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ebri.org
The Employee Benefit Research Institute
ABOUT EBRI
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EBRI
Dallas Salisbury
Nevin Adams
Jack VanDerhei
Craig Copeland
Paul Fronstin
Sudipto Banerjee
401(k)s
Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey (CEHCS)[
HRAs
"Repeat" Performance
By Nevin Adams, EBRI
A few months back, I was intrigued to catch several episodes of "Cosmos," an updated version of the classic 1980 Carl Sagan series. Along with the significantly expanded and enhanced visuals and (to me, anyway, generally annoying) animations, the series recounted the work, travails and accomplishments of Edmond Halley, who, even today, is probably best remembered for the comet whose 75-year cycle he identified and which still, as Halley's Comet, bears his name.
Halley wasn't the first to see the comet, of course – in fact, it had been recorded by Chinese astronomers as far back as 240 BC, noted subsequently in Babylonian records, and perhaps most famously shortly before the 1066 invasion of England by William the Conqueror (who claimed the comet's appearance foretold his success). Halley noted appearances by the comet in 1531, 1607 and 1682, and based on those prior observations – and the application of the work and mathematical formulas of his friend Isaac Newton – predicted the return of the comet in 1758, which it did, albeit 16 years after his death in 1742.
Of course, the importance of repeated, measured observations isn't restricted to celestial phenomena. Consider that individual retirement accounts (IRAs) currently represent about a quarter of the nation's retirement assets; and yet, despite an ongoing focus on the accumulations in defined benefit (pension) and 401(k) plans that have, via rollovers, fueled a significant amount of this growth, a detailed understanding as to how these funds are actually used during retirement has, to date, not been as well understood.
To address this knowledge shortfall, the Employee Benefit Research Institute has developed the EBRI IRA Database, which includes a wealth of data on IRAs including withdrawals or distributions, both by calendar year and longitudinally, which provides a unique ability to analyze a large cross-sectional segment of this vital retirement savings component, both at a point in time and as the individual ages and either changes jobs or retires. Indeed, as a recent EBRI publication notes, the rate of withdrawals from these IRAs is important in determining the likelihood of having sufficient funds for the duration of an individual's life, certainly where these balances are a primary source of post-retirement income.
Previous EBRI reports[i] have explored this activity for particular points in time, but a recent EBRI analysis[ii] looked for trends in the withdrawal patterns of a longitudinal three-year sample of individual post-retirement withdrawal activity, specifically those age 70 or older (in 2010), the point at which individuals are required by law to begin withdrawing money from their IRAS.
The EBRI analysis concluded that, when looking at the withdrawal rates for those ages 70 or older, the median of the average withdrawal rates over a three-year period indicated that most individuals are withdrawing at a rate that not only approximates what they are required by law to withdraw, but at a rate that is likely to be able to sustain some level of post-retirement income from IRAs as the individual continues to age.
Furthermore, the report notes that an examination of these trends over this period suggests that, based on the resulting distribution of average withdrawal rates over time as a function of the initial-year withdrawal rate, the initial withdrawal rate for those in this age group appeared to be one that these individuals are likely to continue to make the next year.
Of course, while the median withdrawal rates suggest many individuals would be able to maintain the IRA as an ongoing source of income throughout retirement, further study is needed to see if these individuals are maintaining those withdrawal rates over longer periods of time. Moreover, the integration of IRA data with data from employment-based defined contribution retirement accounts currently underway as part of initiatives associated with EBRI's Center for Research on Retirement Income (CRI) will allow for an even more comprehensive picture of what those who may have multiple types of retirement accounts do as they age through retirement.
And we won't have to wait 75 years to see how it turns out.
[i] See "IRA Withdrawals, 2011" online here. See also ""Take it or Leave it? The Disposition of DC Accounts: Who Rolls Over into an IRA? Who Leaves Money in the Plan and Who Withdraws Cash?" online here.
[ii] See "IRA Withdrawals in 2012 and Longitudinal Results, 2010–2012" online here.
Filed under EBRI IRA database, IRAs, Nevin Adams, rollovers, Withdrawals
The Status Quo
While the prospects for "comprehensive tax reform" may seem remote in this highly charged election year, the current tax preferences accorded employee benefits continue to be a focus of much discussion among policymakers and academics.
The most recent entry was a report by the Urban Institute which simulated the short- and long-term effect of three policy options for "flattening tax incentives and increasing retirement savings for low- and middle-income workers." The report concluded that "reducing 401(k) contribution limits increases taxes for high-income taxpayers; expanding the saver's credit raises saving incentives and lowers taxes for low- and middle-income taxpayers; and replacing the exclusion for retirement saving contributions with a 25 percent refundable credit benefits primarily low- and middle-income taxpayers, and raises taxes and reduces retirement assets for high-income taxpayers."
However, and to the authors' credit, the report also noted that "the behavioral responses by both employers and employees will affect the final savings outcomes achieved under reform but are beyond the scope of our estimates[i]."
In previous posts, we've highlighted the dangers attendant with relying on simplistic retirement modeling assumptions, the application of dated plan design information to future accumulations, and the choice of adequacy thresholds that, while mathematically accurate, seem unlikely to provide a retirement lifestyle that would, in reality, feel "adequate."
However, one of the more pervasive assumptions, particularly when it comes to modeling the impact of policy and/or tax reform changes, is that, regardless of the size and scope of the changes proposed, workers – and employers – will generally continue to do what they are currently doing, and at the current rate(s), for both contributions and/or plan offerings. Consequently, there is talk of restricting participant access to their retirement savings until retirement, with little if any discussion as to how that might affect future contribution levels, by both workers and employers, and there are debate about modifying retirement plan tax preferences as though those changes would have no impact at all on the calculus of those making decisions to offer and support these programs with matching contributions. Ultimately, these behavioral responses might not only impact the projected budget "savings" associated with the proposals, but the retirement savings accumulations themselves.
EBRI research has previously been able to leverage its extensive databases and survey data (including the long-running Retirement Confidence Survey) to both capture potential responses to these types of proposals and, more significantly, to quantify their potential impact on retirement security today and over the extended time periods over which their influence extends. In recent months, that research has provided insights on the full breadth of:
A retirement savings cap[ii],
The proportionality of savings account balances with incomes[iii], and
The impact of permanently modifying the exclusion of employer and employee contributions for retirement savings from taxable income, among other proposals[iv].
While we can't be certain what the future brings, considering the likely responses to policy changes is a critical element in any comprehensive impact assessment – not only because the status quo is rarely a dependable outcome, but because, after all, those who assume the status quo are generally looking to change it.
[i] From Urban Institute and Brookings Institution: Flattening Tax Incentives for Retirement Saving: "Our findings should be interpreted with caution. Actual legislation for flattening tax incentives requires more than the simple adjustments discussed here. For instance, if a credit-based approach is used, then the laws would need to ensure some recapture of those benefits for those who made contributions one year and withdrew them soon thereafter.
Additionally, the behavioral responses by both employers and employees will affect the final savings outcomes achieved under reform but are beyond the scope of our estimates. For instance, employees may save more in response to improved incentives, in which case the benefits to low lifetime income households would be greater than we find. On the other hand, employers might reduce their contributions in response to some of the policy changes outlined. In this case, the tax and savings benefits we find would be overstated. While our policy simulations are illustrative, addressing these behavioral responses would be a chief concern in tailoring specific policies to create the best incentives."
[ii] See "The Impact of a Retirement Savings Account Cap"
[iii] See "Upside" Potential
[iv] See "Tax Reform Options: Promoting Retirement Security", and "Modifying the Federal Tax Treatment of 401(k) Plan Contributions: Projected Impact on Participant Account Balances"
Filed under 401(k)s, EBRI, Jack VanDerhei, leakage, Nevin Adams, Retirement, Retirement income adequacy, Retirement plan tax preferences, Tax preferences, Tax reform, Taxes, Withdrawals
Map "Quests"
I've been hooked on the convenience of GPS systems ever since the first time one was included in the price of a rental car on a family trip in unfamiliar territory. After all, it combines the opportunity to tinker with electronic gadgetry alongside the convenience of not having to do much in the way of pre-planning trip routes—not to mention avoiding the need to stop and ask for directions (that is frequently associated with not doing much in the way of pre-planning trip routes).
There are, of course, horror stories about drivers who have blindly followed GPS instructions without paying attention to the evidence of their eyes. My family still chuckles at the memory of a trip where we were running late to our plane, and the rental car GPS, based on what appeared to be an outdated address for the return office, kept directing us to an address that was not only miles from the real office, but a place from which I wondered if we might never return.
As a growing number of Americans near, and head into, retirement, policymakers, retirement plan sponsors, and individual workers alike increasingly wonder—will Americans have enough to live on when they retire? Unfortunately, as a recent EBRI publication[1] explains, the answers provided are as diverse, and sometimes disparate, as the projection models that produce those results.
While it is not always clear from their results, some of those models limit their analysis to households already retired, while others focus on households still working, but old enough that reasonably accurate projections regarding their future wages and prospects for accumulating retirement wealth are obtainable. Still others attempt to analyze the prospects for all working households, including those whose relative youth (and distance from retirement) makes accurate, long-term predictions somewhat problematic.
Moreover, there are varied definitions of retirement income adequacy. As the EBRI report explains, some either (1) model only the accumulation side of the equation and then rely on some type of preretirement income replacement rate measure as a threshold for success, or (2) make use of a so-called "life-cycle" model that attempts to smooth/spread some type of consumption-based utility over the decision-maker's lifetime.
The problem with the former is that, since very few households annuitize all (or even most) of their individual accounts in retirement, a replacement-rate focus overlooks the potential risk of outliving their income (longevity risk). And while the annuity purchase price relied upon in a replacement-rate target does depend on an implicit assumption with respect to (at least some) future market returns, it does not typically account for the potential investment risk. Additionally, and as previous EBRI research has demonstrated, one of the biggest financial obstacles in terms of maintaining retirement income adequacy for households that might otherwise have sufficient financial resources at retirement age is the risk of long-term care costs for a prolonged period. In the real world, few retirees have long-term care insurance policies in place that would cover the potentially catastrophic financial impact of this exposure—and thus, simply adding the cost of long-term care insurance into a replacement-rate methodology will vastly underestimate the potential severity of this exposure.
As for the life-cycle smoothing model, the EBRI report notes that approach typically produces extraordinarily low levels of "optimal" savings for low-income individuals at retirement, and while some households may, in fact, have no choice but to subsist at those levels in retirement, from a public policy perspective EBRI chose instead to establish a threshold that would allow households to afford average expenditures (for retirees in the appropriate income category) throughout their retirement, while at the same time accounting for the potential impact of uninsured long-term care costs.
EBRI's Retirement Security Projection Model®[2] takes a different—arguably unique and more realistic—perspective. Rather than relying on an individual's projected ability to achieve an arbitrarily designated percentage of his or her preretirement income as a proxy for retirement income adequacy, RSPM grew out of a multiyear project to analyze the future economic well-being of the retired population at the state level, focused on identifying the point at which individuals would run short of money and perhaps become a financial obligation of the state.
As valuable a resource as a GPS can be, it can quickly become a nuisance—or worse—if the input destination point is incorrect, or the mapping system is out of date. Similarly, those who want a financially secure retirement may find that relying on a model based on flawed assumptions or outdated "destinations" may find themselves short of their goal and with little time to do anything about it.
[1] See ""'Short' Falls: Who's Most Likely to Come up Short in Retirement, and When?" online here.
[2] A brief description of EBRI's Retirement Security Projection Model® can be found online here.
Filed under 401(k)s, EBRI, Nevin Adams, Retirement, Retirement income adequacy Tagged with EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model
My first car wasn't anything special, other than it was my first car. It was an older model Ford, ran reasonably well, with one small problem— it went through oil almost as quickly as it did gasoline. At first I attributed that to being a function of the car's age, but as the leakage grew, I eventually dealt with it by keeping a couple of quarts of oil in the trunk "just in case." Eventually, I took the car to a dealership—but by the time they finished estimating the cost of a head gasket repair, let's just say that, even on my limited budget, I could buy a LOT of oil by the quart, over a long period of time, and still be ahead financially.
"Leakage"—the withdrawal of retirement savings via loan or distribution prior to retirement— is a matter of ongoing discussion among employers, regulators, and policy makers alike. In fact, EBRI Research Director Jack VanDerhei was recently asked to present findings on "The Impact of Leakages on 401(k) Accumulations at Retirement Age" to the ERISA Advisory Council in Washington.[1]
EBRI's analysis considered the impact on young employees with more than 30 years of 401(k) eligibility by age 65 if cashouts at job turnover, hardship withdrawals (and the accompanying six-month suspension of contributions) and plan loan defaults were substantially reduced or eliminated. The analysis assumed automatic enrollment and (as explicitly noted) no behavioral response on the part of participants or plan sponsors if that access to plan balances was eliminated.
Looked at together, EBRI found that there was a decrease in the probability of reaching an 80 percent real income replacement rate (combining 401(k) accumulations and Social Security benefits) of 8.8 percentage points for the lowest-income quartile and 7.0 percentage points for those in the highest-income quartile. Said another way, 27.3 percent of those in the lowest-income quartile (and 15.2 percent of those in the highest-income quartile) who would have come up short of an 80 percent real replacement rate under current assumptions WOULD reach that level if no leakages are assumed.
The EBRI analysis also looked at the impact of the various types of "leakage" individually. Of loan defaults, hardships, and cashouts at job change, cashouts at job change were found to have a much more serious impact on 401(k) accumulation than either plan loan defaults or hardship withdrawals (even with the impact of a six-month suspension of contributions included). The leakages from cashouts resulted in a decrease in the probability of reaching an 80 percent real replacement rate of 5.9 percentage points for the lowest-income quartile and 4.5 percentage points for those in the highest-income quartile. That effect from cashouts—not loans or hardship withdrawals—turns out to be approximately two-thirds of the leakage impact.
However, and as the testimony makes clear, it's one thing to quantify the impact of not allowing early access to these funds—and something else altogether to assume that participants and plan sponsors would not respond in any way to those changes, perhaps by reducing contributions,[2] potentially offsetting some or all of the prospective gains from restricting access to those funds.
Because ultimately, whether you're dealing with an old car or your retirement savings account, what matters isn't how much "leaks" out—it's how much you put in, and how much you have to "run" on.
[1] EBRI's testimony for the ERISA Advisory Council, U.S. Department of Labor Hearing on Lifetime Participation in plans is available online here.
[2] An EBRI/ICI analysis published in the October 2001 EBRI Issue Brief found that, "[o]n average, a participant in a plan offering loans appeared to contribute 0.6 percentage point more of his or her salary to the plan than a participant in a plan with no loan provision." Testimony provided to the ERISA Advisory Council testimony notes that it's likely that a similar relationship exists with respect to the availability of hardship withdrawals. See "Contribution Behavior of 401(k) Plan Participants," online here.
Filed under Automatic enrollment, EBRI, leakage, Nevin Adams, Savings, Withdrawals
"Short" Changed?
My wife is fond of recounting one of our early dates when we ran out of gas. Now, we were in the heart of a Chicago suburb at the time, not the middle of nowhere, and while the hour was late, I continue to maintain that it was a simple case of my misreading the gas gauge in a relatively new car with which I hadn't yet gained a full appreciation for just how far I could push such things. My wife, of course, has always accused me of a more "nefarious" purpose.
It would be more difficult to explain such an outcome these days. We've gone from vehicles that simply had a floating gauge and a range of red at the 1/8 tank line, to those that have a solid and then a blinking yellow light, to ones that beep and flash and tell you how many miles you have left before you run out.
As inconvenient as running out of gas late at night can be, it surely pales in comparison to the prospects of running short of money in retirement. EBRI has, for more than a decade now, used highly sophisticated modeling techniques to gauge the retirement readiness of baby boomers and Gen Xers. One of the primary outputs of EBRI's Retirement Security Projection Model (RSPM)[i] is the production of Retirement Readiness Ratings (RRRs), which represent the percentage of simulated life-paths that do not run short of money in retirement. The 2014 version of RSPM found that over half of baby boomer and Gen Xer households would not run short of money in retirement. However, when the results were analyzed by preretirement wage quartile, we found that while 86.4 percent of the highest income quartile were projected to not run short, just 16.8 percent of the lowest income quartile would not.
While it is useful, certainly from a public policy perspective, to know not only how many but also what types of individuals are projected to run short of money in retirement, it begs the question: when will they run short?
A recent EBRI Notes article[ii] provides new results showing how many years into retirement baby boomer and Gen Xer households are simulated to run short of money, by preretirement income quartile and for a variety of assumptions, as well as taking into account the impact of the potentially catastrophic expenses of nursing home and home health care expenses. Not surprisingly, it finds that those in the lowest income brackets are most likely to run short.
Moreover, while some in all income brackets—including the highest—may run short at some point during their retirement, the EBRI analysis also found that, when nursing home and home health care expenses are factored in, the number of households in the lowest income quartile that are projected to run short of money within 20 years of retirement is considerably larger than those in the other three income quartiles combined.
The EBRI analysis provides valuable insights for policymakers, providers and employers alike because, whether you're concerned about running out of gas short of your destination – or short of money in retirement – it's important that your gauges be accurate, and appropriate to the vehicle in which you're riding there.
[i] A Brief Description of EBRI's Retirement Security Projection Model® is available here.
[ii] The June EBRI Notes article, ""Short" Falls: Who's Most Likely to Come up Short in Retirement, and When?" is available online here.
Filed under 401(k)s, EBRI, Nevin Adams, Retirement, Retirement income adequacy, Savings
The Hassle Factor
Much is made these days of the application of behavioral finance and the implications for plan design, as well as the role of choice architecture in helping workers make "better" (if not more informed) benefit decisions. Valuable as these insights have been, I think much of human behavior (or lack thereof) in these matters can be more simply explained.
What's at work is a concept a friend of mine described to me more than 20 years ago – something he called "the hassle factor." It was a philosophy he routinely applied in many aspects of his personal and professional life. Simply stated, presented with a choice between doing something that is hard, time-consuming, complicated, or even inconvenient, and doing something else, my friend – and, in fairness, human beings generally seem to be – inclined to opt for the latter.
Of course, the "hassle factor" CAN be trumped by exterior needs or forces, as anyone who has endured the long lines at the DMV or sat through the background music on an interminably long customer service line can attest. That said, things like an unduly complicated 401(k) enrollment form/process can certainly serve as a barrier to plan entry, and there's every reason to expect that the same might apply when it comes time to exit the plan.
Job change is a point in time at which a lot of important decisions are made—some voluntary and some forced upon us—and the disposition of one's retirement savings account certainly looms large among them. A recent EBRI Notes article examined what workers age 50 and above did with their defined contribution account balances at the point of job change, looking at data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a study of a nationally representative sample of U.S. households with individuals age 50 and over. EBRI analyzed responses from 2008 and 2010 for this study.
In terms of demographic characteristics, no significant difference was found between men and women in terms of their DC account balances and what they chose to do with them at job change. And while married or partnered individuals were less likely to withdraw their assets and more likely to roll them over into an IRA than singles, the differences were small.
The EBRI analysis did find that a decision to take a withdrawal in cash declined with higher account balances, higher incomes, existing ownership of an IRA, and higher financial wealth. Not surprisingly, the decision to cash out rose with individual debt levels.
However, among those who left their employer but remained in the workforce, the most common outcome was to leave their retirement account balance with their prior employer's plan. The EBRI report notes that, unlike the outcomes detailed above, there was no clear trend between the financial variables, and the decision to leave those DC balances in the prior employer plans.
As for what might explain that outcome, the report noted that it might simply be a decision to postpone taking the money until it was needed, or that there "may be behavioral factors, such as inertia, driving what might be seen as a 'non-decision.'"
Or, as my friend might have been inclined to say, a non-decision based on the "hassle factor."
"Take it or Leave it? The Disposition of DC Accounts: Who Rolls Over into an IRA? Who Leaves Money in the Plan and Who Withdraws Cash?" is published in the EBRI May Notes, available here.
Filed under 401(k)s, lump-sum distributions, Nevin Adams, rollovers
Source "Spots"
Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) have been around a long time – since the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), in fact[i].
Today IRAs represent nearly $6 trillion in assets, approximately a quarter of the $23.7 trillion in retirement plan assets in the nation. As an account type, they currently hold the largest single share of U.S. retirement plan assets with, as a recent EBRI publication notes, a substantial (and growing) portion of these IRA assets having originated in other tax-qualified retirement plans, such as defined benefit (pension) and 401(k) plans. Recognizing not only the significant growth but the increasing importance of these accounts to individual retirement security, the Department of Labor has proposed expanding ERISA's fiduciary protections to these accounts.
To help better understand the trends driving this critical retirement savings component, the EBRI IRA Database, an ongoing project that collects data from IRA plan administrators across the nation, was created. For year-end 2012, it contained information on 25.3 million accounts owned by 19.9 million unique individuals, with total assets of $2.09 trillion. The EBRI IRA Database is unique in its ability to track individual IRA owners with more than one account, thereby providing a more accurate measure of how much they have accumulated in IRAs.
For example, a recent EBRI analysis[ii] notes that the average IRA account balance in 2012 in the EBRI IRA database was $81,660, while the average IRA individual balance (all accounts from the same person combined) was $105,001. Overall, the cumulative IRA average balance was 29 percent larger than the unique account balance.
While almost 2.4 million accounts in the EBRI IRA database received contributions in 2012, compared with the 1.3 million accounts that received rollovers for that year, the amount added to IRAs through rollovers was 10 times the amount from contributions.
However, an annual-snapshot percentage of IRA contributions doesn't show whether the same individuals were contributing over time, or if different people contributed in different years. Taking advantage of the ability to look at multiple years across multiple accounts of individual owners across the EBRI IRA database, the report notes that while approximately 10 percent of traditional IRA owners contributed at some point during the three-year period, only 6 percent contributed to their IRA each year. On the other hand, while approximately 25 percent contributed to their Roth IRA in any one year, 35 percent did so at some point over the three-year period.
Looking at the pace of contribution activity, the EBRI analysis found that among those who contributed to their IRA in each of the three years, the pattern seemed pretty consistent: 12.1 percent did so in 2010, 13.2 percent in 2011, and 13.1 percent in 2012. Looking at the specific sources of those contributions, among traditional IRAs, we find that the percentage that contributed to them rose from 5.2 percent in 2010 to 6.6 percent in 2012 – but among Roth IRA owners, 24.0 percent contributed in 2010, 26.0 percent in 2011, and 25.1 percent in 2012.
Consider too that, among traditional IRA owners, only 3.0 percent contributed all three years, compared with 15.0 percent of Roth IRA owners who did so. Moreover, Roth IRA owners ages 25–29 were the most likely to contribute in any year and all three years (56.1 percent and 24.3 percent, respectively). Indeed, more than 4 in 10 (43 percent) Roth owners ages 25–29 contributed to their Roth in 2012.
The EBRI analysis found significant differences in the distribution patterns among older IRA owners, specifically those ages 70 or older, due to the required minimum distribution (RMD) rules. Those rules require individuals to begin making withdrawals from traditional IRAs starting April 1 of the year following the calendar year in which they reach age 70½. However, the RMD rules do not apply to Roth IRAs, a factor that likely explains the continued increases in account balances for Roth owners in that age group.
In sum, while the gross accumulations of retirement savings in IRAs provide value in terms of quantifying an increasingly significant component of the nation's retirement security, a focus that takes into account only aggregate movements, or isolated account holdings, one that ignores the original source(s) of the money in the account, and/or the accompanying restrictions, runs the risk of overlooking significant undercurrents.
Undercurrents that may provide a better understanding of the growth trends in this important savings vehicle and ultimately, of course, explain how – and when – these retirement savings are withdrawn.
[i] Originally designed as a means to provide workers who did not have employment-based pensions an opportunity to save for retirement on a tax-deferred basis, IRAs have undergone a number of changes over time. The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA) extended the availability of IRAs to all workers with earned income (including those with pension coverage), while the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA '86) brought with it some restrictions on the tax deductibility (and, in some cases, availability) of IRA contributions. A decade later the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (TRA '97) created a new type of nondeductible IRA—the Roth IRA—and allowed nonworking spouses to contribute to an IRA, subject to certain income restrictions.
[ii] The May 2014 EBRI Issue Brief, "Individual Retirement Account Balances, Contributions, and Rollovers, 2012; With Longitudinal Results 2010–2012: The EBRI IRA Database," is available online here.
Filed under EBRI, EBRI IRA database, IRAs, Nevin Adams, Retirement, Retirement income adequacy, Withdrawals
Surface Conditions
Our first home was in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, a split-level (my wife's preference), walking distance to the commuter train (my preference), and within our stipulated price range ("our" preference). Much as we liked the house, we were not the first owners, and there were certain things we wanted to "fix." The first of these was the family room, where we figured to spend a lot of our time and which the previous residents had seen fit to line with pine paneling. Our plan was to take down that paneling and replace it with wallpaper, to modernize and "open up" the room.
My previous experience with wallpapering was limited; in this case my job (as I understood it from my wife) was to take the lead in pulling down the paneling, and then to pretty much stand back and learn. As I pulled back that first strip of paneling, I was nearly blinded by a flash of orange…which was from what turned out to be a misbegotten shade of 1970s floral print wallpaper which lay underneath the paneling. "No problem," my wife assured me; in fact, this might actually work to our benefit, she said, in that it implied that the previous owners would have treated the wall before putting up that paper.
Well, after 15 minutes of struggling to separate the paper from what lay beneath it, it was clear that they had NOT done so. Moreover, one of the previous owners had apparently pasted the orange floral print over ANOTHER wallpaper, this one some hideous lime green. Nor, as it turned out, was that the last of the layers (we stopped counting at six). While we had made what we thought were reasonable conclusions about the size of the project based on the topline evidence, it was now clear that more—much more—was going on underneath (and apparently had been for some time). Fortunately, we discovered that reality before I had ripped down so much paneling that we were committed to that course of action.
A growing concern for employers, workers, and policymakers alike is the changing composition of the American workforce and what that might mean for benefit plan designs, succession planning, and workforce management.
A recent EBRI Notes article examining the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data on labor-force participation notes that the labor-force participation rates of younger workers increased when those of older workers declined or remained low during the late 1970s to the early 1990s; and while both increased for a period of time in the latter half of the 1990s, as the labor-force participation rates of younger workers began to decline in the late 1990s, the rates for the older workers continuously increased. The report explains that, in 1997, workers ages 25–54 accounted for 83.9 percent of all workers ages 25 or older, while those ages 55–64 accounted for 12.0 percent, and those ages 65 or older, 4.1 percent. However, by 2012, the fraction of older workers expanded; those ages 55–64 represented nearly 1 in 5 workers, while those 65 or older constituted 7.0 percent of the labor force. Meanwhile, the percentage of workers 25 or older represented by those ages 25–54 slipped to 73.8 percent.
However, a closer examination of trends within the group ages 55 and older reveals some additional patterns of interest. For those ages 55–64, the upward trend in the 1990s and into the 2000s was driven almost exclusively by the increased work force participation of women, while the male participation rate was flat to declining. That is, until you look at the rate for those ages 65 or older, where the EBRI analysis shows that labor-force participation increased for both males and females over that period.
So, while it's not clear whether older workers are filling a workforce gap or closing off opportunities for younger workers, older workers— notably older female workers— are certainly more plentiful in the labor force today, with potential workforce planning implications.
Ultimately, of course, it's important to know what the numbers are and to examine the trends those numbers suggest over time. However, and as the EBRI analysis reveals, sometimes you can't fully understand the topline trends—and shouldn't commit to a course of action—without first knowing what's underneath.
The April EBRI Notes article "Labor-force Participation Rates of the Population Ages 55 and Older, 2013" is available online HERE.
Filed under 401(k)s, EBRI, Job tenure, Nevin Adams
Myth Understandings
A frequent criticism of the 401(k) design is that it was "never designed" to provide a full retirement benefit, unlike, as it's often stated or implied, the defined benefit plan.
Moreover, while there is a very real tendency to focus on the CURRENT balance[i] in a defined contribution/401(k) plan and treat that as the ultimate outcome, for reasons I've never really been able to understand, people tend to think and talk about defined benefit (DB) plans in terms of the benefit they are capable of providing, rather than the actual benefits paid.
However, the data show that some of the common assumptions about defined benefit pensions are out of line with the realities, including:
Once upon a time, everybody had a pension.
"Coverage" is a hot topic among policymakers these days, or more accurately, the lack of it. One of the most frequently invoked criticisms of the current system is that so many American workers don't have access to a retirement plan at work. But in 1979, only 28 percent of private-sector workers participated in a DB plan, with another 10 percent participating in both a DB and defined contribution (DC) plan. By any measure, that's a long way from "everybody."
The reality is that more private-sector workers are participating in a workplace retirement plan today than in 1979.
People used to work for the same employer their whole careers.
My kids think their generation is the first to anticipate having many employers during their careers, but the reality is that American workers, certainly in the private sector, have long been relatively mobile in the workforce. Median job tenure of the total workforce has hovered at about five years since the early 1950s (in fact, as EBRI's latest research points out, the average median job tenure has now risen, to 5.4 years).[ii] The data on employee tenure—the amount of time an individual has been with his or her current employer—show that career jobs never existed for most workers and have continued not to exist for most workers.
And that has implications for pension benefits.
Everybody who had a pension got a full benefit.
Those who know how defined benefit plan accrual formulas work understand that the actual benefit is a function of some definition of average pay and years of service. Moreover, prior to the mid-1980s, 10-year cliff vesting schedules were common for DB plans. What that meant was that if you worked for an employer fewer than 10 years, you'd be entitled to a pension of … $0.00.
As noted above, the American workforce has, since the end of World War II, been relatively, and consistently, mobile. Between 1987 and 2012, among private-sector workers, fewer than 1 in 5 have spent 25 years or more with one employer. Under pension accrual formulas, those kinds of numbers meant that, even among the workers who were covered by a traditional pension, many would actually receive little or nothing from that plan design.
And that's for those who were covered in the first place[iii].
People used to get more retirement income from pensions than they do today.
There are undoubtedly different challenges ahead for retirees than for prior generations – longer lives, higher health care costs, the pressures of affording long-term care – but when it comes to sources of retirement income for those over the age of 65, there has been remarkably little change over the past several decades.
Social Security is and has been a consistent source, representing somewhere between 40 and 45 percent of aggregate income (excluding non-periodic distributions from DC plans and IRAs) during most of that time, and into the current time, according to data from the Census Bureau. Pension annuity income, which constituted about 16 percent of aggregate income in 1976, rose to as high as 21 percent in the early '90s – about where it stands today.
There's no question that some Americans in the private sector have derived, and will continue to derive, significant retirement income from DB plans, and DB plans did and can deliver for the portion of the population that does stay with one employer/plan for a full career[iv].
The data show, however, that many Americans were not covered by those plans, even in the "good old days," and that even many of those who were covered, for a time anyway, were not likely to receive the full benefit that the design was capable of delivering because they didn't have, or take advantage of, the opportunity.
[i] Worse, that 401(k) balance is frequently an AVERAGE 401(k) balance, which includes the relatively small balances of those who have just started saving with those who have had a full career to save. That's why reports from the EBRI/ICI 401(k) database have long differentiated average and median balances by age and tenure. See "401(k) Plan Asset Allocation, Account Balances, and Loan Activity in 2012."
[ii] See "Employee Tenure Trends, 1983–2012."
[iii] Expectations for pension benefits appear to exceed the reality, even among workers. The 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey found that while 56 percent of workers expect to receive benefits from a defined benefit plan in retirement, only 31 percent report that they and/or their spouse currently have such a benefit with a current or previous employer. See here.
[iv] For an analysis of possible outcomes from DB and 401(k) plans, see "Reality Checks: A Comparative Analysis of Future Benefits from Private-Sector, Voluntary-Enrollment 401(k) Plans vs. Stylized, Final-Average-Pay Defined Benefit and Cash Balance Plans."
Filed under 401(k)s, Job tenure, Nevin Adams, Participation, Pensions, Retirement, Retirement income adequacy
Work "Forces"
A couple of years ago, my wife and I sat down with an advisor to revisit our financial plan. Having gathered all the requisite information regarding assets, debt, insurance, and retirement savings, he turned to me and asked how long I planned to work.
Being in a profession that I not only enjoy, but one relatively unbounded by physical constraints; having some appreciation for the various financial trade-offs associated with the decision to retire, yet desirous of the ability to have more leisure time with my family—conscious of the fact that I have made a career studying and writing about such decisions—I paused to reflect….
And then my wife, with a smile on her face, laughed and said, "Oh, he's going to work forever!"
Well, that wasn't the answer I had in mind, but apparently I'm not the only one rethinking retirement. In 1991, just 11 percent of workers expected to retire after age 65, according to the Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS)[i]. Twenty-three years later, in 2014, 33 percent of workers report that they expect to retire after age 65, and 10 percent don't plan to retire at all. At the same time, the percentage of workers expecting to retire before age 65 has decreased, from 50 percent in 1991 to 27 percent. Those expectations notwithstanding, the median (midpoint) age at which workers expect to retire has remained stable at 65 for most of the 24-year history of the RCS.
Moreover, a recent EBRI Notes article[ii] confirms that the labor-force participation rate for those ages 55 and older rose throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s when it began to level off, but with a small increase following the 2007-2008 economic downturn. While for those ages 55-64 the upward trend was driven almost exclusively by the increased labor-force participation of women, among those age 65 or older, the rate increased for both males and females over that period.
The report notes, however, that the labor-force participation rates of younger workers increased when those of older workers declined or remained low during the late 1970s to the early 1990s, but as the labor-force participation rates of younger workers began to decline in the late 1990s, the rates for the older workers continuously increased – suggesting either that older workers filled the void left by younger workers' lower participation, or that the higher representation in the workforce by older workers served to limit the opportunities for younger workers, either directly or perhaps by discouraging them from pursuing employment.
As the EBRI report notes, this upward trend in labor-force participation by older workers is perhaps related to workers' desire for continued access to employment-based health insurance, to provide some additional years of employment to accumulate savings and/or pay down debt, or maybe even simply because they want to work.
Whatever their motivation(s), these trends highlight a number of key concerns for employers and policy makers: Will workers who want—or need—to increase their financial resources by working longer be able to find jobs? How might workforce management (and health care costs) be affected by those decisions? What could delayed workforce entry mean to the retirement savings accumulations of younger workers?
Ultimately, of course, and as the trends tracked and analyzed by EBRI have long indicated, the road through retirement is often influenced by the paths we take to retirement—and when, how, and if we are able to make the transition.
[i] See "The 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey: Confidence Rebounds—for Those With Retirement Plans."
[ii] The April EBRI Notes article, "Labor-force Participation Rates of the Population Ages 55 and Older, 2013," is available online here.
Filed under 401(k)s, Early retirees, EBRI, Job tenure, Nevin Adams, Retirement, Retirement Confidence Survey
Categories Select Category 401(k)s American Savings Education Council (ASEC) Annuities Automatic enrollment Confidence Congress Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey (CEHCS)[ Consumer-driven health plans Craig Copeland Dallas Salisbury Early retirees EBRI EBRI Center for Research on Health Benefits Innovation EBRI IRA database EBRI Lillywhite Award Elderly employment-based benefits GAO Health and Voluntary Workplace Benefits Survey (WBS) Health benefits health care confidence Health insurance coverage Health insurance exchanges Health savings accounts Health tax preferences HRAs IRAs Jack VanDerhei Job tenure leakage Lori Lucas lump-sum distributions Mandates Medicare Nevin Adams Participation Paul Fronstin Pensions PPACA Retiree health Retirement Retirement Confidence Survey Retirement income adequacy Retirement plan tax preferences rollovers Savings Social Security Sudipto Banerjee target-date funds Tax preferences Tax reform Taxes Uninsured Withdrawals
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Shot on iPhone 12: Portraits, cityscapes, night sky, and more
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Christmas Giving Trees ready for gifts
It's that time of year again! Bass Coast Shire Council's Christmas Giving Trees are now up and ready to receive your gifts as part of the annual donation drive to support local families doing it tough.
The Christmas Giving Tree program helps ensure that Christmas is a special day for the whole Bass Coast community, so we need your support as many gifts are needed.
While food donations are not recommended, this year, we're appealing for donations of Christmas puddings, that will be put in hampers to help share the taste of Christmas delights.
We are also asking for presents or gifts, particularly for girls aged seven to 12 years old, however gifts suitable for all ages are welcome. Gifts (including puddings) should be new and placed unwrapped under the trees.
The project is coordinated by the Combined Welfare Group which includes organisations such as the Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul and Bass Coast Health's Davey House. These services work directly with local families.
Bass Coast Shire Mayor, Cr Brett Tessari, says that Council is a proud supporter of this amazing initiative and thanked the community for their continued generosity.
"This year has been a particularly challenging one and the Giving Tree can help to take some pressure off Bass Coast families experiencing financial hardship over Christmas," Cr Tessari said.
"Donating a gift can change a life and bring a smile to the faces of children and their families at this special time of year."
Christmas Giving Trees are on display in Council's Customer Service Centres in Wonthaggi and Inverloch, and in the foyer of the Grantville Library at the Transaction Centre, and we are accepting gifts until Thursday, 10 December. Please note the changes in our hours of operation.
Any gifts received after this date will be held over until next year.
Tags:army, Bass, Bass Coast, Bass Coast Council, children, community, council, donation, food, Grantville, health, house, Inverloch, local council, operation, project, Salvation Army, Wonthaggi
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Tag Archives: Elvis Costello
Toxic Post-Punk Syndrome: Elvis Costello's Watching the Detectives
Having spent a little bit more times on the fringes of reggae (The Specials are my latest venture, getting into full-on ska territory at this point), the realization suddenly dawns on me that there's a reggae song that I've been a fan of from way back, and it turns out that it's even better now: Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives". Stapled onto the back of the American version Costello's debut album, My Aim Is True, it was his first UK hit and an excellent object-lesson in simple atmosphere-building (a technique he'd use later to absolutely devastating effect on "I Want You"). The rest of the album shows of Costello's songwriting chops, with scathing lyrics and good tunes, but this one feels totally immersive and that you're only getting a little piece of the much bigger picture.
A Steve Goudling drubbing of the drums pulls us into the story as the slinky bass makes its appearance known and asks you to follow it with morbid curiosity, courtesy of Andrew Bodnar. There's a slightly sinister air as the bass is slightly too complex to sit on its laurels over the reggae beat, so you get the sneaking suspicion that it knows something that you don't. Costello's guitar tries to sidle in without being seen before the vocals come in. As his voice cracks under the pressure, he draws out the scene cinematically "long shot of that jumping sign/visible shivers runnin' down my spine/cut the baby taking off her clothes/close-up of a sign that says 'we never close'". His voice oozes menace as he lingers on those last syllables as Goudling deftly skips along the hi-hat.
The off-beat organ in the chorus makes it sounds little cheesy at first, but by the time the climactic last chorus comes by, you're no longer laughin'. The vocals get closer and closer together until they're overlapping each other in paranoia "Now fear is here to stay/Love is here for a visit/…/Someone's scratching at the window/I wonder, who is it?". The tension builds and builds as the vocals hammer on the beat harder and harder and the rhythm section fills things out more and more until it all stops and Costello delivers the punishing line "It only took my little fingers to blow you away". Even though it follows your standard verse/chorus/verse/chorus structure, there really ain't no climax until that one little moment where it all comes together beautifully, as the rhythm stays pretty intact up until that point.
Each part under analysis doesn't seems like it would fit together with everything going on in the song, and perhaps that's the beauty of it. The song begins to coalesce more and more as it goes on until everyone's firing on all cylinders when Costello calls "shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot!" during the chorus. The minor key and Costello's straight delivery avoids the idea that Costello is trying to emulate a reggae song, but rather, is using the form as sort of a means to an end, the tension held together beautifully by the insistent rhythm of the whole thing, the organ in the chorus being the only place they really seems to hang a hat on it. By far one of my favourite songs of his entire oeuvre and one that I have a multitude of listens to give. Building up to that moment every time manages to remain a highlight, no matter how many repetitions. I'm still finding more in it!
Tagged 1970s, 70s, Elvis Costello, music, new wave, post-punk, reggae, song, UK, watching the detectives
Music Mythology: 5 Great Rhythm Section Performances
I've always been intrigued with music mythology. Hearing about some band's 'legendary bootleg' from Brighton in '72 – "man, they were never better than that night" – or "Paul McCartney said this was the best bassline he'd ever written" or that it has been X amount of days since The Grateful Dead played "Dark Star". All of these are really just ways of expressing fondness for a piece/oeuvre of music, but in such a way that goes a bit beyond "I like this". It's the conjuring up of this statements and passing down through the ages that makes them so interesting to me. They all begin with a kernel of simple fondness and then grow as that fondness becomes contextualized within the rest of a band's work. When delivered to me in those sentences, it just gets me beyond to excited to join up with that experience and join in the magic all those people are already in on.
As my way of propagating this practice, I've compiled a small list of songs that I think have outstanding rhythm section performances. And really, it's one of the things that is easier to mythologize. A great guitar solo is pretty self-evident, as is an outstanding vocal performances. Riffs and basslines will grab you pretty hard and even a great drum performance will not escape keen ears, but the rhythm section? Basically bisecting the band and looking not just at individual instrumental performances, but looking at the core and pulse of a song as the group of lesser-touted instruments make it all work. "This song has a killer rhythm section" is one of those perfect little things to pass on:
1) The Who – The Real Me
Welcome to classic rock's premier rhythm section. Musically, John Entwhistle and Keith Moon absolutely dominated The Who's records, with Moon restless bashing and Entwhistle's high fills. No more so than on "The Real Me". The first real song to kick off the concept double album, they start fast and heavy and just go up from there. By the end, Keith is basically doing a constant drum solo while John Entwhistle is flying up and down his fretboard. Check out the second verse (starting at 1:30), which is just Moon and Entwhistle underneath Daltrey's voice, and you get an idea of the sheer power of the duo. Constantly moving, constantly adding dribs and drabs in every conceivable second, you can see how The Who gained the "Maximum R&B" label early on in their career.
2) Radiohead – The National Anthem
And here, we have the exact opposite. Colin Greenwood sticks on that four-note bassline throughout the entire song with aplomb, with the rest of the world fizzing and popping and cracking and melting around it. It's the one constant for the entire duration – almost mantra-like. Phil Selway meshes into it perfectly with his ride-heavy jazz-tinged drumming that is nevertheless a pretty straight-ahead 4/4 affair. The thrill of this two working with mechanical precision is the couple of times that Selway simply stops for a bar, creating mad hot space, before starting back up again. Pretty much their only trick in the bag for this song, for which they have to keep the sanity somewhat moored while a bass section goes ballistic around them. A bass player and a drummer just playing in the pocket can be a hell of a thing.
3) Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Lipstick Vogue
Starting off with a Pete Thomas beration of his toms and snare, Bruce Thomas (no relation) soon picks up the aggression with his burbling bassline.This is a punk rhythm section that is about as articulate you can get as Pete throws in jazzy little fills into his straight ahead 100-mile-an-hour beat and Bruce's bassline paces up and down while occasionally rearing up and tossing back its head. The whole aggression of the song rides on the Thomases stepping on gas while Costello spits out his usual vitriol, and does less guitar-playing than usual, mostly stepping back while the rhythm section does all the talking.
4) Austra – Beat and the Pulse
It starts out oddly, with Dorian Wolf imitating a bass synth…with his bass, playing a sweet staccato line that runs through the entire song and gives it its momentum, articulating the chords nicely and letting everything build on top (the actual synths). Maya Postepski comes on top with a snare that cuts through every other sound in the song and a shuffling electronic beat that cuts in and out, providing another option for your ears to catch onto under the backbeat. The strange interpolation of musicians playing their instruments in the manner of instruments that synthesize being played by musicians just gives an indication of how impressive the musicianship actually is and that new ways of driving songs with a rhythm instrument in your hand are being found all the time.
5) Our Lady Peace – Starseed
Jeremy Taggart is probably my favourite drummer of all time. His fills are never egregious, but never unimpressive and his snare patterns would make fantastic riffs on their own. Through Chris Eacrett was replaced on subsequent OLP efforts by Duncan Coutts, they do share one defining similarlity – they like to get low. As such, the bass does a lot of lurking in the depths of this song while Taggart's snare-and-hi-hat-heavy performance puts him front and center in the mix. Eacrett puts out wave after wave of resonance, where Taggart's lively performance frames it and shapes it with snare pummelings, working together to create something just as much felt as heard.
Tagged austra, bassist, canadian music, drummer, Elvis Costello, list, music, our lady peace, radiohead, rhythm section, The Who, top 5
A meme made long.
I've been dragging my heels on this meme (conferred on me by the incomparible Alex Gunning), so I thought I'd make up for it by elaborating on it in blog form.
The 12 albums that have stuck with me:
(All images from wikipedia.org)
The Who – Quadrophenia
A key part in the 1970s wave of double albums with black and white covers, Quadrophenia has been, for quite some time. The recurring musical themes established in the title track and their reprises with key phrases lend that grandiose and classical feeling to the proceedings, yelling the story of the mod named Jimmy. The quartet have never been better technically as they were on here, at a confluence with just the right amount of songwriting prowess and self indulgence in Pete Townshend's head. They popularized the rock opera with Tommy, but perfected it here.
Tracks to check out: "The Real Me", "The Punk and the Godfather", "Love, Reign O'er Me"
They Might Be Giants – Lincoln
Back in '88, fewer people were enjoying the indie rock sound, but when they did, they often would turn to two guys named John from Brooklyn to get their fill. Lincoln runs the gamut from power pop on "Ana Ng" to the weird jazzy bellow of "You'll Miss Me" to the martial beat of "Pencil Rain" and demonstrates TMBG's knack on only their sophomore effort for writing catchy tunes with bizarre wordplay. Spread across 19 short songs, Lincoln is a lesson in accessible eclecticism and is just loads of fun to listen to.
Tracks to check out: "Ana Ng", "Cage & Aquarium", "They'll Need A Crane", "Kiss Me, Son of God"
Egg – Egg
Deep in the mists of prog can be found a short-lived project with only three albums to its name and three members to its roster – Egg. Having seen the infancy of prog begin, they immediaty dove headfirst into baffling time signatures, symphonic aspirations sonic experimentalism with their organ-bass-drum trio and exploded onto the scene with their self-titled debut. Barely organized chaos is the order of the day as bassist Mont Campbell attempts to bring some sort of order with his airy vocals. The album is rough n ready and has a sort of urgency and live feel to it that gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like to see them live and feel as if you were part of something new happening.
Tracks to check out: "Fugue in D Minor", "The Song of McGillicudie the Pusillanimous"
Genesis – Genesis Live
I was waffling back and forth on which Genesis album to put on this list, as my interest in early Genesis got me not only into prog, but also a good portion of the music I listen to today. Problem is, I find each of their early albums to have their hits and misses. Except for this one. All killer, no filler, Genesis Live is the only live album released during Peter Gabriel's tenure with the band and features their best tracks from the previous three albums (save one omission), with the players just on fire on all counts. Gabriel's stage banter is brief but witty, and these live renditions of the longer songs in their oeuvre have a great deal more energy to them than their studio counterparts – not to mention guitarist Steve Hackett and drummer Phil Collins getting to put their own stamp on the thunderous closer, "The Knife", which was released before they joined the band.
Tracks to check out: "The Return of the Giant Hogweed", "The Knife"
Elvis Costello and the Attractions – This Year's Model
Costello's acerbic wit combined with his snotty snarl and his backing band at the height of their punky game makes his sophomore album one of the best I've ever heard. While Punk's poet laureate offers a treatise on the nature of love and celebrity worship (with lyrical barbs like "You want her broken with her mouth wide open/'cause she's this year's girl" and "Sometimes love is just a tumor/You got to cut it out"), the Attractions are busy laying the frenetic groundwork on top of which it all sits (I swear, the rhythm section took out every rest they had on "Lipstick Vogue"), while creating enough earworms to have you bopping long after you're done listening. To be honest, I stopped for the most part with Costello after this album, because he got it perfect with this one.
Tracks to check out: "This Year's Girl", "Pump It Up", "Lipstick Vogue"
The Decemberists – Picaresque
Strangely enough, all of my top favourite Decemberists tracks are on other albums, but none of them are quite as consistent as Picaresque, which shows them in all their jaunty glory. You get bombast on "The Infanta", an epic sea shanty on "The Mariner's Revenge Song", a quieter lovelorn paean on "The Engine Driver" and some sort-non-specific old-timey stomp on "The Sporting Life". Every song takes place in its own enjoyable world, rich with little words and sonic details that evoke that particular atmosphere, as well as an undoubtedly catchy melody and a few terms you'll have to look up after the fact.
Tracks to check out: "The Infanta", "16 Military Wives", "The Mariner's Revenge Song"
Van der Graaf Generator – Godbluff
2 sides, 4 songs, roughly 10 minutes each. This symmetrical layout provides the framework for my favourite of the many Van der Graaf albums that I love. Though they always employed a somewhat unusual instrumentation, this album features the usual organ-drums-sax trio with the addition of singer Peter Hammill on clavichord, which provides plenty of rich menacing counterpoint. The album documents the horrors of war over top of wailing sax riffs, gnarled organ and the bellowing and caterwauling of Hammill stretching his voice in any direction it will go, each song having plenty of time to establish its own particular haunting narrative, lyrically and sonically.
Track to check out: "Scorched Earth"
Neil Young – Live at Massey Hall 1971
One man, an acoustic guitar and a piano onstage at Toronto's Massey Hall is all it took to make this one of my favourite live albums. With no back-up and a single instrument to sing along to, Young's songwriting is on full display from the word go, as he runs through his early catalogue and (then) new songs that would appear on his blockbuster Heart of Gold. His self-effacing stage banter is effortlessly Canadian and charming, and every performance beautiful in its simplicity and allowance for the melodies to shine through.
Tracks to check out: "Don't Let It Bring You Down", "The Needle and the Damage Done"
Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
A fine showpiece of modern songcraft. Each song is quintessentially British and has many little studio touches that catapult them from good to fantastic. Guy Garvey's husky croon touches on love of all kinds on this album: past, present, future, unrequited and platonic; all of this is backed by the appropriate somber piano melody or orchestral bombast that evolves as the song's story goes on and on. One of the most consistent track-to-track albums I've ever heard that tackles as many different moods as this one does.
Tracks to check out: "The Bones of You", "Grounds For Divorce", "One Day Like This"
Muse – Absolution
From the introduction consisting solely of military stomping and incoherent orders being yelled, I knew that I was listened to something that was going to be right in my wheelhouse. A concept album based around the theme of different people's experiences of the end of the world with some of the craziest and most piercing riffs I'd ever heard in my life, with a falsetto to put Raine Maida's to shame? Hell yes.
Tracks to check out: "Stockholm Syndrome", "Hysteria", "Butterflies & Hurricanes"
Radiohead – Kid A
This one my first Radiohead album proper, but I actually skirted around Radiohead for sometime, using Thom Yorke's solo electronic effort, The Eraser to kind of get in through the back door. When I was done with that, I wanted more Yorke and more electronic stuff, so what better way to turn? Radiohead's cryptic masterpiece is unrivaled in the intense and paranoid atmosphere it creates with some beats, some synths, a studio and virtually no guitars. One of those albums that teleports you completely to another world.
Tracks to check out: "Everything In Its Right Place", "The National Anthem", "Idioteque"
Our Lady Peace – Naveed
Probably the album on this list that's been with me the longest and still one of my favourite rock albums ever. from the dizzying insanity of "The Birdman" to the intro to "Neon Crossing" which, at 15, was the craziest thing I'd ever heard up 'till that point, Naveed is a wonderful piece of alternative rock that always seems to zig when you think it's gonna zag. Guitarist Mike Turner's riffs seem to emanate from a different planet, Raine Maida caterwauls and bemoans the human condition while Jeremy Taggart fills in every conceivable space with unreal drum fills (especially impressive considering he was only 18 at the time).
Tracks to check out: "The Birdman", "Starseed", "Denied"
Tagged Absolution, Egg, Elbow, Elvis Costello, favourite albums, folk rock, Genesis, Godbluff, Kid A, list, Massey Hall, muse, Neil Young, our lady peace, Picaresque, prog rock, Quadrophenia, radiohead, The Decemberists, The Who, they might be giants, Van der Graaf Generator


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East Coast region
Story: East Coast region
Geology and landscape
Climate, flora and fauna
Māori settlement
European impact on Māori, 1769 to 1869
Pākehā settlement, 1870 to 1940
Māori and Pākehā, 1870 to 1940
Growth and challenge, 1940 to 2010s
Page 1. Overview
All images & media in this story
Images of the East Coast
'Tu mai' waiata by Meng Foon
Sunrise on Hikurangi
Nature's beauty: Gisborne (1st of 2)
Boundaries and region
The East Coast is a relatively isolated region. Bounded by mountain ranges to the west and rugged country to the south, and facing east onto the expanse of the Pacific Ocean, it has fewer routes linking it with the rest of the North Island than any other area. Until the 1920s most travellers from outside the region arrived by sea. In the 21st century, only two state highways link the region with its neighbours.
The region is commonly divided into the East Coast proper, or East Cape, and Poverty Bay. East Cape is a series of bays, small river flats and townships along State Highway 35 north of Gisborne. Inland, large tracts of hill country culminate in Hikurangi mountain (1,752 m). Poverty Bay, with the city of Gisborne, the seaport, vineyards, cropland and surf beaches, resembles Hawke's Bay, to its south.
The East Coast is the region with the highest percentage of Māori – 48.9% in 2013 (compared to 14.9% for New Zealand as a whole). In East Cape, the heartland of Ngāti Porou, over 85% of residents are Māori. In 2013 the population of the region was 43,653.
The territory of the Gisborne District Council, which covers the region, is the largest in the North Island. With an area of 8,351 square kilometres, it is 7.3% of the total area of the North Island.
The region as a whole is also sometimes referred to as East Cape and, more recently, Eastland (which can also include Ōpōtiki and Wairoa). Another name, Te Tairāwhiti – the coast of the rising sun – in the past referred to the whole eastern coast from Tauranga to Wairarapa.
Māori settlement and traditions
For centuries Māori hapū groupings populated the region, migrating from the coast to inland and back again as the seasons changed. As the populations of hapū increased and stretched available resources, warfare between groups became common. Many Māori place names throughout the region tell of tīpuna (ancestors) who were either victorious or vanquished in battle.
Deeply ingrained in the traditions of the East Coast region are the achievements of the legendary demigod Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga. Māui is known for a number of feats, including slowing down the sun, acquiring fire and obtaining the sacred jawbone of enchantment and knowledge. But to this region his greatest feat was fishing up the North Island – Te Ika-a-Māui (the great fish of Māui). As he and his brothers hauled the fish from the depths, the seawaters receded and their canoe Nukutaimemeha was grounded on the first piece of land to emerge – Hikurangi mountain.
Many ancestors are associated with Hikurangi, the highest non-volcanic mountain in the North Island. One ancestor – who became widely known due to the internationally successful movie Whale rider (2002) – is Paikea, who took refuge on the mountain to escape great waves sent to drown him by his half brother Ruatapu.
The Tūranganui River in Gisborne is where British explorer James Cook originally set foot in New Zealand. Te Toka-a-Taiau, a rock that once stood in the river, was the site of the first meeting between Europeans (Cook's party) and Māori in 1769.
From the arrival of Europeans
Europeans first came to the region as traders and missionaries. In the 1860s Māori faced conflict both among themselves and with the government over matters of religion and self-determination. From the 1870s onwards Māori in Poverty Bay had to deal with Pākehā settlers. Māori frequently became indebted to Pākehā traders, and often lost their land to repay the debt. In East Cape, Ngāti Porou had more success in holding on to their land and autonomy.
From the 1890s to around 1920 the settler economy boomed. Many fortunes were made and Gisborne grew from a township to a substantial urban centre. Following the economic depression of the 1930s, there was another period of prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s. From around 1970 the region faced challenges, as its economy depended on a limited range of industries.
The later 20th and early 21st centuries saw a burgeoning of economic activity around recreational opportunities, along with events such as music festivals.
In contrast to other regions, nearly half of the East Coast's population identify as Māori..The conflict between races played a large part in the region's history. The high Māori population gives the region its unique character.
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Monty Soutar, 'East Coast region - Overview', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/east-coast-region/page-1 (accessed 19 January 2022)
Story by Monty Soutar, published 25 Aug 2011, updated 1 Mar 2015


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Q: Why does AzureMobileClient.LoginAsync(provider, token) take so long? I have a Xamarin Forms app, which consists of a PCL project, iOS, and Android.  I have implemented native login for Google and Facebook, which work fine and they return a authentication token.  However, once I receive the token, I call
var user = Client.LoginAsync(Google, token);

The request goes through, but sometimes the request takes upwards of 15seconds! 90% of my LoginAsync calls probably take 15+ seconds.  The other 10% actually work quick.  I've tried making the call in the iOS project instead of the PCL project, but it had the same result.  I've searched for performance issues dealing with AzureMobileClient but i have not found anything.  Everything appears to be correct, because eventually the request returns, but the 15+ second requests are killing my login process!  This also happens for Facebook as well.  Any suggestions?

A: Requests were taking a long time throughout the app. I swapped out the MobileServiceClient for a HttpClient and everything has worked great since.  I'm not sure what kind of overhead the MobileServiceClient adds, but my app went from unusable to lightning fast.
        var messageHandler = new NativeMessageHandler()
        {
            Timeout = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 8),
            EnableUntrustedCertificates = true,
            DisableCaching = true

        };
        client = new HttpClient(messageHandler);
        var uri = new Uri("example");
        client.BaseAddress = uri;
        client.MaxResponseContentBufferSize = 256000;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Ischionodonta torquata är en skalbaggsart som först beskrevs av Louis Alexandre Auguste Chevrolat 1859.  Ischionodonta torquata ingår i släktet Ischionodonta och familjen långhorningar. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Långhorningar
torquata

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Q: 3.3V I2C SDA/SCL but 1.8V VDD? I'm trying to avoid the use of a level shifter in a design, but it would unfortunately require that I communicate at different voltage levels than what I power the device at.
If I communicate with a sensor from a microcontroller with 3.3V logic level I2C lines, but I power that sensor at 1.8V, am I in for big trouble (permanent damage to the device, inability to communicate)?

A: Yes, you will almost certainly run into problems. From your datasheet:

A spec like this most likely indicates the presence of ESD protection diodes on the SCL and SDA lines, connecting them to the power and ground rails.
If you power this with 1.8 V, and connect SCL (for example) through a pull-up resistor to 3.3 V, it will pull the SCL line down to about 2.5 V. This could cause problems with other chip recognizing a high voltage on SCL. The extra current from SCL into the VDDIO supply could cause other unexpected (and unpredictable) behavior.
It may be possible to operate your sensor with VDDIO at 3.3 V while the main VDD is at 1.8 V. I don't see anything to prevent it listed in the characteristics tables, but I didn't read the complete datasheet to be sure.

A: Your concern of operating an MCU at 3.3V and a sensor at 1.8V is a valid one. But it is not a reason to avoid using a level shifter.
A suitable level shifter takes just two additional SMT resistors and two N-Channel MOSFETs. Both FETs can be deployed in a very small SOT-363 or similar 6-pin SMT package. Cost is really really small.

(Picture Source: https://playground.arduino.cc/Main/I2CBi-directionalLevelShifter)

(Picture Source: https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/115/ds30203-79162.pdf)


Their story captured headlines across America. The movie captivated audiences worldwide. Now, Travis Tuttle and Andrew Propst share The Story Behind The Saratov Approach, revealing insights and intimate details of their kidnapping that were unknown ... until now. Hear Tuttle and Propst's first-hand accounts of their miraculous escape. The Story Behind The Saratov Approach is an inspiring fireside event that reminds us all to trust in the Lord no matter how dark the pathway before us.


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'He can't take my freedom.' Jayme Closs' full statement for Jake Patterson sentencing
A family attorney read a statement from the kidnap victim in court Friday before Jake Patterson was sentenced to life with no chance for release.
'He can't take my freedom.' Jayme Closs' full statement for Jake Patterson sentencing A family attorney read a statement from the kidnap victim in court Friday before Jake Patterson was sentenced to life with no chance for release. Check out this story on wausaudailyherald.com: https://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/2019/05/24/jayme-closs-full-statement-jake-patterson-thought-he-could-own-me/1227411001/
Mark Treinen, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin Published 3:57 p.m. CT May 24, 2019 | Updated 1:00 p.m. CT May 25, 2019
BARRON - Perhaps the most powerful personal statement in the Jake Patterson sentencing hearing on Friday came from Jayme Closs, the 13-year-old Barron girl he kidnapped after murdering her parents on Oct. 15.
Family attorney Chris Gramstrup read the statement to Barron County Circuit Court Judge James Babler, who went on to sentence the 21-year-old Patterson to consecutive life terms without parole for shooting to death James and Denise Closs, plus a 40-year term for kidnapping their only daughter.
"Judge, this is the statement of Jayme Closs," Gramstrup said, then read the following words from the teenager, who was not present in the courtroom:
"Last October, Jake Patterson took a lot of things that I loved away from me. It makes me the most sad that he took away my Mom and my Dad. I loved my Mom and Dad very much and they loved me very much. They did all they could to make me happy and protect me. He took them away from me forever.
Jake Patterson appears in court for sentencing in Jayme Closs case
Police officers stand guard in the hallway outside the courtroom during Jake Patterson's sentencing hearing on Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Justice Center in Barron, Wis. Patterson was sentenced to life without parole for kidnapping Jayme Closs and murdering her parents. Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Members of the Closs family exit the courtroom after Jake Patterson's sentencing hearing on Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Justice Center in Barron, Wis. Patterson was sentenced to life without parole for kidnapping Jayme Closs and murdering her parents. Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Members of the Patterson family exit the courtroom after Jake Patterson's sentencing hearing on Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Justice Center in Barron, Wis. Patterson was sentenced to life without parole for kidnapping Jayme Closs and murdering her parents. Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Jayme Closs' aunt, Jennifer Smith, addresses the media after Jake Patterson's sentencing hearing on Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Justice Center in Barron, Wis. Patterson was sentenced to life without parole for kidnapping Closs and murdering her parents. Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald addresses the media after Jake Patterson's sentencing hearing on Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Justice Center in Barron, Wis. Patterson was sentenced to life without parole for kidnapping Jayme Closs and murdering her parents. Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Members of the Closs family make their way to the courtroom before Jake Patterson's sentencing hearing on Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Justice Center in Barron, Wis. Patterson was sentenced to life without parole for kidnapping Jayme Closs and murdering her parents. Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Barron County District Attorney Brian Wright addresses the media after Jake Patterson's sentencing hearing on Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Justice Center in Barron, Wis. Patterson was sentenced to life without parole for kidnapping Jayme Closs and murdering her parents. Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Members of the Closs family proceed through a security check on their way to the courtroom before Jake Patterson's sentencing hearing on Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Justice Center in Barron, Wis. Patterson was sentenced to life without parole for kidnapping Jayme Closs and murdering her parents. Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Jake Patterson is escorted to his sentencing Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Circuit Court in Barron, Wis. Patterson is found guilty of kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and murdering her parents, James and Denise Closs, at their home in October 2018. T'xer Zhon Kha/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Jayme Closs' relative reacts as Judge James Babler reads out Jake Patterson's sentencing Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Circuit Court in Barron, Wis. Patterson is found guilty of kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and murdering her parents, James and Denise Closs, at their home in October 2018. T'xer Zhon Kha/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
A family member of Jayme Closs gets emotional during Jake Patterson's sentencing Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Circuit Court in Barron, Wis. Patterson is found guilty of kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and murdering her parents, James and Denise Closs, at their home in October 2018. T'xer Zhon Kha/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
A family member of Jayme Closs wipes off tears during Jake Patterson's sentencing Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Circuit Court in Barron, Wis. Patterson is found guilty of kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and murdering her parents, James and Denise Closs, at their home in October 2018. T'xer Zhon Kha/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
A family member of Jayme Closs reacts during Jake Patterson's sentencing Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Circuit Court in Barron, Wis. Patterson is found guilty of kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and murdering her parents, James and Denise Closs, at their home in October 2018. T'xer Zhon Kha/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Photos of Jayme Closs family display during Jake Patterson's sentencing Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Circuit Court in Barron, Wis. Patterson is found guilty of kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and murdering her parents, James and Denise Closs, at their home in October 2018. T'xer Zhon Kha/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Jake Patterson gets escorted to jail after his sentencing Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Circuit Court in Barron, Wis. Patterson is found guilty of kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and murdering her parents, James and Denise Closs, at their home in October 2018. TZ Kha, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Jake Patterson gets escorted to his sentencing Friday, May 24, 2019, at Barron County Circuit Court in Barron, Wis. Patterson is found guilty of kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and murdering her parents, James and Denise Closs, at their home in October 2018. TZ Kha, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
"I felt safe in my home, and I loved my room and all of my belongings. He took all of that too. I don't want to even see my home or my stuff because of the memory of that night. My parents and my home were the most important things in my life. He took them away from me in a way that will always leave me with a horrifying memory.
"I used to love to go out with my friends. I loved to go to school. I loved to do dance."
Jayme Closs
"I have to have an alarm in the house now just so I can sleep. I used to love to go out with my friends. I loved to go to school. I loved to do dance. He took all of those things away from me too. It's too hard for me to go out in public. I get scared and I get anxious. These are just ordinary things that anyone like me should be able to do, but I can't because he took them away from me.
"But there's some things that Jake Patterson can never take from me. He can't take my freedom. He thought that he could own me but he was wrong. I was smarter. I watched his routine and I took back my freedom. I will always have my freedom and he will not.
"He thought that he could own me but he was wrong. I was smarter. I watched his routine and I took back my freedom."
"Jake Patterson can never take away my courage. He thought he could control me, but he couldn't. I feel like what he did is what a coward would do. I was brave. He was not.
"He can never take away my spirit. He thought that he could make me like him, but he was wrong. He can't ever change me, or take away who I am. He can't stop me from being happy and moving forward with my life. I will go on to do great things in my life, and he will not.
"Jake Patterson will never have any power over me. I feel like I have some power over him, because I get to tell the judge what I think should happen to him. He stole my parents from me. He stole almost everything I love from me. For 88 days he tried to steal me, and he didn't care who he hurt or who he killed to do that.
"He should stay locked up forever."
Contact Mark Treinen at 715-845-0655 or mtreinen@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MarkTreinen, Instagram at @mark_treinen or Facebook at @Mark Treinen.
Read or Share this story: https://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/2019/05/24/jayme-closs-full-statement-jake-patterson-thought-he-could-own-me/1227411001/


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