Wooden Vegetable Trugs  & Vegtrug Wall Hugger are supplied with a pre-formed careful liner, but if for any reason yours requires substitution should it be damaged in any way, you can purchase the correct size for your planter here. Vegtrug Wall Hugger Small is made from strong black polyethylene fabric which forms a sheet. They also protect the wooden frames from the sticky compost. More Visit : https://www.directbargainwarehouse.com.au/collections/vegtrug-see-what-you-can-grow


I'm seriously considering liquidating my Roth as it's taken me years to build what I have. My rationalization: the market feels really expensive, and I feel a lot of risk with our current political climate. Is it normal to feel like you're sticking your neck out during times like this? I'm feeling pretty gun shy after 08-09 (stayed in market even though I got creamed).   Or am I being a panicked little kid that needs to take a deep breath and ride the upcoming uncertainty (translation: stay in the market)?


Is it possible to open a GBP bank account in Pakistan ? Yes you can. Quite a few Banks offer Foreign currency accounts in GBP [or USD or EUR, JPY] Are there any risks in doing so ? Generally no. As per Protection of Economic Reforms Act (PERA) of 1992 and foreign currency accounts (protection) ordinance 2001 the funds are protected and you can move them back out of Pakistan any time. However if you are looking at investing into property and then selling it after few years, there maybe difficulties in such transactions and consult a tax advisor familiar with such cases. All money is legit with bank statements of my pay which is between 35K and 40K per year, am I going to have any trouble at airport as limit is £7K only Carrying cash of this amount is generally not advisable. It is best to do a Bank to Bank transfer. You can visit one of the Pakistan Bank that has branch in UK [say Standard Chartered, Citi, HSBC, etc]. They should be able to open account with transfer of funds. There is no limitation on carrying foreign exchange in cash when you enter Pakistan. However when you are travelling out of Pakistan you can only carry USD 10,000 or eq. per person.


"This will depend on individual bank policy. Federal Reserve Regulation D is the regulation that requires banks to disallow more than 6 ""convenient transactions"" in a month on savings accounts.  If they do allow it, they will fail their audits and be fined. As a result, banks will do one of several things: either prevent you from any more transactions for the month, charge you a fee, convert your account to a checking account, or simply close the account altogether.  If they do that, they will give you the money in it (probably by mailing you a check). You have a few options before that happens.  First of all, if this is an account that you regularly spend money out of, the appropriate account type is a checking account.  You could go to the bank and open a checking account, which will not have a transaction limit. If you are unable or unwilling to do that, you'll need to stay under this limit.  However, you should be aware that not all withdrawal types fall under this ""6 transaction"" limit.  The regulations talk about ""convenient transactions,"" which generally include things like automated payments, debit card, check, internet transfers, etc.  Cash withdrawals in person or at an ATM generally do not fall under this limit, so that is an option for you if you hit your limit for the month."


"The only reason taxes are ""needed"" is because the people are to ignorant to know there are better more moral systems out there. For instance instead of stealing hard earned money from people tax the money they spend ie federal sales tax. ""How is that any different?!"" Because a sales tax isn't theft it just raises the price of products you want to buy, this way there is no tax dodging and no imprisonment for keeping what you earned and what is rightfully yours"


That's overly simplistic. The stockholders made millions. She kept the ship afloat and maintained their multi-billion dollar investments long enough for the acquisition. She paid for her shortcomings through the years through stock withholding and cuts, so while the investors were making x amount of money, she was making x-y. Imagine a more skittish CEO who would cash out investments to plug a hole in a ship that was destined to sink, delay the inevitable. The company fails anyway, just later rather than sooner, and the stockholders lose their money.


As one answer points out, people buying greeting cards care little about whether they cost 25 cents or $5.  Those are both small amounts of money and it's not something you buy often---also people feel the need to spend money because it's a gift. On the supplier side, it should be noted that the cost of cards has little to do with the paper they are printed on.  There is an expectation that cards are new and unique...something the buyer and recipient have never seen.  So they have writers and graphic designers constantly cranking out a large variety of cards and replacing existing cards with new ones, of which only a small number get sold before they move to the next model.  Relatively speaking, there is a lot of human effort per thousand cards sold.  Then of course there is the real estate they occupy in the store (disproportionate to a bunch of pieces of paper) and other retail, marketing, and distribution costs.  I'm not saying margins are particularly thin, but if they were crazy high we probably would see more entry as you suggest.


LC WebProsb is the best and trusted resource that offers to help you market your products and services both smarter and better. We provide the best online marketing service in the world. The fact is the social media marketing contributions and discussions are held by the community of people, they have the freedom to discuss any company. The businesses have to keep up, and that means figuring out how to manage customer requests that come in via social media.


This is definitely a scam. I had a friend sign up for a very similar offer and what they did was send a fake check and then asked to transfer the same amount to them. So now you just send them a couple grand and you're holding a fake check.


> 5-10 years  Dude, 5-10 years is nothing. For people who make a living in the trucking industry that means that in as little as 5 years they may need to have have reinvented their careers. If you're a career truck driver without any other education you could be screwed before you know it.


"We already have plenty of ""dreamers""  dreaming of not being homeless. This is affirmative action political horse shit for people are not even American citizens. This couldn't be more anti-white and it's completely superficial and right on the surface, are you surprised by white people saying fuck you?"


This is an organization with a strong Christian atmosphere that actively employs fellow believers and hosts a bible study every morning.   If that isn't a church, then what *do* you consider a church?  Also, it wasn't an analogy. It was an explanation of why certain organizations may choose to hire like-minded people.   EDIT: No clue why this is getting downvotes. Equal opportunity employment is not without its practical limitations.


Well, it seems you can't answer the question. Perhaps the difference in types of banks isn't so dry, is it, you dumb fuck.  But go ahead an double down on being an ignorant idiot who thinks he knows it all. If you get into politics it will serve you well.


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Horse shit. Why do you feel the need to lie? A: They are not being subsidized. You are honestly saying that USPS's service was so consistently terrible that they delayed, destroyed, and lost your packages to the point that your customers' attitudes would change immediately upon changing to UPS?  Horse Shit.


The scenarios you describe are obviously easy to catch. It is reasonably defined in tax law, but more needs to be done to exert the spirit of the rules. The problem is that when international businesses are cross charging  there is limited information the tax offices have to argue the toss - for example a UK tax office cannot audit the accounts of its US parent in order to decide whether a cross charge representing license fees and marketing costs is fair - but these types of transaction are one of the primary mechanism for avoiding taxes. These are therefrom inferred by the UK companies accounts but not 'in the open' in the sense that they can be easily challenged with accurate information. And that is why it happens, people know about it, but it is still not easy to stop.


I suppose you would support having the government provide all the wonderful pension and medical benefits that government workers, including legislators of course, receive?  And where pray tell would all the cash come from?  Just have the government print it up??? Surely you can't be stupid enough to think that money created endlessly as needed without producing anything can retain its value do you? Government employees, including legislators and professional politicians, should not receive special benefits merely because they happen to be bureaucratic leeches on the public teat.


Amazon is always going to be pointless for screws and nails because you can't ship that economically.  You can't do items like lumber, sheet rock, or concrete due to weight.  You can never ship large items due to size.  Amazon fits for knick knacks that are expensive enough to ship, but small and light enough for Prime.  Their weakness is still needing to ship things.  Plus it can't be underestimated that you need to return shit because it doesn't fit or the contractor needs an exchange for something else.  Makes sense to make a Home Depot run; stupid if you need to ship it back to Amazon to do an exchange.  This only works if Amazon enters the warehouse showroom space and has exchanges, returns, and purchases done face to face.  This is something Home Depot already has the advantage in.  Amazon may attempt to kill them with a thousand cuts with light bulbs, hammers, and small parts.


Whoever wrote this article is an idiot. $112,000 income in NY makes you barely middle class. 529 plans and 401k plans are two of very few actually sensible pieces of tax policy this burning dumpster fire of a country has. Come to Brooklyn and tell the high school janitor who makes $100k that he is too affluent to get college savings tax credits and be prepared to get punched in the face.


Why would you want the company who failed to be the one monitoring your credit?   Bankrupt them and be done with them. They're likely going to be sued into insolvency and that in turn should create an about-face to the other credit companies.    The last thing anyone should want is giving additional or further responsibility to a company with the largest personal information leak of all time.


You need to know your costs. Some are fixed. Review them.  There are some expenses that are variable. Review the amount and if it is reasonable.  Review your large orders. Are they increasing?  Ask him how he thinks people will steal from the company. Did he see a large order and the customer will default?


hello pointbox,  i enjoy getting in front of someone that does know what they are talking about, so i have a question for you...  could you give to us a textbook example of what a high frequency trade looks like?


Susan Rice isn't a congresswoman. Hillary earned most of her money through foriegn and domestic speaking fees and a magic agriculture futures deal after bill left office (bribery) to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech.  Bribery isn't only endemic to congress. Federal employees also profit off of lobbying and influence peddling (bribery, corruption)


No fucking shit. Since it is their money that Greece is spending, I think they have a right to put some stipulations on it. Imaging trying to indefinitely keep Greece's ponzi scheme going if they didn't cut debts? Even if that could work (which I doubt) it would be too expensive to be feasible.


"It isn't just Fox News. Even liberal leaning sources like the Washington Post, ABC and the Seattle Times are using titles like ""A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals"" and ""New study of Seattle's $15 minimum wage says it costs jobs""    Now here are some citations from the actual study (which you obviously didn't read or you wouldn't have made the asinine comment above) ""Importantly, the lost income associated with the hours reductions exceeds the gain associated with the net wage increase of 3.1%. Using data in Table 3, we compute that the average low-wage employee was paid $1,897 per month. The reduction in hours would cost the average employee $179 per month, while the wage increase would recoup only $54 of this loss, leaving a net loss of $125 per month (6.6%), which is sizable for a low-wage worker.""  ""Our preferred estimates suggest that the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance **caused hours worked by low-skilled workers (i.e., those earning under $19 per hour) to fall by 9.4%** during the three quarters when the minimum wage was $13 per hour, resulting in a loss of 3.5 million hours worked per calendar quarter. Alternative estimates show the number of low-wage jobs declined by 6.8%, which represents a loss of more than 5,000 jobs. These estimates are robust to cutoffs other than $19.45 **A 3.1% increase in wages in jobs that paid less than $19 coupled with a 9.4% loss in hours yields a labor demand elasticity of roughly -3.0**""  I understand if you won't respond. It is scary having your liberal narrative shattered."


Close-end funds just means there's a fixed number of shares available, so if you want to buy some you must purchase from other existing owners, typically through an exchange. Open-end funds mean the company providing the shares is still selling them, so you can buy them directly from the company.  Some can also be traded on exchanges as well.


The buying service your credit union uses is similar to the one my credit union uses. I have used their service several times. There is no direct cost to use the service, though the credit union as a whole might have a fee to join the service. I have used it 4 times over the decades. If you know what make and model you want to purchase, or at least have it narrowed down to just a few choices, you can get an exact price for that make, model, and options. You do this before negotiating a price. You are then issued a certificate. You have to go to a specific salesman at a specific dealership, but near a large city there will be several dealers to pick from.  There is no negotiating at the dealership. You still have to deal with a trade in, and the financing option: dealer, credit union, or cash. But it is nice to not have to negotiate on the price. Of course there is nobody to stop you from using the price from the buying service as a goal when visiting a more conveniently located dealership, that is what I did last time. The first couple of times I used the standard credit union financing, and the last time I didn't need a loan. Even if you don't use the buying service, one way to pay for the car is to get the loan from the credit union, but get the rebate from the dealer. Many times if you get the low dealer financing you can't get the rebate. Doing it this way actually saves money. Speaking of rebates see how the buying service addresses them. The big national rebates  were still honored during at least one of my purchases. So it turned out to be the buying service price minus $1,000. If your service worked like my experience, the cost to you was a little time to get the price, and a little time in a different dealer to verify that the price was good.


The answer to this question can be found in the related question  Is there any online personal finance software without online banking?


"First of all, it's great you're now taking full advantage of your employer match – i.e. free money. Next, on the question of the use of a life cycle / target date fund as a ""hedge"": Life cycle funds were introduced for hands-off, one-stop-shopping investors who don't like a hassle or don't understand.  Such funds are gaining in popularity: employers can use them as a default choice for automatic enrollment, which results in more participation in retirement savings plans than if employees had to opt-in.  I think life cycle funds are a good innovation for that reason. But, the added service and convenience typically comes with higher fees.  If you are going to be hands-off, make sure you're cost-conscious:  Fees can devastate a portfolio's performance. In your case, it sounds like you are willing to do some work for your portfolio.  If you are confident that you've chosen a good equity glide path – that is, the initial and final stock/bond allocations and the rebalancing plan to get from one to the other  – then you're not going to benefit much by having a life cycle fund in your portfolio duplicating your own effort with inferior components.  (I assume you are selecting great low-cost, liquid index funds for your own strategy!)  Life cycle are neat, but replicating them isn't rocket science. However, I see a few cases in which life cycle funds may still be useful even if one has made a decision to be more involved in portfolio construction: Similar to your case: You have a company savings plan that you're taking advantage of because of a matching contribution.  Chances are your company plan doesn't offer a wide variety of funds.  Since a life cycle fund is available, it can be a good choice for that account.  But make sure fees aren't out of hand.  If much lower-cost equity and bond funds are available, consider them instead. Let's say you had another smaller account that you were unable to consolidate into your main account.  (e.g. a Traditional IRA vs. your Roth, and you didn't necessarily want to convert it.)  Even if that account had access to a wide variety of funds, it still might not be worth the added hassle or trading costs of owning and rebalancing multiple funds inside the smaller account.  There, perhaps, the life cycle fund can help you out, while you use your own strategy in your main account. Finally, let's assume you had a single main account and you buy partially into the idea of a life cycle fund and you find a great one with low fees. Except: you want a bit of something else in your portfolio not provided by the life cycle fund, e.g. some more emerging markets, international, or commodity stock exposure.  (Is this one reason you're doing it yourself?) In that case, where the life cycle fund doesn't quite have everything you want, you could still use it for the bulk of the portfolio (e.g. 85-95%) and then select one or two specific additional ETFs to complement it.  Just make sure you factor in those additional components into the overall equity weighting and adjust your life cycle fund choice accordingly (e.g. perhaps go more conservative in the life cycle, to compensate.) I hope that helps! Additional References:"


Ok the black suit being for funerals and weddings only thing freaks me out because I've worn black suits to two interviews already.   I'm gonna check out suit supply, there's a location nearby. What exactly is dark navy and medium gray (as opposed to what, light navy and dark gray?)  What about those suits that are very lightly striped and black


>a large amount of tax leaves the countryside and gets sucked into the cities.  I don't live in the US so could you elaborate why that is the case? As far as I am aware, it's an almost universal law that most prosperous places become net contributors and subsidises poorer areas.


"There's little to make short flights suck less, but that 90 minute flight from Buffalo/Rochester to JFK (common for some civil servants here) won't totally wreck a person.  That said, in a lot of those cases, the perks are comped because courting regular government business is good business for the airline.  Longer flights with layovers, that nice lounge to spend the layover in, a nicer meal than a stale sandwich and bag of peanuts, and possibly even enough room to catch a little more shuteye, those are perks.  So is being able to offer more time at home with family, etc.  Also, if you're in travel status, you're getting paid per diems plus in some cases additional wages outright for the time you spend outside your normal working hours traveling.  It's not as much of a cost savings as all that when compared to other factors.  People see ""ooooh look at that extravagant public servant, ripping off the taxpayer by taking more than they need"" and don't consider the whole picture.  Which is why most people should never be executives or even middle managers."


First of all Congrats- a- fucking- lation!  I’ve been to Cambodia two years ago. I bought the two day pass at AngorWat but it was my hotel, who set it up.  My best advice is to make partnerships with local hostels, hotels, and Airbnb’s to take their guest as part of a tour.  Have maps handy and describe the tour and what they are going to see. After a point in my tour it seemed like I was seeing the same thing over and over again and didn’t return for the second day.   So try to make an exciting tour, and a sunset tour should cost more though. Also maybe include the “happy” pizza spot as part of the tour.  Edit: I think it was a three day pass I bought I’m not sure. I just know it was more than one day. Also don’t charge extra to take pictures for customers.


"I read a really good tract that my credit union gave me years ago written by a former car salesman about negotiation tactics with car dealers. Wish I could find it again, but I remember a few of the main points.  1) Never negotiate based on the monthly payment amount. Car salesmen love to get you into thinking about the monthly loan payment and often start out by asking what you can afford for a payment. They know that they can essentially charge you whatever they want for the car and make the payments hit your budget by tweaking the loan terms (length, down payment, etc.)  2) (New cars only) Don't negotiate on the price directly. It is extremely hard to compare prices between dealerships because it is very hard to find exactly the same combination of options. Instead negotiate the markup amount over dealer invoice.  3) Negotiate one thing at a time A favorite shell game of car dealers is to get you to negotiate the car price, trade-in price, and financing all at one time. Unless you are a rain-man mathematical genius, don't do it. Doing this makes it easy for them to make concessions on one thing and take them right back somewhere else. (Minus $500 on the new car, plus $200 through an extra half point on financing, etc).  4) Handling the Trade-In  5) 99.9999% of the time the ""I forgot to mention"" extra items are a ripoff They make huge bonuses for selling this extremely overpriced junk you don't need.    6) Scrutinize everything on the sticker price I've seen car dealers have the balls to add a line item for ""Marketing Costs"" at around $500, then claim with a straight face that unlike OTHER dealers they are just being upfront about their expenses instead of hiding them in the price of the car. Pure bunk. If you negotiate based on an offset from the invoice instead of sticker price it helps you avoid all this nonsense since the manufacturer most assuredly did not include ""Marketing costs"" on the dealer invoice. 7) Call Around before closing the deal Car dealers can be a little cranky about this, but they often have an ""Internet sales person"" assigned to handle this type of deal. Once you know what you want, but before you buy, get the model number and all the codes for the options then call 2-3 dealers and try to get a quote over the phone or e-mail on that exact car. Again, get the quote in terms of markup from dealer invoice price, not sticker price. Going through the Internet sales guy doesn't at all mean you have to buy on the Internet, I still suggest going down to the dealership with the best price and test driving the car in person. The Internet guy is just a sales guy like all the rest of them and will be happy to meet with you and talk through the deal in-person. Update: After recently going through this process again and talking to a bunch of dealers, I have a few things to add: 7a) The price posted on the Internet is often the dealer's bottom line number. Because of sites like AutoTrader and other car marketplaces that let you shop the car across dealerships, they have a lot of incentive to put their rock-bottom prices online where they know people aggressively comparison shop. 7b) Get the price of the car using the stock number from multiple sources (Autotrader, dealer web site, eBay Motors, etc.) and find the lowest price advertised. Then either print or take a screenshot of that price. Dealers sometimes change their prices (up or down) between the time you see it online and when you get to the dealership. I just bought a car where the price went up $1,000 overnight. The sales guy brought up the website and tried to convince me that I was confused. I just pulled up the screenshot on my iPhone and he stopped arguing. I'm not certain, but I got the feeling that there is some kind of bait-switch law that says if you can prove they posted a price they have to honor it. In at least two dealerships they got very contrite and backed away slowly from their bargaining position when I offered proof that they had posted the car at a lower price. 8) The sales guy has ultimate authority on the deal and doesn't need approval Inevitably they will leave the room to ""run the deal by my boss/financing guy/mom"" This is just a game and negotiating trick to serve two purposes:  - To keep you in the dealership longer not shopping at competitors.  - So they can good-cop/bad-cop you in the negotiations on price. That is, insult your offer without making you upset at the guy in front of you.  - To make it harder for you to walk out of the negotiation and compromise more readily.  Let me clarify that last point. They are using a psychological sales trick to make you feel like an ass for wasting the guy's time if you walk out on the deal after sitting in his office all afternoon, especially since he gave you free coffee and sodas. Also, if you have personally invested a lot of time in the deal so far, it makes you feel like you wasted your own time if you don't cross the goal line. As soon as one side of a negotiation forfeits the option to walk away from the deal, the power shifts significantly to the other side. Bottom line: Don't feel guilty about walking out if you can't get the deal you want. Remember, the sales guy is the one that dragged this thing out by playing hide-and-seek with you all day. He wasted your time, not the reverse."


Shipping by boat actually takes at least 3 weeks to a month.  Add time before that for the supplier to book and pack the container.  Add time after until you can get an appointment at the port to pick up your container.  It is not a quick process.  Also I find it hard to believe they are actually renting whole 747s.   I think it's much more likely they are booking **space** on a cargo plane.  Otherwise it would be a huge amount of video cards.  Maybe they are, but I'm not going to just take someone's word for it.  Not that it really matters.


"From Wikipedia: Managerial accounting is used primarily by those within a company or   organization. Reports can be generated for any period of time such as   daily, weekly or monthly. Reports are considered to be ""future   looking"" and have forecasting value to those within the company.** Financial accounting is used primarily by those outside of a company   or organization. Financial reports are usually created for a set   period of time, such as a fiscal year or period. Financial reports are   historically factual and have predictive value to those who wish to   make financial decisions or investments in a company.  At my university, managerial accounting focused more on the details of how costs were managed in the company, the future of the business, etc. while the courses that were considered financial accounting were more from the point of view of a financial analyst or investor, like you said. The financial accountancy material covered analysis of financial statements and the associated investment decisions, among other things.  These areas overlapped in areas like the production of financial statements, since the company also needs to consider how analysts will interpret these statements, and dividend policy, corporate tax accounting, etc. The Wikipedia articles on managerial accounting and financial accounting may provide helpful information as well.  Disclaimer: I took an introductory accounting course in university and nothing more, so my knowledge of the course structures, even at my alma mater, is secondhand recollection at best. I'm sure there are more similarities and differences of which I'm unaware, and I would assume that forensic accountants, auditors, etc. dabble in both these areas and others."


I actually disagree that it is unethical or even wrong, and I think allowing insider trading to occur again would help increase confidence in markets for several reasons.  It's still not a good look for the politicians though.


I am not an accountant, but I do run a business in the UK and my understanding is that it's a threshold thing, which I believe is £2,500. Assuming you don't currently have to submit self assessment, and your additional income from all sources other than employment (for which you already pay tax) is less than £2,500, you don't have to declare it. Above this level you have to submit self assessment. More information can be found here I also find that HMRC are quite helpful - give them a call and ask.


It's important to have both long term goals and milestones along the way. In an article I wrote about saving 15% of one's income, I offered the following table:  This table shows savings starting at age 20 (young, I know, so shift 2 years out) and ending at 60 with 18-1/2 year's of income saved due to investment returns. The 18-1/2 results in 74% of one's income replaced at retirement if we follow the 4% rule. One can adjust this number, assuming Social Security will replace 30%, and that spending will go down in retirement, you might need to save less than this shows. What's important is that as a starting point, it shows 2X income saved by age 30. Perhaps 1X is more reasonable. You are at just over .5X and proposing to spend nearly half of that on a single purchase.  Financial independence means to somehow create an income you can live on without the need to work. There are many ways to do it, but it usually starts with a high saving rate. Your numbers suggest a good income now, but maybe this is only recently, else you'd have over $200K in the bank.  I suggest you read all you can about investments and the types of retirement accounts, including 401(k) (if you have that available to you), IRA, and Roth IRA. The details you offer don't allow me to get much more specific than this.


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Dollar cost averaging doesn't (or shouldn't) apply here. DCA is the natural way we invest in the market, buying in by a steady dollar amount each pay period, so over time we can buy more shares when the market is down, and fewer when it's higher. It's more psychological than financial. The fact is that given the market rises, on average, over time, if one has a lump sum to invest, it should be deployed based on other factors, not just DCA'd in. As I said, DCA is just how we all naturally invest from our income.  The above has nothing to do with your situation. You are invested and wish to swap funds. If the funds are with the same broker, you should be able to execute this at the closing price. The sell and buy happen after hours and you wake up the next day with the newly invested portfolio.  If funds are getting transferred from broker to broker, you do have a risk. The risk that they take time, say even 2 days when funds are not invested. A shame to lose a 2% market move as the cost of moving brokers. In this case, I'd do mine and my wife's at different times. To reduce that risk.


If you've got shares in a company that's filed for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy, that sucks, it really does.  I've been there before and you may lose your entire investment.  If there's still a market for your shares and you can sell them, you may want to just accept the loss and get out with what you can. However, shares of bankrupt companies are often delisted once bankrupt, since the company no longer meets minimum exchange listing requirements.  If you're stuck holding shares with no market, you could lose everything – but that's not always the case: Chapter 11 isn't total and final bankruptcy where the company ceases to exist after liquidation of its assets to pay off its debts.  Rather, Chapter 11 is a section of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code that permits a company to attempt to reorganize (or renegotiate) its debt obligations. During Chapter 11 reorganization, a company can negotiate with its creditors for a better arrangement.  They typically need to demonstrate to creditors that without the burden of the heavy debt, they could achieve profitability.  Such reorganization often involves creditors taking complete or majority ownership of the company when it emerges from Chapter 11 through a debt-for-equity swap. That's why you, as an investor before the bankruptcy, are very likely to get nothing or just pennies on the dollar. Any equity you may be left holding will be considerably diluted in value.  It's rare that shareholders before a Chapter 11 bankruptcy still retain any equity after the company emerges from Chapter 11, but it is possible. But it varies from bankruptcy to bankruptcy and it can be complex as montyloree pointed out. Investopedia has a great article: An Overview of Corporate Bankruptcy.  Here's an excerpt: If a company you've got a stake in   files for bankruptcy, chances are   you'll get back pennies to the dollar.   Different bankruptcy proceedings or   filings generally give some idea as to   whether the average investor will get   back all or a portion of his   investment, but even that is   determined on a case-by-case basis.   There is also a pecking order of   creditors and investors of who get   paid back first, second and last. In   this article, we'll explain what   happens when a public company files   for protection under U.S. bankruptcy   laws and how it affects investors.   [...]   How It Affects Investors   [...]   When your company goes bankrupt, there   is a very good chance you will not get   back the full value of your   investment. In fact, there is a chance   you won't get anything back. [...] Wikipedia has a good article on Chapter 11 bankruptcy at Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code.


">In both cases you make exactly the same pledges and have exactly the same obligations. Yes, I got that.  If I didn't pay you back your lunch money you're probably not going to report me to the major credit bureaus.  You may reserve the right to call me a deadbeat, however.    All joking aside, the bank is more likely to spell out the penalties for default than the individual lender because the individual is relying on moral/social obligation to ensure repayment (often unwisely so).  The business that lends to you harbors no such illusions, however.  Of course it trusts in the rule of law, insofar as any nonhuman entity can ""trust"" in anything, but it is much more interested in managing its risk.  >Its insurance also expects that a certain percentage of banks will be robbed. Which in your universe makes bankrobbing kinda okay I guess.  Are you really equating people who default on their loans with people who rob banks?    >The bank does trust in pacta sunt servanda and the rule of the law. Otherwise it would never do any business with anyone.  So there are no banks in Russia, or China, or anywhere else where the ""rule of law"" is subject to interpretation?"


Well as it was stated by others it isn't taken out of their paychecks, it's paid for by the employer, however these same individuals are exempt from paying into social security over a certain limit so if they are able to pocket that money up front why do they need to collect government benefits when they have extra income the rest of us do not have from not having to pay into social security.


The yield on Div Data is showing 20% ((3.77/Current Price)*100)) because that only accounts for last years dividend. If you look at the left column, the 52 week dividend yield is the same as google(1.6%). This is calculated taking an average of n number of years. The data is slightly off as one of those sites would have used an extra year.


"By their agreements with the central counterparty - in the US, the exchange or the Options Clearing Corporation, which interposes itself between the counterparties of each trade and guarantees that they settle. From the CCP article: A clearing house stands between two clearing firms (also known as member firms or participants). Its purpose is to reduce the risk a member firm failing to honor its trade settlement obligations. A CCP reduces the settlement risks by netting offsetting transactions between multiple counterparties, by requiring collateral deposits (also called ""margin deposits""), by providing independent valuation of trades and collateral, by monitoring the credit worthiness of the member firms, and in many cases, by providing a guarantee fund that can be used to cover losses that exceed a defaulting member's collateral on deposit. Exercisers on most contracts are matched against random writers during the assignment process, and if the writer doesn't deliver/buy the stock, the OCC does so using its funds and goes after the defaulting party."


It is possible for an employer to check your credit score and it is legal. As long as you give them permission. You have every right to refuse BUT the employer also has the right to not give you a job.   The reason is to get an overall feeling for your integrity, discipline, and lifestyle. People in debt are more likely to embezzle, etc. A low credit score can also indicate that you make poor choices in your financial and purchasing deals. If you are refused a job you are qualified under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to get a copy of your credit report. Source - Legal Match


Because it's a good indicator of how much their asset worth. In oversimplified example, wouldn't you care how much your house, car, laptop worth? Over the course of your life you might need to buy a bigger house, sell your car etc. to cope with your financial goal / situation. It's similar in company's case but with much more complexity.


"If you are not worried about timing the market and want to buy primarily ""blue chip"" stocks to hold for a while, consider using Loyal3. They don't charge any commission. The downside is that trades are executed at the end of the day and there's only about 60 companies currently available (but there are some really good ones currently available)."


"Do you know how it cost the USA to build the national highway system? Do you know what is ""investment""?  Do you how much people pay (back) in taxes when they have a job and earn a salary (rather then get money from welfare)?   Do you understand that in the Globalists world, the USA has to compete with salaries paid in China for their workers?"


"You aren't playing devils advocate, you aren't thinking at all.  If it's skilled or not is not isn't relevant to the discussion at all.  Walmart makes more than enough money to pay their employees a living wage.   The fact is that every single walmart exists today beause their employees can be subsidized by the state and federal government which means your tax dollars that you work for every single day literally is being used to pad the profit margins of walmart executives and their shareholders.  Do you understand that?  Your tax dollars are paying for the benefits of Walmarts workers, Walmart is NOT paying the benefits of their employees out of the profit they make.    What's the argument here, that because it's ""unskilled labor"" these people don't deserve to be paid enough to not be on state aid?  is that really the argument here?  If ""unskilled labor"" is so worthless how is Walmart generating some of the largest profits of any company around when most of their work force is ""unskilled labor?"""


"The problem is that every option comes with risk - as you note, if you put money in stocks, you could lose (and many stocks are overpriced).  If you put money in bonds, you could lose (many bonds are overpriced).  If you buy precious metals, they could fall further currently.  If you hold cash, central banks might try to ban cash (we'll hear the typical ""This will never happen"" from financial advisers - and they'll be wrong).  Cryptocurrencies are an option, but boy do they fluctuate, so there's risk here too. Those are options and all come with risks, and here's my preferred approach to handling negative interest rates:"


"Thanks for the quick reply. I'd like to point out the post that triggered me to make this request in public is -   Reddit post: http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/naboa/fears_persist_that_the_us_labor_market_cannot_be/  Specific response: http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/naboa/fears_persist_that_the_us_labor_market_cannot_be/c37kj2t  The sidebar says that political debate is not permitted in this forum, and until recently I would say this request had been adhered to. But this particular FT article, like others, can be dissected politically, and therefore shouldn't be in r/finance. It belongs in r/economics.   Unfortunately, any posts that relate to current macroeconomic circumstances, especially central banking and global unemployment, will invite the Ron-Paulites and they really don't add any sort of value to r/finance, and they do politicize the forum and debate.   I don't think ZeroHedge _ever_ has a place in this forum. The source is not credible and always has too much of a political angle to be in a forum that has declared itself as ""not a place for politics."""


we've seen some excellent opportunities this year, so this isn't simply a matter of low vol. a lot of traders across funds had similar bets on, and they did not foresee the unwind of the Trump trade nor the rebound in China.


This was a good move by Amazon.  If you don't already get your groceries delivered, you should really give it a shot.  It's often free delivery a few times for new signups.  Your produce, meat, everything is picked from the very best.  It's delivered in a fridge/freezer truck to your home.  I just have them hand bags off to me, quick and done in a few minutes.  The amount of money i've saved from using grocery delivery is amazing.  I'm a single guy, i don't shop all to well myself when i'm actually in a store.  I grab expensive chips and stuff I didn't plan on buying.   This way I plan out meals, google recipes for what's on sale, and don't even need to leave the house the entire time.  Amazon's trying to do exactly this.  That's great, but it's so cheap and awesome right now, you should really give it a shot to see what all the fuss is about.  edit: talking about king soopers, safeway, etc. I've tried all who offer it, service and experience is great across them all so far.


"With Forex trading - physical currency is not involved. You're playing with the live exchange rates, and it is not designed for purchasing/selling physical currency. Most Forex trading is based on leveraging, thus you're not only buying money that you're not going to physically receive - you're also paying with money that you do not physically have. The ""investment"" is in fact a speculation, and is akin to gambling, which, if I remember correctly, is strictly forbidden under the Islam rules. That said, the positions you have - are yours, and technically you can demand the physical currency to be delivered to you. No broker will allow online trading on these conditions, though, similarly to the stocks - almost no broker allows using physical certificates for stocks trading anymore."


www.sedar.com is the official site that provides access to most public securities documents and information filed by public companies and investment funds with the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) in the SEDAR filing system. Now, I'm guessing - I think the doc is MDA - Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. At least this is what appears listed for many companies.


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Based on your question details, I doubt you'll like this answer...but first things first, you need to focus on rebuilding your credit and your savings. $1K isn't a huge loan amount, so I'm going to assume you've made some poor decisions in the past to get to this point. I'm a small business owner, and I make it a goal to have 3-6 months of expected expenses in an account, should my circumstances ever drastically change or something happen that would keep me from working.   Without knowing your living situation and daily expenses, here's some general advice on building a small business without a loan:  1) Find steady, gainful employment anywhere you can.  2) Pay off outstanding debts and rebuild a savings account to rebuild your credit score.   3) If you need fast cash, sell some stuff you don't need (gaming systems, home electronics, etc.). Also, minimize your unnecessary expenses (dining out, etc.).  4) Once your debts are paid off, create a business startup savings plan (put away as much as you can afford every week, until you reach your goal.   5) Once your goal is reached, you can begin your flipping business. Open a bank account, and separate your profits into buckets for operations, self-pay, and taxes (if you declare this income, which I hope you do). For myself, I put away 35% for income taxes, which I do not touch until my taxes are paid. I put 40% away for daily operations -- this keeps my business running, allowing me to pay for the equipment I need, the products I deliver, and advertising to keep my business running. I pay myself 25%. This is a simple method, but it works well for me.


"Great find. The first sentence of the article itself is enough to raise multiple flags:  > According to Michelle McQuaid, a world leader in positive psychology interventions in the workplace, [...]  A **world** leader? In *""positive psychology interventions""*? This whole article was written by McQuaid's PR staff. It reads like a company press releases of a new product."


"This is pretty meaningless and somewhat misleading. They measured price increases mostly on things that were produced elsewhere and would not be expected to see price increases (e.g. gas). Most retail prices are not heavily impacted by local labor prices. For many goods, local retail labor costs would constitute less than 5% of the total cost. Plus, local retailers still have to compete with online retailers, as well as retailers outside the city limits, so they can't dramatically hike prices and be competitive. If the min wage increases did impact prices, it's more likely that local retailers would see their margins shrink and some of them would go out of business as a result.   On the things that are produced locally, such as food from a restaurant, they found significant price increases. There's also been significant evidence showing that restaurant job creation lagged behind in Seattle versus the rest of Washington state.   http://www.aei.org/publication/some-early-results-from-seattles-radical-experiment-with-a-15-an-hour-minimum-wage-fewer-jobs-fewer-hours/  https://www.aei.org/publication/minimum-wage-effect-seattle-area-restaurant-jobs-have-fallen-900-this-year-vs-6200-food-jobs-in-rest-of-state/  They also seem to have forgotten to mention substitution effects for labor; such as restaurants using more technology to eliminate labor.   Overall, the articles reads like yet another ""rose colored classes"" spin on one of the most detrimental economic policies in the US. It's almost silly watching people try to find reasons how ""increasing the price of labor"" and ""destroying contractual freedom for unskilled laborers"" creates magical free lunches."


travel industry professional here - the selection of hotels/holidays you show people when they do a search is crucial (in my experience the single most powerful tool at your disposal).   the best websites take as many factors into account that they can and offer a different mix depending on the type of searcher. Showing more upmarket product is very lucrative in the right circumstances, and often has a better conversion rate. This Orbitz stuff makes complete sense.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.france24.com/en/20170618-shots-fired-australias-war-food-waste) reduced by 85%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Globally, one-third of food produced for humans - about 1.3 billion tonnes costing around US$1 trillion - is lost or wasted annually, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation.  > With Canberra stepping into the fray, waste warriors are optimistic that incentives including tax breaks could reduce excess in supply chains and encourage businesses to keep surplus food still fit for consumption away from landfills.  > &quot;It would save food going to waste, it would be good for the environment, it would be very good for the taxpayers&#039; pockets because we would be paying less for the food, and I think it&#039;s a win, win, win,&quot; she said.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6hyvrj/australias_first_recycled_supermarket_is_giving/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~147095 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **food**^#1 **waste**^#2 **produce**^#3 **more**^#4 **surplus**^#5"


I probably would not take it out, since I have enough layers of backstops: Maybe if I could find a better rate. :)


The term duplication sounds very technical and therefore, the simple name given to this process is burning associated to the action that PC and laptop users take to create a CD or a DVD and this process is fast as a huge number of discs can be prepared in no time using the master disc.Moreover, the process is very convenient for anyone to perform as all that is required is a PC or a laptop and commercial burners.


They can't keep rising with respect to people's income because eventually you run out of buyers. If there's roughly one house for every five people, then you'd better make sure that the price you set to sell your house is affordable to people in the upper fifth of income scales, or else you are mathematically guaranteed not to have any customers. Now, it's true that the price of particular houses can get much higher, but they tended to be higher in the first place. Housing isn't exactly an efficient market, but for the most part you have to pay for the house that you get, or else someone else will outbid you. An individual area might, temporarily, buck these trends because it suddenly becomes popular and there are a lot of extra buyers putting money on the table. In the long run, someone is going to build for those buyers, even if it means moving up the chain from enormous rural lots to suburban single-family homes to low-density garden apartments to residential towers.


Lenders want to judge the stability of the stated income. Because your are new to being self-employed they are concerned about your viability. It may be possible to find another lender who will consider a shorter term of business, but it looks like the lender wants 24 months of business. You should start with your current bank/credit Union, and if they say no ask what more info you need to provide.


Beyond the numbers, how do you objectively establish causation between Amazon and a lost job?  That, to me, is what is practically impossible.  Ma and Pa might blame Amazon but that's hardly dependable information.  What if Ma and Pa's business model was unsustainable or simply mismanaged?  Now, with Walmart, you can establish a stronger connection because you'll see those effects tightly correlated with a local store opening.  Doing that with an online business is considerably harder.  You'd need to know who the customers were and how they substituted Ma and Pa's goods and then correlate that with a drop in sales, for example.


"No, you're right. I don't think they should leave, but I do think they should quit whining. If you're opinion is unpopular convince people as to why it shouldn't be (or change it, there's no shame in realising you were wrong or at least rude).  I just don't agree with the redditor hivemind arguments, or the ""Redditors think this"" statements. Fact is the response to any given comment or view can vary dramatically depending on time of day, or just who happens reading at the time, or in what context it is presented. The redditor demographic is very varied for an on-line community - possibly the most I've come across?  Actually one example that winds me up is on /r/uk where you get tory voters complaining about anti-conservative party bias on the sub-reddit, while forgetting that 2/3rds of the UK voted against the Tories at the last election. It just reflects the country, so quit whining and start trying to convince us why we're wrong and shouldn't think their policies aren't total bollox."


Talk to almost any large cap CFO or read any corporate finance textbook. McKinsey's Valuation is a great one to own: though yes McKinsey consultants can take a good idea and turn it bad by overdoing it to an extreme.  Why would universal corporate finance principles not apply to large cap tech? Why is having $XXb of unutilized cash for a company with durable cash flow a good thing for equity investors?


If they know what his investments are in, then they could have said what the returns are estimated to be.  Otherwise, it's just more propaganda like most stories on Ron Paul: make him seem like a kook, or better yet a racist.  You're right, the guy knows nothing about finance or economics, what a nut: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INvKPYdTs3E&feature=related


"Unfortunately I don't think any of the online personal finance applications will do what you're asking. Most (if not all) online person finance software uses a combination of partnerships with the banks themselves and ""screen scraping"" to import your data. This simplifies things for the user but is typically limited to whenever the service was activated. Online personal finance software is still relatively young and doesn't offer the depth available in a desktop application (yet). If you are unwilling to part with historical data you spent years accumulating you are better off with a desktop application. Online Personal Finance Software Pros Cons Desktop Personal Finance Software Pros Cons In my humble opinion the personal finance software industry really needs a hybrid approach. A desktop application that is synchronized with a website. Offering the stability and tools of a desktop application with the availability of a web application."


If you have a website and you want that it should run well and with utter smoothness then in that case you have to hire someone who would help in getting on with the experts. This is because they know how to handle everything.


Bullshit.   Those 16 Trillion dollars in secret loans weren't known until that audit which was forced on the Federal Reserve by Congress, and Congress and the American people weren't told that the Federal Reserve was making massive zero interest loans to foreign banks.  None of that would have come out unless Congress had pushed for that audit.  >A prime example is his claim that 16 trillion was lent, which is pretty dishonest. At no point was there more than about 2T lent out (from the audit itself) and at no point was the US taxpayer on the hook for over around 2T.  lol..   that's some prime spin job right there.   Tell me this...   if I loan you $500 a night every night for 5 days and those loans allow you to earn $100 totally risk free how much have I loaned you?  Does it even matter, because the end of result is I essentially gave you $100.


Being underwater a little is not all that scary, but those who talk of being underwater are typically underwater by quite a lot.  The amount of money they owe is large compared to their yearly income. Consider a metaphor.  I put you in a hole.  Its only 1 foot deep.  You're not too concerned.  If you want to leave, you can step out of it.  Now we look at a deeper hole, 3 feet.  Now you're still not too concerned.  You can't just walk out, but if you need to get out you can wiggle your way up.  6 feet.  Now you start getting nervous.  Climbing out is getting trickier and trickier.  You may not be able to move in response to a changing enviornment around you, because you're stuck in a hole. Now make the hole 10 feet.  Now you can't reach the edges.  Now you're in trouble.  You have lost all mobility.  You can't get out under your own power.  Now if something bad happens (such as losing your job or a sudden health issue), you can't move around to solve the problem. This is the issue that arise from underwater mortgages.  Say you lose your job because the job market in your area dried up (think Detroit in the big auto manufacturer crash).  You need to move.  You are legally endebted to a lender for your existing underwater house by more than you can sell it for.  You need to pay for the privilege to sell it.  You still owe payments on it, so if you just buy a new house (or rent) in the new state, you're paying for twice as much property.  You can't just shuffle the underwaterness from your old house to your new house because the new lender has no interest in giving a loan for more than the value of the new home. The only options you have to play with is renting the old house, which many underwater families did, or bankrupcy.  If the area you were in is depressed, you may not be able to rent the house for enough to cover your mortgage.  This is the fear of being underwater.  You have a piece of paper which claims some lender can take money from you that you may or may not have, and that the US government will allow them to take your assets, if need be, to settle the score. If you're underwater by a few thousand, it's typically not a big deal.  If you're underwater by 80 or 90 thousand dollars, which some people were, that's a lot of money to be endebted for without the assets to recover them. If you subscribe to the realtor story that the market will recover, all you have to do is scrape by, holding on, until the market rises again.  However, those who are underwater recognize that the reason much of this occurred is that we entered a bubble because realtors kept saying the market could only go up.  Fool me once....


Not saying I agree with it, but I can see the logic in it.   A drug company has to basically make all their money back (and hopefully profits too) in the 17 year window that patent exists.  They make projections on how many they will sell in that time, and figure out a cost from there.  If the patent is extended, then the cost to develop that drug can be divided over a longer period of time.


Volunteer. Find out who needs help and where they need it, as well as what you could do and the things you can offer. I have infiltrated every organization I am connected with through this manner. Start at the bottom, take whatever you can get and then get to know the players. They are not hard to recognize.   Once you have access to the organization form quality relationships with IT Staff, Janitors, Secretaries, and Security Guards.  From that point on people are going to be wondering exactly who you are but think of yourself as the lowest totem on the totem pole and volunteer for everything. I won't lie, a lot of it will be shit work but what you learn starts to make you an asset and that is exactly what you need to become.  If you need clarification on anything just ask.


Thank you, good points. I like the idea of using it as a syndication point. My main blog is actually on a site I have full control over so in many ways this is my real website. The idea you've given me is that I could be using the main (what I call corporate) site as a big summary of everything I have going on and where to find it, almost becoming my agent!


"I don't think they ""actually"" turned a profit, did they?  As I understand it, this is an accounting method/trick, it's not as if they generated more income by using this system.  They just made their monetary value visible rather than implicit.  Which is not the same as turning a profit... or am I missing something?"


If you have more than 50% of a US bill, it carries the full value and your bank should accept it. (Stores, or banks you do not have an account with, may not.) If you have less than 50% of the bill, it is worth nothing.


">lmao do you really think showing up ""on time and sober"" is something that you need to learn?  Judging by my own personal experience working minimum wage jobs... yes.  Many would take breaks to go smoke weed while on the job."


Being pushed to produce quarterly numbers isn't always the best for a company's long-term strategies. Whether or not this will happen is the question, however. Private companies don't need to post immediate substantial profits, public companies are expected to.


This depends. Quite a few stock exchanges / country report total capitalisation in terms of free float. I.E total shares that can be traded, ignoring the promoters shares. The market cap reported by company takes all shares.


> What this translates to is that someone there has double booked the venue and as the smaller player, I get dumped.  You mean the other player negotiated for better contract terms?   This isn't a UK problem, it's a problem for any small business. It seems you are trying to do everything yourself instead of hiring a specialist to take care of the little details.


What are you complaining about?  Do you want ILLEGAL alien workers to work as slaves for less-than-minimum pay to pick the crops?  That the USA does not issue temporary visas for migrant workers to come in fields?  That farmers do not pay enough for people to work in the fields, except slave migrants?  That Americans rather be on welfare than work in the fields?  That the welfare system pays able-bodied people too lazy to work in the fields?  What exactly do you propose to do?


"> If a penny worth of copper is worth 1.8 cents and I choose to make it into a a coin with a value of 1 cent then my opportunity cost is .8 cents.  No, not at all. A coin represents value, it is not value (in terms of its denomination). A coin does however have value as facilitator of exchange of value, but that is in principle unrelated to that coin's denomination. So the value of a 1 cent coin (as a facility of exchange) is unknown. It is however easy to make the case that this unknown is very low, or even negative.  > A gold coin back before fiat currencies was worth its weight in gold.  Gold is just very slightly different in this regard, and substantially the same. It is used to represent value, and has very low intrinsic value. It's just a naturally limited resource instead of an ""artificially"" limited one such as fiat currency. This would be immediately evident if by some freak act of nature there was an abundance of gold raining down on everyone tomorrow. Nobody would become rich (just some unfortunate people overloaded with gold assets would become poor). Gold teeth and jewelry would become cheaper, though I imagine the latter would go out of fashion quite quickly.  > When I make the spending power less than the value the purpose of a fiat currency breaks down.  Not at all, there's in principle no relationship between ""value"" and denomination. You just need means of exchange that are cost-effective and practical. Single cents are becoming impractical and basically useless, and this would be just as true even if they cost .0001 cents each to produce."


The limit, if any, would be established by your financial institutions. You would need to contact both your sending and receiving bank to ascertain any limitation they impose on wire transfers. Generally, taxes aren't imposed on transference of funds between accounts you own, but I'm not familiar with tax in Thailand and I could be wrong on that half of the question.


"I recently went full time self employed after doing photography on the side for several years.  One of the types I do is real estate photography, but it's tough doing it alone so I signed up to freelance with a company that basically brokers out jobs in the area.  They cover close to 70% of the market share so they're big.  I now get ten times the work I used to, for less money but the volume and the fact I no longer edit make up for it. However, they made me sign a non compete that says I cannot shoot real estate photography for two years after I leave them.  I've always thought that I'd really like to see how enforceable that is since I did real estate for two years before them, they didn't teach me anything new, so what gives them the right to tell me I can't continue doing what I already did just because I'm no longer with them?  What kind of bullshit, un-American crap is that?  The jokes on them, though, as they apparently don't read their own stuff very well. They told me I'd be allowed to still shoot independently with the agents I worked with prior to freelancing for them if I just wrote them in at the bottom of the non compete so they'd have it for their records. So I did; I specifically named the the big offices I wanted to keep working with (that didn't already use the company I was going to be working with) and also put another line that said ""and all current, former, and future clients of my business, xyzabc photography"" and they signed off on it and returned a copy to me.   Still, the fact that they think they have the right to limit me from doing a career that I already did and received no training from them is so asinine and ridiculous."


Israel can only attack unarmed civilians in Apache Helicopters and bomb residential apartments in F-16s. When a Real nuke gets pointed at them and a real military boot gets stuck up their ass, then they will start to scream about the Holocaust and antisemitism.  Taste it, lick it, suck it . . .its the round knob of inevitability that arrives as a consequence of 50 years of unchecked human rights abuses and apartheid and the best part is the Jews have sucked America dry and now there is no one to back up their murderous rampages, its going to be a really lonely world


You are really tangling up two questions here: Q1: Given I fear a dissolution of the Euro, is buying physical gold a good response and if so, how much should I buy? I see you separately asked about real estate, and cash, and perhaps other things.  Perhaps it would be better to just say: what is the right asset allocation, rather than asking about every thing individually, which will get you partial and perhaps contradictory answers.  The short answer, knowing very little about your case, is that some moderate amount of gold (maybe 5-10%, at most 25%) could be a counterbalance to other assets. If you're concerned about government and market stability, you might like Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio, which has equal parts stocks, bonds, cash, and gold. Q2: If I want to buy physical gold, what size should I get? One-ounce bullion (about 10 x 10 x 5mm, 30g) is a reasonably small physical size and a reasonable monetary granularity: about $1700 today. I think buying $50 pieces of gold is pointless: However much you want to have in physical gold, buy that many ounces.


"For example, if I have an income of $100,000 from my job and I also   realize a $350,000 in long-term capital gains from a stock sale, will   I pay 20% on the $350K or 15%? You'll pay 20% assuming filing single and no major offsets to taxable income. Capital gains count towards your income for determining tax bracket. They're on line 13 of the 1040 which is in the ""income"" section and aren't adjusted out/excluded from your taxable income, but since they are taxed at a different rate make sure to follow the instructions for line 44 when calculating your tax due."


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"> She said Muslims ( which implies ALL of them).   No!!!! No! Again, she did not said ALL Muslims.   Look, I say ""terrorist attacks are carried out by Muslims"". There, I said that.  Did I say all Muslims are terrorists? No.  Did I say most Muslims are terrorists? No.  Did I say that terrorists are Muslims? Yes.  Did I say a non-Muslim cannot be a terrorist? No. Very unlikely, but it's possible.  Is it true that almost all terror attacks and almost all terrorists are Muslims? Yes.  Do I hate all Muslims when I said what I said? No.  Now, if I work in border patrol, should I pay attention as much to a 70 years old blond Swedish lady as I pay attention to a young Muslim looking guy with a beard?   > I compared a personal attack to an attack of a whole group which is more damaging but most people are strangely ok with that.   No. Criticism of a whole group with a valid basis for that criticism is not ""damaging"". It's has a very good effect on the criticized group. If certain groups are not criticized, a HUGE damage will happen to them.  > I was in Sweden recently.... turns out no one is shitting in the streets or burning cars its actually very clean with extremly low crime rates  Not as it used to be. Stockholm, if you allow yourself to hear ""hate speech"", became a rape capital of Europe, not to mention Malmo, and Swedish girls are not as free to walk the streets as they used to.  > I know people you can only describe as Nazis, but i don't hate them. I think they are idiots and i want nothing to do with them.....   Yes, you think they are idiots. You do hate them! Surely you don't love them or indifferent to them.   Your approach of ""I want nothing to do with them"" has consequences: damage to more idiots who join the Nazis, growing ranks of Nazis with damage to society, and eventual damage to yourself of hating them but being forced to keep it to yourself.   You know why Nazis exist? Because they hate, more than you, other groups you do not want to criticize.   **Let me ask you: As you know, Nazis hate Jews despite Jews being one of the best and most contributing groups in society throughout history. Would you defend Jews being criticized by Nazis? If you do, do you realize what you just did?**"


I work for an auto finance company and have performed some job related analysis looking into this as well. From what I can tell I don't think the numbers are there for a 2008 recession. The loans are smaller, the asset is already known to depreciate, and the auction market is pretty effective at cutting deficiencies even more.   Something to watch out for if you are analyzing this stuff though is the influx of used cars into the market. Remember, more defaults means more repossessions which means more used cars on the market.   I'm curious to see what happens with this influx of used, relatively reliable cars onto the market and how this impacts the constant pumping out of new vehicles  that manufacturers are forced to meet. We've already seen scaling back by some big players. There's definitely something happening in the auto industry but I don't know what to make of it yet and I would hardly say we are looking at Great Recession 2.


On topic of Healthcare needs, I think it depend on individual.  For example, my employer's dental plan offer PPO $34 per month and DMO $12 per month. I have my favor dentist that I have been going for years. He only accept PPO. I already had most of my dental works done so I only use him for teeth clean. He charge $100 without insurance and free with insurance. I can only use my insurance for teeth clean twice a year so $34x12 = $408 vs $200. If I go with DMO, I won't get to see my doctor and since I get my teeth once a year why not just save that money and go to my favor doctor instead the DMO doctors and if I need major dental works done which isn't immediate. I can go to Taiwan for dental works that is way cheaper than U.S.  I think if you're a healthy young man/women. You should put more money toward your retirement and only keep insurance for emergency. You can do a medical tourism mentioned in 60 minutes that can be more cost effective and those doctors are U.S. trained.  For older folks, a full Health care insurance is more needed than retirement. Just my two cents.


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A debt is created when the service is rendered or the goods are sold to you.  The bill is simply a way of recording the debt and alerting you to it.


Unless the taxes are above 3000 per year it looks like a good deal to buy (the 30 year mtg) You could also consider getting the 30 year loan and add additional principal to your payments.   It looks like your PMI might be about $50 per month.   You will get to deduct over $3000 in interest payments the first year as well as the real estate taxes. Depending on your tax rate that might be something like $100 per month or so of incentive to chose buying over renting.   The big issue to consider is the risk of big ticket items to repair. You should keep a fund for this kind of thing... water heater, roof, fridge, cesspool, etc. good luck


>  Ask the guy who guessed Sarah Palin's email password how that theory worked out.  Breaking into someones private email is hardly comparable. *Target* made the rule that coupons could not be used this way, and then *Target* allowed it. It is like telling a man not to fish on Thursday, but when he asks again on Friday you allow it, is that man a crook?   Printing the coupons and using more than one is difficult to defend, though that in itself does not prove injury. A customer could hypothetically gather a large group of people, having each of them use the coupon, achieving the same end without breaking the TOS. Would that also be fraud. Where then is the injury if every consequence to target is the same, yet no one person cheated?   Now, if the situation was a cashier and customer working together to abuse the system, I would say it is absolutely criminal activity.   Target had knowledge of the thread in some form, they sent a notice to the website asking for a logo to be removed from the same thread in question. Maybe it was just a copyright hound, and maybe the information was not passed on. That is unclear as you stated.  In the end I would say target is certainly aware now, and if any legal action is taken against these people we can find out for sure if what they did was criminal. The courts can decide the outcome and I will accept it either way.  EDIT: Grammar, formatting.


"Stocks ""go up 5-7% every year. This has been true for the last 100 years for the S&P500 index...."" This was true in the 20th century in America. It was not true (over the whole century) for other major countries like Germany, Russia, Japan, or China. (It was more or less true for Britain and certain Commonwealth countries like Australia and Canada.) A lot of this had to do with which countries were occupied (or not) during the two world wars. In one of his company's annual reports, Warren Buffett pointed out that the U.S. standard of living went up 6-7 times in the 20th century, that this was unprecedented (and might not be repeatable in the 21st century). The performance of the U.S. stock market in the past century is representative of those (and other) past facts. If a different set of facts prevails going forward, the U.S. stock market would be reflective of those ""different"" facts."


"... what does any broker encourage? The ability to buy or sell at the market. How do they encourage that? By allowing people to do it at a lower cost. So, whatever others ""encourage"" people to do, Robinhood does the same, just for less money.   Do people always do what's best or most successful? No, some people like taking in lots of risk for the opportunity for a greater reward, do they understand what they're doing? If they don't, they will as soon as they start losing all their money.   Robinhood is no different than other brokers, just allows for cheaper opportunity."


I appreciate it. I didn't operate under selling the asset year five but other than that I followed this example. I appreciate the help. These assignments are just poorly laid out. Financial management also plays on different calculation interactions  so it is difficult for me to easily identify the intent at times. Thanks again.


Same. I spilled beer on my keyboard one night around 10 PM or so. Planning on staying up late gaming that night I rushed over to the closest BBY, which was fortunately only 4 minutes away, and got a new keyboard. Other than situations like that, I have no reason to really go in there.


"It would depend on how you look at those three companies. Each has overwhelming market share in its core business (search, social, and online shopping). However, if you define them more broadly (like Google and Facebook as ""online advertisers"") they overlap. Also, some of their less-central business ventures overlap (e.g. Amazon and Google both sell cloud compute stuff, they all do Machine Learning)."


"There's no free lunch. Here are some positions that should be economically equivalent (same risk and reward) in a theoretically-pure universe with no regulations or transaction costs: You're proposing to buy the call. If you look at the equivalent, stock plus protective put, you can quickly see the ""catch""; the protective put is expensive. That same expense is embedded in the call option. See put-call parity on Wikipedia for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Put%E2%80%93call_parity You could easily pay 10% a year or more for the protection, which could easily eat up most of your returns, if you consider that average returns on a stock index might be about 10% (nominal, not real). Another way to look at it is that buying the long call and selling a put, which is a synthetic long position in the stock, would give you the put premium. So by not selling the put, you should be worse off than owning the stock - worse than the synthetic long - by about the value of the put premium. Or yet another way to look at it is that you're repeatedly paying time value on the long call option as you roll it. In practical world instead of theory world, I think you'd probably get a noticeable hit to returns just from bid-ask and commissions, even without the cost of the protection. Options cost more. Digressing a bit, some practical complications of equivalency between different combinations of options and underlying are: Anyway, roughly speaking, any position without the ""downside risk"" is going to have an annual loss built in due to the cost of the protection. Occasionally the options market can do something weird due to supply/demand or liquidity issues but mostly the parity relationships hold, or hold closely enough that you can't profit once expenses are considered. Update: one note, I'm talking about ""vanilla"" options as traded in the US here, I guess there are some somewhat different products elsewhere; I'm not sure exactly which derivatives you mean. All derivatives have a cost though or nobody would take the other side of the trade."


See Started new job. Rollover previous employer 401k to new 401k, IRA or Roth IRA? for a start.  Kevin, the discussion is far more complex than you might think. Say your account grows by X, (pretend it's 10 if you wish) and your tax rate is Y (25%?). If you take the initial sum, tax it at Y, but then grow it X, the result is identical to doing it in the reverse order. So $1000 to start can grow to $10,000, then after tax, $7500. Or $1000 taxed to $750, then grow to $7500.  For pretax deposits, the key is that you deposit those contributions at your marginal rate, i.e. the rate you'd pay on the last $X taxed. But withdrawals start at zero.  In the perfect scenario, you will save 25-28% tax on deposits, but at retirement, enjoy taxation at 0%,10%,15% for a large portion or all of the withdrawals.  (Note, others can suggest rates will rise, and they may be right. My answer is based on the current tax structure.) A new earner, at 10 or 15% may be better off starting with Roth, and as they earn their way to 25% or higher slide over to pre-tax deposits. My 14 year old baby sits, and makes enough to fund a Roth, but pays no tax as she earns less than her own standard deduction for what that's worth.


nope. They say, by now they can live with ultra low oil price ...forever...  (China currency agreement, export-import realignment, internal cost adjustment.)  Russia has industry and warming relationship with China. Saudi does not. China oil demand is nearly infinity as far as russians are concern.  This is reflected from Russia trade and budgetary situation. (they are back to huge current account surplus, and quickly shrinking deficit.)  And they are not even back into global debt market yet. In time of wall st. bubble explosion.


Assuming you have no non-public material information, it should be perfectly legal. I suspect it's not a great idea for the reasons that Joe outlined, but it should be legal.


"(Although I disagree with the idea of getting a child working a real job to early, (I think kids should learn at school, learn manners, learn what the world offers and have responsibility) Here is a list of ideas that a small child can do.  This is all assuming the child is to young for a work permit and a ""normal"" job.  I am assuming your live in the United States. Comedy Answer: Amway.  But forget about getting invited to birthday parties."


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Does this make sense? I'm concerned that by buying shares with post tax income, I'll have ended up being taxed twice or have increased my taxable income. ... The company will then re-reimburse me for the difference in stock price between the vesting and the purchase share price. Sure.  Assuming you received a 100-share RSU for shares worth $10, and your marginal tax rate is 30% (all made up numbers), either: or So you're in the same spot either way.  You paid $300 to get $1,000 worth of stock. Taxes are the same as well.  The full value of the RSU will count as income either way, and you'll either pay tax on the gains of the 100 shares in your RSU our you'll pay tax on gains on the 70 shares in your RSU and the 30 shares you bought.  Since they're reimbursing you for any difference the cost basis will be the same (although you might get taxed on the reimbursement, but that should be a relatively small amount). This first year I wanted to keep all of the shares, due to tax reasons and because believe the share price will go up. I don't see how this would make a difference from a tax standpoint. You're going to pay tax on the RSU either way - either in shares or in cash.  how does the value of the shares going up make a difference in tax? Additionally I'm concerned that by doing this I'm going to be hit by my bank for GBP->USD exchange fees, foreign money transfer charges, broker purchase fees etc.  That might be true - if that's the case then you need to decide whether to keep fighting or decide if it's worth the transaction costs.


I agree with you on automation, and (its my fault for not elaborating more) you misunderstood what I was trying to say.     Sure, people will figure out things to do, but their *getting paid* for any of that is another story.


I have experience with public speaking. Further I'm the only American at the company and the only native English speaker. I think that's why he chose me to be such a candidate. Add that to the fact that there's less than 20 staff at our office and I think you get the picture


"so I believe it should be under ""No Financial Interest Account Information."" section ?  Why? It's your account in your name. From legal perspective it is your personal account and you have financial interest in it."


"Suddenly its not just comparing the current price to the price of the contract, or is it? Sure it is.  Suppose you bought 100 option contracts (each for 100 shares) and paid a $1 per share premium ($10,000 total).  Now those options are trading for $1.50 per share.  You have an unrealized $0.50 gain per share, or $5,000. The $10,000 in options you bought are now worth $15,000.  It holds whether they were bought to open or close a position, or whether they are puts or calls.  The only difference is whether you bought or sold the options (the arithmetic is just reversed for selling an option). But lets say we have an Option, where the payoff is max(St-K, c0) where ct is the market price. What do you do then? Your current, unrealized P&L is different than the payoff.  The payoff only happens at maturity.  The current P&L is based on current market prices, just like stock.  Option prices all have a ""time premium"" making them worth more than their payoff (intrinsic) value prior to maturity."


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I feel like this change is the first of many that are going to continue to happen in the business world because there is a younger wiser generation arising that appreciate the power of technology and will get rid of these things that are not as efficient or old fashioned  such as the landline.


"I could not figure out a good way to make XIRR work since it does not support arrays.  However, I think the following should work for you: Insert a column at D and call it ""ratio"" (to be used to calculate your answer in column E).  Use the following equation for D3: =1+(C3-B3-C2)/C2 Drag that down to fill in the column. Set E3 to: =(PRODUCT(D$3:D3)-1)*365/(A3-A$2) Drag that down to fill in the column. Column E is now your annual rate of return."


Yes, but it's a matter of paper trail and lifestyle. Your $600K guy may get questioned when he makes the deposit, but would show the record of having that money elsewhere. People buy cars with cash (a check) all the time. The guy filing a tax return claiming little to no income or no return at all, is more likely to get flagged than the $100K+ earning couple who happened to be able to save to buy their $25K car every 10 years with cash.  On reading the article, the bank had its own concerns. The guy who was trying to withdraw the money was elderly, and the bank seemed pretty concerned to make sure he wasn't about to be scammed. It may not be spelled out as such, but a custodian of one's money does have an obligation to not be party to a potential scam, and the very request for such a huge sum of money in cash is a red flag.


Some economist please ELI5 what I’m missing here. In the equities market, it is considered an economic benefit when exchanges settle trades in smaller increments. When we went from eighths to decimal, for example. How is that direction into smaller divisible units different from facilitating trade with pennies for economic goods?


Those surveys suck.  I've seen them jump all over the place.  Not too long ago the northeast one was way up.  Real live recessions don't usually happen unless the yield curve is inverted.  This muddling along crap is pretty characteristic of a recovery from a financial panic.  Lots of slow deleveraging fed by easy money.  I'd be really surprised to see a real recession.  I do think corporate earnings are going to start missing estimates.  But that is more about some mean reversion than anything else.


**Litany of woes **  Nokia has been the number 1 seller of mobile phones since 1998. In Q1 of 2012 they relinquished this lead to Samsung. Samsung now has a 21% global market share against Nokia’s 20%.  Till 5 years ago Nokia was in the top 5 most valuable brands in the world but had slipped to 14th place last year, and this year it will be lucky to be in the top 50.  Nokia is shedding jobs like a sinking ship jettisoning all excess weight.  Microsoft seems to be going its own way with the Windows mobile platform with the announcement that windows 8 update wont be available for Lumia range in the market.  The stock is now at a 16 year low.


"It's important to be frugal, save, and balance our budget. My beef is that there are so many people who say, ""CUT EVERYTHING!"" which is ridiculous.  Also, research and past experience indicates that government spending can be very successful in helping to mitigate and exit a recession / depression. It's just that we didn't save enough during the good times to prepare for the bad times."


I'd rather have a pay raise because my bosses are actually pretty decent. They stay out of my way and let me do my job. Deadlines are usually so far down the road that I don't have to worry about it. They don't blame me for stuff that is demonstrably not my fault. The number of meetings that I get hauled into in a year, I can usually count on one hand. They tell me what they want done and leave deciding how it gets done up to me (I'm a web developer).