No, this is incorrect. You cannot exclude a portion of your income, that would be false reporting. What you can do is not use the FEIE at all, and instead use the foreign tax credit. If the foreign tax is higher than the US tax - there's a chance that you will have the US tax liability reduced to zero by the credit, while still keeping all of your earned income in the AGI, and thus eligible for the IRA contributions.


Having 20% of your portfolio in P2P lending sounds really aggressive to me. When we have another recession, a lot of those loans are going to be bad and having a big chunk of 20% of your portfolio vanish could sting pretty good. I wouldn't go into it with more than the sum you are willing to lose and not be too upset.


Just short GS.  http://www.google.com/finance?q=gs  Much more fun.  That list looks like a global macro short list. Shorting XOM, JNJ are systemic risk plays.  The guys that stand out for specific risk: INTC AMZN ABT LMT BMY  AMGN  CMG AVB, I stopped reading after that.  fundamentally I would long INTC as them and AMD are the market for CPU's. Maybe people are betting against pc's...   AMZN has a retardedly high facebook like P/E.  I don't know enough about most of the risk.


Check the answers to this Stackoverflow question https://stackoverflow.com/questions/754593/source-of-historical-stock-data a number of potential sources are listed


Public debt and risk of currency devaluation are two very, very different things.  Until the BRICS are able to buy commodities on a significant scale using a market basket of their own currencies, the USD will remain one of the (if not the) safest currencies in the world.


Good catch. So Bloomberg came out with a good new article today. Read it on desktop, tried to find it on mobile to submit it (I figure my firm wouldn't be too thrilled with my username etc.) ended up with this. They had basically the same headlines.   I'll delete and resubmit.


Recent MBA grad here.  I would much rather work at a job that makes me happy than a job that pays more.  With that said, I'm feeling pressure to earn a fairly high salary to pay off all the student loans.  I will probably spend a few years trying to find a balance between happiness and salary and then completely forget about salary after my loans are paid off.


Best consult a CA. There is no clear guideline on this. Some articles do suggest that if engaged and planning to marry, one can transfer money to fiancée without any tax implication.


No, it doesn't.  It's been at play in a very strong way for the last century - and, even on smaller time scales you can easily see where there are differences in nations that grow / shrink.  My statement isn't over the course of thousands of years, it can affect things on the span of just a few decades even.


"I worked one summer at WalMart.  The company song was a complete shock to me and I found it to be one of the creepiest things ever devised.  (there are ""moves"" that go along with the song/chant).  Some people actually seemed to be into it.    The song was just the beginning of the meeting though, where they would discuss how much revenue/profit the store made in the previous day (or week maybe I don't remember).  All I could think about was a) at least I don't actually have to do any work while I'm over here b) why to hell do I care what this fucking dump made yesterday?  I'm making minimum wage and I'll be making minimum wage tomorrow."


It is a Scam. Don't invest more money here. Their website is the proof. Investments may appreciate or depreciate and you may not receive more   than you initially invested. The Peterson Group offers products that   are traded on margin and entail a degree of risk. You may incur losses   that exceed your initial investment. Please ensure you are aware of   and fully understand the risks involved, and seek independent advice   if necessary. Losses exceeding your initial investments does not sound a good investment even if it is not a scam. Not much contact information. Their contact page has only a form. No email. No phone number. No social media links. I would like to point some information from Dumbcoder's answer, Just browsed their website. Not a single name of anybody involved.   Their application process isn't safe(No https usage while transferring   private information). No names of the person's involved is a thing to notice. All the companies websites name their owner, CEO and the like.


The point is, genuine users are catching on and Instagram has to give the appearance of doing something about it or lose their user base in boycotts.  This is about the time when the next big thing starts to emerge and the company releasing updates like this starts circling the drain.


In most cases an rent with option to buy is structured as follows: The renter/buyer will place a deposit/premium (not the same as a security deposit) that purchases the option( the right ) to buy the home at a future date at a specific price. The renter / buyer will often pay extra rent in addition to market rent.  Many times this additional rent is contracted to be applied to the purchase price of the home. The risks to the renter/buyer are as follows: Also, something to note: Many people will recommend that you use the additional rents to be applied specifically towards the downpayment.  Be wary of this.  There are no institutional lenders available today that will allow the additional rent money to be applied towards your downpayment.  That means you must come up with the downpayment in cash before closing.  The additional rent payments can  be used towards the price.   Hope that helps.  Good luck!


They've just started doing this in the UK through Virgin Media (cable).   You now get a TiVo box, probably to give Virgin some sort of potential brand recognition up against Sky's Sky+ box.   However TiVo has never been recognised over here.


"As you say, the currency carry trade shouldn't work.  The deluge of new cash into a high-interest currency should result in falling exchange rates.  A November 2009 paper by Òscar Jordà and Alan Taylor of the University of California, Davis, may be offer one approach which is more stable.  According to The Economist: They find that a refined carry-trade   strategy—one that incorporates a   measure of long-term value—produces   more consistent profits and is less   prone to huge losses than one that   targets the highest yield. However, exchange rates, central bank interest rates, as well as money supply are all political as well as economic constructs.  An economic driver for arbitrage may be offset by political will (such as US quantative easing) or even social malaise (Japanese continual low inward investment). I wouldn't go so far as calling the carry trade ""free money"" - currencies have proven far too unstable for that - but state interference in markets tends to be clearly telegraphed and a trader with nerves of steel may take advantage of it."


"How will making energy cheaper help?  The issue is that average earnings have barely moved since the 70's, inflation has sky-rocketed for necessities and for assets.  My dad was making the same as I am now when he bought their first home for $40,000.  My smaller place cost me $300,000+.  That isn't fucking sustainable.  Natural gas, gasoline, electricity, those are all tiny slices of pie in comparison to food and shelter.    Then the American government makes all these shitty chess-play moves that they think will stimulate the economy but they don't take into account that civilians aren't entities that behave like ideal statistical models.  They don't fucking understand that people are concerned about the viability of their futures.  The whole thing is nose-diving into the ground.  Read the the book ""The Death of Money"" by James Rickards, America is fucked and the politicians don't care because they will be financially OK and will pass the buck on to the next generation to deal with."


Excess capital is the primary means of navigating around a trade which is moving against you. In a very basic case, consider a long position moving against you. With additional capital you could average in as the price drops or you could write options against your position. If you don't have the capital to handle when (not if) a trade move against you then you're at a significant disadvantage as your only option may be a liquidation.


No, inaction is not always the rational choice in your scenario. To give an extreme example as proof: Let's say that you have $1,000. The expected value of inaction is $0 - you will end up with the same amount (minus inflation, but we can ignore that for this exercise). If your only other option is an investment which has a 75% chance of losing all of your money, and a 25% chance of doubling your money, then your expected value is ((75% * -$1,000)+ (25% * $1,000)) = -$500. In that case your best option is obviously inaction. However, let's say that you have a 75% chance of losing all of your money, but a 25% chance of making $1,000,000 on your investment. In that case, the expected value of investing is ((75% * -$1,000)+ (25% * $1,000,000)) = $249,250. This means that the rational thing is to make the investment. Basically, the 25% chance of making $1M is worth the 75% chance of losing everything.


Yes you have the freedom to leave the country. The only problem is that in every country there are 9 other people just waiting for you to move there so that they can do the same.  The Supreme Court interprets the constitution and not the Social Contract. And first you base your argument on the constitution, and then one second later you say that the constitution is outdated. Make up your mind please.  Capitalism is anarchy. It is not a system. What is a more correct distribution of wealth than allowing everyone to keep what they earned with their skills on a free market? Monopoly is a game.  You certainly don't better society by exploiting a minority, that's for sure.


If the money is a gift the lender will make everybody acknowledge that the money is a gift. They will not care if the gift triggers tax forms for the giver. Signing the gift forms specifying it is a gift when it isn't a gift is fraud, and there are penalties attached to that. If it is a loan that will not erase the PMI requirement. Because the lender for the main part of the mortgage will want to protect their investment. Related to other impacts.


"I don't think any of us claims pizza is an American creation instead of an Italian one. Pizza *is* an Italian creation.    We are only saying that the regular pizzas they have in the US are mostly non-Italian style, and shouldn't be count as real authentic Italian food. It'd be like saying pastas are an Chinese creation. Pastas was inspired by the Chinese, but the Chinese didn't create pastas, they have [mian] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_noodles ), which means noodles.    Point is, if someone change something too much and that thing becomes a ""new/different"" thing, we will call that person the creator and use its terms."


"It is a legitimate practice. The dealers do get the loan money ""up front"" because they're not holding the loan themselves; they promptly sell it to someone else or (more commonly) just act as salesmen for a lending institution and take their profit as commission or origination fees. The combined deal is often not a good choice for the consumer, though. Remember that the dealer's goal is to close a sale with maximum profit. If they're offering to drop the price $2k, they either didn't expect to actually get that price in the first place, or expect at least $2k of profit from the loan, or some combination of these. Standard advice is to negotiate price, loan, and trade-in separately. First get the dealer's best price on the car, compare it to other dealer and other cars, and walk away if you don't like their offer. Repeat for the loan, checking the dealer's offer against banks/credit unions available to you. If you have an older car to unload, get quotes for it and consider whether you might do better selling it yourself. ========= Standard unsolicited plug for Consumef Reports' ""car facts"" service, if you're buying a new car (which isn't usually the best option; late-model used is generally a better value). For a small fee, they can tell you what the dealer's real cost of a car is, after all the hidden incentives and rebates. That lets you negotiate directly on how much profit they need on this sale... and focuses their attention on the fact that the time they spend haggling with you is time they could be using to sell the next one. Simply walking into the dealer with this printout in your hand cuts out a lot of nonsense. The one time I bought new, I basically walked in and said ""It's the end of the model year. I'll give you $500 profit to take one of those off your hands before the new ones come in, if you've got one configured the way I want it."" Closed the deal on the spot; the only concession I had to make was on color.  It doesn't always work; some salesmen are idiots. In that case you walk away and try another dealer. (I am not affiliated in any way with CU or the automotive or lending industries, except as customer. And, yes, this touch keyboard is typo-prone.)"


That sounds like bunk too me. Even if it does, the total number of loans isn't going to be a major factor in your credit score. I wouldn't worry about it unless you have other reasons to consolidate the loans. For example, Government student loans can introduce risk into your finances in that they are difficult to dismiss as part of a bankruptcy if that ever becomes necessary.


There's a difference between your street level drug dealer sending you sales proceeds of $20,000 in $5,000 increments to avoid sending you $10,000 or $20,000 at once to avoid the scrutiny of a government agency that might not be thrilled with your business venture, and a tire shop paying a wholesaler $5,000 each time funds are available up to the amount owed of $20,000. The former is illegal for a few reasons, and the latter is business as usual.


">I'm an idiot.  Yup you are.  >I implied that Gen X, as middle managers, had direct operational control over decisions that led to financial crisis.  But the very BASIS on which you made that claim (which is false BTW) was your idiotic confusion of GenX with the Baby Boom.  So your entirely argument was flawed from the get go.  You don't get to have your cake and eat it at the same time dude.  >You chose to ignore that point entirely.  Nope. Didn't ""ignore"" it at all, I cut the proverbial legs out from underneath it, and the whole construct toppled over as a result.  *But hey, don't let that stop you from making and even greater ass out of yourself.*"


There are a number of benefits to this type of account.  If one has highly appreciated stock (think Apple), donations of the stock are taken at current value, so for example, I donate $10,000 worth of shares, which cost me $100. In the 28% bracket, and itemizing, I see a $2800 benefit. But, I also avoid a $9900 capital gain and the 15% tax on that, or $1485. In this example, the fund comes into play as it would allow me to break up that $10,000 into smaller donations, and over a number of years.  Next example - In my article some years ago Fun with Schedule A I describe how a strategy of 'bunching' ones itemized deductions every other year can help push people into the ability to itemize where normally they just miss doing so. Using the charitable fund can help people smooth out their contributions to the end charities while actually making the out of pocket withdrawal every other year.  Last - there are many whose income is irregular for whatever reason. This type of account can be useful to help people in this situation make a deposit in high income/high tax rate years, skipping the deposit in low income/low rate years, but still keep up with the annual charity support.  Obviously, one's goal is to help the charities they wish to support, it's silly to donate 'for the deduction.' But, for those who are charitable, these strategies help them divert more money to the charity and less to Uncle Sam.  Sorry, I'm not sure about the math to show that 6.46%. My answer was to share the benefits of using these types of accounts.


I'm not sure about the preventing, you may be right. But the USA basically prevents people from going to college of they are too poor, even if they have the grades. So which is more disgusting, grade-based admissions or wealth-based admissions?  In Israel, you can go to college if you didn't have the top grades but you might need to pay more and go to a worse school. So I don't know where you're talking about.  As for best universities, those were created while encouraging kids to go. How long will that last if the USA starts discouraging education? Not long.  I think back to that scene in the movie Inception where the guy's older self tells him: I'm from the future. You should go to China.


Based on Dalio's interviews, he seems to think it's kind of too little too late. He said the Fed did a great job maneuvering out of the crisis, but then coasted for too long when they should have been tightening. Now it's too late and trying to play catch up might destabilize things to the point where they would be the *cause* of the next recession.


If you are able to buy a 150K home for 50K now that would be a good deal!  However, you can't you have to borrow 100K in order to make this deal happen.  This dramatically increases the risk of any investment, and I would no longer classify it as passive income.   The mortgage on a 150K place would be about 710/month (30 year fixed).  Reasonably I would expect no more than 1200/month in rent, or 14,400.  A good rule of thumb is to assume that half of rental revenue can be counted as profit before debt service.  So in your case 7200, but you would have a mortgage payment of 473/month.  Leaving you a profit of 1524 after debt service.  This is suspiciously like 2K per year.  Things, in the financial world, tend to move toward an equilibrium. The benefit of rental property you can make a lot more than the numbers suggest.  For example the home could increase in value, and you can have fewer than expected repairs.  So you have two ways to profit:  rental revenue and asset appreciation. However, you said that you needed passive income.  What happens if you have a vacancy or the tenant does not pay?  What happens if you have greater than expected repairs?  What happens if you get a fine from the HOA or a special assessment?  Not only will you have dip into your pocket to cover the payment, you might also have to dip into your pocket to cover the actual event! In a way this would be no different than if you borrowed 100K to buy dividend paying stocks.  If the fund/company does not pay out that month you would still have to make the loan payment.  Where does the money come from?  Your pocket.  At least dividend paying companies don't collect money from their shareholders. Yes you can make more money, but you can also lose more.  Leverage is a two edged sword and rental properties can be great if you are financial able to absorb the shocks that are normal with ownership.


No, it is because Google purchased the software that Orbitz and others used, thereby creating a huge mess in courts that had to be worked out with a number of promises that Google made. Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons (some from the airlines themselves), Google was not able to make good on those promises. Orbitz and the like are angry at this and see it as anti-competitive practices.


There are so few VP spots available at top firms, so they can choose the top of their class.  The hierarchy is more like a pyramid in terms of size, which makes sense due to the difference in job roles and tenure as you become more senior


I saw this in Shanghai last year, we took our time to browse all the sections to look at all the items not available at home.   Funny enough, most locals were just walking in, showing their phones and picking up their orders - so I imagine app ordering will be part of the kiosk rollout to move the regulars along quickly.


is it a smart thing for an entry level employee with a basic pay to buy a property on debt ? This is opinion based and can't be conclusively answered by others. Only you can make the choice. Their reasoning is that, since I am paying for their house rent right now(I have been doing this ever since I got into graduate school), I could divert it to pay for the loan while getting a property in return If I understand this, you are currently NRI [as you are working in Japan], you would like to take a home loan in India and buy a property in India.  In the current scenario, the EMI towards home loan do not equate to the Rent as property prices have gone up in most places. In 2002 - 2007, there was a time of low interest rates and low property prices, that along with tax breaks made it cheaper to buy than rent. Also note that since you are NRI, you do not get any income tax rebate on interest paid. If you buy please ensure that all the EMI's are paid from NRE account. This would in future help you repatriate funds out of India, if you plan to sell the house. But I am scared of getting into debt so early in my career. If I commit myself like that, it might make me less courageous in making career changes till I finish paying off that debt. This is a valid concern, if you need to pursue further studies, or take a break for a change in career, it would make it difficult. Also note there are additional costs of buying a house, apart from EMI, there property tax, if you staying in society, a monthly maintenance etc.


I definitely get that, my company has been really big on ILS’s lately, so in a meeting the other day I was looking at ways to short Cat Bonds....   The problem is you’d have to offer a big premium to someone that you sell the risk too since the whole industry is having to do that now. And on risky areas like Oklahoma or California for earthquakes I couldn’t imagine the premium you’d have to pay since the risk is up front and present. If you don’t want to pay the premium and choose some risk that isn’t as foreseen you should probably have a good method of evaluating that risk. Which is the point I have ran into in my quest to short ILSs.


"Fail? What is the standard? If you include the base case of keeping your money under a mattress, then you only have to earn a $1 over your lifetime of investing to not fail. What about making more by investing when compared to keeping money in a checking or savings account? How could 90% of investors fail to achieve these standards? Update: with the hint from the OP to google ""90% investors lose their money"" it is clear that ""experts"" on complex trading systems are claiming that the 90% of the people that try similar systems, fail to make money. Therefore try their system, for a fee. The statements are being made by people who have what should be an obvious bias."


"No they won't; EVs are more than ""a few years"" from being the majority of cars on the road. And even then, what's to stop Oregon/Jersey from requiring an attendant from plugging your car into the recharging station? It's not like there's a valid reason for gas station attendants other than artificially increasing the number of the jobs."


100% agree with this guy. I worked in corporate development with two former investment bankers this summer and they both agreed that banks look, of course, for smart guys, but more importantly they look for smart guys who know how to have a good time and have interesting stories. Make sure it's clear that you are interested in more than just powerpoints and modeling.


Many of these products are similar in nature and often depend on the issuing bank.   Cashier's Check Are checks signed and guaranteed by the bank.  This means the funds are coming from the bank instead of your account -- which usually means they immediately take the money from your account.  This is usually the most secure of the options and usually doesn't have many restrictions.  Certified Check Are checks signed by the customer, certified by the bank that you have enough funds and that your signature is genuine.  Usually, but not always - the bank will set aside the funds.   Bank Draft Similar to a certified check but the bank will set aside the funds until the bank draft is used.  Generally used in transactions involving larger sums. Money order It's a payment order similar to a certified check; however, it needs to be prepaid.  Also money orders may have maximum face values allowed.


"I am starting to suspect that you don't really have a position to stand on other than ""gubment bad"".   Even though I suspect I am going to be beating my head against a wall, I will give it a shot anyways:  Okay, so why shouldn't government invest in *anything*?"


You'll need to talk to your broker about registering positions you already hold.  I would personally expect this will cost you a not-insignificant fee.  And I don't think you'll be able to do this on any shares held in a tax-advantaged account. That said, I'd recommend you go to the Investors sections of the company's website in question.  This will usually tell you who the registrar of the company's stock is, and if they offer any direct-purchase, or DRIP, programs.   You should find out from these contacts and program details how the direct program works and what it's costs are. I suspect, but have no firsthand knowledge that this will be true, that you'll end up with lower costs if you just sell the shares in your brokerage, take the cash out, send the cash to the registrar and re-purchase shares that way.   I say this only because I know, from inheritance situations, that de-registering stock cost me a $75 fee at my brokerage, whereas transactions at the registrar were $19.95. My answers to your direct questions: (Edited to fully answer the question with itemized answers.)


When we 'delta-hedge', we make the value of a portfolio 0.  No - you make the risk relative to some underlying 0.  The portfolio does have a value, but if whatever underlying you're hedging against changes slightly the value of your portfolio should not change. But, what is the derivative of a portfolio?  It's the instantaneous rate of change of the portfolio) relative to some underlying phenomenon.  With a portfolio of many stocks, there's not one single factor that drives the value of your portfolio. You have sensitivity to each underlying stock (price and volatility), interest rates, the market as a whole, etc. For simplicity, we might imagine a portfolio that has holdings in .... a call .... a stock .... and a bank account (to borrow and lend money).  You will have a delta relative to the stock and a delta relative to the underlying instrument on the option, etc.  Those can only be aggregated for each factor (e.g. if the call is an option on the same stock) Theta is the only one you can calculate for the portfolio as a whole - it will be the aggregate theta of all of your positions (since change in time is constant across all investments).  All of the others are not aggregatable since they are measuring sensitivities to different phenomena.


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In 2011, General Re (owned by Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet's company) reported over $28 billion in investments and cash, over $20B in underwriting reserves. That's one reinsurer. They'll sell investments, and hand out cash, and somehow that cash will end up in investments again. In a country with $15T GDP, it's not like the cash just isn't there.   Also, given the financial high cost to human cost ratio (billions in damage, few lives lost) they may play hardball on claims.


"There's an aspect to this question that I really love. In general, it's a question about consumer behavior that can be expanded to inquire about the purchasing profile of any luxury good. Who buys $500 pocketbooks, $1000 wristwatches, etc? I can offer one observation regarding the car. Two close neighbors, both couples drive cars valued well above what my wife and I drive. Both families moved, and shared with us that they failed to save for their kid's college tuition. My response was to feel that this was a choice they made. As I commented to my daughter, ""We can afford anything, we just can't afford everything."" Our budget started with saving both for retirement and college. Very little eating out, and modest vacations, cars, and clothing. This story is getting more common for us as our peers have high school age children.  As others have mentioned, the millionaire next door does not drive a Ferrari or wear a Rolex. To some extent, if you were able to peek at the budgets of these car buyers, you'll find what members here would consider at best, an interesting set of priorities."


"Ah, I just read a fascinating comparison between *gambling, investing, and trading* on either /r/foodforthought, /r/depthhub or maybe /r/truereddit. It reminded me a lot of the ""investors"" in Trump's projects.   My take on it is anyone putting money into one of his projects does so with the awareness of his track record, and is simply playing the game at that level. If they somehow haven't protected themselves against the possible loss of their ""investment"", that would be as silly as failing to carry health/homeowner/vehicle insurance.   One obvious response is to sue, alleging that Trump is evil, and that he intentionally stole money from his hapless investors. Finance at that level is a strategy game. He happens to be a skilled player, and especially adapt at extracting himself from seemingly losing positions. Personally, I wouldn't play at his table."


"The reason for this is arbitrage. In an free and open market, investments that are certain to generate above-average profits would do so by being sold cheaply, while having a high return on investment after that. But in a free market, prices are set by supply and demand. There is a high demand and little supply for investments that would certainly outperform the market. The demand is in fact so high, that the purchase price rises to the point of eliminating that excess return. And with high-frequency automated trading, that price hike is instant. But who would even want to sell such guaranteed outperformers in the first place? Of course, there are uncertainties associated with stocks, and individual stocks therefore move independently. As ""the market"" is an average, some stocks will therefore beat the market over certain time periods. That's random statistical variation. The only realistic path to above-average returns is to accept higher risks. As discussed above, nobody wants to sell you safe bets. But risky bets are another matter. Different actors will price risk differently. If you aren't worried much about risk, you can pick up stocks that are cheap by your standards. That is possible only because such stocks aren't cheap by risk-averse standards.  Looking a bit deeper, we see that arbitrage works in a free market because there's essentially perfect information. But risk is precisely the absence of such information, and that can lead to price variations. Yet, as the lack of information means a lack of certainty, you can't use this to reliably beat the market."


Well, it sucks that your landlord doesn't try to make you happier, and it doesn't sound like a very good place to live for very long.  But I don't really see reasons for getting pissed or calling him a slumlord - I mainly just see reasons to move out.    Really, what you've said is no reason to be pissed off at him.  He didn't build it?  Who the hell builds their own home or apt?  Maintains to the minimum required by the lease?  Well, that's certainly not the definition of a slumlord, and at least he's basically doing what is required.  It's nice if he does more, but as you said, he's doing what's required.  Upgrading falls into the last category... if he doesn't feel that it's worthwhile upgrading, why should he do it?  You know, just because he owns the place doesn't mean he's rich; he may be just getting by, and may need all his extra income to support his sick mother or something.  It's not fair to call someone like that a slumlord - maybe the ones you mentioned in Allston or Brighton are.  I don't think I've ever actually lived in any rental that was upgraded while I was living there.  And I usually didn't want to be bothered with it anyway.  As long as everything worked like it did when I moved in, that was all I wanted or expected.


If you can afford the payments on a 10-year mortgage for a property, that's an indication that it's very affordable.  This assumes that there aren't a ton of hidden costs in this property (which could be why it's going so cheaply). Looking at more expensive houses just because you can afford them is exactly what the lenders want you to do, and it's dangerous.  Resist the temptation.  If you're happy, you're happy.


"It could be just as exploitable given the current system.  Also, who is this ""owner""?  A large shareholder of a public corporation isn't just going to come into 16 houses.  There's a board of directors, and about a million other shareholders, including those in blackrock and vangaurd who have nothing to gain from allowing such corruption.  A private company's owner who decided to buy himself a house on the company's dime and not tell the IRS can do so at his peril regardless of tax policy.  I still don't understand the point."


Capital International Business Center is one of the first business centers in Hong Kong that providing one-stop business services like temporary offices, meeting rooms, registration service, virtual office. The company is the first to receive an ISO9002 service quality certification in Hong Kong and one of the first to establish a full-service system.


The screen copy talks about disablity, so if you want to cut your leg off or so, this would work. Otherwise, yes, you can retire anytime now. However, you can only get social security benefits after you turn 60, and it will not be much. So if you have enough money around to feed yourself till you turn 60, and thereafter want to live on the meager benefits, then you can retire now.


During my time in the UK I've never seen saving bonds or other term deposit accounts that were not denominated in GBP. The obvious downside of converting the money into GBP would be that you're adding currency risk to the whole scenario. If the EUR appreciates against the GBP, you'll have to make up for that too, just to keep your nominal capital intact.


"In 2010, the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act was passed, which prohibited certain activities, most of which had to do with online sites sharing your CC info with third parties.  However, the final part of the act deals with ""negative option"" marketing, which is basically what you're describing - ""We will charge you unless you say no"". It requires three components to allow a negative option: If you did not explicitly enroll in automatic payment, and made the initial purchase online (or made your most recent purchase online, I suspect) then it sounds like this was a violation of this act.  On the other hand, the act isn't terribly careful about defining terms, and is really quite vague in a lot of places, so it's possible they would argue they are not using a 'negative option' scheme but instead simply charging your bill similar to how your phone company might use autopay. If it was not online, then this probably doesn't apply.  Instead, the FTC's rule on Negative Option with regard to sale of goods applies.  Title 16 Part 425 covers this; this law is much less limiting as to what the marketer can do."


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>Historically successful for another country.  It has been the case for the entire rise of the industrial revoluttion and for all western economies, all the economies that have the highest standards of living in the history of the world.  So by that metric it is pretty successful.  Good luck with your strawmen.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/after-universal-basic-income-the-flood-217db9889c07) reduced by 97%. (I'm a bot) ***** > We have at least hints from current behavior that UBI may be fundamentally attacking the wrong problem and I think many UBI advocates under-appreciate this.  > If the total UBI system cost as a percent of tax receipts becomes large, UBI may preclude these things from ever being built.  > I have a big list of pro/con worked out for Basic Jobs/Agriculture, which will eventually be Part 2.I would be happy to read any thoughts, especially about uncommon UBI plusses or alternatives.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/788a7w/after_universal_basic_income_the_flood/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~233563 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*: **UBI**^#1 **people**^#2 **money**^#3 **more**^#4 **problem**^#5"


We've had a Costco membership for at least 15 years and only buy a few things there: paper goods (t.p. and paper towels), laundry detergent, and the contents of food bags my wife assembles to hand out to people who look like they could use some sustenance -- peanuts, Slim Jims, granola bars, peanut-butter crackers, etc.  We shop there *maybe* twice a month, tops.


Here is the derivation of the formula, with The loan is equal to the sum of the repayments discounted to present value.


because it cost the insurer more, obviously. while this sounds snarky, it's important to realize that actual insurance companies set their insurance rates based on actual historical costs. for some reason people who report low miles have cost the company more dollars per reported mile than people who report high miles. in that sense, insurance is not overpriced. if it were truly overpriced, then an insurer would specialize in such insurance and make a killing on the free market. the more interesting questions is why do drivers who claim to travel very few miles cost the insurance companies so much per mile? that question has a host of possible answers and it's difficult to say which is the largest cost. here are just a few:


a typical debit card is subject to several limits:


Really a very straightforward situation, and subsequently, answer.  Call the university pursors that you normally deal with, ask them to document the last 3 months of disbursements and highlight the incorrect one(s). If the money is already spent out, ask them if they can apply it to future disbursements via adjusting entries, and call it a day.  If not, and you CAN pay it back, go to your bank and ask them to figure it out...which they should be able to do, having the original sender's info.


Assuming that the financial system broke down, not enough supply of essential commodities or food but there is political and administrative stability and no such chaos that threatens your life by physical attacks.  The best investment would then be some paddy fields, land, some cows, chickens and enough clothing , a safe house to stay and a healthy life style that enables you to work for food and some virtue at heart and management skills to get people work for you on your resources so that they can survive with you (may be you earn some profit -that is up to your moral standards to decide, how much). It all begins to start again; a new Financial System has to be in place….!


"A few years ago our company switched from Fidelity to a different 401k provider. During the blackout transition, nearly every employee lost a considerable amount of money. The ""Trustee"" advised us that during the blackout he had a right to invest the funds and that the investments lost money."


Westgate properties are also hotels, so you may have.    I have been reading through pages of these complaints all day.  It's amazing that people will sign these contracts without reading them first, instead believing what they are told by a high-pressure salesman.  Seems like you would do a little research before spending tens of thousands of dollars.  But that in no way excuses the tactics of Westgate.  It's amazing that they have been operating like this for so long.


Getting to know business associates, family members, and friends of your those 30 high net-worth clients would be a good way to go. I feel mid-career folks are an untapped market. Consider the present value of any younger clients before you dismiss them because they are below the threshold. A 30 year old professional with only $100k may be more valuable than a 75 year old with $250k. Good luck.


In the case of HP, in the early to mid 1990's they had done really well, but by the late 90's the board and shareholders wanted to see even more profits thanks to the internet boom. They ousted their CEO Platt, who rose through the HP ranks, brought in Fiorina who was from AT&T (old Long Distance AT&T not the SBC/Cingular one we have now), who over-promised and never delivered and basically forced HP in buying Compaq which nearly destroyed HP.  The only reason why HP is still around today is thanks to its business line of workstations and printers. The company made many bad decisions during Fiorini tenure which was amazing that anyone trusted her, but I'm guessing she was great at hissy fits. Somehow she has made a name for herself and is now trying politics and her type of leadership fits perfectly with the current republican party.


I was going to comment above, but I must have 50 reputation to comment. This is a question that vexes me, and I've given it some thought in the past. Morningstar is a good choice for simple, well-organized financial histories.   It has more info available for free than some may realize.  Enter the ticker symbol, and then click either the Financials or the Key Ratios tab, and you will get 5-10 years of some key financial stats.  (A premium subscription is $185 per year, which is not too outrageous.) The American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) provides some good histories, and a screener, for a $29 annual fee. Zacks allows you to chart a metric like EPS going back a long ways, and so you can then click the chart in order to get the specific number.  That is certainly easier than sorting through financial reports from the SEC.  (A message just popped up to say that I'm not allowed to provide more than 2 links, so my contribution to this topic will end here.  You can do a search to find the Zacks website.  I love StackExchange and usually consult it for coding advice.  It just happens to be an odd coincidence that this is my first answer.  I might even have added that aside in a comment, but again, I can't comment as of yet.) It's problem, however, that the universe of free financial information is a graveyard of good resources that no longer exist.  It seems that eventually everyone who provides this information wants to cash in on it.  littleadv, above, says that someone should be paid to organize all this information. However, think that some basic financial information, organized like normal data (and, hey, this is not rocket science, but Excel 101) should be readily available for free.  Maybe this is a project that needs to happen.  With a mission statement of not selling people out later on. The closest thing out there may be Quandl (can't link; do a search), which provides a lot of charts for free, and provides a beautiful and flexible API.  But its core US fundamental data, provided by Sharadar, costs $150 per quarter.  So, not even a basic EPS chart is available there for free. With all of the power that corporations have over our society, I think they could be tabulating this information for us, rather than providing it to us in a data-dumb format that is the equivalent of printing a SQL database as a PDF!  A company that is worth hundreds of billions on the stock market, and it can't be bothered to provide us with a basic Excel chart that summarizes its own historical earnings?  Or, with all that the government does to try to help us understand all of these investments, they cannot simply tabulate some basic financial information for us? This stuff matters a great deal to our lives, and I think that much of it could and should be available, for free, to all of us, rather than mainly to financial professionals and those creating glossy annual reports. So, I disagree that yet another entity needs to be making money off providing the BASIC transparency about something as simple as historical earnings. Thank you for indulging that tangent.  I know that SE prides itself on focused answers.  A wonderful resource that I greatly appreciate.


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey  Above is the long history but no it's not the city of Ny. It's basically it's own entity that was given the right to collect tolls on certain nj/ny crossings, ports, airports. They also have to provide the security through their police force.


What's the point of commenting on a down voted thread anyway? There is no agreed upon cut-off for Gen X. You could make an argument that anyone over 40 and under 60 is Gen X.   The point is that Gen X is not some hapless victim in this crisis. Many of the mid-level executives and managers responsible for mortgage fraud, derivatives fraud and all levels of financial abuse are members of Generation X.  What generation is the London Whale? How about Blythe Masters?  You Gen X'ers really got a sore spot, huh? Couldn't have had anything to do with you. Just hapless victims of generational warfare.  Don't worry. You get first dibs at taking the helm of the sinking ship. Just have to pry the Boomers cold dead hands off the wheel first.


Từ thuyết Âm Dương, JIMMY xây dựng lý thuyết thị trường đối xứng, tạm gọi là lý thuyết JIMMY  Giả định: Tất cả các yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến thị trường điều được ảnh ánh hoàn toàn vào giá thị trường. Ta sẽ có những yếu tố sau: - Vùng giá để tham gia thị trường (trong 1 giai đoạn: 1 phút, 1 giờ, 1 phiên, 1 ngày, 1 tuần, v.v…) chủ yếu là dựa vào tâm lý của thị trường. Từ yếu tố tâm lý này mà thị trường hình thành nên những vùng giá khó phá vỡ (vùng cản xu hướng). - Trước khi thị trường đi theo 1 xu hướng nhất định đều phải trải qua 1 quá trình tích lũy (side way) trong 1 biên độ hẹp và hình thành nên những mô hình (đảo chiều hoặc tiếp diễn). Thời gian tích lũy càng lâu thì xu hướng càng mạnh và có giá trị giao dịch tốt hơn.  Ứng dụng: - Mục tiêu (target) của 1 xu hướng của thị trường chính là độ rộng của quá trình tích lũy của thị trường và đối xứng nhau qua vùng cản xu hướng. Như vậy, vùng giá kỳ vọng của Vàng năm 2012 được tính toán theo lý thuyết đồi xứng là vùng giá xung quanh diểm xoay 2499 usd/ounce khi giá Vàng bức phá vùng cản xu hướng được hình thành ở giá 1920(ngày 6-09-2011) và giá 1790(ngày 29-2-2012)


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"In one personal finance book I read that if a company is located in a country with credit rating X it can't have credit rating better (lower - i.e. further from AAA level) than X. This is simply wrong. Real world evidence proves it wrong. Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Exxon Mobile (XOM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and Microsoft (MSFT) all have a triple-A rating today, even though the United States doesn't. Toyota (TM) remained triple-A for many years even after Japanese debt was downgraded. The explanation was the following: country has rating X because risk of doing business with it is X and so risk of doing business with any company located in that country automatically can't be better than X. When reading financial literature, you should always be critical. Let's evaluate this statement. First off, a credit rating is not the ""risk of doing business."" That is way too generic. Specifically, a credit rating attempts to define an individual or company's ability to repay it's obligations. Buying treasuries constitutes as doing business with the gov't, but you can argue that buying stamps at USPS is also doing business with the gov't, and a credit rating won't affect the latter too much.  So a credit rating reflects the ability of an entity to repay it's obligations. What does the ability of a government to repay have to do with the ability of companies in that country to repay? Not much. Certainly, if a company keeps it's surplus cash all in treasuries, then downgrading the government will affect the company, but in general, the credit rating of a company determines the company's ability to pay."


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"I am in a different situation, because I earn more than I spend, but I have found that I need to make the money inaccessible if I want to really avoid spending it.  I used to just throw my paychecks into a high-yield savings account, but eventually the balance was large enough that a ""large purchase"" didn't seem like ""that much"" (because I would have had so much left in the account after the purchase).  It was way too easy for me to spend way too much. Now, I invest my savings automatically.  The obvious benefit is my money has a much higher growth rate than a simple savings account (especially with fed interest rates so low).  I invest most of my savings in 401(k)/IRA retirement accounts, where there are severe penalties for withdrawing prior to retirement age.  Then, I invest a significant portion to a regular brokerage account, where the money is invested in stock and bond funds.  This money is accessible within a few days of whenever I need it.  The remainder of my savings goes into a savings account as cash I can get to at any time.  All 3 accounts grow with every paycheck (market fluctuations aside).   This 3-tiered system helps me to categorize my savings as ""Never, ever touch"" (retirement accounts), ""Touch, only if I can wait 3 days and am willing to pay taxes"" (brokerage account), or ""touch whenever you need it, with no penalties"" (Savings account).  If my savings account grows too much, I'll move money from there to the brokerage account (where it has more growth potential).  The longer my money is invested in the brokerage accounts, the less taxes I'll need to pay when I sell/withdraw the funds, so that's even more incentive for me to keep those funds where they are. I have credit cards, so in my opinion, having to wait 3 days for funds from my investment account to become accessible is considered ""accessible in an emergency,"" because my credit cards can be used to cover a large purchase for 3 days, and as long as I pay it off within the grace period, there's no interest charged. tl;dr investing is probably the smartest way to both grow your money and prevent the urge to spend it right away.  My advice is to start with a 401(k) or IRA as soon as you can, since the younger you are, the more time until retirement that your money has to compound.  Investing $100 more a month can mean hundreds of thousands of additional dollars in your account when you're ready to retire."


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No. And I'll let my good friend and fellow blogger Kay Bell answer in some detail, in her article Deducting private mortgage insurance.


I understand where you're coming from but you're mostly just quoting the plaintiff's attorney. That's not going to be the source of unbiased information. Furthermore, I don't trust general news sources when it comes to complex financial reporting. I don't really even trust business journals as they are mostly filled with j degrees without real experience. Bankruptcy cases can get very complex and unpredictable because judge's have significant leeway; you really need to read the case opinion to see what really went down. I work in finance and deal with bankruptcies on a semi-regular case. I am on the buy side (the side that would be screwed in cases like this) so my inherent bias goes your way against poor management.   If this guy actually moved assets from company 1 to company 2 at a non-arms length transaction then that is misconduct and assets can be recovered from company 2 usually. If Learning Annex was pari passu with Robert and he pulled dividends out to himself, that is misconduct that will be punished by a bankruptcy court. If he did these things they are not smart business practices, and will be punished.  Your condescension does not help your case. I most likely know far more about this topic than you, as I have seen the nuances corporate bankruptcies take on in the real world. I just don't trust grossly oversimplified reporting in a case that is ongoing.


i would recommend that you establish a landlord/tenant relationship instead of joint ownership (ie 100% ownership stake for one of you vs 0% for the other). it is much cleaner and simpler.  basically, one of you can propose a monthly rent amount and the other one can chose to be either renter or landlord. alternatively, you can both write down a secret rental price offer assuming you are the landlord, then pick the landlord who wrote down the smaller rental price.  if neither of you can afford the down payment, then you can consider the renter's contribution an unsecured loan (at an agreed interest rate and payment schedule). if you must have both names on the financing, then i would recommend you sell the property (or refinance under a single name) as quickly as possible when the relationship ends (if not before), pay the renter back any remaining balance on the loan and leave the landlord with the resulting equity (or debt).  in any case, if you expect the unsecured loan to outlive your relationship, then you are either buying a house you can't afford, or partnering on it with someone you shouldn't.


>The EOL cycle has really sped up - it used to be you could buy a fighter jet or a transport and use it for 25 years before worrying about replacing it with the latest and greatest. Now, the latest and greatest are still on the ground before they're obsolete.  I disagree with that / think it's the other way around. The F-35 for example is currently programmed to continue flying until 2070, with each jet lasting >30 years or >8000FH without any life extensions (the F-22 was also overbuilt and is good for over 12,000 flight hours and will serve at least into the 2040s); previous jets were generally only built to (originally) last 4000 or 6000 flight hours, equating to 15 or 20 years of use. They've since had to receive service life extensions as the Cold War ended and a bunch of their replacements failed to materialise or were delayed (the A-12 Avenger was cancelled because it wasn't as stealthy as planned and was massively overweight, the F-22 was delayed and had its production run cut short, the F-35 was also delayed, but has yet to be cut back).  OP's title is (unsurprisingly considering it's Russian state media) incorrect - out of the current 250 or so F-35s, about 108 need upgrades to bring them to their final setup. The Pentagon is considering not giving them upgrades, not due to cost (it's only a few million per jet on average; way cheaper than buying 108 new jets), but because the depots and factories that would perform the upgrades are at / near capacity pumping out new jets.  *If* the Pentagon decides not to upgrade those jets (like it decided not to for early F-16s, F-15s, F/A-18s, F-22s, etc) then they'll largely be staying where they are, continuing to be training or test aircraft (the jets in the actual combat-ready squadrons are already upgraded); at no point have Pentagon officials suggested actually retiring them.


"I don't know why you shut it down from a C&D letter. If anything you should have seen it as them asking you to remove his name and any trademarks from your site.  They don't own ""fuck you"" being printed on clothes. Sounds like you pulled the trigger too quick. Bet there was plenty of money to still be made with that site. Maybe someone more resilient will pick up the torch."


I agree with JohnFx on that not being about saving money and being a publicity stunt.  But I also the main benefit of it is raising awareness of environmental issues and a incentive to saving electricity.


">>Government has been providing entitlements for 300 years in our shared Commonwealth heritage.   Magnitude is important, to say that entitlements to the current degree have been going in for 300 years contiguously is just wrong. Also, note the family's legal obligation to provide care first in one of the examples they expanded upon.   >> Government is accountable, made of Individuals, and has made real gains in providing access to the American dream since 1929.  Hows that accountability working out for ya? So you can just ignore the first 150 years or so? Thank God FDR saved us from ourselves with the new deal.   >>You're defense of this neoliberalism or Whatever is not supported by comparative history or data and is pure ideology, much like your interpretation of Christianity.  Pure ideology? If you can't even name that ideology ""or whatever"" and then proceed to characterize me as an idealougue is simply laughable. Lol"


"I spent some time searching, and couldn't find the answer written explicitly in IRS regulations.   What I did find was this chart from the irs showing that nonqualified distributions from a Roth 401k are pro-rated between contributions and earnings.  It is well documented that you can't withdraw any money early or tax free (even contributions) from a Roth 401k (""Designated Roth Account"" in IRS parlance) that has made any money. source You can do a direct rollover from a ""Designated Roth Account"" to a Roth IRA and the basis  describing contributions vs. earnings is preserved. source And there is plenty of evidence showing you can withdraw contributions from a Roth IRA without penalty. source All that being said, I can't find anything from the IRS that says this is a legitimate strategy."


On my quarterly statement and the 401K plan website I can see the vesting for various categories. They total all these up and report the total balance and the vested balance. If I do the math I discover that the vested balance is equal to A + B + D + (60% of C) For my company at least, if I was to leave now I would get 60% of the Company match, which does include significant gains. This document for the Department of Labor discuss many aspects of 401K plans including vesting. In a defined contribution plan such as a 401(k) plan, you are always   100 percent vested in your own contributions to a plan, and in any   subsequent earnings from your contributions. However, in most defined   contribution plans you may have to work several years before you are   vested in the employer’s matching contributions. (There are   exceptions, such as the SIMPLE 401(k) and safe harbor 401(k), in which   you are immediately vested in all required employer contributions. You   also vest immediately in the SIMPLE IRA and the SEP.) Currently, employers have a choice of two different vesting schedules   for employer matching 401(k) contributions, which are shown in Table   2. Your employer may use a schedule in which employees are 100 percent vested in employer contributions after 3 years of service (cliff   vesting). Under graduated vesting, an employee must be at least 20   percent vested after 2 years, 40 percent after 3 years, 60 percent   after 4 years, 80 percent after 5 years, and 100 percent after 6   years. If your automatic enrollment 401(k) plan requires employer   contributions, you vest in those contributions after 2 years.   Automatic enrollment 401(k) plans with optional matching contributions   follow one of the vesting schedules noted above.


> his wealth will be sold, liquidated  My main interest is where will the proceeds go to? To public coffers? I don't think so. It will most likely go to charity foundations or funds run by their offsprings and relatives.   Hasn't Facebook guy said the same thing?


"I'm not saying necessarily arguing with the idea that chasing prestige is a mistake, but the way that this is argued within this article is fundamentally flawed. The author even says ""Fuck prestige, get money"" at the end - this is entirely the 'wrong' mindset. One of the worst things you can do in your career is chase dollars early on without considering what you actually want to spend your life doing. Many savvy people would work at McKinsey for free if they could include it in their resume - these are the kinds of jobs that set you up with skills and opportunity for a long, long time.  At any rate, prestige early on will open a lot of doors later in your career. Even if your dreams are entrepreneurial, you'll go from being ""a guy starting a company"" to a ""an ex Goldman Sachs executive launching exciting new startup"".  A career is a marathon, not a sprint."


So, if we can't trust people to know what they want, who makes the decisions about what they should have, and what gives them that right?  I'm not suggesting environments don't play a role in human development, I'm suggesting that people need to learn to deal with the realities of their environments as part of their character growth. When you say that not being able to resist buying skittles is a serious problem, while there are still people living on the streets, I think you need some perspective.  I'd wager that what you're seeing as you get older is the poverty trap, which is a real problem, but which is caused by barriers to expanding earnings much more than by irrational spending (though it is a factor).  As for the insult, that's the impression your arguments gave, and I'd still like to know whether you believe you yourself need to be protected from these marketing practices, or you only feel that this is only necessary for others (implying they are somehow your inferiors in their ability to self-manage).


Every organization is built on teamwork. So knowing your team mates is crucial. Insist on informal introductions which help your team member openly talk about who they are as people, what they like and don't. Getting to know them at a slightly more personal level helps them warm up to you as a leader.


You are not actually entitled to any raise at all, unless you had something contractually (legally binding) which made that so. I'm answering this from the UK, but it has been common practice for people over the last 10 years or so to receive no yearly raise, in some sectors. This is what I would consider a bad raise - if wages are not kept in line with inflation, you are effectively earning less every year. In this regard I would not work for any employer who did not offer an annual raise that was at the very least covering the rate of inflation (these rates are easy to find in your country by Googling it). In terms of a standard raise, I would argue there is no such thing. This depends on the industry/sector you work in, your employers opinion of your performance (note I've used the word opinion because sometimes you may think the effort you put in is different to what they think - be prepared to give evidence of what you've achieved for them, with things to back it up). A good raise is anything which is way above a standard raise. Since there is no concise definiton of a standard raise, this is also hard to quantify. As others have mentioned do not stay in a role where you are not being given a raise that covers inflation, because it means every year you have less purchasing power, which is akin to your salary going down. It's very easy to justify to an employer you're leaving - and indeed one you're going to - why you're making the move under these conditions.


It's a good city. Better than I remembered from when I was younger. Went back a couple times this year and really enjoyed it. Lots of stuff open pretty late, and they have built up their bicycle lanes and public bike program to get around. Lots of art galleries (I went for a project I had in a gallery) and enough counterculture that no matter what you are into you will find something you like.   I probably wouldn't want to live there though. I like my smaller cities I think.


Buy something from Nordstrom, then return it and ask for cash. They may ask for your ID.  Nordstrom's return policies are very lax and they will almost always give cash when asked for, sometimes even if you don't have the receipt.


Contrary to what other people said I believe that even without leverage you can lose more that you invest when you short a FX. Why? because the amount it can go down is alwasy limited to zero but it can, potentially, go up without limit.  See This question for a mored detailed information.


Here is a list of European ETFs you can buy in Europe:  iShares Europe and DB x-Trackers. Both offer ETFs for Spanish citizens.  Regarding your question in your comment on if you could buy Austrian ETFs as a Spanish citizen: If your broker offers Austrian ETFs you can buy them as well. I do not believe that there would be any legal restrictions.  For a good international broker, which would allow you to buy these ETFs I would recommend looking at Interactive Brokers.com


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If you don't have a bank account then open one and use the check as your opening deposit.  You'll need to obtain a Social Security card as well (you didn't indicate you have one or not, so I'll assume you don't), but they're free and quick to apply for.   I assume you're from Washington state, so there should be no problem with you opening an account in Washington, no matter where the check is from.  Because of the amount of the check, the bank will probably only let yo have a part of the amount for a few days until it clears, but federal banking rules require quick clearance of out-of-state checks (I think it's 48 hours now), so you'd have access to at least half of the money right away and the rest in a few days.


When you say consumer, my understanding of GE is that it is an industrial company -- very little of what they do now is consumer facing.   My experience is a few years old - I did work with GE Water, which is now GE Power and Water.  If you want my take, it is Immelt leaving and Flannery putting up a low water mark so he can 'paint the tape' in future years.  IMO Immelt wasn't a bad CEO, but he had decades of Welsh balance sheet to clean up


While losing market share. That's the required context to understand why their model isn't working.   Price hikes reduced their losses but people still jumped ship. Their top line growth is a result of market growth and not competitive growth as a company.


No no no, the stock market is always going up, so OP just needs to lever up by writing a bunch of put options on the S&P 500. I mean it hasn't had a serious drop in like a year, it's basically free money, right?  (But seriously, OP, 100% safe 4% returns are unrealistic unless you're an arbitrage genius).


One explanation is that movie patrons are considering their total willingness to pay for the movie experience so that if the ticket price plus the market price of popcorn is less than their willingness to pay (WTP), the theater has an opportunity to extract more consumer surplus by charging higher than market prices for the popcorn (that is, price discrimination). There is a working paper on the subject by Gill and Hartmann (2008), the abstract of which reads: Prices for goods such as blades for razors, ink for printers and concessions at movies are often    set well above cost.  Theory has shown that this could yield  a profitable price discrimination    strategy often termed “metering.”  The idea is that a customer’s intensity of demand for    aftermarket goods (e.g. the concessions) provides a meter of how much the customer is willing to    pay for the primary good (e.g. admission).  If this correlation in tastes for the two goods is    positive, a high price on the aftermarket good allows firms to extract a greater total price    (admissions plus concessions) from higher type  customers.  This paper develops a simple    aggregate model of discrete-continuous demand to motivate how this correlation can be tested    using simple regression techniques and readily available firm data.  Model simulations illustrate    that the regressions can be used to predict whether aftermarket prices should be above, below or    equal to their marginal cost.  We then apply the approach to box-office and concession data from    a chain of Spanish theaters and find that high priced concessions do extract more surplus from    customers with a greater willingness to pay for the admission ticket.  Locay and Rodriquez (1992) make a similar argument in a JPE article.  They essentially argue that purchases of things like movie tickets are made by groups; once individuals are constrained by the group's choice, the firm has additional market power: We present models in which price discrimination in the context of  a   two-part price can occur in some competitive markets. Purchases  take   place in groups, which choose which firms to patronize. While  firms   are perfectly competitive with respect to  groups, they have  some   market power over individual consumers, who are constrained  by their   groups' choices. We find that firms will charge an entry fee  that is    below marginal cost,  and  the  second part of  the  price is  marked   up  above marginal cost. The  markup not only is positive  but   increases with the quality of the product. The quote you are looking for is similar, and again attributes the discrepancy to price discrimination.  From the Armchair Economist (p. 159): The purpose of expensive popcorn is not to extract a lot of money from   customers. That purpose would be better served by cheap popcorn and   expensive movie tickets. Instead, the purpose of expensive popcorn is   to extract different sums from  different customers. Popcorn lovers,   who have more fun at the movies, pay more for their additional   pleasure. That is, some people like popcorn more than others.  The latter idea is that the movie experience for popcorn lovers is worth more than the sum of its parts: that a movie ticket + popcorn is worth more than either of them separately for some people.


The phone is getting a relaunch as Ice, and Amazon has never had a rocket. If you are referring to Blue Origin, a seperate Bezos company, they are doing quite well, comparable to where SpaceX was three to four years ago.  Did you ask for any particular reason?


I wouldn't call it apples and oranges.  This is literally an opportunity cost calculation.  You can safely assume S&P500 will perform at least 11% over any 10 year period.  Since failing companies are delisted and replaced with new growing companies, the market should continue to grow.  No, it's not guaranteed.  Lets use an aggressive number for inflation, 4%, leaving a 7% ROR estimate for S&P500.  I assume OP has better credit than me, assume a rate around 3.5%.  So it looks like net 3.5% ROR.  The PMI erases that.  You have to continue paying it until you pay off the loan.   Put 20% down, get a 15 year fixed at lowest rate.  Pay it off quicker.


You can do some very crafty hedging with the variety of options.  For instance, deep out of the money options are affected more by changes of market volatility, knowing this you can get long or short vega very easily, as opposed to necessarily betting on changes in the underlying asset.


Ok so what they list as failures are:  1. HP killing off webos and almost getting out of the next to 0 margin pc manufacturing business. This is only a failure if you think WebOS had a chance against apple, google and even blackberry, and if you think selling Yet Another China Built Laptop is a good business model.   2. Netflix raising its prices and trying to kill off its barely profitable(loss-making?) DVD business. Price increase was probably a bad idea, but the DVD thing is a good long term decision since let's be real here, DVD is fucking dead.  3. Killing Flip. Probably a good idea seeing as everyone suddenly had HD capable phones. Yeah, probably a bad idea to buy it in the first place, but at least they're not sunk cost fallacy'ing over it.   And the MBAs were right. Perfect is the enemy of good. Name one fucking ground breaking gadget that wasn't broken as fuck on release. Remember the iPhone 1? That thing was a fucking turd. iPhone 4? Barely capable of taking a phone call. The first Macbook Pros? Shit chipset that had a tendency to overheat and melt. And those are products from the God Emperor of gadgets.   Actually, all you need to know about the author is this:  >I’ve never worked a 9-to-5 job


I think he means theme parks in general.  There used to be a competitor in Palos Verdes: [Marineland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marineland_of_the_Pacific), which closed in 1987, when I was 15.  We went there all the time.  Beautiful location and a lot of fun.  My favorite part was a swim-through aquarium.  Loads of fish and even some non-aggressive sharks were in there.  You'd get a mask and a snorkel and could swim through.  Wonderful experience and a shame it's gone.


>neuroscientists and engineers are joining forces  It's about bloody time. I feel like I've been watching a dumb romantic comedy where a couple that was obviously made for each other is kept apart by almost willful stupidity.


Ask any successful person, what's more important, time or money, they'll all say the same thing--time. One can always make more money, but you'll never get the time back you invest. Now, would YOU rather invest 40 hours of your time at $13, or 30 hours of your time at $15. Tell me what's asinine. Choosing to give up your time for less dollars per hour or more?


From your question and how you have framed it, I get you find Agressive Sales tactics disturb the buying process for you. ;) I understand because I also find the whole process of Research / Negotiating / Buying / Owning / Using is all on one continuum, so anything that ruins the process will likely lose the sale or enjoyment of the item, at the end of the day.  [Very long answer .... Sorry :) ] The answer to this is to KNOW what you want before you have to deal with the Sales people. A good Sales person likes a customer who knows what they want. I would suggest that you follow my 'Buying Process' (Much you have already done) : Before you Buy: Identify the item you want and the max/min 'realistic' price you  would buy at. [Stick to this price else 'Buyers Remorse' may bite  later.] Write the questions you have down on paper before you visit the    Dealer. Write the answers you want on the same list, if known. Decide which questions are most important and therefore must get the  answer you want. These should be the questions you ask first. Mark  these on the list. Re-visit points 1-3 are they complete and to your satisfaction ? Would you buy if all the answers & the price are right ? If NO then re-visit point 1-3 else you are not ready to buy now !!! If YES then Organise your visit to the Dealer. [Book appointment etc if needed.] At Dealer: Meet your Sales person and clearly state what you want (the item) and importantly when you intend to buy, if all your questions are answered to your satisfaction.  There is no need to discuss price at this point as the 'haggling' is only possible IF the questions are answered to your satisfaction. Do not give information such as your maximum budget or similar requests, as they give the sales person the upper hand to maximise his/her pricing.  If asked state that your budget is conditional on the answers you get. As the questions are answered assess the answer and assign +/- to the question on your list. If any of your most critical / important questions are answered in the negative, they are the reasons you have to call it a day and walk out. You can assess whether they are worth ignoring but you will need to factor this into your price and if you have identified your questions correctly there should be little room for debate. Assuming you have got all your questions answered you should know what you are buying and have assessed what is a reasonable price for it, if you still want it as this point.  If you have lost interest, say so and let the Sales person go. Don't waste their time. They may make some sort of offer to you BUT don't forget that if you have doubts now they will not go away easily no matter what the 'great' price is. If you want it then continue. Buying your Item: [None of the following is really usefull if you have told the Sales person your Budget, as they will be aiming for the highest end of your budget. You will often find that the best price is very close to your maximum budget !!! :)] Do not forget your realistic price range, this should limit your buying price no matter what tactics are used by the Sales person. Only you know what you are prepared to pay and if an extra 1% or 50% is considered worth it to you, if you have to have the item :) Regardless, you have to have some idea of your limit and be prepared to stick to it. You must be able to walk away if the price is silly and not worth it. Assuming you have not been smitten by your item and funds are NOT unlimited, ask for the price and assess it against your price range. At this point I can only offer pointers as there are no 'magic' rules to get what you want at the lowest price. The only advice I would offer is that you will be lucky to get something at your 1st offer price unless the seller really needs to sell, because of this your 1st offer should be less than your price range lowest band. You will need to assess how much less but be prepared to get a 'No' response. If you get a 'Yes' and your research is good 'Buy It !!!' If you get too enthusiastic a response, question your research & if not sure bail out [No Sale] :) At this point you are likely to be 'Haggling' so you need to be ready for all the 'Must buy Now' tactics. If you have clearly stated your wants and timescales there is no reason to be pulled in by these tactics and they can be ignored until the price has reached the level you are happy with. If the price is not moving where you want than clearly state you cannot 'buy at that price'. If you get a total stop and no movement than you need to assess your 'need' and if priced too high then you should walk out. Remember if you stated that you had a timescale to buy of 1/2/3 weeks you should act like you have 1/2/3 weeks to keep looking. Any eagerness on your part will tell the Sales person that you have lied !!! :) You can always come back and try again, reminding the Sales person that the 'item' is still there and perhaps it is priced too high to sell and make the same offer. !!! (A bit of cheek sometimes works.) If the price is close and you still want it and the Sales person is not moving you need to try walking out while stating that you would love the 'item' if it was priced better, if no improved offer as you go, try an increased offer but again you need to assess how much and remember you can only go up, or walk out and come back another day. If the price is at a level you are happy with then you should have no reason not to buy (if you have followed this process) but this does not mean that you should be forced into buying now if you do not want to. Regardless of any 'Must buy now' tactics if the price is right and you cannot buy now, tell the Sales person when you CAN buy and see if you can get an agreement with this. It is unfair to expect a price to be held for an indeterminate time, so you do need to state when you could buy if not now when a price has been agreed. This is a point where the deal may break down if the Sales person thinks they have a sale and trys to force the Sale now. Once again you have to assess your 'need' and whether buying now is better than walking out. If the deal breaks down there is nothing stopping you from coming back and offering the same price when you can buy. A final option is to agree if a deposit can be left to reserve the item until you can buy. This gives the Sales person some assurance that you will come back and is sometimes NON-Refundable unless you agree otherwise before you pay, so check this detail first. (This tends to be smaller Dealers but generally in the UK the large companies offer refundable deposits as part of their Customer Service, the advantage of using larger Stores/Dealers etc.) Apologies for the epic reply, hope it helps.


Avoid gold brokers who do business through the mail. Video Full Article


Finance is complex because it's complex. There's no great conspiracy here - the authors of article like this need to recognise that they cant understand everything - physicists don't invent complexity in their theories to keep the public stupid, and neither to finance experts.


Vanguard has just recently started listing its funds in London but it doesn't look like the High Dividend Yield ETF is available yet. You'll need to either get a broker who can trade on the U.S. markets (there might be tax and exchange rate complications), or wait until Vanguard lists this stock on the London exchange.


"Who is they? Lots of people putting out fake stats with an agenda.  It's been legal in Colorado for years at this point and still no apocalypse that was predicted by many detractors citing ""facts"".  We do have a lot less people being arrested though, and that is great."


"Wow. I'm one of the two people who actually respond to your half-baked idea and you jump down my throat.   The example of changing majors is different because you're talking about a share of lifetime income, not a loan that will be paid off in the next 10-15 years. With such a long-term obligation as you mention, the onus to ""get it right"" on your first major will be high, possibly confining.  As for ""probably have some penalty,"" that's what I'm talking about. You haven't even really considered the depth necessary to create a system such a vast and liquid system, so you don't really have any idea how massive the costs could be in comparison to such miniscule amounts of principal.  And don't flatter yourself. I'm not confusing your little five-minute thought with the Koen brothers' impressive novel. I mentioned it because it's a valid parallel. And while you may not be talking about corporations, you *are* talking about creating securitized investments (aka securities, stocks) on a massive scale.  You're talking about millions of individuals who need to be profiled for risk and profitability, who need to be verified, double-checked, maybe interviewed, bundled and approved. By very nature of being securities, they'll need approval from people like the SEC, as well as listings on exchanges or somewhere. All of this conforming comes with a great deal of fees. By the time you're done, we're at a similar complexity level to that of a corporation.  I'm sorry you felt the need to condescend, because you seem to be out of your league on this one. Next time maybe explaining your point in greater detail will help people understand what you're saying."


IANAL, but it sounds like indemnification language. They are saying they have the option to charge expenses to participants if they would like. It should say explicitly (you mention that it does) who the 'default payer' is. Unexpected expenses could be anything that's not in the normal course of business. I know that doesn't help much, but some examples may be plan document restatements or admin expenses from plan failures/corrections. We have language in some of our PFDs that say in the absence of revenue-sharing a participants' share of expenses may be higher. Yes, 'from participant accounts' means they have the authority to deduct from your 401k account.


Companies usually have a minimum account balance required to keep a 401k for former employees. You will have to check whether $10k is sufficient to keep your funds in your former employer's 401k. If you are below their threshold, you will have to move your money. One option is to rollover into the new employer's 401k.  You can rollover a 401k into a traditional IRA account that is independent of your employer. A traditional IRA has the same tax benefits as a 401k; it grows tax-free until you withdraw money from the account. Companies that offer IRAs include Vanguard, Fidelity, TIAA.  Many companies have significant overhead costs in the their 401k management. It may be better for you to rollover your money into an IRA to save on these costs.  I am not knowledgeable about loaning from retirement accounts, so I cannot help with that.


Thanks for the tip, I know of one or two privately backed incubators I can approach but have already reached out to local government for access to their funding streams. I just want to make sure I cover all of my bases and seek as much of the available capital as I can. Is there a good way to approach/meet private investors?


"Long ago, a friend of mine shared with me the ""Lakshmi rule"" which can be used for managing one's spending:  1/3rd: Save, 1/3rd: Donate, 1/3rd: Survival. Survival refers to primary needs like food, clothing, shelter, medicine, family and priority needs like travel. The word ""Lakshmi"" comes from the Sanskrit language and is often used to denote money, wealth or opulence. Its etymological meaning is - to perceive, understand, objective, observe, to know etc. As per ancient thought leaders, wealth is to be used wisely and with great care. Carelessness and misuse of it means havoc not only in one's own life but also on a community level. Rather than seeing money as a source of one's own happiness, it should be used as tool for the larger good. This will give proper fulfillment in life and helps one shy away from spending on those little things which only give temporary happiness. Having a deeper perspective to our everyday actions and situations, can help develop beneficial habits that easily helps control one's impulsive urges and distractions."


"Does your company offer a Medical Savings Account? That can allow you to reduce your taxable income. You normally have to join during ""open season"". Another option is Medical and Dental Expenses above 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. This is a high hurdle to meet, and only reduces your taxes by the tax rate x the amount your bills exceed 7.5%"


Yup, if he/she is talking about a broker/dealer, but if he's talking to an RIA and is trying to find out who the custodian is then he won't have a statement yet. I don't think he has opened the account yet, but I'm not sure and could be totally misunderstanding the question.


To be in a health savings account you must be in a high deductible health plan, but the advantage is that the money rolls over from year to year if you don't use it, but it can only be used for qualified medical expenses. A flexible spending account has its advantage as well: You can use it for dependent care as well as medical expenses, but it's part of a cafeteria plan and you lose the money that you don't spend by the end of the year (rather than it simply rolling over to the next). Another benefit in a FSA is that if you allocate 200/mo to it, and you need to get surgery in January that costs 2400 dollars and then you lose your job in February, you just got 2400 dollars of surgery for 200 dollars pre-tax :) In summary: Move to France for real health care :) just kidding


Are you currently writing screenplays in Microsoft Word, frustrated with constantly hitting the {return} and {tab} keys to format your dialogue, constantly going back to capitalize scene lines or character names, or figuring out how to keep dialogue from splitting across pages...


I know it may not last longer but i was able to 2.5x my wealth over last 2 years.(2016, 2017 cont) I was successfully able to convert 70k into 452k in 21months. Now at this amount, I am really worried and want to take all the profit. I agree that I have been lucky with these returns but it was not all outright luck. Now my plan is to take 100k of it and try high risk investments while investing 350k in index funds.


"The primary reason a scandal like this hurts the company is the ""bottom line.""  Any legal action means defense costs.  In this case the potential of massive fines became reality.  And a buyback program.   So, if any publicly traded company stacked up $10B in assets, doused it in diesel and set it on fire, their stock would take a dip too. Billions in revenue directed to the expense side of the ledger instead of the profit side.  That money should have gone to building the company and dividends."


"The statement ""Finance is something all adults need to deal with but almost nobody learns in school."" hurts me. However I have to disagree, as a finance student, I feel like everyone around me is sound in finance and competition in the finance market is so stiff that I have a hard time even finding a paid internship right now. I think its all about perspective from your circumstances, but back to the question. Personally, I feel that there is no one-size-fits-all financial planning rules. It is very subjective and is absolutely up to an individual regarding his financial goals.  The number 1 rule I have of my own is - Do not ever spend what I do not have. Your reflected point is ""Always pay off your credit card at the end of each month."", to which I ask, why not spend out of your savings? plan your grocery monies, necessary monthly expenditures, before spending on your ""wants"" should you have any leftovers. That way, you would not even have to pay credit every month because you don't owe any. Secondly, when you can get the above in check, then you start thinking about saving for the rainy days (i.e. Emergency fund). This is absolutely according to each individual's circumstance and could be regarded as say - 6 months * monthly income. Start saving a portion of your monthly income until you have set up a strong emergency fund you think you will require. After you have done than, and only after, should you start thinking about investments. Personally, health > wealth any time you ask. I always advise my friends/family to secure a minimum health insurance before venturing into investments for returns. You can choose not to and start investing straight away, but should any adverse health conditions hit you, all your returns would be wiped out into paying for treatments unless you are earning disgusting amounts in investment returns. This risk increases when you are handling the bills of your family. When you stick your money into an index ETF, the most powerful tool as a retail investor would be dollar-cost-averaging and I strongly recommend you read up on it. Also, because I am not from the western part of the world, I do not have the cultural mindset that I have to move out and get into a world of debt to live on my own when I reached 18. I have to say I could not be more glad that the culture does not exist in Asian countries. I find that there is absolutely nothing wrong with living with your parents and I still am at age 24. The pressure that culture puts on teenagers is uncalled for and there are no obvious benefits to it, only unmanageable mortgage/rent payments arise from it with the entry level pay that a normal 18 year old could get."


>If it leads to lower employment (for example by destroying most independent coffee shops) and the expatriation of profits then how is it good for a country?   Automation/efficiency are destroying low-skilled jobs (food service), but create many more high-skilled jobs (software engineering).    This sort of destroying low-skilled/creating high-skilled jobs cycle has been going on since the industrial revolution.  By automating low-skilled jobs and producing cheaper goods/services businesses have created our high standard of living which is generally deemed a good thing for society.  It's just a fact, that the evolution of our economy 'forces' people (who might not desire/be capable of) improving their education/skills to do so.  It is a process that has been going on for quite some time, and if anything is accelerating.


Basically there are 2 ways you can make money from an investment, through income (eg: rent or dividends) and through the price of the investment going up (capital growth or gains). Most people associate negative gearing with investment properties but it can be done with shares and other investments where you borrow money to buy the investment and it produces an income of some sort. If the investment does not produce an income then you cannot negative gear it. Using a property as an example (in Australia), if all your expenses each month (loan interest payments, council and water rates, insurance and/or strata, advertising and management fees, depreciation, and maintenance expense) are greater than your income (rent), then you are negative gearing the investment property. This is a monthly loss on your investment which can be used to offset and reduce the amount of tax you pay during the year. So most people negative gearing an investment property will get a nice sum back when they do their tax returns. The problem with negative gearing is that you have to lose money in order to save some tax. So as an example, if you are on a marginal tax rate of 30%, for every $1 you lose from the investment property you will save 30c in tax. If your marginal tax rate is 45% then will save 45c in tax for every $1 lost on the investment property. Thus negative gearing becomes more tax effective the higher your income (and tax bracket). But you are still losing money overall. The problem is that most novice investors buy an investment property for the main purpose of reducing their taxes. This can be dangerous because the main reason to buy any investment should be that you consider it to be a good investment, not to save you tax. Because if the investment is not a good one, then you will not only lose money on the income side but also on the capital side. Negative gearing should be looked at as a bonus or additional benefit when chosing a good investment to buy, not as the reason to buy the investment.


> Why are you against making sure their pensions are funded?  Pension actuarial analyst here:  Pensions can give employee's benefits for time worked long before the plan came into existence.  Those 'liabilities' are paid off over 30-40 years.  It's absolutely normal.  In addition, pension plans may also pay off increases in benefits, such as an early retirement window, over that same 30-40 years.  Pension funds use assumptions on future investment earnings to 'guess' their contribution.  Sometimes, they don't earn as much as they expect the plan to earn.  Sometimes, they try to keep contributions low *as an alternative to scrapping the plan entirely*.  So putting this all together:  if pension plans are instantly and always 100% funded?  You don't get pension plans, with defined and guaranteed retirement benefits.  You get plans where the employee defers their own money into accounts, with no particular guarantees at all.  And that's why we are fine with unfunded pensions.  Oh, by the way, the PBGC charges higher fees to covered pension plans that have more unfunded liability!  So if a company doesn't want to pay contributions, they have to pay more elsewhere.  It all evens out.


Yodlee's Moneycenter is the system that powered Mint.com before Intuit bought them.  It works great for managing accounts in a similar fashion to Mint.  They have a development platform that might be worth checking out.


"2010 - What $20M looks like with hindsight of 7 years  Friend: ""Dude there is this new thing, you should grab some, it is $0.10 per.""  Me: ""So like a penny stock? Nah im good that seems like a waste.""  Friend: ""No man this is going to blow up and is the future.  Take like $500 buy some and it will be worth like $1000 next year.""  Me: ""Nah ill keep putting my $500 in safe investments making me 5-10% a year.""  Edit: I am aware I probably made the ""smart"" choice but turning $500 into even $200,000 would have been nice"


Very important. Returning again to the example of the farmer, efficient, liquid markets that fairly reflect the price of a given asset allow that farmer to run his business as cost effectively as he can. That (in theory) lowers the price of his goods for the consumer. If he wasn't able to efficiently hedge, he would have to charge a premium to reflect the price risk he takes on between planting and harvesting his corn.  Being pedantic here but single stock futures markets are extremely quiet. If you were the owner of a company and you traded *options* on your company stock (a hilariously common form of insider trading) yes, that would be illegal and the SEC would certainly come after you.