A presentation by ASIC Deputy Chairman, Jeremy Cooper, to the Institute of Actuaries and Finsia Business Luncheon, 17 July 2008
Thank you for coming here today to hear about ASIC's Hot Topics. I've spoken in interesting places like Brazil, Taiwan and Korea, but I've never had to compete with the Pope before. So I assume that you are either all atheists or you've decided to come and confess your sins to the regulator at lunch and then go and see the Pope.
My best actuary joke involves a fire in an office rubbish bin. It's a large office, probably in a place like a University. In rushes a physicist, a chemist, and an actuary. The physicist starts working on how much energy would have to be removed from the fire to stop the combustion. The chemist works on which reagent would have to be added to the fire to prevent oxidation. The actuary, on the other hand, starts setting fire to all the other bins in the office. 'What the hell are you doing?' the others say. 'Well, we need a larger sample size to solve the problem,' gasps the actuary.