Contradictions in longevity expectations and longevity vol as we age

David Cantor sent me a piece today on pensions and annuities which reminded me about how longevity expectations are more or less dynamic in odd ways I often avoid. While it is true that as one ages one's prospective longevity "interval" comes in a bit in absolute terms -- one has a shorter expected remaining interval at 90 than 60 -- in relative terms the uncertainty actually gets a little bigger or has more prospective "volatility," if you will. 

On Not Building and Memory

Most of the people I interact with in life and on social media are younger than I am, maybe 30ish to mid 50s, sometimes older but that is rare. I get teased, or sometimes aggressively chastised, for my comments about being old. Generally speaking I am joking because 63 is the new 61, right?  Even that is a joke. I get that I have a young mind and fit appearance (I'd go toe to toe with an "average" 30 year old on pull ups: yesterday I did 21 full extension pull ups in one set, 51 in three sets. Try that at any age) and a looong way in life to go still. This means I probably have some room and some basis on which to play the old man game as a big fat tease because I know I've still got the goods.

Fragment On Monte Carlo

David Cantor recently sent me a decent piece on Monte Carlo analysis by Sandidge, Tharp and Powell in the Investments and Wealth Monitor that covered the limitations of Monte Carlo analysis in retirement situations. It's pretty good and takes a proper posture of caution about overthinking MC. I myself once imputed magic to MC after my divorce. I did not gain a proper skepticism on this until I had built quite a few simulators of different types and became intimate with the black box: its coding, its errors, its flaws, its assumptions, its biases, its inability to say much, really, about the future.  

A Bunch of Random Thoughts in my 64th Year

Just thinking about a couple things and jotted them down. Might add later