I'm quite aware.  Nevertheless, the situation I'm describing is a little different.  It's the transition phase from order to chaos.  Currently, there are lots of well-off kids in universities around the country who don't have bodyguards on them 24/7.  That's because there is an assumption of general security.  If things were to go downhill suddenly, there would be a severe lack of qualified people willing to dive into a population center to escort some kid out safely.  Time would also be of essence.  Desire for safety of one's children, when paired with a severe real or perceived threat, would thus make these types of services spike rapidly, if for a short period of time.  It's not dissimilar to what happens with fuel prices when a hurricane cuts of supply.  And, of course, perhaps I would start a company which would cater to the expanding group of people who wanted private security over the long haul.  Opportunity abounds!    The point is that, if one is a resilient, flexible, and capable person, then the macro-scale doesn't matter all that much.  I prosper now, in this serene and stable environment; I will prosper in a world where labor is overtaken by automation; I would prosper even more in situation where society goes to shit.  There is no situation, short of absolute apocalypse or immediate failing health, in which I would not adapt and prosper.


"> In 2008 under Bush, the US had a deficit of 454.8 billion dollar  Certain ""minor"" items were left out of that budget.  Like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  If you check the 'debt to penny' site, you'll see that [**1.4 trillion**](http://i.imgur.com/qslFndc.png) was added to the national debt during Bush's last 12 months."


That's my unpopular opinion about restaurants, too. I don't think that customers should be paying the bulk of wages of servers through tips. I worked in food service for years and my immediate family all still does. I'm aware that restaurant margins are often razor thin. Raise prices, pay your workers, if people don't want your food at those prices anymore, close. Maybe it's a sign that we have too many restaurants if they can't compete without subsidized wages for their staff.


If one separates from work at 55 or older, they can withdraw from that 401(k) with no penalty.  You might wish to consider a mix of Roth IRA deposits as well. The deposits can be withdrawn at anytime with no tax consequence.


"> but then look at elections in the US and UK  As someone in the survey research industry, it's painful for us to hear the assertion of how ""incorrect"" the polls were. There were flaws in polling, there always are, but no pollster ever said they can predict with 100% confidence as is the same with the aggregation of the poll results. But the public seems to think, ""75% chance to win pretty much means 100%, so the data got it wrong"", when really the case is mostly that the 25% chance kicked in."


Bargain Bins is an affordable bin provider operating in some major cities across New Zealand. Along with bins and skips, they also provide transport for all kinds of waste, such as concrete, soil and green waste. Their bins come in a range of sizes and can be hired for as long as you need. Order a bin and they’ll deliver it to your door – easy!


It's the Jack Welsh approach to business. Its meant to make people strive for their next promotion, and where the always available even on weekends came from.  The man basically said If you can't get promoted within five years you should be fired. He had no place for people who wanted to just do their time in one a place for an entire career.


"He's been doing fine for himself. He got Tesla to bail out bankrupt Solar City, remember?   And some CEOs ""pledge"" stock for loans with then immediately sold short by his ""lender"" to hedge the position, allowing said CEO to profit but never have to sell a share himself on the record.  Not that his holiness would ever do such a thing of course."


People just love becoming more well-off than they currently are, and one of the ways they do it is with leverage. Leverage requires credit. That desire is not exclusive to people who are not already well-off. For a well-off person who wants to become more well-off by expanding their real estate ventures, paying cash for property is a terrible way to go about it. The same goes for other types of business or market investment. Credit benefits the well-off even more greatly than it benefits the poor or the middle-class.


what do you mean exactly?  Do you have a future target price and projected future dividend payments and you want the present value (time discounted price) of those? Edit: The DCF formula is difficult to use for stocks because the future price is unknown.  It is more applicable to fixed-income instruments like coupon bonds.  You could use it but you need to predict / speculate a future price for the stock. You are better off using the standard stock analysis stuff: Learn Stock Basics - How To Read A Stock Table/Quote The P/E ratio and the Dividend yield are the two most important.  The good P/E ratio for a mature company would be around 20.  For smaller and growing companies, a higher P/E ratio is acceptable.  The dividend yield is important because it tells you how much your shares grow even if the stock price stays unchanged for the year. HTH


"Who said I was a B?  I have an MS in CS/SE from a top tier program.  I'm a contractor now.  I've been off active duty for years.  By the way, all the traditional intel work in the DC area is drying up.  I hope you can code.  Edit: Added ""intel""."


Once you paid it off, you don't pay rent anymore. That is the major advantage. Also, you can do any change you want to it. Many people consider it an investment - if you ever sell it, it could be worth more than what you paid (although this is not for sure)


There is a significant tie between housing prices and mortgage rates.  As such, don't assume low mortgage rates mean you will be financially better off if you buy now, since housing prices are inversely correlated with mortgage rates.  This isn't a huge correlation - it's R-squared is a bit under 20%, at a 1.5-2 year lag - but there is a significant connection there.  Particularly in that 10%+ era (see chart at end of post for details) in 1979-1982, there was a dramatic drop in housing price growth that corresponded with high interest rates. There is a second major factor here, though, one that is likely much more important: why the interest rates are at 10%.  Interest rates are largely set to follow the Federal Funds rate (the rate at which the Federal Reserve loans to banks).  That rate is set higher for essentially one purpose: to combat inflation.  Higher interest rates means less borrowing, slower economic growth, and most importantly, a slower increase in the money supply - all of which come together to prevent inflation. Those 10% (and higher!) rates you heard about?  Those were in the 70's and early 80's.  Anyone remember the Jimmy Carter years?  Inflation in the period from 1979 to 1981 averaged over 10%.  Inflation in the 70s from 1973 to 1982 averaged nearly 9% annually.  That meant your dollar this year was worth only $0.90 next year - which means inevitably a higher cost of borrowing.   In addition to simply keeping pace with inflation, the Fed also uses the rate as a carrot/stick to control US inflation.  They weren't as good at that in the 70s - they misread economic indicators in the late 1970s significantly, lowering rates dramatically in 1975-1977 (from ~12% to ~5%).  This led to the dramatic double-digit inflation of the 1979-1981 period, requiring them to raise rates to astronomic levels - nearly 20% at one point.  Yeah, I hope nobody bought a house on a fixed-rate mortgage from 1979-1981. The Fed has gotten a lot more careful over the years - Alan Greenspan largely was responsible for the shift in policy which seems to have been quite effective from the mid 1980s to the present (though he's long gone from his spot on the Fed board).  Despite significant economic changes in both directions, inflation has been kept largely under control since then, and since 1991 have been keeping pretty steady around 6% or less.  The current rate (around 0%) is unlikely to stay around forever - that would lead to massive inflation, eventually - but it's reasonable to say that prolonged periods over 10% are unlikely in the medium term.   Further, if inflation did spike (and with it, your interest rates), salaries tend to spike also.  Not quite as fast as inflation - in fact, that's a major reason a small positive inflation around 2-3% is important, to allow for wages to grow more slowly for poorer performers - but still, at 10% inflation the average wage will climb at a fairly similar pace.  Thus, you'd be able to buy more house - or, perhaps a better idea, save more money for a house that you can then buy a few years down the road when rates drop. Ultimately, the advice here is to not worry too much about interest rates. Buy a house when you're ready, and buy the house you're ready for.  Interest rates may rise, but if so it's likely due to an increase in inflation and thus wage growth; and it would take a major shift in the economy for rates to rise to the 10-11% level.  If that did happen, housing prices (or at least growth in prices) would likely drop significantly. Some further references:


I liked Mr. Jobs. But the new CEO will supersede Steve on all levels. Mr. Cook is a clever clever man... Jobs was charismatic. Cook is not. But he delivers class products. It would be highly interesting to do a longitudinal study on Apple. But I am sure it is already taken care of.


The top ten holdings for these funds don't overlap by even one stock. It seems to me they are targeting an index for comparison, but making no attempt to replicate a list of holdings as would, say, a true S&P index.


">> Ok!!!! Please find me something significant that Trump did that you don't like.  > All right, another one of my pet issues is global warming.  Wow!   I asked you twice for significant issues that Trump did, and you don't like.  First, you give this gray topic of Medicare Part-D where Trump promised to act upon, but has yet do anything. Am I right? Did Trump do anything against or for drug prices? Isn't trump trying to replace the healthcare act? Yes or no?  **And now, given a second chance, you come up with ""Global Warming""?**  Are you serious? Global Warming? It's Trump fault? Is Trump against solar panels and wind power?  Do you have any idea why Trump called it Chinese Hoax?   Because the Paris Accords, like the TPP, and like NAFTA, and the Iran Deal, etc, etc, etc, are scams to hurt the USA and make the USA pay more. Nothing else.  Who has bigger air pollution, coal power plants, cutting trees, environmental disasters, etc? The USA or China? USA or 3rd world?  So why does the USA has to do most of the cuts and costs?  Global Warming is another form of tribalism and ""religion"" used to manipulate people.  Since you are an expert with Global Warming, is it true that deserts are now becoming green? Most trees in the world, which are in Russia and not the Amazon, are green longer? Global warming happened before, many times in earth history before the industrial revolution? Also ice ages? Oceans did not rise?   I am not worried about Global Warming. It has negative things, and positive things.   My nieces is working on growing meat in labs for consumption by humans. It will be safer, cheaper, better, and more tasty. **Do you have any idea what will happen in the world, 20-30 years from now, when we stop raising cows, pigs, goats and sheep? Any idea how damaging is current agriculture to the climate? What would happen in the world in 20-30 years from now when robots plant trees everywhere?**  No need for the hysterical and paranoia about ""Global Warming"" and the USA. You should be more worried about China and what this country and all its people do the earth."


"So basically, rather than spend money on upgrades to the existing 108 fighters, 'retire' them from active combat and switch them to the training pool, and just worry about fielding the new ones. An interesting point in the article:  > ""We have actually had this dialogue with the F-16, we had this dialogue with the F-15, we had this dialogue with the F-22. We just haven't had it for a while.""  Modern fighter jets don't really act much like planes anymore, budget-wise. 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. It might make a lot more sense to treat a fighter jet like a computer with an upgrade cycle of 3-5 years, roll the cost of maintenance and upgrades into the initial purchase for however long you're intending to keep the aircraft. I suspect a lot of generals would go pale if they knew the full cost of ownership of this generation of fighters going forward."


Well, you won't be double taxed based on what you described. Partners are taxed on income, typically distributions. Your gain in the partnership is not income. However, you were essentially given some money which you elected to invest in the partnership, so you need to pay tax on that money. The question becomes, are you being double taxed in another way? Your question doesn't explain how you invested, but pretty much the options are either a payroll deduction (some amount taken out of X paychecks or a bonus) or some other payment to you that was not treated as a payroll deduction. Given that you got a 1099, that suggests the latter. However, if the money was taken out as a payroll deduction - you've already paid taxes (via your W2)! So, I'd double check on that. Regarding why the numbers don't exactly match up - Your shares in the partnership likely transacted before the partnership valuation. Let's illustrate with an example. Say the partnership is currently worth $1000 with 100 outstanding shares. You put up $1000 and get 100 shares. Partnership is now worth $2000 with 200 outstanding shares. However, after a good year for the firm, it's valuation sets the firm's worth at $3000. Your gain is $1500 not $1000. You can also see if what happened was the firm's valuation went down, your gain would be less than your initial investment. If instead your shares transacted immediately after the valuation, then your gain and your cost to acquire the shares would be the same. So again, I'd suggest double checking on this - if your shares transacted after the valuation, there needs to be an explanation for the difference in your gain. For reference: http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/incorporation-and-legal-structures/partnership-taxes.html And https://www.irs.gov/publications/p541/ar02.html Here you learn the purpose of the gain boxes on your K1 - tracking your capital basis should the partnership sell. Essentially, when the partnership is sold, you as a partner get some money. That money is then taxed. How much you pay will depend on what you received versus what the company was worth and whether your gain was long term or short term. This link doesn't go into that detail, but should give you a thread to pull. I'd also suggest reading more about partnerships and K1 and not just the IRS publications. Don't get me wrong, they're a good source of information, just also dense and sometimes tough to understand. Good luck and congrats.


"I would say a lot of the answers here aren't quite right. The main issue here is that banking is a highly oligopolous industry - there are few key players (the UK, for example, has only 5 major banks operating under a variety of brands: it's all the same companies underneath) and the market is very, very hard to enter owing to the immense regulatory burden. Because the landscape is so narrow and it's possible to keep close tabs on all  your competitors, there's no incentive to spend money on shiny new things to keep up with the competition - the industry is purely reactive.  If nobody else has an awesome, feature-filled online portal, there's no need for any one bank to make one.  If everybody is reactive, and nobody proactive, then it's a short logical deduction that improvements happen at a glacial pace. Also take into account that when you've got this toxic ""bare-minimum"" form of competition, the question for these people soon turns to ""what can we get away with?"" which results in things like subpar online portals with as much information as you like delivered on paper for a hefty charge, and extortionate, price fixed administrative fees.  Furthermore your transaction history is super valuable information.  There are one or two highly profitable companies who collate international transaction data and whose sole job in life is to restrict access to that information to the highest bidders.  Your transaction history is an asset in a multibillion dollar per year industry, and as such it is not surprising that banks don't want to give it out for free."


Naturally none of them *suit* me. If I was in a situation like that, I'd probably calmly stand up for myself, maybe talk to HR.  I would like to point out that (a) I make a point of getting explicit instructions, (b) I'm good about making sure people know well in advance when I'm going to be out (c) I'm salaried, I don't have a time sheet, and if the boss didn't mention the missing time, I would, and (d) there's only one other person there who knows anything about web programming, and she's my assistant.  I can accept a certain amount of abuse *if* the pay is good enough and I have recourses. If not, lets just say that the recruitment company I was with took all of two weeks to find me this job after I was let go from the last one (and not because my previous bosses didn't like me either, but because they couldn't afford me any more. They kept me on as a contractor until I found this job)


Paypal UK has a page here: https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/seller-protection Basically they don't just take the seller's word for it, there is a resolution process.  The biggest thing you can do is make sure that you deliver it in a way that requires signature.


Trump is more credible than all the fake-news media: CNN, NYT, WaPo, etc.  **He's way way way more credible than Hillary who cheat on debate questions given to her by fake-news CNN! If my son cheated on a test in 1st grade like her, he will be expelled from school. Think for a second just about this.**


Things are generally fine.  A credit balance is not a horrible thing.   The argument against maintaining a credit balance is that you are essentially loaning the credit card issuer money at 0% interest.  You probably have alternative investments that would pay better interest, so it's usually better to park your money there.  All that said, it's unlikely that the interest on whatever balance you have is enough to be more than pennies.   The way that a credit card works, you run up a balance in one period.  Then there is a grace period.  If you don't pay off the balance during the grace period, they start charging you interest.  You also may have a minimum payment to make.  If you don't make that payment, they'll charge you a late fee.   The typical period to rack up charges is from the first to the last day of a month.  The typical grace period is through the 20th or 25th of the next month.  Your card may be different.  So check the documentation (user agreement) for your card if you want the real data.   It sounds like you paid off some purchases while you were still in the period where you rack up charges.  While those purchases were posted to the account, they may not be counted in the balance calculation.  If your credit balance exactly matches the payment you made, that's probably what happened.  It's also possible that you overpaid the balance.  If your credit balance is just a small amount, that's probably what happened.   If you really want to be sure, you should call the credit card issuer and ask them.  At best we can tell you how it normally works.  Since this is your first month, you could just wait for your first bill and respond to that.  So long as you pay off the entire balance shown there by the deadline, everything should be fine.   Don't wait until the last day to pay.  It's usually best to pay a week or so early so as to leave time for the mail to deliver the check and for them to process it.  You can wait longer for an online payment, but a few business days early to give you a chance to handle potential problems is still good.


"Please Note: Before taking any steps towards a transaction involving possible capital gains tax exclusions, please consult your CPA, attorney or tax advisor. I am not a CPA or Tax Advisor. Since you have only lived in it 11 months, you don't meet the ""use test"" for full exclusion. However, even if you haven't lived in it that long, you may be able to exclude some of the gains due to a ""unforeseen circumstance"", not just because you wanted to move. You say you are ""ready for a change"" and so that means it's an arbitrary decision, not a forced one. To calculate the partial exclusion, take the number of months you lived there before the sale and divide it by 24. (11/24 = 0.45). So for an unmarried person, you can exclude up to $250,000. Multiply that by .45 and you get $112,500. If your profit after everything is taken out is only $35,000 then you can exclude that from capital gains because it is less than $112,500.  All that being said, you will need documentation in case you get audited. For more information, see IRS Publication 551, Basis of Assets, and look for the section on real property. See also this IRS Tax Topic on Sale of Your Home"


You can print them on any IRS-approved paper, you don't have to use pre-printed forms. The IRS publishes specifications for paper that is approved for use for these kinds of forms (109*, W*, etc).  Here's the reason why it is important: Even the slightest deviation can result in incorrect scanning, and may affect money amounts reported for employees. Note that some portions of these forms are in different color (1099-MISC copy A). This is important, and using incorrect color will affect the IRS OCR mechanisms. Forms for individuals are less complicated with regards to technical specifications, because individuals must file them, and as such any complication will unnecessarily burden the citizenry. All the 109*, W* etc forms are not legally required to be filed by all citizens. You're only required to file them if you chose to do business, or chose to employ others. As such, using professional software and special forms is a cost of doing your business, and not a tax as it would be had it been mandatory to everyone. Mistakes in individual forms due to OCR failure or something else will be noticed by the taxpayers (less/more refund, etc) or through the internal matching and cross-check. However, forms 109* and W* feed that matching and cross-check system and are considered source of truth by it, and as such their processing must be much more reliable and precise.


Just to add: the 20% APR is the annualized interest rate, but applied monthly. So you'd be charged $0.50 of interest on your $30 balance, which gets capitalized on the next month. So if you were to miss the next payment for some reason, your new interest charge would be on $30.50 instead of $30 (actually, it'd be much more since there would be a fee for the late payment, but discounting that to illustrate the point).


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Nobody WANTS to be there. Did you ever drop someone off at the airport pre-9/11?  Here's how it used to go: You first get guilt-tripped into dropping someone off at the airport, and then you get guilt-tripped into following them through security to hug/kiss/take-up-extra-space at an already crowded gate.


Labor - I have a fairly decent sized extended family.  Between us we cover quite a bit of experience in different trades and professions.  So as a result when we undertake significant home projects we tend to work together to complete them.  We redid my parent kitchen for basically the cost of the cabinets and tile.  My grandmothers bathroom when she could no longer get into the tube for the cost of fixtures and tile.  We partitioned my upstairs giant bedroom into 2 bedrooms and a bathroom.  And lots of other things.   We also have a family farm as at harvest time we all pitch in and work long hours.  Without that teamwork our entire family would have a much poorer quality of life.


Talk about opportunity cost. Show a rope, and put a tag with him on the end of it.  Explain that since he has max out his credit, he can no longer get more.  Without more credit here are the things he can't have The key to illustrate is that all the money he makes, for the next several years is obligated to the people he has already borrowed it from.  Try to have him imagine giving his entire paycheck to a bank, and then doing that for the next five years.  To drive it home, point out that there are 5 super bowls, 5 college championship games, 5 final fours, 5 annual concerts he likes, 5 model years of cars, 5 or more iPhone versions in those five years.  Or whatever he is into.  5 years of laptops, 5 years of fishing trips. These things are not affordable to him right now.  He has already spent his money for the next 5 years, and those are the things he cannot have because he is, in fact, out of cash. Furthermore, if he continues, the credit will dry up completely and his 5 year horizon could easily become ten. To illustrate how long 5 or 10 years is, have him remember that 10 years ago he might have been in college or the military.  That 5 years ago Facebook was no big thing.  That 5 years ago the Razr was an awesome phone.  That 5 years ago we had a different president.


The opposite of a hedge is nothing.  Because if you don't want to hedge you bets, you don't, therefore you merely have the original bet. The opposite state of being hedged, is being unhedged.


I am not a tax professional, only an investment professional, so please take the following with a grain of salt and simply as informational guidance, not a personal recommendation or solicitation to buy/sell any security or as personal tax or investment advice. As Ross mentioned, you need to consult a tax advisor for a final answer concerning your friend's personal circumstances. In my experience advising hundreds of clients (and working directly with their tax advisors) the cost basis is used to calculate tax gain or loss on ordinary investments in the US. It appears to me that the Edward Jones description is correct. This has also been the case for me personally in the US with a variety of securities--stocks, options, futures, bonds, mutual funds, and exchange traded funds.  From the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/uac/about-form-1099b Form 1099-B, Proceeds From Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions A broker or barter exchange must file this form for each person: Edward Jones should be able to produce a 1099b documenting the gains/losses of any investments. If the 1099b document is confusing, they might have a gain/loss report that more clearly delineates proceeds, capital returns, dividends, and other items related to the purchase and sale of securities.


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There are several disadvantages: You cannot generally withdraw from a 401(k) while you're still employed at the same employer. When you do withdraw, then unless you roll it over, you pay tax on the whole amount based on the marginal tax rate you have that year. If it comes on top of your regular salary, the whole withdrawal will be taxed at the higher marginal rates. You will also pay extra 10% penalty for the withdrawal. For home purchase you can take out up to $10K without the penalty, I doubt that would be enough for downpayment. There are probably more, but these are the major ones I can spot. The same goes to the 457(k), except that those don't have the 10% penalty.


"I wrote Retirement Savings Ratio some time ago and 15% seemed the sweet spot. The 15% is 10% saved and 5% match, in my mind. The reason I link is to show a spreadsheet that shares my approach to the analysis.  You list a huge number of things to think about, all great. I'm near Duff's view although I shoot for 20X final  income so 4% of that is an 80% replacement. There's nothing magic about 80. If social security exists, it actually drops the required 80 from you to the 60 or so Duff lists, so we align.  The 'problems' with my sheet - no one gets exact 3% raises for 43 years, so one can go in and change that, maybe higher early on, then slow it down. Returns are 8% every year, so one must go to the sheet or their own plan and reassess how they are doing each year. Disclosure - we are now at 14X our income with a goal of 25 to replace 100%. So we need a cumulative 80% growth (as in S&P at 2500) or the years of deposits to get there. I am nearing 50.  Let me pick one of your questions - ""Your expenses go down at retirement, stay the same, or go up?"" - this is the $64K question. the 80% is an average guess. The general assumption is in this range. If we downsized right after the kid goes to college, we could retire on far less. So, to wrap up, online calculators and spreadsheets only go so far. Your questions are dead on. A planner should ask every one of these questions before assuming any ratio.  Edit - on re-read I am blown away by the list of questions you have here. It's great. And it shows how there's risk no matter what."


If you dont want to pay for it, dont. But I think it's important to draw the distinction between one of the more thorough news sources and entertainment services. The former is investigating and reporting on matters of national interest while the latter allow you to binge watch.


You have to balance several concerns here. The primary problem is that if you go to the effort of saving your money you want to also be sure that your savings will not lose too much of its value to inflation. Ukraine had a terrible inflation spike in 2015 for obvious reasons. Even as inflation has settled down in 2016, it is stabilizing around 12% which is very high  Exchange rates are your next concern. If you lose a large percentage of the value of your money just in the process of exchanging it, that also eats away at the value of your money. If you accept the US Federal Reserve target of 2% inflation, then you should only exchange money that you will hold long enough that both exchange fees will outweigh the 10% inflation advantage. Even in cases where you have placed your money in a foreign currency, there's a chance that your government could freeze accounts denominated in foreign currencies, so there's always the political risk that you have to factor in. For that reason keeping foreign currency in cash also has some appeal because it cannot be confiscated as easily. You could still certainly be robbed, so keeping all of your savings in cash isn't a great solution either. All in all, you are diversifying your savings if you use the strategy of balancing all three methods. Splitting it evenly to 5% for each method isn't the most important. I would suggest taking advantage of good exchange rates (as they appear) to time when you buy foreign currency.


M Attia, the advantages of the TD e-series are that they are a low cost way to index your portfolio as well it gives you to opportunity to invest small amounts at a time.  With ETF's, purchasing small amounts at a time would simply get too expensive.


Manufacturer of talc powder in India http://quartzpowdermanufacturers.com/supplier-of-talc-powder-in-india.php  Talc is a natural steatite it is others names are called soap stone and French chalk that is available in off and white color in our chemical industry. Our product has Creep resistance at increased and surroundings temperature. These offered products like talc powder and refractory minerals are processed under the direction of our adept processionals by employing optimum grade chemical compounds in obedience with market standards.  .


Wireless issues?  Did you tell your wireless router to stay only on channel 11 or did Apple finally fix that?  People like their Apples, and I've seen many, many people switch to avoid the continual headaches dished out by Microsoft--at quite a hefty premium.


A stock market is just that, a market place where buyers and sellers come together to buy and sell shares in companies listed on that stock market. There is no global stock price, the price relates to the last price a stock was traded at on a particular stock market. However, a company can be listed on more than one stock exchange. For example, some Australian companies are listed both on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and the NYSE, and they usually trade at different prices on the different exchanges. Also, there is no formula to determine a stock price. In your example where C wants to buy at 110 and B wants to sell at 120, there will be no sale until one or both of them decides to change their bid or offer to match the opposite, or until new buyers and/or sellers come into the market closing the gap between the buy and sell prices and creating more liquidity. It is all to do with supply and demand and peoples' emotions.


What, you think Amazon doesn't have a lobbying *cough* bribery *cough* budget?  Daily reminder Besos, founder, chairman, and CEO of Amazon, is the wealthiest man in the world and your tax dollars are going right into his pocket...


Value is the key word here. Traders should ideally trade on the perceived future value of a company.  Changes in the perceived future value is what leads them to buy and sell shares. That said, if a company were to have some catastrophe happen (say it and all of its employees and property disappeared)  and somehow every shareholder agreed to not sell, the companies market capitalization would remain unmoved even though the value of the company is gone. So theoretically yes, but it is unlikely.


It is not a biological imperative for any individual. I know' I've gone years without it before and plenty of people go decades. And that's just sex... plenty of way to reduce chances of having a kid.   Also, based on my research vasectomies do not cost that much (IMO). I am not familiar with the other procedure.


"TD e-series index funds are great for regular contributions every paycheck since there is no trading commission.  The personal finance blog ""Canadian Couch Potato"" has great examples of what they call ""model portfolios"" and one consists of entirely TD e-series index funds.  Check it out:  http://canadiancouchpotato.com/model-portfolios-2/ The e-series portfolio that is described in the Model Portfolios (linked above) made returns of just over 10%.  This is very similar to the ETF Model Portolio.   One thing to remember is that these funds have a 30 day no sell time frame, otherwise a 2% fee is applied to the funds you withdraw."


> Pay, especially bonuses is very good compared to many other sectors.  This.  I just scored a database dev gig in finance after spending five years or so doing it in another industry.  The pay bump is staggering.


I also think Benchmark knows the business model isn't sustainable at this point - their goal is to IPO as quickly as possible and get the fuck out before the whole thing tanks. They need Travis out to beat it into IPO-able shape.


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Your final tax basis could not be determined until June 14, 2012, the first day of separate trading of all four securities that you received from the GM bankruptcy reorganization.


"I believe that your dilemma comes from not having clearly defined consequences of buying it. On one side you want it and you can afford it, but on the other side there is nothing solid. Just some vague dislike of spending money and guilt of buying something ""useless"". You're basically guilt tripping yourself into not buying it, and guilt tripping is always bad. What you need is clear-cut consequence. Something like ""I can buy X but then I won't get Y and Z"". And for that you need a clearly laid out budget, just to know how much you can spend. Money that go into things that are absolutely required, money that go into various saving plans, etc - and after that you're left with some clear amount that should be spent on making yourself happier. Making yourself happier is not something you should feel guilty about, it's actually one of purposes of life. Making yourself happy is only bad if it's hurting other areas of your life (and even that is relative, because there is always some extent of degradation you're willing to accept or you have already accepted). There is absolutely no point in saving every single penny you can, because that will make you live long and unhappy life and die without enjoying your riches."


Jobless claims are up, but this is due to the continued loss of public sector jobs.  This is what happens when you shrink the size of government.  The private sector actually added jobs, just not enough to offset the loss from the public sector.  So recession?  I say no.  Still, with the uncertainty in Europe, a slowing economy in China, and the JP Morgan mess, the markets are skittish, and any little thing is going to make a sell off likely.


"Nope... as mentioned elsewhere, I hired a lawyer, and my employer absolutely does not own any of my work. I've been extremely careful about that. This is much more common as a developer working for a ""for-profit"" entity particularly in the US. I work for a government body and not in the US."


One factor to consider is that some employers have a 401k contribution match policy that only allows a certain percentage of any given paycheck to be matched. So if the company is willing to match 4% of each paycheck, you could run into a problem here where you lose out on some of your company match. For example, suppose you get a $20,000 bonus. You can contribute $18,000 per year to your 401k and this bonus could be a nice way to knock most of that out and then take home your full paycheck the rest of the year. Sounds pretty nice, but there's a problem. The company will only match 4% of your $20,000 ($800) when they otherwise would have matched up to 4% of your annual salary ($4,000 if you're making $100,000 in this example). I'd say it's definitely worth it to make a big contribution to your 401k when you get a bonus as it's an easy way to get a lot of money in there without really feeling a loss (since it's extra money on top of your normal paycheck). But I'd definitely be careful about this situation. You don't want to throw away free money. To avoid this problem, make sure that you leave enough of your annual limit so you can contribute enough to get your 4% company match on every paycheck of the year.


We are working on getting her social media up to par,  I’m taking the initiative to help her out on that end because she simply doesn’t have the time. And she has a website where people can buy any of the items in the store to either pick up or have delivered. And she has P.O. boxes for rent that are in the shop. The espresso machine should be up and running by November but she’s losing faith in the actual grocery side of things.


Facebook, Google and to some extent Amazon are not going away. They are all multi-billion dollar digital advertising agencies. They continue to increase their earnings on the back of ad sales. Amazon just crossed the billion dollar threshold for their online advertisements. We're still in the growth stage for online advertisements.


"Thanks.  Glad you enjoyed the writings. :)    Relating again back to your points about timeline, it's important to understand that capitalism is what mathematicians or engineers might call an ""optimization engine"". Given an initial situation and a set of constraints about what is allowed, it seeks an optimal solution within that constraint space. But it's just a tool, it's not artificially intelligent, and it will only do as well as people's willingness to bound its search by an appropriate set of constraints.  The timeline is part of that.  If we tell the engine ""only care about short term gains"", that's how it will function."


If you're referring to investment hedging, then you should diversify into things that would profit if expected event hit. For example alternative energy sources would benefit greatly from increased evidence of global warming, or the onset of peak oil. Preparing for calamities that would render the stock market inaccessible, the answer is quite different.  Simply own more of things that people would want than you need.  A list of possibilities would include: Precious metals are also a way to secure value outside the financial markets, but would not be readily sellable until the immediate calamity had passed. All this should be balanced on an honest evaluation of the risks, including the risk of nothing happening.  I've heard of people not saving for retirement because they don't expect the financial markets to be available then, but that's not a risk I'm willing to take.


It's not a benefit when that's the main reason I don't go there.  I can't get everything I need there, especially if I want things like tooth paste or paper towels or any other household products. If they even have it, then there is one choice and so they charge like four times what'd I'd pay at a real grocery store.  Once people catch on that 19¢ banana isn't even a really great price just a marketing gimmick, they're sunk.  The grocery store of the future doesn't have any employees anyways.  Once amazon proves they can make an automated grocery store they'll license that tech to everyone   I do like some of their TJ brand things and they have a great selection of cheap wine. I will be sad to see them go


It looks like you'd just be charging yourself interest and paying yourself back, because it's a pass-through entity, as I'm sure you know.  (This assumes you're the only member of the LLC.) It all depends on how much money you want inside the protective cover of the LLC, and for how long.  It doesn't seem to make much difference how you get the cash in or out, or how complicated or easy you make it for yourself.


"The ""Money 70"" is a fine list: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestfunds/index.html Money magazine is usually more reasonable than the other ones (SmartMoney, Kiplinger's, etc. are in my opinion sillier). If you want a lot of depth, the Morningstar Analyst Picks are useful but you have to pay for a membership which is probably not worth it for now: http://www.morningstar.com/Cover/Funds.aspx (side note: Morningstar star ratings are not useful, I'd ignore those. analyst picks are pretty useful.) Vanguard is a can't-go-too-wrong suggestion. They don't have any house funds that are ""bad,"" while for example Fidelity has some good ones mixed with a bunch that aren't so much. Of course, some funds at Vanguard may be inappropriate for your situation. (Vanguard also sells third-party funds, I'm talking about their own branded funds.) If getting started with 5K I think you'd want to go with an all-in-one fund like a target date retirement fund or a balanced fund. Such a fund also handles rebalancing for you. There's a Vanguard target date fund and balanced fund (Wellington) in the Money 70 list. fwiw, I think it's more important to ask how much risk you need to take, rather than how much you are willing to take. I wrote this down at more length here: http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/10/take-risks-in-life-for-savings-choose-a-balanced-fund/ First pick your desired asset allocation, then pick your fund after that to match. Good luck."


You should total the items first, to get $3.00, then add the tax, then round up/down accordingly.  Your two examples above don't offer this option, even though your second example arrives at the same result.  In your first example, a number of items taxed one at a time might result in many .006 results which would round to .01. A long enough list of items would result in an error of many cents depending how many items there are. Totaling first then applying tax results in your saving .004 or losing .005 cents maximum due to rounding.  See A Guide to Sales and Use Tax which is a document put out by the Massachusetts Dept of Revenue. In the chart for tax, it shows that $1.09 is taxed at five cents, but at 5%, it would be 5.45. So, at least for this state, I believe I correctly stated the rounding process.


">>I mean the scripture was written and incorporated long after Roman adoption by Constantine.  And it would have gotten that far by espousing tax resistance?   >>Just because the republicans say that is their motivation doesn't mean it is objective.  Pot, meet kettle. You don't think Obamacare wasn't mainly a hand out mainly along partisan lines?   >>Policy research, the impact of Reganomics shows, and Kansas' own failed tax experiment over the last six years show that belief in ""free market"" is not a sound basis to make decisions which impact people's health and welfare.  And an impersonal, unaccountable, nanny state is?"


Where I live, the men are looking for a good woman to take care of them.  Everyone knows that a single guy is homeless. My best attributes as a single woman are that I have a 4x4 truck, a home, and a job. I've given up on romance. I can't afford it.


Does anyone remember what Porsche had amassed when they attempted a hostile takeover of Volkswagen (before Volkswagen countered with a Pac-Man defense)?  It wasn't anywhere near the scale of the assets Apple has under management, but it was still funny that a small racing company and sports car manufacturer quite nearly pulled it off at the time.


"As an entrepreneur, I have nothing against ambitious people working hard to become rich. I do however have a problem with people who want to hear bad economic news on hopes the central banks will pump money into it and push the markets up. I get even more pissed seeing these undeserving pricks get rich when their dreams come true. I am not saying the stock market is a bad thing. But if you get rich why not start a business and build real wealth then maybe invest a little in it? Why depend on the stock market as a primary means of generating wealth? Some of these people are like parasitic traitors hoping for everyone else to suffer so they can get rich off of them (notice I said ""some"" not ""all.""  edit:if you are going to downvote me at least have the balls to tell me what you disagree with. Maybe I'm saying something stupid and being a dick. I admit it's happened before but at least call me out instead of being passive-aggressive about it."


(Oops - I had been meaning to come back to this Q. sooner. Just saw my reminder, so here goes.) Shortly before this question was asked, I actually read a good blog post on the subject of disability insurance at Evolution of Wealth - 7 Ways Your Group Disability Will Fail.  I know the OP doesn't have group disability (and hence the question), but the reason I'm highlighting it is: Even somebody with a group disability policy from their employer may want to consider supplementing it with an individual policy that has better coverage. In my case, the reason I opted for an individual policy was due to point #6 from the post: ... ways that group disability coverage will fail you:  ...  [etc]   6) You can go work somewhere else.   With disability insurance there is a   feature called own-occupation.  This   means that you are unable to perform   the duties of your specific occupation   even if you are able to work in an   other occupation.  Good group   disability coverage will cover your   own-occupation for a period of 2 years   after that if you can work anywhere   (yes, even McDonald’s) then you   receive no more benefits.  Notice I   said ‘good’ coverage, a lot of   policies don’t even have the   own-occupation benefit. ... I made sure my own individual LTD policy included coverage of own-occupation until age 65.  So, do pay attention to the specific features and limitations of LTD policies when shopping for one.


The reason banks charge fees for wires, is because the Federal Reserve charges banks to send the wires.  The Fed charges the banks a hefty fee, so the banks have to charge you a hefty fee to make up for it. Any time any business gives you a service for free, its because they think they can make more money off of some other service or product they are selling you.  So the question becomes, How can I make myself valuable enough to a bank that they will waive my wire fees? The account you linked to is a good example of this: the monthly service charge, along with the $0.50 charge every time you use your debit card, would make up for the number of wires most people send.


"**Poverty in the United States**  Poverty is a state of deprivation, lacking the usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. The most common measure of poverty in the U.S. is the ""poverty threshold"" set by the U.S. government. This measure recognizes poverty as a lack of those goods and services commonly taken for granted by members of mainstream society. The official threshold is adjusted for inflation using the consumer price index.  ***  ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/economy/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot)   ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.24"


The extra money will go toward principal (assuming you're paying on time and don't have late fees).


I think of these things in terms of risk.  Investing in individual stocks is risky, and investing in brand new individual stocks is riskier still. However, the payoff can be quite high.  The fact that you work at the company increases your exposure. If the company goes under, then not only have you lost your investment, but you've lost your job and income as well.  It really depends on how much of your total portfolio this investment represents. Consider the following: If you can say yes to all or most of these, then a small investment in your company is fine. If you end up losing your investment, you'll still be okay.  I think it can help a company when the employees have a little skin in the game. I hope it pays out big for you.


I suggest rolling it over to the 401(k) with your new employer.  Particularly if they match any percentage of your contribution, it would be in your interest to take as much of that money as possible. When it comes to borrowing money from your 401(k), it looks like the issues AbraCadaver mentioned only apply if you don't pay back the money (http://www.kiplinger.com/article/real-estate/T010-C000-S002-borrowing-from-your-retirement-plan-to-buy-a-home.html).  The reasonable argument against taking money out of your 401(k) to buy a home is that it leaves a dent in your retirement nest egg (and its earning power) during key earning years.  On the plus side for borrowing from your 401(k), it's very low interest--and it's interest you're paying back to yourself over a 5-year period.  At its current value, the most you could borrow from your 401(k) is $35K.  If you're fortunate in where you live, that could be most or all of the downpayment. In my own experience, my wife borrowed against her 401(k) balance for the earnest money when we purchased a new home.  Fortunately for us, an investor snapped up my previous home within 4 days of us listing it, so she was able to pay back her loan in full right away.


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Look at the processing power and chips though. It gets beat on the tech side by most tablets on the market (they are a lot more expensive though). It really is just a tablet with wireless controllers that runs Nintendo IP.


I went here: Consumer Loan Law. It seems that a consumer loan is anything other than a business loan or mortgage.  However, in California it seems to include a mortgage. It's a bit weird to see that a HEL can be considered a consumer loan even if it is the primary or the only loan on a property.  Getting a HEL can be a great low cost way to (re)finance a property as they tend to have low or no closing costs and lower interest rates.


Some banks are bankrupt, or so close to it that they can only pretend to give real dividends in a desperate attempt to keep investors from fleeing and driving their stock price (and thus credit rating) down into a pit of despair.   Other banks (like jpmc) are not in  bad shape, have cash, and are quite happy to disburse it.


> If the state doesn’t do it, will it not happen?  Correct - if the government/state doesn't provide health care then the poor are less likely to get health care.  We know that is the case because we can compare the US to european countries.  > Do we not want persons to eat because we object to the state raising grain?  That doesn't make any sense - the state doesn't need to raise grain in order to let everyone eat.  They could buy the grain from companies that raise grain, and distribute that for free, for example.


Thanks everyone. Just how would you suggest I incentivize a customer base that is 90% vacationers. Not really repeat every year visitors. Those would be easy. A discount on the next dive. But for the people who are just on honeymoon. They stop in and want to dive one day or rent snorkel gear and they never come back. We need something that we can give them after the fact since they pay up front.


I’m sure you wouldn’t say that conflicts of interest are ok? This is obviously one. Is your argument just that we don’t have proof bezos explicitly ordered this article? Or we don’t have proof that there is pressure, direct or indirect, on authors to write pro amazon stories (pressure is new or old)? To be clear, we will never, ever have evidence that such things are occurring, getting evidence for some of things is basically not possible. So I don’t think we should sit here and say “well we don’t have proof”. Instead we should say “this is an obvious conflict of interest, and that should be seriously considered when evaluating the content of this article”. Soft power is hard to prove.


The software you provided as an example won't teach you much about investing. The most important things of investing are: These are the only free lunches in investing. Allocation tells you how much expected return (and also how much risk) your portfolio has. Diversification is the only way to reduce risk without reducing return; however, just note that there is market risk that cannot be eliminated with diversification. Every penny you save on costs and taxes is important, as it's guaranteed return. If you were to develop e.g. software that calculates the expected return of a portfolio when given allocation as an input, it could teach you something about investing. Similarly, software that calculates the average costs of your mutual fund portfolio would teach you something about investing. But sadly, these kinds of software are uncommon.


"> In Moraga, where the council discussed establishing a poet laureate position before approving the fiscal distress declaration  The problem has a lot more to do with management and priorities than ""people are not doing a damn thing to help their local communities."" If a community takes in sufficient taxes to meet their needs and squanders it, people with sense aren't going to ""help"" (whatever you mean by that)."


"I don't have any sympathy for Wall Street insiders, and am greatly in favor of giving law breakers real sentences.  But look, any facebook buyer that feels ""cheated"" here needs to take a good long look in the mirror. It's not illegal to sell something at a preposterous, outrageously high price. You can claim that you were ""mislead"" by the seller, but by doing that, you abdicate your personal responsibility to think through your own decisions carefully, and come to your own understanding of what they're worth. If the primary basis for buying facebook stock was that *Mark Zuckerberg* said $38 was a good buy, and you couldn't take a few minutes out to decide if that made sense for yourself, for your own sake you should really get out of the stock market."


You are saving around 2.41% over the Car Loan for a duration of 35 months. Check out if the fees for redrawing on home loan and fees for closing the matches the money saved. Edit: If you are making your current car payments as additional monthy payments to your mortgage then you are in effect paying less interest than current car loan.


Its on their servers which means its accessible via the internet.  And why are you concern about police license plate vacuums?  You afraid they are going to clean your plate?  And why are you more afraid of the DMV getting hacked?  If the DMV gets hacked they won't have access to your credit card info at best social security number.


I’d chalk amazon up to 1) the market giving then a pass on earnings, 2) AWS rising to eat everything else. I didn’t think it could break past 750-800 last year.       Netflix on the other hand...not sure on the value there. Best case scenario they are HBO or all the content providers realize the game sucks and go back? Content is king and everyone is charging more and more for it OR launching their own streaming options. Unlike hbo, I can subscribe for a month and consume all the content I want and then be done. The pro for them is their service is amazing...apps, online, etc. really good experience.


That is utter horseshit. There isn't a first world nation anywhere in which there is a black majority. From Madagascar to Jamaica. And for whites? From new Zealand to America, the exact opposite.   I'm willing to have my mind changed. If someone can explain why that is the case, I'm more than open to hearing it. But from where I sit, it seems extremely self evident.


"Stripping away the minutia, your question boils down to this: Should I take a loan for something that I may not be able to repay? The correct answer, is ""No""."


**Retail apocalypse**  The retail apocalypse refers to the closing of a large number of American retail stores beginning in 2016. Over 4,000 physical stores are affected as American consumers shift their purchasing habits due to various factors, including the rise of e-commerce. Major department stores such as J.C. Penney and Macy’s have announced hundreds of store closures, and well-known apparel brands such as J. Crew and Ralph Lauren are unprofitable. Of 1,200 shopping malls across the US, 50% are expected to close by 2023.  ***  ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/business/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot)   ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.27


The short answer is yes you probably can take the deduction for a home office because the space is used exclusively and you are working there for the convenience of your employer if you don't have a desk at your employers office. The long answer is that it may not be worth it to take the home office deduction as an employee. You're deduction is subject to a 2% AGI floor. You can only deduct a percentage of your rent or the depreciation on your home. A quick and dirty example if you make $75k/year, rent a 1200 sqft 2 bedroom apartment for $1000/month and use one bedroom (120 sqft) regularly and exclusively for your employer. You can deduct 10% (120sqft/1200sqft) of the $12000 ($1000*12 months (assumes your situation didn't change)) in rent or $1200. However because you are an employee you are subject to the 2% AGI floor so you can deduct $1200-$1500 (75000*.02 (salary * 2% floor)) = -300 so in order to deduct the first dollar you need an additional $300 worth of deductible expenses.  Depending on your situation it may or may not be worth it to take the home office deduction even if you qualify for it.


Sysco is rather pragmatic, if people are buying it, they'll sell it. There's an entire section in their catalog for local.   We don't use them because they're so expensive but it is tempting because it's so much easier.


"Trump is paying off his election ""debt"" to the oil industry because if he doesn't their money won't be there the next time he needs it. If you think he gives a shit about anything else, you've been smokin' Colorado way to much."


"From Pub 550: More or less stock bought than sold.   If the number of shares of   substantially identical stock or securities you buy within 30 days   before or after the sale is either more or less than the number of   shares you sold, you must determine the particular shares to which the   wash sale rules apply. You do this by matching the shares bought with   an equal number of the shares sold. Match the shares bought in the   same order that you bought them, beginning with the first shares   bought. The shares or securities so matched are subject to the wash   sale rules. You must match ""beginning with the first shares bought."" If only activity 1 & 4 happened, you'd have bought and sold stock with no wash sale. If you remove activity 1 & 4 from consideration because they are a ""normal"" or non-wash sale transaction, then the Activity 2 or Activity 3 trigger a wash sale. The shares in lot 1 are sold for disallowed loss, so the disallowed basis would be added to shares in lot 2 because lot 2 was purchased before lot 3. (hat tip to user662852 who had much better wording) Second example: Activity 5, 7, and 8 all together would not be a wash sale.   The addition of activity 6 creates a wash sale. The shares in Activity 5 are sold for a disallowed loss in Activity 7 & 8 because of the wash sale triggering purchase in Activity 6.   Activity 6 is where you add the disallowed basis because they are the ""first shares bought"" that cause the wash sale rule to be triggered."


Whenever a large number of shares to be sold hit the market at the same time the expectation is that the price for each share will drop. The employees in a normal market would be expected to sell some of their shares at the first opportunity. Because during the dot com boom some companies employees were able to become millionaires, every employee at a tech IPO hopes to be richly rewarded. If the long term prospects of the stock price are viewed by the employees as a continuous path up, then the percentage of shares that will hit the market is low. They do want some instant cash, but want the bulk of the shares to capture future growth. The more dismal the long term price lookout is, the greater the percentage of shares that will hit the market. The general consensus is that as each of the Lock Ups expires a significant percentage of shares will be sold, and the price will suffer a short term drop.


It's no coincidence that the companies really putting muscle behind this are some of the biggest in the world (Google, IBM, EY). As the article points out, they're bypassing colleges altogether to better access the best available talent. With the mega resources those companies have, all training can be provided on site. There's no need to wait 3-5 years to hire when they can do it now. There are definitely pros and cons to this, but it certainly levels the playing field. In theory, someone from a inner-city ghetto may outperform an ivy league graduate in a well-designed competency test, proving their worth based on merit rather than money. I expect it's something that will slowly begin to catch on as more businesses spot the opportunity.


I'm mainly interested in scraping market data in order to create screening tools involving stock price technicals, stock fundamentals, derivatives, interest rate data, and futures contracts.  I'm not aware of anyone making a screening tool that can integrate all of these things simultaneously.  What is the best environment to create a tool like this?


There are two problems with your understanding: The companies I have worked for match based on a percentage of your salary. That is a percentage of your gross pay. It was not based on the percentage of your net pay or after-tax pay. Net pay would be too hard to know. What I mean is the amount of insurance, HSA, Flex spending accounts, etc. determine how much is taxable and thus what is your after-tax pay . In fact if you split between the Roth and Pre-tax forms of the 401K your retirement contribution would influence the amount of the after tax contribution. All matching funds no matter the nature of the contribution (pre-tax, post-tax, Roth) are always considered pre-tax. You didn't pay taxes on the money when it was credited to your account.


"Depending on what is the meaning of AI. If strong AI is created (nobody knows when), all humans will become obsolete overnight. If AI means Watson and deep learning, it also strongly depends on software developments that Accenture clowns have no idea about. Either way, its absolutely worthless ""research""."


This. I rarely buy anything on Amazon anymore, and if I do, it's from a third party seller (never had an issue).  I ordered a health and beauty type product last week...it was on Amazon for 22 dollars, and I would have to pay shipping as I don't have Prime. I went to the manufacturers website...$18..free shipping.  Amazon is a great place to discover new products...but then I just go search and find the product for either less money, and/or free shipping elsewhere.


You ask two questions, which I answer in order.


I'm not an expert, just giving my opinion. If you are an owner of a bank account that does not make you liable for their debts unless also cosign on their loans. I would in this join custody of the if only to assist your parents in financial decision making.


More often than not the market will rise year on year. Your best move is to put the $5000 in on Jan 2. Are you in the 15% bracket? If not, that is, if higher, I'd suggest the traditional, deductible, IRA.


#####&#009;  ######&#009;  ####&#009;  [**Minarchism**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism): [](#sfw)   ---  >__Minarchism__ (also known as __minimal statism__) is a [political philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_philosophy). It is variously defined by sources. In the strictest sense, it holds that [states](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity\)) ought to exist (as opposed to [anarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy)), that their only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from [aggression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggression), [theft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft), [breach of contract](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_contract), and [fraud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud), and that the only legitimate governmental institutions are the [military](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military), [police](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police), and [courts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courts). In the broadest sense, it also includes [fire departments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_department), [prisons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison), the [executive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_(government\)), and [legislatures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislatures) as legitimate government functions.    Such states are generally called [night-watchman states](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state).  >  ---  ^Interesting: [^Anarcho-capitalism ^and ^minarchism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism_and_minarchism) ^| [^Night-watchman ^state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state) ^| [^Laissez-faire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire) ^| [^Libertarianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism)   ^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+ck1tpnu) ^or[](#or) [^delete](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&message=%2Bdelete+ck1tpnu)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| [^(FAQs)](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/wiki/index) ^| [^Mods](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/comments/1x013o/for_moderators_switches_commands_and_css/) ^| [^Magic ^Words](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/comments/1ux484/ask_wikibot/)


Embrace the web.  Let folks search for info while they're in your store.  make the Salesmen do it.  give your customer all the info they need to pull the trigger and buy the product.  Just say we'll match Amazon or Newegg on this and the sale's a lock.


You are asking the questions which matter. The quoted economist gave a few examples of how he considered China as outpacing the US. But they were not really described in detail, and the point is not very convincing. Most innovation in tech is still happening in the US.


"OptionsXpress is good. I have used them for many years to trade stocks mainly (writing Covered calls and trading volatility). You set the account up through OptionsXpress Australia, and then fund the account from one of your accounts in Australia (I just use my Bank of Queensland account). The currency conversion will be something to watch (AUD to USD). The rates are low, but one of the best features is ""virtual trading"". It allows you to give yourself virtual funds to practice. You can then experiment with stop-losses and all other features. Perhaps other platforms have this, but I am yet to see it... anyway, if you want to trade in US stocks you are going to need to switch to USD anyway. ASX never moves enough for my interests. Regards, SB"


"The quant score is definitely one of the major factors, and you are correct it is more important if you don't have a math background. I don't think it's a non starter if you apply to some of the lower level or mid-major programs though (read : below top 50/75 ish). That's why part of my advice entails doing the masters and taking as many auxiliary math courses as possible, to boost your ""math background"". It worked for me anyway."


My problem isn't the people seeking the career advice, it's the effort they put into it before coming on the board.  I would prefer the board includes news & events, interviews with financiers, and papers or questions about specific topics in finance.


100% agree. While some institutional knowledge will be gone with departing boomer retirees, it opens the doors to knew ways doing things, methods for improving a business function or covering the same workload in a new manner.   The ship isn't going to go down because Billy Boomer gets his gold watch. I also believe new opportunities for entrapreneurs and other product or service providers will open up as result of those nest eggs being distributed.   Hopefully the insurance companies leave something for the rest of the markets to compete  over.   Edit:typo


Unless you make those investments inside a tax-deferred account, you will have to pay income-taxes on that money this year. Because you made that money through your own business, you will also have payroll taxes due on that money this year.


">When I was a student, back in the early nineties, I had a holiday job at the frozen-food supermarket chain, Iceland.  One morning, presumably fresh from a leadership course at Frosty HQ, our manager called all the staff together to admonish us for our apparent lack of enthusiasm for the sale of turkey nuggets.  “Sometimes I feel that some of you are only in this for the  money” she hissed.  She was cut off by incredulous laughter.  After all, what other motivation could there be for spending one’s weekend restocking a giant fridge freezer?  This is ironically (ROTFLMAO) hilarious.    After all what exactly is the underlying motivation of the ""company"" itself?  The good of all little children of the world... hence the dispensing of ""turkey nuggets"" for FREE???  Oh wait, the goal is to make money.  Herp Derp.    ---  >Innocuous as this may sound, it’s a cultural shift that poisonously favours the employer over the worker.  For as long as companies are able to offer their staff these intangible psychological carrots, they are able to get away with not paying them in full for the work they do. > >[...] > >For companies, it’s a perfect ruse.  Like faith healers, the more evangelical fervour they can fire up in their staff, the more they can squeeze out of them, and the less they ask in return.   I heard this kind of BS (along with the Soviet-style ""banners"" and ""mission statements"" and ""5 year plans"") well over a decade ago.  My response then to it -- (from a friend/CEO who was trying to ""entice"" me into working for his company, and tried this schtick because he'd recently been indoctrinated into the BS via Harvard's OPM/MBA program) -- was simple, I said ""Sorry guy, cut the BS, I'm basically prostituting my mind/skills/time & labor -- make me a better offer in terms of $$ or STFU."" He started to take umbrage at the ""prostitute"" concept, and I replied that I wasn't born yesterday, I knew that he had inherited the company, that he himself really didn't give a rats arse about making & selling the products that he did, and that the whole enterprise was (as essentially all enterprises are) ALL ABOUT making money -- so if he wanted me on his team, he would need to PAY. (And besides, his entire reason for wanting to hire me was that he KNEW I would be able to help make his operation significantly more efficient and therefore more profitable.)  Sometimes you just need to clock these jackasses over the head with a baseball bat -- they get so caught-up and habituated in using the buzzwords and euphemisms that they delude themselves into thinking that they *really ARE* ""doing God's work"". (The irony is that those same ""delusions"" and buzzwords tend to make them easy marks for scamming ""con-men"" consultants; something that I have seen happen several times, often almost hilariously.)  And I also see that this is the influence of ""creeping socialism"" -- as if there is something inherently ""wrong"" with making a profit and it has to be ""justified"" with something more noble -- which is total delusional *ballocks*. The only reason to plant a seed is to reap the harvest; and thus feed yourself (and incidentally, others, from whom you are entitled to expect something in return/exchange)."


>Wrapping up, the iPhone 5 display is a quantum leap better than the display on the iPhone 4.  Clicked link, found pure, unadulturated comparison to iPhone 4 and nary a comparison to any other vendor. Your insistence of fact is obtuse in relation to your link. But hey, that's just my opinion.


I remember seeing a post forever ago about how millionaires arent investing and someone (a millionaire themselves) claimed it was because of the current economic/political climate made them unsure which then provoked this other person (assuming a millionaire) to come in and respond to them, talking about how Trump was going to cut taxes, concerns over student loan defaults were overblown, etc etc (basically saying to invest because it's going to be alright)  None the less that stuck with me for some reason so it's interesting to see how it's all going to turn out because it's clear the millionaires aren't unified on what the future has in store and I take that more as a sign for troubled waters ahead than anything else


In both the US and UK you are taxed on your income. Transferring your own money from one country to another does not count as income, so you won't be taxed on it. If it's not your money you are transferring that will be different. You may have to report transfers to comply with money laundering rules. You have to report large amounts of cash you bring with you.


I still get triggered occasionally, like recently when my old smoking buddy from my old job visited. I've never seen him light a cigarette and not light one myself at the same time. Other than that though, smooth sailing.


This is just a byproduct of high margin, low fixed cost businesses. They are retaining shitloads of earnings with little need, or even ability, to deploy it.   Their growth strategy is probably acquisition based as well (hello Whole Foods), so having billions on the sidelines is optionality to execute quickly on an opportunity if/when it presents itself.


Why don't obtain payday loans as well as pay out your own crisis healthcare expenses? Very often it's not necessarily potential to await until finally your own personal payday comes an ideal conditions. We certainly have the response. Pay a visit to each of our internet site along with fill in a rapid app for just a interim financial institution and have cash loan on the net.


"Ironically, the financially disadvantaged (who are butthurt downvoting you so hard right now) also tend to believe in luck when it comes to lottery tickets and other forms of gambling. They would, on the whole, find themselves far more ""lucky"" if they could stop spending what money they have on gambling, drugs, cigarettes and alcohol. Every single one of my unemployed friends eats out *every day*, smokes cigarettes and drinks at the bar on Friday and Saturday nights. Most smoke weed, too. Funny how that works out.    I've also noticed a prevailing attitude among my peers that getting a good job equals ""I don't have to work any more!"" So many of them who are ""lucky"" enough to get a good job end up losing it a short while later. Shitty ""luck."""


If you're absolutely certain that you won't buy a house within a year or so, I'd still be tempted to put some of the money into short-term CDs (ie, a max of 12 months). I think that at the moment CDs are a bit of a mug's game though because you'd hardly find one that offers better interest rates than some of the few savings accounts that still offer 1%+ interest. A savings account is probably where I'd put the money unless I could find a really good deal on a CD, but I think you might have to check if they've got withdrawal limits. There are a couple of savings accounts out there that pay at least 1% (yes, I know it's pitiful) so I'd seek out one or two of those. From memory, both Sallie Mae and Amex offer those and I'm sure there are a couple more. It's not great that your money is growing at less than inflation but if you're saving for something like a downpayment on a house I would think that (nominal) capital preservation is probably more important than the potential for a higher return with the associated higher risk.


I think everyone else answered before you added the info about your car loan in your comment. While it makes sense to pay off loans with the highest interest rate first, keep in mind that in most cases you can deduct mortgage interest from your taxable income. So the after-tax rate of interest that you're paying on your 8.6% second mortgage will be less than your 7% car loan, assuming that your tax bracket is more than 18% (federal and state combined). If you plan to use your funds to pay down debt, definitely attack the car loan first.


> Even with a Pell Grant to attend school, it can be very hard to get a job that will accommodate a class schedule and also pay enough for basic living expenses. And many people around here were not encouraged to pursue education, because of the expense. And because, until 10-15 years ago, there were always factories hired and it was expected to start at 18 and stay until retirement.  Yeah but I know plenty of poor people that got grants and other free money and lived off campus and were able to survive. Maybe they didn't live like I did or spend like I did, but they could get by with that and maybe a part time job. I worked all throughout college.   > If you do too well at work, they don't want to give you the time off to move forward (problem I had at a law office where I was working way more hours than hired for, then told I couldn't cut back to our original agreement when the next semester required more seated classes). If you don't excel, it's not worth their trouble to accommodate you because there are plenty of others begging for a job that can work whenever they're told.  I hope you're not trying to become a lawyer. That field is way over saturated.


I want to transfer around $2000 to another bank account (which is under my name ) in India. As much as I know you cannot instruct to transfer money from your travel card to a Bank Account. You can withdraw cash at ATM or swipe it. On return you can encash the balance. Will this have any tax implications? The money provided to you by the company is meant as an allowance for your expense in US. As per law any money you save and not spend has to be declared as additional income and taxes paid accordingly. Is there any difference if I send it to my parents account? There is no difference if you transfer the funds to your account or to your parents accounts or keep the cash. If you haven't spent the allowance, its additional benefit and taxable.


That's not cheap in my book, either.  Haven't flown in awhile and wondered about prices.  Going back to Dec 2013, the returns on the stocks of United, Delta, and AA are in the [double-digits](http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1407799434687&chddm=65688&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=NYSE:UAL;NYSE:DAL&cmptdms=0;0&q=NASDAQ:AAL&ntsp=0&ei=J1DpU7iZKcSyiAKN7IGoCA), so they're definitely not having a rough time on this basis.


Personally, I don't think that the interest from the car loan is worth the credit history you're building through it. There are other ways to build credit that don't require you to pay interest, like the credit card you mentioned (so long as you keep paying off the balance). So I'd go that route: ditch the auto loan and replace it with a line of consumer credit. Just be careful not to overspend because the card will likely have a higher interest rate than your loan.


Audio video service can make a big difference in your working style and turn them from tedious to enthusiastic one. You just need to count on a company who has been in the industry for long years and has proven its authenticity in providing the good quality equipments at least price.


You need to get some thing called landlord insurance, tenants only covers his belongings. Any property damage caused deliberately or unknowingly is not covered in this, its upon the owner to get landlord insurance.


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Luke, I'd like to point out some additional benefits of the Roth IRA accounts 1) Going Roth, you can effectively increase the amount of your contribution to your IRA account. In your example, you are assuming that your contribution to Roth IRA is in fact $ 85 ($100 less $ 15 tax paid). In reality, albeit more costly, Roth IRA allows you to contribute full $ 100 ($117.65 less $ 17.65 tax incurred.) Using this method you can in fact grow your tax-free funds to $ 1.006.27 over 30 years. The larger you effective tax rate is, the larger will be the difference between your maximum effective Traditional vs Roth IRA contribution will be. 2) Should you need to access your IRA funds in case of emergency (unqualified event of not buying your first home, nor paying for your college education), Roth IRA account contributions can be withdrawn without incurring the 10% penalty charge, that would be imposed on your unqualified Traditional IRA distribution. 3) As other contributors noted it's hard to believe that lower US tax rates would prevail. Chances are you will be contributing to Traditional 401k later throughout your work life. Having a Roth IRA account would afford you a tax diversification needed to hedge against possible tax rate hikes coming in the future. Considering the gloomy future of the Social Security funding, and ever-growing US national debt, can we really expect for there to not be any tax rate increases in the next 20-40 years?! By the way, as others pointed out your effective tax rate will always be lower than your marginal tax bracket.


...and then you'll see companies stockpile professional scapegoats.  Doing something risky? Put a professional scapegoat at the head of the team responsible. If shit hits the fan, pro scapegoat gets a hefty paycheck to take the fall, sits in prison for a few years, gets out, resumes work at the same company, and wipes tears away with tons of money.  Identifying pro scapegoats and taking steps to make the role illegal will turn into a very long game of whack-a-mole.


As others have explained defined contribution is when you (or your employer) contributes a specified amount and you reap all the investment returns.  Defined benefit is when your employer promises to pay you a specified amount (benefit) and is responsible for making the necessary investments to provide for it.   Is one better than the other? We can argue this either way.   Defined benefit would seem to be more predictable and assured.  The problem being of course that it is entirely reliant upon the employer to have saved enough money to pay that amount.  If the employer fails in that responsibility, then the only fallback is government guarantees.  And of course the government has limitations on what it can guarantee.  For example, from Wikipedia:   The maximum pension benefit guaranteed by PBGC is set by law and adjusted yearly. For plans that end in 2016, workers who retire at age 65 can receive up to $5,011.36 per month (or $60,136 per year) under PBGC's insurance program for single-employer plans. Benefit payments starting at ages other than 65 are adjusted actuarially, which means the maximum guaranteed benefit is lower for those who retire early or when there is a benefit for a survivor, and higher for those who retire after age 65. Additionally, the PBGC will not fully guarantee benefit improvements that were adopted within the five-year period prior to a plan's termination or benefits that are not payable over a retiree's lifetime. Other limitations also apply to supplemental benefits in excess of normal retirement benefits, benefit increases within the last five years before a plan's termination, and benefits earned after a plan sponsor's bankruptcy. By contrast, people tend to control their own defined contribution accounts.  So they control how much gets invested and where.  Defined contribution accounts are always 100% funded.   Defined benefit pension plans are often underfunded.  They expect the employer to step forward and subsidize them when they run short.  This allows the defined benefits to both be cheaper during the employment period and more generous in retirement.  But it also means that employers have to subsidize the plans later, when they no longer get a benefit from the relationship with the employee.   If you want someone else to make promises to you and aren't worried that they won't keep them, you probably prefer defined benefit.   If you want to have personal control over the money, you probably prefer defined contribution.   My personal opinion is that defined benefit plans are a curse.  They encourage risky behavior and false promises.  Defined contribution plans are more honest about what they provide and better match the production of employment with its compensation.  Others see defined benefit plans as the gold standard of pensions.


"I think that its ok to keep your ""emergency fund"" money in cash in your home. By emergency fund, I mean $1,000-2,500, that doesn't get touched. There are risks. You have a risk that the money will be stolen, or be wholly or partially destroyed, or even lost if you stash it somewhere and forget. You're also not going to earn interest. So go for it. But keep your emergency funds in cash -- if you want to buy silver and gold, that's fine...you need to treat them as commodity investments."


This is Ellie Lan, investment analyst at Betterment. To answer your question, American investors are drawn to use the S&P 500 (SPY) as a benchmark to measure the performance of Betterment portfolios, particularly because it’s familiar and it’s the index always reported in the news. However, going all in to invest in SPY is not a good investment strategy—and even using it to compare your own diversified investments is misleading. We outline some of the pitfalls of this approach in this article: Why the S&P 500 Is a Bad Benchmark. An “algo-advisor” service like Betterment is a preferable approach and provides a number of advantages over simply investing in ETFs (SPY or others like VOO or IVV) that track the S&P 500.  So, why invest with Betterment rather than in the S&P 500? Let’s first look at the issue of diversification. SPY only exposes investors to stocks in the U.S. large cap market. This may feel acceptable because of home bias, which is the tendency to invest disproportionately in domestic equities relative to foreign equities, regardless of their home country.  However, investing in one geography and one asset class is riskier than global diversification because inflation risk, exchange-rate risk, and interest-rate risk will likely affect all U.S. stocks to a similar degree in the event of a U.S. downturn. In contrast, a well-diversified portfolio invests in a balance between bonds and stocks, and the ratio of bonds to stocks is dependent upon the investment horizon as well as the individual's goals.  By constructing a portfolio from stock and bond ETFs across the world, Betterment reduces your portfolio’s sensitivity to swings. And the diversification goes beyond mere asset class and geography. For example, Betterment’s basket of bond ETFs have varying durations (e.g., short-term Treasuries have an effective duration of less than six months vs. U.S. corporate bonds, which have an effective duration of just more than 8 years) and credit quality. The level of diversification further helps you manage risk.  Dan Egan, Betterment’s Director of Behavioral Finance and Investing, examined the increase in returns by moving from a U.S.-only portfolio to a globally diversified portfolio. On a risk-adjusted basis, the Betterment portfolio has historically outperformed a simple DIY investor portfolio by as much as 1.8% per year, attributed solely to diversification.   Now, let’s assume that the investor at hand (Investor A) is a sophisticated investor who understands the importance of diversification. Additionally, let’s assume that he understands the optimal allocation for his age, risk appetite, and investment horizon. Investor A will still benefit from investing with Betterment.  Automating his portfolio management with Betterment helps to insulate Investor A from the ’behavior gap,’ or the tendency for investors to sacrifice returns due to bad timing. Studies show that individual investors lose, on average, anywhere between 1.2% to 4.3% due to the behavior gap, and this gap can be as high as 6.5% for the most active investors. Compared to the average investor, Betterment customers have a behavior gap that is 1.25% lower. How? Betterment has implemented smart design to discourage market timing and short-sighted decision making.  For example, Betterment’s Tax Impact Preview feature allows users to view the tax hit of a withdrawal or allocation change before a decision is made. Currently, Betterment is the only automated investment service to offer this capability. This function allows you to see a detailed estimate of the expected gains or losses broken down by short- and long-term, making it possible for investors to make better decisions about whether short-term gains should be deferred to the long-term. Now, for the sake of comparison, let’s assume that we have an even more sophisticated investor (Investor B), who understands the pitfalls of the behavior gap and is somehow able to avoid it. Betterment is still a better tool for Investor B because it offers a suite of tax-efficient features, including tax loss harvesting, smarter cost-basis accounting, municipal bonds, smart dividend reinvesting, and more. Each of these strategies can be automatically deployed inside the portfolio—Investor B need not do a thing. Each of these strategies can boost returns by lowering tax exposure. To return to your initial question—why not simply invest in the S&P 500? Investing is a long-term proposition, particularly when saving for retirement or other goals with a time horizon of several decades. To be a successful long-term investor means employing the core principles of diversification, tax management, and behavior management. While the S&P might look like a ‘hot’ investment one year, there are always reversals of fortune. The goal with long-term passive investing—the kind of investing that Betterment offers—is to help you reach your investing goals as efficiently as possible.   Lastly, Betterment offers best-in-industry advice about where to save and how much to save for no fee.


I hear what you are saying, but it doesn't seem to ring true.  The subsidies again may exacerbate the issue, but they aren't CAUSING the issue.  The real issue is the regulatory burden in your explanation here, not the subsidies.  But again, I think the large companies' abilities to sue forever, or buy out of existence, the smaller companies, or to gain regulation that does disproportionately favor the larger companies, is the real issue, then.  Subsidies are only a catalyst to help the process go faster.


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$10.90 for every $1000 per year. Are you kidding me!!! These are usually hidden within the expense ratio of the plan funds, but >1% seems to be quite a lot regardless. FUND X 1 year return 3% 3 year return 6% 10 year return 5% What does   that exactly mean? This is the average annual rate of return. If measured for the last 3 years, the average annual rate of return is 6%, if measured for 1 year - it's 3%. What it means is that out of the last 3 years, the last year return was not the best, the previous two were much better. Does that mean that if I hold my mutual funds for 10 years I will get   5% return on it. Definitely not. Past performance doesn't promise anything for the future. It is merely a guidance for you, a comparison measure between the funds. You can assume that if in the past the fund performed certain way, then given the same conditions in the future, it will perform the same again. But it is in no way a promise or a guarantee of anything. Since my 401K plan stinks what are my options. If I put my money in a   traditional IRA then I lose my pre tax benefits right! Wrong, IRA is pre-tax as well. But the pre-tax deduction limits for IRA are much lower than for 401k.  You can consider investing in the 401k, and then rolling over to a IRA which will allow better investment options. After your update: Just clearing up the question. My current employer has a 401K. Most of   the funds have the expense ratio of 1.20%. There is NO MATCHING   CONTRIBUTIONS. Ouch. Should I convert the 401K of my old company to Traditional IRA and   start investing in that instead of investing in the new employer 401K   plan with high fees. You should probably consider rolling over the old company 401k to a traditional IRA. However, it is unrelated to the current employer's 401k. If you're contributing up to the max to the Roth IRA, you can't add any additional contributions to traditional IRA on top of that - the $5000 limit is for both, and the AGI limitations for Roth are higher, so you're likely not able to contribute anything at all to the traditional IRA. You can contribute to the employer's 401k. You have to consider if the rather high expenses are worth the tax deferral for you.


I'm going to be a bit off topic and recommend 'The Only Investment Book You'll Ever Need' by Andrew Tobias. It doesn't start with describe the workings of the stock market. Instead, it starts with making sure you have a budget and have your basic finances in order BEFORE going into the stock market. This may not sound like what you are looking for, but it really is a valuable book to read, even if you think you are all set up in that department.