It depends on the country. Say I import something cheap-ish from a US reseller with a 90 day reseller warranty and 12 months manufacturer. In both cases it will cost me more than it's worth to ship a return for replacement.


"Holy fuck do you seriously not understand that I was trying to understand your perspective before I explained an alternative? Do you really find it offensive when people ask you questions before presenting a solution?   Do you have such a limited attention span that you forgot I began the discussion by saying ""I'm happy to answer your question if you will first answer mine"", then tried to obtain clarity in your answer by saying ""Is it fair to say that you don't believe that ""only taxes can provide these things"", but you are simply unaware of how anything other than taxes can provide these things?""   You seriously look like an asshole when you claim that asking questions to understand your perspective is ""not offer[ing] an alternative"" when I *started the discussion* by telling you I'd offer an alternative *after I understood what you believe*."


IFTY VIEW WITH SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE LEVEL FOR TOMORROW 26 Dec(NIFTY TREND):-Last hour trading session in the nifty took the all gains of the day and closed with some losses at 4714, down 20 points.For Monday Stock Market has resistance level at 4789.65 and last resistance level at


If cost was your only concern then yes, that is true.  But there is a tension between costs and keeping your customers happy.  This is especially true in a service based business like a restaurant where customer satisfaction can be directly correlated to employee satisfaction.


You should plan 1-3 months for an emergency fund.  Saving 6 months of expenses is recommended by many, but you have a lot of goals to accomplish, and youth is impatient.  Early in your life, you have a lot of building (saving) that you need to do. You can find a good car for under $5000.  It might take some effort, and you might not get quite the car you want, but if you save for 5-6 months you should have a decent car.  My son is a college student and bought a sedan earlier this year for about $4000. Onto the house thing.  As you said, at $11,000*2=$22,000 expenses yearly, plus about $10,000 saved, you are making low 30's.  Using a common rule of thumb of 25% for housing, you really cannot afford more than about $600-700/month for housing -- you probably want to wait on that first house for awhile. Down payments really should be about 20%, and depending upon the area of the country, a modest house might be $120,000 or $520,000.  Even on a $120,000, the 20% down payment would be $24,000. As you have student loans ($20,000), you should put together a plan to pay them off, perhaps allocating half your savings amount to paying down the student loans and half to saving? As you are young, you should have strong salary gains in the first few years, and once you are closer to $40,000/year, you might find the numbers working better for housing. My worry is that you are spending $22,000 out of about $32,000 for living expenses.  That you are saving is great, and you are putting aside a good amount.  But, you want to target saving 30-40%, if you can.


"At no point did I advocate against regulation. All I advocated was if we want to raise the cost of ""sin"" products like meat/dairy, then the first step is to remove the subsidies that keep their costs low. Are you denying that most developed countries aren't heavily subsidizing their meat/dairy industries?"


> So... This while circle jerk of a conversation never really answered if this type of setup is legally possible. Whether its a ponzi scheme or not  You're ignoring the fundamental difference between equityholders and creditors and the pertaining laws that govern each role.


I worked in IT for a small bank a few years ago and most of our ATMs were still running OS/2! Why? Because they still worked. Most companies don't have the budget to upgrade 100s of ATMs every few years and unless they are required to will run them into the ground.


If you have a deposit account (like a checking account) and a credit card at the same bank, it is common for the bank to have a clause that lets them make automatic payments to the credit card. I've also seen this happen in the case of death where the deceased person had $2,000 in a checking account and owed some on a credit card.   Upon death, the bank took the $2,000 and applied it to the credit card without asking.


The best we can do in the Equifax case is freeze (not lock) our credit files at the credit bureaus and use the free annual credit reports via FTC.GOV. Unfreezing is an extra step one would have to go through before opening a new credit line, renting a new place, getting utilities hooked up, etc.  But the freeze (versus the lock) essentially makes one’s data worthless to the credit reporting agencies.


Think back 200 years ago when we had mules, horse and carriage, and shovels.  What would you say to someone who was worried about employment if we replaced those antiquated items with 18-wheelers, automobiles, and heavy construction equipment?  Would you stop them from advancing technology in fear of unemployment?


I really think it's zoning restrictions and a general move back toward living in big cities. Larger cities are pretty notorious for having terribly restrictive zoning requirements. When you combine limited space, with increasing population, and restrictions on building then the outcome is fairly predictable.


Good, their food more than sucks and has only gotten worse as time goes on...  Cheap Poison...  they need to go out of business or change to something that isn't  just severing the cheapest poison filled crap they can produce. maybe they will release a new game to drum up business form the morons.. or make any size HFCS drink 99 cents..  Sweet tea... are you fucking kidding me..


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"This is a tricky question, because the financial aid system can create odd incentives. Good schools tend to price themselves above and beyond any reasonable middle-class ability to save and then offer financial aid, much of it in the form of internal ""grants"" or ""loans"".  If you think about it, the internal grant is more of a discount than a grant since no money need have ever existed to ""fund"" the grant.  The actual price to the parents is based on financial aid paperwork and related rules, perhaps forming a college price-setting cartel.  It is these rules that need to be considered when creating a savings plan. Suppose it is $50k/year to send your kids to the best school admitting them.  Thats $200k for the 4 years.  Suppose you had $50k now to save instead of $10K, and are wondering whether to put it in your son's college savings (whether or not you can do so in a tax advantaged way) or to pay down the mortgage.  If you put it in your kids savings, and the $50k becomes $75k over time, that $75k will be used up in a year and a half as the financial aid system will suck it dry first before offering you much help.  On the other hand, if you put the $50k on paying down the mortgage [provided the mortgage is ""healthy"" not upside down], your house payment will still be the same when your kids go to college.  The financial aid calculations will consider that the kid has no savings, and allocate a ""grant"" and some loans the first year and a parental portion that you might be able to tap with a home equity loan or work overtime.     Generally, you should also be encouraging your kids to excel and perhaps obtain academic scholarships or at least obtain some great opportunities.  A large college savings fund might be as counterproductive as a zero fund.  They shouldn't be expecting to breeze through some party school with a nice pad and car, homework assistance, and beer money.  Unless they are good at a sport, like maybe football -- in which case you won't need to be the provider. It is not obvious how much the optimal ESA amount is.  It might not be $0.  Saving like crazy in there probably isn't the best thing to do, either."


You need to pay off the entire balance of 7450 as soon as possible. This should be your primary financial goal at this point above anything else. A basic structure that you can follow is this: Is the £1500 balance with the 39.9% interest rate the obvious starting point here? Yes, that is fine. But all the cards and overdraft debts need to be treated with the same urgency! What are the prospects for improving my credit score in say the next 6-12 months enough to get a 0% balance transfer or loan for consolidation? This should not be a primary concern of yours if you want to move on with your financial life. Debt consolidation will not help you achieve the goals you have described (home ownership, financial stability). If you follow the advice here, by the time you get to the point of being eligible, you may not see enough savings in interest to make it worth the hassle. Focus on the hard stuff and pay off the balances. Is that realistic, or am I looking at a longer term struggle? You are looking at a significant struggle. If it was easy you would not be asking this question! The length of time will be determined by your choices: how aggressively you will cut your lifestyle, take on extra jobs, and place additional payments on your debt.  By being that extreme, you will actually start to see progress, which will be encouraging. If you go in half-committed, your progress will show as much and it will be demotivating. Much of your success will hinge on your mental and emotional toughness to push through the hard work of delaying pleasure and paying off these balances. That is just my personal experience, so you can take it or leave it. :) The credit score will take care of itself if you follow this method, so don't worry about it. Good Luck!


"I find the breathless optimism a bit much.  It's not as though there's been some big breakthrough in the field that's brought the quantum computing future much closer.  But admittedly, the author did include some caveats about how it all might ultimately not work as predicted.    Also, I don't believe that quantum research is telling us anything new about whether ""the laws of logic ... apply to the universe as a whole ... computations it can’t perform? Paradoxes it can’t escape?""  I suppose it *could* tell us something new, but that remains to be seen, as does whether it's an economically viable approach to computing."


the NOTE is only created when a BANK makes a loan to a person, business, or government.  corporations buying and selling debt is simply the transfer of existing debt/notes.  In the current Financial Ponzi scheme, NEW notes must be created to keep the game going due to new interest obligations everyday....if not enough new notes are created, the entire Ponzi Pyramid as depicted on www.openmindedthinkers.com collapses


A bond fund has a 5% yield. You can take 1/.05 and think of it as a 20 P/E.  I wouldn't, because no one else does, really. An individual bond has a coupon yield, and a YTM, yield to maturity. A bond fund or ETF usually won't have a maturity, only a yield.


Here in Australia a stock price is usually highest just before a dividend and lowest just after a dividend. If you buy just after the dividend then you missed out until next time. There may be many other reasons why a stock may exhibit yearly, quarterly and monthly cycles.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.devex.com/news/3-key-conversations-from-the-us-africa-business-summit-90504) reduced by 91%. (I'm a bot) ***** > African ministers and business people joined their American counterparts in Washington, D.C., last week at the U.S.-Africa Business Summit, to discuss greater economic engagement, despite lingering uncertainty over the United States&#039; position toward global trade.  > The U.S.-Africa relationshipU.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross addressed the summit, offering reassurances and some specifics about the administration&#039;s view toward existing and future trade pacts with the continent.  > Inter-African trade plans are progressing fairly swiftly, Ghana&#039;s Minister of Trade and Industry Alan John Kwado Kyermaten told the summit.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6i9his/3_key_conversations_from_the_usafrica_business/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~148046 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*: **trade**^#1 **Africa**^#2 **improve**^#3 **business**^#4 **African**^#5"


Shut up you whiners!  Do you realize how badly CEOs, Wall St hedge fund managers, Bank executives, large-block shareholders and billionaires work for and deserve their money?!  Your getting a raise would CUT their income -- income that fuels the machines of trickle-down which benefit everybody!       [/s]


New tires will increase the resale value of the car; while not by the full cost of the tires, it will not be entirely a sunk cost. You'd need to factor that in and find out how much the new tires increase the resale value of the car to determine how much they would truly cost you.  However, I suspect they would cost you less than a $25,000 car a year early would.  That new car would cost some amount over time - it sounds like you buy a new car every 8 years or so? So it would cost you $25/8 = $3.3k/year.  That would, then, be the overall cost of the new car a year early - $3.3k (as it would mean one less year out of your old car, so assuming it was also $25k/8 year or similar, that year becomes lost and thus a cost).


You aren't paying for your internet buddy. You are paying for a portion of the services that your internet provider charges you for. However you are not paying for the infrastructure, electricity, utilities, security, and all the other things that are required in order for that ISP to be able to bring internet to your house.


I am assuming that you are referring to Personal Checks since you do not have a business account.  Generally, your full name is the minimal requirement that is needed on the top left of each check. It is best if this information is pre-printed. In fact, some businesses and banks will not honor a check if your full name is handwritten on the check. This is for obvious reasons such as fraud.


Most bond ETFs have switched to monthly dividends paid on the first of each month, in an attempt to standardize across the market.  For ETFs (but perhaps not bond mutual funds, as suggested in the above answer) interest does accrue in the NAV, so the price of the fund does drop on ex-date by an amount equal to the dividend paid. A great example of this dynamic can be seen in FLOT, a bond ETF holding floating rate corporate bonds.  As you can see in this screenshot, the NAV has followed a sharp up and down pattern, almost like the teeth of a saw. This is explained by interest accruing in the NAV over the course of each month, until it is paid out in a dividend, dropping the NAV sharply in one day. The effect has been particularly pronounced recently because the floating coupon payments have increased significantly (benchmark interest rates are higher) and mark-to-market changes in credit spreads of the constituent bonds have been very muted.


"Where do these idiots come from?  and don't answer ""Russia"" because we've had our share of this kind of stupidity in America and London also.  The only people who have pulled off this sort of treachery are North Korea and China and that's only because of the way their national internet grids are structured, and requires a specific kind of tyrannical dictatorship which Russia, despite it's psychopathic ""president"", does not have."


If the insurance policy is a whole-life (or variable life) policy, it might have a surrender value that the owner of the policy might be able to get by surrendering the policy in whole; if it is a term life policy, it has no surrender value. In many cases, the owner of the policy is also the insured and so ask Uncle Joe whether he would be willing to surrender the life insurance policy and give you the proceeds now instead of making you wait till he passes away. If it is a term life policy, ask him to consider not renewing the policy and from now on, just give you the premium he would have been paying to the insurance company. Whether he will pay you increasing amounts in later years (as a renewable five-year level term policy might require) is a more delicate matter that you can negotiate with him. On the other hand, if the policy owner is Aunt Annie but the insured is Uncle Joe (and you are the beneficiary), talk to Aunt Annie instead; she is the one who can cancel the policy, not Uncle Joe. And for heaven's sake, don't grease the skids to facilitate Uncle Joe's first step onto the stairway to heaven; there are, depending on where you live, various laws prohibiting payments to beneficiaries who have had a hand in arranging for the happy event to occur.


Yeah, everyone here is pretty much right, you shouldn't be getting into the futures market. However no need to jump on you, its good you asked a question and you should really read up on it. Futures are pretty complicated. Keep trying to learn though it will help if you read up a lot.


All of them , ever since Zip2 , not one of his companies EVER had a positive cash flow , Musk made his money by getting acquired at the top the dotcom bubble , now he created his own bubble , feel free to examine all his companies ; there isn't a FY in which revenues>= costs ; his plan for Tesla is to sell to Apple and fuck Tim Cook over like he fucked over Eckhard Pfeiffer (Compaq CEO) in 1999. All of Musk companies 4 or 5 at this point are being artificially kept alive by external capital injections , this is no Amazon , Bezos did it with cash flow , with Musk's company you're looking at a house of cards which would collapse as soon as the cult leader stops infiltrating in every media and PR event , if Zuckerberg or even Thiel were to employ the same technique the house of cards would collapse too as the fanbase would now have other cult leader and companies to worship thus diluting Musk's


>Also, if you follow economic theory, the cheapest way to provide healthcare is to have a large amount of people paying into the same pool  That logic only applies if those taking advantage of the healthcare opportunity contribute towards its payments, in this case, via taxation. If 46% of the population isn't paying Federal Income tax ([According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C., 46% of tax filers will owe no federal income tax this year](http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-10-06/income-tax-nonpayment/50676912/1)), the 54% are forced to support the entire group's cost. Even worse, much of the 54% will elect to use their own private healthcare because it is superior to the public option.


Coming to London at this point of time is not a wise decision, not that I mean to discourage you. The job market is quite competitive because loads of developers are in the markets, because of the layoffs. So be ready to wait for some time to land a role. Banks aren't recruiting that heavily, but that might change if the economy picks up. Regarding salaries, the contract rates you quote are primarily for banking sector jobs, some outside banking also pay those rates, but they are few.  You can quote what you want to a recruiter, most contracts are through them as most managers have a fincancial get go between recruiters and themselves. Recruiters take their cut what they bill, 400+200(just a guess). So the more they take from the 400, better is their margin. So they try to decrease the 400 portion. But the important point is be ready to keep your chair warm for some time. I am not sure why you have to move to London. Keep your current job. Get a Skype number or something and get the calls diverted to your phone in Germany. You can come down to London for interviews and schedule them so you come in a week and give all your interviews. London is a costly place, you can find cheap places to stay too. But without a job and searching for one will get you depressed(been there and experienced it)


Yes and no, P2P Capital Markets is similar concept but is more geared towards business loans. Community Lend used to offer this service but has stopped.


Many studies show that the wealthiest households are self employed and small business owners. But there is significant risk associated, and so the wealth cannot really be enjoyed.


It's always been that way.  You are trying to bend the world around your own circumstances. That's not how it works.    Everything is consolidating to be more efficient. With digital, robots, and globalization, markets have reduced the need for U.S. manufacturing ...and that's what a lot of small towns had going for them.  It's gone. Sitting around and wishing for the past to come back with something like the government to legislate it is wishful thinking.  I highlighted the solution: It's to move where the money is or is going.    People get cranky when they have to give up a skill or trade (or hometown) they've spent 10, 20, 30 years in. I get it. I'm looking for ways to diversify my experience, even having a job in tech, because someday maybe it won't be here... or it'll be in India, China, Russia, the Philippines, Latin America, Bulgaria or any of the numerous countries where the labor is cheaper and the supply is higher.   It sucks, but it's also reality.  If your hope is in voting for some sort of legislative change, godspeed but it won't help.  Regulations will be issued and companies will push money to safe havens in Ireland, Liechtenstein, the Caymans, etc.. to avoid them.  They'll outsource more and layoff to compensate for the new expenses and generally find workarounds.     Add that to the rise of countries already benefiting from outsourcing and globalization... maybe the US market isn't so important in 20-30 years.  Gives the government even less leverage on corporations.


The MIRR formula uses the finance rate to discount negative cash flows, but since the only negative cash flow in the example in in the current period, there's nothing to discount.  It's meant to solve problems with IRR like when there are both positive and negative cash flows, which can result in multiple answers for IRR.  The example they give isn't a good one for MIRR because it's a simple spend now, earn later scenario, which IRR is perfectly fine for. If you add a negative cashflow somewhere after the first one you'll see the answer change with difference financing rates.


I am a Systems Engineering major. I currently work at a prop trading firm trading fixed income.   I would emphasize your math skills, analytical thinking learned in engineering school, and express how much you are interested/experience in finance. It seems like you are on top of all that and if the job market wasn't so rough, I would say you sound like an ideal candidate and I feel like most finance jobs like people with engineering/math backgrounds as long as they are knowledgeable in finance.


We use YNAB to handle our household budget - their latest version allows cloud sync between Android/iOS devices and various desktop installs.  I have the budget folder shared with my wife's Dropbox account so we both an view the budget, enter spending, and make changes.


I don't know what you are on about, as most online brokers should offer standard brokerage without margin. As trading with magin is considered more risky by most (especially if you don't know what you are doing), so one would have to fill out additional application forms and possibly undergo some training before getting a margin account open. A quick search on the net provided some examples, here is one - IG, who provide 3 type of accounts - Spread Betting and CFDs (both leveraged) and Stockbroking (which is non-leveraged).


I think, generally speaking, people who say things like that don't have a firm grasp of their finances. On the other hand, if you take a mortgage as a vehicle for leveraged investment the interest can pay for itself in gains made elsewhere. Paying mortgage interest is otherwise only good for the banks, but our system reinforces the idea that everyone should be in debt instead of profiting from their capital.


Amazon makes enormous profits, they just re-invest nearly all of it. Their 2016 operating income was $20B (assume they spent $0 on R&D), but they did spend $16B on R&D. Which is more than what Apple spends.   Facebook is more valuable than Cisco for many reasons. First off, similar net incomes on their statements doesn't mean those net incomes are as safe in the future. Facebook might have a very safe revenue stream from ads regardless if they keep updating their interfaces. Perhaps Facebook's market saturation means they don't need much infrastructure expansion in the future which would project reduced costs and higher margins.   Cisco on the other hand might perpetually be in a more dangerous spot given their market position. They have competition and they might have to be in a constant battle to stay caught up. Their margins are also much less than Facebook's. Perhaps Cisco's profits are also more at risk due to changes in public policy while Facebook is more insulted?   Valuation on the market goes far beyond just the profit # on the last income statement.


You missed the catch, there is always a catch, and in this case it is not well publicized.   First, some background. Congress (both parties) in 98 passed Graham-Leach-Bliley. It allowed commercial banks to invest, securitize, and insure securities. It also had privacy provisions, which prevented a securitizer of a mortgage from providing ANY personal information about the mortgage. That means that as Chase wrote these mortgage backed securities, they were forbidden, BY LAW, from telling the potential purchasers the addresses of the houses or SS#'s of the purchasers.   OF COURSE Chase did not choose to insure these MBS's themselves. Instead, they chose a third party like AIG because AIG could not know personal information about the mortgages, and was thus blinded to risk. AIG chose a middle of the road risk rating (something like 2% risk of default).   Chase FRAUDULENTLY represented the quality of the mortgages to the people writing the credit default swaps to insure them, and to the potential buyers. Chase KNEW the mortgages were crap.   Fraud is fraud and is illegal in security sales even after Graham-Leach-Bliley. However, to be clear, in this case there does not need to be any faking of paperwork. The loans can be passed along BLINDLY with insurance, as they were. If it could be documented that Chase misrepresented the quality of these AAA MBS's, they would be on the hook. But the catch is that Graham-Leach-Bliley offered them a cop-out.  AIG were the real dummies in all this. Who writes insurance without having a good idea of the risk....


Wow. Okay. First do you mean that you profited by 30k or that you have 30k in revenue?   Second why are you selling it? Do you not want it? Can you not grow it? Why or why not?  I feel like you’re going to need to flesh out your business  a little more to get a better answer.


"I use online banking as much as possible and I think it may help you get closer to your goal.  I see you want to know where the money goes and save time so it should work for you like it did for me. I used to charge everything or write checks and then pay a big visa bill.  My problem was I never knew exactly how much I spent because neither Visa or check writing are record systems. They just generate transactions records.  I made it a goal use online banking to match my spending to the available cash and ended up ok usually 9-10 months out of the year. I started with direct deposit of my paycheck.  Each Saturday, I sit down and within a half hour, I've paid the bills for the week and know where I stand for the following week.  Any new bill that comes in, I add it to online banking even if it's not a recurring expense.  I also pull down cash from the ATM but just enough to allow me to do what I have to do.  If it's more than $30 or $40 bucks, I use the debit card so that expense goes right to the online bank statement. My monthly bank statement gives me a single report with everything listed.  Mortgage, utilities, car payment, cable bill, phone bill, insurance, newspaper, etc...  It does not record these transactions in generic categories; they actually say Verizon or Comcast or Shop Rite.  I found this serves as the only report I need to see what's happening with my budget.   It may take a while to change to a plan like this one. but you'll now have a system that shows you in a single place where the money goes.  Move all bills that are ""auto-pay"" to the online system and watch your Visa bill go down.  The invested time is likely what you're doing now writing checks.  Hope this helps."


I've pulled back in recent weeks from Amazon purchases and prime, in looking at the big picture I've come to realize I can't support a single conglomerate when it comes to retail, price isn't that important to me, I want to see real people, interact with real people and believe my purchases help them make a wage for what ever purpose they need that money for. Amazon is a monopoly in my view and I can't any longer support monopolies.


The banks see small apartments as a higher risk because usually very small apartments are harder to sell, especially during a falling market when there is an oversupply of these apartments. The price of small apartments will also fall a lot quicker in a falling market. Regarding yield vs capital growth - the emphasis here is manly on high yielding properties in small country towns with small populations. How many properties can you buy with cash? Properties with good growth will enable you to build equity quicker and enable you to build a larger portfolio. In my opinion you need a combination of good yield and reasonable growth, because without yield you cannot replace your earned income with passive income, but without growth you can't expand your portfolio. So a combination of good yield with reasonable growth will give the best outcome.


I suggest you buy a more reasonably priced car and keep saving to have the full amount for the car you really want in the future. If you can avoid getting loans it helps a lot in you financial situation.


Assuming the amount of your car payment and student loan aren't crazy you should be fine. I would suggest starting with a baseline budget listing your monthly income and expenses. Be sure to include miscellaneous expenses like car maintenance, insurance, food, clothes, etc (the common things that sometimes get overlooked in a budget). After all of your necessary expenses (fluff like entertainment doesn't count), if your employer has a 401k with a match I would contribute to that up to the match amount.  Next I would save an emergency fund to cover unforseen events such as car repairs, etc. $1000 is not an uncommon amount to see people suggest for this. Next I would knock out your car loan then student loan as fast as possible. This will free up some cash flow which gives you more freedom to do what you want. At this point you save more so you don't have to finance the next car or have a down payment for a home or whatever.  Building your savings to be 3-6 months of income is a good idea, this covers things like being laid off or other larger unexpected events. After you get to that point how you handle your budget is pretty open.


No they aren't boom times. Not sure how that justifies overpaying cashiers; the fact that the economy is slumping could be an argument to pay them less. Less money given to cashiers = lower prices = better for everyone in the economic downturn. Sorry to play devil's advocate but there is no free lunch and this isn't skilled work.


There are cases where whole life can make sense, but only after you've already maximized every other tax-deferred investment option you have. If you have access to a 401k plan and aren't maxing it out, there's no reason to look at whole life.


I would hope he would borrow at historically low rates to invest wisely in American infrastructure in the hope that the improved productivity gains would offset the associated interest rate risks.  I suspect he would simply cut the minimum wage and unemployment benefits to force Americans to accept lower wage jobs.


Make sure you have sufficient insurance. Luckily, my wife and I had insurance on our mortgage, and term life insurance on both of us. Statistically speaking, insurance is a poor investment. However, when my wife was killed 263 days after our wedding, I was very happy to have it. Note that it took almost five months to pay out, though this was partly due to a Canada Post strike earlier this year; as such, you'll need sufficient emergency funds. I was able to continue working (just about), but still needed approximately $30,000. $10,000 within 24 hours, another $10,000 within 7 days, and the remainder sometime later, to cover funeral expenses. You may also want to consider a will. Neither of us had one as we both had made the decision that we were fine with the other partner receiving the entire estate. If you are not happy with this, or if your situation is more complex, you'll need a will.


I still have one every once in a while. The thing is, at $6.99+ for the average fast food value meal I'm already almost paying restaurant prices. I have local bars (ATL) that offer $5 burger night, $6.66 burger night, and the average price around town is about $7.99 for a real burger. Fast food joints need to scale back their pricing or step it up if they want to compete with restaurants and bars.


Apparent data-feed issues coming out of NASDAQ in the after hours market. Look at MSFT, AMZN, AAPL, heck even Sears.      Funny thing though, is that you see traces of irregular prices during the active session around 10:20am on stocks like GOOG.


First off, inflation doesn't necessarily imply that goods and services will rise in price.  The amount of goods & services increases over time as well, and this is balanced (partly), by an increase in the money supply.  Without inflation you lose the incentive to invest, as your dollar would become more valuable over time.  Why invest in a risky venture if I know that my dollar will buy more if I just wait it out.  Might as well stick the money under the mattress. (This is bad)


I'm from Toronto actually. That sounds completely unfair in a free-market. From what I've just read it looks like LA law regarding non-competes is a bit more complicated than that. But anything that requires a lawyer to enforce or defend against is a pain in the ass.


I think what you meant to say instead of morons is 'young people who drive mass market consumer trends'. Apple, Facebook, Beats- these companies didn't climb to the top of the heap by winning the affectations of tech-geeks, but I suppose looking at demographics and the market would be more appropriate for a subreddit like /r/business, but seeing as how we're in /r/mypersonalopinion I guess I'm the odd one out.


"What is that compared to an average day? Napkin math, Q1 saw about 35 billion, or 380 million per day, so a 30 hour  day would give you about 500 million (+/-).  This means prime day was about 2x revenue with all of the marketing they pushed out via ""news"" and social channels.  That's not bad for a mediocre sale meant to clean out your warehouse."


Does your current firm have a United States office or affiliate? That's the easiest route asking for a transfer or reassignment.   Super competitive for more senior positions with a direct transfer but you can have a shot a junior positions that you can then advance since you have some experience.


"We are fast food enemies.  The thought of Arby's makes me laugh like a child on Hannukah. I may have a roast beef monstrosity today, as a matter of fact! Their curly fries are heavenly and a tub of their horsey sauce has been the champion on Iron Chef for 3 years running.  Wendy's, on the other hand, is a disgrace to the burger world. Their square, ""never frozen"" patties taste fine, but the mealy texture is incredibly offputting. Their new fries are a marked improvement from the pale yellow, saltless worms they used to fix. Their menu is almost impossible to read and changes too often. They fucked up the frosty; I should never have to specify the flavor for the love of God.   I have never been to a Tim Horton's, which I'm bummed about, because I've heard good things.  How do you feel about McDonalds?"


"That name is terrible.  You need something hot like ""Alienware"".  By the way, I've heard from folks who've been down that road the most annoying and difficult thing you're going to deal with is warranties. Think long and hard about your model and how you'll handle that. Especially if you're shipping PCs, because UPS is going to fuck up your shipments with more frequency that you would expect."


I think a larger issue is that you're trying to do market timing. Whether you had a large or small amount of money to invest, no one wants to put the money in to watch it go down.  You can't really predict if prices in a market or security will go up in six months (in which case you want to put all your cash in now), of if it will go down (in which case you'd want to wait until the bottom), or if it will skitter around (in which case you'd want to only buy at the bottoms).  Of course, if you're magic enough to nail all of those market conditions, you're a master finance trader and will quickly make billions. If you're really concerned with protecting your money and want to take some long positions, I'd look into some put options. You'll of course pay the fees for those put options, but they'll protect your downside.  Much of this depends on your time horizon: at the age of 35, someone can expect to see ~6 more recessions and perhaps ~30 more market corrections before retirement. With that big of a time range, it's best to avoid micro-optimizing since that tends to hurt your performance overall (because you won't be able to time the market correctly most of the time).  One thing that's somewhat reasonable, if you have the stomach for it, is to not buy at somewhat-obvious market highs and wait for corrections. This isn't fool proof by any means, but as an example many people realized that US equities basically were on a ~5 year up run by December 2014. Many people cashed out those positions, expecting that a correction would be due. And around late summer of 2015, that correction came. For those with patience, they made ~15% with a few mouse clicks.  Of course many others would have been waiting for that correction since 2010 and missed out on the market increases.  Boiled down:


You are kicking butt and taking names, especially compared to most people in your age bracket. I wish I'd had the opportunity (and the sense) to live rent-free and max out my 401(k) when I was 23. Keep doing what you're doing and you'll be able to pull off a Mr. Money Mustache style retirement.  I think you might have misunderstood the question and answer nature of this site. Typically, questions aren't laden with answers, explanations, and suggestions; it should just be the question! You can always ask the question and answer it yourself down below, as some SEers do. To answer your questions towards the end of the post: Good luck, and again, keep doing what you're doing!


Have you tried contacting them via phone or e-mail to follow up?  If not, definitely do that first.   If no response, you can keep this simple: Close your old account, write a personal check from your new one, and send the check with an explanatory note via Certified Mail.  That will get you proof that it was delivered successfully (or not).  Leave the money in your account for 180 days.  Your check should be void after that and cannot be cashed (check with your bank on this) and if it's still unclaimed they will need to contact you to request payment.


"Index funds can be a very good way to get into the stock market. It's a lot easier, and cheaper, to buy a few shares of an index fund than it is to buy a few shares in hundreds of different companies. An index fund will also generally charge lower fees than an ""actively managed"" mutual fund, where the manager tries to pick which stocks to invest for you. While the actively managed fund might give you better returns (by investing in good companies instead of every company in the index) that doesn't always work out, and the fees can eat away at that advantage. (Stocks, on average, are expected to yield an annual return of 4%, after inflation. Consider that when you see an expense ratio of 1%. Index funds should charge you more like 0.1%-0.3% or so, possibly more if it's an exotic index.) The question is what sort of index you're going to invest in. The Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is a major index, and if you see someone talking about the performance of a mutual fund or investment strategy, there's a good chance they'll compare it to the return of the S&P 500. Moreover, there are a variety of index funds and exchange-traded funds that offer very good expense ratios (e.g. Vanguard's ETF charges ~0.06%, very cheap!). You can also find some funds which try to get you exposure to the entire world stock market, e.g. Vanguard Total World Stock ETF, NYSE:VT). An index fund is probably the ideal way to start a portfolio - easy, and you get a lot of diversification. Later, when you have more money available, you can consider adding individual stocks or investing in specific sectors or regions. (Someone else suggested Brazil/Russia/Indo-China, or BRICs - having some money invested in that region isn't necessarily a bad idea, but putting all or most of your money in that region would be. If BRICs are more of your portfolio then they are of the world economy, your portfolio isn't balanced. Also, while these countries are experiencing a lot of economic growth, that doesn't always mean that the companies that you own stock in are the ones which will benefit; small businesses and new ventures may make up a significant part of that growth.) Bond funds are useful when you want to diversify your portfolio so that it's not all stocks. There's a bunch of portfolio theory built around asset allocation strategies. The idea is that you should try to maintain a target mix of assets, whatever the market's doing. The basic simplified guideline about investing for retirement says that your portfolio should have (your age)% in bonds (e.g. a 30-year-old should have 30% in bonds, a 50-year-old 50%.) This helps maintain a balance between the volatility of your portfolio (the stock market's ups and downs) and the rate of return: you want to earn money when you can, but when it's almost time to spend it, you don't want a sudden stock market crash to wipe it all out. Bonds help preserve that value (but don't have as nice of a return). The other idea behind asset allocation is that if the market changes - e.g. your stocks go up a lot while your bonds stagnate - you rebalance and buy more bonds. If the stock market subsequently crashes, you move some of your bond money back into stocks. This basically means that you buy low and sell high, just by maintaining your asset allocation. This is generally more reliable than trying to ""time the market"" and move into an asset class before it goes up (and move out before it goes down). Market-timing is just speculation. You get better returns if you guess right, but you get worse returns if you guess wrong. Commodity funds are useful as another way to diversify your portfolio, and can serve as a little bit of protection in case of crisis or inflation. You can buy gold, silver, platinum and palladium ETFs on the stock exchanges. Having a small amount of money in these funds isn't a bad idea, but commodities can be subject to violent price swings! Moreover, a bar of gold doesn't really earn any money (and owning a share of a precious-metals ETF will incur administrative, storage, and insurance costs to boot). A well-run business does earn money. Assuming you're saving for the long haul (retirement or something several decades off) my suggestion for you would be to start by investing most of your money* in index funds to match the total world stock market (with something like the aforementioned NYSE:VT, for instance), a small portion in bonds, and a smaller portion in commodity funds. (For all the negative stuff I've said about market-timing, it's pretty clear that the bond market is very expensive right now, and so are the commodities!) Then, as you do additional research and determine what sort investments are right for you, add new investment money in the places that you think are appropriate - stock funds, bond funds, commodity funds, individual stocks, sector-specific funds, actively managed mutual funds, et cetera - and try to maintain a reasonable asset allocation. Have fun. *(Most of your investment money. You should have a separate fund for emergencies, and don't invest money in stocks if you know you're going need it within the next few years)."


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Ammo prices are the result of our constant wars. There are only so many bullet manufacturers and they are running 24 hour shifts to meet military demand. When we stop expending so much of it over in the desert they will be able to shift production back to domestic markets and prices will fall a little. Doubt they will ever go back to what they were though.


Yes, just SHA1 convert of my hash and then a search through the list. A couple of friends looked and they weren't there. It's about 10% apparently - I'd imagine 150m+ users are going to have more than 6.5m passwords amongst them.


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I see no reason why a US ID would be mandatory anywhere in the UK. I'm sure they have their own tax IDs in the UK. However, if the gallery requires US persons to submit US W-9 - then yes, you're covered under that requirement.


"You say: To clarify, my account is with BlackRock and the fund is titled ""MID   CAP GROWTH EQUITY-CLASS A"" if that   helps. Not totally sure what that   means. You should understand what you're investing in.  The fund you have could be a fine investment, or a lousy one.  If you don't know, then I don't know. The fund has a prospectus that describes what equities the fund has a position in.  It will also explain the charter of the fund, which will explain why it's mid-cap growth rather than small-cap value, for example.  You should read that a bit.  It's almost a sure thing that your father had to acknowledge that he read it before he purchased the shares! Again: Understand your investments."


Unfortunately when you deal with options you are going to have to accept some exposure to your greeks. So in your example, you could just buy back month ATM calls. Although delta is going to be pretty static across your portfolio (at least for say the first year, depending on ultima/zomma and other third order greeks) which will keep your lambdas in check, you're still exposed to vega which will ultimately skew lambdas across the board.   Such are the caveats of options - in order to obtain leverage you will need to take a *less* passive outlook, but not by much.


What is the dollar based off? how does a bank work? are these your questions?    They are too basic and elementary for me to bother. If you would like to argue instead how we are NOT a state-corporate oligarchy (instead of resorting to passive-aggressive simpleton questions), then we could have a lot more fun.


Comparing Buzzfee to Tesla is completely ridiculous, but your comparison is just as ludicrous.  Tesla's one of the best companies to emerge in the last decade.  They're the best selling car in their class.  They made the highest awarded car in every single category for their model year ON THEIR FIRST TRY.  It's like someone compared George W. Bush to George Washington, and then you went on to call them stupid because George Washington wasn't actually a good president.  You completely missed the irrationality of this comparison and then threw out something even more irrational.


The missing information is at the end of the first line: the price is from NASDAQ (most specifically Nasdaq Global Select), which is a stock exchange in the USA, so the price is in US Dollars.


"The SFGate had an article on this a few years ago: http://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/When-government-fines-companies-who-gets-cash-3189724.php ""Civil penalties, often referred to as fines, usually go to the U.S. Treasury or victims."" Short answer in the case you references it would be the US Treasury. In cases where there is a harmed party then they would get something to account for their loss. But it can get complicated depending on the crime."


The only thing that person is going to tell everyone is how to screw the local store by getting them to match a price they cannot realistically compete with.    Chances are the people they know are cheap asses and that's the only thing they are going to attract.  Screw that.


The thing about business is, it isn't engineering, medicine, or law. What value does inventing a whole other language add? When it's a shortcut, fine, but too often these phrases sprout up because MBAs want everyone to think they know something arcane and precious, and that's when cliches are a symptom of obfuscation, something engineers, doctors, and lawyers are certainly guilty of, albeit with more justification.


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One commenter brought up Steve Jobs (I think it's mandatory) and it seems like people forget that Apple's first project wasn't new or revolutionary. There were other personal computers out there, but it was what people wanted. People wanted a keyboard, wanted an easy to interface display, wanted to be able to add on to the system - they learned what the customer wanted by showing their early systems to others at the homebrew computer meetings, and people told them what they wanted.  Jobs and Woz delivered it. Nothing new, but it was just flat out good.


It's their money, if they don't want to spend it right now, how does that *hurt* anyone?  Until they spend their money, they have done a bunch of work and received useless pieces of paper.  In the period between when they make the money and when they spend it, other people can use that wealth for their own tasks.  What the hell is going on in articles like these? How could anyone possibly believe something so far from reality?


> Also, in the past, a person with lower socioeconomic background, if they finish high school or got a BA, it would (for sure) really change their lives and they become middle or high class.  Because the cost was still going to keep most people out of university.   Finishing high school was never as hard as you suggest and didn't guarantee you any sort of job:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2900934/  Overall high school graduation rates in 1968 were 5% lower than they were in 2004.  Seems like what you're arguing for doesn't support that education is bad, there is just more competition among workers with higher levels of education than ever, so degrees are less valued than the used to be when far fewer people had access.


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From Illinois. We have been racing to the bottom for years thanks to Chicago corruption and cronyism. Hell, our Attorney General is the daughter of Michael Madigan. He is in charge in Chicago and in the Illinois Legislature. She has not prosecuted one politician in 8 years for corruption. (Two of our former governors were sent prison for corruption by FEDERAL prosecutors.) She knows where the corruption is, but can't arrest Daddy.   Funny thing. She was going to announce her candidacy for a Governor. She thought her Dad would step down from his position so she could run. He refused. Yes, I know he is her step-father, but she goes by his name and calls him Dad. She had to trash your election plans. Mickey doesn't care about anyone, but himself.


No Democrat is going to run for reelection saying the economy is expanding at a nice clip. The reason: it's not and mostly they have created low paying part time jobs. And no mention of the enormous debt and bonds piling up at the Fed. What are we at now? $4 trillion?


"They have a software charging curve that ""increases"" the batteries capacity as it degrades over time. So the end user see's a more stable range over the life of the car rather than a gradual decline from the 60kwh it's rated as.  This is better for the batteries and ultimately the end user."


The only issue I have is with 4).  *Caveat emptor* always applies, and even if you accept the notion that S&P was *criminally* misrepresenting bond quality, Fannie/Freddie still must do their own due diligence, and so I don't think they are off the hook here.  At worst, the execs running Fannie/Freddie are also guilty of criminal collusion; at best, they are guilty of massive incompetence.


"Assuming ""take advantage"" means continue to build wealth, as opposed to blow it all on a fancy holiday...  Downgrade As you already note, you could downgrade/downsize. This could happen via moving to a smaller house in the same area, or moving to an area where the cost of buying is less.  HELOC Take out a Home Equity Line of Credit. You could use the line of credit to do home improvements further boosting the asset value (forced appreciation, assuming the appreciation to date is simply market based). Caution is required if the house has already appreciated ""considerably"" - you want to keep the home value within tolerance levels for the area. (Best not to have the only $300K house on a street of $190K-ers...) Home Equity Loan Assuming you have built up equity in the house, you could leverage that equity to purchase another property. For most people this would form part of the jigsaw for getting the financing to purchase again."


"buying at Amazon is still retail, just not brick and mortar. The ""Magnet store in the Mall"" idea is dead, it isn't cost effective, the consumer doesn't want a ""department store"" in malls. They want small shops with tailored items and they will get everything else online.  Also, cost comparisons make it about economy of scale here, not online vs offline. That is why it is devolving to a Amazon vs Wal-Mart fight, they have the pockets to fund this expansion..."


I've always wondered why nobody has tried to use the broadcast spectrum for internet connectivity. Or at least tried to lobby for repurposing some of the spectrum for that purpose. I had always assumed there was some kind of technical limitation that kept it from being considered.  Seems like a much better use of our broadcast spectrum than our antiquated TV networks. Especially after the Fairness Doctrine was rescinded.


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Think of it this way:  1) You buy 1k in call options that will let you buy 100k of stock when they expire in the money in a year.   2) You take the 99k you would have spent on the stock and invest it in a risk free savings account.  3) Assume the person who sold you the call, immediately hedges the position by buying 100k of stock to deliver when the options expire.  The amount of money you could make on risk free interest needs to be comparable to the premium you paid the option writer for tying up their capital, or they wouldn't have made the trade. So higher risk free rates would mean a higher call price.   NOTE: The numbers are not equal because of the risk in writing the option, but they will move the same direction.


We should assume by default that every headline is clickbait now, unfortunately this is the business model of the internet. It's not good for accuracy and most articles are just a headline and some inane filler up words. I hope we'll smart up and find a better model for news soon.


I love Netflix, but mostly for the documentaries.  I miss the old History Channel and then later H2 when they were full of documentaries and actually educational and interesting programming.  Now they're just reality television like the rest of the crap on cable.  While I don't mind the occasional Disney film or other movie on Netflix, I usually still like to own physical copies of movies(like Star Wars) and if I don't care enough to own it, I usually don't care enough to watch it.  This doesn't really affect my streaming decisions at all.  I still have Amazon Prime(which I've had for over 10 years now because of the 2 day shipping, don't watch much on their streaming service but I have it on my Roku).  TBH I can see where Disney may lose money, because I for one have to really want to see something to buy a copy, and I don't care enough about most of their stuff to pay for a streaming sub specifically for their content.    In closing, this wont make me pay for their stuff or pirate it, I simply wont watch it(besides seeing Star Wars films in the theater and/or buying the Blu-ray).  I suppose I should catch up on what I'd like to see of theirs on Netflix before they remove it all in a year or two.


Dimon doesn't care about whether other countries get greater economic growth. He wants lower taxes and looser regulation for JP Morgan Chase, and is willing to make ambiguous or outright false statements about other countries in making the case for it.


Given your clarification that you re only intending to use cryptocurrency as a capital asset & a long term investment vehicle, and not as a business day trading or trading for others, I would say this definitely is NOT illegal. The tax man says cryptocurrency is property. The IRS made this clear in Notice 2014-21.  As long as you report it every time you do transfer it and an income loss/gain is triggered, I see nothing wrong here.


generally i have sufficient funds to last 5 years or so without an income.... When I was a broke kid I would check my accounts often though... so it's just not something I prioritize in my life, already too many other things have my attention.


"> This seems like correlation and not causation… somebody who'll never overdraw their account won't bother getting overdraft protection.  I would actually say that makes it a causation rather than merely a correlation.  Why? Because people who sign up for overdraft protection are LESS likely to be careful/conscientious about their account balances or their spending habits (see they have ""overdraft protection"" so why worry?) ... and therefore more likely to overdraw their accounts (and to do so frequently).  By contrast people who do *not* have (or reject) overdraft protection are more likely to monitor their account balances and control/limit their spending in order to maintain a healthy balance.  BTW, I highly doubt this is ""news"" to the banks: they are almost certainly well aware of the phenomenon... which is one reason they promote their ""overdraft protection"" thingees."


I agree. I don't really see a good argument (not that there isn't one to be made) in the article saying how this is unusual or illegal. Why did the managers sell such a small amount of their holdings? Could they have sold more? Is this selling behavior and scheduling at all abnormal? The article fails to address a number of important questions.


"The definite answer if you want to give a larger amount of money is: Ask the charity. Just drop them a mail with something like: Dear Sirs, I've decided to donate you $1,000,000 because I like what you do. Could you please tell me which option is more convenient and less costly for you? I can do either an online debit/credit card payment, send you a check by mail, or make a bank transfer [cross out whichever you can't do]. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully, Even if you give ""just"" $2,000, it's surely enough to be worth for them writing you a reply and clarifying whichever way they prefer, so you don't waste neither their time nor the money this way."


Do I need to declare it to IRS? The account? No. You do need to file a form W8-BEN with the bank though and make sure you maintain the correct information on it (it has your address there, so if you move - update it). Your account may be frozen until the form is provided, especially if it has activity on it. The 2-nd and 3-rd scenario would come as a result of some freelancing   activity done while I am out of the US (definitely would qualify for   Non-Resident Alien status). This you do have to report to the IRS. I'm guessing the payer is in the US, and would not know that you're a foreigner. In this case you're liable for taxes (if the payer knows you're a foreigner - they must withhold the taxes on your behalf). The payer will report payments to the IRS, so you have to submit your own tax return for a match. If there's activity on your account that might be suspicious, it will be reported to money laundering unit in the US Treasury Department, that may come after you through the treaties the US might have with your home country (tax treaty, extradition treaty, etc).


"If someone is guaranteeing X%, then clearly you can borrow money for less than X% (otherwise his claim wouldn't be remotely impressive).  So why not do that if his 4% is guaranteed? :) Anyway, my answer would be that beating the market as a whole is a ""decent"" rate of return.  I've always used the S&P 500 as a benchmark but you can use other indices or funds."


"Another interesting point by you.  So what's your definition of the ""right move"" then? Just let the market correct?  The reason I can't ascribe to that is because we've mucked with the market too much for it to be as self-managing as it could be. Price supports, protective regulation/taxation and things like that are creating artificial stability. We won't let anything big die, so nothing can grow into its place."


>In April, President Xi Jinping announced that the government would build a new city designed to siphon people and businesses from Beijing's crowded center and serve as a model for urban development for the next thousand years.   Anyone who thinks they can do urban planning that would fit for the next 50 years is border line crazy, but 1000 years is full insanity.


Not really.  If Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, *rather than by the state*, then the South Sea Bill was an example of trade and industry controlled by the State through State sponsored enterprise.  It is more a closely a description of State Socialism, with a large topping of Kleptocracy.


It is just a different category of stock issued by a company that gives its owners different treatment when it comes to dividend payment and a few other financial transactions. Preferred stock holders get treated with some preference with regard to the company's profits and assets. For example, dividends are typically guaranteed to preferred stock holders whereas the leadership in the company can elect at any time not to pay dividends to common stockholders. In the event the company is liquidated, the preferred stockholders also get to be in line ahead of common stockholders when the assets are distributed.


Most merchants (also in Europe) are reasonable, and typically are willing to work with you. credit card companies ask if you tried to work with the merchant first, so although they do not enforce it, it should be the first try. I recommend to give it a try and contact them first. If it doesn't work, you can always go to the credit card company and have the charge reversed. None of this has any effect on your credit score (except if you do nothing and then don't pay your credit card bill). For the future: when a transaction supposedly 'doesn't go through', have them write this on the receipt and give it to you. Only then pay cash. I am travelling 100+ days a year in Europe, using my US credit cards all the time, and there were never any issues - this is not a common problem.


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But an axiomatic approach only works in a deterministic environment, it does not work in a probabilistic environment. By your own arguments, because humans have free will so economics cannot be equated with a deterministic branch like physics. At this point now you are just contradicting yourself over and over.   And it depends entirely on how accurate the axioms are. If observations do not match equation outcomes, then while the mathematics of the equation might be sound, the obvious conclusion is that the axioms themselves are faulty.


Very Interesting Math. Plain and Simple, it saves you $10.00. When 18% goes above $10 you loose the money, you save if it is (18% of the baae bill) is less than $10. This raises few questions: You are forced to give out 18% tips. You may wish to keep it at 10-15%. You have no choice. All thing considered, better to avoid such coupons. They force you to spend money, they force you to spend in a particular way and they force you to give a tip, you may not be inclined to.


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Straight line in this example should be just the $2MM per year.  I don't think the author of the problem intended you to use anything in the actual tax code like MACRS.  I think the goal of the problem is to get you to identify the value of the depreciation tax shield and how the depreciation does affect your cash flow by reducing your taxes, even though depreciation itself is not a cash event.


Well the Fucking Moron in the white house never had the courage to sign up, in fact he grew a pair of very convenient spurs to dodge his draft, instead a pair of man sized balls. If anything he should be ashamed of his cowardice and have more respect for the fallen and their families who had the courage to sign up to serve their nation.  And be glad for them, because were it not for them you would soon feel the beard of a taliban tickle the back of your neck as he asked you if you were enjoying what you had signed up for.


It was a glorified sports bar. TBH if I liked sports(and for some reason  I wanted to go somewhere then staying home...who knows why) I'd rather go to the BWW of the world then most bars.  :Shrugs:  Too bad I don't like sports...or going out when I could throw something at home.


It is a general truism but the reasons are that the rules change dramatically when you simply have more capital. Here are some examples, limited to particular kinds of markets: Under $2,000 in capital Nobody is going to offer you a margin account, and if you do get one it isn't with the best broker on commissions and other capabilities. So this means cash only trading, enjoy your 3 business day settlement periods. This means no shorting, confining a trader to only buy and hold strategies, making them more dependent on luck than a more capable trader. This means it is more expensive to buy stock, since you have to put down 100% of the cash to hold a share, whereas someone with more money puts down less capital to hold the exact same number of shares. This means no covered options strategies or spreads, again limiting the market directions where a trader could earn Under $25,000 in capital In the stock market, the pattern day trader rule applies to retail margin accounts with a balance under $25,000 and this severally limits the kinds of trades you are able to take because of the limit in the number of trades you can take in a given time period. Forget managing a multi-leg option position when the market isn't moving your direction. Under $125,000 in capital Worse margin rules. You excluded portfolio margin from your post, but it is a key part of the answer Over $1,000,000 in capital Participate in private placements, regulation D offerings reserved for accredited investors. These days, as buy and hold investments, these generally have more growth potential than publicly traded offerings. Over $5,000,000 in capital You can easily get the compliance and risk manager to turn the other way on margin rules. This is not conjecture, leverage up to infinity, try not to bankrupt yourself and the trading firm.


> the only thing which could be a viable replacement or substitute for oil is large-scale use of nuclear power.  Couple that with large scale adoption of plug-in hybrids and the price of oil would be far less important in the US.


As no one has mentioned them I will...  The US  Treasury issues at least two forms of bonds that tend to always pay some interest even when prevailing rates are zero or negative.  The two that I know of are TIPS and I series bonds. Below are links to the descriptions of these bonds: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/tips/res_tips.htm http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds.htm


Excise tax on the excess contribution is 6% a year on the amount of the contribution. In addition, gains will be taxable to you. By adding 20K over the limit, you added $1200 to your tax bill. Withdraw it ASAP. Whatever investment you have in your IRA - you can probably buy it (or a comparable) outside of the IRA.


"'Note that ""to keep an investor from lowering their tax bill"" is not an explanation'. Well, yes it is. In fact  it is the only explanation. The rule plainly exists to prevent someone from realizing a loss when their economic situation remains unchanged before/after a sale. Now, you might say 'but I have suffered a loss, even if it is unrealized!' But, would you want to pay tax on unrealized gains? The tax system still caters to reducing the tax impact of investments, particularly capital investments. Part and parcel with the system of taxing gains only when realized, is that you can recognize losses only when realized. Are there other ways to 'artificially' reduce taxable income? Yes. But the goal of a good tax system should be to reduce those opportunities. Whether you agree that it is fair for the government to prevent this tax-saving opportunity, when others exist, is another question. But that is why the rule exists."


Pricing of most books used for university courses looks like this (as many lecturers simply ask for the current edition, even if there were no significant discoveries in the field of study). I do not have the specifics for Hull, but compare both table of contents, and if close enough, save yourself Rs. 6400


I don't see any trading activity on rough rice options, so I'll just default to gold.  The initial margin on a gold futures contract is $5,940. An option on a gold futures represents 1 contract. The price of an October gold futures call with a strike of $1310 is currently $22.70. Gold spot is currently $1308.20. The October gold futures price is $1307.40. So, yeah, you can buy 1 option to later control 1 futures for $22.70, but the moment you exercise you must have $5,940 in a margin account to actually use the futures contract. You could also sell the option. I don't know how much you're going to enjoy trading options on futures though -- the price of this option just last week ranged from $13.90 to $26, and last month it ranged from $15.40 to $46.90. There's some crazy leverage involved.


"So if you know what's inside a DB plan, you'll agree with me that the poor results of DB plans from the likes of Ford, GM, and others like state plans are the result of *poor management*, as opposed to the idea that these plans were a bad idea from the start.  I have to disagree a bit with your lottery analogy; winning the lottery is a one-time event that is almost always beneficial - in almost every way - to the winner.  It's an additive source of income above and beyond what was anticipated.  On the other hand, taking one set of financial outcomes that the recipient had planned on for possibly decades, and replacing it with ""good luck with this"" is *rarely* beneficial to the recipient, regardless of their ""personal discount rate"" (if they even know what such a thing is)."


The stores track the individual items for inventory planning and marketing purposes. Having worked in the transaction processing business for a time (writing one), I can say with confidence that the credit/debit card companies do not receive an itemized list of the items involved in the transaction. There is usually a description field in the information transmitted to the processor, which may or may not contain useful information. But it is not big enough to contain an itemized grocery list of any size. And it is not standardized in any way that would facilitate reliable parsing. There may be an amount of metadata about the transaction that would indicate the types of products involved in the transaction, which they can also infer from the merchant reporting the transaction. There are efforts to increase the amount of data reported, but they are not widely used yet, due to the overwhelming numbers of banks that would need to be upgraded. These efforts are rolling out only in specific and limited uses where the banks involved are willing to upgrade software and equipment. For now, the best way to know what you bought is to keep your receipts from the store. Shoeboxes work great for this. So do smartphone cameras and a folder on your hard drive. There are also mobile apps that track receipts for you, and may even try to OCR the data for you.


What does that even mean  evidence Chinese on average have high IQ than whites? Is IQ a standard on skills based on experiences or the ability to fill out tests?   What Chinese, in what region, in what period? The same goes for what whites?  German Shepherds were breed differently than shih tzu's and were trained for different roles. If you trained Shih Tzus like Germans Shepards there intelligence would rise as well.   Humans were not breed so using dogs as a analogy is false analogy.


But if you add a security to the index you also remove one from the index, thus both a buy and sell. If weights change some go up, some go down thus some need to be purchased and some need to be sold.   So I still don't see how ETFs are net sinks beyond their simple AUM.


I would steer well clear of this. The risk is that they take your money but don't pay the bank. This wouldn't require dishonesty - what if they run into financial trouble? Any money of yours that they have that hasn't gone on to the bank yet might end up paying off other debts instead of yours. It's not clear if the idea is that you are paying them all the money up front or will be making payments over time, but either way if they don't clear the lien with the bank then the bank can come after the car no matter who is in physical possession of it. That would leave you without either the money or the car. In theory you'd have a legal claim against the seller, but in reality you'd probably find it hard to collect.


Regardless of the technicalities of how information was stolen through Kapersky, I am wondering why anyone would use antivirus software, which by definition must operate at a privileged level, that's produced by a company in a country like Russia or China. We already know for a fact that Tencent's WeChat programmatically monitors, censors, and likely reports thought crimes, and I would be surprised if Kapserky is NOT an agent of the Russian government to a similar capacity.


These are yields for the government bonds. EuroZone interest rates are much lower (10 times lower, in fact) than the UK (GBP zone) interest rates. The rates are set by the central banks.


">The rules are regulations are setup as needed  As needed by whose definition?   >Govt. sets new rules as needed as a response to something, not because people in the govt. who change every few years feel so.  And you just claimed you weren't naive!   >all adhering to the same laws  Government doesn't follow laws, it makes them. YOU are the one expected to follow laws.   >it makes sense to keep it and if not, it gets repealed  What resounding bullshit! Let's talk about how many laws are passed versus how many are repealed. Why is pot illegal?   >Govt. does care about fairness  Bizarrely oblivious to reality.  >HFT's existing is proof that govt. lets free market and private business start things as it pleases till such time as it stops being fair for all.  There's no ""let"" to it. The government is not physics, where nothing happens without its leave.   >Govt. is not really an inhibitor to free market  You don't know what a free market is, if you think the main thing that inhibits and distorts markets and makes them NOT free, ""is not really an inhibitor"".   >Govt. is just people who agreed with it, joined the govt and made it so and others agreed  I don't agree, yet I will be isolated or killed if I refuse to obey.  >If we don't agree in future, it can be changed.  Hilariously naive. When were you *ever* asked consent?   >There is a term as regulated free market  There is no such thing as a ""regulated free market"". That's like saying ""white black"" or ""inside outside"". They are opposites.   >I don't think you really want to talk  I don't think you want to listen.  >You just want to spew your ignorant libertarian viewpoints  And you're spewing wildly ignorant statist bullshit.   >You just blindly believe the govt. is always wrong with no logic or justification, just like religious people.  You're the one with religion here, and it's government you're worshiping. If government is a religion, I'm an atheist.   >But it is some times and it does do the right things many times  Well golly gee, better blindly adhere to it then!   >But I don't believe like you do at all because I think for myself and reason.  Sounds like you're letting government think for you, but accusing *me* of blindly following others *who I don't even give a shit about!* Stossel is a jackass, and Paul is irrelevant.   >I won't bother replying to you anymore  Just want to spew a bunch of wild bullshit and demand that I not reply, huh? Just want to expound freely on something you know nothing about and refuse to listen when someone tries to show you how you're wrong?  >So you've never been taken to reason or logic like others have to you on this board.   Oh my, thank you for saving me with your ""reason"" and ""logic"". Clearly I've been a fool.  >Look at the other replies to your posts - almost all contradict you.  Popularity is not correctness. Lots of times in human history, common opinion has been fucking retarded. Flies auto-generating from rotting meat? Earth being the center of existence? Lots of people believe lots of dumb shit, just like you."


">First off the SEC is under-funded anyhow  And insane homeless persons don't have a lot of operating capital, but that doesn't change the fact that they would not make good use of more capital if they had it. The SEC is a joke, a completely captured entity.   >I disagree. First off the SEC is under-funded anyhow, and most economists agree that there needs to be better regulation of the exchanges; ya know since it can fucking crash our economy and send us into WW3.  They only have this power because the government gave it to them! If the government took away the titty, we'd see the financial services industry wither back to a reasonable size.   >Secondly, it's a flat Transaction tax much like any other State Sales Tax. State Sales Tax is arguably the most successful form of taxation there is, b/c it's so damn easy to implement, and so damn easy to audit.  Sidestepping of course whether or not the states have any right to this sort of taxation in the first place.   >You're blowing this thing way out of proportion. They require the markets to charge a Transaction tax, and then they do periodic audits to ensure each exchange is doing it.  Enron had periodic audits also, and it didn't mean a fucking thing. So did Lehman Brothers, and all the other crap piles.  >If you think that letting a market die and having new ones pop up periodically is a good idea then holy shit.   ""If you think that letting a person die while new ones are born is a good idea then holy shit.""   We evolve and improve through death and replacement. Use of force to avoid a natural death leads to massive distortions in our mutual reality.   >Financial markets need stability & regulation. Finance doesn't like uncertainty.  Markets need stability, stability is created by flexibility in response to changing conditions. Regulations reduce flexibility which creates instability. Finance doesn't like uncertainty and boy, I don't like it when it rains and I forgot my jacket, but *you cannot control the Universe!* You have to respect that the world is not at your command, and if you can't live with that, adapt to it, and work anyway, you just need to die and let someone more capable take your place.   Basically, if physics worked like you think, we'd never have made it past the Big Bang because reality would be too concerned with the resulting instability and uncertainty."


That's just an example of what the taxi industry looks like without regulation. Obviously, these regulations vary by city and state, but if a driver did that in my city and you reported it, the company would be in some big shit with the city.


"If you file the long-form Form 2210 in which you have to figure out  exactly how much you should have had withheld (or paid via quarterly payments of estimated tax), you might be able to reduce the underpayment penalty somewhat, or possibly eliminate it entirely.  This often happens because some of your income comes late in the year (e.g. dividend and capital gain distributions from stock mutual funds) and possibly because some of your itemized deductions come early (e.g. real estate tax bills due April 1, charitable deductions early in the year because of New Year resolutions to be more philanthropic) etc.  It takes a fair amount of effort to gather up the information you need for this (money management programs help), and it is easy to make mistakes while filling out the form. I strongly recommend use of a ""deluxe"" or ""premier"" version of a tax program - basic versions might not include Form 2210 or have only the short version of it. I also seem to remember something to the effect that the long form 2210 must be filed with the tax return and cannot be filed as part of an amended return, and if so, the above advice would be applicable to future years only. But you might be able to fill out the form and appeal to the IRS that you owe a reduced  penalty, or don't owe a penalty at all, and that your only mistake was not filing the long form 2210 with your tax return and so please can you be forgiven this once? In any case, I strongly recommend paying the underpayment   penalty ASAP because it is increasing day by day due to   interest being charged.  If the IRS agrees to your eloquent   appeal, they will refund the overpayment."


"Never understood why any company would want to be beholden to complete strangers that you would never hire to begin with. I cringe when I watch shareholders' meetings and people talk about ""Well, as shareholders, we're worried about/what are you gonna do about xyz"""


All the gory details are available here. More specifically your personal limit will be listed on you last tax assessment notice, that you would have received last April-ish when you filed last year's taxes. As a first approximation, your situation may differ, if you have never contributed anything, your limit is likely $15,000 (as the program has been running three years as of 2011).


If you RTFA it discusses the difference in REAL GDP. While it's clear that no single politician controls the economy, at least read the shit before you try to sound all high and mighty.   Do you know what real GDP growth is?


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.saukvalley.com/2017/07/25/illinois-is-still-in-critical-condition/ay0pnm5/) reduced by 82%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The decision by Illinois legislators to raise personal and corporate taxes averted a downgrading of the state&#039;s bonds to &quot;Junk&quot; status but fell far short of addressing the state&#039;s fiscal problems in any meaningful way.  > The report states that the $5 billion in tax increases &quot;Alleviates immediate liquidity pressures, moves the state closer to fiscal balance and should keep pension and other fixed costs at manageable levels at least in the near term.""  > In a state where fiscal policy has been the product of short-term thinking dominated by political considerations, Moody&#039;s stated that &quot;Long term challenges remain&quot; that can only be effectively addressed by sound policy proposals.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6urksx/illinoiss_troubled_future/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~194695 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*: **state**^#1 **Moody**^#2 **fiscal**^#3 **Illinois**^#4 **economy**^#5"


>Lack of demand??? There is no such thing as a lack of demand. People will always demand stuff they want and need.   Lack of purchasing power. You get laid off from your job. Does that mean everything you used to purchase is now overly inflated and misallocated? No. Yet the *demand* for those things just went down because you have no money. Multiply times many millions and you get a self-reinforcing shortfall in aggregate demand. Capacity to produce can't meet desire to consume for systemic lack of money.


"Welcome to Money.SE. Please forgive what might sound like a cliche, ""How well do you sleep at night?"" I mean, specific to the mortgage. There are those who are in a group who consider debt, at any rate, to be inherently bad, and would not take on a 2% mortgage even if a different bank were offering 4% CDs. You just need to understand the risk.  Your mortgage cost after taxes may be 2.625% (if you are in the 25% bracket) therefore, your break even is 3.09% for long term investments. The recent ""lost decade"" had a return of -9.5% for the full 10 year period. This is just about the worst decade in modern history. The average 10 year return is a cumulative 183% gain, with a standard deviation of 138%. If a perfect bell curve, this means that 1 10 year in 6 will give you a return under 45%. In fact, of the last 100 10 year periods, 15 had returns less than 45%, and just 8 were less than 30%, right in line with the bell curve stats. We always need to say ""past performance is no guarantee of future results,"" yet, when it comes to the market (I use the S&P for my numbers, by the way) we do have history to give us an idea of the kind of volatility we might see over the years. In my opinion, your approach is sound, and your returns very skewed to the positive, the median 10 year return being 138%, vs your cost of money of 40% or so for a decade.  It's pretty easy to pull S&P data into a spreadsheet and analyze as you wish."


I just got hit with the late payment penalty due to a bug in the H&R Block tax program.  The underpayment was only $2 and the penalty was a whopping 1 cent.   The letter that informed me of the error also said that they did not consider the $2.01 worth collecting, the amount owed had been zeroed.


This looks more like an aggregation problem. The Dividends and Capital Gains are on quite a few occassions not on same day and hence the way Yahoo is aggregating could be an issue. There is a seperate page with Dividends and capital gains are shown seperately, however as these funds have not given payouts every year, it seems there is some bug in aggregating this info at yahoo's end. For FBMPX http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=FBMPX&b=2&a=00&c=1987&e=17&d=01&f=2014&g=v https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/fees-and-prices/316390681 http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=FBMPX


"ECI is relevant to non-resident aliens who are engaged in trade or business in the US. For that, you have to be present in the US, to begin with, or to own a business or property in the US. So the people to whom it is relevant are non-resident aliens in the US or business/property owners, not foreign contractors.  From the IRS: The following categories of income are usually considered to be   connected with a trade or business in the United States. You are considered to be engaged in a trade or business in the United States if you are temporarily present in the United States as a   nonimmigrant on an ""F,"" ""J,"" ""M,"" or ""Q"" visa. The taxable part of any   U.S. source scholarship or fellowship grant received by a nonimmigrant   in ""F,"" ""J,"" ""M,"" or ""Q"" status is treated as effectively connected   with a trade or business in the United States. If you are a member of a partnership that at any time during the tax year is engaged in a trade or business in the United States, you   are considered to be engaged in a trade or business in the United   States. You usually are engaged in a U.S. trade or business when you perform personal services in the United States. If you own and operate a business in the United States selling services, products, or merchandise, you are, with certain exceptions,   engaged in a trade or business in the United States. For example,   profit from the sale in the United States of inventory property   purchased either in this country or in a foreign country is   effectively connected trade or business income. Gains and losses from the sale or exchange of U.S. real property interests (whether or not they are capital assets) are taxed as if you   are engaged in a trade or business in the United States. You must   treat the gain or loss as effectively connected with that trade or   business. Income from the rental of real property may be treated as ECI if the taxpayer elects to do so."


Every insurance company has a pricing factor for every car they insure that along with factors about the driver is used to set rates. The story was that AAA was adjusting it's factor for Tesla models. Insurance companies do this all time as they collect more data. This is only news because people like to talk about Tesla.


Ponzi schemes (or pyramid schemes) are based on paying earlier investors from the money invested by the later ones. For Ponzi scheme, the idea is generally to distribute some relateviely high consistent dividend/payout based on the inflow of money from new investors. As long as new investors are coming, the scheme can be sustained for quite some time (see the Madoff's example that spanned over decades). In the mean time the scheme operator can take (some of) the investment money to himself (legally as fees and salary, illegally as embezzling). The scheme operator doesn't actually have to put in any money other than some organizational expenses. However, at some point the new investors' money won't be enough to pay all the existing investors (inevitably, sooner or later, since the dividend payout grows with each new investor and there are no infinite exponential amount of new investors to cover for it). That's when the $#!+ hits the fan and sons of the schemers start ending up hanging from the ceiling. Pyramid scheme is built on similar idea, but the dividend payout varies based on the level of the investor (i.e.: the investor gets paid based on how many new ones he brought in, and how many new ones rooted from them). Thus the incentive to bring new investors is directly shifted to the investors themselves. The schemers here are at the top and get the most payouts from all the rest of the participants. They themselves usually put no or very little investment. However, the end result is the same: couldn't possibly be enough investors to sustain this model forever, and it will inevitably fail at some point. When such a scheme fails - the paying fund ends up being bankrupt, either due to cashflow problems (not enough money in to pay money out) or because all the money dries out (usually - both). How to detect - if the reports are not falsified (which in most cases they are) you'll see clearly that there's no actual investment income in the cash-flow. But, the reports are usually falsified to conceal this exact fact. So, that's where the independent auditors and regulatory oversight come in handy. Generally, if an investment fund doesn't have a reputable independent auditor - stay away.


"Perhaps in a pendantic sense, it is useless. But likewise the number of people that work for them is irrelevant here as well.  What matters is the portion of GDP generated across company size, and the means by which some of that is recaptured by the people to (a) repay for the investment in the economic infrastructure that allowed the companies to make that money in the first place, and (b) invest in future infrastructure that is of benefit to companies, ultimately all of which is done for the purposes of betterment of the people of the country.  The relevance then is what portion of the GDP is generated by which while size category of business. If we just take large versus small and medium enterprise (SME), with the boundary being 500 employees or fewer, and we excluding farming (which the stats seem to universally do), U.S. GDP is generated by [50.7% non-farm SMEs](http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11f0027m/11f0027m2011070-eng.pdf) (compared to 54.7% in Canada). They also appear to employ more than 50% of all private workers.  Of additional importance is the dynamic effect. That is, if large companies can grow faster because of lower effective taxation, that means SMEs will tend to fall further and further behind not out of a fair and open marketplace, but because of unfair taxation.  Generally speaking, the reverse is preferred. Because diversity of competition brings huge value for innovation (the same as in crop breeding techniques), as well as the poor economic performance of monopolies and oligopolies, you want to hinder large companies from becoming too large and instead break them up in to many smaller components. Hence incentives should work the reverse of the above, meaning larger companies should be paying a higher percentage tax than the SMEs, not to mention the ""too big to fail"" problem, and all for the good of the people."