Webster
and Wallace
Stunning
story I have known a few days ago about two Scots who founded an insurance
company to cover the last years of life of the widows of the Scottish Church
ministers.
The
story appears in the book of the writer Niall Ferguson entitled The Ascent of
Money. Mr Ferguson is a specialist in History and in History of the Economy,
besides being a specialist in what we know as Imperialism.
In
the book named above, from page 185 to 198, the historian, born in Glasgow,
recounts the path taken by two ministers of the Church of Scotland when after
having guzzled a few glasses of their favourite liquor they realized that when some colleague died, his wife was left without any money and this circumstance
worsened if the couple had children. What to do to solve this situation? It´s
known that in addition to being fond of drinking they had a rare ability for
mathematics; they began to make calculations and calculations and concluded
that if each minister put an amount of money in a common fund, and part of that
money was invested in business at the end of the year, the helpless widows
could be helped and also obtained an interest in the pounds invested.
In
order not to miss much in the calculation, they turned to a mathematician,
Colin Maclaurin, Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh, who, through complex
statistical algorithms, predicted the number of ministers who would die in a
given year and the money that needed to be placed in the fund to help these
poor women. The premium to be paid would be between two pounds a year and the
widow would receive ten. There was also the option of a six-pound bonus for the
wife to receive twenty-five pounds!
Said
and done. Knowing what they had in 1748, they assumed that in 1765 they would
have 58,348 pounds. They were wrong. ‘Barely’there was only 58,347!
A
forecast almost one hundred per cent. Ministers who died, widows who left, some
widows with children, orphans... All insured.
A
complete and diligently carried out work that Mr Ferguson has done. Too bad
that his predictions regarding US policy, and more specifically Mr Trump, are
not so accurate.
From
my Borstal.
LDR
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