"Congrats you pulled some irrelevant statistics. No where in your response does it verify your claim that the majority of small businesses aren't turning a profit. And many small businesses do have a multiple stakeholders.  Since we are on the subject, do you know how large a company can be and still be classified as a small business?   [It is 500, 1,000, or 1,500 employees depending on the industry.] (https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevecooper/2012/09/20/the-government-definition-of-small-business-is-b-s/#58848cee360a) Five-hundred employees is not exactly small.  Oh by the way, I've worked for multiple small businesses under 100 employees and they've had owners, stakeholders, investors, a board of directors, etc. on top of all of the employees. Not every small business is some mom and pop company of 5-15 employees.  >Then put your money where your mouth is and get out there and create some jobs.  Hahaha. This has nothing to do with the discussion but whatever dude. If we were both to start our own companies, I'd actually value my workers and you would just complain about labor costs of the people that are needed to run your business.  Here is the thing, I don't consider creating minimum wage jobs as true job creation, [because the tax payer is still footing the bill if the company isn't paying a live-able wage.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/when-work-isnt-enough-to-keep-you-off-welfare-and-food-stamps/) The majority of people on welfare are working families (see same link), so what good is job creation of minimum wage positions if the people that work them still have to rely on the government?  Think about this, if we were to remove the minimum wage and I could pay someone $1 and hour, I could ""create jobs."" But we all know that is asinine because no one could live on that. Yet the same thing happens at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 and people like you don't see that there is no difference between the two examples. In both scenarios, people still don't make enough to live without some assistance."


> Then we sold them used on eBay for $200 and bought the next size up when it was time which was like 2 months later (they snap to multiple sizes)...  This sentence right here. This astounds me more than anything else in this entire thread.


That's completely false.  If you buy a house and live in it for 30 years, it should rise about 2-3% with inflation (neglecting any bubbles), then when you sell it, it may be worth 75 to 100% more than you paid for it.  But if you sell it for 50-60% more, you didn't actually make any money (due to inflation), you lost money, but are still expected to pay capital gains on that.


I really wetand to write down a quick message in order to say thanks to you for these pleasant tips and hints you are placing on this site. My incredibly long internet look up has finally been paid with high-quality information to go over with my company.


Everyone always rants on how big of a problem this is.  Just a quick note, I don't care how much they get paid, but it's important to understand why.  It isn't because they set their own salaries, or that they are all super greedy.  Their pay is meant to solve an agency problem. The CEO doesn't own the company, the public does. Because of that the CEO has little incentive to act in the best interests of the owners, rather than his own interest.  So their pay is structured in a way that solves this problem. They are paid based on how well their company does, and how much shareholder value they create. This aligns their interests with the shareholders.  Is this the best solution? Probably not.  Is there a better one? Probably.  Do I know it? No.  But mindlessly complaining about the result doesn't solve the issue. The issue is we need a good solution for the agency problem in an economic system that is built on public ownership and private management.


"It makes sense if the NPV is positive. But what rate should you use at determining the NPV? A textbook might say ""market rate"".... and by definition the market rate to use in bond calculations like yours will mean that your NPV will be zero.  How can this be? Well it's a bit of a circular definition. You take less capital to earn a higher return. The value of your capital spread over the period of the bond's maturity is the net difference... but the money in your pocket from selling the bond and not purchasing also has value. Banks and traders do this exact swap every day, many many times. The rate at which you can execute this swap is what defines the market rate. Therefore, by definition, the NPV will be zero. Now, this doesn't mean it's a bad idea for you. You can, on your own accord, decide the value you place on the capital versus the yield and make the decision. Do you expect rates to rise or fall? Do you expect higher or lower inflation? In reality you can form whatever opinion you like for your own circumstance, but the market is the net aggregation of formative opinion. You only get to decide whether or not you agree with the market."


Yes, there is debtor's prison in the U.S.  But you don't get sentenced because of the debt itself, but because you are not paying as much as a judge deems reasonable. Tens of thousands of mostly men are in jail because they are not able to pay an amount set by the court. Here is a balanced article that explains the situation: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/20/us/skip-child-support-go-to-jail-lose-job-repeat.html Note that the court does not need to prove your guilt. You also can end up in jail even if you have absolutely no ability to pay: In the Georgia class-action case, the plaintiffs were jailed in civil   contempt-of-court proceedings in which they did not have lawyers. They   included three veterans — one who had paid $75,000 in child support   but fell behind when he lost his civilian job because of   combat-related stress and family deaths; a second who was mentally ill   and had a letter from a Veterans Affairs doctor saying he was unable   to work; and a third who was incarcerated despite having paid $3,796   toward his debt by working odd jobs. Note that in these court proceedings you do not have the right to a lawyer and you are not presumed innocent.


Just Tesla's products today solve it for many households. Solar Roof + Powerwall could run most single-family houses in the US no problem. Basically you just pre-pay your power bills for 20 years and you're all set.  The harder problem is electricity for high-density housing and industry. Solar farms solve some of that, but other power sources are a good idea too.


Estimated Start-Up and Operating Costs in Chartering a Credit Union notes in part: Given the significant costs involved, most groups seek grant money and   non-member deposits (if pre-approved for the low-income designation)   to help subsidize the pre-chartering costs and annual operating   expenses. Thus, in forming the union there would be the money from members and possible grants to ensure completion of the chartering process which is how one starts a CU in the US.


You have no grounds for a refund. The flight took off on time, and you chose not to be on board. The fact that the airline could not guarantee ahead of time that the flight would leave on time is not relevant. You can certainly try to dispute the charge with the airline, and it sounds like you have done so. The airline correctly indicates that your dispute is unfounded. You can call up your credit card company and explain the situation, and they may accept your dispute. However, I am not aware of any credit card that would reimburse you (that is, issue a chargeback) in this situation. I'm not trying to be unsympathetic. It sucks that you felt you could not rely on the airline, and are now out some money. Fundamentally, though, this was your choice. The airline would be obligated to reimburse you the cost of your flight, or book you on another flight, if the flight was cancelled due to bad weather or other issues, but they owe you nothing if the flight took off on schedule.


I bet you're retired on a pension? Or just stupid? What? I need to no. Just because you tack a term to it, doesn't make it invalid.  You should DIE when you are no longer productive. Look at the DEBT you're handing to the future, while your employers run away with the EQUITY!


But how does the quantity matching happen? For example, if I want to buy 1000 shares at $100, but there is only one seller to sell 10 shares at $100, what happens then? This depends on the type of order you've placed. If you placed a fill-or-kill order, your order to buy or sell a certain number of shares is routed to the trading floor for immediate execution. If the order cannot be immediately filled, it is cancelled (killed) automatically. Note that the order must be filled in its entirety. Partial fills are not allowed. In your example, your buy order wouldn't be filled because it couldn't be matched to a sell order of the same volume. This is similar to an all-or-none order, which is an order that contains  A condition instructing the broker to fill the order completely or not at all. If there is insufficient supply to meet the quantity requested by the order then it is canceled at the close of the market. In this case, if your order wasn't matched to an order of the same volume by the time the market closes, it's cancelled. If you simply placed a market/limit order, and (in the case of the limit order), part of your order was matched to another order with the right price, that part of your order will be filled, while the rest will remained unfilled.


Jimmy chính là chuyên viên nhận Ủy thác đầu tư Vàng Tài Khoản & cung cấp Chiến lược đầu tư Vàng – Chứng khoán – Tiền tệ  JG là nguồn tài nguyên của Jimmy, bao gồm: vốn, kiến thức, quan điểm, chiến lược, dịch vụ, thông tin … trong Đầu tư  Jimmy Group không phải là tổ chức mà thuần túy là tập hợp giữa các cá nhân có mối liên kết với Jimmy, nghĩa là Jimmy và các người bạn


Someone remind WalMart this is not 2007 when they were the baddest, biggest company in the country.   Don't try to dictate your terms on others. It still blows my mind that if you do business with Walmart you need an office in Bentonville.


No offer is too low. You can always offer more but you can't offer less once you have made your first offer. And there is always another great deal just around the corner. The more enthusiastic you are about buying this property the less your negotiating power will be. The pproperty has already been on the market for a long while, so the vendor may be getting desperate to sell, so their negotiating power is already lessened. Know what the market is in the the area and offer at least 10% below the market. If it is a weak market then offer at least 20% below market. (Note: the list price is usually more than the market price). So offer as low as possible and you can always offer more if you think it is still a good price. Treat it like a game and have some fun, don't stress out if you miss out, there will always be a better deal just around the corner.


I think much of that info is hidden behind pay-walls.  Here is one site I've found. http://www.feinsearch.com/ Another that is for non-profits only is guidestar. http://www.guidestar.org/rxg/products/nonprofit-data-solutions/product-information/guidestar-premium/advanced-nonprofit-search.aspx


Everyone seems to think Bezos is playing 3D chess but I could see this being like Google's brief Motorola Mobility purchase. They might see how unwieldy the whole thing is, maybe take a few things out of it, and sell it when the experiment is deemed a failure. I don't buy the whole, store as a delivery hub theory, as I don't see how their locations could realistically support any kind of mass delivery operation. I think it's mostly an effort to bring technology and Amazon branding to a physical footprint, and since food is hard to crack online, they figured they would do it via Whole Foods, especially since they have pretty high quality locations and aesthetically pleasing stores.


The only time I've bothered with stop orders is when I think the position is in a particularly volatile state and there is an earnings report pending.  In this situation it's an easily debatable thing to do.  If I'm so concerned that the earnings report will be enough to cause a wild downswing that I'd place a stop order, maybe I should just drop the position now.   I subscribe to the school of thought that you don't sell your MVPs.  I've bought a few things on a whim that really performed well over the few years to follow.  To me it doesn't make sense to pick a return at which I would turn off the spigot.  So generally it doesn't make sense to hold orders that would force a sale, either after some upside or downside occurs. Additionally, if I've chosen something as a long term hold.  I never spend all my cash opening up a position.  I've frequently opened positions that subsequently experienced a decline, when that happens I buy more. Meaningless side thought: With the election coming I've been seriously considering pulling some of my gains off the table.  My big apprehension with doing that is that I have no near-term alternative use for the money.  So what's the point of selling a position I'm otherwise comfortable with just to pay taxes on the gain then probably buy back in?


I know you really like bananas, but don't you think you would get tired of them after a while?  Better stock up on some kiwi and mango just to mix it up a bit. I wouldn't want to risk eating only banana sandwiches, banana ice cream and banana bread for the rest of my life.  I have don't think I could take it.  Same goes for mango and kiwi, but I think if I had all three I could probably get along just fine.


I'm really sorry, but what do you mean by ISM? I googled it but found nothing.. Thanks!  Anyway, the WF product is really good indeed. Maybe we (r/finance) could start a weekly report too, quoting major reports like this one, and make some comments/analysis. That could be interesting don't you think? It would take quite some time but I think this sub lacks something like this.


"Using the fact that you'd save $160/mo by spending $7000, I'd look at it this way -  If I were to lend you the $7000 at 12%/yr, $160 would pay it off in 58 months. At 18%/yr, 72 months or just 6 years. You can run spreadsheets to get breakeven scenarios, and mhoran is on track with his answer, but breakeven is just one point to consider. Beyond that date, it's free money.  My approach is to look at it with a question - ""How much interest could I afford to pay to make that monthly savings worthwhile?"""


"I agree with all that was said here, but I have to add something. Another point I will add is ""stimulus: while you still can."" At some point you can no longer take on more debt even if you wanted to. If global and domestic investors think you are going to be a risky investment then they cut you off. The people who argue that Greece shouldn't be implementing austerity don't seem to understand the situation they are in. Far fewer wanted to lend money to them even before they started their ""haircut"" shanigans. People think the government should spend more, but how are they supposed to do that if no one wants to lend more money? They also criticize Germany and co. for insisting on austerity. What they sometimes seem to forget is that Germany doesn't have an infinite supply of money to bail out Greece. They have their own bills to pay and any politician who was dumping ever larger amounts of money into Greece would be looking at being voted out or even assassinated if they let things get too bad for the German people (I am being a little hyperbole here to make a point, but I honestly feel it is a very real possibility in this kind of economic climate). At this point there is no reason to discuss whether Greece should choose to spend more money, because that choice is no longer even available to them.  We are not as bad off as Greece right now. We should spend more money but we need results. We need to identify the structural problems ailing our economy and get them fixed with the money we have. Direct spending isn't always a great idea if it is done in a nonsensical way. People defending the bike paths and other shit argue that all spending is good in a depression. I am not against bike paths and roads, because they can certainly create jobs and generate value to the economy. But every dollar you spend on them is one dollar that can't be spent on the biggest problems (assuming of course that kind of infrastructure isn't one of those).  After spending trillions of dollars on spending, our GDP is still growing at only 2%. It was increasing about 3.5% every year from 1947-2012. Our jobs creation rate is still less than half the 250,000 jobs a month we created in the last 10-20 years (can't remember the exact number). We definitely need to spend differently to address the problems and get people back to work. As curtiscarlson said, we need middle class jobs. We particularly need those among America's youth so they can move out of their parents' houses and buy their own, which could really help the housing economy and create jobs for the lower class in turn and get us out of this depression. My thoughts are that we should use stimulus in new new industries such as those in high tech. I intentionally stated that very broadly, because we have many millenials who need to get to work.  Investing in different high growth industries could create jobs for people in any number of occupations. But if we don't do that while people still want to lend us money then we are going to be fucked in a few years when we are out of options and land in the same position as Greece.  edit:let me clarify the infrastructure thing. There was a town that spent millions rebuilding a sidewalk that was five years old that no one in the community wanted. Everyone there thought it was a nonsensical way of spending tax dollars and would have thought that money could have been better spent in another community that really needed problems resolved. Wouldn't it have made more sense to spend money somewhere where it was needed? then you could have created jobs AND created lasting value to an economy by fixing a structural problem that was holding the economy back. Why don't our politicians realize this?"


No, there isn't. There are a number of reasons that institutions buy these bonds but as an individual you're likely better off in a low-yield cash account. By contrast, there would be a reason to hold a low-yield (non-zero) bond rather than an alternative low-yield product.


Unfortunately that's the most recent full report on things I know of, it was published in December. The current stats can be found elsewhere online. Currently Instagram is surging and has been since March, it's now bigger than Twitter.   Also I believe those stats in the report are based off people who use the network at least once a day. This would include Messenger.   I'm a social media marketer and consultant. The irony is like you I primarily use Facebook as a way to talk to people, I do participate in some groups but other than that I actually have my news feed blocked.   Twitter is a massive time suck to market on, and not my favorite so I just automated that.   Instagram is currently my favorite social media site and I think many Millennials would agree with that. People are highly visual, so it makes sense Instagram is surging. That and there's a lot less drama and bullshit on Instagram in my experience.


> This as Kroger keeps expanding stores and now using space to sell mom jeans and cheap socks.  Sounds like they are copying a page from their Fred Meyer unit. Not surprising though as I understand a lot of people at Kroger HQ these days came up through the Fred Meyer unit.


"A Ponzi scheme, simply defined, is where the schemer uses funds invested by one person to pay off (or provide a return) for an earlier investor.  Such schemes require a continual supply of new investors, and when they run it, the schemes collapse. Bernie Madoff is the best modern-day example of how a Ponzi scheme works, and he ran his for decades before it finally caved in thanks to the 2008 economic crash.  People who had been content to leave their ""returns"" with Bernie started getting margin calls as the markets imploded, so they asked Bernie for redemptions he didn't have the funds for.  That's what caused him to come clean, because there was no way to hide it any longer. Buying shares in a company with no revenues and then selling them to someone else at a higher price is not a Ponzi scheme.  That falls under the ""greater fool"" theory of economics -- there's always a bigger fool who can be parted from his money. As was pointed out, Enron is a great example of what you're talking about -- they published totally fabricated financial statements that people then used as the basis to invest, only to learn later that it was all a lie."


Layman with a question: the financial world is commonly depicted and regarded as being incsanely hard-driving. High pressure with very challenging work, and absolutely life-consuming. IRL, I've ever heard a few stories second-hand about things like fairly regular 18 hour work days and such. Finance is certainly a broad field with many facets; but generally how true is this? I have to assume it at the least doesn't quite meet popular perception, because people would have nervous breakdowns...


Since Brad answered with a great reply, I'd like to offer another comment: Be careful with the results. Annualized returns of short term trading can produce some crazy results. For example, a 10% gain in a week isn't unheard of for individual stocks, but (1.1)^52 = 142. or a 14,100% return.  This may be obvious, but may help those who aren't so familiar with the numbers to understand that data running less than a year isn't going to provide as much useful conclusion as longer term. Note: Even a year doesn't really reflect success in a given strategy.


"It sounds like maybe you want an ""investment club"".  As defined by the SEC: An investment club is a group of people who pool their money to make investments. Usually, investment clubs are organized as partnerships and, after the members study different investments, the group decides to buy or sell based on a majority vote of the members. Club meetings may be educational and each member may actively participate in investment decisions. These ""typically"" do not need to register: Investment clubs usually do not have to register, or register the offer and sale of their own membership interests, with the SEC. But since each investment club is unique, each club should decide if it needs to register and comply with securities laws. There's more information from the SEC here: http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/invclub.htm The taxes depend on how you organized the club, i.e. if you organize as a partnership, I believe that you will be taxed as a partnership. (Not 100% sure.)  Some online brokerages have special accounts specifically for investment clubs.  Check around."


IRR is subjective, if you could provide another metric instead of the IRR; then this would make sense. You can't spend IRR. For example, you purchase a property with a down payment; and the property provides cash-flow; you could show that your internal rate of return is 35%, but your actual rate of importance could be the RoR, or Cap Rate. I feel that IRR is very subjective. IRR is hardly looked at top MBA programs. It's studied, but other metrics are used, such as ROI, ROR, etc. IRR should be a tool that you visually compare to another metric. IRR can be very misleading, for example it's like the cash on cash return on an investment.


Who is this in reference to?  They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler. They use their movie stars and singers and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. And then they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance.


"Small businesses are often governed by local regulations and state law. In a low liability small quantity arena, you should be able to get away with a DBA (doing business as) arrangement, such as DBA ""Jay's Gem's"". A small business license may come with a state Tax ID and satisfy your supplier, but a Federal EIN can be obtained from the IRS, and may be necessary to apply for the business license. It wouldn't hurt to talk to the local chamber of commerce or state small business agencies if you have questions about local requirements."


My parents owned 5 bowling centers throughout my childhood. Summer is the toughest time for a bowling alley. Open play is down because people want to be outside. Leagues run August-May and the majority of league bowlers want to take the summer off. Leagues are guaranteed revenue week to week. Summer months were usually break-even.   Does this center have a bar? That's a significant portion of revenue, especially in the summer.


Current S&P 500 Shiller PE is higher than it was on Black Tuesday in 1929, Black Monday in 1987, and 2008 before the market went off the cliff.  I'm a firm believer in what comes up having to go down eventually, I just can't put my finger on how soon it'll be or the magnitude.  I don't think we'll see a dot com blowup, since this current bull market isn't based on fiction, but there will be a drawdown as the Fed unwinds their balance sheet and interest rates return back to normal.  The only question is how much further it'll fall at that point.


Sell half. If it's as volatile as you say, sell it all and buy on another dip. No one can really offer targeted advice based on the amount of information you have provided.


If you don't mind, sign the form and move on.  If you would rather make a point, go to another lender.  You lender had certain boxes they have to check off as they go through the paperwork process:  the two things your lender cares about are those boxes and getting paid. Take your money elsewhere and they don't get paid.  But seriously, just sign the agreement.  Focus your intelligence and productivity on something more worthwhile than your pride.


I'm really skeptical of all the press around illness from Chipotle. Plenty of people get sick eating at plenty of restaurants, but Chipotle is the one who consistently gets framed on the front page. Feels like corporate hit jobs from businesses who don't want to adapt to the new fast food model.


What?? What a strange (and horribly wrong) thesis.  Buybacks are economically the same as dividends. They are a way of distributing profits to investors. A company does this when it cannot find any good investment opportunities. It does not cause a lack of those opportunities. This guy has it completely backwards.   After the buyback the previous stockholders now have cash to find opportunities that the firm wasn't itself either wasn't equipped to move on or didn't know about. That buyback distribution doesn't just get incinerated - it gets reinvested as per the previous owners desires.  His example of how previously a firm had to invest since it had no way to return profits to investors is a perfect example of capital misallocation caused by taxation.  This piece should be nominated for worst of the year. All intro econ students should read this and learn to dissect such claims.


We have a house here in India worth Rs. 2 Crores. We want to sell it and take money with us.  Selling the house in India will attract Capital Gains Tax. Essentially the price at which you sell the property less of the property was purchased [or deemed value when inherited by you]. The difference is Capital Gains. You have to pay tax on this gains. This is currently at 10% without Indexation and 20% with Indexation.  Please note if you hold these funds for more than an year, you would additionally be liable for Wealth tax at 1% above Rs 50 lacs. Can I gift this whole amount to my US Citizen Daughter or what is the   maximum limit of Gift amount   What will be the tax liability on me and on my Daughter in case of Gift   Whether I have to show it in my Income Tax Return or in my Daughter's Tax Return. What US Income Tax Laws says.   What will be the procedure to send money as Gift to my Daughter.   Assuming you are still Indian citizen when to gift the funds; From Indian tax point of you there is no tax to you. As you daughter is US citizen, there is no gift tax to her. There is no limit in India or US. So you can effectively gift the entire amount without any taxes. If you transfer this after you become a US Resident [for tax purposes], then there is a limit of USD 14,000/- per year per recipient. Effective you can gift your daughter and son-in-law 14,000/- ea and your husband can do the same. Net 14,000 * 4 USD per year. Beyond this you either pay tax or declare this and deduct it from life time estate quota. Again there is no tax for your daughter. What are the routes to take money from India to US   Will the money will go directly from my Bank Act.to my Daughter's Bank Account.   Will there will be wire transfer from bank to bank   Can I send money through other money sender Certified Companies also. The best way is via Bank to Bank transfer. A CA Certificate is required to certify that taxes have been paid on this funds being transferred. Under the liberalized remittance scheme in India, there is a limit of USD 1 Million per year for moving funds outside of India. So you can move around Rs 6-7 Crore a year.


I have heard of Dort somehow. 'Nuff said there.  Never been to Flint in my life, either.  Far as starting a market, say, around where I lived...I'd chance it with adequate money to invest and do a decent job.  Except - where the heck would I put it?  No suitable buildings to even retrofit, as they've all been firebombed by the aforementioned homies.  So, either I spend a mil to retrofit a shell, or I spend a mil to build a cookie-cutter storefront as cheap as possible, and after that, I still gotta worry about fixtures, lighting, registers, misc equip, and after all THAT, I still have to buy adequate stock to maybe get started and stay out of Dante's Inferno on the books.  Nevermind zoning and graft and health inspectors on a refabbed building.  No way, even in perhaps 20 years, to make back your investment in those areas.  Reckon that's why you see established places hanging in here and there like little islands.


"As far as I know any business can register for VAT regardless of the nature of the business.  If all the goods you sell (or services you provide) are VAT-exempt or zero-rated then you will get refunds from HMRC on VAT your business pays. Any business whose non-VAT exempt turnover (which would include zero-rated goods and services provided) exceeds the registration threshold must register, again even if that means they are ""forced"" to claim refunds. So the only question would be whether your rather nebulous activities were enough to qualify you as a business or organisation to which the VAT regime applies at all. The one-liner answer to that is  generally, if goods or services are provided in return for a charge, there’s a business activity for VAT purposes Inevitably there's a much bigger body of statute and case law and it won't always be obvious whether the one-liner answer applies or not to a particular activity so it may be necessary to seek specialist advice."


This page seems to be a good list of people to contact to trace unclaimed assets.


There was a comic (which I thought might have been on the oatmeal, I can't find it, found it originally on reddit though) where they show a guy who's great in his department and is promoted, great again, promoted, repeat until he's not great... but then they can't demote him, because his old spot's filled, so he's stuck there where he sucks.  edit: apparently [tuna-fish2](http://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/nfc8k/famous_last_words_by_bosses_ive_had/c38pfza) says it's the Peter Principle


I haven't read the terms here but the question may not have a good answer.  That won't stop me from trying.   Call the real rate (interest rate - inflation) and you'll have what is called negative real rates. It's rare for the overnight real rate to be negative.  If you check the same sources for historical data you'll find it's usually higher.  This is because borrowing money is usually done to gain an economic benefit, ie. make a profit.  That is no longer a consideration when borrowing money short term and is IMO a serious problem.  This will cause poor investment decisions like you see in housing. Notice I said overnight rate.  That is the only rate set by the BoC and the longer rates are set by the market.  The central bank has some influence because a longer term is just a series of shorter terms but if you looked up the rate on long Canadian real return bonds, you'd see them with a real rate around 1%. What happens when the central bank raise or lowers rates will depend on the circumstances.  The rate in India is so high because they are using it to defend the rupee.  If people earn more interest they have a preference to buy that currency rather than others.  However these people aren't stupid, they realize it's the real rate that matters.  That's why Japan can get away with very low rates and still have demand for the currency - they have, or had, deflation.  When that changed, the preference for their currency changed. So if Canada hast forex driven inflation then the BoC will have to raise rates to defend the dollar for the purpose of lowering inflation from imports.  Whether it works or not is another story.  Note that the Canadian dollar is very dependant on the total dollar value of net oil exports. If Canada has inflation due too an accelerating economy this implies that there are profitable opportunities so businesses and individuals will be more likely to pay a positive real rate of interest.  In that scenario the demand for credit money will drive the real rate of return.


"3 things people think about when getting a plumber:  * Can they be trusted?  * Are their rates affordable?  * Could I just do it myself, or is it dirty & too hard?   I think if you smack some item on your biz cards, marketing material, website homepage that address those 2 issues (trust & affordable) then you'll happily attract more customers.  Also, a really, free fun way to market would be to have your father do some ""How-To"" videos, and put them on YouTube, and do keywords related to region.  Get ultra-realistic and gritty in the video.  Show how dirty it gets, and how much wrenching & special gear is needed.  Talk about how much the gear costs, and the danger of a certain chemical etc.  No need to worry about losing business.  Anybody that has attempted plumbing knows it's damn hard.  And if they don't, they will call you when they fuck it up (as I have).  But in the meantime, you gain trust, and you dishearten people that thought ""I can fix that"", and then see your father sticking his arm down a toilet's asshole in the ground."


there was once a case were a women sued the company that fired her because to her eyes being a bartender and getting 60 pounds heavier wasnt a justification. The managers then proceeded to show everyone how her sales dropped 30% compared to when she was less heavy. She lost the case.  edit: a letter


George Carlin pointed out that economic theory says that if you give the poor money they will stop working, but that if you don't give the rich enough money they will stop working.  Which is it?  To little money makes you stop working or too much money makes you stop working?  It can't be one rule for the poor and one rule for the rich.


Here's an easy 2 question test: (1) Is there anyone who relies on your income for their general welfare? (2) Is it worth the premium amount to you to make sure they aren't left out in the cold? If you can answer yes to both questions, buy (term) life insurance.


"Sure, and I made it clear in my post that I'm willing to accept that I may be wrong.  But the author does a poor job of arguing his point, his argument in the article is based on an unsubstantiated claim that a certain activity is bad. He says it ""impairs price performance"" but offers no proof that this occurs.  Now granted, I haven't had a chance to look at the data either, but as myself and other posters have mentioned, this claim is quite debatable. I need a bit more material to be convinced."


That's kind of my point. Mutton was cheap, as a byproduct of wool. It's essentially no longer eaten by humans due to the increase in prosperity. Presumably if we were to go back to eating primarily mutton rather than lamb, mostly roosters and chickens too old to lay, and ex-dairy beef, food prices would be lower.


Yeah that last part was a big deal for them and laying off the 18,000 people involved with the windows phone.  As far as Linux on Azure they finally resigned themselves to doing it after no one was interested in the service without it other than a few big enterprises. Still Amazon and Google eat their lunch in that space.


As a rule, one should have a retirement. HOWEVER, you also have over a half a million dollars of debt.  Paying down debt is another way to prepare for retirement.  I would say throwing your excess money at your debts is a fine strategy right now.  Especially the student loan (the mortgage probably has a lower rate and brings tax savings, so paying it off is less urgent). If I were you I'd probably put SOMETHING into tax deferred retirement accounts because in your tax bracket, the savings from doing so are significant. The max you can put in tax deferred is $5,500 per year (each) in IRA's and up to $17,000 to your 401(k) each.  The tax-saving contribution opportunities will not come up again...you can't make up for it later. Any retirement saving beyond the tax advantaged part makes no sense while you have outstanding debt.


You can contact the french agency for stock regulation and ask them : http://www.amf-france.org/


"Piggybacking on this, the best thing you can do is ask current analysts for help. You're new and people expect you to ask dumb questions at this point. So ask them now while you still get a pass.  With that being said, there's a strategy to it. Before you ever ask a question, spend at least 5 minutes trying to figure out the answer on your own. OP did a Google search, which is great. So many people won't do this. Finally, the way you ask the question is key. I would go to an analyst and say, ""[Boss] asked me to get a list of all US apartment flooring companies. I looked on Google to see if I could find anything there. If you were doing this, where would you go to find the information?""  They'll usually even walk you through how to do it if there's something special with the service you have for the task. You'll also make them feel important. And you'll get the task done fast.  Also, if you run into trouble with the boss after presenting it, you can always back yourself up by saying you asked around the office for what tool to use and people told you to use that. But be strategic with how you say it because you don't want to throw anyone under the bus."


The fine print of your credit card agreement will always tell you exactly in what order things are paid off. You should have a copy of the agreement, and it's easy to get one if you don't. In most cases I believe the order is: This applies to your minimum payment as well as any excess - the minimum isn't a separate kind of payment, it's just the minimum you are allowed to make.


"Must I rehash the obvious reasons why a community organizer lacks the business sense to see us through the mess?  ...and must I really detail why it is the corrupt career politicians in and out of congress that are to blame for this mess?  Obama's persistent electioneering since 2008, and the pandering to special interests to the tune of trillions is a good place for starters ...or perhaps the 7 figure price tag per job that he owns...  I dunno, I lost count of Recovery Summers (is this IV or V? ) and ""shovel-ready"" *jobs* obviously meant something else to him...  Yet, I suppose the dozen or so private firms that Obama haphazardly threw millions of tax payer dollars into that only ended up failing could also play a role ...but proceed to blame bush, and stack up the excuses. I'm waiting.   Sure, Romney may have been a shrewd business man, but at least someone made money and had something more tangible than ""hope."""


"> everything looks 35 years old.  My local kmart looks like the land before time.  > The reason sears/Kmart is hurt is due to their management being directed by a hedge fund.   But that hedge fund manager ""genius"" acquired all of that Sears real estate as an asset play in 2005. Makes you wonder how it's being carried on the books post crash.  edit: here's the reason for the store closings:  > Sears Holdings Corp announced that for the fourth quarter of 2011, it expects consolidated adjusted EBITDA will be less than half of last year's amount.   http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/SHLD.O/key-developments/article/2456570  Ouch! That should put them in the red for the entire year! Retailers obviously depend on the holiday season, and it was dismal this year for sears. I noticed that they had been in the black solely because the always got bailed out by 4th quarter earnings. No more!"


So it comes down to whether you think helping someone after they've taken a risk is a reward or not I guess. Same problem, different perspective. If you play stupid games you win stupid prizes.   You could argue that the system failed her because she wasn't taught to use protection or to plan enough, but then it gets real hard to use that one way or the other.


If you aren't familiar with Norbert's Gambit, it's worth looking at. This is a mechanism using a Canadian brokerage account to simultaneously execute one stock trade in CAD and one in USD. The link I provided claims that it only starts potentially making sense somewhere in the 10,000+ range.


A firm is a separate legal person from its shareholders or owners (but doesn't get invited to parties much). Owners invest capital to get shares in the firm or may get shares for investing time, effort etc. but those shares are on a limited liability basis. That means that shareholders are only liable up to the value of their shares and that the firm itself is responsible for any expenses or liabilities. The firm will have working capital from its initial investors (i.e. any capital invested to get shares) and can borrow money on the bond market or issue new shares to cover outgoings. Share ownership simply entitles the owner to a proportion of the residual equity of the company and voting rights (for non-prefered equity). In a firm that I previously worked for, for example, one of the partners owned 51% of the firm but put up 100% of the firm's equity capital. The other partner owned 49% and provided 90% of the intellectual capital of the firm. They both took decisions equally. The distribution of ownership should, therefore, have no bearing on who finances deals. The owners (or managers in larger firms) should decide together how to use the company's capital for spending because it is exactly that; the company's capital; not any one of the investor's. Limited liability of owners is one of the major benefits of forming a company.


Your Money or Your Life is a great book on this topic.


A Certified Financial Planner has passed a licensing exam and will advise you and help you reach your financial goals. A good CFP can help you a lot, especially if you are unsure how to set up your insurance, investment, savings, and financial plans on your own. You do not need a CFP to get a life insurance policy. If you do get a CFP, he or she should help you above and beyond life insurance -- i.e. retirement planning, investment advice, education planning, etc. It's advantageous to you to pay a fixed price for services instead of a percentage or commission. Negotiate fees up front. For life insurance, in most cases a term policy will fit your needs. Whole life, universal life, etc., combine investments and life insurance into a single product and are big commission makers for the salesman. They make it sound like the best thing ever, so be aware. One of my rules of thumb is that, generally speaking, the larger the commission is for the salesperson, the worse the product is for the consumer. Welcome to life insurance pitches. Term life is far less expensive and provides a death benefit and nothing else. If you just had a baby and need to protect your family, for example, term life is often a good solution, easy to buy, and inexpensive. As you stated, any of the major providers will do just fine.


The taxes that are deducted from you paycheck are estimated from the expected annual income you receive from the employer. In the same way, the employer will deduct from that expected annual income the tax deductions you would get for the number of dependents you specify. Hence your net income will be lower, your annual tax obligation also, which can than be calculated down to the period of your paycheck.


"Yes, but that's not what I'm getting at.  Your story made sense up to the ""enterprising person"" part.  The notes represented obligations secured by apples (or rights to future apples).  Regardless of the secondary note trading, at the end of the day, one could approach issuer of the note, the apple farmer, and redeem (or attempt to redeem) the note for the underlying apples.  The enterprising person's notes are different.  The holder of the new notes cannot approach the priest and demand anything.  The story doesn't explain this critical transition, which is probably the most important part.  You suggest the problem in your response above when you say ""it's just no longer pegged specifically to one grower's apples.""  The new notes aren't ""pegged"" to anything.  That's a huge but unexplained shift, a shift I called a ""gap in the internal logic of this story.""  [Edit: In other words, with the apple notes, there was an option.  One could trade the apple notes with others or get apples.  With the new notes, there is no option.  You must trade the notes.  There is no underlying good or service to redeem.]"


They're exchange traded debt, basically, not funds. E.g. from the NYSE: An exchange-traded note (ETN) is a senior unsecured debt obligation designed to track the total return of an underlying market index or other benchmark, minus investor fees. Whereas an ETF, in some way or another, is an equity product - which doesn't mean that they can only expose you to equity, but that they themselves are a company that you buy shares in.  FCOR for example is a bond ETF, basically a company whose sole purpose is to own a basket of bonds.  Contrast that to DTYS, a bear Treasury ETN, which is described as  The ETNs are unsecured debt obligations of the issuer, Barclays Bank PLC, and are not, either directly or indirectly, an obligation of or guaranteed by any third party. Also from Barclays site: Because the iPath ETNs are debt securities, they do not have any voting rights. FCOR on the other hand is some sort of company owned/managed by a Fidelity trust, though my EDGAR skills are rusty. AGREEMENT made this 18th day of   September, 2014, by and between Fidelity Merrimack Street Trust, a Massachusetts business trust which may issue one or more series of shares of beneficial interest (hereinafter called the Trust), on behalf of Fidelity Corporate   Bond ETF (hereinafter called the Fund), and Fidelity Investments Money Management, Inc., a New Hampshire corporation (hereinafter called the Adviser) as set forth in its entirety below.


There are things that are clearly beyond me as well. Cash per share is $12.61 but the debt looks like $30 or so per share. I look at that, and the $22 negative book value and don't see where the shareholders are able to recoup anything.


I agree but think it goes a lot deeper towards the issue of trust - something few brands seem to place much value on these days. Demographics, CTRs, ROIs - all the quantifiable numbers and metrics are more important than ever, in the minds of advertisers, with little value given to the trust and relationship between the channels and their respective audiences.   Google is a great example of the commoditization of advertising spaces, making the assumption that all spaces are created equally. While this works for selling commodity widgets, there is an erosion of trust that takes place between a commodity audience and commodity content used to sell commodity advertising. By removing the sense of authority and respectability that brands would once gain from aligning themselves with specific audiences via specific channels, you turn the whole system into a numbers game which further perpetuates the problem.  It’s also likely to only continue to get worse as everything increasingly becomes and advertising, product placement or promotional opportunity - so good on anyone that does not blindly and ignorantly take advertising at face value.


Stay away from college debt. You can't default on it. Your wages will be garnished if you're unable to pay it back. Even when your and old man, they will garnish your social security money. In effect college debt makes you an indentured servant. Maybe even worse than the 7 years of servitude people served in early America. Lots of grads are working in restaurants and retail stores.... even some computer science grads. There is great risk in the college investment compared to 40 years ago when it was a sure thing. Do not take debt for college. If that means you can't go to college then so be it.  You're future self will than you.


Sure! I can't go into too much detail about my work directly, but I'll outline what I thought was successful for me.  * Find common ground non-work related - especially if you have a direct report, this is important. Being Indian means I have a lot more to talk with my report, but I know another co-worker who bonded with his Indian team over cricket (he's south african)  * Time zones - this sounds silly, but timezone differences actually result in more issues in communication than anything else. I always offer to meet my night / their morning when needed, and our team there works shifted hours (they start in the afternoon through their night), which allows for more face/phone time.  * Set clear expectations -  > * Being polite (can you please do something) is not viewed as being polite and may be misconstrued as being an option. Make sure this is explicitly addressed. > * Change resistance - there's a desire to keep doing things the way they've been done in the past; if you need something done differently you should refer to the old way explicitly and mention that you want to do something different. > * Detail / Ambiguity / Managerial approach - Uncertainty isn't taken to well (and I blame the very rigid educational system for this); expect to spell out what you want and expect a desire on their end for closer review and support. Regular check-ins are especially helpful. > * Desire to not disappoint: Admitting not knowing how to do something is often viewed as a sign of weakness. After you ask them for something, ask for them to play it back so that you can be sure that they really understand what you're asking of them. > * Time management - Deadlines are often viewed as guidelines rather than set in stone. It especially helps to check in on regular intervals to make sure things are progressing as you'd like them to.   If I think of more I'll edit them in!


I refuse to buy any Groupon vouchers because it would make me feel so *dirty* screwing over the companies the vouchers are for. Just because I am not *personally* the conman ripping them off using dubious sales techniques, it does not make it any better. People say to me that it is their own fault, so tough luck on them. I promise to say the same thing when their mother is ripped off by a pushy salesman at her front door.


I am not aware of a version of Interac available in the U.S., but there are alternative ways to receive money: Cheque. The problem with mailed cheques is that they take time to deliver, and time to clear. If you ship your wares before the cheque has cleared and the cheque is bad, you're out the merchandise. COD. How this works is you place a COD charge on your item at the post office in the amount you charge the customer. The post office delivers the package on the other end when the customer pays. The post office pays you at the time you send the package. There is a fee for this, talk to your local post office or visit the Canada Post website. Money order. Have your U.S. customers send an International Money Order, not a Domestic Money Order. Domestic money orders can only be cashed at a U.S. post office. The problem here is again delivery time, and verifying your customer sent an International Money Order. It can be a pain to have to send back a Domestic Money Order to a customer explaining what they have to do to pay you, even more painful if you don't catch the error before shipping your wares. Credit Card. There are a number of companies offering credit card processing that are much cheaper than a bank. PayPal, Square, and Intuit are three such companies offering these services. After I did my investigations I found Square to be the best deal for me. Please do your own research on these companies (and banks!) and find out which one makes the most sense for you. Some transaction companies may forbid the processing of payment for e-cig materials as they my be classed as tobacco.


You make a accurate point.  I would like to add 2 points.  First off many people realize they do not need debt.  If they have a stable job and the car is paid off and the rent is reasonable they may never need to go into debt ever again unless to buy a home.  Second off.  The market is always swinging.  So next time we are in some sort of financial bubble people who had bankruptcy will be able to borrow like the rest of society.  I worked for a time in the finance industry and I do recall many many loans to people who declared bankruptcy.


"I interned for about six months at a firm that employed a few technical analysts, so I'll try to provide what little information I can. Since the bulk of the intra-day trading was decided algorithmically, technical analysts had two main functions: This basically boils down to my answer to your question. There are still enough people, trading firms, etc. who believe in candlestick charting and other visually subjective patterns that if you notice a trend, pattern, etc. before the majority of traders observing, you may be able to time the market successfully and profit. This is becoming increasingly dangerous, however, because of the steps I outlined above. Over time, the charting patterns that have been proven effective (often in many firms individually since the algorithms are all proprietary) are incorporated into computer algorithms, so the ""traders"" you're competing with to see the pattern are increasingly low-latency computer clusters less than a few blocks from the exchange. Summary: Candlestick charting, along with other forms of subjective technical analysis, has its believers, and assuming enough of these believers trade the standard strategies based on the standard patterns, one could conceivably time the market with enough skill to anticipate these traders acting on the pattern and therefore profit. However, the marginal benefits of doing so are decreasing rapidly as computers take over more trading responsibility.  Caveats:  I know you're in Australia, where the market penetration of HF/algo traders isn't as high as in the US, so it might be a few more years before the marginal benefits cease to be profitable; that being said, if various forms of technical analysis proved wildly profitable in Australia, above and beyond profits available in other markets, rest assured that large American or British trading firms would already have moved in.  My experience is limited to one trading firm, so I certainly can't speak for the industry as a whole. I know I didn't address candlestick charts specifically, but since they're only one piece of visual technical analysis, I tried to address the issue as a whole.  This somewhat ties into the debate between fundamental or technical analysis, which I won't get into. Investopedia has a short article on the subject. As I said, I won't get into this because while it's a nice debate for small traders, at large trading firms, they don't care; they want to make profit, and any strategy that can be vetted, whether it's fundamental, technical, or astrological, will be vetted.  I want to add more information to my answer to clear up some of the misconceptions in the comments, including those talking about biased studies and a lack of evidence for or against technical analysis (and candlestick charts; I'll explore this relationship further down).  It's important to keep in mind that charting methods, including candlestick charts, are visually subjective ways of representing data, and that any interpretations drawn from such charts should, ideally, represent objective technical indicators. A charting method is only as good as the indicators it's used to represent. Therefore, an analysis of the underlying indicators provides a suitable analysis for the visual medium in which they're presented.  One important study that evaluates several of these indicators is Foundations of Technical Analysis: Computational Algorithms, Statistical Inference, and Empirical Implementation by Lo, Mamaysky, and Wang. Lest anyone accuse its authors of bias, I should point out that not only is it published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (a highly reputable organization within economics and finance), but also that the majority of its authors come from MIT's Sloan school, which holds a reputation second to none. This study finds that several technical indicators, e.g. head-and-shoulder, double-bottom, and various rectangle techniques, do provide marginal value. They also find that although  human judgment is still superior to most computational algorithms in the area of visual pattern recognition, ... technical analysis can be improved by using automated algorithms Since this paper was published in 2000, computing power and statistical analysis have gained significant ground against human ability to identify and exploit for visual pattern detection like candlestick charts.  Second, I suggest you look into David Aaronson's book, Evidence-Based Technical Analysis: Applying the Scientific Method and Statistical Inference to Trading Signals. He finds similar results to the Lo, et. al. paper, in that some technical indicators do add value to the investment process, but those that do are those that can be represented mathematically and thus programmed directly into trading algorithms (thus bypassing visual tools like candlestick charts).  He describes how studies, including Lo, et al., have found that head and shoulders patterns are worse than random, i.e. you would earn higher returns if you simply traded at random. That point is worth than repeating. If a day-trader is using a candlestick chart and using head-and-shoulders patterns as part of their toolkit, he's rolling the dice when he uses that pattern and returns that come from its application come from chance. This reminds me of that old story about a company that sends out pamphlets predicting the results of sports games, complete with ""strategies"" and ""data"" to back up the predictions. The company sends out several versions of the pamphlet every game, each predicting a different winner. Given a large enough sample size, by the end of the season, there are a few people who have received a pamphlet that accurately predicted the winner for every game and they're convinced the system is perfect. The others weren't so lucky, however. Relying on candlestick charts and TA patterns that are relics from the pre-computerized era is reassuring to some traders and gives them a sense of control and ""beating the market,"" but how long will chance remain on your side? This is why I maintain that visual tools like candlestick charts are a slowly dying medium. They certainly still add value to some trading firms, which is why Bloomberg terminals still ship with this functionality built in, but as more and more research shows, automated algorithms and statistical indicators can provide more value. It's also important to think about whether the majority of the value added by visual tools like candlestick charts comes in the form of profit or a sense of security to traders who learned the field using them over the past few decades.  Finally, it's extremely important to realize that the actions of retail investors in the equities market cannot begin to represent the behaviors of the market as a whole. In the equities markets alone, trading firms and institutional investors dwarf retail investors, and the difference in scale is even more vastly pronounced in derivatives and currency markets. The fact that some retail investors use candlestick charts and the technical indicators they (hope) underlie them provides nothing but minor anecdotal evidence as to their effectiveness."


Well, if they have Whole Food locations to ship from, seems pretty easy. It's just a shift in resources. Whereas before you paid checkout clerks, you now pay 1 clerk to watch 6 self-pay stations. If delivery is available you might be able to assume that the number of people coming into the store would be less - and certainly the numbers of items they're purchasing would go down. So you can reallocate labor to delivering orders rather than checking out customers.   Granted, I don't think this type of change would be sudden, but certainly over time as millennials begin to manage their own households . .


You will find that having a Certified Nutritional Consultant as a coach, educator, and Holistic Nutritionist guide is an invaluable resource proving you with lifetime skills you can use. At SherinBual.com, sessions are available remotely via Skype or in person.


So the Facebook IPO thus far has been a bomb.  People have rightly criticized the company for all sorts of things.  This got me thinking about what people were saying about Google just before its IPO.  So I used Google's wonderful search filter and searched for 'google ipo' and I set the time frame to be the 6 weeks leading up to Google's IPO on August 19, 2004.  Some of the articles are fantastic.  Below are some links to a couple of BusinessWeek articles.  They were really not feeling Google back then.  [Business Week hating on Google](http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2004/tc20040727_5797_tc024.htm)  [Another BW article](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_32/b3895134_mz026.htm)


You likely received the shares as ordinary income for services of $10k, since they withheld taxes at granting.  Separately, you likely had a short term capital loss on sale of $2k, since your holding period seems to have been under one year.


Where are you getting this statistic about it being a high paying job ON AVERAGE?   There are many many many dipshits with finance degrees working in fund accounting making 30K a year, with absolutely no prospects.   Also - when OP realizes what a dogshit career finance is for MOST people (pay is nowhere near what people think it is, and the lifestyle is hell), and that its dominated by morons with deep pockets, he will need something to fall back on.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-California-must-summon-will-to-meet-11943507.php) reduced by 93%. (I'm a bot) ***** > For a complicated policy problem, the California housing crisis can be explained simply: People want to live in California, and Californians don&#039;t want them to.  > As the Legislature&#039;s own researchers have noted, &quot;The scale of these programs - even if greatly increased - could not meet the magnitude of new housing required.&quot; Based on past results, for example, a $3 billion bond measure under consideration wouldn&#039;t produce enough homes to close a year&#039;s worth of the continuing gap between the demand for and construction of new housing.  > California legislators have yet to take assertive action on the housing crisis.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6v14lb/editorial_california_must_summon_will_to_meet/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~195355 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*: **housing**^#1 **development**^#2 **California**^#3 **New**^#4 **Bill**^#5"


"what got us into this mess is the ""guns and butter"" policies of george w. bush, along with the elimination of glass-steagall, and the concentration of wealth among fewer and fewer individuals.  The game was rigged and still is, and it's rigged in favor of the rich.  The only government expansion has been in military and homeland security.  My suggestions have not been tried in this country since the 1930s.  Please explain how my suggestions are ""more of the same""."


what an awfully-written, rambling article. I had to scan it a few times just to see if there's any real information in there. Seems to try to give the message that start-ups are a scam and they'll just work you to death for very little money while some rich VC guy makes a ton of money.  **WHAT A CROCK OF SHIT**  Seems like it was written by someone with very little business sense. If a start-up looks like a good idea with some potential but can't afford to pay you much, the main priority for you is to get a contract stipulating back-end pay and continuing employment. Being as they have very little money to bargain with, you're in an excellent position to negotiate a good deal.  Going into a startup without a contract is the height of stupidity.


If you've already done some micro and macro, you are on the right track to learn finance. What you should study next depends on what kind of finance you want to know more about. Is it M&A and corporate finance, more macro would not help much, but maybe some financial accounting. You could see if you could get your hands on a corporate finance text book since they are a good starting place to learn more about finance in general (and such a book is a relatively easy read). Much finance, however, requires good quantitative skills so probability, statistics, linear algebra and calculus, and their applications to finance, is never a bad thing to look into. This would open up for understanding e.g. derivatives that played a huge role in the financial crisis and in financial markets today.


"I'm not a financial expert... In my opinion it might be best to have as much in savings (aka being liquid and the funds are insured by the FDIC) as possible for a couple of reasons. If you lose your job, your equity line could then get frozen if the bank finds out. What you want to avoid is only owing 20 grand on your home (because you paid a chunk off with your savings) but because you lost your job you can't take any money out of your home and suddenly you are equity rich, cash poor, and jobless, that is a potential for big trouble. I'm curious why you borrowed on the Heloc since you seem to have a significant amount in savings anyways. What you really might want to look into is lowering your mortgage interest rate to around 3.5%   I would use the credit card debt as a reality check. Make sure every month you are making at least a 10% to 15% of the total due payment. This dilutes the interest rate charge and lets you see the true ""drag"" credit card debt payments really have on your life.   I don't know this for sure but the higher amount credit card payments you make probably reflects well on your credit score, and of course, never be late with the credit card payments either."


"If you're making big money at 18, you should be saving every penny you can in tax-advantaged retirement accounts. (If your employer offers it, see if you can do a Roth 401(k), as odds are good you'll be in a higher tax bracket at retirement than you are now and you will benefit from the Roth structure. Otherwise, use a regular 401(k). IRAs are also an option, but you can put more money into a 401(k) than you can into an IRA.) If you do this for a decade or two while you're young, you'll be very well set on the road to retirement. Moreover, since you think ""I've got the money, why not?"" this will actually keep the money from you so you can do a better job of avoiding that question. Your next concern will be post-tax money. You're going to be splitting this between three basic sorts of places: just plain spending it, saving/investing it in bank accounts and stock markets, or purchasing some other form of capital which will save you money or provide you with some useful capability that's worth money (e.g. owning a condo/house will help you save on rent - and you don't have to pay income taxes on that savings!) 18 is generally a little young to be setting down and buying a house, though, so you should probably look at saving money for a while instead. Open an account at Vanguard or a similar institution and buy some simple index funds. (The index funds have lower turnover, which is probably better for your unsheltered accounts, and you don't need to spend a bunch of money on mutual fund expense ratios, or spend a lot of time making a second career out of stock-picking). If you save a lot of your money for retirement now, you won't have to save as much later, and will have more income to spend on a house, so it'll all work out. Whatever you do, you shouldn't blow a bunch of money on a really fancy new car. You might consider a pretty-nice slightly-used car, but the first year of car ownership is distressingly close to just throwing your money away, and fancy cars only make it that much worse. You should also try to have some fun and interesting experiences while you're still young. It's okay to spend some money on them. Don't waste money flying first-class or spend tooo much money dining out, but fun/interesting/different experiences will serve you well throughout your life. (By contrast, routine luxury may not be worth it.)"


The material and the exams are very straightforward. There are no strategies required, there is plenty of time to complete all the questions, and there are no confusing questions, so no worries about deciphering strange wording.  Read all the material and you will be absolutely fine. Standard study tips apply, read the chapter over again if there are certain items that you find a bit more difficult. I personally found success doing one chapter at a time, then going through the summary questions. Take a break for an hour or so. Repeat until completed the book. Schedule your time so that you will have a few days prior to your exam to review all the material, re-reading the summaries and targeting your review as necessary.  Basically, it's not much to worry about. Just do the reading and all will be fine. Best luck.


Amazon will never be a monopoly. Walmart, home depot, and Costco will always have their place. I still buy a number of items in stores because Amazon can't compete with a 5 gallon bucket for 3 dollars, food prices/quality they haven't even begun to fathom how they will compete with, and general items like furniture that they can't ship for cheap.


"But look at the bright side. The Home Owners Association is telling your neighbor (for the low low fee of $200 every 4 months) to put his garbage can into his garage after every garbage pickup. Your house is worth a fortune, even if nobody is willing to buy the 12 houses for sale on your block (never mind the fact that they have been for sale for the past 2 years or the fact that nobody is willing to ""rent"" a place in butt fuck Egypt for $1500 a month)."


Yea, so they mention household and income....Am I supposed to count both my spouse income and my own? Because if that's true...then I'm part of the 1% at 27, yet it sure as shit doesn't feel like it.


Your cheapest option is to pay the penalty on $ 60,000 now, and pay the remaining $ 40,000 this coming January.  I assume the penalty will be 2.15% of $ 60,000, or $ 1,380. My logic:  The effective cost of the money is 3.186% - 0.8% = 2.386%.  Thus, it is worth paying the penalty if and only if you can save at least 11 months of interest by paying the penalty.  Eight months of interest differential on the $ 40,000 will be about 1.6%, or $ 640, which is less than the $ 860 penalty you will avoid on the $ 40,000.


The value of the company is ill-defined until it actually has some assets and/or product. You give the investors whatever equity stakes you and they negotiate as appropriate for their investment based on how convinced they are by your plan and how badly you need their money.


A stunningly beautiful property in the middle of a ghetto town that is based on one thing--gambling--that is being taken out from under it at a greater rate with each passing year.  You do know that three other casinos in perfectly good buildings are closing this year as well?  I agree that you'd think there'd be at least SOME use for a property this nice, but I also think you underestimate just how shitty things are in Atlantic City.


I don't understand why the government doesn't sue them for making people believe intentionally or unintentionally that they're actually a government agency.   oh, and maybe the US should finally create a consumer protection agency, like every developed country instead of using the FTC like a tax on rich companies.


The key here is that you are defacto running your own company no matter if you acknowledge it or not.  In the end these questions have the goal of deciding if you can and will repay the loan.  Presumably you filed taxes on your income.  These can be shown to the loan officer as proof you have the ability to repay your loan. Running your freelancing as a business has advantages of being able to deduct normal expenses for running the business from your revenue. I am not sure how business cards improves your credit worthiness as they can be had for $10 in about an hour.


[&#9733;&#9733;&#9733; Register to Vote &#9733;&#9733;&#9733;](https://www.alabamainteractive.org/sos/voter_registration/voterRegistrationWelcome.action) by Monday, November 27, 2017   General Election: December 12, 2017   [Find your polling place](https://myinfo.alabamavotes.gov/VoterView/PollingPlaceSearch.do)   [**Doug Jones**](http://dougjonesforsenate.com/) is running to represent Alabama in the U.S. Senate.    [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/dougjonessenate) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/gdouglasjones) | [Donate](https://secure.actblue.com/donate/homepage-donate)    Jones supports universal health care, public schools, living wages, protecting Medicare, equal pay for equal work, renewable energy, and LGBTQ equality.     ^(I'm a bot and I'm learning. Let me know how I can do better. I'll add candidates who will represent working-class people instead of billionaire political donors.)


Yup. The fact that you don't have to submit a resume, means that whatever skills you have are in EXTREMELY high demand.  Anyone who believes that there is enough talent in the US for STEM jobs doesn't understand the market - these aren't your everyday IT jobs, STEM is so much more than that.


How does one get into a position in their career where their work involves a lot of personal judgement to value investments?  I'm going into my junior year of undergrad...does it take years of certain experience in the finservices industry to actually get a job/position type like yours?  Sounds like an ideal job!


"Ok, here's the final statement from me. Think about it in the future.  > Your views are highly racial and not based on facts.   You know very very well that I do not hate ALL(!) Muslims!  [Here are facts about Muslims](https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6f7y9l/stats_the_left_doesnt_want_you_to_see/)  Fear of Muslims is not ""Islamophobia"". It's a fear grounded in reality.  On the other hand, your view about Muslims is a baseless theory, just based on events in the last 24 hours.  Christians don't go on killing sprees during lent. Jews don't go nuts during Passover. Why do Muslims go all ""Allah Akbar"" during Ramadan?  Hence, ""Islamophobia"" is a word invented to Silence ANY Critics of Islam.  Do you see any problems with Islam and/or how it's practiced? If yes, would you tell a criticise a Muslim over that? Any problems you see with Jews or Christians?  > A Moron heres your speech translates it to beat up all muslims because they are the terrorists and will do so.   Plenty of morons in Poland, Japan, Hungary and Norway. Also in Germany. Where do you think the morons beat Muslims? **Where do they already hit Muslims, according to you?**  You said it yourself: Germans beat Muslims. Is it going to stop? Do you think it will be reduced if more Muslims come over?  > They actually do have a big Problem with antisemitism and this Problem needs to be addressed.  LOL!!!!!!! Honestly, as you probably know, many many Germans are antisemitic, past and present.  How is Germany, up until recently, doing addressing this issue? Success story? The same method will work to address antisemitism among Muslims?  Auf Widerehesen!"


With an appropriate selection within a 401K and if operating expenses are low, you get tax deferred savings and possibly a lower tax bracket for now.  The returns vary of course with market fluctuations but for almost 3 years it has been double digit growth on average.  Some health care sector funds were up over 40% last year.  YMMV.  With stocks and mutual funds that hold them, you also are in a sense betting that people want their corporations to grow and succeed.  Others do most of the work.   Real estate should be part of your savings strategy but understand that they are not kidding when they talk about location.  It can lose value. Tenants tend to have some problem part of the year such that some owners find it necessary to have a paid property manager to buffer from their complaints.  Other owners get hauled into court and sued as slum lords for allegedly not doing basics. Tenants can ruin your property as well.  There is maintenance, repair, replacement, insurance against injury not just property damage, and property taxes.  While some of it might be deductible, not all is.   You may want to consider that there are considerable ongoing costs and significant risks in time and money with real estate as an investment at a level that you do not incur with a 401K.  If you buy mainly to flip, then be aware that if there are unforeseen issues with the house or the market sours as it can, you could be stuck with an immovable drain on your income.  If you lose your job could you make payments?  Many, many people sadly lost their homes or investment properties that way in 2008-2010.


Jordan Brand is still synonymous with high performance and style. But the retro releases have gotten out of hand. Perhaps if they stuck to original colorways and not the myriad iterations that have been released in recent years they wouldn't contribute to their  own ubiquity. That ubiquity may be the reason it is underperforming. Jordan brand releases no longer come with the side of FOMO that they once had.   Another reason it may have underperformed is the price point of their flagship shoe. $185 for the XXXI?! You're not going to get a lot of working class parents to buy those for their kids. Even weekend warriors like myself that grew up in the 80s/90s with disposable income may find it hard to justify the purchase.


Except there are differences between races that are still used today. Just like the two sexes have different bone structures, different races have different bone structures as well (primarily skull differences). If you don't believe me, read into how CSI teams identify remains when only bones are left.


This is probably too much trouble for the employer. If they violate some rules, they can get fined by the government and lose a lot more money. Not to mention that they'd have to waste a lot of effort researching the question. If you are in a position to negotiate, ask for a higher raise instead.


"This style of budgeting is referred to as the 'Envelope' method. It could be done by withdrawing cash from the checking account and putting into envelopes (which I used to do for my Grocery & Clothing funds). I currently do this in GnuCash by creating sub-accounts of the actual bank accounts. The software rolls up the numbers so when I am looking at the ""real"" account I see the number that matches what the bank says. It is not, however, web-based. You should be able to do the same in other tools if they allow you to create sub-accounts, or have some budgeting feature built in."


Several possibilities come to mind: Several online currency-exchange brokers (such as xe.com and HiFx) offer very good exchange rates and no wire transfer fees (beyond what your own bank might charge you).  Get French and American accounts at banks that are part of the Global ATM alliance: BNP Paribas in France and Bank of America in the USA.  This will eliminate the ATM fee. Get an account at a bank that has branches in both countries.  I've used HSBC for this purpose.


"Look at the graph in the article and one of the legends say ""Thinking their funny"".  > I understand your cynicism of bad products, but how will people find out about your good product?  It's actually easier than ever today because today you can easily search for what you need and you are exposed to media more than ever. There also tools to show specific ads depending on the viewer location, keywords and data on the user.  The challenge is that few bad companies selling junk and crap have huge advertising budget and overwhelm the users who search for one thing and get TONS of ads for something they did not even search for."


I don't blame the platform at all. The cheapest product will attract the more uninformed investors, and those who previously couldn't afford to lose their money in the market. That has no effect on educated investors who choose to use Robinhood.


The request for your parent's income comes from Form 8615, Tax for Certain Children Who Have Unearned Income.  I typically see this form appear as I'm doing my daughter's taxes and start to enter data from stock transactions. In other words, your earned income is your's. But if you are a dependent, or 'can be,' the flow avoids the potentially lucrative results from gifting children appreciated stock, and have them take the gain at their lower, potentially zero cap gain rate. I suggest you grab a coffee and thumb through Pub 929 Tax Rules for Children and Dependents to understand this better.  From page 14 of the linked doc - Parent's return information not available. If a child   can’t get the required information about his or her parent's   tax return, the child (or the child's legal representative)   can request the necessary information from the Internal   Revenue Service (IRS). How to request. After the end of the tax year, send a   signed, written request for the information to the Internal   Revenue Service Center where the parent's return will be   filed. (The IRS can’t process a request received before   the end of the tax year.) It also suggests that you file for an extension for the due date of your return. Include payment for the tax you expect to pay, say by plugging in $200K for parent income as an estimate.  My parents' accountant tells them I do not need it. Well, a piece of software told you that you do, and 3 people on line who collectively qualify as experts documented why. (Note, I am not full of myself. This board operates via the wisdom of crowds. Members DStanley, and Ben Miller, commented and edited to help me form a well documented response that would be tough to argue against.)


Money itself has no value. A gold bar is worth (fuzzy rushed math, could be totally wrong on this example figure) $423,768.67. So, a 1000 dollars, while worthless paper, are a token saying that you own %.2 of a gold bar in the federal reserve. If a billion dollars are printed, but no new gold is added to the treasury, then your dollar will devalue, and youll only have %.1 percent of that gold bar (again, made up math to describe a hypothetical). When dollars are introduced into the economy, but gold has not been introduced to back it up, things like the government just printing dollars or banks inventing money out of debt (see the housing bubble), then the dollar tokens devalue further. TL;DR: Inflation is the ratio of actual wealth in the Treasury to the amount of currency tokens the treasury has printed.


This is almost surely a scam.  Among other things:


There are many downsides. The reality is that the US has a strong hold on literally the entire world by having the US Dollar as the reserve currency. This is more so the case that it's used primarily as the petro dollar by all countries. This is definitely worrisome to many given the debt load of the US and the reality of how fragile the global financial system is. It also givens the US huge power and influence over the world. Bitcoin is apolitical. It's monetary system cannot be controlled by any nation state. It is literally the decentralization of trust. It will naturally over time become the world reserve unit of account given all its properties.


Failure? They're failing all the way to a wealthy retirement thanks to the emplyment agreements they negotiate before taking the job and then renegotiate while on the job. Failure is an outmoded concept when it comes to CEO performance. Personality disagreements and reputational smears might hurt, but performance is clearly a flexible term these days and failure no longer enters into it


"Since your question was first posted, I happened to watch PBS FRONTLINE's The Retirement Gamble, about ""America's Retirement Crisis"" and the retirement industry.  You can watch the entire episode online at the previous link, and it's also available on DVD. Here's a link to the episode transcript. Here's a partial blurb from a post at PBS that announced the episode: If you’ve been watching any commercial television lately, you are well   aware that the financial services industry is very busy running   expensive ads imploring us to worry about our retirement futures. Open   a new account today, they say. They are not wrong that we should be doing something: America is   facing a retirement crisis. One in three Americans has no retirement   savings at all. One in two reports that they can’t save enough. On top   of that, we are living longer, and health care costs, as we all know,   are increasing. But, as I found when investigating the retirement planning and mutual   funds industries in The Retirement Gamble, which airs tonight on   FRONTLINE, those advertisements are imploring us to start saving for   one simple reason. Retirement is big business — and very profitable. (... more... ) There's another related PBS FRONTLINE documentary from back in 2006, Can You Afford To Retire? You'll find a link on that page to watch the program online. Finally, I'm also aware of but haven't yet seen a new documentary called Broken Eggs: The Looming Retirement Crisis in America. Looks like it isn't available for online streaming or on DVD yet, but I expect it would be, eventually."


"You can calculate the ""return on investment"" using libreoffice, for example. Look at the xirr function. You would have 2 columns, one a list of dates (ie the dates of the deposits or dividends or whatever that you want to track, the last entry would be today's date and the value of the investment today. The xirr function calculates the internal rate of return for you. If you add money to the account, and the current value includes the original investment and the added funds, it will be difficult to calculate the ROI. If you add money by purchasing additional shares (or redepositing dividends by buying additional shares), and you only want to track the ROI of the initial investment (ignoring future investments), you would have to calculate the current value of all of the added shares (that you don't want to include in the ROI) and subtract that value from the current total value of the account. But, if you include the dates and values of these additional share purchases in the spreadsheet, xirr will calculate the overall IRR for you."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/us/politics/republicans-obamacare-repeal-now-replace-later.html) reduced by 88%. (I'm a bot) ***** > On Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats alike were trying to make sense of the bill&#039;s downfall - and what comes next.  > On Monday night, two Republican senators, Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas, came out in opposition to the bill, leaving Republican leaders at least two votes short of those needed to start debate on the measure.  > &quot;The Republicans proposed surgery. The operation was a failure. Now Republicans are proposing a second surgery that will surely kill the patient.""   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6o2ziu/plan_c_on_obamacare_repeal_now_replace_later_has/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~169846 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*: **Republican**^#1 **bill**^#2 **McConnell**^#3 **repeal**^#4 **Senator**^#5"


Generally there's no ultimate protection against charge backs. Some methods are easier to charge back and some harder, and there's always the resort of going to courts. The hardest to contest is, of course, a cash payment or wire transfer. You need to remember that imposing unnecessary/unreasonable difficulties on your customers will drive business away. I can buy diamonds in the nearest mall with my credit card - why would I buy from you if you want cash, BTC, or any other shady way to pay? I'm pretty sure that whatever that is you're selling, anyone can buy elsewhere as well.


We are distributor and wholesale supplier of high quality of professional soccer sporting soccer balls. We specialize in making customized soccer balls. we strive to keep all of the new Premium cheap soccer balls and accessories in stock for our valuable customers. Our selection of Nike, Adidas soccer balls includes premium game balls.


"Much of what you're asking will not be disclosed for obvious security reasons, so don't be surprised when call center people say they ""don't know"".  They may actually not know, but even if they did, they'd be fired if they were to say anything.  Nothing could be a touchier subject than online security for the financial institutions. I don't know of reliable sources for the data you're asking about, and I don't know the banks or other firms would release it.  For a bank to talk about its incidence rates of fraud would be unusual, because none of these institutions wants to appear ""less safe"" than their competitors.  If there's any information out there then it's going to be pretty vague.  None of these institutions wants the ""bad guys"" to know what their degree of success is against one bank versus any other.  I hope that makes sense. The smaller banks usually piggyback their data on the networks of the larger financial institutions, so they are as secure (as a general rule) as the larger banks' networks they're running on.  Also, your transactions on your credit cards are not generally handled directly by your bank anyway, unless it's one of the big heavyweights like Chase or Bank of America.  All transactions run through merchant processors, who act as intermediaries between merchants and the banks, and those guys are pretty damned good at security.  I've met some of the programmers, and they're impressive to me (I've been a programmer for 35 years and can't put a finger on these guys!). Most banks require that you must provide proof of identity when opening an account, and that ID must me the standards of the ""USA Real ID Act"".  Here's an excerpt from the Department of Homeland Security website on what Real ID is: Passed by Congress in 2005, the REAL ID Act enacted the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the Federal Government “set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver's licenses.” The Act established minimum security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards and prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards. States have made considerable progress in meeting this key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and every state has a more secure driver’s license today than before the passage of the Act. In order for banks to qualify for FDIC protection, they must comply with the Real ID standards when opening accounts. As with any business (especially online), the most effective way to minimize fraud is vigilant monitoring of data.  Banks and other online financial entities have become very adept at pattern analysis and simply knowing where and what to look for when dealing with their customers.  There are certainly sophisticated measures which are kept carefully out of the public eye for doing this, and obviously they're good at it.  They have to be, right? There's no way to completely eliminate fraud -- too much incentive exists for the ""bad guys"" to not constantly search for new ways to run their schemes, and the good guys will always be at the disadvantage, because there's no way to anticipate everything anyone might come up with.  Just look at online viruses and malware.  Your antivirus software can only deal with what it knows about, and the bad guys are always coming up with some new variant that gets past the filters until the antivirus maker learns of it and comes up with a way to deal with it. Your question's a good one to ponder, and I wouldn't want to be the chief of internet security for a bank or online institution, because I'd lay awake at night pondering when the call's going to come that we finally ran out of luck! (grin) I hope this was helpful. Good luck!"


There is no problem with a non-profit hospital, but there is a problem that a Christian non-profit hospital is tax exempt while a non-religious non-profit hospital is not. That is the case in Italy.  Also, some people *do* take a lot of crap for being athiest. Many people lose jobs even families over it.


this is true for any kind of business deal, not just book to movie deals.   You might be the employee of a company and be given to generate income based on the revenue of said company.  you want gross or net?  Or say you're helping a small business start up and you're giving them some startup capital.  NEVER sign a deal saying that you want to receive a percentage of their net income.  you will never see your money again.


What are the risks pertaining to timing on long term index   investments? The risks are countless for any investment strategy.  If you invest in US stocks, and prices revert to the long term cyclically adjusted average, you will lose a lot of money.  If you invest in cash, inflation may outpace interest rates and you will lose money.  If you invest in gold, the price might go down and you will lose money.  It's best to study history and make a reasonable decision (i.e. invest in stocks). Here are long term returns by asset class, computed by Jeremy Siegel:  $1 invested in equities in 1801 equals $15.22 today if was not invested and $8.8 million if it was invested in stocks.  This is the 'magic of compound interest' and cash / bonds have not been nearly as magical as stocks historically. 2) How large are these risks? The following chart shows the largest drawdowns (decreases in the value of an asset) since 1970 (source):  Asset prices decrease in value frequently.  Financial assets are volatile, but historically, they have increased over time, enabling investors to earn compounded returns (exponential growth of money is how to get rich).  I personally view drawdowns as an excellent time to buy - it's like going on a shopping spree when everything in the store is discounted. 3) In case I feel not prepared to take these risks, how can I avoid   them? The optimal asset allocation depends on the ability to take risk and your tolerance for risk.  You are young and have a long investment horizon, so if stocks go down, you will have plenty of time to wait for them to go back up (if you're smart, you'll buy more stocks when they go down because they're cheap), so your ability to bear risk is high.  From your description, it seems like you have a low risk tolerance (despite a high ability to be exposed to risk).  Here's the return of various asset classes and how the average investor has fared over the last 20 years (source):  Get educated (read Common Sense on Mutual Funds, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, etc.) and don't be average! Closing words: Investing in a globally diversified portfolio with a dollar cost averaging strategy is the best strategy for most investors.  For investors that are unable to stay rational when markets are volatile (i.e. the investor uncontrollably sells their stocks when stocks decrease 20%), a more conservative asset allocation is recommended.  Due to the nature of compounded interest, a conservative portfolio is likely to have a much lower future value.


Like Bluetie Grasper have said. Can I create a PayPal account and receive €200 (or a similar amount) without adding a bank account, credit card, or anything but my email address? The answer is No. You can transfer the money to your PayPal account but until you verify it with your personal information with at least a credit card or mostly likely a bank account, PayPal will hold those funds until otherwise. Can I then use that money to buy on Amazon, still without adding anything but my email address? If not, can I buy gift cards and use those on Amazon? Amazon does not accept PayPal.