Fitting Negative Binomial Distributions by the Method of Maximum Likelihood [Discussion]

LeRoy Simon's paper deals with two statistical concepts which have lain just outside our door for many years but with which most of us Actuaries have not, until recently, been familiar. The now popular Negative Binomial Distribution brought to us by Frank Harwayne and developed lucidly by Lester Dropkin has been lying around for how many years this reviewer does not know. We now wonder how we have gotten along without it.