Month: April 2021

Covid 4/9: Another Vaccine Passport Objection

Mary Pat Campbell
Covid 4/9: Another Vaccine Passport Objection

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I haven’t said this explicitly in a while, so it’s worth saying it again: If you are not vaccinated, the current level of risk out there is much higher than the graphs and charts naively imply. On top of that, the cost of getting Covid now is much higher than it was earlier, both because the new dominant strain is deadlier, and also because the main benefit of getting infected – that you can’t get infected again – no longer matters much since you’ll have vaccine access soon either way and things aren’t so bad out there that prevention is hopeless. You won’t even be able to skip the vaccine, due to people requiring it (plus it’s a good idea anyway, since the cost is trivial).

Not only have we vaccinated over a quarter of the population, and given one dose to over a third of the population, we’ve done so with an emphasis on those most at risk.

That means that if you’re in the remaining two thirds, not only is your risk a third higher than it looks (e.g. almost all the infections will happen to unvaccinated people) but also the risk of death is more than double what it appears, as those at risk have largely been vaccinated early.

Author(s): TheZvi

Publication Date: 9 April 2021

Publication Site: TheZvi

Life expectancy decreased in 2020 across the EU

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/edn-20210407-1

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Life expectancy at birth has been increasing over the past decade in the EU: official statistics reveal that life expectancy has risen, on average, by more than two years per decade since the 1960s. However, the latest available data suggest that life expectancy stagnated or even declined in recent years in several EU Member States.

Moreover, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, life expectancy at birth fell in the vast majority of the EU Member States with available 2020 data. The largest decreases were recorded in Spain (-1.6 years compared with 2019) and Bulgaria (-1.5), followed by Lithuania, Poland and Romania (all -1.4).

Publication Date: 7 April 2021

Publication Site: EuroStat

Moody’s warns pension benefit increase for Chicago firefighters a ‘credit negative’ – Quicktake

Mary Pat Campbell
Moody’s warns pension benefit increase for Chicago firefighters a ‘credit negative’ – Quicktake

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Anybody who’s been following Chicago knows the last thing the city needs is more debt. Chicagoans are being swamped by pension debts, already the biggest per-capita burden of any major city in the country. By signing the new legislation into law, Pritzker has shoved more debt onto ordinary Chicagoans.

Not surprisingly, Moody’s has called the action “credit negative…because it will cause the city’s reported unfunded pension liabilities, and thus its annual contribution requirements, to rise.”

…..

Two important facts to note about the city’s pension shortfalls. First, Chicago officially says its four city-run pension funds – police, fire, municipal and laborers – are short by some $31 billion. But Moody’s puts the number at nearly $47 billion using more realistic, market-based assumptions. 

Second, those debt numbers don’t include the Chicago Public Schools. When you add its $23 billion (Moody’s, 2018) pension shortfall, the total burden on Chicagoans for Chicago-only debts jumps to $70 billion. Divvy that between Chicago’s 1.04 million households and you’re talking about $67,000 in debt each. And that number far underestimates the real household burden considering nearly 20 percent of the city’s population don’t have the means to contribute a dime to that pension shortfall. 

Publication Date: 10 April 2021

Publication Site: Wirepoints

GASB critics want more transparency for public pensions and other retirement benefits

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://fixedincome.fidelity.com/ftgw/fi/FINewsArticle?id=202104091435SM______BNDBUYER_00000178-b7cb-d786-af7b-b7efd3e10001_110.1#new_tab

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The question of whether pensions and other retirement benefits should be more prominently reported by state and local governments is a burning controversy for the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

What?s at stake is whether the public is being misled by when a governmental general fund is listed in financial statements as balanced while omitting those long-term debts.

GASB requires long-term obligations to be reported in governmentwide reports, but critics say lawmakers too often look only at cash flow funds.

?I implore GASB to stop this confusion and bewilderment,? wrote Sheila Weinberg, founder & CEO of Truth in Accounting in a comment letter. ?Our representative form of government is being harmed.?

Illinois is among the states that critics say have downplayed their tens of billions of dollars of unfunded long-term debts and should be forced by new GASB rules to become more transparent.

GASB officials, on the other hand, say that state and local governments have been required to disclose their long-term debts since the publication of GASB 34 about 20 years ago.

Author(s): Brian Tumulty

Publication Date: 9 April 2021

Publication Site: Fidelity Fixed Income

US suicides dropped last year, defying pandemic expectations

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-suicides-year-defying-pandemic.html

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The number of U.S. suicides fell nearly 6% last year amid the coronavirus pandemic—the largest annual decline in at least four decades, according to preliminary government data.

Death certificates are still coming in and the count could rise. But officials expect a substantial decline will endure, despite worries that COVID-19 could lead to more suicides.

It is hard to say exactly why suicide deaths dropped so much, but one factor may be a phenomenon seen in the early stages of wars and national disasters, some experts suggested.

Author(s): Mike Stobbe

Publication Date: 9 April 2021

Publication Site: Medical Xpress

Actuaries Find Race and Ethnicity Disclosure Gap

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/04/06/actuaries-find-race-and-ethnicity-disclosure-gap/

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About 12% of U.S. residents are Black, and 15% are Hispanic or Latino.

In the insurance industry, 12% of employees are Black and 12% are Hispanic or Latino.

Just 4.4% of new SOA members are Black, and 3.7% of new members are Hispanic or Latino.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 6 April 2021

Publication Site: Think Advisor

COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Excess Mortality and Potential Years of Life Lost in the U.S. and Peer Countries

Mary Pat Campbell
COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Excess Mortality and Potential Years of Life Lost in the U.S. and Peer Countries

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We find that, among similarly large and wealthy countries, the U.S. had among the highest excess mortality rates in 2020, and younger people were more likely to have died due to the pandemic in the U.S. than younger people in other countries. With a much higher rate of death among people under age 75, the U.S. had the highest increase in premature deaths due the pandemic in 2020. Before the pandemic, the U.S. already had the highest premature death rate of peer nations, by far. We find that per capita premature excess death rate in the U.S. was over twice as high as the next closest peer country, the U.K. The higher rate of new premature deaths in the U.S. compared to peer countries was driven in part by racial disparities within the U.S. Looking at age differences in excess mortality by race, we find that American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN), Hispanic, Black, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI) people in the U.S. were more likely to have died at younger ages during the pandemic in 2020 than non-elderly White or Asian adults in the U.S.

Author(s): Krutika Amin, Cynthia Cox

Publication Date: 7 April 2021

Publication Site: Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker

Senators quiz insurers on climate-related underwriting

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20210326/NEWS06/912340735/Senators-quiz-insurers-on-climate-related-underwriting

Additional link: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b7c9307f79392b49031d551/t/605cf32f9d526442eb0bca0c/1616704303928/Senators%27+Letter+-+Chubb.pdf

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Democratic lawmakers have called on U.S. insurers including American International Group Inc., Berkshire Hathaway, Chubb Ltd., Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., MetLife Inc. and Travelers Cos. Inc. to explain how their fossil fuel underwriting policies align with their commitments to sustainability.

In a letter dated March 24, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, and Senators Jeffrey A. Merkley, D-Oregon, Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, request information on each insurer’s fossil fuel underwriting and investment policies.

“An increasing number of your competitors have stopped underwriting coal and other fossil fuel projects and/or restricted their investments in coal and certain dirty and environmentally damaging oil and gas projects such as tar sands,” the letter said.

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Author(s): Claire Wilkinson

Publication Date: 26 March 2021

Publication Site: Business Insurance

Vermont Pension Reform Plan Blasted by State Teachers, Workers

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/vermont-pension-reform-plan-blasted-state-teachers-worker/

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A plan proposed by Vermont lawmakers to bolster the state’s pension systems, which are facing nearly $3 billion in unfunded liabilities, has been resoundingly panned by state teachers and public employees who said they felt abandoned and betrayed.

According to a draft of the pension reform plan released by the state’s House lawmakers, teachers and state employees would be required to pay more in contributions to the fund, stay in the workforce longer, and get less in monthly benefits when they retire. Additionally, cost of living adjustments (COLAs) would apply only to the first $24,000 of the retirement benefit, and to be vested in the program, employees would have to work twice as long—a minimum of 10 years from the current five.

Author(s): Michael Katz

Publication Date: 30 March 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

Caribbean volcano erupts, prompts thousands to evacuate

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/caribbean-volcano-erupts-prompts-thousands-to-evacuate/929927

Additional Link: https://www.facebook.com/uwiseismic/photos/a.112065204326/10158020097989327/?type=3

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Authorities ordered mandatory evacuations on the island of Saint Vincent Thursday evening, ahead of a major volcanic eruption on Friday morning.

Saint Vincent is a volcanic island located in the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean and is home to La Soufrière, the island’s largest volcano.

Around 8:30 a.m., local time, on Friday, the volcano underwent an “explosive eruption,” spewing ash high into the air.

Author(s): Courtney Travis, AccuWeather senior meteorologist

Publication Date: 9 April 2021

Publication Site: AccuWeather

Pennsylvania pension system officials disclose federal probe

Mary Pat Campbell
Pennsylvania pension system officials disclose federal probe

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Officials atop Pennsylvania’s largest public pension system have received subpoenas from federal investigators, although the $64 billion Public School Employees’ Retirement System has yet to publicly discuss the nature or scope of the newly disclosed inquiry.

In addition to giving few details, pension system officials and board members — which includes state lawmakers, two members of Gov. Tom Wolf’s Cabinet and state Treasurer Stacy Garrity — have declined to answer questions publicly about what information federal investigators are seeking.

Garrity told lawmakers at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday that “federal subpoenas have been served on several PSERS management officials.”

Author(s): Marc Levy, Associated Press

Publication Date: 8 April 2021

Publication Site: WHYY PBS