We are expressly not speaking here of automatic military weapons which rapid-fire lots of bullets with a single trigger pull.

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We American voters might respond that most of us do not receive automatic inflation adjustments to our earnings and we are expected to tighten our belts when times are tough and our personal debt has gotten out of control.

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We feel that the Automatic Qualifying (AQ) conferences are on a relatively even playing field, and are therefore more readily comparable.

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They haven't come together and done their jobs, and so as a consequence, we've got these automatic, brutal spending cuts that are poised to happen next Friday.

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Indeed, it is not much of a stretch to suggest that these rules are the reason we have seen the widespread adoption over the years of employer matching contributions, automatic enrollment, automatic escalation of contributions, and numerous other innovations in the retirement plan space that have been shown to increase saving.

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And we know that by making it easier with automatic enrollment, direct deposit and diversified investment options, people are more likely to build up their nest egg.

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So, we are suggesting that if things got about as bad as they did in and around the collapse of Lehman then an automatic guarantee is tripped.

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