That's the kind of joke a dad says to his adult son about his mom or a group of guys says on a golf course. In a public forum, to a female board member, while Uber is in a shitstorm of bad PR especially about potential sexual discrimination of their employers AND drivers, yeah.  I don't think the joke it particularly offensive, but Uber is in damage control mode and that was really poor timing. And I think we all agree timing is very important in comedy.


"None of these plans work on a national scale. Taking care of the sick is great, but let's not pretend that making me pay for other people's healthcare is going to save me money.   Since most people are of a average health, and the sickest are exponentially more expensive to care for... A system where ""everyone is in"" must necessarily cost more for the average person... because they are the people paying to take care of the sickest. The only people who save are the sickest in the country.  This is all about who pays, not how much is paid.  If we want to fix health care costs, it will be by regulating health care.  Regulating health insurance makes sure that the health care providers get paid - which only causes them to charge more (knowing they'll get paid).  We should focus on making a marketplace for care - not insurace. Require prices be posted. Treatment success statistics. Stop requiring prescriptions for basic stuff like birth control... Eliminate other protectionisms like prescriptions for contacts and dinstance glasses (Rx needed for nearsightedness but not for farsightedness... Because most are nearsighted and that generates the business... Gets folks into opticians and then increases the cost of glasses.) IDK exactly what, but at least try to foster competition on price in the provider side."


There are two or three things you have to mind when dealing with tile flooring tampa, the most significant is choosing the best supplier and choosing quality items at moderate expenses. There are many shops that utilization incredible overlay, wood and made floor materials, however at expanded expenses.


The JPM note is more market related content anyway. The WF product is really solid. I get a ton of paid for macro research that's on par with the WF stuff. I like it because the WF work covers pretty much everything.  The other thing I would suggest is getting on the distribution list for ISM. Its easy, just send them an email. The contact info is on the bottom of their releases. There's probably a few more distribution lists you can get on. It is good to build up a good macro stream to your personal email address.


Very generally speaking if you have a loan, in which something is used as collateral, the leader will likely require you to insure that collateral.   In your case that would be a car.  Yes certainly a lender will require you to insure the vehicle that they finance (Toyota or otherwise).  Of course, if you purchase a vehicle for cash (which is advisable anyway), then the insurance option is somewhat yours. Some states may require that a certain amount of coverage is carried on a registered vehicle.  However, you may be able to drop the collision, rental car, and other options from your policy saving you some money. So you buy a new car for cash ($25K or so) and store the thing.  What happens if the car suffers damage during storage?  Are you willing to save a few dollars to have the loss of an asset?  You will have to insure the thing in some way and I bet if you buy the proper policy the amount save will be very minimal. Sure you could drop the road side assistance, rental car, and some other options, during your storage time but that probably will not amount to a lot of money.


Welcome to Kirk Kleckner, Our company provides the best valuation services in the United States, Such as automotive valuation, business valuation, and dealership valuation.  If you required the valuation services, then you can come to our office. And We will do our best business valuation services in our own way. Automotive dealer valuation businesses require understanding and analysis of a variety of complex factors including detailed. And technical knowledge of dealership valuation firm and in-depth industry knowledge.


Yes, it would be incorrect to refer to BATS Chi-X Europe as a market maker. Market makers make markets on BATS Chi-X Europe, which is a stock exchange.


Often it happens that homeowners want to be as close as possible to the nature during evening and nights, but the sense of insecurity of the property stops them from doing so. Well, the good news is that now they can enjoy the nature right inside their room without worrying about the safety because security doors Sydney are there to rescue you.


If it is a sole proprietorship and  you didn't make another mistake by explicitly asking the IRS to treat it as a corporation - there are no IRS forms to fill. You'll need to dissolve the LLC with your State, though, check the State's department of State/Corporations (depending on the State, the names of the departments dealing with business entities vary).


Since there's no taxable income (inheritance is not taxed to you), you do not need to amend. The executor used the correct form. Note, I'm not a tax adviser or a licensed professional. For a tax advice advice contact a CPA/EA licensed in your state.


They don't make any money off of you personally. They make money off of the merchants per transaction when you use the card.  You trigger this fee to the credit card issuer, but it doesn't come out of your pocket.  (Or it shouldn't; merchants aren't allowed to pass this fee on to you.) They keep you around because you may at some point become less responsible than you already are, and it would be quite costly to get you back (a couple hundred dollars is the cost of acquiring a new credit card customer). People who are less responsible than you subsidize your free float and your rewards (if any) but the new CARD act makes it more difficult for people to use their cards irresponsibly, so these perks that you enjoy will get less perky with time.


http://www.ColeGolf.ie            How to break 90                     Golf is a lifelong pursuit that will always challenge, may entertain, and will almost certainly frustrate at times.  For most players, golf scores similar to those consistently seen from our favorite pros may be unattainable.  A more reasonable goal for most is to find a way first to routinely break 90, but how do you get there?  A few regular adjustments will provide the best opportunities to do so. Pre shot routine: Every golfer needs a pre shot routine that happens every time you approach the ball. For example, during practice always visualize a target; plan your shot and try to see the outcome. Take one or two practice swings to get a feel for the stroke before you step to the ball. The key to this is consistency, if it happens every time you can begin to take the guesswork out of your game Golf.   Practice more than you play: Don’t try to fix your mistakes on the back nine. When you are on the course you shouldn’t be thinking about how to correct your stroke, grip, stance etc. In fact, if you’ve done the work off the course, you shouldn’t have to think about much at all; trust your muscle memory to do what you have practiced.  Practice the minimum: To perfect any physical skill, it is important to focus on the smallest amount of information possible at one time. You cannot simultaneously pay attention to the plane of your stroke while thinking about the weight on your left foot and refining your grip. Try to pick one small thing to focus on at one time and work it into your muscle memory. Practicing the minimum will allow you to stop thinking about each factor of the game while on the course. Again, the goal of this process is to make your motions automatic, effortless and fluid.  Care less:  It may seem counterintuitive but when you step onto the golf course, the more invested you are in each shot, the less you can rely on the hard work you have put into your game during practice. Do the work on the driving range so that you don’t need to worry about it when you need it.  http://www.ColeGolf.ie


Capital gains and losses offset each other first, then your net gain is taxed at the applicable rate. If you have a net loss, you can offset your other income by up to $3,000. In your example, you have no net-gain or loss, so no tax implications from your activity.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/356365-winston-churchills-grandson-calls-trump-a-daft-twerp) reduced by 61%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Winston Churchill&#039;s grandson called President Trump a &quot;Daft twerp&quot; on Twitter, criticizing the president for his comments connecting the U.K.&#039;s rise in crime to &quot;Radical Islamic terror.""  > Nicholas Soames, Churchill&#039;s grandson and a member of parliament affiliated with the Conservative party, replied to Trump&#039;s tweet in which the president cited new U.K. crime statistics and wrote that &quot;We must keep America safe.""  > Trump has drawn ire in the past for his comments on crime and terrorism in the U.K., criticizing London Mayor Sadiq Khan&#039;s response to terror attacks in the city earlier this year.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/77ojp3/winston_churchills_grandson_calls_trump_a_daft/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~231995 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **crime**^#1 **Trump**^#2 **U.K.**^#3 **rise**^#4 **terror**^#5"


"Prop 13's benefit to ""the rich"" is incidental and, frankly, minimal.   Check out these maps that I grabbed from a title records.  I searched for data on single family homes that were purchased (ergo assessed value is based on) between 1900 and 1980.  Arbitrary, but it'll do for our purposes.  I'd speculate that if I were to have picked 1970 or earlier the number of homes that are assessed at far below market value is negligible relative to the tax base as a whole.    Here's Coronado Island: http://imgur.com/572yTZI  The peninsula in Newport Beach: http://imgur.com/dFMcrZ1  The San Francisco Bay Area: http://imgur.com/a/NMZz0  And a zoomed in area of the Bay: http://imgur.com/a/NMZz0  If a parcel is outlined in green, it's assessed based on a purchase date prior to 1980.  Outlined in white means after 1980.  In my eyes, the big takeaway is that the number of homes which were purchased prior to 1980 is minimal.  Even in the Bay Area, where the zoomed out view suggests that there's a lot of those homes, when you zoom in and realize how densely populated the area is, not very many homes are assessed on outdated values.  (For example, on the Coronado map, the number of homes purchased pre-1980 was 47.  Pre-1990 was 179.  The search shows a total of 2,859 single family residences in the map area.)    You can argue that it's a dumb tax policy, but as social policy, I don't have an issue with it and I'd still contend it's largely negligible.  It's a battle that doesn't matter.  A skirmish when compared to 1031 Exchanges, basis step ups, the massive decline in personal income taxes for the upper brackets, etc.    Our tax policy as a whole is skewed and becoming more regressive (or, to the GOP, fair) all the time.    Not entirely unrelated, but I did some research and played with some numbers about income taxes because it's something that interests me.    Using this link: https://taxfoundation.org/us-federal-individual-income-tax-rates-history-1913-2013-nominal-and-inflation-adjusted-brackets/ you can see that $10,000 income in 1950 (which is about $100,000 in 2016 dollars) was taxed (I'm using married filing separately throughout):   20% on the first $2,000 22% from $2,000 to $4,000 26% from $4,000 to $6,000 30% from $6,000 to $8,000 34% from $8,000 to $10,000  The highest marginal tax rate was 91%, which applied to all income over $200,000 (just over $2,000,000 in 2016 dollars).   Median household income in 1950 was $3,216.  So the median american paid a maximum marginal tax of $22%.  If you do the math, our median household pays 20.8% of its income in taxes versus 26.4% for the $10,000 income household.    Fast forward to 1970, where our $10,000 CPI adjusts to $15,975 and median household income is now $6,186:   14% on first $500 15% from $500 to $1,000 16% from $1,000 to $1,500 17% from $1,500 to $2,000 19% from $2,000 to $4,000 22% from $4,000 to $6,000 25% from $6,000 to $8,000  The highest marginal tax rate has dropped 23% to 70% from 91% and our median American is paying a maximum marginal tax rate of 25%.    Skip forward to 2010, where our $10,000 CPI adjusts to $91,504 and median household income is now $49,445.    10% on the first $8,375 15% from $8,375 to $34,000 24% from $34,000 to $82,400 28% from $82,400 to $171,850 33% from $171,850 to $373,650 35% above that  The highest marginal tax rate has dropped another 50% from 70% to 35% and a total of 62% from the 1950 rate.    Of course, this is all skewed because the more income you make the better able you are to shelter income from taxes.  A family making median income is unlikely to be able to take significant advantage of tax shelters."


There are bullion dealers who will buy gold no matter its form. You won't get the spot price as it's probably being bought same as junk jewelry or any other gold needing to be melted and recast. If this is your concern, you should buy a fireproof safe, the kind people use to store their important documents, and add the gold value to home insurance policy. Do not get a safe deposit box at the bank, see mbhunter's comment and link.


In my experience, Yelp reviews have accurately represented the quality of the establishment reviewed and have been right in line with my tastes and expectations. I find Google reviews perform comparatively worse. So far Yelp is the best tool I can find for quickly making decisions about where to spend my money.


"It's a trade-off. The answer depends on your risk tolerance. Seeking higher rewards demands higher risk. If you want advice, I would recommend hiring an expert to design a plan which meets your needs. As a sample point, NOT necessarily right for anyone else...I'm considered an aggressive investor, and my own spread is still more conservative than many folks. I'm entirely in low-cost index funds, distributed as ... with the money tied up in a ""quiesced"" defined-contribution pension fund being treated as a low-yield bond. Some of these have beaten the indexes they're tracking, some haven't. My average yield since I started investing has been a bit over 10%/year (not including the company match on part of the 401k), which I consider Good Enough -- certainly good enough for something that requires near-zero attention from me. Past results are not a guarantee of future performance. This may be completely wrong for someone at a different point in their career and/or life and/or finances. I'm posting it only as an example, NOT a recommendation.  Regarding when to rebalance: Set some threshhold at which things have drifted too far from your preferred distribution (value of a fund being 5% off its target percentage in the mix is one rule I've sometimes used), and/or pick some reasonable (usually fairly low) frequency at which you'll actively rebalance (once a year, 4x/year, whenever you change your car's oil, something like that), and/or rebalance by selecting which funds you deposit additional money into whenever you're adding to the investments. Note that that last option avoids having to take capital gains, which is generally a good thing; you want as much of your profit to be long-term as possible, and to avoid triggering the ""wash sales"" rule. Generally, you do not have to rebalance very frequently unless you are doing something that I'd consider unreasonably risky, or unless you're managing such huge sums that a tiny fraction of a percent still adds up to real money."


"Figure out how much money you earn, what you spend it on, and how that will change when you have kids (will one of you stay at home? if not, how much will daycare cost and how do you finance the first few month when your child is still too young for daycare?) You will usually plan to spend your current Kaltmiete (rent without utilities) on your mortgage (the Darlehen that is secured by your house) - keep in mind though that a house usually has a higher utility cost than an appartment. When you've figured out what you can save/pay towards a house now and how that will change when you have kids, you can go on to the next step. If you don't want to buy now but want to commit to saving up for a house and also want to secure today's really low interest rates, consider getting a ""Bausparvertrag"".  I didn't find a good translation for Bausparvertrag, so here is a short example of how it works: You take a building saving sum (Bausparsumme) of 150000€ with a savings goal (Sparziel) of 50000€ (the savings goal is usually between 20% and 50% of the sum) and then you make monthly payments into the Bausparvertrag until you reach the savings goal at which point you can take out your savings and a loan of 100000 € (or whatever your difference between the Bausparsumme and Sparziel is). If you're living in an expenisve area, you're likely to need more than 150000 but this is just an example. Upsides: Downsides: If you decide to buy sooner, you can also use your Bausparvertrag to refinance later. If you have a decent income and a permanent job, then ask your bank if they would consider financing your house now. To get a sense of what you'll be able to afford, google ""wie viel Haus kann ich mir leisten"" and use a few of the many online calculators. Remember that these websites want to sell you on the idea of buying a house instead of paying rent, so they'll usually overestimate the raise in rents - repeat the calculation with rent raise set to 0% to get a feeling for how much you'll be able to afford in today's money. Also, don't forget that you're planning to get children, so do the calculation with only one income, not two, and add the cost of raising the kids to your calculation. Once you've decided on a property, shop around a bit at different banks to get the best financing. If you decide to buy now (or soon), start looking at houses now - go to model homes (Musterhäuser) to find out what style of house you like - this is useful whether you want to buy an existing house or build a new one. If buying an existing house is an option for you, start visiting houses that are on sale in your area in order to practice what to ask and what to look for. You should have a couple of visits under your belt before you really start looking for the one you want to buy. Once you're getting closer to buying or making a contract with a construction company, consider getting an expert ""Bausachverständiger"". When buying an existing house they can help you estimate the price and also estimate the renovation cost you'll have to factor in for a certain house (new heating, better insulation, ...). When building a new house they can advise you on the contract with the construction company and also examine the construction company's work at each major step (Zwischenabnahme). Source: Own experience."


Non-qualified stock options are like regular incentive stock options but without the preferential treatments that ISOs get: Companies like to give NQSOs because they can claim a tax deduction (i.e. a loss) for that difference between exercise price and market price (that you have to report as income).


Even if you expect to work you might not be able to due to health reasons or economic factors that make it difficult to obtain employment, so it's good to have a safety-net. A pension scheme, especially if it's tax-advantaged or there's a company-match, can be a useful savings scheme.  So even if you're still working when you reach normal retirement age, it provides you with a handy pot of money you can use for travel, recreation, or whatever. As others have mentioned, the pension might benefit other family members such as a spouse or children. You might change your mind about working until you drop. With NHS cuts and austerity you might need the money to supplement whatever care benefits you're entitled to when you do fall ill in your old age.


This depends on the jurisdiction, but such companies are typically subject to regulations (and audits) that require them to keep the customers' accumulated premiums very strictly separated from the company's own assets, liabilities and expenses. Additionally, they are typically only allowed to invest the capital in very safe things like government bonds. So, unless something truly catastrophic happens (like the US government defaulting on its bonds) or people in the company break the regulations (which would invovle all kinds of serious crimes and require complicity or complete failure of the auditors), your premiums and the contractual obligation to you would still be there, and would be absorbed by a different insurance company that takes over the defunct company's business.  Realistically, what all this means is that insurance companies never go bankrupt; if they do badly, they are typically bought up by a competitor long before things get that bad.


Banks make mistakes.  Reconciling your account with your bank statement is the way to catch the errors.


"As others have pointed out, you can't just pick a favorable number and rent for that amount. If you want to rent out your house, you must rent it for a value that a renter would agree to.  For example there is a house on my street that has been looking for renters for 3 years. They want $2,500 a month. This covers their mortgage, and a little bit more for taxes and repairs. It has never been rented once. Other homes in my neighborhood rent for around $1,000 a month. There is no value to a renter in renting a house that is $1,500 more then a similar house 2 doors down. Now what you can look at is cost mitigation. So I am using data from my area. Houses in my part of Florida must have A/C running in the wet months to keep the moisture from ruining the house. This can easily be $100 a month (usually more). The city requires you to have water service, even when not occupied, though the cost is very small. Same with waste, which is a flat fee: $20 a month. Yard watering is a must during the dry months (if you want to keep grass). Let's say that comes out to $50 a month, year round. Pest control is a must, especially if your house has wooden parts (like floors or a roof). Even modest pest control is $25 a month. Property taxes around $240 a month. Let's say your mortgage is around $1,000 a month. That means to sit empty your house would cost $1,435. Now if you were to rent the house, a lot of those costs could ""go away"" by becoming the tenants' responsibility. Your cost of the house sitting full would be $1,240. Let's pad that with 10% for repairs and go with $1,364. Now let's assume you can rent for $1,000 a month. Keep in mind all these rates are about right for my area but will change based on size and amenities.  Your choices are let the house sit empty for $1,435 a month or fill it and only ""lose"" $240 a month. Keep in mind that in both cases you will be gaining equity.  So what a lot of people do around here is rent out their houses and pay the $240 as an investment. For every $240 they pay, they get $1,000 in equity (well, interest and fees aside, but you get the point). It's not a money maker for them right now, but as they get older two things happen. That $240 a month ""payment"" pays off their mortgage, so they end up owning the house outright. Then that $240 a month payment turns to extra income. And at some point, their rental can be sold for (let's guess) $400,000. SO they paid $86,400 and got back $400,000. All the while they are building equity in their rental and in the home they are living in.  The important take away from this, is that it's not a source of income for the landlord as much as it is an investment. You will likely not be able to rent a house for more then a mortgage + costs + taxes, but it does make a good investment vehicle."


Any retail equity brokerage will give you access to the NYSE, and thus Facebook shares as they become available.  However, it is important to note that you nor any retail investor will be able to purchase FB at the IPO prices ($33-38 IIRC).  The only people who will be able to buy in at that price are the underwriting investment banks and major investors who have subscribed to the IPO.  You, and all the other retail investors will only be able to buy in as those major investors offer shares on the secondary market.   This being Facebook, there will probably be a significant premium over the IPO price, both due to demand and systemic underpricing of IPOs to encourage the opening 'pop'.   So, if you're intent on buying in at the IPO, pay close attention as the date approaches.  Look at how the recent big IPOs have performed (GRPN, LNKD come to mind).  Know how much you're willing to commit and what price you want.  However, no one is going to know what the opening market price will be come Friday morning.  Be watching your financial data source / analysis of choice and be prepared to make a judgement.


What does it being made by a robot have anything to do with organic or free range food? Computers don't care, but they will continue to pump out a consistent product, organic or not.   Ask yourself, do you want some edgy teen who might have soiled your food because they thought it was funny to make your lunch in the era of automation?


"If you live outside the US, then you probably need to deal with foreign tax credits, foreign income exclusions, FBAR forms (you probably have bank account balances enough for the 10K threshold) , various monsters the Congress enacted against you like form 8939 (if you have enough banking and investment accounts), form 3520 (if you have a IRA-like local pension), form 5471 (if you have a stake in a foreign business), form 8833 (if you have treaty claims) etc ect - that's just what I had the pleasure of coming across, there's more. TurboTax/H&R Block At Home/etc/etc are not for you. These programs are developed for a ""mainstream"" American citizen and resident who has nothing, or practically nothing, abroad. They may support the FBAR/FATCA forms (IIRC H&R Block has a problem with Fatca, didn't check if they fixed it for 2013. Heard reports that TurboTax support is not perfect as well), but nothing more than that. If you know the stuff well enough to fill the forms manually - go for it (I'm not sure they even provide all these forms in the software though). Now, specifically to your questions: Turbo tax doesn't seem to like the fact that my wife is a foreigner   and doesn't have a social security number. It keeps bugging me to   input a valid Ssn for her. I input all zeros for now. Not sure what to   do. No, you cannot do that. You need to think whether you even want to include your wife in the return. Does she have income? Do you want to pay US taxes on her income? If she's not a US citizen/green card holder, why would you want that? Consider it again. If you decide to include here after all - you have to get an ITIN for her (instead of SSN). If you hire a professional to do your taxes, that professional will also guide you through the ITIN process. Turbo tax forces me to fill out a 29something form that establishes   bonafide residency. Is this really necessary? Again in here it bugs me   about wife's Ssn Form 2555 probably. Yes, it is, and yes, you have to have a ITIN for your wife if she's included. My previous state is California, and for my present state I input   Foreign. When I get to the state tax portion turbo doesn't seem to   realize that I have input foreign and it wants me to choose a valid   state. However I think my first question is do i have to file a   California tax now that I am not it's resident anymore? I do not have   any assets in California. No house, no phone bill etc If you're not a resident in California, then why would you file? But you might be a partial resident, if you lived in CA part of the year. If so, you need to file 540NR for the part of the year you were a resident. If you have a better way to file tax based on this situation could you   please share with me? As I said - hire a professional, preferably one that practices in your country of residence and knows the provisions of that country's tax treaty with the US. You can also hire a professional in the US, but get a good one, that specializes on expats."


"I love how Japan faces how freaking depressing life can be for men in certain respects head-on.  You can cuddle with a girl, if you're willing to pay.  You can talk to a girl, if you're willing to pay.  It's not that life is much different in the US, but the notion that this would be acceptable at all is non-existent.  Still, there seriously needs to be a ""make your life not suck"" class or something.  I'd way rather talk to a girl who was actually interested than one who I had to pay just to talk to me (this is at a ""girl bar"", a bar where you pay girls to talk to you)."


Here is what happened: The company delivered a mattress, so you owed them $600. They used a credit card company to get the payment from you, so your money went to the credit card company, which passed it on to the mattress company, and you didn't owe anything for the mattress anymore. The company should have refunded a small amount, and should have asked the credit card company to refund a small amount, say $20 (just guessing so we have a number). The credit card company instead refunded $600.  That money is yours. What happened there is just between you and your credit card company. However, since the mattress company now hasn't received any money from you, you still owe the mattress company $580, and they can ask you for that money for quite a long time, once they get their act together. Probably two or three years.


I think a labor management issue explains the high cost of popcorn. Some weeks theaters are loaded with patrons and other weeks there are many fewer patrons. If popcorn were priced so that most patrons bought some the theater manager would have to have lots of employees to sell popcorn on the really busy days. The manager would have to cover the cost of wages on the slow days. A simple solution would be to adjust employee hours. To a certain extent I suspect this is done. If you look at the situation from the standpoint of the employee being sent home early or being told not to work tomorrow or, perhaps for the next week because the theater has a bunch of bombs, is not a good situation. A job in popcorn sales is probably not a high paying job so the employees may just quit and they may do this, not by giving notice, but rather by not showing up for a scheduled shift. The result of this is that managers determine the maximum number of employees they can hire if there theater has low drawing movies and they set the price of popcorn so that when the theater is filled this number of employees will not be overwhelmed by patron buying popcorn. At least not to the extent that the start of the movie has to be delayed.


Inefficiency is about time spent producing.  If money funnels towards producing rather than (example) gambling, even if producing costs more the money is removed from gambling economy to producing economy.  And if people increase production and speed due to better pay, it's more efficient.    It's never that simple, but it's an important point.


"Consider the ""opportunity cost"" of the extra repayment on a 15 year loan.  If you owe money at 30% p.a. and money at 4% p.a. then it is a no brainer that the 30% loan gets paid down first. Consider too that if the mortgage is not tax deductable and you pay income tax, that you do not pay tax on money you ""save"". (i.e. in the extreme $1 saved is $2 earned). Forward thinking is key, if you are paying for someone's college now, then you would want to pay out of an education plan for which contributions are tax deductable, money in, money out. In my country most mortgages, be they 15,25,30 years tend to last 6-8 years for the lender. People move or flip or re-finance.  I would take the 15 for the interest rate but only if I could sustain the payments without hardship. Maybe a more modest home ?   If you cannot afford the higher repayments you are probably sailing a bit close to the wind anyway.   Another thing to consider is that tax benefits can be altered with the stroke of a pen, but you may still have to meet repayments."


Don't borrow from your future to live in the present.


"There is no ""golden rule"" on how high of a credit limit an individual should have. There are 22 year olds that have $100,000 credit limits and 40 year olds that have $1000. The most important thing is to not over spend and pay your balance(s) in full every month. Seeing as you are doing that now, there is no downside to getting an increase."


"What littleadv said is correct.  His worth is based on the presumed worth of the total company value (which is much greater than all investment dollars combined because of valuation growth)*. In other words, his ""worth"" is based on the potential return for his share of ownership at a rate based on the latest valuation of the company. He is worth $17.5 billion today, but the total funding for Facebook is only $2.4 billion? I don't understand this. In private companies, valuations typically come from either speculation/analysts or from investments.  Investment valuations are the better gauge, because actual money traded hands for a percentage ownership. However, just as with public companies on the stock market, there are (at least) two caveats. Just because someone else sold their shares at a given rate, doesn't mean that rate... In both cases, it's possible the value may be much lower or much higher.  Some high-value purchases surprise for how high they are, such as Microsoft's acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion. The formula for one owner's ""worth"" based on a given acquisition is: Valuation = Acquisition amount / Acquisition percent Worth = Owner's percent × Valuation According to Wikipedia Zuckerberg owns 24%.  In January, Goldman Sach's invested $500 million at a $50 billion valuation. That is the latest investment and puts Zuckerberg's worth at $12 billion. However, some speculation places a Facebook IPO at a much higher valuation, such as as $100 billion.  I don't know what your reference is for $17 billion, but it puts their valuation at $70.8 billion, between the January Goldman valuation and current IPO speculation. * For instance, Eduardo Saverin originally invested $10,000, which, at his estimated 5% ownership, would now be worth $3-5 billion."


Did you account for college? That's 40k per year in tuition alone. Also I'm not sure you accounted that the number included income forgone, as in if they weren't taking care of the kids they could've been earning more money. The article says the cost to *parents* is 900,000 per kid, but that doesn't mean the parents are actually spending 900,000 per kid.   Lots of other things to account for...a couple w/o kids doesn't need to get a 4-bedroom house for example. Does your co-worker own a house? Did you account for the cost of ownership?


They have to follow the same rules as taxis because they *are* taxis. Sure, change the taxi laws. I know several cab companies that would love to fluctuate their fares based on time of day. Oh, it's 2am and you want a ride home? Sure, that'll be $10/mi, payment up front.  The big complaint here isn't the competition, that's fine. It's the fact that they aren't following the same regulations, i.e. breaking the law, where the cab companies still have to obey the law. It's not a level playing field. The cab companies in my area have told the city if they don't kick Uber and Lyft out they're going to stop paying their licensing fees, and that's about $2m ever year.


">ignores over a decade of rigorous testing because it doesn't support your narrative.  FAULTY TESTING. How fucking hard is it for you to get that point through your thick head? The testing is irrelevant because it's possible to get past it. It was not rigorous at all because again, it couldn't test for everything, the drug Armstrong used being one of them.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.      Do you finally understand why saying ""He passed all the tests"" is useless? If he did have positive tests then that would be evidence of guilt, saying there is no positive test is not evidence of innocence, just absence of the evidence of guilt. It would be evidence of innocence if it was absolutely impossible for him to beat the test, but he can beat the test.  Get that through your thick fucking head.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  IT IS POSSIBLE TO BEAT THE TEST.  It is just fucking mind blowingly retarded of you to continually push the fact that he passed the tests as fact he isn't doping when I have repeatedly told you that the was able to beat the test, and it has been outlined how he did it. So yes you are like a creationist in the sense that you ignore the evidence, said evidence being information on how it is possible for someone to beat the test, and yet you still say ""He passed the test""  Saying he passed the tests which couldn't check for the drug he was on and therefore he is innocent is like saying ""We used a shitty camera to check for microscopic gun shot residue on the murder suspect, the shitty camera couldn't detect any gunshot residue therefore he has no gunshot residue on him and therefore he isn't the murder suspect""  Fucking idiot.  I really do think you're a troll at this point because the fact that he was able to beat the tests is the basic core of the argument against your claims of ""His tests are all clean!"" and you still don't seem to understand that."


This is not correct information. The plan sponsor is the fiduciary and potentially any advisor or consultant. The recordkeeper or even the custodian of the assets is a directed trustee, and follows the instructions provided by the plan sponsor. Fidelity or whatever recordkeeper is being used is not in the business of determining if company stock is a prudent investment in the plan. That, again is the job of the plan sponsor and the plans investment committee and possibly an advisor.  The plan sponsor in this case is most certainly eliminating the stock as an option in the plan to pre-empt a stock loss lawsuit brought on by plan participants or plantiffs attorneys.


You could just commingle your funds.  That way, she also learns how to keep track of things and how to figure things out, rather just learning to have the guy at the brokerage hand her an account statement which she blindly accepts. It might cause some tax problems though if the money grows to be substantial.


"I suppose this could really depend on the part of the world you're in, but there are still many instances of ""emergencies"" that need ""cash"". You have to decide how much cash is the right amount, but I still recommend having $1,000 or so in liquid cash. It can really make a huge difference. Let me give a few examples.  Bad weather. I live in Florida and after a hurricane if you want gas, food, or water, you're going to need cash. ATM networks are the last to get repaired. Same for internet. Cell services are not at the top of the list. You could be 4-5 days without access to your accounts. If you need anything in that time frame it's cash or the Red Cross. Children. As a foster parent we keep some cash on hand because as kids come in to our care we want to get them in school right away. How are they going to eat? You can't give them your plastic, you haven't had time to setup ""lunch accounts"" or the like. Cash always works. Along those same lines are bus tickets, clothes, supplies and what not. Not everywhere will take an ATM card, and if your money is tied up in a stock then what are you supposed to do for 3 days? Tell your new kid that he can't eat? Big Emergency problems. Like your car breaks down on the interstate. Sure it can get towed to the dealership, and yes they will add the tow to your bill, and sure you have a few days to pay it (while your car gets fixed), but how are you going to get around? Not all taxis take plastic around here.  Almost none of the busses take plastic even though they are supposed to. Lost Wallet or ID theft. Lose your wallet, good luck getting into your bank accounts. It can take weeks to establish your ID after you lose it in some cases. You want your ID, but you need your birth certificate. You have to GO to the state of birth and request it. Oh but wait, to travel you need an ID. No problem send away for it, but wait, you need to send them money to mail it. To bad all your money is tied up.  Running or Evacuating - So you need to evacuate for some reason. No big deal. But all your money is in a place you can't get to it. How do you put gas in your car. Lets stick with it and say you get to ""cash out"" an account of some kind. Guess what, they're not going to mail it to some random address. Now you're stuck fighting support centers to get them to understand that you need your funds delivered to New York even though you live in Florida.  In short, you don't need $100,000 in liquid funds, but there are a few cases that you need something liquid. You also make a lot of assumptions. For example, not every one will have health insurance, or a heath problem that is covered by their insurance. Some serious home repairs are ""down payment"" upfront. Car problems like an accident that means you need a rental can totally be up front. Especially if credit cards can't be used."


Because US regulators typically are focused on the prices consumers pay. If you're a monopoly and they drop, its ok.   That's why the DoJ went after Apple when it got into the ebook market instead of Amazon. Apple was raising prices instead of lowering them.


"HR is clueless.  Clueless, while I can tell in 2 seconds that Susan is an idiot based on  ""*Susan: There are a lot of things to consider with that. One school of thought says that when you put corporate assets into the cloud, they are more secure because you know exactly what you have there. You have an exact inventory, you know exactly who has access to that data, and how it is controlled.*"""


>We've already broken up with MS and moved on.  Yet Microsoft just finished another crazy profitable quarter.  If tech blogs were of any indication, Microsoft has been in a death spiral for the past 15 years, despite their financials constantly showing the opposite.  Their success in enterprise still more than makes up for all their mistakes in breaking into other markets.


Windfalls can disappear in a heartbeat if you're not used to managing large amounts of money. That said, if you can read a bank statement and can exercise a modicum of self control over spending, you do not need a money manager. (See: Leonard Cohen)  First, spend $15 on J.L. Collins' book The Simple Path to Wealth.  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30646587-the-simple-path-to-wealth. Plan to spend about 4% of your wealth annually (4% of $1.2 million = $48,000) Bottom line: ALWAYS live within your means. Own your own home free and clear. Don't buy an annuity unless you have absolutely no self control. If it feels like you're spending money too fast, you almost certainly are.


"Some details in case you are interested: Being a defined benefit kind of pension plan, the formula for your Social Security benefits isn't tied directly to FICA contributions, and I'm not aware of any calculator that performs an ROI based on FICA contributions. Rather, how much you'll get in retirement is based on your average indexed monthly earnings.  Here's some information on the Social Security calculation from the Social Security Administration - Primary Insurance Amount (PIA): For an individual who first becomes eligible for old-age insurance   benefits or disability insurance benefits in 2013, or who dies in 2013   before becoming eligible for benefits, his/her PIA will be the sum of:       (a) 90 percent of the first $791 of his/her average indexed monthly earnings, plus       (b) 32 percent of his/her average indexed monthly earnings over $791 and through $4,768, plus       (c) 15 percent of his/her average indexed monthly earnings over $4,768. Here's an example.  Of course, to calculate a benefit in the future, you'll need to calculate projected average indexed monthly earnings; more details here.  You'll also need to make assumptions about what those bend points might be in the future.  The average wage indexing values for calculating the AIME are available from the Social Security Administration's site, but future indexing values will also need to be projected based on an assumption about their inflation.  You'll also need to project the Contribution and Benefit Base which limits the earnings used to calculate contributions and benefits. Also, the PIA calculation assumes benefits are taken at the normal retirement age.  Calculating an early or late retirement factor is required to adjust benefits for another age.  Then, whatever benefits you get will increase each year, because the benefit is increased based on annual changes in the cost of living. Performing the series of calculations by hand isn't my idea of fun, but implementing it as a spreadsheet (or a web page) and adding in some ""ROI based on FICA contributions"" calculations might be an interesting exercise if you are so inclined? For completeness sake, I'll mention that the SSA also provides source code for a Social Security Benefit Calculator."


Yea there stock dropped big deal, their former CEO ken Lewis made a massive about of money during the sub prime era.  Not to mention the massive amount of money Anglo mazillo made at country wide which BOA took over.  When BOA foreclosed on people's homes they made even more money selling homes. when the ended mark to mark accounting in march of 09 they got bad assets off their balance sheet.  The stock price means crap, the price of a stock is what the public values u at, make no question they are and have been making money.  As far as ur communist reference u can go fuck yourself I work on the street I don't have time to search the web for the knowledge I've collected working in the industry.


"Their ""genius idea"" saved me more than 50 bucks last week when I bought a new ultra book and photoshop 6 student edition for my wife from Fry's Electronics and found out that Fry's would match their prices. Best Buy was cheaper than Fries, pigs must be flying somewhere.."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/business/dealbook/teamsters-union-tries-to-slow-self-driving-truck-push.html?ref=dealbook) reduced by 65%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The union has persuaded United States lawmakers to exempt commercial trucks from a bill allowing more autonomous vehicles on the roads.  > The bipartisan plan raises the cap on permitted vehicles that don&#039;t have common features such as a steering wheel, or meet certain safety requirements, to 100,000 a year from the current limit of 2,500.The Teamsters successfully lobbied to exclude vehicles over 10,000 pounds.  > It is seen as a precursor to autonomous trucks, and Arkansas, Tennessee and South Carolina are among the states considering such a move.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6two5r/teamsters_union_tries_to_slow_selfdriving_truck/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~191527 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **truck**^#1 **vehicles**^#2 **States**^#3 **self-driving**^#4 **autonomous**^#5"


Some answers already informed about denomination. There are currencies, doing the cut off of two digits, for example the french franc. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_franc#New_franc  When you look to old french movies, they often talked about 'old franc' when talking about values (at least in French original, I don't know what happens in English translations).


There is no simple way to convert an ISIN into a stock ticker symbol. The only way to even attempt to do so is to map the ISIN to a CUSIP or SEDOL or other national identifier and then map that identifier to a stock ticker symbol.


"I usually recommend along these lines.  If you are going to drive the same car for many years, then buy. Your almost always better to buy, and then drive a car for 10 years than to lease and replace it every 2 years. If you want a new car every two years then lease. You're usually better off leasing if you're going to replace the car before the auto loan is paid off or shortly there after. Also you can get ""more car"" for the same monthly money via leasing. I honestly would advise you to either buy out your lease, or buy a barely used car. Then drive it for as long as you can. Take the extra money you would spend and spend it on an awesome vacation or something.  Also, if you're only driving 15 miles a day, then get a cheap, but solid car. Again, just my advice."


When did I ever mention the constitution? Ever considered that I'm not even American? So basing my arguments on your constitution wouldn't make sense to me.  Capitalism is barter. You don't neither need government enforcement nor centralized currencies. In fact that's what anarcho-capitalists always were speaking out against.  Capitalism does not require maintenance and there's this thing called private schools, loans and private security (I'm no ancap, I'm just saying...) And even you yourself did not dare to put healthcare in that list apparently.  Are you seriously going to base your arguments on a game that has a maximum of 12 pieces, a single branch of business and limited amounts of money? Go ahead, it's past midnight but even sleepy me realizes that that's a terrible idea.


Like all many branches of the economy, they do cross over at points. Private stock value increases pushes up tax revenue which in turn contributes to easing of national debt. The level of economic ignorance in this thread is astounding.


"Since the last time savings account interest rates were meaningful banks have made relationships much ""stick-ier."" By that I mean that the online services and all the auto-pay systems in place put up a significant barrier for people to leave their bank. This results in people no longer shopping their banking business around to the bank with the best account interest rates. So no cartel or other devious behavior from banks, but rather just customer apathy (as you pointed out was an option)."


Buying pressure means there are more interested buyers than there are ready sellers putting upward pressure on prices. That might include institutional buyers who are slowly executing buy orders because they still want the best prices possible without clearing out the market. Buying pressure doesn't have to be related to volume at all. If everyone who owns shares think they are going to be worth far more than recent market prices, they will not offer them for sale. That means there is more demand to buy than there is a supply of shares to be bought. That condition can exist regardless of trading volume.


"The bond funds should tell you their duration. My 401(k) has similar choices, and right now, I'm at the short maturity, i.e. under 1 year. The current return is awful, but better than the drop the longer term funds will experience as rates come back up.  Not quite mathematically correct, but close enough, ""duration"" gives you the time-weighted average maturity in a way that tells you how the value responds to a rate change. If a fund has a 10 year duration, a .1% rate rise will cause the fund value to drop 1.0%."


Brokers will have transaction fees in addition to the find management fees, but they should be very transparent. Brokering is a very competitive business.  Any broker that added hidden fees to their transactions would lose customers very quickly to other brokers than can offer the same services. Hedge funds are a very different animal, with less regulation, less transparency,  and less competition. Their fees are tolerated because the leveraged returns are usually much higher. When times are bad, though,  those fees might drive investors elsewhere.


"I had a weird arrangement like this in college with a girl. She didn't want a relationship, or sex. She just wanted to sleep with me. So occasionally my phone would ring at 10:30, ""Dave, this is Pam. I'm at the door. Can I come down?"" (My dorm room was in the basement of the graduate/doctoral dorm)  She'd come down, want to cuddle a bit, and go to sleep.  In the morning I'd get dressed, reset the alarm clock for her, and go to class. I'd come back from lunch at the cafeteria and my bed would be made, the room picked up, and clothes put away.   Since I was in between relationships at the time, it was a very cool symbiosis for the two of us."


"This will probably require asking the SO to sign a quitclaim and/or to ""sell"" him her share of the vehicle's ownership and getting it re-titled in his own name alone, which is the question you actually asked. To cancel the cosigner arrangement, he has to pay off the loan. If he can't or doesn't want to do that in cash, he'd have to qualify for a new loan to refinasnce in his name only, or get someone else (such as yourself) to co-sign. Alternatively, he might sell the car (or something else) to pay what he still owes on it. As noted in other answers, this kind of mess is why you shouldn't get into either cosigning or joint ownership without a written agreement spelling out exactly what happens should one of the parties wish to end this arrangement.  Doing business with friends is still doing business."


That's the foundation of Limited Liability.  There is a corporate veil that protects your personal assets from that of your business.  The corporate veil can be pierced if you do certain stuff and thus your personal assets will get effected.  This allows people to start companies and innovate more and take more risks knowing that they could not be personally liable if the business folds.


And they will be with any governance that gives the people a voice.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  But special interest groups need to be treated like spoiled children who haven’t learned boundaries:  1) Call them out on their hypocracy, being inconsiderate, and when they are bein ridiculous.  2) If they have good ideas, listen to them  3) If they are willing to work with you, work with them  4) Teach then that there are boundaries  When a special interest group gets what they want, they dive in to grab as much as they can.  Then other groups try the same.  The conversations and decisions must instead be controlled, slowed or halted when they pull more than was agreed upon.  We have unfairly favored certain special interest groups throughout history.  Right now, we have a Christian extreme and their opposition acting like spoiled brats, and the corporate interests being handed the keys to the kingdom.  It is no wonder we are experiencing worse fracturing!  When sharks smell blood, they frenzy, and we’re feeding with little constraint.


Supply and demand basically determines wages. Unfortunately our society doesn't even see sustainability of families or society as important enough to make protecting them a high priority.   However, if you are a bank thats been involved in shady business deals, they are going to great lengths to help you avoid prosecution, not just here but all around the world.


You're doing great.  I'd suggest trying get putting 5-10% towards your retirement and the balance to the student loans. You are a little weak in retirement savings, but you have $550k house with 20% equity that you bought at the bottom of the market. That's a smart investment IMO, and in my mind compensates somewhat for your low 401k balance. If I were you, I would retire the student loans ASAP to reduce the money that you have to shell out each month. That way, you have the option of scaling back you or your wife's work somewhat to avoid paying thousands for child care. In my mind, less debt == more options, and I like options.


I suppose it depends on your goals and expectations, but I'd argue its not easy. Regardless of the chosen sub discipline of trading or investing you pursue there will be some theoretical and research work to do, some learning of the mechanics of the market, and some 'ropes' to learn upfront. After that the time frame you are working in, the complexity and time requirements of your methodology dictate how much time you need. I personally spend enough time on it to be considered equivalent to a part time job, but I enjoy continually learning and researching. If I weren't constantly trying to improve and research I would say the mechanics might take a half hour a day. However, I would gladly do it full time if I were able. I believe that is important, if you simply want to make lots of money but hate the process you will likely fail. As mentioned earlier if you are new to this the majority of your time will be spent initially learning whats out there, trying various things out, and finding what works for you. There are a lot of different ways to approach the market and a number of markets to approach. For me it took two years to find my niche and become profitable. Learn to loose small and keep your itchy fingers in check during that learning curve.


The HMRC website would explain it better to you. There is a lot of factors and conditions involved, so refer to the HMRC website for clarification. If your question had more details, it could have been easy to pinpoint the exact answer. Do I declare the value of shares as income Why would you do that ? You haven't generated income from that yet(sold it to make a profit/loss), so how can that be declared as income.


Ahh the vest. The mark of a Finance professional. Seriously, I don't know of any other person outside of a Finance career that wears it. My theory is that it's warm and it lessens the need to re-tuck your shirt every few minutes for those that don't have tailored shirts.


The one thing that I know is that we'll no longer need to subsidize or coddle the lower classes anymore.  I'm tired of having to pay such high tax rates so that they can live off my hard work.  No more forced labor!


"we all see posts about How To Get An Idea for a business.  I respond that keeping eyes and ears open has been my ""method"" for many years.  so as an example of that, here's a guy who simply decided ""there have to be more people like me"" and started a business helping others escape from liberal states...taxes, regulations.  his stats are pretty amazing.  enjoy"


"New Deal type solutions, living wages, and other things with a socialism streak. It's unattractive for people who have been used to the American way, but the alternative is an ever expanding non-working/low-wage class. Many people do not cut it for service and post-college, or college level jobs, many people are best suited for trade work. As more jobs become automated, and more blue collar work gets pushed overseas, and as our economy turns to service/high education work, more and more people will be left behind. Either these people are put to work by corporations by lowering their ridiculous standards for once, or the government steps in and does it for them by putting them to work in pubic projects or service, and for those that can't be placed, a living wage, otherwise they will be poor and desperate, having those people around isn't pretty for a society.   I'm not just making this up, people have been predicting this situation for a better part of a century, even the [Wall Street Journal](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204468004577164710231081398.html) is seeing it. The rise of Consumerism pushed it off a bit, but Globalization and increasing technology has taken the edge off of it. People need to realize that this is a problem, and they need to stop being so arrogant and ignorant about the reality of socioeconomics, otherwise it will bite them in the ass. Is the solution perfect? Nope, but I haven't heard a better one that doesn't have ""Maybes"" attached to it, or assume people will just do things out of their good nature."


Yeah, that last bit from Curtis was absolutely inspiring to me as well. I listened to it repeatedly the day I first heard it, because I couldn't get it out of my head. If you want to do the same, or you might want to show others the monologue, you can do so [here.](https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-65-teaser-the-brutal-question) You should also listen to more of the podcast if you're interested. They're a bit all over the place and eclectic, but they're the best socialist entertainment podcast out there.  So where do you fall on the question? I want real change, and I honestly don't have anything to lose. I don't see myself ever having a good life unless things do change for the better. But I've also been thinking about emigrating...  Also agree about OWS. But a movement that's actually connecting with people should be able to overcome *some* of the propaganda used against it by the corporate media. That was a genuine failing on the part of the organizers, I think. [You should read this though. It's on a tangential topic, but more people should know about how the FBI conspired to help smash the movement.](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy)


"I've had pretty good experience with fiction and non-fiction. I guess it's all about expectations. I actually dislike having physical media laying around the house (DVD's, books, etc.), and prefer having it stored with a service provider. I get that you give up some of the benefits of physical (sharing it, you ""own it"", etc.), but those weren't high on my list of values anyways."


"I'm going to look just at purchase price. Essentially, you can't always claim the whole of the purchase price (or 95% your case) in the year (the accounting period) of purchase, but you get a percentage of the value of the car each year, called writing down allowance, which is a capital allowance. It is similar to depreciation, but based on HRMC's own formula. In fact, it seems you probably can claim 95% of the purchase price, because the value is less than £1000. The logic is a bit involved, but I hope you can understand it. You could also claim simplified expenses instead, which is just based on a rate per mile, but you can't claim both. Note, by year I mean whatever your account period is. This could be the normal financial year, but you would probably have a better idea about this. See The HMRC webpage on this for more details.  The big idea is that you record the value of any assets you are claiming writing down allowance on in one of a number of pools, that attract the same rate of writing down allowance, so you don't need to record the value of each asset separately. They are similar to accounts in accounting, so they have an opening balance, and closing balance. If you use an asset for personal use, it needs a pool to itself. HRMC call that a single asset pool. So, to start with, look at the Business Cars section, and look at the Rates for Cars section, to determine the rate you can claim. Each one links to a further article, which gives more detail if you need it. Your car is almost certainly in the special rate category. Special rate is 8% a year, main rate is 18%, and First year allowance is essentially 100%. Then, you look at the Work out what you can claim article. That talks you through the steps. I'll go through your example. You would have a pool for your car, which would end the account period before you bought the vehicle at zero (step 1). You then add the value of the car in the period you bought it (Step 2). You would reduce the value of the pool if you dispose of it in the same year (Step 3). Because the car is worth less than £1,000 (see the section on ""If you have £1,000 or less in your pool""), you would normally be able to claim the whole value of the pool (the value of the car) in the first accounting period, and reduce the value of the pool to zero. As you use the car for personal use, you only claim 95% of the value, but still reduce the pool to zero. See the section on ""Items you use outside your business"". This £1000 is adjusted if your accounting period lasts more or less than 12 months. Once the pool is down to zero that it you don't need to think about it any more for tax purposes, apart from if you are claiming other motoring expenses, or if you sell it.  It gets more complicated if the car is more expensive. I'll go through an example for a car worth £2,000.  Then, after Step 3, on the year of purchase, you would reduce the value of the pool by 8%, and claim 95% of the reduction. This would be a 160 reduction, and 95%*160 = 152 claim, leaving the value of 1860 in the pool. You then follow the same steps for the next year, start with 1840 in the pool, reduce the value by 8%, then claim 95% of the reduction. This continues until you sell or dispose of the car (Step 3), or the value of the pool is 1000 or less, then you claim all of it in that year. Selling the car, or disposing of the car is discussed in the  Capital allowances when you sell an asset article. The basic idea is that if you have already reduced the value of the pool to zero, the price you sell the car for is added you your profits for that year (See ""If you originally claimed 100% of the item""), if you still have anything in the pool, you reduce the value of the pool by the sale value, and if it reduces to below zero (to -£200, say), you add that amount (£200, in this case), to your profits. If the value is above zero, you keep applying writing down allowances. In your case, that seems to just means if you sell the car in the same year you buy it, you claim the difference (or 95% of it) as writing down allowance, and if you do it later, you claim the purchase price in the year of purchase, and add 95% of the sale price to your profits in the year you sell it. I'm a bit unclear about starting ""to use it outside your business"", which doesn't seem to apply if you use it outside the business to start with.   You can claim simplified expenses for vehicles, if you are a sole trader or partner, but not if you claim capital allowances (such as writing down allowances) on them, or you include a separate expense in your accounts for motoring expenses. It's a flat rate of 45p a mile for the first 10,000 miles, and 25p per mile after that, for cars, and 24p a mile for motorcycles. See the HRMC page on Simplifed Mileage expenses for details. For any vehicle you decide to either claim capital allowances claim running costs separately, or claim simplified mileage expenses, and ""Once you use the flat rates for a vehicle, you must continue to do so as long as you use that vehicle for your business.you have to stick with that decision for that vehicle"".  In your case, it seems you can claim 95% of the purchase price in the accounting period you buy it, and if you sell it you add 95% of the sale price to your profits in that accounting period. It gets more complicated if you have a car worth more than £1000, adjusted for the length of the accounting period. Also, if you change how you use it, consult the page on selling selling an asset, as you may have disposed of it. You can also use simplified mileage expenses, but then you can't claim capital allowances, or claim running costs separately for that car. I hope that makes sense, please comment if not, and I'll try to adjust the explanation."


>Why not?  For the reason that I already gave  >If marketing is a product then so is education.  Who pays for the marketing? The company that wants to get their product info out to potential customers.   Who pays for inner city public schools? Not the students that want part of being there   >Are there for-profit schools? Yes? Sounds like a product.  Yes, sounds like a product that's being bought. Who's paying for it though? Again not the students


Do not hesitate to contact the Restoration Company in Las Vegas in the situations where there is a fire accident and everything has been damaged by the fire. You should clear the impressions of fire so that people get out of that fear.


As células solares, também conhecidas como células fotovoltaicas, convertem a luz solar (fótons) em eletricidade Tanto a pesquisa quanto o uso de células solares aumentaram acentuadamente nos últimos anos, e hoje existem muitas empresas diferentes que fabricam células solares e sistemas solares. As células solares estão presentes em tudo, desde pequenos produtos elétricos (por exemplo, calculadoras) até a geração de energia commercial Energia Fotovoltaica em grande escala. A luz solar consiste em pequenas partículas Se uma célula fotovoltaica estiver iluminada com luz solar, alguns desses fotões serão absorvidos pela célula. Quando os fotones foram absorvidos pela camada negativa na célula fotovoltaica, os elétrons serão liberados. Existe uma diferença de tensão entre as duas camadas, semelhante a uma bateria. circuito. Uma corrente elétrica aumentou.


"Using the card but paying it off entirely at each billing cycle is the only ""Good"" way to use a credit card.  If you feel like you will be tempted to buy more than you can pay back don't use credit. As far as furnishing the apartment, the best thing to do would be to save and pay cash, but if you want to use credit the credit available at stores would be a far better deal than carrying it on a card."


"Yes, it's unreasonable to think the prices will drop 10-20% in that time frame.  Housing prices are not an equation that can can be solved to ""home prices are X% overvalued."" You have 3 answers so far, Quanty's ""prices are inversely proportional to rates,"" Rob's ""there's no strong correlation between interest rates and house prices,"" and MB's, ""rising interest rates create downward pressure on housing prices."" Any research into price history had better take every other variable into account. Articles that look at rates vs price don't always address a key item, income. Say we agree that the data show your city to be 10% too high. But if sellers like their high price and have some 'dig my heels in' power, prices won't drop. The seller simply stays put, and the supply/demand curves result not in a lower price, but in less supply. And the effect is to change the demographic of that area, i.e. attracting higher income earners.  Rob linked to an article with a nice set of charts. One chart showing the US30 yr fixed rate and 'Real House Prices'. What results is a chart that can refute the relationship between rates and prices. But that would ignore an historical point that's too important to forget. The tumble that started in Jan '06 had nothing to do with the 30 year rate. It was the result of a series of insane financial products including 'interest only option ARMs' which permitted buyers to get approved for a purchase based on a payment that wasn't fixed, and would change to a fully amortizing mortgage at a higher rate that was unaffordable. A product that was a financial time bomb. Canada Banks offered no such product, and when the US market got pneumonia, Canada experienced a mild cold. With respect to any answers that offer US centric data to prove any hypothesis, I don't feel such comparisons are appropriate.  Correlations, and the data used to prove them are an interesting thing. I can suggest that you take the US 30 year rate, along with our median income, or rather 25% of monthly median income. Calculate the mortgage that results. This translates nicely to the home a median family can afford. And I claim that long term this is the equilibrium price of that median home. But supply/demand has another factor, 'stickyness' or the more technical term, 'inelasticity of demand.' This means that for example, a 10% increase in the price of cigarettes does not cause a 10% drop in consumption. Each and every good has its own elasticity, and in the case of housing, a rise in cost would certainly impact the marginal buyers, but others will simply adjust their budgets. Not all buyers were planning to hit the bank's limit on what they could afford, so the rise doesn't change their mind, just their budget.  Last - I know that Canada does not have a 30 year mortgage, most common is a 5 year rate with 30 year amortization. (correction/clarification, anyone?) The effect of this is less volatility in the market, since I believe your rates are not poised for the 2.5% to 4% jump implied by another response. Small increases can be absorbed.  In a beautiful coincidence, the Federal Reserve Board sent me a link to The Interest Rate Elasticity of Mortgage Demand: Evidence From Bunching at the Conforming Loan Limit. It's a bit long but a worthwhile look at how the correlation isn't as instant as some might think."


Well, there's also the related matter that the rate of pay increase for average workers has increased at a small fraction of executive pay. There are many ways to remedy this, including raising top tax rates (though by no means exclusively).


"Oh, yeah, my mistake.  My statement would apply if that was ""dew point"" instead of ""heat index"".  Haha, this is the most ridiculous back-and-forth because I'm sure we're both in agreement.  Hopefully someone will find it useful!"


Open Google finance and divide the Market Capitalization by the total price. That will give you the total number of shares outstanding. Now see the number of shares you could buy for $1000(40 shares of $25 each or 10 shares of 100 shares each). Now divide the number of shares you own, by the number of shares outstanding in the company and multiply it by 100(i.e (Shares you own/shares Outstanding) * 100). That will give you the percentage or stake of the company you own(With $1000, don't expect it to be a very large number). Now ask your self the question, Is it worth it if I can buy x % of this company for $1000? If the answer is yes, go ahead and buy it.  To answer your question in short, NO! it does not matter whether you buy 10 shares for $100 or 40 shares for $25. Cheers


My opinion is that 50% savings is the number to shoot for, and I strive toward that number as often as possible.  10% - savings for retirement 10% - savings for short term emergency fund 25% - payment on mortgage principal 5% - savings for planned big purchases I overpay the principal so that 25% of my income goes to principal payments, and I separately account for the mortgage interest/home owners insurance as another expense in my budget.  Because of this aggressive payment schedule, the house I bought 2 years ago will be payed in full in another 9 years.  I own another property outright that I paid down in the same fashion and I collect rent on it as a supplement to my income.  I started with a small townhouse that I could easily afford, but now I have a much larger home that I can still easily afford. The emergency fund doesn't need to be more than 6 months of expenses, which is 3 months of income if your expenses are only 50% of your income.  I keep 6 months of expenses liquid and another 12 in a low risk investment.  Once you have your emergency fund funded, you can add that percentage to a different category (say 15% to retirement and 10% to planned big purchases), or you can over-fund it.  I have had a few catastrophes that have depleted that fund, so I like having the extra 12 months of income available. I set the last 5% aside for wants that are not regular expenses.  If I want a car, I save 5% of my income until I can pay cash for it.  I have an infinite number of these wants, so I prioritize them and buy them in order when the cash becomes available. The reason I use percentages is to keep me focused when my income increases. Instead of spending all the additional money that I could afford to spend each time I get a raise. I instead only increase my expenses to the 50% mark.  It was much harder to save 50% when I got my first job out of college, but now I live quite comfortably on that percentage and I could take a large hit to my income before I would need to make significant changes to my lifestyle.


"Paying yourself through a corporation requires an analysis of a variety of issues. First, a salary paid to yourself creates RRSP contribution room as well as CPP contributions.  Paying yourself a dividend achieves neither of those. By having a corporation, you will have to file a corporate (T2) tax return.  The corporation is considered a separate legal entity from you.  As an individual, you will still need to file a personal (T1) tax return. Never just ""draw"" money out of a corporation.  This can create messy transactions involving loans to shareholders.  Interest is due on these amounts and any amounts not paid within one calendar year are considered as wages by Canada Revenue and would need to be reported as income on your next T1 return. You should never withhold EI premiums as the sole owner of a corporation.  You are considered exempt from these costs by CRA.  Any amounts that have been remitted to CRA can be reclaimed by submitting a formal request. The decision on whether to take a salary or dividends normally requires some detailed analysis.  Your accountant or financial advisor should be able to assist in this matter."


3 years ago I wrote Student Loans and Your First Mortgage in response to this exact question by a fellow blogger in my state.  What I focused on was the way banks qualify you for a loan, a percentage for the housing cost, and a higher number that also comprises all other debt. If the goal is speed-to-purchase, you make minimum payments on the student loan, and save for the $100K downpayment as fast as you can.  The question back to you is whether the purchase is your priority, and how debt averse you are. I'd caution, if you work for a company with a matched 401(k), I'd still deposit to the match, but no more.  Personal finance is just that, personal. We don't know your entire situation, your current rental expenses vs your total condo cost when you buy. If you are in a location where renting costs far more than your cost of ownership, Ben might change his mind a bit. If the reverse is true, you're living a college student's lifestyle with a room costing $400/mo sharing a house with friends, I'll back off and say to pay the loan and save until you can't tolerate the situation. You'll find there are few situations that have a perfect answer without having all the details.


"Age. Current marginal rate. Total saved so far. Current rate of savings. Joint or single filer. These are among the variables that go into making this decision. Without this, my answer is a general response. In general, you have one marginal rate today. (Unless you happened to be straddling a bracket limit).  In retirement, you have your marginal rate, of course, but also every bracket up to that level. It can make sense to save today pretax to avoid 25%, knowing this money will be withdrawn at an average 10 % or so in retirement.  Edit to clarify to the one who offers comment below to the contrary.  The 2015 taxtable for single filer:  A single person has a combined $10,300 standard deduction and exemption. This means that if he has no other income in retirement, a withdrawal of $47,750 results in a tax bill of $5156. This is an average 10.8% on that withdrawal. It also means that one can save nearly $1.2M before hitting the 25% bracket in retirement. With the numbers I offered, the next $1 is taxed at 25%. In general, if a new worker starts by using Roth, and goes to traditional to avoid slipping into the 25% bracket, they will have a nice mix of pre and post tax money.  In the end, it's not a long term binary choice. Each year, you can decide which flavor or mix of flavors to use. You can convert from traditional to Roth each year to ""top off"" the 15% bracket, so you retirement withdrawals never push you into the 25% bracket.  Note - the math above tragically ignores The Phantom Tax Rate Zone caused by the taxation of Social Security benefits. For a young person, I don't know that I'd advise counting on this benefit, but if you believe in fairy dust, unicorns, and the like, you should be aware of how the government currently plans to tax you. This situation leans strongly toward the Roth. Until congress decides to use Roth withdrawals as a trigger to tax or reduce your benefits, in which case, just using a taxable account will be all that's left.  2 years ago, I wrote a blog post The 15% solution which walks the reader through the process of optimizing their savings from a tax standpoint. The choice of investments is another matter, this simply addresses the pre-tax post-tax issue."


It is a bad deal.  It saves the government from processing your refund as a check or an ACH deposit, and lets them keep your money -- money that they overwithheld! -- interest-free for another year. Get it back. :)


One thing to note before buying bond funds. The value of bonds you hold will drop when interest rates go up. Interest rates are at historical lows and pretty much have nowhere to go but up. If you are buying bonds to hold to maturity this is probably not a major concern, but for a bond fund it might impair performance if things suddenly shift in the interest rate market.


Child care - will a parent stay home? Bring Child to daycare? Nanny? This can range from $4k+ to nearly $15K for daycare outside the house. For a nanny (of course, we found a gal with a masters degree in early childhood development) it can run to a full salary, $30K in her case.  The extra mouth to feed, the diapers, clothes, etc.  Education - Will you plan to pay for the child's college? Some people can't or feel they shouldn't. If you will, it can run about $180K in today's dollars for a private 4 year college.  Ours is now 12, so I'm sure my aging brain has forgotten some of the obvious expenses.


"I have an idea.  Keep saving what you are and think ""Early Retirement"".  Work for 20 years, then do whatever you want 40 hours a week.  If your satisfied with your current lifestyle, start thinking of your bigger long term financial goals and when you want to accomplish them by.  Maybe you can accomplish these sooner than you think.  Saving to buy a house/property?  Investment portfolio?  Want to travel all over the world?  Family planning/kids?  I am sure you will figure out how you would want to spend it."


TBH I wouldn’t assume that the CFA is quicker. It takes at least 18 mo if you take them consecutively, and if you fail one it’s at least another year. I did my MBA part time in 2 years, and I hear the average for the CFA is something like 5 years.  If you want to go into something more quantitative/ back office focused I say go for the CFA. MBA will probably provide you with more general career options


In the second example you are giving up future  free cash flows in exchange for a capital gain on the original investment. With that respect  the money you will not gain will be the difference of the future cash flows ( net of related costs) minus the net gain on the panel you have sold. The financial result can be considered as the opposite of a sunk cost, that is a cost you have already incurred ( and cannot be recovered)  vs net future gains you are giving up.  In more sophisticated financial terms we are talking about the  benefit-cost ratio:  ( from Investopedia)


Obviously, her new employer won't know how much was contributed from   the old job, so this won't work this year. Obviously the new employer would. They will not deposit anything, unless you tell them how much you have deposited already. Somehow tell the new employer how much was contributed by her last   employeer, so they can stop deducting at the right time. I'm not sure   if this is even possible. Why isn't it possible? I've been in a similar situation, the employer had a form to fill on this matter as part of the paperwork for the payroll, right between the direct deposit forms and the 401K contributions form. By the way, another thing to take a look at when switching jobs is the Social Security tax. I wrote about it here.


Someone needs to tell the LinkedIn developers that the recommendation for a low-salt diet does not extend to their code. Salting hashes is a pretty basic security measure. I have to wonder what other basic security practices are missing there. Clearly there is at least one other issue, since the hackers were able to access the hashes to begin with.   BTW, changing your password now is a good idea, but I'd also change it again after LinkedIn has confirmed they have both started salting and have corrected whatever security flaw revealed the hashes. Until then there is no reason to believe your new password is any safer or more secret than the old one.


When you look at managed funds the expense ratios are always high. They have the expense of analyzing the market, deciding where to invest, and then tracking the new investments. The lowest expenses are with the passive investments.  What you have noticed is exactly what you expect. Now if you want to invest in active funds that throw off dividends and capital gains, the 401K is the perfect place to do it, because that income will not be immediately taxable. If the money is in a Roth 401K it is even better because that income will never be taxed.


The answer is - the money got bounced back to their account :(


It appears to me that US agribusiness is angry at poor countries for giving poor people food and the US pharmaceutical industry is angry at India for making cheap generic drugs, even though few people can afford their products in poor countries. (Drug prices in the US itself have more than doubled since 2008)  These three trade deals, TTIP, TISA and TPP that the US is pushing in our names basically take positions that few Americans would agree with, which is why they are kept secret.


15 years ago I bought a beach condo in Miami for $400,000 and two extra parking spaces for $3000 each. Today the condo is worth 600,000 but the rent barely covers mortgage repairs and property taxes. Most of The old people in the building have since died and are now replaced with families with at least two cars and spots are in short supply. I turned down offers of 25,000 for each parking space. I have the spaces rented out for $200 per month no maintenance for an 80% annual return on my purchase price and the value went has gone up over $700%. And no realtors commissions if i decide to sell the spaces.


A shorter term MA would be used for short term changes in price whilst a long term MA would be used for longer term movements in price.  A 200 day SMA is widely used to determine the trend of the stock, simply a cross above the 200 day SMA would mean the stock may be entering an uptrend and a cross below that the price may be entering a downtrend. If the price is continuosly going above and below in a short period of time it is usually range trading. Then there are EMAs (Expodential Moving Averages) and WMAs (weighted moving averages) which give more emphasis to the latest price data than the earlier price data in the period chosen compared to a SMA. MAs can be used in many different ways, too many to list all here. The best way to learn about them is to read some TA books and articles about them, then choose a couple of strategies where you can use them in combination with a couple of other indicators that are complimentary with each other.


[It works in Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_universal_health_care)  Surely you don't think America is too dumb or lazy of a nation to do what these many others have done.. [Even conservative sources seem to think that the move to UH increases economic freedom.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2015/01/27/conservative-think-tank-10-countries-with-universal-health-care-are-economically-freer-than-the-u-s/#2e52bfc5137e)  I guess our versions of morality are vastly different.


I wouldn't say this is a lie.  Person 2 just made themselves the offer of 38k.  If it sells then they were outbid.  If it doesn't sell then they're stuck with the asset as if they had bid themselves.  They're paying themselves, or they're representing a party that is paying themselves.  That balances out to a $0 profit/loss + ownership of the asset.   I think something like this would be unethical:   Person 1: I'll buy your car for 30k  Person 2: Okay  Person 3:That's my car!


When you are putting your money in an index fund, you are not betting your performance against other asset classes but rather against competing investments withing the SAME asset class. The index fund always wins due to two factors: diversity, and lower cost.  The lower cost attribute is essentially where you get your performance edge over the longer run. That is why if you look at the universe of mutual funds (where you get your diversification), very few will have beaten the index, assuming they have survived. -Ralph Winters


Wait are you saying you have the opportunity to buy bonds at this rate and the company is issuing loans at this rate to consumers? Sounds like a win for the bank, a win for it's shareholders, and a win for the bondholder. (Of course, you'll probably be paying a premium for a 25% coupon bond if that's really what's you're talking about.)


Agreed. If you create a small sustainable biz for yourself, you create the freedom to pursue the hobby project ideas as well. You have a strong base which protects you.  A software biz like ours is WAY more tolerant than a job. Like when I got sick for 3 mos and couldn't work at ALL, we didn't grow, but we didn't collapse either. It pretty much coasted. That means we have way more free time than we think we do.


Each country will have different rules. I can only speak about the Netherlands.  There, there are two options as a resident to open an account.  You needed a BSN (Dutch ID number) or a strong reference from an international company sponsoring your residence there at a bank branch that dealt frequently with foreign customers.  It was not possible to open an account as a nonresident although high wealth customers probably get special treatment. Recent US reporting requirements have made European banks very unwilling to deal with US people. I have received a letter from my Dutch bank saying they will continue my current products but not offer me anything new. If I call the bank, the normal staff cannot see anything about my accounts. I need to call a special international department even for mundane questions.


"I'm a senior majoring in accounting and management information systems. Here is a question I answered a while back about financial statements and employee retention. In the answer that I provided at the bottom it was to assess a company's ability to pay by use of ratios. Likewise, similar accounting methods need to be understood and implemented when assessing stocks(which is where I believe Mr. Buffet was going with this). As we can see the severity of the questions decreases, but if you can not answer question 3 then you should study accounting principles.   So how much is enough just to get started? You will never have enough knowledge to start, period. You will have to continuously be learning, so start sooner than later.  However you need neither economics or accounting knowledge if you were to learn technical analysis, many doubt the workings of this technique, but in my experience it is easier to learn and practise. A comment on @Veronica's post.  Understanding economics and accounting are fundamental. Analysis, seeing trends, and copying are instinctual human traits that helped us evolve (we are very good at pattern recognition). Taking an intro economic and accounting course at a local community college is an excellent place to start when breaking the mold of pattern-thinking. You have to be critical in understanding what elements move a company's A/R in the statement of cash flows. Read. Literally, don't stop reading. Latest edition of of Kesio's accounting principles? Read it. Cover to cover. Tax policies on Section 874, 222, 534? Read it.  Take a class, read a book, ask questions! Good Luck, ""Welcome to [the] Science [of Business], you're gonna like it here"" - Phil Plait"


I can only answer in hypotheticals since it doesn't exist, but I could imagine chip readers becoming common place to verify integrity of the ID.  Add a federal mandate on things like TSA checkpoints, hotel reservations, etc. and you get a lot of data real quick.  There's plenty of ways for it to be abused.  My question is, what would a national ID card solve?


"The margin rules are also more complicated.  A simple buy on a non-margin account will never run into margin rules and you can just wait out any dips if you have confidence the stock will recover.  A ""simple"" short sell might get you a call from your broker that you have a margin call, and you can't wait it out without putting more money in.  Personally I have trouble keeping the short sale margin rules straight in my head, at least compared to a long sale. I got in way over my head shorting AMZN once, and lost a lot of money because I thought it was overvalued at the time, but it just kept going up and I wanted it to go down.   I've never gotten stuck like that on a long position."


I'm finishing up a PhD in econ this year. I did a similar route to you. M.A. in finance / econ - split with business school and economics department then moved into a PhD. If I had to do it over again, I would go straight into the PhD program. I'd say skip the MA, especially since you have an interest in academia. The MA was more or less a waste of time and you get the MA as you're doing your PhD work anyway.


Oh wow, someone who is BULLISH stocks and the tech sector specifically? Wow, no groupthink at all here folks, none.   I'll catch you on the flip side of this epic bubble we're in, which you obviously don't see.


Myself and my partner do things a little differently to most. We split accommodation and utilities payments by net income proportion to ensure that we both have the same amount of spending money. For example;  The really important bit is net income. We take off a whole bunch of payments, e.g; Our contributions go into a joint account and the rest is our money to spend. The upshot is that we both get to enjoy the same minimum quality of life because we both get the same amount to spend at the bar.


"That has not been disproved. What the quote means is ""when [workers as a collective] earn more, [businesses as a collective] get more customers"". It's impossible to disprove this, because it's like a kind of economic tautology. It's like, if I give you five one dollar bills, how many five dollars will you have.   What you mean to argue is that that's spacious, because the real world is more complicated."


"So, if I understand the investment program here: You have $100 of tax withheld from your salary at the end of Jan, Feb, Mar... until December.  This withholding is in excess of the expected tax for the year. You use the appropriate H&R Block product to file your taxes, and H&R Block gets your refund of $1200 on March 1st.  H&R Block adds 10& and give you e-cards for $1320 On the face of it, this represents a return of 15.19% per year, compounded monthly. However, there are a few wrinkles that might make the scheme less inviting: You'll get a receipt for miscellaneous income from H&R Block, and pay tax on the ""earnings"". The quoted return is only realized if you can use the e-cards immediately.  If they sit around for a while, then they aren't earning any interest.  If you sell them for cash at a discount (if you even can!)  then this reduces the return.  If you don't cash them at all, they're a total loss. This offer was announced on Jan 15, 2015.  So you can't go back and put it in place for 2014.  And if you set it up for withholding in 2015, is there any guarantee that it the same offer will be in place when filing in 2016?"