CAS election spam

Professional Actuarial Topics Actuarial Politics
21

SHHHHHHH!!!
And, who told you???

22

I mean I guess since we’re all for diversity and inclusion we kind of need to tolerate this guy and his opinions right?

…right?

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23

Agree w you on getting over my distaste for his collected work and focusing on the one issue.

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24

came here to say this. Meep is on the job!

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25

Right. I’m heartsick that the CAS is following the SoA down that path. But it seems it is.

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26

So you are voting no?

27

Probably.

The CAS may already have fine too far down that path to stop it, though. I need to do a little more research.

28

Need’m staff. Can’t be run by people with other full time jobs who view the board/presidency as some kind of career trophy rather than a job that has boring but important responsibilities.

29

This will be my first time voting, what sorts of resources do people use to make up their mind about who to vote for? Do they hold debates or anything?

30

When the society was smaller, I could usually find someone I knew who knew each candidate, and ask them.

But the CAS will publish statements from all the candidates, including some standard questions they all answer, plus any questions that were submitted by any member. You can read that, and their CVs and volunteer history, etc.

2 Likes
31

Thanks, sounds good I’ll try that.

32

The actuarial review has a note from him in the letter to the editor. He doesn’t seem too happy there as well.

33

What is the issue with transferring the power from the membership to the staff? Is it that the membership is no longer involved in the decision making?

Generally though when members appointed Directors in the past (this is going to be my first time voting), did the members actually have a say in the decision making or was their say in who they just appointed?

I guess what I am asking is what is the practical difference between the two decision making models.

34

I think the trouble is the more autonomous authority the society’s staff have the more inclined they’ll be to seek to inorganically grow, because no one wants to work a job where you just keep the machine doing the same thing. Then you get things like profit-driven exams so you can actively compete for Chinese actuaries and take over the world.

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35

Have you seen the annual report? The CAS has been making a lot of money over the past five years.

The funny part is their plan is always to break even.

36

I don’t think making money is a bad thing. But if you’re focused on competing in China you might make business decisions in the US to better equip yourself for that venture.

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37

So you are saying that the current Board of Directors may not consult membership on decision making, however, they have no desire to take over the world. They care more about a functioning society.

But if the CAS essentially becomes a working corporate company then their decision making can be clouded by opportunity?

38

Then to relate this back to the SOA.

Is that why the SOA members think that both the UEC initiative and new pathway to fellowship is problematic because it is all focused on getting candidates who may have been swayed to other career paths like data science.

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39

I’m no CAS historical expert and can’t speak for others but roughly yeah I’d agree with your conclusions. Although I don’t think the concern is chasing people pursuing non-actuarial data science I think the concern is lowering the credentialing standards.

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40

In my opinion, attaining an FCAS has gotten harder over the past five to ten years.

Allowing College Credit to exempt for exams definitely would make it faster. I am not entirely sure it would make it easier as the challenging exams will still be there.

I think a potential capstone project, and a more rigorous predictive modeling exam actually might make it harder as well.