SURVEY SAYS: Here’s a Real Page Turner…

For this week’s bonus survey I asked readers to grab the closet book – turn to page 56— and post the fifth sentence.  Weird little “challenges” like that pop up on Facebook all the time, this one ostensibly in acknowledge of something called National Book Week, and, like some kind of virtual chain letter, you’re supposed to post that information up as your “status.” 

What’s the point?  Don’t ask me – but I appreciate everyone playing along – and found the results to be kind of entertaining – if only to see what is on everybody’s desk. 

Oh, and that’s BEFORE you get to the verbatims! 

Here you go:

The IRS is responsible for developing regulations for the participation, vesting, and funding provisions of ERISA, except for certain matters specifically delegated to the Secretary of Labor under the act:  but in doing so, it must consult with and coordinate with Secretary of Labor.

He was put in charge of a population-control program in a remote Nepalese hill town.

It probably will not be of satisfactory quality.

Following the fly-around, we held position for a minute or so before we did our separation burn.

If profit growth reflected in dividend growth is the driver of capital appreciation (together with the base yield, the driver of total return), why not line up behind low-yielding companies that manage to grow dividends steadily at a high level?

BASE PERIOD: particular time in the past used as a yardstick when measuring economic data.

As Countrywide went to the commercial paper market to borrow money, no lenders could be found.

He realized that he had a long way to go before he and the team would be ready to present anthing, and he had scheduled a run-through for Friday.

She was also given a a work release excusing her absence for that week and indicating that she could return to work on Monday. 

"""The jacket embodied all it meant to be Harley-Davidson: tough, fast, wild, and hard around the edges.""  (From the Why of Work by Dave Ulrich.)"

Surely there'd be a less dramatic, and simpler, way to arrange his disappearance.

"Even with his heavily cultivated favorite-son status at the Detroit radio stations, some program directors placed strict limits on plays from any given label, a result of the 1950’s payola scandals.  (If you want the name of the book :   The Troubled Lives & Enduring Soul of the Temptations - I always have a book in my purse)"

"I hear Tice was so cooperative in his de-briefings that he got concessions."

"From ""Made in America - An Informal History of the English Language in the United States"" by Bill Bryson: 

The framers seemed intent almost to the point of paranoia on providing instructions for how to depose those found to be disloyal or corrupt."

He didn't want to talk.

18 of the 84 companies (21%) maintain ongoing traditional final average pay (17) or career average pay (1) pension plans (versus 18% of Fortune 500 companies in Benefit SpecSelect)

Was it some instinctual desire to protect Paul?

With a sole proprietor, the fiction of having two separate persons, the sole proprietorship and the sole proprietor, is given effect even though this may result in the recognition of form over substance.

In less efficient markets, active management produces potentially sizable rewards.

It was a children's book.  There was no fifth sentence on that page 😉

"fun idea....though my answer is boring (from a health insurance compliance guide, addressing home healthcare), though one could certainly interpret it many ways.........

""Some agencies offer both types of services."""

Every other industrial nation has sought to redress this imbalance through a variety of governmental or quasi-govermanetal regulatory mechanisms designed to improve purchasers' market power.

"My page 56 is blank, so here's the 5th line from page 57, which is exactly where I'm at in the book:

The idea is for companies to make marketing feel like it is directed at the individual."

"The employee can simply choose to apply the 25% or $25,000 rule explained above at [section] 410." - sorry - the book closest to me is the CCH explanation of the Pension Reform Act of 1974 that I got when I first started in the business in 1976.

I never thought this would happen to me, but I couldn't believe my eyes as I was making a pizza delivery and the door was opened by a woman wearing nothing but pearls and a smile.

1.436-1(h).............Presumed underfunding for purposes of benefit limitations.......20,262D.

reputation as "a lousy place to work" is part of the death spiral that afflicts fail-

"""I'm gonna take you to the bank, Senator.  To the blood bank.""  movie quote by Steven Seagal from Hard to Kill quoted in Uncle John's Unsinkable Bathroom Reader :>)"

It is not unusual for creditor to require insurance on a key person when loaning funds to a corporation.  (page 56 is blank)

Once you know why you want to change, it will be easier to follow through with the savings and financial sacrifices you'll undergo to make early semi-retirement a reality.

During the 2004 Republican National Convention, Geworge W. Bush laid out in a rather definitive terms his plan for domestic reform.

In addition, the partner causing the wrongful dissolution must be indemnified by the remaining partners for any obligations or liabilities incurred by the partnership subsequent to the dissolution.

I'm in one of our other locations today using someone else's office.  They don't appear to have any books. Darn.

Don't:  Wear a shower cap covered with humorously drawn cartoon duckies.

I was in date-night mode.

"page 56 is blank (end of chapter) so I'll go to page 57:  Inside are huge bathrooms with skylights and walk-in closets larger than the bedroom I grew up in.

""Disciplines of a Godly Man"" by R. Kent Hughes"

In Kentucky and elsewhere, Jackson fretted about what were drily known as internal improvements - projected roads and canals that were to be funded by the federal government.

When McPherson had become President he had waited for wisdom and a feeling of power to decend on him.

That was the beauty of credit default swaps: They enabled him to make a fortune if just a tiny fraction of these dubious pools of mortgages went bad.

I've made an error in one of two places in that sentence: either I forgot to include the comma after missile (a comma there would mean there's only one missile), or I should not have put the comma after away (if there are two or more missiles and I intend to specify a particular one).

The five other people in the group announce their matches before you - and everyone makes an obvious error.

An effective sales job has focus, clarity of purpose, and a clearly identified point of persuasion responsibility.

Like Ray, I had heeded the advice of an internal voice: "If you build it, they will come." --Always Looking Up, by Michale J. Fox

You will only be remembered in life for your obsession.

They are further delineated based on paroduct type, including Tax-Exempt, Prime, Treasury and Government funds.

(c)Subject to the limitation of section 37(c) and paragraph (b) of 1.37-1, W's credit for the elderly is computed as follows:

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949

"Something had set off the madness when she was twelve."

"But after I ask him, I don't see him again."

"He has nothing to do with me."

She did like Patti Smith, who seemed to understand how she'd felt in the bathroom on the morning after she was raped, but the Velvet Underground, for example, made her lonely. " From Freedom by Jonathan Franzen"

Gladden decided he'd better leave.

Told that many writers felt the impact of their work had been diminshed when the newspaper went free, publisher David Schneiderman scoffed, adding that there was no choice.

"One satisfactory answer to these questions is to use a table to the show the numbers." (Tufte, Visual Display of Quantitative Information)

The first criterion is usually to compare the marginal tax rates in the contribution year, t, and the withdrawal year t n.

Is it a sign of the apocalypse if page 56 in the book I grabbed is blank???  (It's a page in between chapters)

Part of what we do is work out what's causing you to hold on to your life so hard.

The electronic recordkeeping system has reasonable controls to ensure the integrity, accuracy, authenticity, and reliability of the records kept in electronic form;

A bond's yield expresses the cash interest payments in relation to the bond's value. (from my Series 7 book, the only book on my desk!)

Second, if there are multiple beneficiaries, then the

When the eustachian tube gets blocked, fluid gathers, causing pain.

It isn't just setting and achieving goals that creates quality of life.

"Because if you met her, you would understand clearly that there are no possible circumstances in which she and I could have a sexual encounter."

"Around three hundred fifty, we reckon," said Wright, "though it will be farther than that because of the way the road loops so much."

In other words, I  step out of line and we're all dead.

"And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow.

The only book I happen to have is a Bible on my desk from Exodus 4:6, the last sentence." So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, "This evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt..."

There is a business model here, and people can make money.

Great for the give-and-go.

For purposes of section 38, in the case of an eligible employer, the small employer pension plan startup cost credit determined under this section for any taxable year is an amount equal to 50 percent of the qualified startup costs paid or incurred by the taxpayer during the taxable year.

It is intended to heighten awareness of the complexity of the regulatory environment.

I've known executive power players (CEOs, stock brokers, etc.) who boast about getting by on just 3 hours of sleep a night.

In a true free market, with beneficial rules and property rights, the appropriate measure of the enterprise's value creation is long-term profitability

There are two keys to avoiding this possible deadlock.

That means that if these family members are in poor health, your health premiums are likely to feel the effects no matter how healthy your employees themselves become.

No, crashing through his boundaries again.

"REG. SEC. 4044.1   TITLE  Purpose and Scope   PAGE 2,985  (The closest book was my 2006 RIA edition of Pension & Benefit Regulations and page 56 is part of the Table of Contents, so this is the fifth line with the column headings inserted in CAPS.)"

"""Runover lines should be indented three or four spaces.""  The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition."

You can learn a lot about the driver by looking at the seat.

"It would be the equivalent of Tony Gywnn spending all his time studying base stealing."

The sentence is "Report the duration measure used in line 19c.  Sad to say, the book is the 2010 Instructions for Form 5500 and it's always at my side from July through October.

Brand harvesting usually precedes a brand's total elimination.

In such states as Indiana and Tennessee, banks were state-operated and -owned; elsewhere, ownership was vested in public-private partnerships.

"If profit growth reflected in dividend growth is the driver of capital appreciation (and together with the base yield, the driver of total return), why not line up behind low-yielding companies that manage to grow their dividends steadily at a high level?

-The Strategic Dividend Investor (aka Snoozapalooza)"

"Bed-ou-in (Bed’oo win) n., pl. -ins, -in [< Ar. badāwīn, desert dwellers] [also b-]  1. an Arab of the desert tribes of Arabia, Syria or North Africa  2. any wanderer,  Webster's New World Dictionary 1987. Over 59,000 entries in large, easy-to-read type (if you have a magnifying glass)."

Some journals designate certain articles for publication in electronic form only.  

We've all experienced or observed the following scenario.

I can't help it.

"Notwithstanding any other provision of the Plan, Excess Aggregate Contributions, plus any income and minus any loss allocable thereto, shall be distributed..."

However, if a participant has the right or abilitly ro terminate or midofy and lection, the contributions are treated as elective deferrals even if the participant never exercises tehis right.

Is it likely your boss is a visionary who can predict the future even though he can't operate the computer on his desk?   Page 56 of The Dilbert Principle

"""The program has reduced Monsanto's agency fees by some $600,000 a year and has helped to set reasonable rates for contractors.""

From Workforce Crisis"  was anxious because I knew I would have to recommend that we cut positions.

S1 presupposes S2 exactly if S1 implies S2 and if not, S1 entails S2.

They denied the retaliation charge and said many employees worked odd hours.

I have found the best risk control is to invest the time in understanding participant needs, risks and investment objectives.

Such an early retirement benefit typically is reduced actuarially to reflect the early commencement and longer period of payments. (David Pratt & Susan Reece, "ERISA and Employee Benefit Law, The Essentials," American Bar Association, 2010.)

Some Traditionalists view the latest technologies as toys they will perhaps get around to learning to use someday, while other Traditionalists view experimenting with the latest technologies as an extension of themselves and an important way to stay on top of their game.

My breath whooshed out of me as though I were a seven year-old blowing out birthday candles.

I have only a Fortune magazine on my desk, and all of page 56 is a picture!  No sentences!

A large number of people had turned up, thanks in part to the publicity attached to the sale of the private collection of Scots Colourists.

As for those verbatims:

Do audit books, financial statements and 10K books count for this purpose?!?

The nearest book on my desk that I'm enjoying is "The Language of Trust, Selling Ideas in a World or Skeptics", which was recommended in your sponsored webinar: Choose your words carefully-Strategies for communicating with participants in a new economy.  That was a very interesting and good webinar!  Don't know much about Facebook gimmicks, as I'm not on Facebook.

I love books, reading is my favorite activity.  I'm not sure what the purpose of the random selection is, but maybe the survey results will enlighten me.  I don't know anything about Facebook gimmicks, I prefer face time to be in person.  I can't believe the summer is almost over, time really does fly when you get older.

I still like my Code and ERISA books.

I normally read on my Kindle, so no page 56!  Had to go to the community "library" in the break room and grab a random book.  What are the odds you would find sex in page 56 of a random book?

Facebook? - 3 words:  Social Media Policy

I love books I must have 200-300 at home plus what is on my Kindle.

I don't mind them, so long as I don't get spammed.

I gotta find another book to read!

If you haven't read Discipline, do it today. Also really enjoyed Apathy. Do I sound extreme?

Can someone slow the summer down?  It will be cold in the Northeast before you know it!

I am getting tired of seeing the Facebook logo on so many Web pages.  I REFUSE to sign in using my Facebook logon because it then gives Facebook a right to update my status and add info about how I am now a fan of whatever Web site I visited...or it posts my Yelp reviews to my Facebook page.  I can't stomach giving Mr. Zuckerberg that much power.

These, however, were my favorites:

What is this going to prove?  Nothing, except that I study at work.

Hmm...not sure what this Facebook gimmick is all about, but let's hope the books people have at their ready are interesting literary reads and not plan documentation!

You do know that the only books at work are the ERISA Outline Books, right?

I need to keep something to read at the office besides the Internal Revenue Code and Regulations or other retirement related items.

Too bad I didn't have a salacious novel in my office....could have really made your readers wake up!

Leave for vacation today, Yeah baby, it's needed!

The heat and humidity has truly gotten to us all!

Hope everyone is staying cool, during this hot summer.   We hit 112 yesterday.  We could have cook dinner on the side walk yesterday...

I guess it is obvious that the book closest to me is not pension related.  Bad me!  🙂

Thanks for being there, and riding herd on the retirement benefit community!

But this week’s Editor’s Choice goes to the reader who noted, “Thanks for the diversion... today has been a heckuva day!”

Indeed!  Thanks to everyone who took the time to participate in our bonus survey!