Current account offers a lot of benefits for sole proprietors. Think of it like bank account for a company. The bank provides a host of facilities for the company. A sole proprietor does not have enough value as that of a company for a bank but needs similar services. Thus Indian banks offer a toned down version of the account offered to a company. Current account offer very good overdraft ( withdrawing money even if balance is zero). This feature is very useful as  business cycles and payment schedules can be different for each supplier/customer the sole proprietor does business with. Imagine the sole proprietor account has balance of zero on day 0. customer X made payment by cheque on day 1. Cheques will get credited only on Day 3 (Assume Day 2 is a national holiday or weekend).  Sole proprietor gave a cheque to his supplier on day 0. The supplier deposited the cheque on Day 0 and the sole proprietor's bank will debit the the proprietor's account on day 1. As customer's cheque will get credited only day 3, the overdraft facility will let the proprietor borrow from the bank Interestingly, current accounts were offered long before Indian banks started  offering customized accounts to corporate customers. The payment schedule mentioned in my example is based on a clearing system > 10 years ago. Systems have become much simpler now but banks have always managed to offer something significantly extra on lines similar to my example above to proprietor over a savings bank account


You've flipped the numerator and denominator around, and need to multiply by 100 to get percentage rather than 10: I like to use a simple example to assess reasonableness of an approach, if you had invested $100 and after 1 year had $150, your approach would yield: But since $50 is half of $100, we know the rate of return should be 50%, so we know that approach is off. But, flipping the numerator and denominator and multiplying by 100 gets us the 50% we expected: Edit: Good catch by @DJohnM you've called it 9 years, but it's actually 11, so you'd want to adjust accordingly.


Journalism is a dying profession. As the internet proliferates, the speed of information advances and society has less need, and even less patience, to wait for professional story tellers to communicate to us. As a clear example of this, look at how main stream media sources (i.e. CNN) regurgitate people's twitter feeds in everyone of their headline articles.


It has got to do with inflation. So as prices of goods and services rise over the years you can work out what the inflation rate is over time. So by applying the inflation rate between 1990 to 2016 you can work out the equivalent value of $30B in 1990 would be in 2016. So in other words in 1990 you bought $30B worth of a box of goods and services, then in 2016 it would have cost you $55B to buy the same box of goods and services. You can play around with this US Inflation Calculator here, to see how much an amount of money back in history would be worth today if invested at the rate of inflation over those years.  So obviously, the aim in investing is to get a return higher than the rate of inflation, so that your investment funds grow in real terms and in the future you can buy more with your funds than you can buy with them today.


Debit card purchases without PIN are treated as credit card purchases by merchants, and that includes ID verification. In addition to the ways you mentioned, you can get a debit card in any grocery store and load it with cash, and these debit cards don't have a name imprinted on them. But then if you lose them - you may have troubles proving you did in fact lose them when you try to recover your money, as anyone can use them. Technically you can register them online and call in and request refunds for fraud losses just as any other debit/credit card in the US (with $50 deductible), but in practice it may be difficult. These cards have very high fees, and may not be accepted for rentals etc.


What on earth are you talking about.    In the real world, money for programs such as universities and schools isn't something you pay up front and then stop paying for when it gets inconvenient; unless you want to abolish them.


They will be metering their own electric , so yes that's a plus.  And yes I  looked at it the same way,  free money.  I wonder if uploaded a imugr link to the drawings of where they are placing the equipment would help people with determining the benefit.


https://www.cancer.org/research/infographics-gallery/rising-global-cancer-epidemic.html  http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/02/04/why-are-cancer-rates-increasing/  http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20120531/global-cancer-rates-set-to-soar-by-2030#1  Downvotes galore... but I'm NOT wrong.  There are tons and tons of evidences, both empirical studies and anecdotal to support this.  I don't see how you can read that website you posted and come away with an indication that cancer rates are static or somehow diminishing, when the exact opposite is the case...as it says on that very same website multiple times and even in the quote you posted. I'm boggled that you've somehow found a different conclusion than the obvious one.  Yes, statisitcs are wacked... I know, I get it, but the incidence rate of cancer is definitely on the rise.


The default is FIFO: first in - first out. Unless you specifically instruct the brokerage otherwise, they'll report that the lot you've sold is of Jan 5, 2011. Note, that before 2011, they didn't have to report the cost basis to the IRS, and it would be up to you to calculate the cost basis at tax time, but that has been changed in 2011 and you need to make sure you've instructed the brokerage which lot exactly you're selling. I'm assuming you're in the US, in other places laws may be different.


"Historically, the market's average rate of return has been about 8%. (Serakfalcon's ""6% to 10%"" is essentially the same number.) You should be able to get into that range for long-term investments with minimal risk. ""5 or 6 companies"", unless you know a heck of a lot about those companies, is fairly high risk. If any one of those runs into trouble, a considerable amount of your net investment is riding on it. Of course if any of them invents the Next Big Thing you could hit it big; that's the tradeoff. Diversification isn't sexy, but it buffers you from single-company disasters, and if you diversify across kinds of investment that buffers you from single-sector disasters. Index funds aren't sexy, but they're a low-cost way to diversify, especially if you go with a mix of funds in different categories (large cap, small cap, bond, international, real estate) or a fund which has that mix built into it such as a target date fund."


If the work was 90% finished, you can only defer 10% of the income until next year.  You can only fully defer revenue that you haven't made deliverables on yet - you can fund the project with deferred revenue, however.  Of course, there's a gray area as to completion percentage, but you're starting to play with fire when you do too much of that.  Probably depends on his business, short answer.


Just to put in one more possibility: my credit card can have a positive balance, in which case I earn interest.  If more money is due, it will automatically take that from the connected checking account. If that goes into negative, of course I have to pay interest.  I chose (argued with the bank in order to get) only a small credit allowance. However, I'll be able to access credit allowance + positive balance. That allows me within a day or so to make larger amounts accessible, while the possible immediate damage by credit card fraud is limited at other times.  Actually, the credit card pays more interest than the checkign account. Nevertheless, I don't keep high balance there because the risk of fraud is much higher for the credit card.


"I have actual scientifically rigorous sources on my side. You have... ""power line blog dot com"".  https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/04/the-economics-of-energy-generation-are-changing-more-metrics-favor-solar-wind/  https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/report-draft-of-doe-baseload-study-says-wind-solar-dont-threaten-reliability/  https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/energy-departments-contentious-baseload-study-is-out/  Natural gas is pretty much better in every way but one than coal. It's much cheaper, far better for the environment (in both extraction and greenhouse gases), easier to extract, more energy dense, easier to control the production of energy in response to demand with... its only loss to coal is ease of storage.  It doesn't matter if we have a lot of it if using alternative options is a superior option. Just because we have it doesn't mean it's worth extracting or using."


Give a cheque.  You can. Your friend would have to deposit this in a Bank that does this service. Not all Banks offer this service in US. It generally would take 1-3 months for the funds to reach.  Give a dollar-denominated cheque You can NOT write check on a Rupee account and put USD. You can definitely buy a USD Draft generally payable in the US. There would be some charge for you here and send it by courier, post. It would get paid into your friends account in about a week. Do a SWIFT transfer Yes you can. You may need to walk into a Branch and fill up forms. If the amount is more than specified limit a CA certificate is required. Am I correct in understanding Yes Use my ATM card in the US Yes you can.  Specialised money transfer services like Western Union Transfer money out of India is not allowed by Money Transfer services


"This is obviously a spam mail. Your mortgage is a public record, and mortgage brokers and insurance agents were, are and will be soliciting your business, as long as they feel they have a chance of getting it. Nothing that that particular company offers is unique to them, nothing they can offer you cannot be done by anyone else. It is my personal belief that we should not do business with spammers, and that is why I suggest you to remember the company name and never deal with them. However, it is up to you if you want to follow that advice or not. What they're offering is called refinance. Any bank, credit union or mortgage broker does that. The rates are more or less the same everywhere, but the closing fees and application fees is where the small brokers are making their money. Big banks get their money from also servicing the loans, so they're more flexible on fees. All of them can do ""streamline"" refinance if your mortgage is eligible. None if it isn't. Note that the ones who service your current mortgage might not be the ones who own it, thus ""renegotiating the rate"" is most likely not an option (FHA backed loans are sold to Fannie and Freddie, the original lenders continue servicing them - but don't own them). Refinancing - is a more likely option, and in this case the lender will not care about your rate on the old mortgage."


You will most likely pay around 30%, between standard income tax and payroll taxes. That is a good place to start. If you live in a state/city with income taxes, add that to the mix.


>how can one argue plastic's inability to store value comes artificially/by opinion?  That's backwards. Gold's *ability* to store value is artificial. Plastic's value is naturally determined by the market. It's cheap to produce, and abundant. Therefore, the market dictates it's going to be cheap.  Gold is artificially priced because it still retains many of its characteristics as a store of value for things unrelated to itself. People, for example invest in gold bullion, driving up the price. It's abundant, though costly to produce; yet its quantity and cost of production don't determine its price. Investors do.  You don't see people investing in plastic bars.


"No its not what's happening because trump is cutting federal support which was defined when the ACA was passed. He is actively trying to raise premiums so it will fail. This is a fact.   Why on earth would I think that? Hmm could it be... - effectively de funding the ACA to cause premiums to skyrocket that Americans can't afford so that you all can claim ""Obamacare failed""? - pushing a ""repeal now, replace later"" agenda which would have an immediate and dramatic impact on the well being of millions? - consistently wanting to remove the pre existing conditions clause / replace it with something which has been proven to be dangerous and ineffective (high risk pools)  There's nothing dramatic about it. I'm dealing in the world of facts. I'm not sure where you're getting your information from. Probably Russia? Idk"


"The ""c."" is probably circa, or ""about.""  Regulatory settlements is in blue because it's negative; the amount is in parentheses, which indicates a loss. WB and CB might be wholesale banking and commercial banking? BAU probably means ""business as usual"" or things that don't directly apply to the project. Incremental investment is the additional cash a company puts towards its long-term capital assets. FX is probably foreign exchange."


Managers are employees, too. Leaders of huge financial institutions find it difficult if not impossible to save their reputation from risk when their bankers and advisors aren't legally bound to any fiduciary responsibility. So it would make sense that they would be against this deregulation. We'll see what the future brings. I'll be surprised if this makes it to Trump's desk anyway.


Here is one for you that hasn't neen answered to date. Why are prices going up in the market while incomes are going down or stagnant? Anybody that knows economic or finance should be able to answer this question or at least give an opinion, Let me preface this as the marlet has been really good to me.


"Although they probably don't help ISIS, it will be interesting to see how Paypal's moral agency holds up to the rigorous whataboutism of the internet - remember a few months ago when the bank USAA pulled advertising from one news channel, then after public outcry, pulled their advertising from multiple channels because it fit the same box of ""not advertising on controversial sources"" ?  That said, paypal has always been kind of douchy in regards to servicing its customers properly- holding money, screwing over sellers, black listing users and more- a lot of people probably already have a truly negative opinion of paypal, perhaps this move is designed to earn them some goodwill? If so, I doubt we'll see even application of the original line of thought -- don't want to urk those who you're attempting to pander to."


Sure, but in the article it even states:  >...clear indications exist that Beijing would prefer to focus on matters at home, where the economy is slowing much faster than expected.On Thursday, an index measuring activity in the country’s manufacturing sector showed factory output slowed in November for the first time in last three years time spam tipping concerns that China is finally being dragged down by the problems of America and Europe, as well as policies to control inflation. A separate set of data showed that China’s property market is continuing to slide, with house prices falling for a third consecutive month in November. China’s stock market, meanwhile, closed down, capping a fourth straight week of losses.  It doesn't sound like they have all that much resources to just hand out at the moment.


"I really wish someone would release a similar product to quickbooks, its so SLOW and clunky.  Its my number 1 question from my small business IT clients... ""is there anything out there besides quickbooks?""  I hear freshbooks is good, but everyone is so ingrained in the quickbooks way of doing things it would be a strugle to switch people to a different product."


>> Hey! Do you mind giving your credit card to the waiter...  > I'm not especially fond of that, but it's easy to report fraud to the bank and most of the time the bank will reverse the charges.  No kidding! Of course, even I give credit cards to waiters. What do I care? **As you said, you are not liable to any fraud on your credit card.** None at all!!!!  It's only Merchant, not the credit card company, that pay the price for fraud... **and you pay higher prices to cover for losses from fraud.**  > The PIN situation is different because a mugging is life-threatening.  Nonsense! Mugging at the ATM is so rare, each ATM has a camera. **In any case, I am not talking about using PIN to withdraw money!** I am talking about PIN to authorize charges on a credit card or ATM card.  >> We already determined that nobody even care about signatures or check them.  > You can't use a stolen card at an ATM with a signature.  Huh? You totally got it wrong what I said, or, you argue for the sake of argument.  **I am saying that cards that require you to enter a PIN cannot be used used when stolen or copied. Yes or no?**  **On the other hand, cards that require signature can be used when stolen or copied because signature is a worthless method to validate the charge. Yes or no?**  LASTLY, my Costco credit card has a picture of me on it. **Question for you, since for some reason you argue so much against PINs: Wouldn't a picture on the card better than a signature?** Yes or no?  Do you see? There are so many ways to make this system so much more secure and fraud proof... but, ON PURPOSE, the credit card companies don't want that... because they are not liable for fraud. Simple as that.


You can transfer to/from bank account. First, you must establish communication between PayPal and your bank. This has been my experience. Login to your PayPal account and do the following.  Step 1. Click My Account tab, then choose 'Profile'  Step 2. Choose My Money, Bank Account. There you can establish your bank account.  Step 3. After you establish your account, you will receive confirmation deposits to your acct within a few days.   Step 4. Once you confirm receiving the deposits, you can send/receive between PayPal and the account.


The mastectomy swimsuits that are offered by popular companies come with a range of features like adjustable straps, concealed shelf bras, wide arm openings to hide scarring and tummy control for a flattering look. So, to buy these wonderful products reach out to such a company soon.


The only reason the word Paris is stuck in this article is to get those manic clicks. It is completely irrelevant.  Social media tears did not close these plants. Chanting did not close these plants. Drum circles did not close these plants. The market closed them. They closed because they are no longer economically viable. They closed because their competition was simply better.  Natural gas will be what kills the coal plants in America.  Not wind, not solar, not Paris, not dreadlocked rebels. Natural gas.  Edit: Aww, you guys seem upset. I'm sorry I refuse to accept your fantasy land. Hopefully you'll learn to be objective when you're older.


FYI, I'm mid-20s. And you're either TROLLING really hard or you're just in general UPSET at everything in LIFE. Whatever your problem is, I suggest you get OVER it so you don't appear to be a SOCIOPATH to the rest of us.


However, you might have to pay taxes on capital gains if these stocks were acquired during your prior residency.


Surely they have a legal duty to the shareholders of each individual company. Each company in each country has its own shareholders (admittedly, some might be completely owned by other companies). So it would not be in the interests of the UK shareholders for profits to exported to Switzerland. There is not one fiduciary duty across the whole network of companies.


Unless you're running a self-employed business with a significant turnover (more than £150k), you are entitled to use cash basis accounting for your tax return, which means you would put the date of transactions as the payment date rather than the billing date or the date a debt is incurred. For payments which have a lag, e.g. a cheque that needs to be paid in or a bank transfer that takes a few days, you might also need to choose between multiple payment dates, e.g. when you initiated the payment or when it took effect. You can pick one as long as you're consistent: You can choose how you record when money is received or    paid (eg the date the money enters your account or the date a cheque   is written) but you must use the same method each tax year.


"How are derivatives like covered warrants or CFDs different from the bucket shops that were made illegal in the US? After reading up a little on the topic, the core difference seems to be that bucket shops were basically running betting pools, with everyone betting against the operator, whereas CFDs and similar derivatives are traded between speculators and the operator merely provides a market and checks the liquidity of participants. A CW seems to be a different matter that I'm not fully sure I understand (at least the description of Wikipedia seems to contradict your statement about not trade being performed on the underlying security). Should I worry that some regulator decides that my ""market maker"" is an illegal gambling operation? Not really. Nations with a mature financial industry (like Japan) invariably have heavy regulations that mandate constant auditing of institutions that sell financial instruments. In Japan, the Financial Services Agency is in charge of this. It's almost impossible that they would let an institution operate and later decide that its basic business model is illegal. What is possible are mainly two scenarios:"


"Yes, you should budget some amount of your emergency fund for healthcare expenses.  How much you budget is really dependent on your particular anticipated costs.  Be aware that health insurance likely costs significantly more than your employer charges you for access to its plan. Since healthcare reform mandated guaranteed issue individual coverage you will have the ability to buy individual coverage for you and, if applicable, your family.  When buying individual coverage you have essentially two choices, your decision hinges on whether or not you'd qualify for a premium subsidy.  If your AGI is below 400% of the poverty line you'll be able to receive subsidized coverage at a state or federal health insurance exchange.  If the subsidy is not meaningful to you, or you wouldn't qualify, you can buy an ""off exchange"" plan offered either directly through a carrier or an insurance agent (some insurance agents are also licensed to sell exchange plans though it's somewhat rare).  In order to receive subsidized coverage you must buy through a state or federal exchange, or an agent licensed to sell exchange products specifically. If your employer was large enough to be required to offer its plan via COBRA or you live in a state that extends the COBRA requirement to smaller businesses, you can choose that as well.  Bear in mind this option is likely to be expensive relative to individual plans.  It's becoming a less relevant solution with the advent of guaranteed issue individual coverage.  COBRA is not a special type of insurance, it's a mandate that your employer allow you to remain on its plan but pay the full gross premium plus an up to 2% (10% for calCOBRA) administrative fee. Despide popular vernacular, there is no such thing as Obamacare or ACA coverage.  Obamacare reshaped the insurance market.  The ACA outlines certain minimum coverage requirements, generally referred to as ""Minimum Essential Coverage.""  While employers and plans are not ""required"" to meet all of these coverage requirements there is a penalty associated with non-compliance.  The single exception to this is grandfathered plans which can still sidestep a few of the requirements.  The penalty is harsh enough that it's not worth the cost of offering a non-compliant plan. Whether you buy coverage through a state or federal exchange, through an insurance agent, or via your employer's COBRA program you will have ""ACA"" coverage (unless on the off chance your employer's plan doesn't check the ""Minimum Essential Coverage"" box).  So generally all plans available to you will have $0 preventive coverage, pregnancy benefits, cancer treatment benefits etc. Another thing to consider is your entire family doesn't need to be on the same plan.  If your family is healthy with the exception of one child, you can purchase $0 deductible coverage for the one child and higher deductible more catastrophic plan for the remainder of your family. In fact you could choose COBRA for one child and purchase individual coverage for the remainder of the family.  The things to consider when you face a lay-off: I tried to mitigate my use of ""all"" and ""always"" because there are some narrow exceptions to these requirements, such as the ""Hobby Lobby"" decision allowing closely held organizations with highly religious owners the ability to remove certain contraception benefits.  Understand that these exceptions are rare and not available to individual plans."


"There are different schools of thought. You can ask the IRS - and it would not surprise me if you got different answers on different phone calls. One interpretation is that a put is not ""substantially identical"" to the disposed stock, therefore no wash is triggered by that sale. However if that put is exercised, then you automatically purchase the security, and that is identical. As to whether the IRS (or your brokerage firm) recognizes the identical security when it falls out of an option, I can't say; but technically they could enforce it because the rule is based on 30 days and a ""substantially identical"" stock or security. In this interpretation (your investor) would probably at least want to stay out of the money in choosing a strike price, to avoid exercise; however, options are normally either held or sold, rather than be exercised, until at or very close to the expiration date (because time value is left on the table otherwise). So the key driver in this interpretation would be expiration date, which should be at least 31 days out from the stock sale; and it would be prudent to sell an out of the money put as well, in order to avoid the wash sale trigger. However there is also a more unfavorable opinion - see fairmark.com/capgain/wash/wsoption.htm where they hold that a ""deep in the money"" option is an immediate trigger (regardless of exercise). This article is sage, in that they say that the Treasury (IRS) may interpret an option transaction as a wash if it's ballpark to being exercisable. And, if the IRS throws paper, it always beats each of paper, rock and scissors :( A Schwab article (""A Primer on Wash Sales"") says, if the CUSIPs match, bang, wash. This is the one that they may interpret unfavorably on in any case, supporting Schwab's ""play it safe"" position: ""3. Acquire a contract or option to buy substantially identical stock or securities..."" . This certainly nails buying a call. As to selling a put, well, it is at least conceivable that an IRS official would call that a contract to buy! SO it's simply not a slam dunk; there are varying opinions that you might describe as ranging from ""hell no"" to ""only if blatant."" If you can get an ""official"" predetermination, or you like to go aggressive in your tax strategy, there's that; they may act adversely, so Caveat Taxfiler!"


tl;dr: I think you can find a much better deal. Doing a strait refi will cost you some amount of money.  However, a 2.5% fee ont top of closing costs seems really high.  You can get a quote from Quicken loans pretty quick and compare their fee.  Also I would check with a local bank, preferably one you already do business with.  The 2.5% is probably their commission for originating the loan.  If you are in the Southeast I have had great luck with Regions bank.  They are large enough, but also small enough.  Please know that I have no affiliation with either company. BTW the rate also seems high.  Doing a quick search of Bank Rate, it seems you can get 3.25% with zero fee as of this writing.  The worse deal they show is 3.46 with a .75% fee, much better than you were quoted. If you can afford it I would also encourage you to think outside the box.  A client of mine was able to obtain a Home Equity Loan (not line of credit) to replace their mortgage.  They went for a 7 year pay off, with the loan in first position, at a rate about .75 below the then current 15 year rate.  The key was there was zero closing costs.  It saved them quite a bit of money. Also look at a 10 year fixed.  It might not be much more than you are paying now.


Those ‘crises’ are only an issue if you need your savings during the time of crisis. If you have time to sit it out, you should just do that, and come out of the crisis with a gain. People that lose money during a crisis lose it because they sell their investments during the crisis, either because they had to or because they thought they should. If you look at historic values of investments, the market overall always recovers and goes over the orignal value some time after the crisis. Investing even more right in the crisisis the best way to make a lot of money.


Funny that this shows up on my feed right now...  I installed ICQ a couple of months ago.  I put it on my 7 year old son's iPad first, using his mum's phone number (we're divorced).  It is really the best way we can communicate quickly as she doesn't often let him pick up the phone and call - for whatever reason.  But, at 7, watching him send me messages and spell out words, it's amazing.  I haven't used ICQ in years, but it worked very well for our purposes and made me very happy.  As I'm typing this right now (no BS), someone from Indonesia has just started to message and converse with me (Canada).  Just like the old days when people used to randomly message others around the world to say hello and get to know what they were about, and what life was like (I have 20+ years online with things like this, so it's bringing back a lot of memories lol).  It's much different than what you experience in many other apps...  ads, local singles, etc.  I'm glad that it's growing again... nostalgic for a lot of people!


"For a two year time frame, a good insured savings account or a low-cost short-term government bond fund is most likely the way I would go. Depending on the specific amount, it may also be reasonable to look into directly buying government bonds. The reason for this is simply that in such a short time period, the stock market can be extremely volatile. Imagine if you had gone all in with the money on the stock market in, say, 2007, intending to withdraw the money after two years. Take a broad stock market index of your choice and see how much you'd have got back, and consider if you'd have felt comfortable sticking to your plan for the duration. Since you would likely be focused more on preservation of capital than returns during such a relatively short period, the risk of the stock market making a major (or even relatively minor) downturn in the interim would (should) be a bigger consideration than the possibility of a higher return. The ""return of capital, not return on capital"" rule. If the stock market falls by 10%, it must go up by 11% to break even. If it falls by 25%, it must go up by 33% to break even. If you are looking at a slightly longer time period, such as the example five years, then you might want to add some stocks to the mix for the possibility of a higher return. Still, however, since you have a specific goal in mind that is still reasonably close in time, I would likely keep a large fraction of the money in interest-bearing holdings (bank account, bonds, bond funds) rather than in the stock market. A good compromise may be medium-to-high-yield corporate bonds. It shouldn't be too difficult to find such bond funds that can return a few percentage points above risk-free interest, if you can live with the price volatility. Over time and as you get closer to actually needing the money, shift the holdings to lower-risk holdings to secure the capital amount. Yes, short-term government bonds tend to have dismal returns, particularly currently. (It's pretty much either that, or the country is just about bankrupt already, which means that the risk of default is quite high which is reflected in the interest premiums demanded by investors.) But the risk in most countries' short-term government bonds is also very much limited. And generally, when you are looking at using the money for a specific purpose within a defined (and relatively short) time frame, you want to reduce risk, even if that comes with the price tag of a slightly lower return. And, as always, never put all your eggs in one basket. A combination of government bonds from various countries may be appropriate, just as you should diversify between different stocks in a well-balanced portfolio. Make sure to check the limits on how much money is insured in a single account, for a single individual, in a single institution and for a household - you don't want to chase high interest bank accounts only to be burned by something like that if the institution goes bankrupt. Generally, the sooner you expect to need the money, the less risk you should take, even if that means a lower return on capital. And the risk progression (ignoring currency effects, which affects all of these equally) is roughly short-term government bonds, long-term government bonds or regular corporate bonds, high-yield corporate bonds, stock market large cap, stock market mid and low cap. Yes, there are exceptions, but that's a resonable rule of thumb."


I have a finance background and realized I love programming. I'm learning JS/Node/Socket to create realtime data apps. Later on, I might use Python to crunch some numbers but the aforementioned stack seems to hold a lot of utility for the financial world.


First, A credit account is increased by credit transactions and decreased by debits. Liabilities is a credit account and should be a positive number.  A debit account is increased by debit transactions and decreased by credit. Assets is a debit account and should be a positive number.  Equity = Assets (debit) - Liabilities (credit) may be positive or negative.  You currently are subtracting a negative number for a net positive, since your Liabilities is set as a debit account.  How you currently are set -> Equity = Assets (debit) - Liabilities (debit) It is easier to understand if you change the columns from Increase/Decrease to Credit/Debit. I believe this is changed through Edit > Preferences > Accounts > Labels > Use formal accounting labels.  To fix your situation, open up the Loan account and switch columns on the amounts. This will decrease Opening Balances and increase the loan, per your current column headings.  This is a snippet of Opening Balances. You see that Opening Balances is debited and the Loan/Liability account credited. I included Petty Cash to show the reverse. Petty Cash is an asset, so it credits Opening Balances and debits Petty cash. This is a student loan Liability account. As you see, the Opening Balance is debited and decreased. The loan is credited and Liabilities increased. As payments are made, the reverse happens. The loan, being a credit account, is debited and the balance decreases. Opening Balances moves closer to 0 as well. The savings account, being a debit account, is credited and the balance decreases. There has been no change in Equity since Liabilities and Assets decresed by the same amount.


No state pay assess for Delaware partnerships that work out of express No business permit required for Delaware enterprises not working in Delaware, No legacy impose on stock held by non-occupants of Delaware llc, No state deals charge on elusive individual property, Shares of stock possessed by non-inhabitant outsiders are not subject to Delaware charges. The condition of Delaware llc offers various decisions for speed of documenting, contingent upon your necessities and spending plan. There is no extra charge for standard services, in spite of the fact that it might destroy your understanding sitting tight for them to process it.


"So? Godaddy opposes SOPA now but everyone is still rightfully pulling away from them. Corporations need to learn to stop pushing their customers. That'll never happen if you say ""okay"" once they back off. You're still paying that company and they will almost assuredly try sneakier shit in the future.  Godaddy, Bank of America, and Verizon are all on my blacklist thanks to the shit they've pulled. I suggest you all add them to yours. Don't go easy on them."


If you are disputing the size of the charge for specific services, like you think that they overcharged for lab work, you can try disputing it with the business office staff at the doctor's office. If, on the other hand, you just think that the overall bill is too expensive then you really only have one option. You can ask if they will reduce the bill for you. Most hospitals and clinics I've dealt with have programs set up for this, but you usually access them by filling out paperwork demonstrating financial hardship (along with supporting documents). It never hurts to ask. But with the services already rendered the only person with an interest in reducing the bill is you. The reduction, if any, will probably depend on what the clinic thinks your ability to pay is compared with the cost to them of pursuing you for payment, as well as the amount of funding they have for bill reduction. When I worked in the financial services office of a hospital a $400 bill would not even have been reviewed for discounting-- the balance would be too low to devote staff time to reviewing. It's frustrating, and even asking in advance might not have given you accurate (or any!) information on what the cost of the visit would be, so your ability to shop around is limited. Unfortunately, that doesn't give you any additional options in this case.


I don't have numbers on that, but I imagine the average student loan is much higher.  Stilll, student loans, due to their default-less nature, are a bit of a different beast IMO. I think student loans will put a prolonged drag on the economy, but I really don't see where the catalyst for a crisis would be.


> but what about the necessities like food and shelter? Those things are becoming ever increasingly more expensive.  Source? Food quality/quantity has become vastly cheaper in the last century. Try finding out of season fresh fruits and vegetables in 1920 - you couldn't.   >If the quality of life was improving for the masses, then we wouldn't be having this conversation about inequality now would we?  Says who? We have conversations about global warming, about evolution. By your logic, those are also untrue because we are having a conversation about it?


I don't see how it contrasts with any other the other advise here.  I even gave the advice to hold people accountable.  If anything my advise was more hard-line then most that's been given here.  I think you either misread what I wrote or you're completely off base.


"Also, the MSM are big fans of ""Officials said"" journalism. Well, when a government or corporate official tells you something, _you're supposed to fact check it and report the results._ Somehow, that really simple piece of journalism got lost along the roadside."


Well lets see...  JP Morgan Chase, for example, has a market cap of $118 billion. The U.S. labor force is about 158 million people. So if every working american kicked in about 400 bucks, you'd have enough money to buy a a controlling stake in JPM. Goldman Sachs has a market cap of $44 billion. You could buy a controlling stake in Goldman if every working american threw in about 150 bucks. Of course you'd have to purchase the stock at a large premium if you're trying to gain a controlling stake.


"> A true economist ~~or economic academician~~ is searching for facts, the truth, the reality of a situation.  Exactly.  And none of the people doing any of these things are ""true economists"".  Instead they are ""academic economists"" -- and like all academics they are not (despite protestations and assertions) actually pursuing ""truth"", but rather are part of the establishment and in support of the status quo.  >Your claim is completely arbitrary and unsubstantiated.   Nope.  Solidly substantiated... you're just (willfully) oblivious to the reality.  >If you're going to make an assertion, at least attempt to back it up. I've tried to do that with everything that I have claimed in this thread.  Already did... multiple levels of comments above.  You are just blindly dismiss it because it doesn't fit with your (gullible) dogmatic ideological view of the world."


"It is not an either/or decision.  If you ""want to retire decades early"", then you will need to have a taxable account anyway, as you won't be able to stuff enough money into the tax-advantaged accounts to meet that goal. And if you are ""making a huge sum"", then you will be in a high tax bracket and so the tax advantages of saving into a 401K or IRA will be substantial. So, max out your 401K/IRA, and then save the rest into the taxable brokerage account.  When you retire at 39, live off your taxable account until you are old enough to tap the other ones without penalty. Unless you plan to die decades early, as well as retire decades early.  In that case, you can bypass the 401K/IRA."


> This after paying thousands a month for decades.   By my math, that's about (if not well over) half a million dollars they've spent on life insurance.   Even using the minimums for what you said, that's 2k/month\*12months/year\*2decades\*10years/decade=$480,000.  Edit:formatting


So your solution is take all three away. Take illegals, felons and potheads out if the jobs that 20 years ago the potheads and felons filled.  Who exactly do you plan to fill those jobs with? The homeless? Who are all felons and potheads.  Or ok automation.  Fine but don't cry when society goes down the tubes because so many people are on the streets with no where to turn but crime/drugs. Then eventually in prison that you pay for.  It was your idea though that you support.  Sorry bud but I think it's your idea shooting yourself in the foot, literally.


I don't look down on poor people at all.  I've been there.  I'm just trying to describe the correct attitude that will help one rise up out of poverty. Blaming others, blaming 'the system', blaming your parents, blaming minimum wage, blaming your boss, blaming social media, blaming the news, blaming the Russians, blaming immigrants ----  NONE of that shit is going to help YOU get out of poverty.  Taking responsibility for your own life is the only way out.  Luckily we live in a system that allows you do to that.  There are other systems.  You could have been assigned a job at birth, because that's what you father did.  Do you like that system better?    What are you even so worked up about?  What have I said that is factually incorrect?  What do you think should happen in Society?  Should the wealthy just give money to the poor?  Would that make you happy?  Like, what are you even arguing for?


"Usually... I think that's overstating the case.  You CAN get a bargain (especially if the place is in not-so-great condition), but not every foreclosure will be a good deal even if it is priced well below its most recently appraised value. As the buyer it's your responsibility to determine whether it's priced well or not, and to decide whether you're willing and able to repair its deficiencies after you buy it. The same's true when purchasing any house; foreclosures just make it more likely that there are problems and (hopefully) wind up being priced to allow for them. I don't know of a single website which lists all foreclosures. Some of the home listing websites do have a ""show me foreclosure listings"" filter, and I'm sure that the better tools available to real estate agents can select these. But if that's the direction you're interested in going, you should be looking at distressed properties generally, NOT just foreclosures; you may get a better deal, in the long run, by going for the one that has been mechanically maintained but is just plain ugly rather than the one with a pretty skin whose heating system hasn't been serviced for the last decade. Do your homework, shop around, don't fall in love with any one house... all the same rules apply at this end of the spectrum just as strongly as they do in the mid or upper ranges. Perhaps more so. Happy hunting!"


> Upfront investment cost to create a contemporary business is challenging today, and this is before a firm anticipation of the cost of labour declining in developed nations.   Yes, today.  But I think part of this future is where these costs come down due to advanced technology.  Look at 3D printing as an example.  It's new and expensive now, but when these things are $99 at staples and capable of printing high quality plastic parts, you essentially give every single person the ability to buy a cheap factory for his home.  This helps greatly distribute and decentralize the means of production, and possibly even get around copyright and I.P. with open-source repositories like Thingiverse.  This is how I see the future in the world described in the video.  Cheap, advanced technology that replaces human labor.  When the cost of a labor robot is in the price range of 90% of the public, you won't have to work.  Every human will have robots working on their behalf.  I think the video warns of a future where these robots exist, but they're only owned by the rich.  I think that's the wrong prediction.  That isn't how technology works.  They even go over that in the video.  How computers every year get cheaper and more powerful.  Same goes with 3D printing; they get more powerful and cheaper by the day.  Same will go for labor robots.  So it's not that every person is going to have to operate their own small business (though it will probably increase entrepreneurship, which is a great thing), it just means that each individual will have the means to produce without actually laboring.


"Your math is correct. If you take the same amount of pre-tax wages (assuming that that amount can be fully contributed in both Traditional and Roth cases), and assuming the same flat tax rate when contributing and withdrawing, then the two are the same. However, we don't have a flat tax, and due to the way our tax brackets work, there is often a slight advantage to Traditional accounts. Recall that not every dollar of your income is taxed at the same rate; the tax bracket only describes the rate that the last dollar of your income is taxed at. But some of your income will be taxed at lower brackets. No matter what your income is, your first $x of income will be taxed at 10%, then $y at 15%, etc. So what is the tax rate of the dollars of income that you used to contribute to a retirement account? Is it the first dollars of income? The last dollars of income? or what? Since we are comparing an after-tax contribution (Roth) versus a pre-tax contribution (Traditional) whose income doesn't show up in taxable income, and all other income is equal, the dollars contributed is considered to come from the top in the Roth case. Similarly, when you withdraw in the Traditional case, the withdrawal counts as income; is it the first dollar of income or the last dollar of income? Again, since we are comparing the situation where the withdrawal counts as income (Traditional) with the one where it doesn't (Roth), all other income being equal, the taxable income is considered to be added to the top. The difference is that when you contribute to a retirement account, you contribute a very small percentage of your income every year, probably no more than 5-10%. If we count down from the top, this small percentage of your income probably falls wholly within a bracket (in other words, the taxable income in Traditional and Roth cases are likely in the same bracket), so the entire contribution is at the same rate -- your marginal rate, the rate you cite as your tax bracket. However, when you withdraw in retirement, it is likely that every year, the retirement account withdrawals account for a large percentage of your income, maybe even half or more. If we count down from the top, this large percentage of your income probably crosses into lower brackets (in other words, the taxable income in Traditional and Roth cases are likely to be in different brackets), so the withdrawal is partly taxed at one rate, partly taxed at another. So if your tax bracket is 15% in the Traditional case, it's likely that your withdrawal is taxed partly at 15% and partly at 10%. So in this case, the average tax rate on the withdrawal is lower than your ""bracket""."


You also need to remember that stock options usually become valueless if not exercised while an employee of the company.  So if there is any chance that you will leave the company before an IPO, the effective value of the stock options is zero.  That is the safest and least risky valuation of the stock options.   With a Google or Facebook, stock options can be exercised and immediately sold, as they are publicly traded.  In fact, they may give stock grants where you sell part of the grant to pay tax withholding.  You can then sell the remainder of the grant for money at any time, even after you leave the company.  You only need the option/grant to vest to take advantage of it.  Valuing these at face value (current stock price) makes sense.  That's at least a reasonable guess of future value.   If you are absolutely sure that you will stay with the company until the IPO, then valuing the stock based on earnings can make sense.  A ten million dollar profit can justify a hundred million dollar IPO market capitalization easily.  Divide that by the number of shares outstanding and multiply by how many you get.  If anything, that gives you a conservative estimate.   I would still favor the big company offers though.  As I said, they are immediately tradeable while this offer is effectively contingent on the IPO.  If you leave before then, you get nothing.  If they delay the IPO, you're stuck.  You can't leave the company until then without sacrificing that portion of your compensation.  That seems a big commitment to make.


"We don't have a free market.  Furthermore, without fail, every example in history that approaches a free market produces an environment entirely consumed by corruption and immorality.  Humans, at the most basic level, are fundamentally incapable of sustaining a free market system that results in a generally ""good"" outcome for people.  I heard a story in a documentary about the financial crisis (which was prior left void of any meaningful regulation), at it's worst, and in private, the banking CEO's told Henry Paulson that they needed to be regulated because they were incapable of keeping themselves in check. That only came out at the most critical moment of the worst financial shit in recent history. No banking CEO will ever come close to admit such a statement today now that ""things are OK again.""  That's how things work in real life, all people are just children. And you want our *health care* to be handled by those children?  In this analogy the government with their ""annoying"" regulations are like the adults... but Trump - so never mind, now even the adults are idiots, so we're basically just fucked.  Be careful what you ask for."


The deposit slip at the institution that keeps your Roth IRA should have a place where you can designate the tax year the contribution should apply to.


>  Indeed Ukraine should have stuck with Russia (they are not in the position to join EU).  Explain this for me, would you? Why shouldn't they try to gain admittance to the EU? No-one expected it to happen overnight, everyone is aware the process takes years, but if simply trying to join an economic union that your neighbour disapproves of is cause for invasion then perhaps Russia needs to look at it's policies again.


Going to get down voted to hell because its not what you want to hear but:  So over a 9 year period the author of the study claims that after 56 incidents the industry is corrupt. Does this guy have any idea how many hedge funds there are out there? its well over 10,000 and there are probably around 20 incidents a year in which they could redeem ahead of investors.  Finance is completely corrupt and broken to all hell but ridiculous reports like this and knee jerk reactions wont solve anything.


AC is kinda like this big mall but that allows gambling. Its fine for middle of the road and lower end patrons but high end patrons and more sophisticated people go to vegas, and new york for what? The food. I don't really know any really notable food places in AC. All the major cities have restaurants that it is worth spend a 100 bucks per person backed by top chefs, including Vegas. AC is just a big fucking mall, with chain restaurants.   AC doesn't have Rossini burgers. You end up going to some diner in AC not because you want to, but just because that's how it is.


Based on these dates in your question: Going back over my records, I was able to recall the following: Maryland realized recently that on the 2009 Federal 1040 Form you stated that on December 31 2009 you liven in Maryland. They are wondering where the state tax form is. DC, MD and VA due to reciprocity collect income tax based on where you live not where you work. So when you moved in August 2009 and again in August 2010 you needed to file new state versions of the W4.  The fact you did or didn't submit to your employer a correct state W-4 is not directly related, because you would owe the tax regardless. The W-4 just makes sure that something close to the correct amounts are withheld and sent to the appropriate state capital. I seem to remember something about not having to pay Maryland state   taxes since I not only lived in the state for less than 6 months but   also did not work in the state. The reciprocity between DC, MD and VA says that Maryland gets the money because that is where you lived. The last time I had to do a part year the law was that they would forgive a half a month. In other words if you move in late December or early January you could ignore that small time period and avoid having to file in two states. In some cases people argue that some short term moves were never meant to be permanent. You might be able to claim that except the fact that your 2009 federal tax form you most likely claimed you lived in Maryland.  The next issue is time and money. If Maryland says you  owe them money for that time period, and if they still have the ability to force you to pay it; This is where the issue of correct state W-4 comes in.  If the money during the period you lived in Maryland was sent to Virginia, you should have had that money refunded by Richmond in the spring of 2010. But if there was no W-4 filed with your employer that would mean that Maryland didn't get any money for 2009. If you didn't tell Richmond you moved in 2009 they may not have refunded everything because they thought you lived there all year. Because of the time that has passed it may be too late to fix your Virginia filing, so they may not refund you excess payment to them. Maryland is interested in calculating how much you should have paid them in 2009. They are only looking at what you told the feds you made, and they may be assuming that you lived there the whole year. But until you file correctly that have no ability to calculate what you really owe. You need professional advice. You need to know what they can and can't collect. You also need to know what you can and can't get back from Richmond. And since it also may impact your filings for 2010 you will want to get that resolved at the same time.


Dumb & Dumber held a strategic meeting and came to the conclusion that in the absence of roads and infrastructure and the fact that Taliban love operating in the mountains where there are none of the said roads and infrastructure, and the said Taliban control most of Afghanistan and Dumb and dumber control parts of Kabul, it was far more fiscally viable and would place less man and material in harms way, with a higher probability of finding something of value, to pick minerals out of each others butt.


"Agree wholeheartedly. And Jamie means ""Everyone's kicking our ass, particularly commie China, who was willing to sacrifice their people/environment and because our corporations have even outsourced R&D because it was cheaper there"", effectively assuring future innovation will occur elsewhere. (There is a study out about this very fact. Google it.). Dimon is really saying less reg, less wages, less protection of the environment/health or no growth but what is unsaid is that these countries are playing the long game against our greedy corporations playing for short term profit and in Jamie's case, Executive stock boosts, hence the proliferation of stock buybacks in recent years. Jamie's full of shit about caring about the US, he wants a race to the bottom here as well.Too bad it is too late. On the bright side, we have endless war to keep our General Dynamics/GE/Northrop/Bankster Middlemen going well until the apocalypse and maybe then some (Space wars are now afoot)."


"I speak from personal experience. Even now, as I type this, I've had very sleep so, I'm on the edge a little, but you don't see me blogging about how ridiculous it is for me to stay up to learn something new, and I'm in my thirties where I've had to do this several year already.  That being said, I don't enjoy the long hours, but I do enjoy the problem-solving process, which can be time consuming. I tend to lose track of time when I'm immersed in learning or figuring a problem. Given the fact that tech is ever evolving, no one should ever be surprised to find out that there are long hours involved. It's not busy work. It's part of the learning process. If I figure it out, then it goes on my blog on how I resolved the issue instead of bitching how some VC (that was smart enough to become one) is going to benefit from my time. I'm paid for the work. That is the path I chose to be in.  With that in mind, I've worked for seven well known tech firm (most startups) so far. One was my own shop, which I ran for nearly six years. Nowhere did I hear anyone glorify the long hours. If I stayed after hours, I was asked if the work could be delayed, or if I can do it from home. Most managers want their direct reports to be happy, happy equals productivity. I haven't seen what you've  observed in the tech firms that I have worked for, but I suspect you might have had a difference experience. In my experience, the work-life balance was always preached in the interest of keeping people happy, despite work-life balance being nothing more than a term coined to get managers out of a sticky situation with HR-related  events. Any how, I digress.  Amy has applied some deep rationale to her blog post because she felt robbed of her time and possibly her youth. Sadly, her reputation with prospective employers might be influenced by her choice of words in the interest of ""fucking glory.""   I suppose in the arrogance of youth that's a way of saying fuck glory. There is a part of me that think this will work to her advantage at some point..."


I can't tell if you're being sarcastic but I agree completely.  To me, this decision should effect their stock negatively but who knows what the market will do.  They effing love a company that hasn't made a profit yet.


If we postulate that there is at least some element of truth to the phrase 'A leopard does not change his spots'  and then consider this tidbit He conveniently forgets to mention his 1.5 million dollar fraud fine   from the SEC over investment “advice” he sold through a news letter.   The SEC claimed and the judge agreed that the report was “replete with   lies”. I think that gives you just about all you might need to know regarding the man behind the video, and the nature of it's content.  Oh, and it's purpose?  To SELL YOU the same said newsletter. I guess it's natural for Stansberry to feel as he does. After all if the US gov had just busted me for conning and lying to folks, and fined ME 1.5Mill, I'd be having some pretty intense lurid fantasies about it going down in flames, and trying to hide any money I had left offshore also.   A huge amount of his argument hinges on the US no longer being the world's reserve currency.  Firstly, while I'll admit I'm none too happy with the way the national debt has been managed for oh, around 30 years how, (which includes I will note going from a pretty much balanced budget, to around an 80% increase in the debt from 2001 through 2008, when 'times were good' and there was little need to spend money we didn't have), when compared to a lot of other countries, we still don't look that bad.  You have to ask yourself this first, if not the US, then WHO?  are the governments of the world going to trust China? could the Yen handle the load?  Is the Euro any better off especially considering problems in Greece, Ireland, etc.  Do countries like Switzerland have enough liquidity and available ways to invest there?  In order for the US to STOP being the world's reserve currency, you must have something to replace it with, and really, can we realistically think of one country/currency with the capability to become a new 'world reserve currency'???  Secondly, even then should such a shift actually happen, it doesn't mean people will ALL just magically stop buying US debt.  Yes the demand would go down, but it would not go to zero.  There are after all a worldfull of other countries who's money is right now NOT the world reserve currency, and yet they are able to sell bonds and people and even other countries invest there. (China for example does not invest exclusively in the US), so yeah we might have to start paying more interest to get people to buy US debt, but it's not like the demand will go away.   Save your money, save your time, don't buy into this dung.


"As you may know, the interstate system could have been easily built where every car/truck is charged to use it.  What about the space program? Absolutely no income from this and absolutely no benefit on earth... except additional jobs...  As for giving tax break to corporations, this is not the case!  This is a case of investment so a corporation will employ people in the USA instead of another country.  As for not ""living up to promises"": if a contract is written, and they don't live up to promises, then you know what will happen next."


They've asked you, so your advice is welcome.  That's your main concern, really. I'd also ask them how much, and what kind of advice.  Do they want you to point them to good websites?  On what subjects?  Or do they want more personal advice and have you to look over their bank accounts and credit card statements, provide accountability, etc.? Treat them the same way you'd want to be treated if you asked for help on something that you were weak on.


My young sweet experience to rent BMW’s Mini’s I'm only 18 and I rented a BMW 1 series from HBC Car Rentals for 2-weeks, to drive around Central London and North West London. After searching the internet for a hire company which rents to young drivers we stumbled upon HBC Car Rentals, not only could they rent to me they had the great reviews a very competitive price.  HBC Car Hire is located minutes away from Wembley stadium. They have a large array of cars to rent, even to young drivers. Their mission is to make the hire of Cars and Vans simple and accessible. And HBC car hire stand by that!! You let them know your requirements and they will organize everything for you in one complete package AT AFFORDABLE RATES. HBC Car Rentals aims to meet everyone’s need.  They’re Located in North West London, Close proximity to Wembley Central Tube Station, Wembley stadium and Wembley Park Station. And on major bus route like Bus 18 Bus 83 Bus 292 and many more. HBC Car Rentals exceeded our expectations. Find more from hbcrentals(dot)co(dot)uk


What rules are being violated? What specific rule changes do you propose?   The reason I ask is, because rule changes put into effect to prevent certain activities often have unintended and unforseen consequences.   Several exchanges are enacting fees that will curb this activity. Essentially if you send over X number of quotes today, and get filled on less than Y% of them, you will be charged a fee of Z for each quote sent over X. The number of quotes X is in the six figure range, the fill rate Y is around 80%, and the fee is a mil or so.   This effectively curbs behavior like this.


"Suppose the stock is $41 at expiry. The graph says I will lose money. I think I paid $37.20 for (net debit) at this price. I would make money, not lose. What am I missing? The `net debit' doesn't have anything to do with your P/L graph. Your graph is also showing your profit and loss for NOW and only one expiration. Your trade has two expirations, and I don't know which one that graph is showing. That is the ""mystery"" behind that graph. Regardless, your PUTs are mitigating your loss as you would expect, if you didn't have the put you would simply lose more money at that particular price range. If you don't like that particular range then you will have to consider a different contract. it was originally a simple covered call, I added a put to protect from stock going lower.. Your strike prices are all over the place and NBIX has a contract at every whole number.... there is nothing simple about this trade. You typically won't find an ""always profitable"" combination of options. Also, changes in volatility can distort your projects greatly."


"> Using my time the way I want is my liberty so long as I am not obstructing another person's same natural born rights.  I think the left and right agree on this goal.  I just think the left sees more things as indirectly obstructing another person's rights than the right.  > Well, tell me why (""My body, my choice"") doesn't hold true when it comes to health care?  I don't understand.  I think the general left embraces that attitude except in a few cases where another person's rights are infringed (vaccines, for instance).  When do you think they are being hypocritical to that slogan?  > I think I am done here.  Done with your answer or done with our conversation?"


I joined the military for college and came back with a broken back and now disabled... 5/7 not worth it. Either you're gung-ho, bored, clueless, poor but want to travel, or goal-oriented like college. Also sucks to be delayed compared to friends and family who didn't join.


I'd imagine societies will tend to glorify whatever their economies require - after inventing matches, starting fires with sticks is no longer glorified as much. After a colonial empire collapses and they are no longer getting agricultural tributes from their colonies, I'd imagine they'd start glorifying agricultural work again more than their recent history.


It essentially works the same. Some states don't have any income taxes at all (like Florida or Wyoming), some only tax income derived in the state, and some tax worldwide income (like New York or California), similarly to the Federal income taxes. However, if you're living abroad (i.e.: you're a citizen or resident of a foreign country and you live there), you're not considered resident by most of the states (check with your state for specific definitions) for most, if not all, the time of your residency abroad. In such case - you don't pay state taxes, only Federal. You have to remember that foreign income exclusion doesn't apply to the income from your 401k, so you pay the taxes as if you're in the US. You can not use foreign taxes credit as well (but depending on the tax treaty with the country you're moving to, your 401k income might not be taxable there). In some cases you may end up with double taxation: US will tax your 401k income as you're a US citizen and the income is derived from the US sources, and the foreign country will tax the income based on its own laws. This is not a tax advice, and this answer was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer.


What typically happens to brokerage accounts during similar situations? This depends on country, time and situation. Nothing is predictable in such situations. In Greece during the said period the stock exchanges were closed for 5 weeks. There was no trading.  Edits: Every situation is different and it would be unfair to compare one against another or use it to predict something else. Right now in India due to demonitization, cash withdrawal is limited. One can trade in stocks, unlimited bank transfers, transfer money out of India ...etc. Everything same except for cash withdrawal. In 1990, the ASEAN countries survived a financial collapse, everything was allowed except moving money out of country.


The best thing to do right now is track your spending. You know you're saving 1k a month, and you know you're spending 1k a month on rent. That's 24k so far. I presume you'll have some income tax taken out, let's assume it's another 6k to round us neatly up to 30k. Since you earn 80k and you've spent 30k so far, you have another 50k unaccounted for. If you're in the USA I'd recommend using mint.com or a similar service to automatically track your transactions, or even just a spreadsheet if you don't like handing out your bank details (and you shouldn't). After that, I agree with SoulsOpenSource's answer. Write a budget and try to figure out where the fat can be trimmed. When I started tracking I saw I was spending almost a hundred bucks every week on fast food, due to poor planning and laziness. I decided to cook more and plan better and now I'm spending less than half that - in the last year I've saved almost three thousand dollars! If you want to save up for your future (and good on you if you do!) then there'll be some choices to make ahead. If you're spending a few hundred bucks on going out drinking every weekend, or you grab two coffees every day, or you buy fifty blurays a month (do people still buy blurays?), you'll have to ask yourself: Will I be happier spending money here than saving for my future?


"Check your math... ""two stocks, both with a P/E of 2 trading at $40 per share lets say, and one has an EPS of 5 whereas the other has an EPS of 10 is the latter a better purchase?"" If a stock has P/E of 2 and  price of $40 it has an EPS of $20. Not $10. Not $5."


Ofrecemos los mejores paquetes turísticos en La Habana. La Habana es la capital de Cuba y respira una energía y vivacidad diferente a cualquier otro lugar de la isla. Este es el lugar para pasear por las calles llenas de bandas de cultura tradicional o tríos, escuchar los golpes de salsa de voladura de una casa privada cercana lejos en los clubes de salsa y empezar a entender el verdadero estilo de vida cubano. Independientemente de los lugares que planea visitar durante su viaje, no vacaciones en Cuba sería una completamente disponible Casa particular en Habana. Cuba tiene dos monedas, una para los turistas y otra para los ciudadanos. Para conseguir una experiencia realmente auténtica en La Habana intenta alojarse en una Casa Particular.


So, there's no way to do both?  I look out for my family, but I also try to be honest, live up to my word, and admit my mistakes rather than trying to find a villain or excuse for them.  Looking out for myself and my family includes being careful with my money, especially large sums that I don't want to lose.


I found a good description of these on the Laurentian Bank website.  Very similar to Abraham's answer, but the details are a little different (perhaps because it's Canadian). Certified cheque: A cheque which has been certified by the bank that the funds to be drawn are available and locked in for the sole beneficiary. This type of payment is guaranteed in case of theft, loss or destruction. Certified cheques can be entirely replaced after investigation (may be subject to a fee). Official cheque: As for the certified cheque, the official cheque is guaranteed by the bank against theft, loss or destruction. This type of cheque is different because it will be automatically and fully reimbursed within a 30 to 90-day period. If the amount is over $1,000, fees will be higher than   those of the certified cheque. Money Order: The money order is also a bank-guaranteed payment in case of theft, loss or destruction. As with the official cheque, it will be replaced or totally refunded within a 30 to 90-day period. Its difference resides in the fact that the maximum amount is $1,000 and it can be issued in US dollars. Bank draft: A bank draft is the ideal guaranteed payment vehicle for all your foreign currency transactions. It’s guaranteed against theft, loss or destruction and will be replaced or totally reimbursed within a period that varies according to the currency. If you are an immigrant or an emigrant or if you make purchases outside of the country, you could require this payment vehicle.


Not the same.  If Walmart were to actually make a product and then let the same people who made it buy the product before any customers, that is a problem.  Heck, it even pisses me off when a new product comes out (not made by Walmart, say Star Wars ships) and Walmart employees buy all of them up before they hit the shelves. That's fucked up.  They aren't customers at that point. They are taking unfair advantage of their employment to buy things not yet available to real customers.  Also, it has been long standing practice to not let employees buy the first X products off the line.  Why?  Because they might put more into the product that what they are paying for.   Imagine if ALL the employees were to buy the new 3S before Tesla let a real customer get one. Imagine how many customers who put deposits down would be pissed.   IMHO, personally and professionally, it's just wrong to let your employees have first dibs.


Possibles: stock offering, secondary placement, increase authorized number of shares, shelf registration.


Maybe you know something I don't, but as far as I'm aware, you can't get rid of it.  **Student loans are with you for life**.  You will be sent to collections, but it doesn't disappear after 7 years.  Settlements are incredibly rare unless your loan is ballooning... in which case, a settlement doesn't change all that much.  You will lose tax benefits, the government will garnish 15% of your wages, and you will be a debt slave until it's paid off.  Defaulting on student loans is much, much more painful than defaulting on private loans.  The *only* exception to this is if you've made 120 months of repayments while employed at a qualifying non-profit or governmental organization.  And even then, it only applies to federal loans and there are exceptions (better not refinance or the clock resets, for example).  Also, if you default, you will no longer be eligible.  Private student loans have no escape hatch and are equally unforgiving.  Thank your elected representatives.


Guy from the 1800s has no relevance to modern times when everyone has access to the world's knowledge for $30/month. There's NO excuse for anyone to not come up with $400 in an emergency. My grandparents were poor, but they lived under their means so they could have a surplus. My parents did the same. I do the same. The surplus is now sizeable, through nothing extraordinary. The people I blame the most for poverty is people who have kids they cannot afford. That's the root origin of most poverty, without which, poverty would be eradicated within 2 generations at most.


In my opinion, since she will live in one apartment, as will you and your husband, the simplest method is to divide the ratio exactly the same as the area for your living space. If it's 40/60, she puts 40% down, you put 60%. And you split expenses the same.  The tenant income can be applied to the house expenses, as it's no different than giving her 40% and you keep 60%.  No matter how well you get along, it's easy for someone to feel a split of expenses isn't fair unless it's discussed and agreed up front.


Corporations started dumping pensions in the 80's and 90's.  I noted at the time that that while the original hiring incentives had been to take lower wages in lieu of the promise of a pension; they did not raise wages after they dumped the pensions.  I think that the move was in part because corporate interests realized that through their pensions were about to control corporate America.


Sorry, this post is horribly misguided. First of all, any boat or yacht is a terrible investment. The depreciation is horrendous. Secondly saying you lease as otherwise you’re tying up capital stupidly is incorrect. It depends on what your marginal cost of capital vs that of companies leasing. When you lease you also compensate the lessor for its cost of capital. If your cost of capital is less than that of the lessor then you would be stupid to get the lease. You would be better off paying the 250mln out of pocket and borrowing it from the market yourself.


"I appreciate the detailed responses, truthfully however I feel like at least half of your points are either just argumentative for its sake alone, display a deep lack of understanding of unions, collective bargaining, and the histories of both, or ignore pragmatism and cling to an uncompromising and ultimately self-defeating ideology.  > Collective bargaining is an ambiguous term that could refer to many concepts. There is voluntarily agreed to collective bargaining, which has nothing wrong with it, and then there are laws that FORCE the employer to collectively bargain with a union if a union requests it, which is a mandate and violates the employer's contract liberty.  The law forces the two parties to sit at a table. The law forces the two parties to discuss a few core things, like wages. The law *doesn't* force anyone to agree to anything, and very often they don't. I don't see how this is a violation of anyone's ""contract liberty"" (a term I've actually never heard before). The idea is since these worker-employer disputes exist naturally, making them at least sit at a table together and talking is helpful in avoiding ego and testosterone fueled disruptions where no one benefits. If this you see this as a violation of one's liberty, I really don't know what to say to that.   > The prevalence of child labor was decreasing long before any law was created prohibiting it. Child labor is necessary in poor countries because people are far less productive per hour worked.   I'm not saying I don't believe you, but citation needed.  > As productivity increases, parents can afford to send their children off to school instead of working, since their own work is enough to support the family.  Wouldn't educating children first lead to an increase in productivity? Also, what if the owners of the means of production, only a few in an given area, have incomes 100x greater than the workers? They seem to be producing enough wealth to support themselves, only they're not the beneficiaries. What's the solution here?  I understand that in a poor country child labor is seen as a necessity; however I think there is a moral issue when someone from a developed nation opens a factory in a third-world country with conditions that they would not want someone in their own family subjected to. Maybe these conditions are standard in the third-world country, but just because they're standard that doesn't mean the people there are happy with them.  > In other words, no government mandate created due to union-pressure can possibly lead to beneficial change, since laws that limit people's economic rights, under the assumption that 51% knows what's better for the minority than they themselves do, generally do much more harm than good.     This is quite a leap. Problem is you always assume that a company is always paying workers as much as it can instead of having a net income that can absorb an uptick in overhead.   > As history over the last century has shown, it's no hyperbole. Labor unions-backed regulations (soft-socialism) has succeeded in spite of the resistance of employers.  And you owe this to violence or the threat of violence? Citation needed.  > Because unions have destroyed nearly every major industry where they had a natural tendency to form (large scale capital intensive manufacturing operations where large numbers of workers were concentrated in one place).  This is typical anti-union propaganda, and it's funny you pull it out since it ignores your own ideology. What interest would a union have in destroying the very industry it needs to exist? Answer: none. This is just a way for a business to deflect criticism when they want to outsource, killing US jobs just to increase their net income. Unions make concessions when they have to.  > The force of government prevents companies from refusing to collectively bargain with a labor union. Threat of violence? Violent strikes? This is a straw-man if I've ever seen one. Who is threatening violence here? This existed before government laws were created that made legal threats on behalf of employees that want to keep unionized employees employed and force companies to collectively bargain with a union. Now of course the strikers themselves are not directly threatening violence, since they are backed by the force of government.  This is just showing a tremendous amount of ignorance regarding the way  things actually happen.  > Collectively bargaining doesn't benefit workers in general. It benefits in the short-term, those workers who are employed and unionized, at the expense of long-term wage growth and employment opportunities for the unemployed and non-unionized employees.  I have no idea how one could come to this conclusion. I can only assume it  stems from the same old idea that employers are always paying out the most that they can afford.   I happen to have first-hand knowledge that it's false however - when my workplace unionized recently, one of around a dozen locations nationally and the only one to organize, the company responded by increasing wages and benefits to all locations. Have any locations closed? No. Has anyone been laid off? No. Is the company still mad profitable? Yes."


What you are looking for is : Volatility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility_(finance) Normally you can't trade that directly per product, but a product like the VIX as a whole. Another option (sorry for the pun) is that certain option greeks deal with Volatility (vega I think?).  There are ways to value options to buy/sell against that options/products volatility  - but has some other side affects besides just pure trading of the Volatility.  You'll probably need a lot of Math and use of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-Scholes to fully understand/trade on it though.


Really the question you need to ask yourself is how much Risk you want to take in order to save a little on interest for 5 years. Rates are pretty close to a historic low, and if you have good credit you should shop around a bit to get a good ideal of what a 15 or 30 year fixed loan would go for. For people that are SURE they will be selling a property in a few years, a 5-yeah balloon, or ARM might not be a bad thing.  OTOH, if their plans change, or if you plan to stay in the property for longer (e.g. 10-15 years) then they have the potential to turn into a HUGE trap, and could have the effect of forcing you to sell your house.   The most likely people to fall into such a trap are those who are trying to buy more house than they can really afford and max out what they can pay using a lower rate and then later cannot afford the payments if anything happens that makes the rate go up.  Over the last three years we've seen a large number of foreclosures and short-sales taking place are because of people who fell into just this kind of trap..  I strongly advise you learn from their mistakes and do NOT follow in their footsetps  You need to consider what could happen in 5 years time.   Or if the economy takes off and/or the Fed is not careful with interest rates and money supply, we could see high inflation and high interest rates to go along with it.   The odds of rates being any lower in 5 years time is probably pretty low.  The odds of it being higher depends on who's crystal ball you look at.  I think most people would say that rates are likely to increase (and the disagreement is over just how much and how soon).  If you are forced to refinance in 5 years time, and the rates are higher, will you be able to make the payments, or will you potentially be forced out of the house? Perhaps into something much smaller.  What happens if the rates at that time are 9% and even an ARM is only 6%? Could you make the payments or would you be forced to sell?   Potentially you could end up paying out more in interest than if you had just gotten a simple fixed loan. Myself, I'd not take the risk.  For much of the last 40 years people would have sold off their children or body parts to get rates like we have today on a standard fixed loan.  I'd go for a standard fixed loan between 15 and 30 years duration.  If you want to pay extra principle to get it paid off earlier in order to feel more secure or just get out from under the debt, then do so (personally, I wouldn't bother, not at today's rates)


> So... the only way airline companies can reduce their carbon tax is to buy new airplanes?  I was giving an example. Better weather forecasts that allow charting routes to avoid turbulence and headwinds could improve fuel consumption without new aircraft.


"The reason that UltraLong funds and the like are bad isn't because of the leverage ratio. It's because they're compounded daily, and the product of all the doubled daily returns is not mathematically equivalent to the double the long-term return. I'd consider providing big fancy equations using uppercase pi as the 'product of elements in a sequence' operator and other calculus fanciness, but that would be overkill, I don't think I can do TeX here, and I don't know the relevant TeX anyway. Anyway. From the economics theory perspective, the ideal leverage ratio is 1X - that is, unlevered, straight investment. Consider: Using leverage costs money. You know that, surely. If someone could borrow money at N% and invest at an expected N+X%, where X > 0, then they would. They would borrow all the money they could and buy all the S&P500 they could. But when they bought all that S&P500, they'd eventually run out of people who were willing to sell it for that cheap. That would mean the excess return would be smaller. Eventually you'd get to a point where the excess return is... zero? .... well, no, empirically, we can see that it's definitely not zero, and that in the real world that stocks do return more than bonds. Why?  Because stocks are riskier than bonds. The difference in expected return between an index like the S&P500 and a US Treasury bond is due to the relative riskiness of the S&P500, which isn't guaranteed by the US Government to return your principal. Any money that you make off of leverage comes from assuming some sort of a risk. Now, assuming risk can be a profitable thing to do, but there are also a lot of people out there with higher risk tolerance than you, like insurance companies and billionaires, so the market isn't exactly short of people willing to take risks, and you shouldn't expect the returns of ""assuming risk"" in the general case to be qualitatively awesome. Now, it's true that investing in an unlevered fashion is risky also. But that's not an excuse to go leveraged anyway; it's a reason to hold back. In fact, regular stocks are sufficiently risky that most people probably shouldn't be holding a 100% stock portfolio. They should be tempering that risk with bonds, instead, and increasing the size of their bond holdings over time. The appropriate time to use leverage is when you have information which limits your risk. You have done research, and have reason to believe that you understand the future of an individual stock/index better than the rest of the stock market does. You calculate that the potential for achieving returns with leverage outweighs the risks. Then you dump your money into the leveraged position. (In exchange for this, the market receives information about anticipated future returns of this instrument, because of the price movement which occurs as a result of someone putting his money where his mouth is.) If you're just looking to dump money into broad market indicies in a leveraged fashion, you're doing it wrong. There is no free money. (Ed. Which is not to say there's not money. There's lots of money. But if you go looking for the free kind, you won't find it, and may end up with money that you thought was free but was actually quite expensive.) Edit. Okay, so you don't like my answer. I'm not surprised. I'm giving you a real answer instead of a ""make free money"" answer. Okay. Here's your ""how to make free money"" answer. Assume you are using a constant leverage ratio over the length of time you've invested your money, and you don't get to just jump into and out of the market (that's market-timing, not leverage) so you have to stay invested. You're going to have a scenario which falls into one of these categories: The S&P500 historically rises over time. The average rate of return probably exceeds the average interest rate. So the ideal leverage ratio is infinite. Of course, this is a stupid answer in real life because you can't pull that off. Your risk tolerance is too low and you will have trouble finding a lender willing to lend you unsecured money, and you'll probably lose all your money in a crash sooner or later. Ultimately it's a stupid answer because you're asking the wrong question. You should probably ask a better question: ""when I use leverage to gain additional exposure to risk, am I being properly compensated for assuming that risk?"""


Sweet, Baggy gangsta /urbanomically correct gear for everyone! Or you could get the reverse and end up with ultra tight village people/mardi gras parade. The troops will look either rough and ready Gangsta or Absolutely Fabulous, Either way it's going to be interesting.


Here in the Philippines, the electricity is owned by single company and they charged a lot of other fees like transmission fee, loss in transmission, etc. i dont understand my bill, all i can see are the add ons to the original amount (i.e. Number of kwh x based rate). The rest of the fees are extra fee. I don't know how they do it, but we cant do anything, we want electricity so we pay. Maybe that ls just how the world is.


"Well, he better get cashin', then.  Because the bills are piling up.  https://www.law360.com/articles/942251/floyd-mayweather-lacks-cash-for-taxes-until-after-fight  > Boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. doesn’t have enough cash on hand to meet his 2015 tax liability, according to a Tax Court petition asking for a reprieve until after an upcoming fight because his current assets, while “substantial,” are “restricted and primarily illiquid.”   So maybe the McGregor check went straight to Uncle Samuel?  So the IRS cashed it, not Floyd?  I humbly suggest the new nickname:  Floyd ~~""Money""~~ ""Bank Drafts"" Mayweather."


Generally, you have 60 days to return funds.   If you've been stowing away money in to a Roth IRA and an emergency strikes you pull out contributions sufficient to tackle the emergency while leaving at least the earnings in there.  You've never paid taxes on these earnings and the earnings will continue to grow tax free.   If you've been stowing away money in a vanilla taxable account and an emergency strikes you pull out whatever amount to tackle the emergency.  You've been paying taxes on the earnings all along but there's no paperwork. You can't replace the money in the Roth IRA (outside the 60 day limit except for some specific same year rules that you should iron out with your custodian) but you also haven't lost anything.  Either way in the event of an emergency the funds are removed from an account, but in one case you haven't been paying taxes on gains. IF you want to go the route of a Roth IRA wrapper for your emergency fund you shouldn't be touching the funds for small events, tires for your car and the like.  If your goal is to juice the tax free nature of the Roth IRA wrapper for as long as you can then repurpose the money for retirement if you never experienced an emergency with the understanding that you may have to gut the account in an emergency, that's fine.  If you expect money to routinely come in and out of the account a Roth IRA is a horrible vehicle.


My uncle seen the writing on the wall a year or two ago. He retired early and got his pension out of the company. Apparently the pensions are invested back into the company so they don't only loose their job when the company fails.


Yeah, this benefits the buyer who made an impulse purchase because they saw a celebrity wearing something similar and thought it was cool. Then a few weeks later it becomes another piece of discarded junk.   I think the free market can work, but this is not the way. There are a lot of external costs that nobody is paying for, especially all the waste associated with producing junk products like this.


I've been budgeting with MS Money since 2004 and was pretty disappointed to hear it's being discontinued. Budgeting is actually a stress-relieving hobby for me, and I can be a bit of a control-freak when it comes to finances, so I decided to start early looking for a replacement rather than waiting until MS Money can no longer download transactions. Here are the pros and cons of the ones I've tried (updated 10/2010): You Need A Budget Pro (YNAB) - Based on the old envelopes system, YNAB has you allot money from each paycheck to a specific budget category (envelope). It encourages you to live on last money's income, and if you have trouble with overspending, that can be a great plan. Personally, I'm a big believer in the envelope concept, so that's the biggest pro I found. Also, it's a downloaded software, so once I've bought it (for about $50) it's mine, without forced upgrades as far as I've seen. The big con for me was that it does not automatically download transactions. I would have to sign on to each institution's website and manually download to the program. Also, coming from Money, I'm used to having features that YNAB doesn't offer, like the ability to store information about my accounts. Overall, it's forward-thinking and a good budgeting system, but will take some extra time to download transactions and isn't really a comprehensive management tool for all my financial needs. You can try it out with their free trial. Mint - This is a free online program. The free part was a major pro. It also looks pretty, if that's important to you. Updating is automatic, once you've got it all set up, so that's a pro. Mint's budgeting tools are so-so. Basically, you choose a category and tell it your limit. It yells at you (by text or email) when you cross the line, but doesn't seem to offer any other incentive to stay on budget.  When I first looked at Mint, it did not connect with my credit union, but it currently connects to all my banks and all but one of my student loan institutions.  Another recent improvement is that Mint now allows you to manually add transactions, including pending checks and cash transactions.  The cons for me are that it does not give me a good end-of-the-month report, doesn't allow me to enter details of my paychecks, and doesn't give me any cash-flow forecasting. Overall, Mint is a good casual, retrospective, free online tool, but doesn't allow for much planning ahead. Mvelopes - Here's another online option, but this one is subscription-based. Again, we find the old envelopes system, which I think is smart, so that's a pro for me. It's online, so it downloads transactions automatically, but also allows you to manually add transactions, so another pro. The big con on this one is the cost. Depending on how you far ahead you choose to pay (quarterly, yearly or biannually), you're paying $7.60 to $12 per month. They do offer a free trial for 14 days (plus another 14 days offered when you try to cancel). Another con is that they don't provide meaningful reports. Overall, a good concept, but not worth the cost for me. Quicken - I hadn't tried Quicken earlier because they don't offer a free trial, but after the last few fell short, I landed with Quicken 2009. Pro for Quicken, as an MS Money user is that it is remarkably similar in format and options. The registers and reports are nearly identical. One frustration I'd had with Money was that it was ridiculously slow at start-up, and after a year or so of entering data, Quicken is dragging. Con for Quicken, again as an MS Money user, is that it's budgeting is not as detailed as I would like.  Also, it does not download transactions smoothly now that my banks all ask security questions as part of sign-in.  I have to sign in to my bank's website and manually download.  Quicken 2011 is out now, but I haven't tried it yet.  Hopefully they've solved the problem of security questions.  Quicken 2011 promises an improved cash-flow forecast, which sounds promising, and was a feature of MS Money that I have very much missed.  Haven't decided yet if it's worth the $50 to upgrade to 2011.


"I haven't heard 30-year mortgages called unwise. As @jared said, the shorter terms often will be cheaper if you are going to pay off within that term anyway, but the extra cost of the 30 may still be justified because it gives you the ""safety net"" of being able to fall back to the lower payment if money gets tight. Cheap insurance if you might need that insurance. That wasn't something I was worried about, so I took a 20-year, later refinanced as 15-year, and got a slightly better rate by doing so. Consider how long you expect to own this house, and shop for the best deal you can find. Remember to figure points into the real cost the loan. There are calculators on many bank/credit-union websites that can help you do this comparison."


"Part of it was an Oops, but not all of it. There were reports that the sudden   drop was caused by a trader who   mistyped an order to sell a large   block of stock. The drop in that   stock's price was enough to trigger   ""sell"" orders across the market. Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36983596/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/"


SEP IRA deduction goes to line 28 of your 1040, which is above the line (i.e.: pre-AGI). It should not be included in your taxable income (AGI) for Federal purposes.