Dave Baker

Haw! I love it, Tom. The .mid file is working fine for me (playing it with Windows Media Player).

I found this article to be interesting, funny and stimulating. Excerpt: Can you believe it? Plug “How to be Steve Jobs” or “Steve Jobs lessons” into Google and you’ll get page after page of tips. One trite homily after another explains how to imitate a few of the great dictator’s tics. Switch “Jobs” for “Ballmer” and you get almost nothing. I bet you could learn a lot from Steve Ballmer. More than you can learn from Jobs. You’re not like Jobs. Jobs was a handsome lustrous-haired genius who hooked up with another genius in his early 20s and formed a new, globally important (and immediately successful) company. Ballmer was a funny looking bald non-genius who joined a growing company as employee 30. Which is more like you? Jobs’ net worth at death was $10 billion. Ballmer today is worth $22 billion. He worked at Microsoft for 34 years solid. He wasn’t fired once. If you’re a non genius who hasn’t formed a globally important company in your early 20s — and especially if you’re funny looking — you’ll probably learn more from Ballmer than you can from Jobs.

The survey seems to have a great deal of information (180 tables) that looks to be useful and pertinent to plan administration/design, plus it's available essentially for free from the non-profit organization, so Lois and I thought it would be fit to post as a message to readers, though it's certainly something that is encouraging people to learn more about the organization (so I completely understand the concern about marketing on the boards, which is of course almost always out of bounds).

Hi gang, I have done a little rearranging and pruning of the message boards: * Moved all messages in BLAZE SSI message board and all messages in the the ASPPA C-1 through C-4 Courses message board into a new Continuing Professional Education message board, located in the Retirement Plans category. Deleted the separate category called Continuing Professional Education; deleted the separate Blaze SSI message board and ASPPA C-1 through C-4 Courses message board. * Moved the Nonqualified Deferred Compensation message board out of the Retirement Plans category and into the Employee Benefits in General category. * Renamed the Employee Benefits in General category to be Employee Benefits in General; Executive Compensation. (The Nonqualified Deferred Compensation message board seems happier in this category, where 409A Issues and Securities Law Aspects of Employee Benefit Plans have been and continue to be living.) * Added some "see also" verbiage to the descriptions of several message boards (Governmental Plans, IRAs and Roth IRAs, Distributions and Loads Other than QDROs), pointing the reader to related and sometimes more specific message boards. * Shortened some of the descriptions (for Relius Administration, ERPA). * Moved Retirement Plans in General to appear as the first message board in the Retirement Plans category rather than being down in the list of message boards (alphabetically). * Renamed the Global Benefits message board to be the International, Expat Benefits message board. If I've done anything that seems ill-advised or wrong, please let me know. Thanks very much for using the BenefitsLink message boards! Dave Baker Administrator

Yikes. Which search icon do you mean? The green square with the magnifying glass that's toward the top right corner of the screen next to a little gear icon?

Fixed -- thanks for waiting -- turned out to be kind of a big deal. Wed. May 6, 3:09 PM ET Dave

Still workin' on it ... sorry for this trouble!

7,234 newsletters through Friday, April 17. Over 120,000 items (official guidance, guidance overview, news, opinion). Whew! Thanks, Tom! Another fun fact: multiply 28,000 unique subscribers (who receive either the retirement plans newsletter or the health & welfare plans newsletter, or both) by an average of, say, 10 minutes reading one or the combination of them on a particular day; then multiply by the average billing rate of the reader (say, $100). The result is a bit less than half a million dollars worth of readers' time every day. Even if only half the subscribers open and read their newsletters, the number becomes a quarter-million dollars. We are honored by your readership!!!

After Anthem's security breach, they've become fodder for phishing attacks ("Members who may have been impacted by the cyber attack against us should be aware of scam email campaigns targeting current and former members. These scams, designed to capture personal information (known as “phishing”) are designed to appear as if they are from a health plan and the emails include a “click here” link for credit monitoring. These emails are NOT from us."). My day isn't looking to be turning out so bad, in comparison

Thank you very much!! Yes, the photo from 10 years ago makes me look 10 years younger :-)

Hot off the press: IR 2014-99 (Oct. 23, 2014) "The elective deferral (contribution) limit for employees who participate in 401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans, and the federal government's Thrift Savings Plan is increased from $17,500 to $18,000. The catch-up contribution limit for employees aged 50 and over ... is increased from $5,500 to $6,000. The limit on annual contributions to an [iRA] remains unchanged at $5,500.... [T]he limitation on the annual benefit under a defined benefit plan under Section 415(b)(1)(A) remains unchanged at $ 210,000.... The limitation for defined contribution plans under Section 415©(1)(A) is increased in 2015 from $52,000 to $53,000."

I use an amazing Microsoft trackball product that is no longer made; one must pay about a hundred bucks to get a used one.

Ballistol seems to be a competitor of WD-40. The two products seem to incite a bit of a holy war between users: http://www.bentrideronline.com/messageboard/showthread.php?t=86546 http://orschiro.blogspot.com/2013/05/ballistol-eco-friendly-wd-40-alternative.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistol

Yikes, I spelled it wrong in my initial post -- it's Ballistol, not Balliston. Details are on the manufacturer's site at http://www.ballistol.com/uses/

I bought a "multi-purpose" product called Ballistol [edited 8/18: was Balliston] Lube to make the squeak go away on my office door (circa 1920), and, in frustration one day after dealing with a sticky trackball that refused to move easily despite cleaning of the removable ball and the points where the ball contacted the case, I squirted a bit of Balliston on the trackball. Now the thing spins like a globe. Re-application is necessary from time to time. My workstation smells a little bit like a mechanic's garage, but the keyboard/mouse manipulator is happier.

Good article: http://www.gizmag.com/tech-maintenance-tasks/33176/

Thanks, Kevin! I did some poking around the web and discovered that Adobe Reader (the free version) does allow the searching of multiple PDFs at once, if they're in the same directory (or subdirectories thereof). It's working for me, though it's not lightning-fast. I never knew this before. After opening my Windows version of Adobe Reader, I select Edit, then Advanced Search, then "All PDF Documents In", then a directory in the drop-down list (e.g. My Documents). Cool!

Kevin, What's your web-based reference product? Also, do you have a tool for searching the .pdf files on your hard drive?

Andy, Maybe a solution is to put the 415-related document into the 415 folder but then use Windows (right-click on the document's icon) to make a "shortcut" to the document, and then put the shortcut into the cross-testing folder (etc.). Also, what search tools are you using for locating documents in Windows folders?

Back in the day, I had a file cabinet full of items that I had copied from pension periodicals, cases, rulings, etc. and then stuck into manila folders labeled by topic, then in alphabetic order in the file cabinets. What are you using today as the electronic equivalent, for web pages, emails, PDF documents, etc.? Evernote? OneNote? Another system?

Thanks, Michael! Excellent points. Can you tell me more about how Towers Watson is helping clients to implement individual advice, especially how technology is being applied? Tom, I love your lyrics! Happy 4th. I think I'll be spinning the grindstone for the speech.

Hi gang, I've been asked to make a presentation in early August, and here's the description: "Listen to ... Dave Baker ... share his thoughts on where the retirement industry has been and how technology will impact our work lives in the future. This is intended to be an interactive session so be sure to collect your thoughts and questions beforehand." I'm having some trouble getting traction on the project. What would be most useful to you as a practitioner? A list of new technology products and services that you could implement now, in order to improve business processes and your bottom line? Other angles?

Thanks very much to Effen for pointing out a problem with the message boards search engine, which now has been fixed. The search engine was ignoring 3-letter words, such as "HCE". It was paying attention to words of 4 or more letters, but the 3-letter words got the cold shoulder. Words of only 1 or 2 letters continue to be disregarded, though, because they would cause the search engine to bog down. Another technique is to use Google. You can focus all of Google's processing firepower onto the message boards by including the phrase "site:benefitslink.com/boards" (but without the quotation marks) as part of the query you enter at google.com (or in your browser's Google search bar, etc.). For example, to see topics that contain messages about the HCE compensation limit, type this into the box at http://google.com: HCE compensation limit site:benefitslink.com/boards (Note how no blank space appears between site: and benefitslink.com, and no blank space appears between benefitslink.com and /boards.) You might want to bookmark this page: www.google.com/?q=site:benefitslink.com/boards which will pre-fill the box with the magic site string. You'd then add your desired word or words into the box before clicking the Google Search button.

A few years ago, I went to the optician and had him make prescription glasses for me that have their focal point at 18 inches, which is the distance between my eyes and my computer monitor. It is SO much better than tilting my head up and down trying to get my regular prescription glasses ("progressives") to work properly, or taking off the progressives and working without any glasses (which I did for quite a while). I can't imagine working any other way now. I put the "computer glasses" into my computer laptop bag whenever I take the computer with me. They even make decent reading glasses in a pinch. Admittedly, everything's fuzzy if I walk away from my desk and forget to put on my progressives, but I can tell quickly when such a swap is needed. They weren't too expensive, because I didn't get the anti-glare coating, the automatic darkening, etc. -- maybe the anti-glare would have been worth it, though. Still, I don't see any glare when looking at the high-def flat-screen monitor. Give it a try!

One of the things I wish I had done differently in my career (though I ain't dead yet -- age 55, which means I have quite a ways to go per the IRS life expectancy tables) would have been to establish a relationship with an older man in my field, to whom I could turn for advice on a regular basis... someone to pass along "Here's what I would have done differently..." kinds of tips and guidance. As I've grown older, I've been surprised at how few younger people understand the benefit of such a relationship. I know I didn't, though I fancy myself to have been a fairly bright young salaryman such that I should have known better. About a month ago, I said to a personable young employee benefits attorney that I would be happy to hear from him and to pass along information or advice about being a practicing attorney. He sorta smiled, took my card, and hasn't contacted me since. Actually, it's happened twice recently. Dumb. (Says I, to my younger self.) Has this been your experience, fellow grey-heads?