title: Steve Lawrence

text: In June 2019, following public speculation about his health, Lawrence announced that he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and that treatment to slow its progression had so far been successful.


title: Steve Lawrence

text: Lawrence received a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and a Tony Award nomination for his performance as Sammy Glick in "What Makes Sammy Run?" on Broadway (1964), and two Emmy Awards, one for production for "Steve & Eydie Celebrate Irving Berlin" (1978).


title: Steve Lawrence

text: With Gormé, he has been the recipient of two Emmys for "Our Love is Here to Stay", a tribute to George and Ira Gershwin; a "Best Performance By a Vocal Duo or Group" Grammy Award for "We Got Us"; a Film Advisory Board's Award of Excellence and a Television Critics Circle Award for "From This Moment On", a tribute to Cole Porter.


title: Steve Lawrence

text: The duo also won a Las Vegas Entertainment Award for "Musical Variety Act of the Year" four times, three of them consecutively. They were honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 1995 were the recipients of an "Ella Lifetime Achievement Award" from the "Society of Singers", a non-profit organization that helps professional singers with counseling and financial assistance.


title: Bank holiday

text: A bank holiday is a national public holiday in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and the Crown Dependencies. The term refers to all public holidays in the United Kingdom, be they set out in statute, declared by royal proclamation or held by convention under common law.


title: Bank holiday

text: The term "bank holiday" refers to the fact that banking institutions typically close for business on such holidays, as they once used to do on certain Saint's days.


title: Borage

text: Borage ( or ; Borago officinalis), also known as starflower, is an annual herb in the flowering plant family Boraginaceae. It is native to the Mediterranean region, and has naturalized in many other locales.


title: Borage

text: It grows satisfactorily in gardens in most of Europe, such as Denmark, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, remaining in the garden from year to year by self-seeding. The leaves are edible and the plant is grown in gardens for that purpose in some parts of Europe.


title: Borage

text: The plant contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, some of which are hepatotoxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic (see below under Phytochemistry).


title: Borage

text: "B. officinalis" grows to a height of , and is bristly or hairy all over the stems and leaves; the leaves are alternate, simple, and long.


title: Borage

text: The flowers are complete, perfect with five narrow, triangular-pointed petals. Flowers are most often blue, although pink flowers are sometimes observed. White-flowered types are also cultivated. The blue flower is genetically dominant over the white flower.


title: Borage

text: The flowers arise along scorpioid cymes to form large floral displays with multiple flowers blooming simultaneously, suggesting that borage has a high degree of geitonogamy (intraplant pollination).


title: Borage

text: It has an indeterminate growth habit, which may lead to prolific spreading. In temperate climates such as in the UK, its flowering season is relatively long, from June to September. In milder climates, borage blooms continuously for most of the year.


title: Borage

text: Traditionally, borage was cultivated for culinary and medicinal uses, although today, commercial cultivation is mainly as an oilseed.


title: Borage

text: Borage is used as either a fresh vegetable or a dried herb. As a fresh vegetable, borage, with a cucumber-like taste, is often used in salads or as a garnish.


title: Borage

text: The flower has a sweet, honey-like taste and is often used to decorate desserts and cocktails, most commonly, frozen in ice cubes.


title: Borage

text: Vegetable use of borage is common in Germany, in the Spanish regions of Aragón and Navarre, on the Greek island of Crete, and in the northern Italian region of Liguria.


title: Borage

text: Although often used in soups, one of the better known German borage recipes is the Frankfurt speciality "grüne Soße" ("green sauce").


title: Borage

text: In Liguria, Italy, borage (in Italian, "borragine") is commonly used as a filling of the traditional pasta ravioli and pansoti.


title: Borage

text: Borage is traditionally used as a garnish in the Pimms Cup cocktail, but is nowadays often replaced by a long sliver of cucumber peel or by mint. It is also one of the key botanicals in Gilpin's Westmorland Extra Dry Gin.


title: Borage

text: In Persian cuisine, borage tea (using the dried purple flowers) is called گل گاوزبان : "gol gâvzabân", "cow's-tongue-flower".


title: Borage

text: The seeds contain 26–38% of borage seed oil, of which 17–28% is gamma-linolenic acid (GLA, an Omega-6 oil), the richest known source.


title: Borage

text: The oil also contains the fatty acids palmitic acid (10–11%), stearic acid (3.5–4.5%), oleic acid (16–20%), linoleic acid (35–38%), eicosenoic acid (3.5–5.5%), erucic acid (1.5–3.5%), and nervonic acid (1.5%).


title: Borage

text: The oil is often marketed as "starflower oil" or "borage oil" for use as a GLA supplement, although healthy adults typically produce ample GLA from dietary linoleic acid.


title: Borage

text: The leaves contain small amounts (2–10 ppm of dried herb) of the liver-toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA) intermedine, lycopsamine, amabiline, and supinine and the nontoxic saturated PA thesinine. PAs are also present in borage seed oil, but may be removed by processing.


title: Borage

text: The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment has advised that honey from borage contains PAs, transferred to the honey through pollen collected at borage plants, and advise that commercial honey production could select for raw honey with limited PA content to prevent contamination.


title: Borage

text: Traditionally, "Borago officinalis" has been used in hyperactive gastrointestinal, respiratory and cardiovascular disorders, such as gastrointestinal (colic, cramps, diarrhea), airways (asthma, bronchitis), cardiovascular, (cardiotonic, antihypertensive and blood purifier), urinary (diuretic and kidney/bladder disorders).


title: Borage

text: A methanol extract of borage has shown strong amoebicidal activity "in vitro". The 50% inhibitory concentration () of the extract against "Entamoeba histolytica" was 33 µg/mLl.


title: Borage

text: Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides said that borage was the nepenthe (νηπενθές : nēpenthés) mentioned in Homer, which caused forgetfulness when mixed with wine.


title: Borage

text: Francis Bacon thought that borage had "an excellent spirit to repress the fuliginous vapour of dusky melancholie."


title: Borage

text: John Gerard's "Herball" mentions an old verse concerning the plant: ""Ego Borago, Gaudia semper ago" (I, Borage, bring always joys)". He asserts:


title: Borage

text: Borage is used in companion planting. It is said to protect or nurse legumes, spinach, brassicas, and even strawberries. It is also said to be a good companion plant to tomatoes because it confuses the mother moths of tomato hornworms or manduca looking for a place to lay their eggs. Claims that it improves tomato growth and makes them taste better remain unsubstantiated.


title: Pension

text: A pension (, from Latin "pensiō", "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments. A pension may be a "defined benefit plan", where a fixed sum is paid regularly to a person, or a "defined contribution plan", under which a fixed sum is invested that then becomes available at retirement age. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is usually paid in regular amounts for life after retirement, while the latter is typically paid as a fixed amount after involuntary termination of employment before retirement.


title: Pension

text: The terms "retirement plan" and "superannuation" tend to refer to a pension granted upon retirement of the individual. Retirement plans may be set up by employers, insurance companies, the government, or other institutions such as employer associations or trade unions. Called "retirement plans" in the United States, they are commonly known as "pension schemes" in the United Kingdom and Ireland and "superannuation plans" (or "super") in Australia and New Zealand. Retirement pensions are typically in the form of a guaranteed life annuity, thus insuring against the risk of longevity.


title: Pension

text: A pension created by an employer for the benefit of an employee is commonly referred to as an occupational or employer pension. Labor unions, the government, or other organizations may also fund pensions. Occupational pensions are a form of deferred compensation, usually advantageous to employee and employer for tax reasons. Many pensions also contain an additional insurance aspect, since they often will pay benefits to survivors or disabled beneficiaries. Other vehicles (certain lottery payouts, for example, or an annuity) may provide a similar stream of payments.


title: Pension

text: The common use of the term "pension" is to describe the payments a person receives upon retirement, usually under pre-determined legal or contractual terms. A recipient of a retirement pension is known as a "pensioner" or "retiree".


title: Pension

text: A retirement plan is an arrangement to provide people with an income during retirement when they are no longer earning a steady income from employment. Often retirement plans require both the employer and employee to contribute money to a fund during their employment in order to receive defined benefits upon retirement. It is a tax deferred savings vehicle that allows for the tax-free accumulation of a fund for later use as retirement income. Funding can be provided in other ways, such as from labor unions, government agencies, or self-funded schemes. Pension plans are therefore a form of "deferred compensation". A SSAS is a type of employment-based Pension in the UK. The 401(k) is the iconic self-funded retirement plan that many Americans rely on for much of their retirement income; these sometimes include money from an employer, but are usually mostly or entirely funded by the individual using an elaborate scheme where money from the employee's paycheck is withheld, at their direction, to be contributed by their employer to the employee's plan. This money can be tax-deferred or not, depending on the exact nature of the plan.


title: Pension

text: Some countries also grant pensions to military veterans. Military pensions are overseen by the government; an example of a standing agency is the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. "Ad hoc" committees may also be formed to investigate specific tasks, such as the U.S. Commission on Veterans' Pensions (commonly known as the "Bradley Commission") in 1955–56. Pensions may extend past the death of the veteran himself, continuing to be paid to the widow.


title: Pension

text: Many countries have created funds for their citizens and residents to provide income when they retire (or in some cases become disabled). Typically this requires payments throughout the citizen's working life in order to qualify for benefits later on. A basic state pension is a "contribution based" benefit, and depends on an individual's contribution history. For examples, see National Insurance in the UK, or Social Security in the United States of America.


title: Pension

text: Many countries have also put in place a "social pension". These are regular, tax-funded non-contributory cash transfers paid to older people. Over 80 countries have social pensions. Some are universal benefits, given to all older people regardless of income, assets or employment record. Examples of universal pensions include New Zealand Superannuation and the Basic Retirement Pension of Mauritius. Most social pensions, though, are means-tested, such as Supplemental Security Income in the United States of America or the "older person's grant" in South Africa.


title: Pension

text: Some pension plans will provide for members in the event they suffer a disability. This may take the form of early entry into a retirement plan for a disabled member below the normal retirement age.


title: Pension

text: Retirement plans may be classified as "defined benefit", "defined contribution" or "defined ambition" / "target benefit" according to how the benefits are determined. A defined benefit plan guarantees a certain payout at retirement, according to a fixed formula which usually depends on the member's salary and the number of years' membership in the plan. A defined contribution plan will provide a payout at retirement that is dependent upon the amount of money contributed and the performance of the investment vehicles utilized. Hence, with a defined contribution plan the risk and responsibility lies with the employee that the funding will be sufficient through retirement, whereas with the defined benefit plan the risk and responsibility lies with the employer or plan managers.


title: Pension

text: Some types of retirement plans, such as "cash balance" plans, combine features of both defined benefit and defined contribution plans. They are often referred to as "hybrid" plans. Such plan designs have become increasingly popular in the US since the 1990s. Examples include Cash Balance and Pension Equity plans.


title: Pension

text: A Defined Benefit (DB) pension plan is a plan in which workers accrue pension rights during their time at a firm and upon retirement the firm pays them a benefit that is a function of that worker's tenure at the firm and of their earnings. In other words, a DB plan is a plan in which the benefit on retirement is determined by a set formula, rather than depending on investment returns. Government pensions such as Social Security in the United States are a type of defined benefit pension plan. Traditionally, defined benefit plans for employers have been administered by institutions which exist specifically for that purpose, by large businesses, or, for government workers, by the government itself. A traditional form of defined benefit plan is the "final salary" plan, under which the pension paid is equal to the number of years worked, multiplied by the member's salary at retirement, multiplied by a factor known as the "accrual rate". The final accrued amount is available as a monthly pension or a lump sum, but usually monthly.


title: Pension

text: The benefit in a defined benefit pension plan is determined by a formula that can incorporate the employee's pay, years of employment, age at retirement, and other factors. A simple example is a Dollars Times Service plan design that provides a certain amount per month based on the time an employee works for a company. For example, a plan offering $100 a month per year of service would provide $3,000 per month to a retiree with 30 years of service. While this type of plan is popular among unionized workers, Final Average Pay (FAP) remains the most common type of defined benefit plan offered in the United States. In FAP plans, the average salary over the final years of an employee's career determines the benefit amount.


title: Pension

text: Averaging salary over a number of years means that the calculation is averaging different dollars. For example, if salary is averaged over five years, and retirement is in 2006, then salary in 2001 dollars is averaged with salary in 2002 dollars, etc., with 2001 dollars being worth more than the dollars of succeeding years. The pension is then paid in first year of retirement dollars, in this example 2006 dollars, with the lowest value of any dollars in the calculation. Thus inflation in the salary averaging years has a considerable impact on purchasing power and cost, both being reduced equally by inflation.


title: Pension

text: This effect of inflation can be eliminated by converting salaries in the averaging years to first year of retirement dollars, and then averaging.


title: Pension

text: In the US, specifies a defined benefit plan to be any pension plan that is not a defined contribution plan (see below) where a defined contribution plan is any plan with individual accounts. A traditional pension plan that "defines" a "benefit" for an employee upon that employee's retirement is a defined benefit plan. In the U.S., corporate defined benefit plans, along with many other types of defined benefit plans, are governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).


title: Pension

text: In the United Kingdom, benefits are typically indexed for inflation (known as Retail Prices Index (RPI)) as required by law for registered pension plans. Inflation during an employee's retirement affects the purchasing power of the pension; the higher the inflation rate, the lower the purchasing power of a fixed annual pension. This effect can be mitigated by providing annual increases to the pension at the rate of inflation (usually capped, for instance at 5% in any given year). This method is advantageous for the employee since it stabilizes the purchasing power of pensions to some extent.


title: Pension

text: If the pension plan allows for early retirement, payments are often reduced to recognize that the retirees will receive the payouts for longer periods of time. In the United States, under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, any reduction factor less than or equal to the actuarial early retirement reduction factor is acceptable.


title: Pension

text: Many DB plans include early retirement provisions to encourage employees to retire early, before the attainment of normal retirement age (usually age 65). Companies would rather hire younger employees at lower wages. Some of those provisions come in the form of additional "temporary" or "supplemental benefits", which are payable to a certain age, usually before attaining normal retirement age.


title: Pension

text: Due to changes in pensions over the years, many pension systems, including those in Alabama, California, Indiana, and New York, have shifted to a tiered system. For a simplified example, suppose there are three employees that pay into a state pension system: Sam, Veronica, and Jessica. The state pension system has three tiers: Tier I, Tier II, and Tier III. These three tiers are based on the employee's hire date (i.e. Tier I covers 1 January 1980 (and before) to 1 January 1995, Tier II 2 January 1995 to 1 January 2010, and Tier III 1 January 2010 to present) and have different benefit provisions (e.g. Tier I employees can retire at age 50 with 80% benefits or wait until 55 with full benefits, Tier II employees can retire at age 55 with 80% benefits or wait until 60 for full benefits, Tier III employees can retire at age 65 with full benefits). Therefore, Sam, hired in June 1983, would be subject to the provisions of the Tier I scheme, whereas Veronica, hired in August 1995, would be permitted to retire at age 60 with full benefits and Jessica, hired in December 2014, would not be able to retire with full benefits until she became 65.


title: Pension

text: In an "unfunded" defined benefit pension, no assets are set aside and the benefits are paid for by the employer or other pension sponsor as and when they are paid. Pension arrangements provided by the state in most countries in the world are unfunded, with benefits paid directly from current workers' contributions and taxes. This method of financing is known as pay-as-you-go, or PAYGO". The social security systems of many European countries are unfunded, having benefits paid directly out of current taxes and social security contributions, although several countries have hybrid systems which are partially funded. Spain set up the Social Security Reserve Fund and France set up the Pensions Reserve Fund; in Canada the wage-based retirement plan (CPP) is partially funded, with assets managed by the CPP Investment Board while the U.S. Social Security system is partially funded by investment in special U.S. Treasury Bonds.


title: Pension

text: In a "funded" plan, contributions from the employer, and sometimes also from plan members, are invested in a fund towards meeting the benefits. All plans must be funded in some way, even if they are pay-as-you-go, so this type of plan is more accurately known as pre-funded or fully-funded. The future returns on the investments, and the future benefits to be paid, are not known in advance, so there is no guarantee that a given level of contributions will be enough to meet the benefits. Typically, the contributions to be paid are regularly reviewed in a valuation of the plan's assets and liabilities, carried out by an actuary to ensure that the pension fund will meet future payment obligations. This means that in a defined benefit pension, investment risk and investment rewards are typically assumed by the sponsor/employer and not by the individual. If a plan is not well-funded, the plan sponsor may not have the financial resources to continue funding the plan.


title: Pension

text: Traditional defined benefit plan designs (because of their typically flat accrual rate and the decreasing time for interest discounting as people get closer to retirement age) tend to exhibit a J-shaped accrual pattern of benefits, where the present value of benefits grows quite slowly early in an employee's career and accelerates significantly in mid-career: in other words it costs more to fund the pension for older employees than for younger ones (an "age bias"). Defined benefit pensions tend to be less portable than defined contribution plans, even if the plan allows a lump sum cash benefit at termination. Most plans, however, pay their benefits as an annuity, so retirees do not bear the risk of low investment returns on contributions or of outliving their retirement income. The open-ended nature of these risks to the employer is the reason given by many employers for switching from defined benefit to defined contribution plans over recent years. The risks to the employer can sometimes be mitigated by discretionary elements in the benefit structure, for instance in the rate of increase granted on accrued pensions, both before and after retirement.


title: Pension

text: The age bias, reduced portability and open ended risk make defined benefit plans better suited to large employers with less mobile workforces, such as the public sector (which has open-ended support from taxpayers). This coupled with a lack of foresight on the employers part means a large proportion of the workforce are kept in the dark over future investment schemes.


title: Pension

text: Defined benefit plans are sometimes criticized as being paternalistic as they enable employers or plan trustees to make decisions about the type of benefits and family structures and lifestyles of their employees. However they are typically more valuable than defined contribution plans in most circumstances and for most employees (mainly because the employer tends to pay higher contributions than under defined contribution plans), so such criticism is rarely harsh.


title: Pension

text: The "cost" of a defined benefit plan is not easily calculated, and requires an actuary or actuarial software. However, even with the best of tools, the cost of a defined benefit plan will always be an estimate based on economic and financial assumptions. These assumptions include the average retirement age and lifespan of the employees, the returns to be earned by the pension plan's investments and any additional taxes or levies, such as those required by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in the U.S. So, for this arrangement, the benefit is relatively secure but the contribution is uncertain even when estimated by a professional. This has serious cost considerations and risks for the employer offering a pension plan.


title: Pension

text: One of the growing concerns with defined benefit plans is that the level of future obligations will outpace the value of assets held by the plan. This "underfunding" dilemma can be faced by any type of defined benefit plan, private or public, but it is most acute in governmental and other public plans where political pressures and less rigorous accounting standards can result in excessive commitments to employees and retirees, but inadequate contributions. Many states and municipalities across the United States of America and Canada now face chronic pension crises.


title: Pension

text: Many countries offer state-sponsored retirement benefits, beyond those provided by employers, which are funded by payroll or other taxes. In the United States, the Social Security system is similar in function to a defined benefit pension arrangement, albeit one that is constructed differently from a pension offered by a private employer; however, Social Security is distinct in that there is no legally guaranteed level of benefits derived from the amount paid into the program.


title: Pension

text: Individuals that have worked in the UK and have paid certain levels of national insurance deductions can expect an income from the state pension scheme after their normal retirement. The state pension is currently divided into two parts: the basic state pension, State Second [tier] Pension scheme called S2P. Individuals will qualify for the basic state pension if they have completed sufficient years contribution to their national insurance record. The S2P pension scheme is earnings related and depends on earnings in each year as to how much an individual can expect to receive. It is possible for an individual to forgo the S2P payment from the state, in lieu of a payment made to an appropriate pension scheme of their choice, during their working life. For more details see UK pension provision.


title: Pension

text: A defined contribution (DC) plan, is a pension plan where employers set aside a certain proportion (i.e. contributions) of a worker's earnings (such as 5%) in an investment account, and the worker receives this savings and any accumulated investment earnings upon retirement. These contributions are paid into an individual account for each member. The contributions are invested, for example in the stock market, and the returns on the investment (which may be positive or negative) are credited to the individual's account. On retirement, the member's account is used to provide retirement benefits, sometimes through the purchase of an annuity which then provides a regular income. Defined contribution plans have become widespread all over the world in recent years, and are now the dominant form of plan in the private sector in many countries. For example, the number of defined benefit plans in the US has been steadily declining, as more and more employers see pension contributions as a large expense avoidable by disbanding the defined benefit plan and instead offering a defined contribution plan.


title: Pension

text: Money contributed can either be from employee salary deferral or from employer contributions. The portability of defined contribution pensions is legally no different from the portability of defined benefit plans. However, because of the cost of administration and ease of determining the plan sponsor's liability for defined contribution plans (you do not need to pay an actuary to calculate the lump sum equivalent that you do for defined benefit plans) in practice, defined contribution plans have become generally portable.


title: Pension

text: In a defined contribution plan, investment risk and investment rewards are assumed by each individual/employee/retiree and not by the sponsor/employer, and these risks may be substantial. In addition, participants do not necessarily purchase annuities with their savings upon retirement, and bear the risk of outliving their assets. (In the United Kingdom, for instance, it is a legal requirement to use the bulk of the fund to purchase an annuity.)


title: Pension

text: The "cost" of a defined contribution plan is readily calculated, but the benefit from a defined contribution plan depends upon the account balance at the time an employee is looking to use the assets. So, for this arrangement, the "contribution is known" but the "benefit is unknown" (until calculated).


title: Pension

text: Despite the fact that the participant in a defined contribution plan typically has control over investment decisions, the plan sponsor retains a significant degree of fiduciary responsibility over investment of plan assets, including the selection of investment options and administrative providers.


title: Pension

text: A defined contribution plan typically involves a number of service providers, including in many cases:


title: Pension

text: In the United States, the legal definition of a defined contribution plan is a plan providing for an individual account for each participant, and for benefits based solely on the amount contributed to the account, plus or minus income, gains, expenses and losses allocated to the account (see ). Examples of defined contribution plans in the United States include individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and 401(k) plans. In such plans, the employee is responsible, to one degree or another, for selecting the types of investments toward which the funds in the retirement plan are allocated. This may range from choosing one of a small number of pre-determined mutual funds to selecting individual stocks or other securities. Most self-directed retirement plans are characterized by certain tax advantages, and some provide for a portion of the employee's contributions to be matched by the employer. In exchange, the funds in such plans may not be withdrawn by the investor prior to reaching a certain age—typically the year the employee reaches 59.5 years old (with a small number of exceptions)—without incurring a substantial penalty.


title: Pension

text: Advocates of defined contribution plans point out that each employee has the ability to tailor the investment portfolio to his or her individual needs and financial situation, including the choice of how much to contribute, if anything at all. However, others state that these apparent advantages could also hinder some workers who might not possess the financial savvy to choose the correct investment vehicles or have the discipline to voluntarily contribute money to retirement accounts.


title: Pension

text: In the US, defined contribution plans are subject to IRS limits on how much can be contributed, known as the section 415 limit. In 2009, the total deferral amount, including employee contribution plus employer contribution, was limited to $49,000 or 100% of compensation, whichever is less. The employee-only limit in 2009 was $16,500 with a $5,500 catch-up. These numbers usually increase each year and are indexed to compensate for the effects of inflation. For 2015, the limits were raised to $53,000 and $18,000, respectively.


title: Pension

text: Examples of defined contribution pension schemes in other countries are, the UK's personal pensions and proposed National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), Germany's Riester plans, Australia's Superannuation system and New Zealand's KiwiSaver scheme. Individual pension savings plans also exist in Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain


title: Pension

text: Many developed economies are moving beyond DB & DC Plans and are adopting a new breed of collective risk sharing schemes where plan members pool their contributions and to a greater or less extent share the investment and longevity risk.


title: Pension

text: There are multiple naming conventions for these plans reflecting the fact that the future payouts are a "target" or "ambition" of the plan sponsor rather than a guarantee, common naming conventions include:


title: Pension

text: A cash balance plan is a defined benefit plan made to appear as if it were a defined contribution plan. They have "notional balances" in hypothetical accounts where, typically, each year the plan administrator will contribute an amount equal to a certain percentage of each participant's salary; a second contribution, called "interest credit", is made as well. These are not actual contributions and further discussion is beyond the scope of this entry suffice it to say that there is currently much controversy.


title: Pension

text: In general, they are usually treated as defined benefit plans for tax, accounting and regulatory purposes. As with defined benefit plans, investment risk in hybrid designs is largely borne by the plan sponsor. As with defined contribution designs, plan benefits are expressed in the terms of a notional "account balance," and are usually paid as cash balances upon termination of employment. These features make them more portable than traditional defined benefit plans and perhaps more attractive to a more highly mobile workforce.


title: Pension

text: Target benefit plans are defined contribution plans made to match (or resemble) defined benefit plans.


title: Pension

text: Advocates of defined contribution plans point out that each employee has the ability to tailor the investment portfolio to his or her individual needs and financial situation, including the choice of how much to contribute, if anything at all. However, others state that these apparent advantages could also hinder some workers who might not possess the financial savvy to choose the correct investment vehicles or have the discipline to voluntarily contribute money to retirement accounts. This debate parallels the discussion currently going on in the U.S., where many Republican leaders favor transforming the Social Security system, at least in part, to a self-directed investment plan.


title: Pension

text: Defined contribution pensions, by definition, are funded, as the "guarantee" made to employees is that specified (defined) contributions will be made during an individual's working life.


title: Pension

text: There are many ways to finance a pension and save for retirement. Pension plans can be set up by an employer, matching a monetary contribution each month, by the state or personally through a pension scheme with a financial institution, such as a bank or brokerage firm. Pension plans often come with a tax break depending on the country and plan type.


title: Pension

text: For example, Canadians have the option to open a registered retirement savings plan (RRSP), as well as a range of employee and state pension programs. This plan allows contributions to this account to be marked as un-taxable income and remain un-taxed until withdrawal. Most countries' governments will provide advice on pension schemes.


title: Pension

text: Social and state pensions depend largely upon legislation for their sustainability. Some have identified funds, but these hold essentially government bonds—a form of "IOU" by the state which may rank no higher than the state's promise to pay future pensions.


title: Pension

text: Occupational pensions are typically provided through employment agreements between workers and employers, and their financing structure must meet legislative requirements. In common-law jurisdictions, the law requires that pensions be pre-funded in trusts, with a range of requirements to ensure the trustees act in the best interests of the beneficiaries. These jurisdictions account for over 80% of assets held by private pension plans around the world. Of the $50.7 trillion of global assets in 2019, $32.2T were in U.S. plans, the next largest being the U.K. ($3.2T), Canada ($2.8T), Australia ($1.9T), Singapore ($0.3T), Hong Kong and Ireland (each roughly $0.2T), New Zealand, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Jamaica, etc.


title: Pension

text: Civil-law jurisdictions with statutory trust vehicles for pensions include the Netherlands ($1.8T), Japan ($1.7T), Switzerland ($1.1T), Denmark ($0.8T), Sweden, Brazil and S. Korea (each $0.5T), Germany, France, Israel, P.R. China, Mexico, Italy, Chile, Belgium, Spain and Finland (each roughly $0.2T), etc. Without the vast body of common law to draw upon, statutory trusts tend to be more uniform and tightly regulated.


title: Pension

text: However, pension assets alone are not a useful guide to the total distribution of occupational pensions around the world. It will be noted that four of the largest economies (Germany, France, Italy and Spain) have very little in the way of pension assets. Nevertheless, in terms of typical net income replacement in retirement, these countries rank well relative to those with pension assets. These and other countries represent a fundamentally different approach to pension provision, often referred to as "intergenerational solidarity".


title: Pension

text: Intergenerational solidarity operates to an extent in any country with a defined-benefit social security system, but is more controversial when applied to high levels of professional income. Why should younger generations pay for executive pensions which they themselves are unsure of collecting?  Employers have sought ways of getting round this problem through pre-funding, but in civil-law countries have often been limited by the legal vehicles available. A suitable legal vehicle should ideally have three qualities:


title: Pension

text: In the absence of appropriate statute, attempts have been made to invent suitable vehicles with varying degrees of success. The most notable has been in Germany where, until the end of the 20th century, most occupational pensions were unfunded ("book-reserved") promises by employers. Changes started in 1983 and by 1993 the preamble to proposed regulations under Section 404A of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code stated (when discussing deductible contributions to the German equivalent of a trust):...the Security Contract combines a book reserve commitment by an employer with a pledge and guaranty. First, an employer establishes a book reserve for its pension liabilities for which it receives a deduction under German law. It then establishes a wholly-owned subsidiary to which it transfers assets to fund its pension liabilities... [T]he subsidiary pledges its assets irrevocably to a custodian who then gives a guaranty to the employees to pay the benefits up to the assets pledged to the custodian in the event an employer declares bankruptcy or goes into receivership. The custodian's guaranty is intended to place a prior lien on the assets pledged and protect them from the claims of the employer's creditors in the event of bankruptcy or receivership.In December 2000, a magazine article described:...an artificial legal construction which, via a series of legal pledges between the employer, the employee and a separate custodian of the created pension fund, makes it possible to overcome the limitations of German law and establish what is effectively an Anglo Saxon-style trust. This is a model which has created a great deal of interest in Germany, and several big name employers have already adopted a similar approach to enable unrestricted funding of their occupational pension schemes. Examples include Shell, Daimler-Chrysler and Hewlett Packard.As of August 2021, a major accounting firm describes what it calls the "market standard":...the standard instrument for the (out-) financing of pension commitments... From the employer's point of view, this primarily serves the purpose of taking pension provisions off the balance sheet but also the purpose of ensuring insolvency protection under private law of those pension claims that are not covered by the statutory insolvency protection... In practice, so-called double-sided have become market standard, at the latest since the judgement of the German Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht, BAG) of 18 July 2013 (6 AZR 47/12). In this ruling, the BAG assumed the resistance to insolvency of a double-sided CTA when it comes to the insolvency protection of credit balances of employees from part-time employment relationships with older employees. The double-sided CTA comprises the trustee's administrative trust relationship with the employer for the administration of the trust assets as well as the security trust relationship between the trustee and the pension beneficiary, which is aimed at fulfilling the company pension commitment in the defined security cases. The outsourcing of pension provisions for accounting purposes requires that the trust assets which the trustor contributes to the CTA—depending on the applicability of German GAAP/HGB or IFRS accounting approach—meet the balance sheet requirements as netting cover assets (section 246 (2) sentence 2 HGB) or as netting plan assets (IAS 19.8)... The... trust assets contributed to the CTA by the trustor may only be used to meet the claims of the beneficiaries.It therefore seems fair to say that first tax deductions, then favorable accounting treatment, spurred innovation in pension-financing structure which secured beneficiaries' rights, quite independently of government initiative. Similar developments have occurred elsewhere, but the large scale of the German pension assets involved (not officially measured but at least in the several tens of billion dollars) make its story unique.


title: Pension

text: In the classical world, Romans offered veteran legionnaires (centurions) military pensions, typically in the form of a land grant or a special, often semi-public, appointment. Augustus Caesar (63 BC–AD 14) introduced one of the first recognisable pension schemes in history with his military treasury. In 13 BC Augustus created a pension plan in which retired soldiers were to receive a pension (of minimum 3,000 denarii in a lump sum, which at the time represented around 13 times a legionnaires' annual salary) after 16 years of service in a legion and four years in the military reserves. The retiring soldiers were in the beginning paid from general revenues and later from a special fund ("aeririum militare") established by Augustus in 5 or 6 AD. This was in an attempt to quell a rebellion within the Roman Empire which was facing militaristic turmoil at the time. This, whilst did ease tensions within the empire, allegedly became one of the main reasons for the Empires eventual collapse as it struggled to finance the extensive support to which it committed itself. Despite helping the military, the Empire did little to help ordinary systems as the concept of social security came around at a much later time in history.


title: Pension

text: Widows' funds were among the first pension type arrangement to appear. For example, Duke Ernest the Pious of Gotha in Germany founded a widows' fund for clergy in 1645 and another for teachers in 1662. "Various schemes of provision for ministers' widows were then established throughout Europe at about the start of the eighteenth century, some based on a single premium others based on yearly premiums to be distributed as benefits in the same year."


title: Pension

text: Modern forms of pension systems were first introduced in the late 19th century. Germany was the first country to introduce a universal pension program for employees.


title: Pension

text: As part of Otto von Bismarck's social legislation, the Old Age and Disability Insurance Bill was enacted and implemented in 1889. The Old Age Pension program, financed by a tax on workers, was originally designed to provide a pension annuity for workers who reached the age of 70 years, though this was lowered to 65 years in 1916. Unlike accident insurance and health insurance, this program covered industrial, agrarian, artisans and servants from the start and was supervised directly by the state.


title: Pension

text: Germany's mandatory state pension provisions are based on the pay-as-you-go (or redistributive) model. Funds paid in by contributors (employees and employers) are not saved and neither invested but are used to pay current pension obligations.


title: Pension

text: Recently, the German government has come under criticism for the impending disaster posed by the exorbitant tax burden resulting from civil servants' pensions. A study, commissioned by the Taxpayers Association, that Professor Bernd Raffelhüschen of the Generation Contracts Research Center of the University of Freiburg carried out states that by 2050, the state will have to spend 1.3 to 1.4 trillion EUR to supply its civil servants. The majority of it, about 870 billion EUR, is therefore spent on pensions.


title: Pension

text: The federal government's financial statements for 2016 already show the extent of that disaster. According to this, the expected costs for pensions and subsidies for medical treatment for the number of federal civil servants at the end of 2016 will amount to 647 billion EUR over the course of the next ten years. That is 63 billion EUR more than in the previous year—an increase of ten percent in just one year.


title: Pension

text: Officials, judges and soldiers account for 238.4 billion EUR of the expected pension expenditure of almost 478 billion EUR. In addition, there are legacy issues from the times of large state-owned companies: the federal government has to pay out 171 billion EUR for old-age pensions for former postal officials and 68.5 billion EUR for former railway officials.


title: Pension

text: The problem: while the government preaches private pension provision to workers, the state itself has failed to build adequate reserves for the wave of pensions in the coming years. The federal government has been trying to create a cushion since 2007. So far, however, this has amounted to only 14 billion EUR by 2018. Professor Bernd Raffelhüschen criticised that the state had made high pension commitments for decades, "but initially didn't build up any reserves for a long time."


title: Pension

text: Pensions, thus, represent a considerable burden for public budgets. As Professor Bernd Raffelhüschen calculated in his study in 2005, the present value of the pension burden for the federal states amounts to 1,797 billion EUR, which is larger than the Germany's total public debt.


title: Pension

text: In various federal states, efforts are being made to secure pension expenditure by setting up pension funds for newly hired civil servants. Fiscal relief is, however, to be expected only when the newly hired officials retire. The share of tax revenue needed to supply for the pensions will increase from approximately 10% in 2001 in many federal states to over 20% in 2020. In the extreme case of the city-state of Hamburg, every fourth euro of income will be used to finance pensions for their retired civil servants.


title: Pension

text: There is a history of pensions in Ireland that can be traced back to Brehon Law imposing a legal responsibility on the kin group to take care of its members who were aged, blind, deaf, sick or insane. For a discussion on pension funds and early Irish law, see F Kelly, "A Guide to Early Irish Law" (Dublin, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1988). In 2010, there were over 76,291 pension schemes operating in Ireland.


title: Pension

text: In January 2018, a "total contributions approach" qualification system was announced, effective from March 2018, for those pensioners who reached state pension age after 1 September 2012. The new system requires a person to have 40 years' worth or contributions to receive the full rate and a minimum total period of paid contributions of 520 weeks with ten years' full coverage. The State Pension is payable from age 66 with the age being increased to 67 in 2021 and 68 in 2028.


title: Pension

text: The decline of Feudal systems and formation of national states throughout Europe led to the reemergence of standing armies with their allegiances to states. Consequently, the sixteenth century in England marked the establishment of standardised systems of military pensions. During its 1592–93 session, Parliament established disability payments or "reliefe for Souldiours ... [who] adventured their lives and lost their limbs or disabled their bodies" in the service of the Crown. This pension was again generous by contemporary standards, even though annual pensions were not to exceed ten pounds for "private soldiers", or twenty pounds for a "lieutenant".


title: Pension

text: The beginning of the modern state pension came with the Old Age Pensions Act 1908, that provided 5 shillings (£0.25) a week for those over 70 whose annual means do not exceed £31.50. It coincided with the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress 1905-09 and was the first step in the Liberal welfare reforms to the completion of a system of social security, with unemployment and health insurance through the National Insurance Act 1911.


title: Pension

text: In 1921, The Finance Act introduced tax relief on pension contributions in line with savings and life insurance. As a consequence, the overall size of the fund was increased since the income tax was now added to the pension as well.


title: Pension

text: Then in 1978, The State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme (SERPS) replaced The Graduated Pension Scheme from 1959, providing a pension related to earnings, in addition to the basic state pension. Employees and employers had the possibility to contribute to it between 6 April 1978 and 5 April 2002, when it was replaced by the State Second Pension.


title: Pension

text: After the Second World War, the National Insurance Act 1946 completed universal coverage of social security, introducing a State Pension for everybody on a contributory basis, with men being eligible at 65 and women at 60. The National Assistance Act 1948 formally abolished the poor law, and gave a minimum income to those not paying National Insurance.


title: Pension

text: The early-1990s established the existing framework for state pensions in the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 and Superannuation and other Funds (Validation) Act 1992. Following the highly respected Goode Report, occupational pensions were covered by comprehensive statutes in the Pension Schemes Act 1993 and the Pensions Act 1995.


title: Pension

text: In 2002, the Pensions Commission was established as a cross-party body to review pensions in the United Kingdom. The first Act to follow was the Pensions Act 2004 that updated regulation by replacing OPRA with the Pensions Regulator and relaxing the stringency of minimum funding requirements for pensions while ensuring protection for insolvent businesses. In a major update of the state pension, the Pensions Act 2007, which aligned and raised retirement ages. Following that, the Pensions Act 2008 has set up automatic enrolment for occupational pensions, and a public competitor designed to be a low-cost and efficient fund manager, called the National Employment Savings Trust (or "Nest").


title: Pension

text: First "American" pensions came in 1636, when Plymouth colony, and subsequently, other colonies such as Virginia, Maryland (1670s) and NY (1690s), offered the first colonial pension. The general assembly of the Virginia Company followed by approving a resolution known as Virginia Act IX of 1644 stating that "...all hurt or maymed men be relieved and provided for by the several counties, where such men reside or inhabit." Furthermore, during King Philip's War, otherwise known as the First Indian War, this Act was expanded to widows and orphans in Virginia's Act of 1675.


title: Pension

text: Public pensions got their start with various 'promises', informal and legislated, made to veterans of the Revolutionary War and, more extensively, the Civil War. They were expanded greatly, and began to be offered by a number of state and local governments during the early Progressive Era in the late nineteenth century.


title: Pension

text: Federal civilian pensions were offered under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), formed in 1920. CSRS provided retirement, disability and survivor benefits for most civilian employees in the US Federal government, until the creation of a new Federal agency, the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), in 1987.


title: Pension

text: Pension plans became popular in the United States during World War II, when wage freezes prohibited outright increases in workers' pay. The defined benefit plan had been the most popular and common type of retirement plan in the United States through the 1980s; since that time, defined contribution plans have become the more common type of retirement plan in the United States and many other western countries.


title: Pension

text: In April 2012, the Northern Mariana Islands Retirement Fund filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The retirement fund is a defined benefit type pension plan and was only partially funded by the government, with only $268.4 million in assets and $911 million in liabilities. The plan experienced low investment returns and a benefit structure that had been increased without raises in funding.


title: Pension

text: According to "Pensions and Investments", this is "apparently the first" US public pension plan to declare bankruptcy.


title: Pension

text: A growing challenge for many nations is population ageing. As birth rates drop and life expectancy increases an ever-larger portion of the population is elderly. This leaves fewer workers for each retired person. In many developed countries this means that government and public sector pensions could potentially be a drag on their economies unless pension systems are reformed or taxes are increased. One method of reforming the pension system is to increase the retirement age. Two exceptions are Australia and Canada, where the pension system is forecast to be solvent for the foreseeable future. In Canada, for instance, the annual payments were increased by some 70% in 1998 to achieve this. These two nations also have an advantage from their relative openness to immigration: immigrants tend to be of working age. However, their populations are not growing as fast as the U.S., which supplements a high immigration rate with one of the highest birthrates among Western countries. Thus, the population in the U.S. is not ageing to the extent as those in Europe, Australia, or Canada.


title: Pension

text: Another growing challenge is the recent trend of states and businesses in the United States purposely under-funding their pension schemes in order to push the costs onto the federal government. For example, in 2009, the majority of states have unfunded pension liabilities exceeding all reported state debt. Bradley Belt, former executive director of the PBGC (the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the federal agency that insures private-sector defined-benefit pension plans in the event of bankruptcy), testified before a Congressional hearing in October 2004, "I am particularly concerned with the temptation, and indeed, growing tendency, to use the pension insurance fund as a means to obtain an interest-free and risk-free loan to enable companies to restructure. Unfortunately, the current calculation appears to be that shifting pension liabilities onto other premium payers or potentially taxpayers is the path of least resistance rather than a last resort."


title: Pension

text: Challenges have further been increased by the post-2007 credit crunch. Total funding of the nation's 100 largest corporate pension plans fell by $303bn in 2008, going from a $86bn surplus at the end of 2007 to a $217bn deficit at the end of 2008.


title: Pension

text: Most national pension systems are based on multi-pillar schemes to ensure greater flexibility and financial security to the old in contrast to reliance on one single system. In general, there are three main functions of pension systems: saving, redistribution and insurance functions.


title: Pension

text: According to the report by the World Bank titled "Averting the Old Age Crisis", countries should consider separating the saving and redistributive functions, when creating pension systems, and placing them under different financing and managerial arrangements into three main pillars.


title: Pension

text: However, this typology is rather a prescriptive than a descriptive one and most specialists usually allocate all public programmes to the first pillar, including earnings-related public schemes, which does not fit the original definition of the first pillar.


title: Pension

text: This non-contributory pillar was introduced only recently, aiming to alleviate poverty among the elderly, and permitting fiscal conditions. It is usually financed by the state and is in form of basic pension schemes or social assistance. In some typologies, the zero and the first pillar overlap.


title: Pension

text: Pillar 1, sometimes referred to as "the public pillar" or "first-tier", answers the aim to prevent the poverty of the elderly, provide some absolute, minimum income based on solidarity and replace some portion of lifetime pre-retirement income. It is financed on a redistributive principle without constructing large reserves and takes the form of mandatory contributions linked to earnings such as minimum pensions within earnings-related plans, or separate targeted programs for retirement income. These are provided by the public sector and typically financed on pay-as-you-go basis.


title: Pension

text: Pillar 2, or "the second tier," built on the basis of defined benefit and defined contribution plans with independent investment management, aims to protect the elderly from relative poverty and provides benefits supplementary to the income from the first pillar to contributors. Therefore, the second pillar fulfils the insurance function. In addition to DB's and DC's, other types of pension schemes of the second pillar are "the contingent accounts", known also as Notional Defined Contributions (implemented for example in Italy, Latvia, Poland and Sweden) or "occupational pension schemes" (applied, for instance, in Estonia, Germany and Norway).


title: Pension

text: The third tier consists of voluntary contributions in various different forms, including occupational or private saving plans, and products for individuals.


title: Pension

text: The fourth pillar is usually excluded from classifications since it does not usually have a legal basis and consists of "informal support (such as family), other formal social programs (such as health care or housing), and other individual assets (such as home ownership and reverse mortgages)."


title: Pension

text: Government can play with four different channels to finance the retirement pension. These economic policies are the following ones:


title: Pension

text: These channels have been used by many governments to implement new retirement pension reforms. In the past, they had been sometimes simultaneously used (two or three channels used in the same time for a pension reform) or with a targeted way (on a certain group of persons such as in a certain business sector).


title: Pension

text: Retirement pensions turn out to be considerable amounts of money. For instance, in France, it is about 300 billion euros each year, namely 14-15% of French GDP. It is therefore very interesting and informative to illustrate the impacts of these different channels to finance the retirement pension, especially nowadays since many riots take place in different countries against new retirement pension reforms or willing to change the national retirement pension process.


title: Pension

text: Simulating these economic policies is then useful to understand every mechanism linked to these channels. Four different channels to finance retirement pensions will be simulated successively and will allow to explain their impacts on main economic variables presented below with an eight-year horizon. Some software of macroeconomic simulation allows to compute and display them. The implementation of these economic shocks and their mechanisms will be analysed in the following sections.


title: Pension

text: The economic variables of interest are various but the main ones can be chosen as follows: GDP level (impact in %), total employment level (impact in %), price index (impact in %), price growth rate (impact in points), current account (impact in GDP points), public finance balance (impact in GDP points) An objective relation may also be used. This one is a linear combination of the previous variables. This one is weighted according to the prominence given to some variables. For instance, if the government mainly focuses on GDP level and public finance balance, their assigned coefficient can be chosen as 0.3 each (the sum of the coefficients must be equal to 1). Other more specific variables could be used such as: household expenses level, corporate investments level, domestic demand level, purchasing power level and the like.


title: Pension

text: As a consequence, simulations are very relevant for everyone to understand the impacts of these channels to finance the retirement pension. However, simulations could be used in a reverse manner. Given the objective of government to get an economic variable improvement by a certain number, the four channels can be adjusted in order to achieve this goal. For example, a government may have an objective to get a public finance improvement by 2/3 GDP point the year 8.


title: Pension

text: In order to lead these simulations, the choice of hypotheses assumed is crucial. Concerning exchange rates, one can use the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) measurement which happens to be an absolute purchasing power comparison in the countries concerned. Regarding interest rates, one can choose the Taylor Rule with a risk premium coefficient of -0.1. External trade price elasticities can also be assumedtobe -1. When it comes to Monetary Union, it depends on which country the study and thus the simulations are led. A Monetary Union can be concerned with any country. However, in order to get consistent results, a country such as Germany, France or Italy could be analysed. In this case, the monetary union is established with other European countries members of the euro area. Finally, every economic policy is led in the country concerned only.


title: Pension

text: This economic shock is to permanently decrease the amount of real pensions paid to retirees by for example 1 GDP point. Transfers from public power to households are therefore dropped by 1 GDP point. In the case of France (given 14–15% of GDP corresponds to retirement pensions), this is a drop of 7.5% of mass pension benefits.


title: Pension

text: It proves to be demand shock insofar as the household's available income decreases in the short term. This drop of purchasing power implies a diminishment of consumption and of demand in general. The activity is then negatively affected. However, the current account is improved as imports decrease following the reduce of domestic demand. In the medium term, since this cut of consumption and demand, unemployment increases. The price index decreases as the consumption price drops. As a consequence, exports increase. The real labour cost falls increasing thus companies' margins which limits the degradation of investments. The drop of consumption remains higher than the increase of current account which thereby results in the decrease of GDP. The public finance balance increases following the diminishment of pension benefits spent to retirees. However, unemployment benefits increase and given the drop of consumption and of household's incomes, which implies a fall in the incomes received from income tax and VAT by public administration.


title: Pension

text: This economic shock involves the permanent increase of employee social contribution by for instance 2 points. This social contribution is spent by household as a share of mass wages received by them.


title: Pension

text: It turns out to be a demand shock because household's disposable income decreases from the short term. Indeed, the income perceived by employees is reduced following the increase of employee social contribution. As the previous channel, the drop of purchasing power result in a diminishment of consumption and demand in general. It implies a drop in activity. However, the current account is improved as imports are reduced following the cut of interior demand. In the medium term, the implications are similar to the decrease of real pensions. Employment and the price index decrease. Exports increase and the drop of investments is limited. The GDP decreases too. Finally, in the short term, the public finance balance increases but is quickly limited (but remains an increase) with the decrease of revenues from VAT and income taxes and the increase of unemployment.


title: Pension

text: This economic shock is to permanently increase employer social contribution by for instance 2 points. This social contribution is spent by employer as a share of mass wages paid to each employee.


title: Pension

text: It proves to be a supply economic shock. Indeed, the rise of the labour cost degrades the labour demand and increases the costs of production. The competitivity is degraded and results in the drop of the purchasing power. Job losses are then attended: the unemployment strongly increases. This shock is also inflationary given that household's consumption prices rise. As corporations' profitability drops, exports and companies' investment fall too. The current account drops and this shock is not expansionist: the GDP decreases. Finally, the public finance balance is improved but less than planned. Indeed, employer social contribution is increased but it happens to be less than expected as unemployment rises. In addition, income tax is lower than before the shock, employee social contribution increases and unemployment benefits expenses increase.


title: Pension

text: This economic shock involves an increase of the retirement age. To do so, it implies a permanent increase in the working age of for instance 2% and to decrease the number of retirees of an equivalent amount. For this last step, it is tantamount to decrease global real pensions by a certain number of GDP point. In order to find this precise number for the simulation, we can assume people live on average 80 years, study during 20 years and are retirees during 20 years. As a consequence, an increase of 2% for life expectancy at work amounts to a decrease of 4% for life expectancy in retirement. Real pensions make globally a certain percentage of the GDP according to the country chosen. By knowing it, you can finally find the certain number of GDP point to simulate the decrease of number of retirees. For instance, in France real pensions make globally around 15% of GDP. Finally, -4% of 15% makes a decrease of 0.6 of GDP point.


title: Pension

text: In the short term, this labour force shock (supply policy) leads to an increase of unemployment which negatively affects household's purchasing power. The consumption decreases along with demand in general which leads to a decrease of activity. However, the current account is improved as imports are reduced with the drop of domestic demand. In the medium term, through the rise of unemployment, gross salary and the real labour cost progressively decreases. It results in the progressive increase of employment and thus the gradual decrease of unemployment. The household's consumption prices decrease: this shock is deflationary. The competitivity is improved which lead to a job creation and the boost of economic activity. The GDP increases and this shock is therefore expansionist. Administration's financing capacity improved in the short term happens to be limited in the medium term. Indeed, the drop of prices decreases the tax bases, especially household income.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: In geometry, an equilateral triangle is a triangle in which all three sides have the same length. In the familiar Euclidean geometry, an equilateral triangle is also equiangular; that is, all three internal angles are also congruent to each other and are each 60°. It is also a regular polygon, so it is also referred to as a regular triangle.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Denoting the common length of the sides of the equilateral triangle as formula_1, we can determine using the Pythagorean theorem that:


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Many of these quantities have simple relationships to the altitude ("h") of each vertex from the opposite side:


title: Equilateral triangle

text: In an equilateral triangle, the altitudes, the angle bisectors, the perpendicular bisectors, and the medians to each side coincide.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: A triangle "ABC" that has the sides "a", "b", "c", semiperimeter "s", area "T", exradii "r", "r", "r" (tangent to "a", "b", "c" respectively), and where "R" and "r" are the radii of the circumcircle and incircle respectively, is equilateral if and only if any one of the statements in the following nine categories is true. Thus these are properties that are unique to equilateral triangles, and knowing that any one of them is true directly implies that we have an equilateral triangle.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Every triangle center of an equilateral triangle coincides with its centroid, which implies that the equilateral triangle is the only triangle with no Euler line connecting some of the centers. For some pairs of triangle centers, the fact that they coincide is enough to ensure that the triangle is equilateral. In particular:


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Morley's trisector theorem states that, in any triangle, the three points of intersection of the adjacent angle trisectors form an equilateral triangle.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Napoleon's theorem states that, if equilateral triangles are constructed on the sides of any triangle, either all outward, or all inward, the centers of those equilateral triangles themselves form an equilateral triangle.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: A version of the isoperimetric inequality for triangles states that the triangle of greatest area among all those with a given perimeter is equilateral.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Viviani's theorem states that, for any interior point "P" in an equilateral triangle with distances "d", "e", and "f" from the sides and altitude "h", formula_30 independent of the location of "P".


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Pompeiu's theorem states that, if "P" is an arbitrary point in the plane of an equilateral triangle "ABC" but not on its circumcircle, then there exists a triangle with sides of lengths "PA", "PB", and "PC". That is, "PA", "PB", and "PC" satisfy the triangle inequality that the sum of any two of them is greater than the third. If "P" is on the circumcircle then the sum of the two smaller ones equals the longest and the triangle has degenerated into a line, this case is known as Van Schooten's theorem.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: By Euler's inequality, the equilateral triangle has the smallest ratio "R"/"r" of the circumradius to the inradius of any triangle: specifically, "R"/"r" = 2.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: The triangle of largest area of all those inscribed in a given circle is equilateral; and the triangle of smallest area of all those circumscribed around a given circle is equilateral.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: The ratio of the area of the incircle to the area of an equilateral triangle, formula_31, is larger than that of any non-equilateral triangle.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: The ratio of the area to the square of the perimeter of an equilateral triangle, formula_32 is larger than that for any other triangle.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: If a segment splits an equilateral triangle into two regions with equal perimeters and with areas "A" and "A", then


title: Equilateral triangle

text: If a triangle is placed in the complex plane with complex vertices "z", "z", and "z", then for either non-real cube root formula_34 of 1 the triangle is equilateral if and only if


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Given a point "P" in the interior of an equilateral triangle, the ratio of the sum of its distances from the vertices to the sum of its distances from the sides is greater than or equal to 2, equality holding when "P" is the centroid. In no other triangle is there a point for which this ratio is as small as 2. This is the Erdős–Mordell inequality; a stronger variant of it is Barrow's inequality, which replaces the perpendicular distances to the sides with the distances from "P" to the points where the angle bisectors of ∠"APB", ∠"BPC", and ∠"CPA" cross the sides ("A", "B", and "C" being the vertices).


title: Equilateral triangle

text: For any point "P" in the plane, with distances "p", "q", and "t" from the vertices "A", "B", and "C" respectively,


title: Equilateral triangle

text: where "R" is the circumscribed radius and "L" is the distance between point "P" and the centroid of the equilateral triangle.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: For any point "P" on the inscribed circle of an equilateral triangle, with distances "p", "q", and "t" from the vertices,


title: Equilateral triangle

text: For any point "P" on the minor arc BC of the circumcircle, with distances "p", "q", and "t" from A, B, and C respectively,


title: Equilateral triangle

text: moreover, if point D on side BC divides PA into segments PD and DA with DA having length "z" and PD having length "y", then


title: Equilateral triangle

text: There are numerous triangle inequalities that hold with equality if and only if the triangle is equilateral.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: An equilateral triangle is the most symmetrical triangle, having 3 lines of reflection and rotational symmetry of order 3 about its center. Its symmetry group is the dihedral group of order 6 "D".


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Equilateral triangles are the only triangles whose Steiner inellipse is a circle (specifically, it is the incircle).


title: Equilateral triangle

text: The integer-sided equilateral triangle is the only triangle with integer sides and three rational angles as measured in degrees.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: The equilateral triangle is the only acute triangle that is similar to its orthic triangle (with vertices at the feet of the altitudes) (the heptagonal triangle being the only obtuse one).


title: Equilateral triangle

text: The equilateral triangle can be inscribed inside any other regular polygon, including itself, with the square being the only other regular polygon with this property.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: The equilateral triangle tiles two dimensional space, with six triangles meeting at a vertex. It has a regular dual tessellation, the hexagonal tiling. 3.12, 3.4.6.4, (3.6), 3.4.3.4, and 3.6 are all semi-regular tessellations constructed with equilateral triangles.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Equilateral triangles are found in many other geometric constructs. The intersection of circles whose centers are a radius width apart is a pair of equilateral arches, each of which can be inscribed with an equilateral triangle. In three dimensions, they form faces of regular and uniform polyhedra. Three of the five Platonic solids are composed of equilateral triangles: the tetrahedron, octahedron and icosahedron. In particular, the tetrahedron, which has four equilateral triangles for faces, can be considered the three-dimensional analogue of the triangle. All Platonic solids can inscribe tetrahedra, as well as be inscribed inside tetrahedra.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Also in the third dimension, equilateral triangles form uniform antiprisms as well as uniform star antiprisms. For antiprisms, two (non-mirrored) parallel copies of regular polygons are connected by alternating bands of 2"n" triangles. Specifically for star antiprisms, there are prograde and retrograde (crossed) solutions that join mirrored and non-mirrored parallel star polygons.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: An equilateral triangle is easily constructed using a straightedge and compass, because 3 is a Fermat prime. Draw a straight line, and place the point of the compass on one end of the line, and swing an arc from that point to the other point of the line segment. Repeat with the other side of the line. Finally, connect the point where the two arcs intersect with each end of the line segment


title: Equilateral triangle

text: An alternative method is to draw a circle with radius "r", place the point of the compass on the circle and draw another circle with the same radius. The two circles will intersect in two points. An equilateral triangle can be constructed by taking the two centers of the circles and either of the points of intersection.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: The proof that the resulting figure is an equilateral triangle is the first proposition in Book I of Euclid's "Elements".


title: Equilateral triangle

text: The area formula formula_46 in terms of side length "a" can be derived directly using the Pythagorean theorem or using trigonometry.


title: Equilateral triangle

text: The legs of either right triangle formed by an altitude of the equilateral triangle are half of the base "a", and the hypotenuse is the side "a" of the equilateral triangle. The height of an equilateral triangle can be found using the Pythagorean theorem


title: Equilateral triangle

text: Using trigonometry, the area of a triangle with any two sides "a" and "b", and an angle "C" between them is


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Michael Anthony Sobolewski (born June 20, 1954) is an American musician who was the bassist and backing vocalist for the hard rock band Van Halen from 1974 to 2006. He performed on Van Halen's first 11 albums and was their longest-tenured bassist. Following his 2006 departure, Anthony has collaborated with fellow former Van Halen bandmate Sammy Hagar for the supergroups Chickenfoot and Sammy Hagar and the Circle. In addition to his music career, he markets a line of hot sauces named Mad Anthony and related products. Anthony was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Van Halen in 2007.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony got his interest in music from his father, who played trumpet. Anthony began by playing trumpet.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony was partly raised in Chicago. The family moved to California twice in Anthony's early years, settling in 1966 in Arcadia, California (Arcadia being located next to Pasadena, where Alex and Edward Van Halen, with whom Anthony would later play in the band Van Halen, were raised). Anthony attended Dana Junior High School, in Arcadia, California, from 1967 to 1969. Anthony was in the marching band at the school. He ran track in junior high and also showed promise in baseball, as a catcher, but by the time he started high school he had ceased doing athletics to concentrate on music.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony took an interest in guitar as a teenager, but picked up the bass instead since most of his other friends already played guitar or drums. Anthony's friend Mike Hershey gave him a Fender Mustang electric guitar that Anthony converted by removing the two highest strings and playing it as a bass guitar. Eventually, his father bought him a Victoria copy of a Fender Precision Bass and a Gibson amplifier. Anthony mostly modelled his bass playing after Jack Bruce of Cream, but also admired Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones and Harvey Brooks of Electric Flag. His first band was called Poverty's Children. Other bands he played in included Black Opal, Balls, and Snake. Although Anthony is naturally left-handed, he plays right-handed.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Snake, a three-piece group featuring Anthony on lead vocals and bass guitar, was the last band in which Anthony played before joining Van Halen. Snake played covers of ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Foghat, along with some original songs. They played several of the same types of gigs as did the Van Halen brothers' band Mammoth. Snake once opened for Mammoth during a show at Pasadena High School. Mammoth's PA failed that night, so Anthony lent them Snake's PA.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: While attending Pasadena City College, majoring in music, Anthony met Eddie Van Halen, who also took classes there. During this time, bass player Mark Stone parted ways with Mammoth and the Van Halens auditioned Anthony as a replacement. Anthony was impressed by their skill during subsequent jam sessions even though he had heard the brothers play before. After the session, the Van Halen brothers asked Anthony to join their band. One story claims that he first consulted Snake guitarist Tony Caggiano, who advised Anthony to join up with the guitar prodigy and his brother. However, according to Anthony's web site, he immediately accepted. This has become the accepted version of events.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony had planned to attend college in Santa Barbara after he graduated from Pasadena City College, but instead he dropped out of PCC just before he earned enough credits for a degree so that he could devote all his time to Van Halen.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: In 1974, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth and Anthony became known as Van Halen, dropping the name Mammoth when they discovered another local band using that moniker. After successfully navigating the Los Angeles & West Hollywood club scene and a 29 track demo produced by Kiss's Gene Simmons, Van Halen was signed to Warner Bros. in 1977 and released their self-titled debut album on February 10, 1978. Anthony was a 20% member (manager Noel Monk being the 5th) of all debts and profits, including merchandise, until midway through the 1984 tour, when tensions rose to the point that Roth and the Van Halen brothers insisted that he sign away all future songwriting credit and royalties, retroactive with the current "1984" LP. Noel Monk later wrote of the event, "If I were Mike, I would have told them to 'fuck off' and not played that night, to show them my worth. Instead Mike didn't say a word and signed away millions of dollars, as the three stood over him, lying on the floor."


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: The band released a total of eleven studio albums from 1978 through 1998, a live album in 1993, as well as two greatest hits compilations during Anthony's tenure with the band.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony produced a 1988 demo for his brother (Robert Lee Sobolewski) Bobby Leigh's band Asylum Suite, which was formed in 1984 and featured singer Michael Thomas Fiore.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: As early as 1996, rumors periodically surfaced that Anthony had been fired from Van Halen, despite claims to the contrary. Anthony continued working with the band although the rumors persisted until his actual departure following the 2004 reunion tour with Hagar.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony's involvement in recording the 1998 album "Van Halen III" was dramatically less than previous albums. Anthony played bass on three songs, with Eddie playing the bass parts for the remainder. Anthony is credited as a songwriter for the album along with the rest of the band. Anthony performed with the band for the 1998 tour, and was credited on messages from the band thereafter. He participated in the band's three reunion efforts with David Lee Roth in 1996, 2000 and 2001 (with the latter resulting in early versions of "A Different Kind of Truth" tracks). Anthony's name was also credited in a few band newsletters and appeared in band interviews during this time. Sometime after this, Anthony disappeared from public view until the 2004 reunion.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony began periodic appearances with Sammy Hagar during his solo tours. He usually played as part of both the Waboritas and Los Tres Gusanos, two of Hagar's bands. During 2002's Roth/Hagar tour (otherwise known as the "Sans Halen" or "Sam and Dave" tour), both Anthony and ex-Van Halen vocalist Gary Cherone made guest appearances at concerts, sometimes together.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: In 2002, Anthony, Hagar, Neal Schon, Deen Castronovo, and Joe Satriani formed the supergroup Planet Us and Anthony began making more frequent performances at Hagar concerts. Planet Us recorded two songs, including "Psycho Vertigo", which was intended for the original "Spider-Man" soundtrack but ultimately did not make the album. That and the other Planet Us song written for the band, "Peephole", were later released on the 2008 Hagar solo album "Cosmic Universal Fashion".


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Initially when Eddie and Alex asked Hagar to rejoin at the end of 2003 for a 2004 tour, the plan was to not invite Anthony back. Hagar, however, refused to perform if Anthony did not rejoin, and Anthony agreed to play but on a reduced royalties contract. The contract drawn up was for the duration of the tour only.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: In 2004, Van Halen released the compilation album "The Best of Both Worlds" which included three new songs. Anthony did not participate in the writing of nor did he play bass on the new songs and was not credited on the album for the new material, although he did sing backup vocals on all of them.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony now states in media interviews that he has not spoken to the Van Halen brothers since the 2004 tour, except to Alex at the funeral of Van Halen drum tech Greg Emerson. He has also speculated that since the brothers were not pleased with Hagar's commercial ventures such as the Cabo Wabo product line, their similar displeasure with Anthony's hot sauce brand may have caused the rift that ultimately separated Hagar and Anthony from the band.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony spent the summer of 2006 touring as a member of the Other Half during a segment of the Sammy Hagar and the Waboritas tour. The Other Half featured Anthony and Hagar performing classic Van Halen songs from both the Roth and Hagar periods.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: On September 8, 2006, Eddie Van Halen announced that his son Wolfgang was replacing Anthony as Van Halen's bass player. On February 2, 2007, Van Halen announced that they were reuniting for a tour with original vocalist David Lee Roth. Their tour began on September 27, 2007. Anthony commented that he heard about his replacement "on the Internet" and added, "I'm a little miffed that they're calling it a Van Halen reunion. If I was dead and they needed someone to play, that's one thing, but to me this is not a reunion." At the tour press conference David Lee Roth stated, "This is not a reunion, this is a revision."


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony joined Hagar on live national television on February 25, 2007, during a pre-race performance for the California NASCAR race on Fox television. Anthony jumped onstage and joined Hagar during a performance of "I Can't Drive 55."


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony and Hagar were the only members, former or current, to appear at Van Halen's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, 2007. Eddie Van Halen was in rehab at the time, and Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth declined to appear.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony is a founding member, bassist and backing vocalist for the band Chickenfoot with Sammy Hagar, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and guitarist Joe Satriani. The band released their first studio album in Europe on June 5, 2009, followed by the North American release on June 9. Chickenfoot released their sophomore effort, "Chickenfoot III", on September 27, 2011.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony is a member of Sammy Hagar and the Circle, a supergroup that formed in 2014 and features Hagar as well as guitarist Vic Johnson and drummer Jason Bonham.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony met Sue Hendry when both attended Arcadia High School. They married in 1981. They have two daughters: Elisha (born 1985) and Taylor (born 1992). Anthony and his family reside in Newport Beach, California. He can be seen during televised car shows, often being interviewed regarding his love and knowledge for classic motorcycles and cars.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony mostly stayed on the sidelines of the rockstar "party hard" lifestyle, though he was often seen and photographed with a cigarette and a Jack Daniel's (whiskey logo) bass guitar.


title: Michael Anthony (musician)

text: Anthony maintains a personal website titled "Mad Anthony's Cafe" where he markets and sells a number of signature products including hot sauce, BBQ sauce, and hot mustard. His line of commercial foods is the result of a collaboration with a San Diego, California restaurant noted for its hot sauces. His hot sauce brand, "Mad Anthony," has been noted on local news segments and on the Food Network for being "high-end" due to the quality of its ingredients and manufacturing process. The site also provides information on Anthony's Schecter Guitar Research bass guitar series. Chickenfoot bandmate Sammy Hagar carries the bassist's hot sauces at his Sammy's Beach Bar & Grill locations.


title: Chelsea, London

text: Chelsea is an affluent area in west London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area.


title: Chelsea, London

text: Chelsea historically formed a manor and parish in the Ossulstone hundred of Middlesex, which became the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea in 1900. It merged with the Metropolitan Borough of Kensington, forming the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea upon the creation of Greater London in 1965.


title: Chelsea, London

text: The exclusivity of Chelsea as a result of its high property prices historically resulted in the coining of the term "Sloane Ranger" in the 1970s to describe some of its residents, and some of those of nearby areas. Chelsea is home to one of the largest communities of Americans living outside the United States, with 6.53% of Chelsea residents having been born in the U.S.


title: Chelsea, London

text: The word "Chelsea" (also formerly "Chelceth", "Chelchith", or "Chelsey",) originates from the Old English term for "landing place [on the river] for chalk or limestone" ("Cealc-hyð": chalk-wharf, in Anglo-Saxon). Chelsea hosted the Synod of Chelsea in 787 AD. The first record of the Manor of Chelsea precedes the Domesday Book and records the fact that Thurstan, governor of the King's Palace during the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–1066), gave the land to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster. From at least this time, up to 1900, the Manor and Parish of Chelsea included a 144-acre exclave which is now known as Kensal Town. The exclave, which was once heavily wooded, was sometimes also known as "Chelsea-in-the-Wilderness".


title: Chelsea, London

text: Abbot Gervace subsequently assigned the manor to his mother, and it passed into private ownership. By 1086 the Domesday Book records that Chelsea was in the hundred of Ossulstone in Middlesex, with Edward of Salisbury as tenant-in-chief.


title: Chelsea, London

text: King Henry VIII acquired the manor of Chelsea from Lord Sandys in 1536; Chelsea Manor Street is still extant. Two of King Henry's wives, Catherine Parr and Anne of Cleves, lived in the Manor House; Princess Elizabeth – the future Queen Elizabeth I – resided there; and Thomas More lived more or less next door at Beaufort House. In 1609 James I established a theological college, "King James's College at Chelsey" on the site of the future Royal Hospital Chelsea, which Charles II founded in 1682.


title: Chelsea, London

text: By 1694, Chelsea – always a popular location for the wealthy, and once described as "a village of palaces" – had a population of 3,000. Even so, Chelsea remained rural and served London to the east as a market garden, a trade that continued until the 19th-century development boom which caused the final absorption of the district into the metropolis. The street crossing that was known as Little Chelsea, Park Walk, linked Fulham Road to King's Road and continued to the Thames and local ferry down Lover's Lane, renamed "Milmans Street" in the 18th century.


title: Chelsea, London

text: King's Road, named for Charles II, recalls the King's private road from St James's Palace to Fulham, which was maintained until the reign of George IV. One of the more important buildings in King's Road, the former Chelsea Town Hall, popularly known as "Chelsea Old Town hall" – a fine neo-classical building – contains important frescoes. Part of the building contains the Chelsea Public Library. Almost opposite stands the former Odeon Cinema, now Habitat, with its iconic façade which carries high upon it a large sculptured medallion of the now almost-forgotten William Friese-Greene, who claimed to have invented celluloid film and cameras in the 1880s before any subsequent patents.


title: Chelsea, London

text: The memorials in the churchyard of Chelsea Old Church, near the river, illustrate much of the history of Chelsea. These include Lord and Lady Dacre (1594/1595); Lady Jane Cheyne (1698); Francis Thomas, "director of the china porcelain manufactory"; Sir Hans Sloane (1753); Thomas Shadwell, Poet Laureate (1692). The intended tomb Sir Thomas More erected for himself and his wives can also be found there, though More is not in fact buried here.


title: Chelsea, London

text: In 1718, the Raw Silk Company was established in Chelsea Park, with mulberry trees and a hothouse for raising silkworms. At its height in 1723, it supplied silk to Caroline of Ansbach, then Princess of Wales.


title: Chelsea, London

text: Chelsea once had a reputation for the manufacture of Chelsea buns, made from a long strip of sweet dough tightly coiled, with currants trapped between the layers, and topped with sugar. The Chelsea Bun House sold these during the 18th century and was patronised by the Georgian royalty. At Easter, great crowds would assemble on the open spaces of the Five Fields – subsequently developed as Belgravia. The Bun House would then do a great trade in hot cross buns and sold about quarter of a million on its final Good Friday in 1839.


title: Chelsea, London

text: The area was also famous for its "Chelsea China" ware, though the works, the Chelsea porcelain factory – thought to be the first workshop to make porcelain in England – were sold in 1769, and moved to Derby. Examples of the original Chelsea ware fetch high values.


title: Chelsea, London

text: The best-known building is Chelsea Royal Hospital for old soldiers, set up by Charles II (supposedly on the suggestion of Nell Gwynne), and opened in 1694. The beautifully proportioned building by Christopher Wren stands in extensive grounds, where the Chelsea Flower show is held annually. The former Duke of York's Barracks (built 1801–3) off King's Road is now part of Duke of York Square, a redevelopment including shops and cafes and the site of a weekly "farmers' market". The Saatchi Gallery opened in the main building in 2008. Chelsea Barracks, at the end of Lower Sloane Street, was also in use until recently, primarily by ceremonial troops of the Household Division. Situated on the Westminster side of Chelsea Bridge Road, it was bought for re-development by a property group from Qatar.


title: Chelsea, London

text: St Mark's College, Chelsea, was founded in 1841, based on the beliefs of The Reverend Derwent Coleridge, son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, its first principal: that its primary purpose was to widen the educational horizons of its students. During the First World War, St Mark's College was requisitioned by the War Office to create the 2nd London General Hospital, a facility for the Royal Army Medical Corps to treat military casualties. It merged with St John's College in 1923, establishing a single institution in Chelsea as the College of St Mark & St John. In 1973 it moved to Plymouth, having outgrown the Chelsea campus. The former chapel of St Mark's College, designed by Edward Blore is on the Fulham Road, Chelsea, and is now a private residence.


title: Chelsea, London

text: Dring the mid 1800s, Cremorne Gardens, London, was a popular pleasure gardens area established in 1845. It continued to operate until 1877. The area lay between Chelsea Harbour and the end of the King's Road.


title: Chelsea, London

text: Chelsea's modern reputation as a centre of innovation and influence originated in a period during the 19th century, when the area became a Victorian artists' colony ("see Borough of artists below"). It became prominent once again as one of the centres of the "Swinging London" of the 1960s, when house prices were lower than in the staid Royal Borough of Kensington.


title: Chelsea, London

text: Chelsea once had a reputation as London's bohemian quarter, the haunt of artists, radicals, painters and poets. Little of this seems to survive now – the comfortable squares off King's Road are homes to, amongst others, investment bankers and film stars. The Chelsea Arts Club continues "in situ"; however, the Chelsea College of Art and Design, founded in 1895 as the Chelsea School of Art, moved from Manresa Road to Pimlico in 2005.


title: Chelsea, London

text: The Chelsea Book Club, at no. 65 Cheyne Walk (Lombard Terrace), a bookshop that also presented exhibitions and lectures, held the first exhibition of African art in London (sculpture from Ivory Coast and Congo) in 1920, and was the first bookshop to stock Joyce's "Ulysses" in 1922. Sold in 1928 owing to financial problems, it became the Lombard Restaurant.


title: Chelsea, London

text: Its reputation stems from a period in the 19th century when it became a sort of Victorian artists' colony: painters such as James Webb, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, J. M. W. Turner, James McNeill Whistler, William Holman Hunt, and John Singer Sargent all lived and worked here. There was a particularly large concentration of artists in the area around Cheyne Walk and Cheyne Row, where the Pre-Raphaelite movement had its heart. The artist Prunella Clough was born in Chelsea in 1919.


title: Chelsea, London

text: The architect John Samuel Phene lived at No. 2 Upper Cheyne Row between 1903 and his death in 1912. He installed numerous artefacts and objets d'art around the house and gardens and it was known locally as the "Gingerbread Castle". It was demolished in 1924.