rates that may meet these requirements include, but are not limited to, the following:* US Treasury yields;* rates implicit in settlement of pension obligations including payment of lump sums and purchases of annuities from insurance companies;* yields on corporate or tax-exempt general obligation municipal bonds that receive one of the two highest ratings given by a recognized ratings agency;* non-stabilized ERISA funding rates for single employer plans; and* multiemployer current liability rates.When plan provisions create pension obligations that are difficult to appropriately measure using traditional valuation procedures, such as benefits affected by actual investment returns, movements in a market index, or other similar factors, the actuary should consider using alternative valuation procedures such as those described under section 3.5.3 to calculate the low-default-risk obligation measure of those benefits earned or costs accrued as of the measurement date.For purposes of this obligation measure, the actuary should consider reflecting the impact, if any, of investing plan assets in low-default-risk fixed income securities on the pattern of benefits expected to be paid in the future, such as in a variable annuity plan.When calculating this measure, the actuary should not reflect benefit payment default risk or the financial health of the plan sponsor.Other than the discount rate or discount rates, the actuary may use the same assumptions used in the funding valuation for this measure. Alternatively, the actuary may select other assumptions that are consistent with the discount rate or discount rates and reasonable for the purpose of the measurement, in accordance with ASOP Nos. 27 and 35.The actuary should provide commentary to help the intended user understand the significance of the low-default-risk obligation measure with respect to the funded status of the plan, plan contributions, and the security of participant benefits. The actuary should use professional judgment to determine the appropriate commentary for the intended user.Related postsJan 2020: Revisiting Actuarial Standards: ASOP 4 Has Second Exposure Draft  April 2018: Around the Pension-o-Sphere: Actuaries Testifying, New Standards, Actuary Bloggers, Pew Report, and Connecticut  Jan 2018: Actuarial Standards of Practice on Pensions: ASOP 4 - a Call for Comments  Feb 2017: Public Pensions: Actuarial Assumptions and Professional Ethics  July 2014: Public Pensions Watch: Tell the Actuaries What You Want To Know   Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

In which I thank all the 2023 Movember donors, and I encourage spreading the love.Episode linksMovember 2023Here are the places you can donate to the Movember Foundation, which supports men’s health, specifically focusing on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health:* Mary Pat Campbell’s MoSpace – a place to donate at Movember itself* My Movember Facebook fundraiser – my officially linked fundraiser, if this works better for youAnd here’s a QR code if that works better for you:Literary ReferencesDante: Building a Modern Hell - something I wrote in 1995, re: Niven & Pournelle’s Inferno vs. Dante’sMrs. Jellyby - Mrs. Jellyby and the Domination of Causes, essay by Jim ForestWhile few in the peace movement so radically neglect those in their care, unfortunately I cannot think of Mrs. Jellyby merely as a gross caricature. When my wife and I talked about her recently, we could think of several people, of both sexes, resembling her in many details: people with a certain legitimate concerns and noble goals who engage themselves so fully that their fixation wrecks havoc in the lives of those around them, driving many people they intended to influence, even their own sons and daughters, in the opposite direction.Milton, On His BlindnessWhen I consider how my light is spent,   Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,   And that one Talent which is death to hide   Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and present   My true account, lest he returning chide;   “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”   I fondly ask. But patience, to preventThat murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need   Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best   Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His stateIs Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed   And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:   They also serve who only stand and wait.”Works of MercyCorporal Works of Mercy - examples from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops* Feed the hungry* Give drink to the thirsty* Shelter the homeless* Visit the sick* Visit prisoners and ransom the hostage* Bury the dead* Give alms to the poorSpiritual Works of Mercy* Instructing the ignorant* Counseling the doubtful* Admonishing the sinner* Comforting the sorrowful* Forgiving injuries* Bearing wrongs patiently* Praying for the living and the deadEducational charities I supportBEAM — Bridge to Enter Advanced MathMy post on BEAM: Donors Choose: I often find small projects in local communities to support hereOnce I bought ALL of the Dr. Seuss books for kids to populate a classroom. I often pick special needs classrooms in New York.Learning Ally: I used to record math and computer science textbooks for them when I worked in NYC.STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe

Looking at my Movember 2023 fundraiser, its current progress, and concerns over how cancer screening and treatment may have been interrupted during the pandemic. Episode LinksMovember FundraiserHere are the places you can donate to the Movember Foundation, which supports men’s health, specifically focusing on prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health:* Mary Pat Campbell’s MoSpace – a place to donate at Movember itself* My Movember Facebook fundraiser – my officially linked fundraiser, if this works better for youAnd here’s a QR code if that works better for you:Movember 2023 PostsTop Death Rate — Cancer by SexSpreadsheetSupport men’s health!STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to STUMP - Meep on public finance, pensions, mortality and more at marypatcampbell.substack.com/subscribe