Richard V. Rupp

June 7, 2021

It's the beginning of summer. Today was supposed to be my first day of water aerobics at the Burbank Aquatic Facility, but the class was canceled. Actually, I'm kind of happy about that as it is an overcast drizzling day here in Burbank.

 

My word for the day comes from the UCLA Anderson quarterly financial forecast for California. It is "euphoric." Their press release started out with "COVID-19 restrictions protected California's economy, and it's now poised for a "euphoric" rebound. Sounds good, and it is! It means a feeling of vigor, well-being, or high spirits. I'm looking forward to that "euphoric" rebound.

 

An hour and a half down the road from me, the British Royal Family is again expanding with the addition of Lilibet' Lili" Diana Mountbatten-Windsor. This is the second child for Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex. Congratulations to the Royal parents! So the British recolonization has started. And, it's in California.

 

My cryptocurrency update from a recent Brookings Report – Warren Buffett has compared cryptocurrencies to the 17th-century Dutch tulip craze. At the same time, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey cautioned, "Buy them only if you're prepared to lose all your money." Economist Nouriel Roubini called bitcoin "the mother or father of all scams" and even criticized its underlying technology.

 

That's why I use the term "BITCON" instead of "bitcoin." You will see "bitcon" used by one of the characters in my upcoming novel SKYWARD.

 

I write a lot about "white-collar crime" because of my business background. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but before writing crime novels and now trying my hand at sci-fi, I contributed or co-authored several insurance and risk management books (i.e., THE NEW CGL BOOK and THE ALTERNATIVE MARKET). My best-selling book to date (40,000 copies) was RUPP'S INSURANCE & RISK MANAGEMENT GLOSSARY. The principal reason for this is that the Glossary was used by several insurance companies in their agent and staff training programs. It has also been quoted by expert witnesses in several court cases.

 

In the 2nd Edition of my Glossary published in 1996, I predicted its demise with this comment in the Preface – "Information technology is affecting every aspect of insurance and risk management, as it is most other businesses. We are moving toward the time when we no longer can afford the cost or time of referring to paper documents". . .(or books/glossaries). . . "or waiting for mail. We have begun a movement away from static information or databases and CD-ROMs toward real-time data over the Internet from anywhere in the world. . .  The World Wide Web is overflowing with industry information on websites and bulletin boards maintained by risk managers, insurers, brokers, and other industry service vendors. We are doing more work with fewer people at a faster pace."

 

Yep, the Internet replaced my Glossary.

 

In my novel DEATH ON THE HIGH SEAS, I used my risk management knowledge to help develop the plot, which centers around the use of "captive insurance companies."  I had the pleasure of meeting Frederic M. Reiss, who coined the term "captive" after developing the first captive in 1953 for Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company. At the time, I worked for Marsh & McLennan's "Sparkle Core" in Los Angeles. During the late '50s and early '60s, I was involved in forming several captives based out of Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. This introduced me to several major accounting and law firm partners and many unique financial concepts developed for captives. Once corporate finance officers understood the captive concept, they found ways of using them for more than just self-insurance (i.e., smoothing quarterly/annual earnings, transferring funds between countries, tax avoidance, etc.) I have taken this to an extreme in my novel DEATH ON THE HIGH SEAS.

 

Cheers,

 

Richard V. Rupp, Author

Website – www.richardvrupp.com

Email – rupprisk@gmail.com

Copyright©2021 by Richard V. Rupp