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11592

I think other US companies are starting to wonder where the cost savings are. Moving to China is starting to look like a fad. A couple of big companies went to save a buck and the rest jumped on the wagon to keep the stock holders happy.

11601

To invest relatively small amounts in the real estate market, you could buy shares in a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), a type of mutual fund. Admittedly that's a very different proposition from trying to become a landlord; lower risk but lower return.

11617

> many of our policies set up public schools to fail. Is that your impression? Maybe, I wonder if schools main function is not education, but babysitting. We are definitely succeeding at our function of babysitting. The two functions, babysitting and education are intertwined quite nicely, but it would be interesting to design an experiment where we test one and the other, and see parent's reactions. What would be the consequences of this experiment? Provide each student with a monitor so they can watch all their classes from their house, nothing else changes, students can still ask questions, like a conference call. This would keep the education, but take away the babysitting.

11627

You're making a political argument out of a mathematical truism. There is no difference between getting paid $100 more per month and having something that you routinely pay for become $100 per month cheaper for you. In both cases you have $100 more surplus income. There may be a slight difference in taxation and other finer details, but all things being equal it's the same thing.

11633

"Assuming you can understand and emotionally handle the volatility, a good indeed fund would be wise. These are low fee funds which perform as well as our better than most managed investments and since they don't cost as much, they typically out perform most other investment vehicles. The S&P 500 is traded as SPDR. Another option is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which trades as DIA. Average returns over the long term are 10-12%. If you expect to need the money in the short term (5-8 years), you have a non trivial chance of needing to pull the money out when the market is down, so if that's unacceptable to you, choose something with a guarantee. If you're terrified of losing money in the short term, don't think you can handle waiting for the market to go up, especially when every news caster is crying hysterically that the End of Economic Life on Earth is here, then consider a CD at your bank. CDs return much lower rates (around 2% right now) but do not go down in value ever. However, you need to lock your money into them for months to years at a time. Some people might tell you to buy a bond fund. That's horrible advice. Bond funds get lower returns AND have no guarantee that you won't lose money on them, unlike aactual bonds. As you're new to investing, I encourage you to read ""The Intelligent Investor"" by Benjamin Gramm."

11653

Jacksonville Gold Club now has special packages for every party, regardless of the size or the type of celebration. Whether it’s a Jacksonville Bachelor Party, bachelorette party, birthday or business event, we have exactly what guys, girls, and couples are looking for.

11654

"You will need to file a US income tax return, and declare all income world-wide. Whether this results in any tax owed depends on your particular circumstances, and the effect of any tax treaties between the US and India. There are additional requirements for the filing of information on the amounts in foreign accounts held by ""US tax persons"". Depending on the nature of these accounts, the complexity of the forms, and the penalties for non-compliance can be quite high... Short version: Consult a professional well-qualified in US/India tax matters..."

11659

"You are not required to contribute to a TFSA or an RRSP. Nobody contributes to OAS, it's a program to provide benefits to old people for them to be ""secure"". The only fund you MAY contribute to is CPP. If you're being paid a salary by a Canadian employer they will deduct some money from your salary (and add more money of their own) as CPP contributions. Ignore the getting of CPP early or late, since that's just a 5 year shift not related to ""ok, I'm leaving the country, send me my pension."" Your issue is more ""can I collect when I no longer live there?"" Plenty of Canadians retire outside of Canada (the warmth of Florida lures many of us) and collect their CPP. There is even a page about the mechanics of getting your pension in another currency. That said, CPP is a very small pension. If you work for 40 years at more than $50,000 a year and wait till age 70 to collect you will still get less than $1000/month. Working for less time, less than that salary, or taking it before you're 70 will all reduce it substantially. Probably more relevant to you, you can have your Canadian years counted as American ones thanks to a Social Security Agreement between the two countries."

11661

Could they is not the question, it's should they. There is no math or methodology that can definitively answer that question. The reason they keep so much cash is the company almost died due to lack of cash. They are institutionally scared of that happening again.

11665

There is not a quantified set in stone amount of pain that must be endured for this situation to be resolved, and it is my belief that Germany stepping up and doing their part would help minimize the overall pain that must be endured, to say nothing of it being the right thing to do. Additionally, I do believe it will result in the greatest amount of economic growth overall.

11672

Assuming you are looking at moving your earnings when your tax status in India was NRI; then there are no taxes to be paid when you transfer the money back to India. You can move the funds back to India over a period of 7 years from the day you land.

11675

It would be difficult to answer without knowing specifics about a particular offer. In certain cases, it's definitely great and one could become a millionaire [Google for example]. In other cases one could lose money. In most cases one makes a decent return. As the specifics are not available, in general look out for: Most of these would determine if the plan is good for you to get into.

11685

I don't know much about finance, but maybe you should research some stocks, find one that outperformed the market during a recession or downturn and analyze it. My first guess would be to go onto finance.google click some stocks and look at the graph during a time period when there was a downturn, click the button that compares it against the s&P or DOW and if the stock is higher then, yippee-ki-yay, you found something to analyze.

11716

Many businesses will request that you get a bank-issued check for large amounts of money. The exception is often in cases where you're not going anywhere: you can write a 50,000 check for a deposit on a new house, and you'll never have a problem, but a car dealer will probably request a counter check for the same sum.

11719

If you carried a balance from the last month, then pay the card off as soon as possible. Otherwise I agree with @mbhunter that you should wait until close to time for the bill to become due. Then always pay the credit card off in full and you will borrowing Chase's money interest free for up to 30 days.

11721

Whenever you want to spend the weekend with your family, then you can come here to make the special evening in West Palm Beach Escape Rooms. It is a full secure place for the girl, we have good corporate team building escape rooms WPB. We are working together and using your time wisely will you find the clues. We serve you better service all of those escape room, our services are less than expected. The escape rooms are amazing design for those people who want to spend the time with fun and get participate in our activities.

11722

Find a physical activity or programme that interests you. Memberships only have real value if you use them. Consider learning a martial art like karate, aikido, kung fu, tai kwan do, judo, tai chi chuan. :-) Even yoga is a good form of exercise. Many of these are offered at local community centres if you just want to try it out without worrying about the cost initially. Use this to gauge your interest before considering more advanced clubs. One advantage later on if you stay with it long enough - some places will compensate you for being a junior or even associate instructor. Regardless of whether this is your interest or if the gym membership is more to your liking real value is achieved if you have a good routine and interest in your physical fitness activity. It also helps to have a workout buddy or partner. They will help motivate you to try even when you don't feel like working out.

11730

I've had some time to investigate this and so I will answer my own question, as it may be of help to others. One of the first things to do is examine all bank statements, as this may reveal in-goings and out-goings from a previously unknown source. Secondly, get any mail redirected. Unfortunately, mail redirection is far from perfect in the UK but at least it increases one's chances of uncovering an unknown asset. Lastly, there is Landmark FAS who will do a search for a fee of around £175.

11791

I would apply extra cash left over at the end of the month as follows, in order of priority: Realize, though, that this is my take on priority. My experience has been that a liquidity crisis is much more stressful than having a mortgage or other debt -- illiquid wealth is almost useless when you need cash. So if you still have strong feelings about retiring that debt after considering the liquidity issue, go ahead and swap #3 and #4 above. Make plans to pay off the mortgage over the next 10 years. Find a mortgage payoff calculator and make extra monthly payments that keep you on a 10 year schedule. I'd strongly suggest making sure your retirement savings are on track, though. Time is on your side here, and your required monthly contribution will be low now while you're still in your 20s.

11802

I see one clear thing to help: She lives alone. Why does she need a two bedroom place?

11809

In the world, chocolate is the most popular tested product. The popular product manufactured by roasting, fermenting, and processing the beans of a cacao tree in combination with sugar is a pretty amazing food. To all integrate needs to the Chocolate melting tank. So if you want to melt tank, then you can contact us. We will provide you with the best quality tank at an affordable price.

11819

"I call BS. Glass-Steagall was an important firewall preventing investment in securities that commercial banks have no business being in, even with 100% reserve. When required returns continuously increase due to shareholder expectations, it is only a matter of time before riskier and riskier positions are taken to meet these expectations. This is a risk that depositors (FDIC in reality) never knowingly signed up for. At some point it only takes one really bad derivatives trade to bring it all down. In the long run, decent interest rate spreads should be enough to keep commercial bankers happy. At the very least, some limitation on certain types of heavily levered trading should be established. I don't buy the idea that if you remove ""one extremely risky way to make money people will just find another."" That is true to an extent, but at least those people won't be doing it on Average Joe's dime."

11823

Price range compared to the Model 3? Here in Germany we always get the same yada yada about batteries not sufficient, grid not evolved enough, Tesla going down soon. But Benz is actually preparing, also gigafactorywise. You are right. The bigger question is when they will realize that they can't maintain just selling cars to the end user. Owning a car at some point will be a thing of the past. You will pay a monthly fee and always have a car in front of your house when you need it.

11824

It depends, generally for consumer goods it is advisable to pay money in one go and avoid paying installments as there are charges for it.

11862

We are about to have a 1.4 million headcount shortfall in software development by 2020, many of those jobs earn over twice the average household income. So while you may claim software wealth peaked in the 90s, that's false. The problem is it takes decades for companies to churn out tons of millionaires, there really are no overnight successes and most people in the industry are mediocre. So for an accurate comparison you need to look at facebook, twitter and other social sites from the 00's and uber, airbnb and slack 10 years from now. The gaps are the result of the crashes in 01 and 08. Also most people struggle with basic computer operation without a GUI, programming is not for everyone.

11884

The only way someone can take money out of your account using just your sort code and account number is if you set up a direct debit to pay them (or someone pretending to be you sets up the direct debit). Even with Paperless DD's this can take some time. Anyone who can process debit card transactions can take money from your account if they have your debit card number, expiry date and cvv number. Direct debits do not have an expiry date so they are normally used for paying automatic regular long term bills (like rent, rates, electricity etc). Note, anyone with an ordinary bank account can pay money into account, using your sort code and account number.

11885

Collection agencies will eventually find you if you work for an employer that uses the credit bureaus for pre-employment screening, or you sign up for utilities or services that check your credit, or you enter into public record any other way (getting arrested, buying land, etc.). Such inquiries will put you on the grid where the collection agencies can find you and/or sue you. Two years out is about the point where they're looking for blood. The next time your friend applies for an apartment, utilities or cell phone service, she's going to get some calls.

11887

Spent a few years in Taiwan working remotely to the US. I didn't speak the language so everything was background noise and I have never been so productive. Well, until someone is eating and chewing with their mouth open. Chalkboard and nails shit right there.

11888

No surprises here. Maybe the author has forgotten that we're still in a depression with high unemployment and 99% of the population has less money. Families have a limited entertainment budget and more product categories vying for their money. This isn't rocket science.

11927

You set it based on liquidity management. Cash drag is one of the reasons actively managed funds underperform. The longer your settlement date, the less cash you have to hold because you can take three days to liquidate positions to redeem. So it's a convenience vs performance question.

11935

You can be sued if some random stranger that you never had any interaction with gets in an accident. There is really no barrier to people suing you if they get it in their head that they want to. Winning that lawsuit is another matter entirely. Whether you would be held liable and lose the lawsuit depends on whether someone can convince a court that you are partially responsible for a financial loss. Not sure how anyone could possibly successfully argue that in this situation.

11936

"What you have is usually called a pre-paid credit card. You pay some money (Indian Rupees) to the credit card company, and then you can use the card to pay for purchases etc in foreign (non-Indian) currencies upto the remaining balance on the card. If a proposed charge exceeds the remaining balance, the transaction will be declined when you try to use the card. There might be multiple ways that the card is set up, e.g. it might be restricted to charge purchases denominated in US dollars alone, or you might be able to use it anywhere in the world (except India). The balance on the card might be denominated in INR, or in US$, say. In the latter case, the exchange rate at which your INR payment was converted into the $US balance is fixed and agreed to at the time of the original payment: you paid INR 70K (say) and the balance was set to US$ 1000 even though the exchange rate on the open market would have given you a few more US dollars. In the former case with the balance denominated in INR, a charge of US$ 100, say, would be converted to INR at a fixed agreed-upon rate, or at the current exchange rate that the Visa or MasterCard network is using, plus (typically) a 3% fee currency exchange fee, and your balance in INR will decrease accordingly. With all that as prologue, if you made a purchase from Walmart USA and later returned it for a credit, it should increase your credit card balance appropriately. You may be whacked with currency conversion fees along the way depending on how your card is set up, but with a US$-denominated card, a credit of US$100 should increase your card balance by US$100. So, that $US 100 can be spent on something else instead. In short, the card is your ""bank"" account. You cannot spend more than the remaining balance on the card just like you cannot withdraw more money from your bank account than you have in the account, and you can recharge your card by making more INR payments into it so as to increase the available balance. But it is like a current account in that you are unlikely to earn interest on the balance the way you do with a savings account. So what if you are back in India and have no further use of this card? Can you get your balance back as cash or deposit into your regular bank account? Call the Customer Help line, or read the card agreement you signed."

11954

Corporations exist to generate profit and reduce risk for investors. This is a socially good and useful function that benefits us all. A corporation that didn't seek to lower its tax bill to the lowest legally allowed would be breaking the law. Rather than show up unannounced at random times and ransacking/pillaging whatever they could grab ahold of, governments have discovered (through trail and error) that having clear consistent rules about how much they demand nets them more revenue. Thus tax law and why it is important. Over time governments have used tax law for social engineering purposes, and as a mechanism for attempting to control their local economy. Because of this tax law has tended towards higher and higher complexity. Throw territorial rivalry into the mix and tax law can be also used as a sort of economic weapon. All of this yields a monstrously complex tax code, which mandates that businesses pay more and more attention to following it's arcane rules if they want to remain in business. 'Gaming the system' isn't morally wrong, it is what governments expect businesses to do, otherwise they wouldn't spend so much time setting up such complex rules for business to follow. I suspect that there will be public outcry for more rules, making the tax system even more complex, because evil businesses are attempting to follow the rules. In a sane world governments would step back, refrain from social and economic manipulation (which they have shown themselves to be incompetent at anyway) and create as simple a tax code as possible. So that the tax code is no longer where businesses seek to gain advantage, but rather focus their time and energy into creating better products/services (every dollar spent on tax-lawyers/accountants is a dollar not spent on making the business better). Creating more rules to punish people for following the rules is insanity.

11961

>When banks, insurers, and other entities large enough to have a Chief Risk Officer enter into these contracts, the assumption is that they know what they're doing HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH By that logic, record companies know what they're doing with respect to music and Michael Bay knows what he's doing with respect to filmmaking.

11965

> Then the author suggests discriminating against people from elite schools and never hiring them. No, he suggests hiring based on class rank. Avoiding hiring from elite schools is a predictable outcome based on what salaries those candidates tend to demand from the market, it's not that those students are bad it's that they're probably a less cost-effective option than students from less-elite schools.

11967

It is very necessary to get the fitting done properly because if not, the noise reduction is going to be a good as negligible. Replacing your single glazed window with the double one is going to make a massive difference. And when you are choosing the window, it is necessary to take care of the thickness of the glass and also the distance of the panes.

11979

Here's how I think about money. There are only 3 categories / contexts (buckets) that my earned money falls into. Savings is my emergency fund. I keep 6 months of total expenses (expenses are anything in the consumption bucket). You can be as detailed as you want with this area but I tend to leave a fudge factor. In other words, if I estimate that I spend approximately $3,000 a month in consumption dollars then I'll save $3,500 times 6 in the bank. This money needs to be liquid. Some people use a HELOC, other people use their ROTH contributions. In any case, you need to put this money some place you can get access to it in case you go from accumulation (income exceed expenses) to decumulation mode (expenses exceed income). This money is distinct from consumption which I will cover in paragraph three. Investments are stocks, bonds, income producing real estate, small businesses, etc. These dollars require a strategy. The strategy can include some form of asset allocation but more importantly a timeline. These are the dollars that are working for you. Each dollar placed here will multiply over time. Once you put a dollar here it shouldn't be taken out unless there is some sort of catastrophe that your savings can't handle or your timeline has been achieved. Notice that rental real estate is included so liquidating stocks to purchase rental real estate is NOT considered removing investment dollars. Just reallocating based on your asset allocation. This bucket includes 401k's, IRAs, all tax-sheltered accounts, non-sheltered brokerage accounts, and rental real estate. In general your primary residence is not included in this bucket. Some people include the equity of their primary residence in the investment column but it can complicate the equation and I prefer to leave it out. The consumption bucket is the most important bucket and the one you spend the most time with. It requires a budget. This includes your $5 magazine and your $200 bottle of wine. Anything in this bucket is gone. You can recover a portion of it by selling it on ebay for $3 (these are earned dollars) but the original $5 is still considered spent. The reason your thought process in this area is distinct from the other two, the decisions made in this area will have the biggest impact on your personal finances. Warren Buffett was famous for skimping on haircuts because they are worth thousands of dollars down the road if they are invested instead. Remember this is a zero-sum game so every $1 not consumed is placed in one of the other buckets. Once your savings bucket is full every dollar not consumed is sent to investments. Remember to include everything that does not fit in the other two buckets. Most people forget their car insurance, life insurance, tax bill at the end of the year, accountant bill, etc. In conclusion, there are three buckets. Savings, which serve as your emergency bucket. This money should not be touched unless you switch from accumulation to decumulation. Investments, which are your dollars that are working for you over time. They require a strategy and a timeline. Consumption, which are your monthly expenses. These dollars keep you alive and contribute to your enjoyment. This is a short explanation of my use of money. It can get as complicated and detailed as you want it to be but as long as you tag your dollars correctly you'll be okay IMHO. HTH.

11988

"Actually, this is a pretty good analogy to certain types of stocks, specifically tech and other ""fad"" stocks. Around the turn of the century, there were a lot of ""Bobs"" buying tech stocks (like they would baseball cards), for tech stocks' sakes. That's what drove the internet and tech stock bubbles of high valuations. At other times, the tech stocks are bought and sold mainly by ""Steve's"" for business reasons such as likely (not merely possible) future appreciation, and command a much lower valuation."

11995

I have a friend that bought volatility calls the day before brexit and made 1900% return in 1 night. I wouldn't put that investment next to someone that's buying and holding SPY and say my vix friend is thousands of times better at investing.

11998

"I have a couple other important considerations regarding external HSA accounts vs employer sponsored HSA accounts. Depending on your personal financial situation and goals; some people like to use HSA accounts as an extra retirement account (since the money can be withdrawn penalty free in retirement for non-medical expenses, and completely tax & penalty free at any time for medical expenses). If your intended use for the HSA account is an investment vehicle for retirement, then you may find more use/benefit out of an external provider that may provide more or better investment options than your employers HSA investment options. There can be a lot of additional value in those extra investment options over greater periods of time. Another VERY important consideration for FICA taxes (FICA includes Social Security & Medicare) that I don't believe was mentioned before - for those earners who are under the maximum social security wage limit, you are paying 6.2% of each paycheck into social security taxes. As others have mentioned you can ""save"" this tax through your employer’s plan if you set up the account to be funded pre-tax from your paychecks. However, in doing so, you are lowering your overall contributions into social security, which may lower your social security benefits in your retirement years! If this is ultimately going to lower your SSA benefits in retirement then that is a big future cost that may steer you against the pre-tax employer contributions. Think of social security as part of your retirement plan, not as a tax but instead as an additional check you put away for yourself for retirement every month. Of course, this is only an important consideration if SSA is still going to be around when you retire, but let's assume that it will be. This is not an issue for higher earners, earning well above the max SSA taxable wages. There is no wage limit on the 1.45% Medicare tax withholding's, and there is certainly no harm in saving Medicare taxes because it will not affect future Medicare benefits. So for taxpayers earning well over the max SSA wages, they will just save the 1.45% Medicare taxes without affecting their SSA contributions and resulting retirement benefits. So again, it all comes down to personal situations. Depending on your earnings and goals, employer plan may or may not be the way to go. Personally, for my lower earning clients, friends and family, I tend to recommend that they do whatever they can to maximize their social security benefits in retirement. So I would advise them to either use the external provider account, or the employer plan but with post-tax contributions so you don't lower the SSA withholding's but can still claim the income tax deduction on your tax return. YMMV -Dan"

12008

Skills are not going to cut it. Environment matters. Social network matters. Government matters. So an entrepreneur at aged 7 who wants to stack the decks of becoming a billionaire should start preparing for Harvard. At teens, he (yes HE) should be friends with similar guys (yes GUYS) who's dads are multimillionaires or well connected in politics. Obviously, that assumes the person is already American. (Being in Canada or Switzerland is already going to prevent one from being a Billionaire) If he's not even in America, he's already behind. Non-US billionaires become that way heavily because of being in bed with the government. Figuratively speaking or literally.

12010

"It's not a ""withholding tax"" it's a ""withholding tax amount"". That is, they are not taxing you but they are holding back some of your withdrawal and sending it to the government to cover any taxes you will need to pay on the withdrawal. Same as your employer withholds some of your salary and sends it to the government for you. You won't claim it as a deduction, but it will go at the end along with tax withheld from your salary or anything else. So if you owe $10,000 of tax but various entities have already sent the government $11,000 on your behalf, you will get a $1,000 refund."

12027

You don't have to go through an exchange. That wasn't the problem. It was that the people trading on them wouldn't be willing to take your offer. An exchange can't just list a company. They need that company's consent and the company need's the exchange's consent. I don't know if you're aware of this but that was also an entirely new disaster during Facebook's IPO. Computer glitches didn't help. What you're talking about is a called a secondary market, kind of. Stock exchanges offer those too, especially for options. That's the typical stock footage you see of guys on wall street yelling and screaming while throwing paper up in the air.

12032

"Short answer: ""Thanks for the heads-up, Luddites; I'll be taking my business somewhere *not* threatened by the realities of the modern world. Can I send you a complimentary buggy-whip as thanks for my time with your company?"" / Huh, I wouldn't have expected PNC to have so many Reddit shills. In that case, I prefer [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/75tm44/just_got_a_call_from_my_bank_demanding_i_tell/do98uke) from the original thread: ""why are you buying bitcoin?"", ""bitcoin doesn't call me with annoying questions when I spend it"". Can you see the future *now*, boys?"

12034

I assume I can/will need to file an 83(b) election, in order to avoid tax repercussions? What exactly will this save me from? 83(b) election is for restricted stock grants, not for stock purchases. For restricted stocks, you generally pay income tax when they vest. For startups the price difference between the time of the grant and the time of the vesting can be astronomical and by choosing 83(b) you effectively pay income tax on the value of the grant instead of the value of the vest. Then, you only pay capital gains tax on the difference between the sale price and the grant value when you sell. In your case you're exercising an option, i.e.: you're buying a stock, so 83(b) is irrelevant. What you will pay though is the tax on the difference between the strike price and the stock FMV (unless the stocks you end up buying are restricted - which would have been the case if you exercised your options early, but I don't think is going to be the case now). What steps should I take to (in the eyes of the law) guarantee that the board has received my execution notice? The secretary of the board is a notorious procrastinator and can be very unorganized. You should read what the grant contract/company policy says on that. Ask the HR/manager. Usually, a certified letter with return receipt should be enough, but you should verify the format, the address, and the timeframe.

12035

One thing that has not been pointed out as a disadvantage of using Credit Cards: people tend to spend more. You can see This Study, and this one, plus about 500 others. On average people tend to spend about 17% more with credit cards then with cash. This amount dwarphs any perks one gets by having a credit card. The safest way to use one is to only use them for purchases where you cannot make a decision to spend more. One example would be for utility bills (that don't charge a fee) or at the gas pump. Using them at Amazon might have you upgrade your purchase or add some extra items. Using them at restaurants might encourage you to order an extra drink or two. Using them at the coffee shop might have you super size your coffee or add a pastry. Of course this extra spending could lead you into a debt cycle exacerbating the financial hit many struggle with. Please tread carefully if you decide to use them.

12041

If you want to have uninterrupted internet access then buy a Linksys Smart Wifi router. The setup of the router is easy via its web interface as well as through the WPS setup. If you need help for the set up, feel free to contact us.

12081

Plus size fashion includes tops, tunics and bottom wear that are specially designed to flatter full-figured women. Wearing stylish shrugs and jackets is one way to look slender and tall. Another way is to order bespoke clothing that will ensure the perfect fit.

12083

Zero Hedge didn't write the original post. It was published by, wait for it- The Economic Collapse Blog http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/nafta-is-20-years-old-here-are-20-facts-that-show-how-it-is-destroying-the-economy When they are syndicating crap from a website like that I just have to tune them out.

12106

You have to file an application with PF Office. Normally your existing Organisation [which you just quit] helps you with the formalities. If not you would have to complete the same and submit it to the EPFO.

12119

"I think the math is wrong. Note that in Scenario #1, you are only out of pocket $1000, while in Scenario #2, you are out of pocket $1250; the contribution and the tax you paid with respect to it. A better concept than tax rate is ""Retention Rate"". This is the fraction of your money that the Feds let you keep. And Growth Factor is the how much the investment grows. So In Scenario #1, you multiply $1000 by the investment Growth Factor and then by the retirement Retention Rate. And in Scenario #2, you multiply the same $1000 by the current Retention Rate and then by the Growth Factor. Since in your approximation, the two GFs are the same, there is no saving..."

12133

In addition to the advice already given (particularly getting rid of high-interest debt), I would add the following:

12140

Housing plus transportation should be about 40%, according to your given rule of thumb, and that's where yours are, so I think you're okay. Guidelines are not rules, and must be related to one's individual circumstances. That said, double-check that your transportation expenses are really zero.

12141

You're missing the point. The US is double dipping as the jurisdiction where the money was earn and taxed too the first dip. It is direct interference in another country's economy and an attack on their sovereignty. Frankly, it smack of typical American conservatism: taking the view that the rest of the world is just an American colony. It's fundamentally undemocratic.

12146

"I am/was responding to your point that beef prices ""should be hitting everyone else harder"". Your initial argument was that vertical integration made them better able to beat the competition due to lower beef cost. Clearly not all competition is vertically integrated, so the initial premise warrants exploration. My comments explore my concerns with your premise, despite the fact I am not an expert on beef or Mcdonalds. Your initial premise also misses the point that not all of McD's competition is selling beef. This sort of implies that McDonalds can completely keep costs the same as substitutes just because they are vertically integrated. But I will ignore that for now too. Now you have abandoned your initial premise and are now arguing that derivatives, combined with vertical integration are the cause for the competitive advantage. I am not going to even begin to argue with this because I don't know about McDonalds hedging strategies compared to their competition. I do know that the derivatives are a) available to the competition and b) would be necessary for McDonalds to even begin controlling ""beef cost"". So, my main point stands, the vertical integration does not significantly help McDonalds control beef costs compared to a pure derivative strategy (regardless of if competition actually uses derivatives)."

12176

Actually, economists (including Krugman, that posterboy of reddit) [said as much when Bush did those pre-recession](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/a-note-on-the-bush-fiscal-legacy/) (I know he posted about it earlier but can't find it now). EDIT: [Boom](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/opinion/11KRUG.html) The general guidance is get revenue during a boom so that you have fiscal levers in times of a recession. Bush basically set up the economy pre-recession so that those levers were taken away, between the tax cuts and the wars.

12201

Sorry to necro this thread but you were totally right - I found this study that confirms buying puts loses money at a faster rate than is predicted by CAPM. Conversely, writing puts earns superior risk-adjusted returns compared to the market portfolio. The study is about writing straddles but it's a similar concept. I'm just posting here in case someone searches this thread in 6 months https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/74142/0022-1082.00352.pdf?sequence=1

12212

I don't believe there exists a tax-advantage for paying employees a bonus instead of increased salary. It's all expense to the employer, it's all income to you, and it's taxed the same (bonus checks might have more withheld, but your end of year tax burden doesn't change). It does benefit your employer to delay a significant portion of your pay until the end of the year, delaying payment provides buffer in case of delays in getting paid by the client. Your employer could even put the extra money to work earning more money over the year. It would depend on your contract, but are you due your bonus if you were to leave your job before year-end? If not, that's a great reason to delay payment, because it makes you less likely to leave mid-year, and should you not work out they can keep the difference.

12229

12232

Some other answers mention the ability to sell at grant. This is very important. If you have that ability, think about your guaranteed return. In my case, I get a 15% discount on the lowest 6 month window price from the last two years. If you do the math, the worst case return can be calculated: 1) Money that from the beginning of the window, I make 15% for 6 months (30% annual return guaranteed) 2) Money at the end of the window (say the last month) is 15% for one month (180% annual return guaranteed) In the end, your average holding window for your money is about 3 months (you can calculate it exactly). At that rate, you have a guaranteed 60% annual return. You can't beat that anywhere, with a significant upside if your company stock is increasing. So, if your company has an instant sell at grant option, you have to be brain dead not to do it. If it takes time to get your shares, then you need to look at the volatility of the stock to see how big the chance of losing money is. To generalize to a formula (if that's what you want): WM = purchase window (in months); D = Discount Percentage; GR = Guaranteed Return GR = 12/(WM/2) * D = 6*D/WM One last thing, If you are going to participate in ESPP, make you that you understand how to do your taxes yourself. I haven't found a tax person yet who does ESPP correctly (including an ex IRS agent), so I always have to do my taxes myself to make sure they get done correctly.

12247

You want to have 2-4 credit cards, with a credit utilization ratio below 30%. If you only have 2 cards, closing 1 would reduce your credit diversity and thus lower your credit score. You also want at least 2 years credit history, so closing an older credit card may shorten your credit history, again lowering your credit score. You want to keep around at least 1-2 older cards, even if they are not the best. You have 4 cards: But having 2-4 cards (you have 4) means you can add a 5th, and then cancel one down to 4, or cancel one down to 3 and then add a 4th, for little net effect. Still, there will be effect, as you have decreased the age of your credit, and you have opened new credit (always a ding to your score). Do you have installment loans (cars), you mention a new mortgage, so you need to wait about 3 months after the most recent credit activity to let the effects of that change settle. You want both spouses to have separate credit cards, and that will increase the total available to 4-8. That would allow you to increase the number of benefits available.

12265

Removing limescale is most adequately done by utilizing vinegar. There is basically no better fluid that is better to clean family unit things, for example, pot, taps, baths and showers. the limescale remover Compound items sold in the general store may guarantee to leave everything at home shining clean. In any case, anyone who has taken a stab at cleaning the glass in the shower of the taps in the shower will realize that they can invest a long energy scouring without evacuating the limescale.

12268

As a permanent resident in the U.S. but not a citizen, I was told by a representative at Scottrade that I am not allowed to open a brokerage account.

12277

Since October 26th the marketers of the Savoury-cluster (Unox, Knorr, Bertolli, Conimex and Cup-a-Soup) are interacting on Facebook with hundred consumers for three months. Unilever’s marketers talk about consumer eating habits, cooking- and buying behavior. They also research what consumers think of their products, brands and advertising.

12290

"I would start with The Intelligent Investor. It's more approachable than Security Analysis. I read the revised edition which includes post-chapter commentary and footnotes from Jason Zweig. I found the added perspective helpful since the original book is quite old. Warren Buffet has called Intelligent Investor ""the best book about investing ever written."" (Source) I would suggest that endorsement ranks it before the other. :) Security Analysis is more detailed and, perhaps, oriented at a more professional audience – though individual investors would certainly benefit from reading it. Security Analysis is used as a textbook on value investing in some university-level business & finance courses. (p.s. If you haven't yet heard about William Bernstein's The Intelligent Asset Allocator, I also recommend adding it to your reading list.)"

12309

Yes, you will need to create an actual account. However, when all is done and you are about to log in, there will be an option on whether you want to log in as a live trader or a paper trader. Select the paper trading option and log in and get rich off fake money.

12316

Considering it's all to risky for me, outside of a blind 401k, just having money to try it with is a bigger risk than I'm willing to take. I see this complaint a lot and my response is about the same every time, if you know of something better, please share, so next time we can make it more realistic.

12318

"> but the other countries are just decline stage. I think you have a typo. Could you please explain what you mean? If I understand correctly, you are saying that the US produces ""value"" and other countries do not. As the US has tended to run a high deficit since the Reagan era (i.e. it increases its debt every year) this seems a contentious statement."

12329

Your mortgage represents a negative cash flow of $X for N months. The typical mortgage prepayment doesn't reduce your next payment, but does reduce the length of the mortgage. If you look at the amortization table of a 30 year loan, you might see a payment of $1000 but only $50 going to principal. So if on day one you send an extra $51 or so to the bank, you find that in 30 years you just saved that $1000 payment. In effect, it was a long term bond or CD, yielding the post tax rate of the mortgage. Say your loan were 7%. At 7%, money doubles every 10 years or so. 30 years is 3 doubles or 8X. If I were to offer you $1000 and ask for $7500 in 30 years, you might accept it, with an agreement to buy me out if you refinanced. For me, that would be an investment. Just like buying a bond. In fact, there is a real return, as you see the cash flow at the end. The payments 'not made' are your payback. Those who insist it's not an investment are correct in the strict sense of the word's definition, but pedantic for the fact in practice, the prepayment is a choice to be considered alongside other investment choices. When I have a mortgage, I am the mortgagor, the bank, the mortgagee. Same as a company issuing a bond, the Bank holds my bond and I'm making payments to them. They hold my bond as an investment. There is no question of that. In fact, they package these and sell them as CMOs, groups of mortgages. A pre-payment is me buying back the last coupon on my mortgage. I fail to see the distinction between me 'buying back' $10K in future coupons on my own loan or me investing $10K in someone else's loans. The real question for me is whether this makes sense when rates are so low. At 4%, I'd say it's a matter of prioritizing any high rate debt and any other investments that might yield more. But even so, it's an investment yielding 4%. Over the years, I've developed the priorities of where to put new money - The priorities are debatable. I have my opinion, and my reasons to back them up. In general, it's a balance between risk and return. In my opinion, there's something wrong with ignoring a dollar for dollar match on the 401(k) in most circumstances. Others seem to prefer being 100% debt free before saving at all. There's a balance that might be different for each individual. As I started, the mortgage is a fixed return, with no chance to just get it back if needed. If your cash savings is pretty high, and the choice is a .001% CD or prepay a 4% mortgage, I'd use some funds to pay it down. But not to the point you have no liquid reserves.

12331

"China's chief central banker warned markets are fully valued and therefore susceptible to a drastic price correction - triggered by a wide-spread, simultaneous reversal of opinion in the markets. Basically the point when the ""Greater Fool"" phenomenon ends and and selling pressure spikes as everyone starts getting out because they think everyone is. Simplified af but thats the laymen interpration of a minsky moment."

12332

Check out the bulk stores like BJs, Sam's Club or whatever else is available to you. You can definitely save money shopping there but you also need to keep your wits about you as well. Example, if you're buying in bulk only to let food go to waste, obviously that's not good either...

12347

Free market wages on top of living wage? UBI doesn't dictate that all forms of payment be stopped, just that the govt provides costs of living in the form of either a weekly check, or as your tax refund with a basic of CoL deducted on top of your work related purchases. The free market can expand all it wants on top of that, it's just that now everyone has a fallback when the free market contracts as it inevitably will because infinite growth only works if you have infinite resources to fuel infinite growth.

12350

The real test of AAA's analysis is whether other insurers follow suite. Setting insurance rates is a balancing act between being high enough to make money given the expected payouts, and being low enough to not get undercut by competitors. If other insurers follow AAA's lead, then their analysis is probably right. If other insurers stay low than AAA probably made a mistake. When you price insurance on a given car it's not uncommon to have an outlier that overpriced that car.

12351

I wrote a detailed article on Tax Loss Harvesting to show the impact on returns. For my example, I showed a person in the 15% bracket. In years with no loss, they trade to capture gains at 0% long term rate, thus bumping their basis up. In years with losses, they tax harvest for a 15% effective 'rebate' on that loss. I showed how for the lost decade 2000-2009, a buy and hold would have returned -1% CAGR, but the tax loss harvester would have gained 1% (just 1% for the decade, not CAGR), ending the decade with no loss. As one's portfolio grows, the math changes. You can only take $3000 capital loss against ordinary income, and my example relies on the difference between taking a gain for free but using a loss to offset income. Note, the higher earner would take gains at 15%, but losses at 25%, but only for the relatively small portfolio. The benefit for them is to use loss harvesting to offset gains, less so for ordinary income. As the other answer state, Wealthfront can aid you to do this with no math on your part.

12367

I think the simple answer to your question is: Yes, when you sell, that drives down the price. But it's not like you sell, and THEN the price goes down. The price goes down when you sell. You get the lower price. Others have discussed the mechanics of this, but I think the relevant point for your question is that when you offer shares for sale, buyers now have more choices of where to buy from. If without you, there were 10 people willing to sell for $100 and 10 people willing to buy for $100, then there will be 10 sales at $100. But if you now offer to sell, there are 11 people selling for $100 and 10 people buying for $100. The buyers have a choice, and for a seller to get them to pick him, he has to drop his price a little. In real life, the market is stable when one of those sellers drops his price enough that an 11th buyer decides that he now wants to buy at the lower price, or until one of the other 10 buyers decides that the price has gone too low and he's no longer interested in selling. If the next day you bought the stock back, you are now returning the market to where it was before you sold. Assuming that everything else in the market was unchanged, you would have to pay the same price to buy the stock back that you got when you sold it. Your net profit would be zero. Actually you'd have a loss because you'd have to pay the broker's commission on both transactions. Of course in real life the chances that everything else in the market is unchanged are very small. So if you're a typical small-fry kind of person like me, someone who might be buying and selling a few hundred or a few thousand dollars worth of a company that is worth hundreds of millions, other factors in the market will totally swamp the effect of your little transaction. So when you went to buy back the next day, you might find that the price had gone down, you can buy your shares back for less than you sold them, and pocket the difference. Or the price might have gone up and you take a loss.

12373

"As someone who's done quit a bit of home improvement and seen positive ROI, I can speak from some personal experience. All of this assumes you do the unskilled labor yourself and shop around for relatively cheap plumbers, electricians, etc. First, never underestimate the resale value added by a can of paint. This assumes you have, or know someone with a good sense of style that can help improve the aesthetics of the home significantly. White walls can be so boring to homebuyers and so many of them can't see through the 1/16 of an inch of white paint. Second, look for shortcomings in the house as-is. Anyway, these are some common upgrades. The big thing is to find something you are reasonably comfortable doing yourself and that you will enjoy. Realize that if you're new to this most projects will cost twice what you budget and take four times as long! The pride of having done it yourself and put in the sweat equity makes it worth it though (usually). Edit To better answer your modified question, I'm adding to my answer. So if I understand it, your question is now ""At what rate is it sane to invest in our house vs. outside investments"". This is really just a matter of balancing risk vs. lifestyle. With most upgrades there is no financial benefit to investing in upgrading your home now vs. 5 years from now right before you sell. You could be making 10% in mutual funds until then and then invest in the upgrades right before you sell. There is obviously a physical limit to how fast you can do these improvements yourself, but front-loading this now at the beginning of your timeframe as opposed to the end is not an investment decision, it is a lifestyle decision. Not saying ""Don't do it"", but don't rationalize it to yourself as ""we're saving money by doing this now."" Maybe use the rationalization ""We want to enjoy these upgrades and not just add them before we move out."" One exception to that - I'd plant any trees now and make sure they have a good water supply. Good trees take a while to grow, and doing that sooner rather than later will help."

12378

Firstly, the banks are far less risky than the people they lend to. Most of the interest banks charge borrowers covers defaults, but banks rarely default to the fed, especially those able to borrow from the Fed. Secondly, most banks borrowing is in the form of overnight loans to cover short term reserve fluctuations; they are not borrowing dollars to lend to you. Thirdly, if govt does it's job of keeping some competition in the banking sector, then the rates offered you and me should be near the actual cost to service such loans, so are the true value of those loans. Since there are a significant number of banks that I can borrow from with a multitude of options in how to borrow, there is likely still decent competition for my business. Finally, the Fed funds rate is not currently 0%, so the banks are not getting interest free money.

12382

I am a (small time!) Zopa user in the UK and have been for over a year. The rates that loans are accepted at on Zopa seem to me to be 0.5-1% higher than the best deals in the commercial market. The rates did used to be up at 8% even for A* short term, but now that bracket is getting about 5.5%. That's just talking about the rate offered to borrowers. My own return will be lower as there is a fee levied from Zopa (naturally) and there is the risk of default. In 13 months on the site with ~20 borrowers and ~200 payments I have not had any defaults. The total interest returned for 13 months on a staggered investment of £150 with all repayments re-loaned out has been £9.33. So maybe 5.7% return? I expect that to go down a bit as I'm now loaning out at lower rates. Bear in mind also that interest from P2P lending is taxable income.

12391

"Accept that the money's gone. It could, as others have mentioned, been a lot more. Learn. Make sure your son (and you!) have learned the lesson (at least try to get something out of the $650). The world isn't always a nice place unfortunately. Don't wire money to strangers - use an escrow service or paypal or similar. As the saying goes: ""Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me"". Report it to the authorities. Does have the advantage of the domestic rather than foreign bank account used. The scammer might have closed it by now, but there should be some paper tail. I imagine the id required for opening a bank account in the US is as strict as it is most places these days. They may have used fake Id, but that's not your problem. Assuming contact was made over the internet, bearing in mind IANAL (or American), this could be a crime of Wire Fraud, in which case I believe it's a case for the FBI rather than your local police. The phone calls your son is still receiving could also be construed as attempted extortion and if across state lines could also come under federal jurisdiction. The FBI have a better chance of catching such a scammer, generally having more chance of knowing one end of a computer from the other compared to a local beat cop. If other victims have also contacted the authorities, it will probably be taken more seriously. Give as much information as you can. Not just the bank account details, but all communication, exact time of phone calls, etc. The cops may say there's nothing they can do as it's a civil matter (breach of contract) rather than a criminal one. In which case you have the (probably expensive) option of going the civil route as described by Harper above. Inform Others. Assuming initial contact with the scammer was made through a website or forum or similar. I imagine this must be a niche area for hand made toys. Post your experience to warn other potential victims. Inform the site owner - they may ban the scammers account where applicable. Stop the calls. Block the number. If the number's being withheld, contact the provider - they should have a policy regarding harassment and be able to block it their end. If the calls keep coming, your son will need to change his number. Don’t let it get to you. You may have warm cosy fantasies of removing the guys kneecaps with a 2x4. Don't however dwell on the b*stard for too long and let it get under your skin. You will have to let it go."

12414

Basic business concept here. Sales =/= money for you. You need to take into account the cost to continually produce this stuff. Don't forget the fact that prices will fall in the future as more firms enter the market.

12417

Correct me if I am wrong (and I know you will), but in an economy where most consumers have more debt than savings, I fail to see how moderate inflation is a bad thing. Higher wages negate higher prices, and lower debt burdens free consumer demand. Why are there always people in freak out mode if it looks like inflation may occur even slightly?

12418

"Having read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I absolutely despise Kiyosaki and everything he represents. He's all about ""passive income"", turnkey operations. That is, not actually working for your money. Gee, what an honourable strategy. How about actually doing something of value to earn a living?"

12432

"The blue line is illustrating the net profit or loss the investor will realise according to how the price of the underlying asset settles at expiry. The x-axis represents the underlying asset price. The y-axis represents the profit or loss. In the first case, the investor has a ""naked put write"" position, having sold a put option. The strike price of the put is marked as ""A"" on the x-axis. The maximum profit possible is equal to the total premium received when the option contract was sold. This is represented by that portion of the blue line that is horizontal and extending from the point above that point marked ""A"" on the x-axis. This corresponds to the case that the price of the underlying asset settles at or above the strike price on the day of expiry. If the underlying asset settles at a price less than the strike price on the day of expiry, then the option with be ""in the money"". Therefore the net settlement value will move from a profit to a loss, depending on how far in the money the option is upon expiry. This is represented by the diagonal line moving from above the ""A"" point on the x-axis and moving from a profit to a loss on the y-axis. The diagonal line crosses the x-axis at the point where the underlying asset price is equal to ""A"" minus the original premium rate at which the option was written - i.e., net profit = zero. In the second case, the investor has sold a put option with a strike price of ""B"" and purchase a put option with a strike price ""A"", where A is less than B. Here, the reasoning is similar to the first example, however since a put option has been purchase this will limit the potential losses should the underlying asset move down strongly in value. The horizontal line above the x-axis marks the maximum profit while the horizontal line below the x-axis marks the maximum loss. Note that the horizontal line above the x-axis is closer to the x-axis that is the horizontal line below the x-axis. This is because the maximum profit is equal to the premium received for selling the put option minus the premium payed for buying the put option at a lower strike price. Losses are limited since any loss in excess of the strike price ""A"" plus the premium payed for the put purchased at a strike price of ""A"" is covered by the profit made on the purchased put option at a strike price of ""A""."

12435

Just like with IRS refunds issued in errors, after 3 years it's legally yours, they can't go after you anymore. So savings account until then or just mail them a check if that is what your conscious is saying.

12451

(Haven't read the article but...) yeah, I pay retail at B&N if I can, order online from them (but they're slow, and suck!) otherwise, and I'm lucky enough to have one independent bookstore nearby, which I use, too, to do my bit to keep live bookstores going. Nothing like browsing. Amazon should dial back (hah!). edit, on dissing BN's speed - whoops: > It found that some employees risked stroke and heat exhaustion while running themselves ragged trying to fulfill quotas that resemble the onerous conditions so indelibly satirized by Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. Ambulances were routinely stationed in the facility’s giant parking lot to rush stricken workers to nearby hospitals.

12472

Oh, come off it. It's meat and bread, it isn't literally flavorless. You were just drunk or whatever and couldn't taste for shit. Mcdonalds isn't the best burger in town, it may even be the worst, but it's still a burger, and it still adheres to the laws of taste.

12481

"After the passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and the implementation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the creation of an entirely new Office of Financial Stability in the treasury, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, the Public-Private Investment Program and the Legacy Loans and Legacy Securities Program, the Supervisory Capital Assessment Program, and the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, I find it remarkable that anyone can seriously think that the US government is not signalling, if not actually doing, *everything* it can short of nationalization to not allow a systemically important bank to collapse. This is to say nothing about the coining of an entirely new institution, the ""Too Big To Fail"" bank or ""Systemically Important Financial Institution"" (SIFI). BTW and FYI, [here](http://www.scribd.com/doc/10940608/0116TARP) is the CBO: >This is the first of CBO’s statutory reports on the TARP’s transactions. Through December 31, 2008, those transactions totaled $247 billion. [...][The] CBO estimates that the **subsidy cost** of those transactions (broadly speaking, the difference between what the Treasury paid for the investments or lent to the firms and the market value of those transactions) amounts to **$64 billion**."

12488

easier access to your money That can be a disadvantage for some people. Based on the number of people who tap their 401K for non-retirement reasons, or just cash it in when they change jobs; making it painful to use before retirement age does keep some people from spending it too early. They need to be able to compartmentalize the funds in order to understand the difference between funds spending, saving and investing for retirement. Roth 401K One advantage that the 401K may have is that you can in many plans invest the funds in a Roth 401K. This allows you to go beyond the Roth IRA limits. You are currently investing the maximum amount in your Roth IRA, so this could be a big advantage.

12542

Short selling can be a good strategy to hedge, but you have almost unlimited downside. If a stock price skyrockets, you may be forced to cover your short by the brokerage before you want to or put up more capital. A smarter strategy to hedge, that limits your potential downside is to buy puts if you think the market is going down. Your downside is limited to the total amount that you purchased the put for and no more. Another way to hedge is to SELL calls that are covered because you own the shares the calls refer to. You might do this if you thought your stock was going to go down but you didn't want to sell your shares right now. That way the only downside if the price goes up is you give up your shares at a predetermined price and you miss out on the upside, but your downside is now diminished by the premium you were paid for the option. (You'd still lose money if the shares went down since you still own them, but you got paid the option premium so that helps offset that).

12555

Every business owner must pay close attention when planning their shop front as this is the first thing that potential customers see. Based on their first impression, they will decide whether they’ll check out what you sell or simply ignore your shop all together.

12560

Fiduciary They are obligated by the rules of the exchanges they are listed with. Furthermore, there is a strong chance that people running the company also have stock, so it personally benefits them to create higher prices. Finally, maybe they don't care about the prices directly, but by being a good company with a good product or service, they are desirable and that is expressed as a higher stock price. Not every action is because it will raise the stock price, but because it is good for business which happens to make the stock more valuable.

12590

"First thing I'd say is don't start with investing. The foundation of solid finances is cash flow. Making more than you spend, reliably; knowing where your money goes; having a system that works for you to make sure you make more than you spend. Until you have that, your focus may as well be on getting there, because you can't fix much else about your finances until you fix this. A number you want to know is your percentage of income saved, and a good goal for that is about 15%, with 10-12% going to retirement savings and the rest to shorter-term goals and emergency fund and so forth. (Of course the right percentage here depends on your goals and situation, but for most people this is a kind of minimum savings rate to be in good shape.) Focus on your savings rate. This is your profitability, if you view yourself as a business. If it's crappy or negative, your finances will be a mess. Two ways to improve it are to spend less or to improve your earnings power. Doing both is even better. The book Your Money or Your Life by Dominguez and Robin is good for showing how to obsessively focus on cash flow, even though you may not share their zeal for early retirement. A simpler exercise than what they recommend: take 3 months of your checking and credit card statements, go through each expenditure and put them in a spreadsheet column, SUM() that column. Then add up 3 months of after-tax paychecks. Divide both numbers by three and compare. (The 3 months is to average out your spending, which probably varies a lot by month.) After positive cash flow and savings rate, the next thing I'd go through is insurance. Risk management for what you have. This can include checking you have all the important insurance coverages (homeowner's/renter's, auto, potentially umbrella, term life, disability, and of course health insurance, are some highlights); and also adjusting all your policies to be most cost-effective, which usually means raising the deductible if you have a good emergency fund. Often you can raise the deductible on policies you have, and use the savings to add more catastrophe coverage (such as term life if you didn't have it, or boosting the liability protection on your homeowner's, or whatever). Remember, cover catastrophes as cheaply and comprehensively as possible, but don't worry about reimbursement for non-catastrophic expenses. I like this book, Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People by Jane Bryant Quinn, because it covers all the main personal finance topics, not just investing; and because it is smart and simple. All the main stuff to think about is in the one book and the advice is solid and uncomplicated. Investing can truly be dead easy; most people would be fine with this advice: Honestly, I do micro-optimize and undermine my investing, and I'm guessing most people on this forum do. But it's not something I could defend objectively as a good use of time. It probably is necessary to do some reading to feel financially literate and confident in an investment plan, but the reading isn't really because a good plan is complicated, it's more to understand all the complicated things that you don't need to do, since that's how you'll know not to do them. ;-) Especially when salespeople and publications and TV are telling you over and over and over that you need to know a bunch of crap and do a bunch of things. People who have a profitable ""business of me"" are the ones who end up with a lot of money. Not people who spend a lot of time screwing with investments. (People who get rich investing invest professionally - as their ""business of me"" - they don't goof around with their 401k after work.) Financial security is all about your savings rate, i.e. your personal profitability. No shortcuts, other than lotteries and rich uncles."

12613

Yes it is. I work in pharmaceuticals. The company I work for right now doesn't deal with drugs directly because it is a contractor and the main expenses are wages, rent and IT infrastructure..much like a lot of other companies. But the previous place I work for does contract manufacturing. How these guys stay in business is unreal. The cost of building a ~1000 sq ft clean room can easily be over 6 million, on top of the land and building that it is on. Then operating the room is in the thousands a day. So whenever the room is not being used, the clean room it's bleeding hundreds of dollars an hour. On top of that, the fridges and freezers that is used to store specimens are insanely expensive. A regular fridge to store stuff at 2-8°C is upwards of $5k. Then you need to pay contractors to get it monitored 24/7. Oh shipping the specimens to other labs? Each shipment costs at a minimum of $150. FedEx gets very little of it. The boxes it is shipped in and the temperature monitoring costs a ton. That's not all. The lab(s) are also expensive to run. All that is for a small pharmaceutical company...doing PRE-clinical stuff. If you up that scale, and hire better qualified/experience people, the costs goes up exponentially. 1 gallon of water that I used to use costs $50 or something (including the corporate discount that we got). It is insanely expensive to run a pharmaceutical company.

12614

Defined Benefit - the benefit you receive when you retire is defined e.g. $500 a month if you retire at age 65. It is up to the plan administrators to manage the pension fund, and ensure that there is enough money to cover the benefits based on the life expectancy of the retiree. Defined Contribution - the amount you contribute to the plan is defined. The benefit you receive at retirement depends on how well the investments do over the years.

12623

I would say your decision making is reasonable. You are in the middle of Brexit and nobody knows what that means. Civil society in the United States is very strained at the moment. The one seeming source of stability in Europe, Germany, may end up with a very weakened government. The only country that is probably stable is China and it has weak protections for foreign investors. Law precedes economics, even though economics often ends up dictating the law in the long run. The only thing that may come to mind is doing two things differently. The first is mentally dropping the long-term versus short-term dichotomy and instead think in terms of the types of risks an investment is exposed to, such as currency risk, political risk, liquidity risk and so forth. Maturity risk is just one type of risk. The second is to consider taking some types of risks that are hedged either by put contracts to limit the downside loss, or consider buying longer-dated call contracts using a small percentage of your money. If the underlying price falls, then the call contracts will be a total loss, but if the price increases then you will receive most of the increase (minus the premium). If you are uncomfortable purchasing individual assets directly, then I would say you are probably doing everything that you reasonably can do.

12652

As an employee of one of these firms, us auditors are the bread and butter while consulting work is sexy and just the flavor of the week. And now that my personal rant is over, I definitely agree with the point of the article. But you must understand that any Channel 1 audit client will not be allowed to receive any consulting from the same firm. In fact, often times when fraud happens one of the Big 4 will hire another firm to investigate, just look at what's unfolding with MF Global.

12655

"A very interesting topic, as I am moving to the US in a month. I realise this thread is old but its been helpful to me. My observations from my home country ""Before we judge anyone who doesn't use direct deposit or who prefers to be paid in cold hard cash, consider that direct deposit is a luxury of stability. Steady job, home, etc. Direct deposit doesn't make sense for a contractor or day labourer who expect to work for a different person each day or week"" --- well here a contractor would still be paid by a direct deposit, even if he was working for many different people. On the invoice the contractor provides Bank account details, and customer logs onto their internet banking and pays electronically. It is a a very simple process and is the preferred method of payment by most businesses even small contractors. Many accounting software programs are linked to bank accounts and can quickly reconcile accounts for small business. Many businesses will not accept a cheque in Australia anymore as they are considered to be a higher risk. I started work in 1994 and have never received any payment except via direct deposit."

12660

"Note that this particular cop has some kind of specialisation (""special-ops"") that would put him into a higher pay-grade, probably rising with experience in that field. Then he was promoted to sergeant and took on more responsibility. Again, he might well have had subsequent pay rises because of his years of experience as a sergeant. Personally, I want well-paid public servants, who will do a good job. I want a guy who has spent 20 years in such a blue-collar job to be able to earn as much as a computer programmer who only graduated a couple of years ago."

12681

Anytime someone mentions a specific year something will happen on economics they lose credibility in my book. That said, it does look like government has run itself off a financial cliff. Its like Looney Tunes, once we look down we will fall

12693

Aside from the fact that fast food is a main culprit of the obesity epidemic that is literally crippling the United States populace, >A better-ranked restaurant stock from the same space is Dave & Buster’s Entertainment, Inc. (PLAY - Free Report) that has surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, delivering an average positive surprise of 30.5%.