text:
In clinical trials involving 963 grownup patients handled with 100 to 200 mcg/kg Ivera (Ivera), worsening of the next Mazzotti reactions during the primary four days put up-therapy had been reported: arthralgia/synovitis (9.3%), axillary lymph node enlargement and tenderness (11.0% and 4.4%, respectively), cervical lymph node enlargement and tenderness (5.3% and 1.2%, respectively), inguinal lymph node enlargement and tenderness (12.6% and 13.9%, respectively), different lymph node enlargement and tenderness (3.0% and 1.9%, respectively), pruritus (27.5%), pores and skin involvement including edema, papular and pustular or frank urticarial rash (22.7%), and fever (22.6%). In clinical trials, ophthalmological conditions had been examined in 963 adult patients earlier than treatment, at day 3, and months three and 6 after therapy with one hundred to 200 mcg/kg Ivera (Ivera). What are the potential side effects of Ivera? What are the doable negative effects of Kilox? Ivermectin therefore warrants additional investigation for potential advantages in people. Although several clinical trials are actually underway to test doable therapies, the worldwide response to the COVID-19 outbreak has been largely restricted to monitoring/containment. We'd like to figure out now whether the dosage you can use it at in people will likely be effective - that’s the next step,” Dr Wagstaff mentioned. It’s criminal that Dr. Fauci and the large Pharma institution won’t talk about low-value prescription drugs (like hydroxychloroquine) or easy nutritional supplements (zinc) that are available now and have a long monitor record of secure, effective use. And ivermectina dosis coronavirus peru it must be tough to keep your concentration when trying to talk to someone who's wearing such an odd color of make-up.
Stromectol 3 mg tablets 4
300 mg codeine 30 mg "The culture of ivermectina 6 mg precio peru many schools just isn't very buyer-oriented," she says. Professor Loukas, a molecular parasitologist, says the mission is meant to scale back the burden of non-public tools worn or carried by members of the army and medical first responders in battle zones to guard them towards bioterrorism agents. Dr Wagstaff made a earlier breakthrough finding on Ivermectin in 2012 when she recognized the drug and its antiviral activity with Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute’s Professor David Jans, additionally an writer on this paper. The Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute’s Dr Kylie Wagstaff, who led the research, stated the scientists showed that the drug, Ivermectin, stopped the SARS-CoV-2 virus rising in cell tradition within 48 hours. A collaborative study led by the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) with the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), a joint enterprise of the University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital, has proven that an anti-parasitic drug already available around the globe kills the virus within forty eight hours. Death charges from malaria have plunged 60 p.c in the past 15 years, though the illness nonetheless kills around half 1,000,000 folks a 12 months, the overwhelming majority of them babies and younger children within the poorest elements of Africa.
Buy cheap stromectol from india without prescription
Q: How do I do know if I have myocarditis? It's best to introduce (harga ivermectin tablet di apotik) minimal sneakers on brief, easy runs one or two days a week and progress from there. Several Indian media shops ran stories on Kelly in the past week after he requested Uttar Pradesh to mortgage the state’s chief minister, Adityanath, to Australia to launch ivermectin. American ivermectin coronavirus australia College of Surgeons and the American Heart Association, accelerates the regulatory course of and. COVID-19 vaccines are rigorously assessed by the @TGAgovau before they are often used in Australia. Puppies are often infected and, relying on the kind of worm involved, the large variety of how to buy ivermectin in mexico worms may cause intestinal blockage. Hookworms can cause anemia and roundworms can lead to poor progress and improvement. As a biological pesticide, after five sorts of highly toxic pesticides are forbidden, avermectin exhibiting speedy improvement momentum, the use quantity was rising, as a commonly used drug in agricultural production. Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA) mentioned in an update that as at June 30, normally, 5 to seven individuals per 100,000 individuals a yr are hospitalised for myocarditis or pericarditis.
Where to buy ivermectin cream
Five of the cases occurred in adults aged 30 and above, cheap stromectol coupons no prescription two of whom have been women. Six of the instances occurred after the first dose, stated HSA. Prizes for achievements how to buy ivermectin in mexico in science, literature and peace had been first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the need of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel. In four clinical studies involving a total of 109 patients given either one or two doses of 170 to 200 mcg/kg of Kilox (Kilox), the following adverse reactions have been reported as probably, probably, or undoubtedly related to Kilox (Kilox) :Body as a complete: asthenia/fatigue (0.9%), abdominal ache (0.9%)Gastrointestinal: anorexia (0.9%), constipation (0.9%), diarrhea (1.8%), nausea (1.8%), vomiting (0.9%)Nervous System/Psychiatric: dizziness (2.8%), somnolence (0.9%), vertigo (0.9%), tremor (0.9%)Skin: pruritus (2.8%), rash (0.9%), and urticaria (0.9%).In comparative trials, patients treated with Kilox (Kilox) skilled more abdominal distention and chest discomfort than patients handled with albendazole.
Where to buy cheap stromectol online no prescription
This can rely on the formulation of the ivermectin - there is a mg/ml concentration on the bottle and a mg/kg physique weight doseage range for canines. We evaluated the results of anthelmintic remedy on bovine tuberculosis (BTB) acquisition, mortality after infection, and pathogen health in free-ranging African buffalo. We discovered that treatment had no effect on the chance of BTB infection, however buffalo survival after infection was ninefold larger amongst treated people. These contrasting results translated into an roughly eightfold improve within the reproductive variety of BTB for anthelmintic-handled compared with untreated buffalo. Quantitatively, the whole enzyme activity of AcPase, AlkPase and ATPase was discovered to be lowered by 45, 41 and 43%, respectively in comparison with the management. Particularly, resistance has emerged among the many strongyles, a group of gastrointestinal nematodes that infect a variety of hosts that range from large herbivores to small companion animals. Anthelmintics have been applied indiscriminately to control horse nematodes for over 40 years. Equine gastrointestinal nematodes are ubiquitous; in horses that graze contaminated pasture and that are not treated appropriately, giant numbers of worms can accumulate, which may lead to serious clinical disease. First, the ivermectin has a milk withhold time - for a selected period of time the milk from that cow should be thrown away so it may price the farmer some huge cash relying on where she is in her lactation curve.
On the time of this examine, anthelmintics have been still available over-the-counter in Sweden, however but the S. vulgaris prevalence was at the identical level as within the Danish 2008 examine. The smartest thing about this green smoke promo codes digital cigarettes is that you could use it with a longer time frame and you're going to get it everytime through the day. Therapy for infectious diseases as a result of smoking have developed with the recent many years by using simple antibiotics to administering the newer, cheaper, but extra wholesome alternatives to smoking, electronic cigarette, and that is regionally offered at discounted worth from green smoke promo code and safe. In case you are using the drug off-label you're taking the chance and likewise be careful for the withholding periods. Within a 2 h incubation interval, all of the cysteine proteinases, with the exception of the kiwi fruit extract, caused marked injury to the cuticle of H. polygyrus grownup male and feminine worms, reflected within the lack of floor cuticular layers. LD50 values indicated that the purified proteinases have been more efficacious than the proteinases within the crude latex, with purified ficin, papain, chymopapain, Egyptian milkweed latex extract and pineapple fruit extract containing fruit bromelain, having probably the most potent effect.
Nevertheless, several assumptions can be drawn from studies the place humans, pigs and other monogastric animals have consumed diets containing CT. Protein-CT binding experiments have shown that CT coat the floor of proteins corresponding to bovine serum albumin (M. Further experiments are necessary to elucidate these mechanisms. While the exact mode of motion of many anthelmintics will not be fully understood, the websites of action and biochemical mechanisms of a lot of them are generally recognized. Faecal egg rely reduction checks (FECRT) were carried out in May 2003 to determine the efficacy of anthelmintics used for treatment in opposition to nematode parasites in separately managed sheep and goat flocks at Alemaya College in japanese Ethiopia. Egg reappearance intervals (ERP) had been investigated on 9 of those farms with a complete of 96 horses. Recent research has centered on maximising the worth of FEC analysis in horses and on optimizing protocols for anthelmintic efficacy testing. This report provides you an analysis of the COVID-19 impression on the Albendazole Anthelmintic Drug market and can provide help to in strategising your online business as per the brand new industry norms.
The where can you get ivermectin in canada state-run Indian Council of Medical Research recommends doctors might use the drug for mild COVID-19 patients, however warns this is predicated on "low certainty of buy cheap stromectol supreme suppliers without prescription evidence". Indian J Community Med. Actually, nearly all of our group acquired infections are still responsive to the old medicine like penicillin. To sustain distribution techniques, these authors identify the foremost challenges as well timed drug collection, integrating CDTI with present main well being-care services, strengthening local well being care infrastructure, sustaining optimum remedy protection, guaranteeing community self-monitoring, implementing locally related operational research, making certain efficiency of group distributors, growing involvement of native nongovernmental groups, ensuring financial sustainability, implementing can ivermectin be bought over the counter in uk equitable price restoration techniques, and ensuring effective advocacy. It has also taught the world many worthwhile classes - about how one can mobilize resources to deal with vital health challenges - and has demonstrated that it is feasible, through public-non-public partnerships, to deliver healthcare to long-uncared for populations, regardless of seemingly insurmountable obstacles together with inadequate monetary and human sources, lack of social, financial and health infrastructures, civil unrest and political strife, and competing, excessive-priority health issues. Even so, the research, printed by the North how to buy ivermectin in mexico American group Surgisphere was read greater than 100.000 times, cited by dozens of educational articles and included in a number of well being plans all over the world, together with Brazil.
Amoxil (Amoxicillin) 625 mg x 270 pills $404.99 - $1.50 Per pill
Stromectol (Ivermectin) 6 mg x 20 pills $83.99 - $4.20 Per pill
Cipro (Ciprofloxacin) 500 mg x 120 pills $151.99 - $1.27 Per pill
Stromectol (Ivermectin) 6 mg x 120 pills $335.99 - $2.80 Per pill
Does ivermectin kill covid virus
Stromectol to buy
Where to buy stromectol online
How much does ivermectin cost in canada
- buy generic stromectol canadian pharmacy no prescription
- how long to use ivermectin for rosacea
- how to use ivermectin for humans
- generic stromectol coupon no prescription
- natural alternative to ivermectin
how much ivermectin injectable to give a goat how long does ivermectin take to kill scabies https://www.flaviasdiary.com/libri/stromectol-humans how much is acc 200 at dischem


text:
These birds needed a day away from home and met at the edge of town to start a new adventure. What do you think they'll do today? This story plate has all kinds of characters to help you write your own story!
This porcelain 6x10 plate is fired to cone 9-10 oxidation (2300 degrees). It is food and dishwasher safe and oven proof.
Each of our story plates is unique and has its own tale to tell.
Story Plate, 6x10--Meeting at the Edge of Town
Our functional works are food safe, hold water and are oven proof, microwave and dishwasher safe. For longevity of piece, you may chose to hand wash these fine art pieces but they are completely safe to go into your dishwasher.

domain: artistic


text:
Books about J.R.R.Tolkien - The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil consists of 16 poems,
three of which are about Tom Bombadil himself, one about a hobbit
and a troll, two about the Man in the Moon, six which represent
simply "adventures," and four which are in the nature
of a bestiary. There is a wealth of good storytelling and mythmaking
here. For those who love The Lord of the Rings, there are hobbits
in the Shire, elves sailing west, and enough familiar places to
give one the feel of Middle Earth as the setting.
Originally published by George Allen and Unwin in 1962 (2nd ed. 1990)
and by Houghton Mifflin in 1963 (2nd Amer. ed 1991);The adventures of
Tom Bombadil was also published in The
Tolkien Reader, Farmer
Giles of Ham and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Poems
and Stories and poems in this book are often used in anthologies.
Enjoyed this post? Click to get the RSS feed.
Spread the news about this J.R.R. Tolkien article:

domain: library


text:
John B. Shoven, Ph.D., is the Charles R. Schwab Professor of Economics at Stanford. He is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a chairman of the board of directors of Cadence Design Systems.
Sita Nataraj Slavov, Ph.D., is a professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. She is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
David A. Wise, Ph.D., is the John F. Stambaugh Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is also the former director of the Program on the Economics of Aging, and the former director of the Disability Research Center and the Retirement Research Center at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Authors’ disclosure: This research was funded by grant number G-2014-13657 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to the National Bureau of Economic Research. We thank participants at the 2017 NBER/IFS workshop on the increase in work at older ages.
Editor’s note: This research was originally published as an NBER working paper at nber.org/papers.html, where it was circulated for discussion and comment purposes. The version published here has been revised per the Journal’s peer review process. At least one co-author has disclosed a financial relationship of potential relevance for this research at nber.org/papers/w23729.ack.
- Although research shows that there are large gains in lifetime wealth from delaying Social Security claiming, most people claim at or before full retirement age.
- An original, nationally representative survey was fielded to gain insight into people’s rationales for their Social Security claiming decisions, their satisfaction with their past claiming decisions, and how they financed any gap between retirement and claiming.
- Common rationales for claiming Social Security before full retirement age included stopping work, liquidity, poor health, and concerns about future benefit cuts due to policy changes.
- Claiming upon stopping work and claiming at full retirement age appeared to be viewed as social norms.
- Individuals who claimed at full retirement age were more satisfied with their claiming decisions than individuals who claimed early or delayed.
- There was little evidence that claiming decisions and rationales for claiming were correlated with financial literacy or knowledge of Social Security rules.
Social security retirement benefits can be claimed at any age between 62 and 70,¹ with individuals receiving larger monthly payments for later claims. These larger monthly payments are sometimes described as an actuarial adjustment intended to compensate for the fact that those who claim later will receive fewer monthly payments over their lifetime. However, the literature has documented that this adjustment is actuarially advantageous for important groups of people, such as primary earners (Meyer and Reichenstein 2010; Munnell and Soto 2005; Sass, Sun, and Webb 2007, 2013; Coile, Diamond, Gruber, and Jousten 2002; Mahaney and Carlson 2007; Shoven and Slavov 2014a, 2014b; Kotlikoff, Moeller, and Solman 2015).
Research focusing on more recent cohorts has suggested that most primary earners and singles gain from some degree of delay due to historically low interest rates, changes in Social Security rules, and longer life expectancy (Meyer and Reichenstein 2010, 2012; Sass, Sun, and Webb 2013; and Shoven and Slavov 2014a, 2014b). But despite the large and growing gains from delay, most people claim at or before their full retirement age. Moreover, as Rabinovich and Samek (2018) documented through interviews with focus groups, most people report being satisfied with their claiming decisions even when they claimed before full retirement age.
Why Don’t Individuals Delay Claiming?
Claiming before full retirement age has numerous potential explanations. First, individuals may want to stop working and lack liquidity to finance the period between retirement and claiming. Members of Rabinovich and Samek’s (2018) focus groups suggested that liquidity was a factor in their decision to claim early. However, Goda, Ramnath, Shoven, and Slavov (2018) showed that one-third to two-thirds of individuals have sufficient retirement wealth to finance a two-year gap between retirement and claiming. In addition, many individuals who claim Social Security before full retirement age simultaneously delay withdrawing money from their retirement accounts until they are forced to do so at age 70½, a behavior that is inconsistent with the liquidity explanation. However, liquidity may be a rationale for some individuals who lack retirement wealth. Alternatively, individuals may view their retirement accounts and their Social Security wealth differently, being more willing to tap into the latter but not the former. Bequest motives may be one reason for this difference.
Second, individuals may not believe they will live long enough to gain from delaying Social Security. Indeed, some studies have documented that individuals who have higher subjective or actual mortality risk tend to claim earlier (Goda, Ramnath, Shoven, and Slavov 2018; Hurd, Smith, and Zissimopoulos 2004; Glickman and Hermes 2015; Beauchamp and Wagner 2012; Waldron 2002). Members of Rabinovich and Samek’s (2018) focus groups also cited mortality risk as factor in claiming early. However, high mortality risk is not likely to explain why most people claim at or before full retirement age, particularly given that even those with twice the average mortality risk stand to gain from delay (Shoven and Slavov 2014a).
Third, individuals may undervalue annuities. The literature has documented the “annuity puzzle,” a phenomenon where people fail to purchase annuities even though the insurance value they provide raises expected lifetime utility (Yaari 1965; Mitchell, Poterba, Warshawsky, and Brown 1999; Warner and Pleeter 2001). Delaying Social Security is equivalent to purchasing an annuity, because it involves sacrificing current income in exchange for higher income for the remainder of life. And, unlike retail annuities, the Social Security annuity obtained from delay is available at a price that is better than actuarially fair. Thus, failure to delay Social Security may be a manifestation of the annuity puzzle.
Standard economic models suggest that the gains from delay should be even larger when the insurance value of the Social Security annuity is considered (Sun and Webb 2009). In fact, Maurer, Mitchell, Rogalla, and Schimetschek (2016) presented survey evidence showing that people would be more willing to delay claiming if the gains from delay were paid as an actuarially fair lump sum rather than as an annuity.
In most instances of the annuity puzzle, it is unclear whether individuals are making mistakes when they fail to annuitize their wealth, or whether economic models simply do not accurately capture individuals’ preferences for annuitization. However, a few studies have documented behavior that is most likely a mistake (Bronshtein, Scott, Shoven, and Slavov 2016; Brown, Kapteyn, Luttmer, Mitchell, and Samek 2017).
Fourth, it is possible that claiming at the designated full retirement age is a social norm because individuals view it as a reference point or a recommendation from the government. Behaghel and Blau (2012) showed that both claiming Social Security benefits and retirement tend to cluster around the full retirement age as the full retirement age increases, even though benefits increase continuously with claiming age from age 62 through 70. In addition, claiming upon stopping work may be a social norm. Notably, Social Security Administration publications have used the term “retirement” interchangeably with “claiming” even though retirement and claiming need not occur simultaneously, and even though the optimal approach to drawing down on retirement wealth may be to tap into other assets before claiming Social Security.
Fifth, individuals may be unaware of the rules surrounding Social Security delay. Liebman and Luttmer (2015) showed that individuals accurately estimate the gains from delay between age 62 and full retirement age, but they underestimate the gains from delay between full retirement age and age 70. However, providing information about the gains from delay does not appear to change actual claiming behavior.
Finally, individuals may fear that if they do not claim early, their Social Security benefits may be cut when policy makers enact reform to restore solvency to the program. Regardless of whether this fear is realistic, it may influence claiming decisions.
Although there are many possible explanations for why individuals fail to take advantage of the gains from delaying Social Security, previous research has not found conclusive evidence to support any of them. The research described in this article explored these hypotheses by fielding an original, nationally representative survey to learn about people’s rationales for their claiming decisions and their satisfaction with past claiming decisions.
The goal was not to explore actual claiming patterns or claiming incentives—or whether the former are consistent with the latter—as these topics have been covered extensively in the previous literature cited above. Moreover, because of the complexity of the rules and individual situations, the survey data did not include sufficiently detailed information to determine the claiming incentives facing each respondent except in a very broad way (e.g., based on marital status and primary earner status).
The goal was rather to examine individuals’ perceptions about their past or future claiming decisions, particularly in situations where they did not delay beyond full retirement age. Asking individuals to rationalize their claiming decisions ex post is unlikely to provide definitive answers as to why people claim Social Security early; however, it can suggest possible hypotheses to explore in future research, as well as ways to modify theoretical models to better predict behavior. It can also provide insights for financial planners into how individuals think about their retirement and Social Security claiming decisions. The survey also asked individuals who had a significant gap between retirement and claiming how they financed the delay period.2
The results reported in this paper are complementary to Rabiniovich and Samek (2018). Relative to that research, the survey conducted here was more systematic and administered to a nationally representative sample, although the responses were less flexible than in a focus group format.
Survey responses suggested that individuals who claimed early did so because they had stopped working, lacked liquidity, were in poor health, or feared Social Security benefits would be cut in the future. Most people were satisfied with their past claiming decisions, although those who claimed at full retirement age were more satisfied than those who claimed early or delayed. Most people reported that they were aware of the gains from delay but were not influenced by them. Individuals who claimed at either age 62 or full retirement age were less likely to report being influenced by the gains from delay.
The survey indicated no systematic relationship between financial literacy or Social Security knowledge and claiming behavior or rationales for claiming. Overall, there was strong evidence that people view claiming at full retirement age and claiming upon retirement as social norms. Although claiming and retirement are strongly linked, the roughly 25 percent of the sample who reported a gap of two or more years between retirement and claiming used employer-sponsored pensions and other savings to finance the delay.
Survey Data: Demographics and Restrictions
An original survey (“Social Security Claiming Decisions: Survey Evidence,” UAS 70) was designed and fielded as part of the Understanding America Study (UAS) from January 9, 2017 to March 13, 2017. UAS (uasdata.usc.edu) is a nationally representative internet panel of the University of Southern California, consisting of approximately 6,000 households. The survey was sent to the subset of 2,206 individuals aged 55 and older. Respondents were paid $3 to complete the survey. The response rate was just over 80 percent, providing 1,783 observations. Of this sample, 991 individuals indicated they were currently receiving Social Security benefits, and 705 indicated that they expected to receive benefits in the future (the rest either did not expect to receive benefits or skipped the question).
Among those who had claimed Social Security, the sample was restricted to individuals who were receiving retired worker benefits at the time of the survey and had received retired worker benefits at the time of their initial claim. (Throughout the remainder of this paper, retirement benefits earned on one’s own record are referred to as retired worker benefits, in contrast to benefits earned on a spouse’s record, which are referred to as spousal benefits, or a deceased spouse’s record, which are referred to as survivor benefits.)
Individuals who reported claiming retired worker benefits before age 62 (not plausible) and individuals who reported having never worked in the past were also excluded. Among individuals who had not claimed Social Security, those who expected to receive anything other than retired worker benefits, expected to claim before age 62, or expected to claim before their survey date in 2017 were excluded.
Another handful of observations were dropped due to missing values for some of the variables used in the analysis. A few individuals with a missing sampling weight (individuals who were not part of the nationally representative sample aged 55-plus) were also dropped. This selection resulted in a final sample of 558 individuals who had claimed Social Security benefits at the time of the survey and another 553 who had yet to claim benefits. The dataset provided by UAS included both responses to the original survey questions as well as a set of basic demographic variables on the respondents from previous surveys.
The restriction to individuals who received retired worker benefits both initially and at the time of the survey removed primary earners in two-earner couples who claimed spousal benefits initially and switched to retired worker benefits (which continue to grow through delay) as part of an optimal Social Security delay strategy. These “unusual” claiming strategies were described in detail in Munnell, Golub-Sass, and Karamcheva (2013). However, prior research summarized earlier in this paper showed that most people fail to follow optimal claiming strategies. The survey results were consistent with that finding. Only 59 of the 991 individuals currently receiving Social Security claimed a spousal benefit initially, and among these, 13 reported valid claiming ages that were at or above their full retirement age. The strategy of claiming a spousal benefit alone while allowing one’s own retired worker benefit to grow through delay requires waiting until full retirement age. Thus, most of these spousal benefit claimers were not likely to be making strategic use of the spousal benefit.
Understanding Claiming Incentives
Individuals in the sample faced different claiming incentives. Although the purpose of this study was not to examine claiming incentives in detail, it is possible that perceptions about claiming may be correlated with these incentives in ways that give rise to interesting hypotheses about claiming behavior. Therefore, broad groups that likely faced stronger or weaker incentives to delay were identified.
Primary earners. Prior research has shown that primary earners realize the largest gains from delaying their own retired worker benefit, followed by single women, then single men; secondary earners have only weak incentives to delay (Shoven and Slavov 2014a, 2014b). Marital status was asked directly in the survey, and gender was available in the basic demographic information provided by UAS.
Among married couples in the sample, primary earners were identified based on a question asking married respondents which spouse’s lifetime earnings were greater. Responding to this question with “mine were higher” or “about the same” resulted in an individual being classified as a primary earner. This indicator was a proxy, with measurement error due to reporting as well as the possibility that the spouse with higher lifetime earnings may not have spent his or her entire career in covered employment.
Widows. Additionally, widows face different claiming incentives. Widows have the option of claiming their own retired worker benefits initially, allowing their survivor benefit to grow through delay (up to full retirement age). Or, widows can claim the survivor benefit as early as age 60 and allow their retired worker benefit to grow through delay (Shuart, Weaver, and Whitman 2010).
As noted previously, such strategic claiming is likely uncommon. Moreover, the restriction to individuals who both initially and at the time of the survey received retired worker benefits should have excluded those who claimed survivor benefits first with the intention of switching, as well as those who claimed retired worker benefits first and switched to survivor benefits before the survey date. However, the sample could have included those who claimed retired worker benefits first but had not yet switched to survivor benefits at the time of the survey (one free-form response did refer to such a strategy).
A widow status indicator was created taking on the value of 1 if the individual was classified as widowed, either by the UAS 70 survey questions relating to marital status or by the demographic background variables provided by UAS. Again, the indicator was a proxy for widow status as individuals can have complex marital histories that were not reflected in the survey.
File-and-suspend. Additional recent changes to claiming rules affected the incentives of some couples in the sample. One-earner couples (in which the secondary or non-earner expects to claim a spousal benefit) were affected by the elimination of a provision known as file-and-suspend. In general, a primary earner must have filed for his or her own retired worker benefit before the spouse can receive a spousal benefit. However, spousal benefits do not grow with delay beyond the spouse’s full retirement age. File-and-suspend allowed the primary earner to file for benefits upon reaching full retirement age (thereby allowing the spouse to claim a spousal benefit) but immediately suspend the claim and continue to take advantage of the gains from delay. The elimination of file-and-suspend strengthened the incentives for primary earners to claim before age 70.
Shoven and Slavov (2014b) showed that for stylized couples, a primary earner who can file-and-suspend should wait until age 70 to claim. On the other hand, a primary earner who is unable to file-and-suspend is often better off claiming before age 70; however, even without file-and-suspend, some degree of delay beyond full retirement age was likely still optimal. In the sample, primary earners who were unable to file-and-suspend were identified as those who had not reached full retirement age prior to April 2016.
Restricted application. Two-earner couples could use another provision, referred to as restricted application, in conjunction with file-and-suspend to maximize benefits. Specifically, one spouse (often the primary earner) could use the restricted application provision to claim a spousal benefit at full retirement age while allowing for his or her retired worker benefit to grow through delay. The restricted application provision was eliminated in 2015 for those born after January 1, 1954; for these individuals, filing for a spousal benefit would result in deemed claiming of the retired worker benefit as well.
Strategic use of the spousal benefit by two-earner couples was likely rare, and any individuals using it would have been eliminated by the sample restriction that excluded respondents who received spousal benefits or switched benefit types. Thus, individuals who were eligible for restricted application were not identified.
Because UAS is an ongoing panel, it was possible to merge in some relevant variables from previous waves of the survey. Specifically, data from surveys on financial literacy (UAS 6) and knowledge about Social Security (UAS 16) were merged into the sample analyzed here.
Financial literacy. The financial literacy survey included questions about interest rates, inflation, and investments. A summary score, indicating the number of correct answers out of 20, was also provided.
Social Security knowledge. The Social Security knowledge survey included a series of 10 questions (one multiple choice and nine true-false) on specific features of Social Security, including how benefits are calculated, who is eligible for benefits, and the gains from delaying claiming. An index was constructed by summing the number of correct answers. The index was set to missing for individuals who did not answer any of the questions. However, a skipped question was treated as an incorrect answer for individuals who answered at least one of the questions.
Within the set of 10 questions, there was one true-false question that specifically referred to the gains from delay: “Social Security beneﬁts are not affected by the age at which someone starts claiming.” Another true-false question referred to the link between claiming and retirement: “Social Security beneﬁts have to be claimed as soon as someone retires.” Because these questions are particularly relevant to the claiming decision, some of the analysis focused on them individually.
The Social Security knowledge survey also included a measure of self-reported health on a five-point scale. An indicator for “good health” was constructed, taking on a value of 1 if the individual’s self-reported health was 3 (good), 2 (very good), or 1 (excellent), and 0 if it was 4 (fair) or 5 (poor).
Work Status and Financing the Gap
Individuals who had claimed Social Security benefits were asked about their work status and the date they last worked if they were not currently working. Of the 558 individuals who had claimed benefits, 409 reported not currently working. The date an individual last worked was defined as his or her retirement date.
Individuals who reported a gap of more than two years between retirement and claiming were asked how they financed the period between retirement and claiming. Options included savings, income from an employer-sponsored pension, a spouse’s income, assistance from family and friends, a loan, or a mortgage. Individuals were asked to select all that applied, and they were also provided with an “other” option that allowed them to specify their own response. Of the 97 individuals with a gap of more than two years, 96 answered this question (results are shown in Table 1).
Rationale for Claiming Decision
Individuals who had claimed were asked to indicate their agreement with the statement: “I am satisfied with my decision on when to start Social Security benefits,” with responses ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Of the 558 individuals who had claimed, 557 responded to this question.
Individuals who had claimed before their full retirement age were asked their rationale for doing so. Of the 445 individuals who had claimed before full retirement age, 444 of them had valid responses to this question. (One individual was missing a valid response due to reporting a birth year that was most likely incorrect. Further details are available upon request.)
Those who had claimed at or up to six months after reaching full retirement age were asked their rationale for claiming at (or shortly after) full retirement age. The six-month window allowed for the possibility of procrastination; indeed, in the sample of those who had claimed Social Security, 44 people reported claiming in the month of turning their full retirement age, and another 14 claimed in the following two months. This number gradually diminished, with nine respondents claiming three to six months after reaching full retirement age. Of the 67 people who had claimed within six months of full retirement age, 64 had valid responses to this question.3
Those who had claimed more than six months after full retirement age were asked their rationale for delaying. All 46 individuals who had claimed more than six months after full retirement age had valid responses to this question.
Among individuals who had not yet claimed, those who had reached age 62 were identified and asked about their rationale for not having claimed yet. All 129 of these individuals had valid responses to this question.4 For the questions about rationale for claiming, respondents were provided with a list of possible reasons and asked to select all that apply. In addition, there was an “other” option that allowed a free form text response. The order of the reasons (except for “other,” which always appeared last) were randomized across individuals.
Finally, individuals who had claimed and were born in 1943 or later were asked about their awareness of the rules surrounding delay. For individuals born in 1943 or later, benefits increase by 8 percent of the benefit available at full retirement age for each year of delay through age 70. (Previous cohorts received less generous adjustments.) Prior to the full retirement age, benefits increase by around 7 to 8 percent per year with delay, though the exact percentage varies with age. In addition, benefits for surviving spouses are based on the higher of the two individual benefits. This rule generates a large portion of the gains from delay for primary earners who can pass on a higher benefit to their widows (Sass, Sun, and Webb 2013).
Individuals were asked whether they were aware of these rules, and if so, to what extent they influenced their claiming decisions. Of the 403 individuals who had claimed and were born in 1943 or later, 183 were identified as married primary earners who would likely be affected by the survivor benefit provision.
Post-stratification weights were included with the UAS survey data. UAS assigned these weights after data were collected to ensure that the weighted sample distributions of socio-demographic characteristics matched the target population distributions of those characteristics. The target population distributions were determined by the Census Bureau’s March 2017 Current Population Survey. Additional information is available in the codebook for UAS 70. These weights were used throughout the analysis.
Summary statistics. Table 1 provides summary statistics for the two main samples used in this analysis. The first set of columns is based on the 558 individuals who had claimed Social Security benefits at the time of the survey. The middle set of columns is based on the 553 individuals who had not yet claimed, and the last set of columns combines both samples.
Not surprisingly, those who had already claimed at the time of the survey tended to be older than those who had not, and they were less likely to be working. Most people had an IRA or 401(k) at some point. A slight majority were male, which may be because the sample was restricted to individuals claiming retired worker benefits, and women are more likely than men to claim spousal or survivor benefits.
Among the 409 individuals who had claimed and stopped working, the mean retirement age was almost 63, and the average difference between claiming age and retirement age was less than one month. However, 22 percent of the sample reported claiming more than two years after retiring. (Table 1 reports the fraction either unemployed or out of the labor force as 66 percent + 5 percent = 71 percent. This figure differs from 409/558 = 73 percent because post-stratification weights were used in calculating the means in the tables.)
Distribution of actual and intended claiming ages. Figure 1 shows the distribution of (a) claiming ages for individuals who had claimed; (b) the distribution of intended claiming ages for individuals who had not yet claimed; (c) the combined distribution of actual and intended claiming ages for all individuals regardless of whether they had claimed; and (d) the distribution of claiming age minus retirement age for individuals who had both claimed and retired. These figures are based on unweighted data.
In panels a, b, and c, ages in months are divided by 12 and rounded down to the nearest whole year, and vertical lines indicate ages 65, 67, and 70; full retirement age for all individuals lies between ages 65 and 67. Not surprisingly, claiming ages for individuals who had already claimed tended to be lower than claiming ages for individuals who had not yet claimed, as the latter group was more likely to include those delaying beyond age 62.
The overall claiming age distribution (panel c) is consistent with previous research, such as Munnell and Chen (2015), Behaghel and Blau (2012), and Goda, Ramnath, Shoven, and Slavov (2018), on claiming behavior. Specifically, most individuals had claimed (or intended to claim) at or before full retirement age, with spikes in claiming at both age 62 and full retirement age. Another small group waited (or intended to wait) until age 70.
Panel (d) shows that almost one-quarter of the sample had a difference of zero months between claiming and retirement, and around half claimed within plus or minus two years of retirement.
Relationship between claiming age and demographics. Table 2 presents regressions showing the relationship between actual and intended claiming ages and demographic characteristics. The first column is based on those who had already claimed at the time of the survey. The second column is based on those who had yet to claim, and the third is based on the combined sample.
Results suggest that those with higher education and primary earners were more likely to delay claiming. In the combined sample, older people tended to claim earlier (through around age 77, in the quadratic approximation), consistent with prior research that claiming ages have been increasing in more recent cohorts (Munnell and Chen 2015).
There was no statistically significant relationship between claiming and the financial literacy score, Social Security knowledge score, or scores on the two Social Security questions most closely related to claiming. Moreover, primary earners who were ineligible for file-and-suspend did not appear to claim (or expect to claim) significantly earlier than those who were eligible.
Financing the gap. Table 3 shows that among individuals whose claim occurred more than two years after retirement, the majority relied on employer-sponsored pensions to finance the gap. A significant number drew down on retirement savings or relied on a spouse’s income. Very few took out loans or received help from family and friends.
Satisfaction with claiming decision. Table 4 tabulates individuals’ satisfaction with their past claiming decisions. In the full sample, almost 80 percent of people either agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied with their claiming decision. Individuals who claimed within six months of reaching full retirement age reported the greatest degree of satisfaction, with more than 90 percent agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement. This relationship held up in regression analysis (available upon request), which further showed that individuals who claimed more than two years after retirement tended to be more satisfied with their claiming decisions, as were males and widows.
Reasons for claiming decision. Table 5 tabulates the reasons individuals provided for their claiming decisions. The top panel shows that among those who claimed before full retirement age, the largest number did so because they had stopped working. Other common reasons for claiming early included needing the money (possibly an indicator of liquidity constraints), poor health, and fear of benefit cuts. Receiving advice from family/friends or a financial adviser was relatively uncommon; and receiving advice from a Social Security Administration employee was even less so.
As noted earlier, some individuals may be induced to claim early because of a rule preventing the spouse of an individual from claiming a spousal benefit unless the individual has also claimed his or her retirement benefit. (File-and-suspend was never available before full retirement age.) However, very few people indicated that this rule constrained their claiming choice.
A large fraction of those who claimed early reported “other” reasons. Many of the free-form responses for this question indicated stopping work (e.g., they referred to becoming disabled, being tired of working, or being laid off). Some individuals stated that they did not fully understand the gains from delay. Other responses suggested that some individuals who claimed at age 65 mistakenly believed it to be their full retirement age.
The second panel of Table 5 shows that individuals who claimed between full retirement age and six months post full retirement age were most likely to indicate that it “seemed natural” to claim at full retirement age. Other common reasons included stopping work or wanting to avoid a “reduced” benefit.
Compared to the early claimers, those who claimed at full retirement age were more likely to report being advised to do so by a financial adviser, friends or family, or a Social Security Administration employee. They were also more likely to report wanting to invest the money, but less likely to cite health as a motivation for not delaying further, and a similar fraction reported fearing future benefit cuts.
Prior to full retirement age, people who have claimed and continue to work are subject to an earnings test, which effectively forces those who earn more than a certain amount to delay a portion of benefits (and receive the actuarial adjustment for delay). The survey results suggest that around only 8 percent of those who claimed at full retirement age viewed the earnings test as a constraint on their claiming decision.
One possible complication with the results in the first two panels of Table 5 is that individuals who have not yet reached full retirement age but are in the year in which they will do so may have a stronger incentive to claim due to a significantly weaker earnings test during that year. (The income limit is higher and only applies to income earned prior to reaching full retirement age.)
For the questions about claiming rationales shown in Table 5, the survey routing placed these individuals in the same group as others who claimed before full retirement age. Seventeen individuals claimed before reaching full retirement age but in the year of attaining full retirement age. However, none of their free-form text responses made any reference to the weaker earnings test.
The third panel of Table 5 tabulates the reasons for delaying beyond full retirement age; it is based on the sample of respondents who had claimed and did so more than six months after full retirement age. The final panel tabulates the reasons provided for not having claimed yet; it is based on the sample of respondents who had not claimed at the time of the survey but had reached age 62.
Both panels indicate that continued work was a major reason for delay. However, work was less likely to be cited as a reason for delay among those who delayed beyond full retirement age (46.1 percent vs. 64.5 percent). The earnings test likely explains part of this difference. Among the 11 individuals who had reached full retirement age but not claimed yet, only 52.6 percent cited continued work as a reason. Other common reasons for delaying beyond full retirement age included taking advantage of the gains from delay, not needing the money, and good health.
Most of the rationales for early claiming were uncorrelated with demographic characteristics and the gap between claiming and retirement (regression results are available upon request). However, more highly educated and healthier individuals were less likely to cite poor health as a rationale; individuals with an IRA or 401(k) were more likely to cite advice from a financial professional; older cohorts were less likely to cite needing the money and more likely to cite wanting to invest the money; and men were less likely to cite advice from a financial professional or friends/family, or the retirement of a spouse.
Married people were more likely to cite the retirement of a spouse as a motivation for claiming early, and people who claimed more than two years after stopping work were less likely to cite continued work. Financial and Social Security literacy were mostly uncorrelated with rationales for early claiming, though those who believed benefits to be unaffected by start age were more likely to cite poor health as a reason for claiming early, and those with greater Social Security knowledge were more likely to report claiming early because a spouse had stopped working.
Awareness of the gains from delay. Table 6 indicates that most people born in 1943 or later were aware of the rules surrounding delay for their cohort. However, this awareness generally did not influence their claiming decisions.
The top panel of Table 6 is based on the sample of individuals who had claimed and were born in 1943 and later; the bottom panel is based on the subset of married primary earners (to whom the survivor benefit rule likely applies). Multinomial logit regressions (available upon request) indicated that individuals who delayed to full retirement age or beyond were more likely to report that the rules influenced their claiming decision compared to those who claimed before full retirement age.
Primary earners and those in good health were more likely to be influenced by the 8 percent annual growth in benefits for delayers. Married secondary earners were more likely to report being aware of but not influenced by the 8 percent annual growth in benefits. There was some evidence that those with more education were more likely to be aware of and influenced by the rules as well.
Implications and Conclusions
This study provided a preliminary overview of the rationales that people give for their Social Security claiming decisions, offering financial planners insights into how individuals think about the Social Security claiming decision so that advice can be offered accordingly.
Several interesting findings emerged from the results that have relevance for financial planners and suggest directions for future research. Financial planners often give clients advice about saving for retirement and obtaining the highest return possible on their savings. However, the timing of Social Security claiming—which appears to be tied to the timing of retirement through social norms—often has even greater financial stakes (Bronshtein, Scott, Shoven, and Slavov 2018).
The survey suggested that common rationales for claiming Social Security before full retirement age included stopping work, liquidity, poor health, and concerns about future benefit cuts due to policy changes. Common rationales for delay included continued work and a desire to take advantage of the gains from delay. Most people were satisfied with their claiming decisions and reported that while they understood the rules surrounding delay, these rules did not influence their claiming decisions.
Another key finding was that people appeared to view claiming at full retirement age as a social norm. Although the earnings test (which forces delay among those who are still working) could potentially explain the spike in claims at full retirement age, only a small fraction of people reported being influenced by the earnings test. Instead, those who claimed at full retirement age were highly likely to indicate that it seemed “natural” to do so, and that they wanted to avoid a “reduced” benefit (even though claiming at full retirement age also results in a reduced benefit relative to claiming at age 70). These responses are consistent with research by Behaghel and Blau (2012), which showed that both claiming and retirement ages tended to cluster around the full retirement age even when that age was changed by policy. Indeed, Meyer and Reichenstein (2012) showed that claiming near full retirement age was never wealth-maximizing for single people. The fact that so many people claim at full retirement age anyway suggests the role of that age as a social norm.
Social norms may also explain why those who claim at full retirement age reported greater satisfaction with their claiming decision than those who claimed at other ages, as well as why those who claimed at full retirement age were more likely to report being encouraged to do so by others.
Another strong social norm appears to be claiming upon retirement, even though the retirement and claiming decisions can in theory be made independently. A large fraction of people claimed very close to retirement and indicated that their claiming decision was strongly linked to their labor supply decision. The earnings test could explain why individuals who have not reached full retirement age do not claim before they retire. However, it does not explain why most people do not delay claiming beyond retirement, or why claiming is strongly tied to stopping work, even after full retirement age when the earnings test no longer binds.
Liquidity constraints could play a role for some, but previous research has shown that around two thirds of people have sufficient assets to delay Social Security for at least two years even if they have stopped working (Goda, Ramnath, Shoven, and Slavov 2018). And the survey results suggested that those with retirement savings accounts were not less likely to cite labor force status as a rationale for their claiming decision. Thus, the link between retirement and claiming seems to go beyond the earnings test or concerns about liquidity.
Although Social Security claiming was strongly associated with stopping work, roughly 25 percent of the sample who had a gap of two or more years between retirement and claiming Social Security benefits used employer-sponsored pensions and other saving to finance the delay.
The researchers previously fielded a similar survey with a group of individuals who received retiree health benefits through the OneExchange health insurance marketplace (Nyce, Schieber, Shoven, Slavov, and Wise 2015). Although not a nationally representative sample, it provided an opportunity to test and refine the survey questions in this paper. The firm name was OneExchange at the time of the survey, and it was operated by the benefits consulting firm Towers Watson. It is now known as Via Benefits Insurance Services and is operated by Willis Towers Watson.
Due to a glitch in the survey, three individuals who claimed at full retirement age were inadvertently asked why they claimed before full retirement age. Thus, these three individuals do not have valid responses to this question.
Actually, 130 individuals were asked this question, but one individual appeared to have been routed to this question based on providing an incorrect birth year and was excluded.
Beauchamp, Andrew, and Mathis Wagner. 2012. “Dying to Retire: Adverse Selection and Welfare in Social Security.” Unpublished manuscript available via the Society of Labor Economists at sole-jole.org/13242.pdf.
Behaghel, Luc, and David M. Blau. 2012. “Framing Social Security Reform: Behavioral Responses to Changes in the Full Retirement Age.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 4 (4): 41–67.
Bronshtein, Gila, Jason Scott, John B. Shoven, and Sita Nataraj Slavov. 2018. “The Power of Working Longer.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 24226. Available at nber.org/papers/w24226.
Bronshtein, Gila, Jason Scott, John B. Shoven, and Sita Nataraj Slavov. 2016. “Leaving Big Money on the Table: Arbitrage Opportunities in Delaying Social Security.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 22853. Available at nber.org/papers/w22853.
Brown, Jeffrey R., Arie Kapteyn, Erzo F.P. Luttmer, Olivia S. Mitchell, and Anya Samek. 2017. “Behavioral Impediments to Valuing Annuities: Evidence on the Effects of Complexity and Choice Bracketing.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. w24101. Available at nber.org/papers/w24101.
Coile, Courtney, Peter Diamond, Jonathan Gruber, and Alain Jousten. 2002. “Delays in Claiming Social Security Benefits.” Journal of Public Economics 84 (3): 357–385.
Glickman, Mark M., and Sharon Hermes. 2015. “Why Retirees Claim Social Security at 62 and How It Affects Their Retirement Income: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study.” The Journal of Retirement 2 (3): 25–39.
Goda, Gopi, Shanthi Ramnath, John B. Shoven, and Sita Nataraj Slavov. 2018. “The Financial Feasibility of Delaying Social Security: Evidence from Administrative Tax Data.” Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, forthcoming.
Hurd, Michael D., James P. Smith, and Julie M. Zissimopoulos. 2004. “The Effects of Subjective Survival on Retirement and Social Security Claiming.” Journal of Applied Econometrics 19 (6): 761–775.
Kotlikoff, Laurence J., Philip Moeller, and Paul Solman. 2015. Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security. New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster.
Liebman, Jeffrey B., and Erzo F.P. Luttmer. 2015. “Would People Behave Differently If They Better Understood Social Security? Evidence from a Field Experiment,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 7 (1): 275–299.
Mahaney, James I., and Peter C. Carlson. 2007. “Rethinking Social Security Claiming in a 401(k) World.” Pension Research Council Working Paper 2007-18. Available at researchgate.net/publication/228703615_Rethinking_Social_Security_Claiming_in_a_401k_World.
Maurer Raimond, Olivia S. Mitchell, Ralph Rogalla, and Tatjana Schimetschek. 2016. Journal of Risk and Insurance, forthcoming.
Meyer, William, and William Reichenstein. 2010. “Social Security: When to Start Benefits and How to Minimize Longevity Risk.” Journal of Financial Planning 23 (3): 49–59.
Meyer, William, and William Reichenstein. 2012. “Social Security Claiming Strategies for Singles.” Retirement Management Journal 2 (3): 61–66.
Mitchell, Olivia S., James M. Poterba, Mark J. Warshawsky, and Jeffrey R. Brown. 1999. “New Evidence on the Money’s Worth of Individual Annuities.” American Economic Review 89 (5): 1,299–1,318.
Munnell, Alicia H., and Mauricio Soto. 2005. “Why Do Women Claim Social Security Benefits So Early?” Center for Retirement Research Issue Brief 35. Available at crr.bc.edu/briefs/why-do-women-claim-social-security-benefits-so-early.
Munnell, Alicia H., Alex Golub-Sass, and Nadia S. Karamcheva. 2013. “Understanding Unusual Social Security Claiming Strategies.” Journal of Financial Planning 26 (8): 40–47.
Munnell, Alicia H., and Anqi Chen. 2015. “Trends in Social Security Claiming.” Center for Retirement Research Issue Brief 15-8. Available at crr.bc.edu/briefs/trends-in-social-security-claiming.
Nyce, Steven, Sylvester Schieber, John Shoven, Sita Slavov, and David Wise. 2015. “Social Security and Defined Benefit Pension Payout Choices: Evidence from a Survey of Retirees.” Unpublished manuscript available at upon request.
Rabinovich, Lila, and Anya Samek. 2018. “No Regrets: Qualitative Evidence on Early Claiming of Social Security Retirement.” Journal of Aging Studies 46: 17–23.
Sass, Steven A., Wei Sun, and Anthony Webb. 2007. “Why Do Married Men Claim Social Security So Early: Ignorance or Caddishness?” Center for Retirement Research Working Paper 2007-17. Available at crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/wp_2007-171-508.pdf.
Sass, Steven A., Wei Sun, and Anthony Webb. 2013. “Social Security Claiming Decision of Married Men and Widow Poverty.” Economics Letters 119 (1): 20–23.
Shoven, John, and Sita Slavov. 2014a. “Does It Pay to Delay Social Security?” Journal of Pension Economics and Finance 13 (2): 121–144.
Shoven, John, and Sita Slavov. 2014b. “Recent Changes in the Gains from Delaying Social Security.” Journal of Financial Planning 27 (3): 32–41.
Shuart, Amy N., David A. Weaver, and Kevin Whitman. 2010. “Widowed Before Retirement: Social Security Benefit Claiming Strategies.” Journal of Financial Planning 23 (4): 45–53.
Sun, Wei, and Anthony Webb. 2009. “How Much Do Households Really Lose by Claiming Social Security at Age 62?” Center for Retirement Research Working Paper No. 2009-11. Available at crr.bc.edu/working-papers/how-much-do-households-really-lose-by-claiming-social-security-at-age-62.
Waldron, Hilary. 2002. “Do Early Retirees Die Early? Evidence from Three Independent Data Sets.” Social Security Administration Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics Working Paper No. 97. Available at ssa.gov/policy/docs/workingpapers/wp97.html.
Warner, John T., and Saul Pleeter. 2001. “The Personal Discount Rate: Evidence from Military Downsizing Programs.” American Economic Review 91 (1): 33–53.
Yaari, Menahem E. 1965. “Uncertain Lifetime, Life Insurance, and the Theory of the Consumer.” Review of Economic Studies 32 (2): 137–150.
Shoven, John N., Sita Nataraj Slavov, and David A. Wise. 2018. “Understanding Social Security Claiming Decisions Using Survey Evidence.” Journal of Financial Planning 31 (11): 35–47.

domain: finance


text:
See all our events
One event on June 27, 2021 at 11:00 am
To celebrate Pride Month, we’re very excited to be partnering with Save, Inc. and Kansas City Center for Inclusion (KCCI) for two very special bingos this month. Save, Inc. has been in the Kansas City area for 35 years and provides permanent, transitional, and emergency housing services to those in need. Kansas City Center for Inclusion (KCCI) was founded in 2017 and strives to provide safe, inclusive LGBTQIA+ community spaces where people can come for education, resources, and activities and support a more cohesive LGBTQIA+ community in the greater Kansas City area.
Both Save, Inc. and KCCI will be at bingo to provide information and resources. We will have donation and tip jars available; all proceeds will benefit Save, Inc. and KCCI.
All month long, $5 from each Pride crowler sold at the Small Bar will benefit Save, Inc. and KCCI. 100% of all the proceeds from Pride t-shirts purchased in the Gift Shop during June will benefit Save, Inc. and KCCI
*Doors open at 10 am and Bingo begins at 11am.

domain: sociology


text:
three dimensional white n95 mask
25 Pack KN95 Face Mask, Included on FDA EUA List, Filter Efficiency95%, 5-Ply Mask Protection Against PM2.5, Fire Smoke, Dust Cup Dust Mask White 4.6 out of 5 stars 7,764 $44.74 $ 44 . 74 ($1.79/Count) $49.74 $49.74 AIR QUEEN NANO MASK AUTHENTICDec 07, 2020 · Air queen nano mask KF94 helps to Guard against harmful virus and bacteria. 3D three-dimensional design with fluffy, breathable and soft material, will not cause the fog when wearing glasses. Adjustable nose bridge and elastic earloops.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a major shortage of N95-level facial masks, especially in the healthcare environment. We have investigated three promising disinfection methods that may be applied to the recycling and reuse of facial masks:hot air (75 °C, 30 min), UV light (254 nm, 8W, 30 min), and steam (10 min). China KN95 Mask manufacturer, Medical Mask, N95 Mask KN95 Mask, Medical Mask manufacturer / supplier in China, offering T500+Plus Smart Watch IP67 Waterproof Bracelet Touch Screen Silica Band Bt Call Smartwatch T500 Smart Watch, T500+Plus Smart Watch Touch Screen Heart Rate Blood Pressure Monitor Sports Fitness Tracker Watch, The Worlds First 5g and Toughest Rugged Smartphone Android 10 OS IP68 DOD utilizes 3D-printing to create N95 respirators in the Jan 11, 2021 · Compared to a surgical mask, which is loose-fitting, the edges of the N95 mask are designed to form a very tight seal around the individuals nose and mouth, providing the highest levels of
Jan 11, 2021 · Compared to a surgical mask, which is loose-fitting, the edges of the N95 mask are designed to form a very tight seal around the individuals nose and mouth, providing the highest levels of DoD utilizes 3D-printing to create N95 respiratorsCompared to a surgical mask, which is loose-fitting, the edges of the N95 mask are designed to form a very tight seal around the individuals nose and mouth, providing the highest levels of FDA-approved KN95 masks are on sale at Click to viewJan 21, 2021 · The three-dimensional design makes it easier to breathe if you need to keep your mask on for long periods. The material is non-woven soft cotton. Shop it:N95 Mask Co. KN95 Face Mask, 50-Pack
Three-Dimensional Structure.Industry standard and provides the intended effectiveness of filtering 95%.Protects you well from PM10, PM 2.5, and even smaller particles.These breathable face masks provide protection from moderate amounts of spray and fluid.Securely covering the nose and moth, and bits of particular or other airborne contaminants during Medical Device Respirator recalls - Recalls and safety alertsMay 10, 2020 · N95:n/a:n/a:Gaomi Chenheng Labor Protection Supplies Co., Ltd. Kn95:n/a:n/a:Garry Galaxy Biotechnology Co., Ltd. Respirator Mask With TruTone Technology:n/a:n/a:Global Safety First:HAMY30:n/a:n/a:Guangdong Fei Fan Mstar Technology LTD:Purvigor KN95:n/a:n/a:Guangdong Jiangmen Huayue Industrial Co. Ltd. Three-Dimensional Medical Face Mask Machine:The Complete Guide for the Note:The production line equipment can only produce disposable flat masks, and cannot produce masks with three-dimensional or N95. 5. How to control the product quality and safety of disposable masks 1) In view of the fact that the quality of filter materials for medical masks is difficult to control through convenient and effective inspection
The FDA regulates surgical masks and surgical N95 respirators differently based on their intended use. A surgical mask is a loose-fitting, disposable device that creates a Three-dimensional Protective Respirator Disposable Face Three-dimensional Protective Respirator Disposable Face Mask, White 3- PACK. KN95_3. $ 9.95 $ 16.95. Add to Cart. Made with KN95 grade anti-particulate matter filtering technology, andantibacterial environmental protection fabric, effectively filtering andvprotecting from PM2.5 air particulate matter and bacteria [10 pcs] Jiandi KN95 Protective Face Masks, 5 Layers Instructions:Make sure the mask covers your nose and mouth and place an earloop around each ear; Pinch the stiff/top edge around the bridge of your nose snugly to create a secure seal; Pull the mask under your chin to create a three-dimensional breathing space. Recommend to dispose of the mask properly after wearing up to 8 hours.
KN95 Face Mask Non-Disposable Protective Mask for Adult & Kids Anti Covid-19 Virus N95 Mask Surgical Face Mask Anti Flu Mask, Breathable, Dustproof, Nonwoven Fabrics,5 Layers Protective Mask - 100 Pcs. Limited time offer, ends 02/12. Type:Gloves & Masks; Color:White; Age:Adult; Ecological:Organic; Model #:BY11; Item #:9SIAN1PB8F4933Ratone KN95 (Box of 25) Disposable Three Dimensional Ratone KN95 Disposable Three Dimensional Protective 5 Layer Face Mask, Disposable, White (Case of 1,200) $1,049.99 25 Pack KN95 Face Mask, Included on FDA EUA List, Filter Efficiency95%, 5-Ply Mask Protection Against PM2.5, Fire Smoke, Dust Cup Dust Mask Black

domain: medical


text:
by @f_d_schneider, 27 December 2014
That is, at the joint meeting of the British Ecological Society and the Société Française d’Ecologie. During that meeting, I was actively using the Twitter account that I had created earlier this year for the first time. I followed the tweets of others and was amazed by the interactions that occurred: I interacted with people that were on the conference without meeting them in real. I met friends and colleagues that were not attending the conference. I even got a question on my talk from somebody I did not know and who was not even on the conference. How weird is that?
Well, not all of my real life colleagues understood the importance of that. Especially many of the french and german colleagues were curious but certain that this Twitter thing was not for them. They were sceptical as I had been: “How can we allow questions via Twitter only?” “Twitter is a proprietary third-party service! What about ownership and privacy?” “Why can’t I just send an e-mail to the chair?” “The limited format is not able to capture the complex question I have.” “Everybody is just staring at their phones during the presentations!” “Those twenty-something people tweeting actively during the conference are not a representative subset!” That’s more or less the essence. Some of this critique might not be straightforward to understand from a non-european cultural background (the privacy issue, or the third-party concerns for instance), but most of it should be of universal concern (exclusiveness of Twitter; distraction from real-life interactions; beware the Twitter-bubble!).
But, after all, it seems that the use of social media, and Twitter being the primus inter pares here, for promoting the reach of the own work is justified. There is actual research on that1. On the conference @GrrlScientist gave an invited plenary talk that listed the many pros for the use of Twitter and blogging in research. She pointed out how it can help to increase your reach and visibility. Simon Leather, who documented his own throughout positive experience and success with blogging and tweeting2, or the famous and excellent Dynamic Ecology blog of Jeremy Fox, Meghan Duffy and Brian McGill3 are just the tip of an iceberg (follow the blog-roll!). @GrrlScientist concluded that blogging requires a huge amount of time and commitment to successfully build a community of followers, but it is absolutely worth the effort. Journalists and the public will start following your work, feature your papers and invite you as an expert2. Even the eminent British Ecological Society now has become a huge fan of Twitter and promotes the use of it in their recent Bulletin4.
So, what’s the problem, actually? Well,
It occurred to me that we keep reciting the awesomeness of social media, without discussing the downsides sufficiently. The criticism on social media might not be well founded on research, but neither is the euphoria! In fact, it seems to be acceptable to claim in a prominent place that
lack of an online presence can severely limit a researcher’s visibility, and runs the risk that undesirable search results appear before desirable ones5
That is to say, we are okay with the view that in this new opening of social media, those who do not play along will be punished by invisibility. Those who do not play along will be losers in the harsh competition. Those who do not play along are the ones to blame if the scientific knowledge aquisition takes a wrong turn because of bias. It is an aggressive “Join social media, now!” and an unspoken “…or you will regret it!”.
Why is that acceptable? We are scientists and should not take the the optimism of those currently pioneering the ground, and apparently have benefited from that bravery, as a general truth. Of course for those who are active on social media on a regular basis with the aim of promoting their own work it seems to pay off. But the disadvantages are not only the work time you have to invest, the self-discipline in separating private use from work. The lack of objectivity and sometimes responsibility leads to misinformation and hypes that are not justified. Most importantly in my opinion, using social media might be considered cheating by those who decide not to make use of them. It might be considered short-circuiting the scrupulous way of the scientific community in evaluating what we value to be desirable research.
To be clear: I personally think that this can be a good thing! We have to revolt against traditional structures of powerful publishing houses and scientific patriarchs defining what is important research. Social media can counterbalance this power by giving an equally loud voice to the young researchers and PostDocs who are actually doing the largest part of research and who breed the most novel ideas in their minds. Social media re-organise hierarchies, opinion-formation and bring scientists and the public closer together. In combination with crowdfunding it liberates us from the dictatorship of national funding distribution mechanisms6. Even our definition of scientific productivity might change due to a broadened assessments of scientific impact7. It seems to bring an anarchist drive into traditional societies. And I like that a lot!
However, a new bias is arising. Twitter and scientific blogging is dominated by native english speaking users8 who had a long head-start in the usage and exposure to these kinds of media. Most likely for the scientific community english will be the only language that counts. While academic writing uses a simplified and well constrained subset of the actual english language, scientific blogging is much more difficult to learn for non-natives: It uses spoken language, is more informal and less objective.
Thus, the community that is active on social media will be biased towards english natives for years to come. That implies that this is also where all the benefit that I was praising in the previous paragraph will wind up. Public and media attention, citation boosts and finally funding would be more and more retracted from the rest of the scientific world.
“But,” you might say, “you could blog in french, too!” You could and probably should, since national media attention is important, too. But even the english speaking communities struggle to form a humming blog-o-sphere9. So how could a french sub-community ever achieve that? How can we expect from researchers who are not english-natives to be active and successful bloggers and tweeters? We can’t! And more importantly, we must not!
We must not ask anybody to join social media and blame those who refuse for the misinformation that arises from it. For the sake of the entire scientific enterprise: It is wrong to put our bets on the current Twitter-bubble, blog-o-spheres or even Facebook which are not at all representative for the richness of international scientific community!
How should we deal with social media, then? It is certainly not an easy question to answer. But to me it seems certain that we must have a much more critical discourse than we have right now.
I have just these suggestions to start with: First, to avoid the impact of unjustified hypes over real life issues the social media bubble must become self-critical and self-aware10. It must discuss the problems that arise with concentrating our attention through the social-media lens. We must be full of scepticism and identify the bias of opinion that comes with it. As publishers, journalists and decisionmakers about funding we need to be aware of this bias. We have to strive basing our decisionmaking on objective, unbiased information, as we always did. We must not accept social media unquestioned just out of convenience.
Don’t get me wrong! I am amazed by the possibilities that come with social media for science. But I also advise caution: There is a risk that we are creating just another kind of bias in scientific leadership without being aware of it.
reference needed ↩
Richard English 2014 The Bulletin (of the BES) “Why you should be on Twitter”, vol 45:4 December 2014 p.22 ↩
@GrrlScientist gave two examples on how crowdfunding worked out for some researchers in her talk at #BESSfe: Tim Birkheads long term study of guillemots; Beth Roberts Philippine Duck Project. A crowdfunding platform specialised only on scientific projects is experiment.com. ↩
e.g. through Altmetrics that include how often an article is read on Mendeley or mentioned on social media, or by quantifying the reach of our presentations, posters, or blog posts on Impactstory and thereby including it into our publication record. ↩


30 Rock is important to me.
It is not series that helped me through a difficult time, though I did gorge on it while I was in the hospital in December; it didn’t help me come to some particular epiphany about my life or offer me guidance in a career path, even if I think I would totally rock an NBC page jacket; and I didn’t meet the love of my life over a shared admiration of the show.
There have been, and continue to be, plenty of shows about television shows or that have television shows as a setting, but starting on Oct. 11, 2006, there was 30 Rock, and it was about television: its past and its present, its shows and its business, all things that I love, and that the series' writers and producers clearly loved, too.
But 30 Rock wasn’t slavish in its admiration, and instead opted for satire, parody, and winking homage, whether it was needling NBC’s corporate ownership through GE by way of the Sheinhardt Wig Company or demystifying TV “golden age” with a character like Tim Conway’s racist and homophobic Bucky Bright or creating a delightful fictional history of broadcast television in “Live from Studio 6H” or driving the never-ending train of horrible made-up NBC programs like MILF Island, Homonym, and the Will Ferrell-starring Bitch Hunter.
30 Rock thought and felt about TV the same way that I, and many people I knew and still know, think and feel about TV: with love and irreverence, respect, and an arched, knowing eyebrow.
And so the finale of this series has filled me with both dread and happiness. Dread, well, for the obvious reasons, because it’s a show that I’ve watched, loved, quoted (“blerg” is a permanent part of my vocabulary, among many, many, many, other words from the series), and discussed with others for seven years. But the happiness comes from the fact that the show, despite its ratings, stayed on the air (likely due to media ownership, Emmys, and fear of Lorne Michaels) and ended on its own terms.
Those terms were pretty good. “Hogcock!” and “Last Lunch” weren’t 30 Rock’s funniest episodes, but as has always been the case with the series, there were plenty of stellar little bits, including Liz seeing the on-screen ad for Grizz and Herz, Tanned Penis Island (mostly destroyed due to Sting’s housefire), Kenneth’s list of of TV no-no words*, and the very spot-on recreation of the mom forums, reflective of the web in general more than anything.
* Conflict, Urban, Woman, Divorce, Shows About Shows, Writer, Justin Bartha, Dramedy, New York, Politics, High Concept, Complex, Niche, Quality, Edgy, Blog, Immortal Character, Foreign
If there was one new bit that somehow slayed me (and we’ll get to the old bits in a moment), it was Lutz’s insistence on ordering Blimpie. Yes, it gave Lutz his final victory over a room of people who have abused him and maligned him for years (except for that one day they thought he had a car), but it also put a bow on the gift of 30 Rock’s consistent needling of product placement. Subway, given its presence on other NBC shows like Chuck and Community, would’ve been the obvious choice, but instead we got a sort of anti-product integration plot where no one but the show’s most hated in-universe character wanted it.
But the finale also paid off on and called back to lots of running gags, including Pete’s unhappiness with his life (and he still couldn’t even fake his death properly!), the return of The Rural Juror (I’m convinced that the Mean Girls musical is just a feint and that Tina Fey is really going to do a Rural Juror musical), and Kenneth’s seeming agelessness with that St. Elsewhere-in-the-future gag as a descendant of Liz Lemon pitched 30 Rock to NBC. It was one last little meta joke for a show that thrived on meta jokes.
What I liked most about the finale, though, was the question of whether or not Liz and Jack could really have it all. That drive to have both a job and a family has been at the core of both their lives for all seven seasons. Both have faced ups and downs professionally and personally, and now, faced with getting what they thought they wanted all along—complete business and political domination in Jack’s case and a family in Liz’s case—they realized that the other components are just as important, and that they needed all of it to be happy.
But of course they could have it all, and I love that in this regard—together with the fact that Kenneth was still in charge of NBC who knows how many years later (and that NBC still existed!)—30 Rock’s jokey cynical shell broke apart and exposed its gooey center one last time.
What'd you think of the finale, and what has 30 Rock meant to you?


text:
Great Auditorium to host Christian singers
For those looking for a refreshing night out next month, head to Ocean Grove’s Great Auditorium at 7 p.m. Aug. 5.
There, for $35 a person ($50 for reserved seats), spectators can witness a performance by contemporary Christian singer and four-time Grammy nominee Matthew West. Since starting his career in the 1990s, West has sold more than 1.6 million albums and was named Billboard Music’s Hot Christian Songwriter of the Year in 2016. Some of his best singles include “Hello, My Name Is,” which spent a record 17 consecutive weeks as the No.1 song on Christian radio, and “The Motions”, which spent 15 consecutive weeks on Christian radio.
As well as promoting his faith through music, West has attempted to help other people express their faith by posting online. With the help of his father Joe, who spent 38 years as a pastor at Hobson Road Community Church in the Illinois village of Downers Grove, Matthew founded the faith-based website, https://popwe.org/. Titled “Your story, His Glory”, the website encourages viewers to post about their successes in finding religion in their lives.
The concert also will feature Cimorelli, a California-native a cappella group, perform for 50 minutes as an opening act before West goes on. Composed of sisters Lauren, Christina, Lisa, Amy, Danielle and Katherine, the group has just released their second CD, "Alive," and their first book, "Lessons Learned," an advice group for teen girls. The girls are also popular on social media, boasting over 574,000 Twitter followers and over 3.8 million subscribers to their YouTube channel.
“Cimorelli touches on love, respect and devotion,” said publicist David Lotz. “They are an inspiration to thousands of teenage girls.”
Known for being a strong Methodist community, Ocean Grove regularly plays host to Christian services and other events at the Great Auditorium, located at Pilgrim and Ocean Pathways. Built in 1894 to originally hold 10,000 people for Sunday service, the Great Auditorium now hosts 7,000 people and is a favorable spot for many Christian singers to perform.
Besides the Aug. 5 shows, the Great Auditorium will see the Dove Award-winning band Sidewalk Prophets, composed of members David Frey, Ben McDonald, Cal Joslin, and Daniel Macal, perform on Thursday, July 27. The group, which also will be making stops in Wildwood on Aug. 3 and at Brooklyn's Barclays Center on Aug.11, will be promoting their newest song, "Come To The Table."
To buy tickets and get more information, visit www.oceangrove.org or call 800-590-4064.
Intern Matthew Engel: firstname.lastname@example.org
Follow him on witter at https://twitter.com/MattEngelAPP

domain: news


text:
Tiny-home village for veterans planned in northwest Sioux Falls
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Pigeon605) - A community of tiny homes designed for homeless veterans and their families could be coming to northwest Sioux Falls.
It’s thanks to a team of city officials from different departments who pursued the project as part of a leadership development program.
“There were so many times we thought this thing was dead, and it just kept going,” said Jason Bieber, senior planner, who first started working on it nearly three years ago.
What does that look like?
In Kansas City, it became this: a village of 49 tiny homes with wraparound case management services and walk-in support services.
The village opened in 2018, and the experience made the nonprofit realize “there wasn’t just a need for this in Kansas City but in every metro in America,” Hendershot said.
Community leaders nationwide began hearing about it and reaching out. The Veterans Community Project set a goal of having eight villages nationwide by the end of 2022.
One is under development in the Denver area and another is in St. Louis.
Sioux Falls, thanks to the group of city officials that approved the project, is in line to become the fourth location.
Read more of this story on Pigeon605.com.
Copyright 2021 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.

domain: geography


In the 111th Congress Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) introduced legislation to perform a wide-ranging audit of the Federal Reserve. That bill was, in Paulâ€™s words, â€œguttedâ€ before it came to the floor for a vote. Ultimately only a few very weak provisions of Paulâ€™s original bill became law.
With Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives in January, however, Paul is likely to get another crack at the Fed, and he doesnâ€™t intend to waste the opportunity. Paul is currently the ranking member of the House Subcommittee for Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology and is, therefore, in line to become chairman of the subcommittee when the 112th Congress commences. If he does indeed assume the chairmanship, â€œPaul said his first priority will be to open up the books of the Federal Reserve to the American people,â€ according to CNBC.com senior editor John Carney. â€œWe need to create transparency there. To see what it is they are buying and lending, and who it is they are dealing with,â€ Paul said.
Auditing the Fed is only the beginning, as one might expect from the author of End the Fed. Carney writes that Paul told NetNet, â€œI will approach that committee like no one has ever approached it because weâ€™re living in times like no one has ever seen.â€ Among his other objectives: using subcommittee hearings to educate the public about Austrian economistsâ€™ view of the business cycle, namely that it is a result of central banksâ€™ shenanigans rather than something inherent in the free market, and auditing the U.S. gold reserves in preparation for monetary reform, either by legalizing competing currencies or by returning to the gold standard (or both). Also on his agenda, says Reuters, is scrutiny of the International Monetary Fund and other global financial institutions, probably as part of monetary reform. These institutions, as The New American has reported on multiple occasions, are pushing for a global currency, which may explain Paulâ€™s comments, as reported by Carney: â€œWe will have to have monetary reform. I think those on the other side of this issue are already planning. They are going to try to replace a bad system with an equally bad system.â€
As noted earlier, all of this is predicated on Paulâ€™s becoming chairman of the subcommittee, a position for which he would seem to be a shoo-in. However, the Republican leadership in the House, never fond of the Texas Congressman, has more than once prevented him from assuming this position in the past, as Roll Callâ€™s Jonathan Allen reported, quoting Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.):
In 2003, Ron Paul was in line to be chairman of the Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee…. Specifically and solely to frustrate Ron from being the chairman, they merged the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy with the Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy. Ron Paul then complained to [then-Majority Leader] Tom DeLay, and Tom DeLay told [then-Chairman Mike] Oxley [R-Ohio] â€œDonâ€™t change it.â€… Two years later, even though they merged the two subcommittees in the progression, Ron was then again ready to be chairman, this time of the combined one. [Then-Rep. Deborah] Pryce [R-Ohio] was dragooned to come back and assert a subcommittee chairmanship…. Ron at that point said to me, â€œI guess I have to wait for you to be chairman for me to have any authority around here.â€ The Republican Party was a staunch defender of the Fed against Ron Paul.
Allen wrote that both Paul and other â€œRepublican sourcesâ€ confirmed this account with the exception of the involvement of DeLay.
Will the GOP allow Paul to ascend to the chairmanship this time around? With his higher profile and increased popularity, the party â€œwould fear the backlashâ€ from denying it to him, says Paulâ€™s former chief of staff, Lew Rockwell. Assuming Rockwell is correct, Ben Bernanke and the rest of the globalist currency destroyers had better lay in a good supply of Rolaids and Sominex.


text:
Thank you for visiting Mountain Peak Dental online. Dr. Jeff Davidson and Dr. Dylan Weishaar not only have the experience to improve your dental health with restorative procedures and Invisalign®, but we can improve your total body wellness, too, with sleep apnea and gum disease treatments. Our office has provided this dental care in Hamilton, Montana, and the surrounding communities of Corvallis, Darby and Victor, Montana, for over 30 years. If you want to meet our friendly, hard-working dentists and team to experience professional care, then call our practice to schedule an appointment. We are eager to brighten your smile!
Monday – Thursday: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Friday – 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Mountain Peak Dental
421 State Street
Hamilton, MT 59840


text:
There are million of personal hip-hop blogs on the net these days, everybody wanna voice their opinion and everybody wanna get their little e-props by having the biggest collection of downloadable retail albums. If you're a true hip-hop head and loves the culture you go out and support your favorite artists when they drop new music that will give you hours of pleasure - alot of that has been lost in todays fast consuming high technology world, but there's nothing like waiting for an album by a dope artist and when it finally gets released you go out and cop it, come home, throw it in the CD-player or on your turntable and play it front-to-back while reading the credits and checking out the artwork. Today people will flick through an album in 10 minutes, judging the song by how nice the beat sounds at first or if the hook is catchy - if these elements doesn't grab them right away they will simply hit next. This way people will miss some of the best music, i'm an avid fan of the ALBUM as a whole and there's countless of my favorite songs and albums that took several listens before i felt it really hit home.
With that being said this blog is about music but, understandably, not about posting retail albums at all. I like to collect rare tracks, B-sides, guest features/productions and soundtrack joints by my favorite artists and producers and i often put together little compilations to put on my iPod. I always strive to make these compilations sound as much like actual albums as possible as they always follow a theme and the sequencing is extremely important for me. Ever since i started posting my comps on the hip-hop forums i visit the most, Wu-Tang Corp., i've been getting a lot of positive feedback and multiple requests for a blog collecting all my mixes. Thanks to the good guys over there I finally gave in and here it is, i'lll call it The Lost Tapes for now since it's mostly gonna highlight songs that failed to appear on the retail albums. I also like to write about hip-hop and it's performers, so besides downloadable compilations and original albums (i love piecing together albums that was hampered due to sample clearances and what not, you'll see) expect to see a few articles and reviews every now and then. I will update it every now and then... My hope is that my compilation will make people go out and buy retail albums from these guys. If just one of my readers download, for example, the Tragedy compilations and go out and buy "Saga Of A Hoodlum" and "The War Report" then my mission is accomplished. Welcome!