You seriously think physics and engineering are niche degrees? Every year major companies in the US bitch about the lack of qualified candidates in fields like this. This is one reason that H-1B visa requests have risen in the last decade. Meanwhile, we are turning out more english/psych/law majors than the country can handle.


> the meal has become more expensive and also shrunk in size and quality  > So, like every other place that serves food?  Not like every place.  McDonald's food has decreased in quality and prices have gone up.  There are too many fingers in the pie - corporate, shareholders and franchisees are all trying to get the most money out of it.  So prices go up and they slash and slash the quality.  I live in Arizona.  Here, McDonald's has priced itself *above* offerings from small independent restaurants.  For the price of a Big Mac combo, I can have a sit-down meal at a real restaurant with much, much better quality.  If I want to spend less, I can get takeout for less than McDonald's.  The takeout will have more food that is of higher quality.  There's no reason to go to McDonald's.  None.  You can get better food at a lower price.  No wonder they're suffering.


I just don't think thats such a rip off considering what it is you are getting, but you are calling it unrealistic.  A fresh double cheese burger with unlimited toppings/sauces, hand cut fries fried in 100% peanut oil (...and they really do not skimp on the portions for fries its usually enough fries for at least 2 people its usually like 1/2 a paper bag full of fries), and a drink where most of the five guys i have been in have the soda machines with 1000's of drink choices, and to top it off there are free peanuts.   You say their food is awful, but i don't really see what there is to complain about. Its 80/20 beef that is never frozen, fries that are cut fresh right in front of you and fried in quality oil (peanut oil is fairly expensive as far as cooking oils go), ive never had issue with the freshness of the vegetable toppings.  Am I missing something here? I think that's a pretty solid value for $12.


Anything from being a plumber to being a nurse, or dental assistant to an electrician or most any other contractor. We own a couple dental offices and everyone we know has a difficult time finding dental assistants (job typically requires 6 months of training and 1 year of work)  Hell I had a $6k-$10k job for an electrician (about 3 full days worth of work) couldnt get a single one to call me back because they were busier with bigger jobs. Luckily I can get a plumber to come in because he's already a client of mine but there are lots of plumbers here that won't go to new homes because they have enough existing clients.


How the hell do taxes work in Washington? British Columbia has experienced massive growth over the last 20 years (mostly foreign) and our schools got over crowded. Magically though, they had more money from city taxes and were able to build more schools, and improve the old ones.


"Just sign the form. The bank I worked for gave a .25% discount on auto deduct. Either you misheard that part or the person who sold you on the loan was new/ didn't explain it properly. It's an ""optional form"" but it does change your rate.    Edit:  you're not being pushed around. Someone got in trouble and is trying to cover their butt by getting it back quickly."


Libya thought toppling Gaddafi would imprpopve their system.  Sometimes destroying for the sake of destruction, without a proper plan, makes things worse.   As bad as things are, things can be many thousand times worse.  The US with all its problems is still one of the best places to live.  Dont assume that what we have built will be so easily rebuilt.


What's going on here is that the variable rate loan is transferring some of the risk from the bank to you.  In a reasonable deal taking on risk brings with it reward.  It's the same thing as deductibles on insurance--they're transferring some risk to you and thus your expected total cost goes down. Thus the proper evaluation of such deals is whether you can afford the outcome if you draw the short straw.  If you feel you can afford the highest payment that can result then the variable rate is a good deal.  If you're near your limit then stay with the safe option of the fixed rate. For a house this is easy enough to evaluate--run the calculations assuming the highest payment and see what the debt-to-income ratio is.  Note that when we were getting mortgages there was another factor involved: the variable rate loans had a higher initiation cost.  Combined with the very low difference between fixed and ARM rates at the time we went fixed but given the rates you quote going variable would have been a no-brainer for us.


"Chit funds started as group of people pooling money every month and drawing a lot to determine who would get the entire funds that month. For example 5 people pool together Rs 1000/- on first month person ""A"" gets the draw and takes the Rs 5000/-. Next month again same set of people pool Rs 1000/-, the person who got the money last month is removed from the list and again a draw is made. Thus everyone pays Rs 1000/- for 5 month and gets back Rs 5000/- some sooner and some later. This was done more to buy big ticket purchases, or group of ladies getting together. There is always a leader who would ensure that everyone pays and manages the process. In more business oriented chit fund, unknown people come together and contribute Rs 1000/-. There is a organiser who is a local strong man who runs this and ensures that everyone pays. The variation here is that every month instead of a lucky draw, you can buy for discount. Say this month you need the money badly, you are willing to take only Rs 4800/-, there maybe some one who is more desperate and may say he is OK with only Rs 4600/-. The balance Rs 400 is distributed amongst the other 4 members. Thus the other who had contributed Rs 5000/- over 5 months now get Rs 100 more. The next month this person is eliminated from bidding, and others 4 can bid for Rs 5000 or less. The balance is again re-distributed amongst others. This is typically run by people who do not get loans at good rates from bank and essentially borrow outside the financial industry. The people who are part of this most of the times make good returns / better than banks. But this entire industry is unregulated and hence the Strong man can dupe you, there are cases where people who take the first shot at money vanish without trace. Every city has quite a few of such funds running. It is advisable you do not indulge in such funds."


You might have to pay a premium for the stocks on the dividend tax–free exchanges. For example, HSBC on the NYSE yields 4.71% versus HSBC on the LSE which yields only 4.56%. Assuming the shares are truly identical, the only reason for this (aside from market fluctuations) is if the taxes are more favorable in the UK versus the US, thus increasing demand for HSBC on the LSE, raising the price, and reducing the yield. A difference of 0.15% in yield is pretty insignificant relative to a 30% versus 0% dividend tax. But a key question is, does your country have a foreign tax credit like the US does? If so you (usually) end up getting that 30% back, just delayed until you get your tax return, and the question of which exchange to buy on becomes not so clear cut. If your country doesn't have such a tax credit, then yes, you'll want to buy on an exchange where you won't get hit with the dividend tax. Note that I got this information from a great article I read several months back (site requires free registration to see it all unfortunately). They discuss the case of UN versus UL--both on the NYSE but ADRs for Unilever in the Netherlands and the UK, respectively. The logic is very similar to your situation.


ZeroHedge is the best, although it appeals to a particular audience (highly educated economics/business folks with a very negative view of government). They pull articles from all over the web, so you get a really good aggregator with maybe 20 articles/day of high quality work.  Bloomberg I read if there's a good topic. That pops up on facebook for me and I read probably 10/day.  Wall Street Journal is great if you want mainstream (read: delayed) business news. Most of the things that are truly news are long-term in nature and you'd read about them on ZeroHedge far before the WSJ.  I used to read Dealbook a lot, although I've gotten away from it lately due to the lack of mergers & acquisitions activity.  Lastly, I used to have a blogroll of maybe 5-10 investment blogs with truly great writers/thinkers, but alas, most have stopped writing now.  sorry about the delay. forgot I saw your question.


"I'll give the TLDR answer. 1) You can't forecast the price direction. If you get it right you got lucky. If you think you get it right consistently you are either a statistical anomaly or a victim of confirmation bias. Countless academic studies show that you can not do this. 2) You reduce volatility and, importantly, left-tail risk by going to an index tracking ETF or mutual fund. That is, Probability(Gigantic Loss) is MUCH lower in an index tracker. What's the trade off? The good thing is there is NO tradeoff. Your expected return does not go down in the same way the risk goes down! 3) Since point (1) is true, you are wasting time analysing companies. This has the opportunity cost of not earning $ from doing paid work, which can be thought of as a negative return. ""With all the successful investors (including myself on a not-infrequent basis) going for individual companies directly"" Actually, academic studies show that individual investors are the worst performers of all investors in the stock market."


Laws like this replace tipping income with regular income, taking away the loophole that the IRS can't track cash tips. Most servers are not reporting their cash tips because they think they don't have to pay taxes like everybody else. It's tax fraud. Fuck them.


The only fair thing to do is to let each of you pay their own loans. That way, your brother will probably get out of debt faster and starts saving or investing (assuming equal down payments), while you'll be stuck with your loan for a while longer. If you want to minimize the interests you have to pay, you could simply borrow money from your brother. That way, he'll contribute towards your loans, and you will know exactly how much you owe him. Your brother may lend you money interest-free, or you could agree on an interest rate which is lower than what you pay on your loans, which will somewhat compensate your brother and still be beneficial to you. It still won't be fair though, because your brother might be able to invest his extra money with better interest rate, and lending money to you would prevent that.


"Expanding like crazy compared to what?  Apple?  You mean the company that has maintained a 25% operating margin while growing top line by 160% since 2010?   No company has EVER had a market cap of $1T, let alone maintained it.  What is your point?  All you're talking about is relative price and ""history"" which has little to no bearing on what is going to happen in the future.  I see no indication of any argument related to the actual valuation of Apple stock.  It is still, at $650B, pretty reasonably valued considering the facts, e.g., ability to generate cash, maintain margins, grow revenues, and for management to make sound financial moves, i.e., return $ to shareholders.        You come off extremely condescending yet you seem not to have much of an understanding in regards to what dictates stock price over the long term."


Perhaps it's best to balance out how it works out for all, especially the most vulnerable, before setting yourself for or against a policy such as this.   You are lucky that you don't have any pre-existing conditions, while others aren't. You earn enough that you are able to afford insurance, even if you're not happy with the fact that you have to pay for it.   But you are unlucky to be working for a company with short-sighted dickheads that look more at the immediate bottom line than they do at their employees. To be honest, if they are scrapping by so much that they need to move everyone to part time to avoid health insurance costs that they already had before, you'd better start looking for another job right away.


> It's a huge joke. People are putting their stock in it, but there was a front page story just yesterday about another crypto currency that went from $300 to $0.10 with a single transaction.  Hi, long time crypto nerd here... Just wanted to say that transaction was on one exchange and the price pretty much went back to normal in a few seconds. Due to the lack of experience in trading some people just dump like that on a whim, its not the norm, but it does happen.    In any case, that was some +1,000 units worth which again is super rare. They likely bought a long time ago and forgot them... again, fairly uncommon.


"I don't usually play ""what if...""  but here is my guess:  * He would have bankrupt the United States (sooner than it is going to happen) after hiding all assets.  * Rename the new Government something with ""Trump"" in it (Trumpmerica?)  * As part of his ""Get Trumpmerica Back to Work""  initiative he would add his profile to Mt Rushmore and erect statues of himself in all city parks.  * And reissue currency with his face on all the different denominations.  *edit to add - I lied.. I play ""what if's.."" all the time"


Detroit is a joke.  They're pissing money away left and right, the city managers refuse to take any kind of cuts or change anything that they are doing.  It needs an emergency manager to come in there and clean things up.


You can reprocess the spent fuel to extract unburned uranium fuel, as is done elsewhere in the world. Thorium based fuel produces less long lives actinide waste (high level nastiness) and in my opinion would be a key step toward making nuclear a viable option. Nuclear is very politically volatile so a decade long planning effort can be subjected to winds of change with respect to politics, licensing, funding, and public opinions which can make for enormous inefficiencies. Solar has public favor so there are plenty of incentives. Nuclear would have to receive a push like that.    Done properly a nuclear power plant should not contaminate the land it sits on. Currently plants have extensive environmental monitoring required by regulation. Nuclear power plants don't have extensive storage ponds for spent fuel. Every plant has a storage pool to wait for decay heat to subside as part of the refueling cycle.   An issue with nuclear is that mistakes don't just biodegrade on a human timescale as they do for chemical based mistakes. The nuclear industry is currently paying for the sins of its birth and formative years.


"Arbitrage is basically taking advantage of a difference in price.  Generally extending to ""in different places for the same thing"". A monetary version would be interlisted stocks, that is stocks in companies that are on both the NYSE/Nasdaq and Toronto stock exchanges.  If somebody comes along and buys a large number of shares in Toronto, that will tend to make the price go up - standard supply and demand. But if someone else can buy shares instead in NY, and then sell them in Toronto where the first person is buying up shares, where the price is higher, they the the arbitrageur (second person) can make pretty easy money. By its very nature, this tends to bring the prices back in line, as NY will then go up and Toronto will then go down (ignoring FX rates and the like for ease of explanation). The same can work for physical goods, although it does tend to get more complex with taxes, duties, and the like."


"In your comment, you said: It just seems a little stupid to me to go and put away money for the explicit purpose of emergencies (presumably in a way that's somehow different from how you would normally save money). Seems better to go and treat the money as you would normally, and then pull whatever you need from the money that you had saved. The problem with that logic is that people save money for many different things.  You might save for a vacation, or a new refrigerator, or a new car, or a house, or your kids' college education.  If you ""pull whatever you need"" for such expenses, you may find that when a real emergency occurs, you don't have enough money.  The things you used it for may have been legitimate, reasonable expenses, but nonetheless you may later wish you had deferred those expenses until after you had built up a cushion. So the idea of an emergency fund is to designate certain money that is not to be used for ""whatever you need"", but specifically for unforeseen circumstances.  Of course there can be debate about what counts as an emergency, but the main point is to distinguish saving for planned future expenses from saving for unplanned future expenses. Note that this doesn't mean the money has to be in a separate account, or saved in any special ""way"".  It just means the money has to be considered by you as an emergency fund.  For some people, it may be psychologically useful to put the emergency fund in a separate account that they never withdraw from.  But even if you just have all your money in one savings account and you mentally tell yourself, ""I don't want to ever let the balance drop below $10,000, just so I have a safety cushion"" then you are effectively designating that $10,000 as an emergency fund."


From Wikipedia: A hard money loan is a specific type of asset-based loan financing through which a borrower receives funds secured by the value of a parcel of real estate. Hard money loans are typically issued at much higher interest rates than conventional commercial or residential property loans and are almost never issued by a commercial bank or other deposit institution. Hard money is similar to a bridge loan, which usually has similar criteria for lending as well as cost to the borrowers. The primary difference is that a bridge loan often refers to a commercial property or investment property that may be in transition and does not yet qualify for traditional financing, whereas hard money often refers to not only an asset-based loan with a high interest rate, but possibly a distressed financial situation, such as arrears on the existing mortgage, or where bankruptcy and foreclosure proceedings are occurring. This implies to me that these loans are only against real estate. Presumably, because it doesn't move and can't be simply taken away, as in the case where you have say, a high value diamond or painting.


There is also a very real cost to having people know each other's salaries. Bitterness, at people who have a higher salary, and at the company paying someone a higher salary (or even the same or lower salary) when you do so much more work with them. I'm guessing the average person overestimates their abilities like you said. This means that no matter how fair your salary scheme, if people know each other's salaries, the majority of people will be bitter and thus less productive.


I agree but the reality is that despite laws on the books, no matter how egregious corporate behavior in the US is, rarely do the courts impose any real punishment.  It's always a small fine by the courts or the government which only encourages the bad behavior.  Its always pennies on the dollar of what they got and no jail time for anyone.  Business know this.  Heard of Blue Bell ice cream? They knew there was a problem with their ice cream, instructed employees to cover it up and continues to sell ice cream which killed people.  The state of Texas gave them a fine sure to have everyone repeat this and the company will delay for decades any settlement with the families.   It's the American way.  You have no power over corporations.


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I can understand the argument that it's not a good allocation of resources to extend the life of someone by a few months, but what's your argument against treating accidents, mental illness, disabilities, autism etc?  And how much would the additional bureaucracy of charging people cost?  In the UK, the NHS costs about £3000 per working person.  Seems well worth the cost.


In the UK at least, dealers definitely want you to take finance. They get benefits from the bank (which are not insubstantial) for doing this; these benefits translate directly to increased commission and internal rewards for the individual salesman. It's conceivable that the salesman will be less inclined to put himself out for you in any way by sweetening your deal as much as you'd like, if he's not going to get incentives out of it. Indeed, since he's taking a hit on his commission from you paying in cash, it's in his best interests to perhaps be firmer with you during price negotiation. So, will the salesman be frustrated with you if you choose to pay in cash? Yes, absolutely, though this may manifest in different ways. In some cases the dealer will offer to pay off the finance for you allowing you to pay directly in cash while the dealer still gets the bank referral reward, so that everyone wins. This is a behind-the-scenes secret in the industry which is not made public for obvious reasons (it's arguably verging on fraud). If the salesman likes you and trusts you then you may be able to get such an arrangement. If this does not seem likely to occur, I would not go out of my way to disclose that I am planning to pay with cash. That being said, you'll usually be asked very early on whether you are seeking to pay cash or credit (the salesman wants to know for the reasons outlined above) and there is little use lying about it when you're shortly going to have to come clean anyway.


>Like I said they are a media company.   And, a broadcast company with several channels, don't forget that part that makes you totally wrong.  >Even tho you have not. You actually barely done any such thing.  No, I have repeatedly acknowledged their faults, you disagreed with the extent of my acknowledgement. Frankly, this is the sort of behavior I expect out of a petulant or severely autistic child. You do not tolerate anyone else having an opinion.  >You seem to have a habit of making assumptions and bullshit claims, should really address that. My sampling is far from limited here. I know enough to say with absolute certainty Vice journalism is on par of Buzzfeed, and has a noticeable liberal bias. If I wanted fluff pieces to read I would go to Vice and that matter Buzzfeed. But if I want actual investigative journalism I go elsewhere.   Buzzfeed's scoops are about stars dating each other, political stories, etc. Vice does pieces on buying nukes on the black market, the inside tour of North Korea (you know that claim that they have the same fat kid and fake grocery stores full of fake food? That's from Vice's investigative journalism), etc. If you can't distinguish between the two, I think you're ironically making assumptions and bullshit claims.  Oh, and about your sampling, you're continuing to justify a sweeping generalization which you don't even recognize as fallacious. Do you not understand that your derivative argument is faulty? That you are making a notorious mistake that is well-documented in logical academia?  >lol. Your analysis is no more subjective than mine is. Claiming your analysis is objective is outright laughable.   I am judging quality by the story on its own merits: that's objectivity. You are judging the quality of a story by your negative opinion of the producer and publisher's reputation: that's subjectivity. It makes you subjectively dismissive of my objective analysis. Your analytical skills are outright laughable.


"Limited Price is probably equivalent to the current par value of a ""limit order"". Markets move fast, and if the commodity is seeing some volatility in the buy and sell prices, if you place an ordinary buy order you may not get the price you were quoted. A ""limit order"" tells your broker or whomever or whatever is making the order on your behalf that you will pay no more than X yuan. While the market is below that price, the trader will attempt to get you the quantity you want, but if they can't get you your full order for an average price less than the limit, the whole thing is rolled back. You can set a limit at any price, but a limit order of 1 yuan for a pound of sterling silver will likely never be executed as long as the market itself is functioning. So, you are being provided with a ""par value"" that they can guarantee will be executed in the current market. Entrustment prices are probably prices offered to the managers of trust funds. A trust is simply a set of securities and/or cash which is placed under the nominal control of a third party, who then must in good faith attempt to fulfill the goals of the actual owner of the securities with regards to growth or retention of value. Trustees almost never speculate with the money they control, but when they do move money it's often a sizeble chunk (hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars instead of a few thousand dollars here and there). So, in return for the long-term holdings, large buys and sells, and thus the reduced cost of maintaining a business relationship with the broker, the broker may offer better prices to trust fund managers."


One of the fundamental of technical analysis suggests that holding a security overnight represents a huge commitment.  Therefore it would follow that traders would tend to close their positions prior to market close and open them when it opens.


Well the idea is after getting the employees to put their best attempt to transition their processes to excel, afterwards the leftover advanced processes that absolutely require excel will be given an exception (until a better solution can be researched and prototyped). But at the moment until then I have to find out ways to get these advanced functionality in other ways!


The real idea is to get inflation even higher than it currently is to try and get more bullets in the future for the next recession. We'd like nominal rates to be much higher than before so that we can have even larger real negative rates when needed. This takes time and finesse and I'd say Yellen is doing a fine job. Every mark she is reaching for in the dual mandate is exactly where it needs to be for a perfect storm.   Almost all people borrow money to get houses. That doesn't make them likely to default. What made defaults skyrocket in '08 was predatory lending and NINJA loans, as well as a group of men who actively did everything they could to make the system fail because of credit default swaps whose payout was significantly higher than the loss.


You need to look at where the profits are coming from. In this case, compressed wage growth and extreme cost-cutting. I mean shit, Dimon ripped out all of JPMs Bloomberg terminals. Work happiness at banks are much lower and people are leaving, save for at certain types of banks. The profits are just coming from employees. Overtime is a lot lower to non-existent in right to work states and you'll pull 10-30 hours over what you signed on for on a weekly basis.   If you're not aware of what capital requirements are then I really can't dive into this. I suggest you read up on Basel 3, the US system, liquidity cover ratio (LCR) and then understand generally what products yield more and the risks attached to those.   If you do know those then I feel like you know where my response is going, but I'm happy to get into it more.


Why do people act as if the minimum wage was created for high school students who are working part time? There's no real way to debate the fact that the minimum wage was created as a requirement for employers to pay a livable wage to employees. It wasn't created as some kind of skill building wage for teenagers.   “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country...By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of a decent living.” - FDR


I'm amazed at how shoddy some (not all) products are after they start being made in China.  It's like there is no quality control and obviously head office back in the states is only looking at the bottom line.  Cheaper often is cheaper.


I started my account with $500 so I know where you're coming from.  For the words of caution, in about 2009 we entered a pretty significant bull market.  During this period you could basically buy almost any big name company and do pretty well for yourself.  So don't be too cocky about your ability to pick winners in the middle of a bull market.  Over the last few years you'd have to try pretty hard to consistently pick losers. I absolutely think you should put real money in the game when you have this sort of interest.  However, at your $400-600 level broker fees will eat any sort of active trading or short term profit you could muster.  Stock trading is not a great way to make money in the short term.  If you're looking to save for something specific you should put that money in a zero risk savings account.   You should do more research on brokers.  Find the lowest possible trade commission at an organization where you can meet the account opening minimum.  A $10 commission is 11% more than a $9 commission.


I did some empirical research, comparing the exchange rates for wire transfers vs. the exchange rates for ATM withdrawals. With my bank, wire transfers typically take a 4% float off the exchange rate. ATM withdrawals seem to take just over 2%. And ATM withdrawals don't have a wire transfer fee, as long as I'm withdrawing from a branch of the same bank (overseas). The only problem with ATM withdrawals is the daily limit. As far as I can see, Tor's answer above has it completely backwards, at least with my bank, ATM withdrawals are a much better value. Do the research yourself...call the bank you're going to transfer from and find out what their current exchange rate is. Compare it to the current spot rate (e.g. XE.com) to determine how much of a cut the bank is taking. Then, if you can, withdraw some cash from the foreign location with your ATM card and see how much of the original currency is deducted from your account. In this way you can empirically discover for yourself the better rate.


If anyone is interested in looking into it, the company Pinnacle has actually been using theory from quantitative finance for a long time. I went to one of their talks during useR!2017 in Brussels, really interesting betting company.


Still not easy to grasp for a 5-year-old, but they're entertaining. Particularly the second one, which is slightly less informative but a lot more fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk&feature=fvwrel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc EDIT: Yup, it's biased towards Hayek, but that much is pretty evident. I still think that the videos are worth a watch, if only to give you a small introduction to where the two of them stand on certain issues.


"Top down approach needed when bottom-up approach of markets leads to   periods of high unemployment Imagine a chart that starts with one point at the top and breaks it down into the details by the time you get to the bottom. People can read this chart either from the top and go down or from the bottom and go up. Wikipedia does have articles on Top-down and bottom-up design if you want more detail than I give here. Top down refers to the idea of starting at a high level and then working down to get into the details. For example, in planning a vacation, one could start with what continent to go, then which country, then which cities in that country and so forth. Thus, the idea here would be to start with macroeconomic trends and then create a strategy to fix this as the other way is what created the problem. The idea of taking a subject or system and breaking it down into individual pieces would be another way to state this. Bottom up refers to the idea of starting with the details and then build up to get a general idea. To use the vacation example again, this is starting with the cities and then building up to build the overall itinerary. Within political circles you may here of ""grassroots"" efforts where citizens will form groups to gain influence. This would be an example of bottom up since it is starting with the people. The idea of taking individual components and putting them together to build up something would be another way to state this. The statement is saying that a completely different style of approach will be necessary than the one that created the problem here."


Those compensated by commission, not your moneyed elite. Those types are going to get out of taxes anyway.  Capital gains crush the middle and upper middle class like no other. BTW, now you sound even less like you know what you're talking about.


Is there really that many subscribers? It's about 10$ a month depending on what country you live in. 100m*10*12 = 12 b revenue per year. Unless I'm wrong, but this is the internet, I am sure someone will correct me.


It means you must pay federal (and possibly state) tax on any income you produce in America -- including Internet and mail-order sales. Tax treaties may keep you from having to pay tax on it again in your own country, or may not.


Never met any myself, but I know some manufacturers use them and are happy with their services. There is definitely a legitimate need for it, just a lot of swamp that gets dragged in. I would call around the midwest and ask. All the business folks I've met there seem to be very nice and happy to help.   Try casting, extruding, or large welding shops and see if they have any recommendations. I know this isn't the best way... but it is a way of finding someone who is probably reputable.


"Oh there's plenty of subreddits where sanders is a hard left  socialist monster, if they ever stop screaming coded racism about the Obama false president.  /r/conservative is a start. I got banned in minutes for mentioning Eisenhower I think.   A common post ""liberals eat their young and old"". WTF?"


The simplest thing is to transfer to your current account. You'll have the ability to borrow (assuming employer allows) 50% of the balance if you need to, and one less account to worry about.  Transferring to an IRA is the other common choice. This offers the ability to convert to a Roth IRA and to invest any way you choose. The 401(k) options may be limited.  Without more details, it's tough to decide. For example, if you are in the 15% bracket, the Roth conversion can be a great idea. And the 401(k) might be not so great, just deposit to the match, and then use the IRA. For example.


Just get out. If the investment isn't going up, you are losing money to inflation, as well as the opportunity cost of not having the money somewhere more profitable. These things happen to the best of us. Just learn from it and move on. Some valuable lessons: Just keep trying. Mistakes like this are all part of the learning process. Best of luck.


"The laws just mean you can't make your decision on the basis of religion.  Make your decision because they don't interview well, they can't do the job, they have poor qualifications, etc.  Substitute, say, ""black people"" for the reference to religious expression and you see where this is a problem.  Paraphrased, you've got: ""Why should I be forced to hire black people who I fundamentally oppose (and do not wish to support, however indirectly via a paycheck), why is their right to be black more valid than my right to not like black people?"""


"Oh sorry maybe I misread your question. The article didn't have anything concrete. I just watched the video to see the there was some clear examples or data but I didn't really catch anything. He said something about Trump not wanting to create jobs and said ""Chinese are working on AI"" because the gov't announced a plan. But he offered no real data for his views at all from what I heard. I'm not a specialist in economics so maybe I missed something obvious that someone else can clue us in on"


"First of all, it's quite common-place in GnuCash (and in accounting in general, I believe) to have ""accounts"" that represent concepts or ideas rather than actual accounts at some institution.  For example, my personal GnuCash book has a plethora of expense accounts, just made up by me to categorize my spending, but all of the transactions are really just entries in my checking account. As to your actual question, I'd probably do this by tracking such savings as ""negative expenses,"" using an expense account and entering negative numbers.  You could track grocery savings in your grocery expense account, or if you want to easily analyze the savings data, for example seeing savings over a certain time period, you would probably want a separate Grocery Savings expense account. EDIT: Regarding putting that money aside, here's an idea:  Let's say you bought a $20 item that was on sale for $15.  You could have a single transaction in GnuCash that includes four splits, one for each of the following actions: decrease your checking account by $20, increase your expense account by $20, decrease your ""discount savings"" expense account by $5, and increase your savings account (where you're putting that money aside) by $5."


Thanks for your reply. I’m not familiar with the term “Held-For-Trading Security”. My securities are generally held as collateral against my shorts. To clarify, I am just trying to track the “money in” and “money out” entries in my account for the shorts I write. The transaction is relatively straight forward, except there is a ton of information attached! In simple terms, for the ticker CSR and short contract CSRUQ8, the relevant entries look something like this: There are no entries for expiries. I need to ensure that funds are available for future margin calls and assignments. The sale side using covered calls is as involved.


NeoSize XL is the best male enhancement product  which has got all natural ingredients without any bad side effects. NeoSize XL is hundred percent  natural and is endorsed and approved by many doctors and health professionals. Neosize xl amazon  and gnc will be a bit more costly and also the stock may be older when compared to that of the official website. This is because the manufacturers provide the best quality and the product is always fresh.


If only we had something else a person could use when they are feeling run down and want to take a break.  A person could even use these days to go on a vacation or something to really get away and relax.  Maybe we could even call them 'vacation days'.


Let me offer what I did in a similar situation - Two points (a) we were banking $20K/yr or so to the cash fund, 2 good incomes, and the ability to go indefinitely on just one of the 2. (b) A HELOC that was prime-1.5%.   The result was to mentally treat the HELOC as our emergency fund, but to enjoy the interest savings of over $16,500/yr for the $100K that had a sub-1% return.  When I first referenced this story, I came under criticism. Fair enough, it's not for everyone. Let's jump ahead. We owe $228K @3.5%. We had tapped the equity line for brief periods, but never over $20,000. When we lost our jobs, both of us, we had hit our number and are semi-retired now. Our retirement budget included the current mortgage payment, so we are in line for that dropping out of the budget in 12 years, and starting social security after that, which I did not include as part of the budget.  Note - when we lost our jobs, the severance was 6 month's pay, and we collected unemployment as well. The first 12 months were covered without tapping our retirement funds at all. So, to Nick's point (and excellent answer) our first line of defense against unemployment was this combination of severance and unemployment insurance.


Higher life insurance.  Mortgage insurance is a very expensive decreasing term life insurance policy, that pays the Lender. You can likely increase your limits for less cost, AND, the payout doesn't depreciate every month, AND, your beneficiary can use the money any way they want - to buy food, or pay property taxes, or whatever.


"You have to remember that there is no such actual thing as ""deregulation"". Even if regulations are light, the government is still legislating one way or another.   There are already regulations that cause wealth to flow from workers and consumers towards shareholders. It's just a question of which way legislation allows wealth to flow.   There is no empirical data to indicate that if the healthcare industry were ""deregulated"" that costs would fall. Lack of regulation is what leads to $2,000 epipens that cost $25 to make.   If it were deregulated, prices would rise because free market forces do not reign supreme: corporate greed does. If you can charge a higher price you will. But malpractice will definitely rise as well.   Take Kansas for example. Massive deregulation, leading to huge job losses, failing sectors left and right, and great big gaping budget holes with no free market rushing to fill the void.   On the other hand take the NHS. Much lower cost per person than the US, and each person pays a much lower percentage of their income than people in the US, in return for quality healthcare.   There is always regulation. It's just a question of who the regulation benefits to the detriment of whom."


"I'm no lawyer and no expert, so take my remarks as entertainment only. Also see this question. If you have a U.S. SSN which is eligible for work, they may be able to pay you on 1099 basis with your SSN as a sole proprietor, unless they have some personal reason for avoiding that. So perhaps try asking about that specifically. HR policies can be weird and tricky, maybe a nudge in the right direction will help. Not What You Asked: regardless, I might recommend you register as an LLC and get an EIN (sort of SSN for companies) for a variety of reasons. It's called a ""limited liability"" company for a reason. You may also have an easier time reaping various business-related rewards, like writing off expenses. If you do so, consider a state with no income tax like Wyoming. (Or, for convenience sake, WA if you live in BC, or maybe NH if you live in Ontario.. etc.)"


Well, you probably already know this, but no-one can guarantee you results...in any economic climate.  Even traditionally low risk investments now seem higher risk to people when the economic forecasts are grim.  That being said, 0.5% is pretty low.  So, where does that leave you? Why not start with a risk tolerance analysis for yourself.  There's a bunch on them on the internet if you google it.  Here's one:  Rutgers Financial Risk Tolerance Quiz Based on the result you get back, and whether you agree with it or not, this may give you a starting point for determining if entering the stock market is right for you.  I'm guessing you can get better than 0.5% return over 10 years pretty easily though.


As a futures trader, I can tell you that the highs and lows for the ES futures diverge simply because they trade around the clock, from 6PM ET to 5PM ET the next day. The SPX is only open during market hours, as is the SPY, but the SPY also trades in the extended hours sessions for about 3.5 hours before and after the regular hours of 930 AM ET to 4PM ET ET. So bottom line, while they pretty much track each other, the difference in their trading hours results in the highs and lows being different.


It just had less cash. That doesn't necessarily mean that the company had a net loss for the year. Just like having more cash doesn't mean the company made a profit.   What if a company had revenue of $1 million, expenses of $2 million, and took out a loan of $5 million? They had a net loss of $1 million, but they have $4 million more in cash.


Nope, only base commissaries or BX/PX's are subsidized. The rest is just done for goodwill/marketing purposes.


My two cents:   I, like many people in finance, got into it for the money. However, I like many other people, found myself liking it for intrinsic reasons once I got into it.   I genuinely enjoy learning about financial theory, economics, understanding how global markets work, following the different story lines for the EU/US/Asian economies, working on financial models, reading the WSJ, keeping up to date on new earning releases, analyzing investments, learning about companies/industries, etc.  But I never would have found out that I liked these things unless I had chosen to study them and the only reason I chose to study them in the first place was because I wanted to make money. I'd take an intro finance class and see if it seems like something that could grow on you.


Wealth Management Analyst at major bank in NYC - I averaged 55-60. I had a close friend who worked for an NYC insurance firm and averaged just over 40.  During the summer, they also got out early on Fridays.  Early career pay wasn't great, but he consistently used the hours as a selling point to bring me over.


"There absolutely is a specific model that makes this so popular with so many credit card companies, and that model is ""per transaction fees"". Card companies also receive cost-sharing incentives from certain merchants. There is also a psychological reasoning as an additional incentive. When you want to accept credit cards as a source of payment as a business, you generally have three kinds of fees to pay: monthly/yearly subscription fees, percentage of transaction fee, and per transaction fee.  The subscription fees can be waived and sometimes are expressed as a ""minimum cost"", so the business pays a certain amount whether you actually have people use credit cards or not. Many of these fees don't actually make it to the credit card companies, as they just pay the service providers and middle-men processing companies. The percentage of transaction fee means that the business accepting payment via credit card must pay a percentage usually ranging from 1-3% of the total transactions they accept. So if they get paid $10,000 a month by customers in the form of credit cards, the business pays out $100-300 a month to the credit card processor - a good portion of which will make it back to the credit card issuing company, and is a major source of income for them. The per transaction fee means that every time a transaction is run involving a card, a set fee is incurred by the business (which is commonly anywhere from $0.05 to $0.30 per transaction). If that $10,000 a month business mentioned previously had 10 customers paying $1,000 each at $0.10 a transaction, that's only $1 in fees to the credit card processors/companies. But if instead that business was a grocery store with an average transaction of $40, that's $25 in fees.  This system means that if you are a credit card company and want to encourage people to make a specific kind of purchase, you should encourage purchases that people make many times for relatively small amounts of money. In a perfect world you'd want them to buy $1 bottles of water 5 times a day with their credit card. If the card company had 50,000 card holders doing this, at the end of 1 year the company would have $91,250,000 spread across 91,250,000 transactions. The card company might reasonably make $0.05 per transaction and %1 of the purchase total. The Get Rewarded For Drinking More campaign might earn the card company $912,500 in percentage fees and over $4.5 million in transaction fees. Yet the company would only have to pay 3% in rewards from the percentage fees, or $2.7 million, back to customers. If the card company had encouraged using your credit card for large once-yearly purchases, they would actually pay out more money in rewards than they collect in card-use fees. Yet by encouraging people to make small transactions very often the card company earns a nice net-income even if absolutely every customer pays their balance in full, on time, and pays no annual/monthly fees for their card - which obviously does not happen in the real world. No wonder companies try so hard to encourage you to use your card all the time! For card companies to make real money they need you to use your credit card. As discussed above, the more often you use the card the better (for them), and there can be a built-in preference for small repeated transactions. But no matter what the size of transaction, they can't make the big bucks if you don't use the card at all! Selling your personal information isn't as profitable if they don't have in-depth info on you to sell, either. So how do they get you to make that plastic sing? Gas and groceries are a habit. Most people buy one or the other at least once a weak, and a very large number of us make such purchases multiple times a week. Some people even make such purchases multiple times a day! So how do people pay for such transactions? The goal of the card companies is to have you use their product to pay as much as possible. If you pay for something regularly you'll keep that card in your wallet with you, rather than it getting lost in a drawer at home. So the card companies want you to use your card as a matter of habit, too. If you use a card to buy for gas and groceries, why wouldn't you use it for other things too? Lunch, dinner, buying online? If the card company pays out more and makes less for large, less-regular purchases, then the ideal for them is to have you use the card for small regular purchase and yet still have you use the card for larger infrequent purchases even if you get reduced/no rewards. What better way to achieve all these goals than to offer special rewards on gas and groceries? And because it's not a one-time purchase, you aren't so likely to game the system; no getting that special 5% cash-back card, booking your once-per-decade dream vacation, then paying it off and cancelling it soon after - which would actually make the card company lose money on the deal. In the end, credit card companies as a whole have a business model that almost universally prefers customers who use their products regularly and preferably for small amounts a maximum number of times. They want to reduce their expenses (like rewards paid out) while maximizing their revenue. They haven't figured out a better way to do all of this so well as to encourage people to use their cards for gas and groceries - everything else seems like a losing proposition in comparison. The only time this preference differs is when they can avoid paying some or all of the cost of rewards, such as when the merchants themselves honor the rewards in exchange for reduced or zero payment from the card companies. So if you use an airline card that seems to give you 10% back in airline rewards? Well, that's probably a great deal for the card company if the airline provides that reward at their own expense to try to boost business. The card company keeps the transaction-related fees and pays out almost nothing in rewards - the perfect offer (for them)!  And this assumes no shenanigans like black-out periods, ""not valid with any other offers"" rewards like on cars where only a fool pays full MSRP (and sometimes the rewards are tagged in this sort of way, like not valid on sale/clearance items, etc), expiring rewards, the fact that they know not everyone uses their rewards, annual fees that are greater than the rewards you'll actually be obtaining after accounting for all the other issues, etc. And credit card industries are known for their shenanigans!"


"So true. I can't even remember how many times I've heard ""I was making x amount before the dotcom bubble burst."" When the crash happened I was barely aware of it because I know what the fuck I'm doing.  edit- damn auto correct liked sitcom instead of dotcom"


"My answer is similar to Ben Miller's, but let me make some slightly different points: There is one excellent reason to get a consolidation loan: You can often get a lower interest rate. If you are presently paying 19% on a credit card and you can roll that into a personal loan at 13.89%, you'll be saving over 5%, which can add up. I would definitely not consolidate a loan at 12.99% into a loan at 13.89%. Then you're just adding 1% to your interest rate. What's the benefit in this? Another good reasons for a consolidation loan is psychological. A consolidation loan with fixed payments forces you to pay that amount every month. You say you have trouble with credit cards. It's very easy to say to yourself, ""Oh, just this month I'm going to pay just the minimum so I can use my cash for this other Very Important Thing that I need to buy."" And then next month you find something else that you just absolutely have to buy. And again the next month, and the next, and your determination to seriously pay down your debt keeps getting pushed off. If you have a fixed monthly payment, you can't. You're committed. Also, if you have many credit cards, juggling payments on all of them can get complex and confusing. It's easy to lose track of how much you owe and to budget for payments. At worst, when there are many bills to pay you may forget one. (Personally I now have 3 bank cards, an airline card, and 2 store cards, and managing them is getting out of hand. I have good reasons for having so many cards: the airline card and the store cards give me special discounts. But it's confusing to keep track of.) As to adding $3,000 to the consolidation loan: Very, very bad idea. You are basically saying, ""I have to start seriously paying down my debt ... tomorrow. Today I need a some extra cash so I'm going to borrow just a little bit more, but I'm going to get started paying it off next month."" This is a trap, and the sort of trap that leads people into spiraling debt. Start paying off debt NOW, not at some vague time in the future that never seems to come."


Automation has been going on in asset managers and large finance firms since the 90's.   There have been no major breakthroughs in the last couple of years.   If you look at the technology most firms use, it is based on late 90's early 2000's tech.


>Tax benefit of debt  The interest on repayments for debt (eg bonds, loans) is tax deductible (as interest expense). The way you figure out the after tax cost of debt is repayment*(1-tax rate).    >Marginal tax benefit  Just as marginal benefit, this is asking for every ADDITIONAL (ie marginal) dollar of debt, what is my additional tax benefit (tax deduction).    Pretty rough explanation, let me know if there is something in particular that doesn't make sense.


"The Case-Schiller macro derivatives market has seen very minimal activity.  For example, in the  three regional markets of San Diego (SDG), Boston (BOS) and Los Angeles (LAX) on 28 November 2011, there was zero trading volume, no trades settled, no open interest.  * Source: CME Futures and options activity[PDF] for all 20 regional indices.  Why haven't these real-estate futures caught on with investors?  Keep in mind that the CME introduced these indices, with support from Professor Shiller and partner Standard & Poor's several years ago. The CME seems committed to wait this out, as they have shown no indication of dropping the Case-Shiller indices. There are alternative real-estate investment securities to the Case-Shiller indices.  I don't think the market of investors is so small that Case-Shiller has been, in effect, ""crowded out"" by them. I think it is more likely a matter of known quantities. Also, I don't know how well these alternatives are doing! Additional reference: CME spec's for Case-Shiller index futures and options contracts."


Well your gripe is using historic data to estimate VAR. That is separate topic. Either way however something that happens twice a century cant be considered an outlier and if you choose to use historic data then such things need to be included.


it would help the economy tremendously.  even better, the US govt should give households massive amounts of money, to pay off debts.  and if they dont have debts they should go spend that money in the economy.   That type of economic stimulous would generate more revenue and taxes for govt to help pay off the US govt debt it accrues by printing money.


Hired to travel out of town with a legal team. Lawyer showed me that if you go to the gate, show them that you paid full price for your ticket last minute (NY -> Chicago over $1000) and ask nicely they will upgrade you to first if there is any room.


"I'm a big fan of modern nuclear, but I'm happy to see obsolete PWR projects die.  The thing to keep in mind is that today's commercial nuclear technology is using the old razor/blade business model. The ""blades"" they sell are pre-cast fuel rods, which are exactly the thing which causes the nuclear waste issue.  Better reactor designs don't work that way - which should make them cheaper to run but require a new business model to get them built."


">Why not personal responsibility?  The advocates for a ""libertarian paradise"" always seem to skip the point that offloading safety from regulatory agencies onto individuals and companies results in more deaths and injuries. There are plenty of examples of private industry *not* implementing proper safety controls. I mean if you really think things are better this way, be honest that you think more people should die if it means companies can operate more efficiently."


There are many reasons for buying stock for dividends.  You are right in the sense that in theory a stock's price will go down in value by the amount of the dividend. As the amount of dividend was adding to the value of the company, but now has been paid out to shareholder, so now the company is worth less by the value of the dividend. However, in real life this may or may not happen. Sometimes the price will drop by less than the value of the dividend. Sometimes the price will drop by more than the dividend. And other times the price will go up even though the stock has gone ex-dividend. We can say that if the price has dropped by exactly the amount of the dividend then there has been no change in the stockholders value, if the price has dropped by more than the value of the dividend then there has been a drop to the stockholder's value, and if the price has gone up or dropped by less than the value of the dividend then there has been a increase to the stockholder's value. Benefits of Buying Stocks with Good Dividends: What you shouldn't do however, is buy stocks solely due to the dividend. Be aware that if a company starts reducing its dividends, it could be an early warning sign that the company may be heading into financial troubles. That is why holding a stock that is dropping in price purely for its dividend can be a very dangerous practice.


While I don't disagree with the other answers as far as CD laddering goes (at least in principle), three months CDs are currently getting much lower rates than money market accounts, at least according to http://www.bankrate.com.  A savings account is also more liquid than CDs. Bonds are another option, and they can generally be liquidated quickly on the secondary market.  However, they can go down in value if interest rates rise (actually this is true of CDs as well--there is a secondary market, though  I believe only for brokerage CDs?). Bottom line, A high yield savings account is likely your best best.  As others noted, you should think of your emergency fund as savings, not investment.


"If one looks at the ""Guide to Information Returns"" in the Form 1099 General Instructions (the instructions that the IRS provides to companies on how to fill out 1099 and other forms), it says that the 1099-B is due to recipient by February 15, with a footnote that says ""The due date is March 15 for reporting by trustees and middlemen of WHFITs."" I doubt that exception applies, though it may. There's also a section in the instructions on ""Extension of time to furnish statements to recipients"" which says that a company can apply to the IRS to get an extension to this deadline if needed. I'm guessing that if you were told that there were ""complications"" that they may have applied for and been given this extension, though that's just a guess. While you could try calling the IRS if you want (and in fact, their web site does suggest calling them if you don't receive a W-2 or 1099-R by the end of February), my honest opinion is that they won't do much until mid-March anyway. Unfortunately, you're probably out of luck being able to file as early as you want to."


The assertion that Bolivians' palettes are somehow more sophisticated than dumb Americans' is silly.  I don't think anybody actually thinks McDonalds makes good food.  It's quick, cheap, and something associated with America, which despite what a lot of people seem to believe, is not a hated evil empire.  Local franchises are also a simple and relatively inexpensive method for entrepreneurs to earn a decent wage and foster economic growth in otherwise under-performing sectors.  McDonalds might have priced themselves out of the market in this case.  Or maybe fast food just isn't part of the local culture.  I've lived places where people thought the concept of going to a take out place and picking up food was just crazy weird.  You either sit down for a big fancy meal at a restaurant or whip something up at home.  What is this go out and pay for something substandard but quick?  That model works well in the US where it seems people are always on the go in different directions and might not have time to cook.  McDonalds seems to be good enough for our culture on the go and for a lot of countries around the world.  Personally, I just don't like it, but I will eat a Wendy's triple with bacon once in a while.


"This is not a mistake. This is done for ""Out of Network"" providers, and mainly when the patient is an Anthem member, be it Blue Shield or Blue Cross. Even though an ""Assignment of Benefits"" is completed by the patient, and all fields on the claim from (CMS1500 or UB04) are completed assigning the benefits to the provider, Anthem has placed in their policy that the Assignment of Benefits the patient signs is null and void.  No other carrier that I have come across conducts business in this manner. Is it smart? Absolutely not! They have now consumed their member's time in trying to figure out which provider the check is actually for, the member now is responsible for forwarding the payment, or the patient spends the check thinking Anthem made a mistake on their monthly premium at some point (odds are slim) and is now in debt thousands of dollars because they don't check with Anthem.  It creates a huge mess for providers, not only have we chased Anthem for payment, but now we have to chase the patient and 50% of the time, never see the payment in our office. It creates more phone calls to Anthem, but what do they care, they are paying pennies on the dollar for their representatives in the Philippines to read from a script.  Anthem is the second largest insurance carrier in the US. Their profit was over 800 million dollars within 3 months. The way they see it, we issued payment, so stop calling us. It's amazing how they can accept a CMS1500, but not follow the guidelines associated with it.  Your best bet, and what we suggest to patients, either deposit the check and write your a personal check or endorse and forward. I personally would deposit the check and write a personal check for tracking purposes; however, keep in mind that in the future, you may depend on your bank statements for proof of income (e.g. Social Security) and imagine the work having to explain, and prove, a $20,000 deposit and withdraw within the same month."


">Defenders of the Kansas experiment say that the state’s budget woes came from lawmakers’ unwillingness to impose spending cuts alongside the tax cuts, and that it was never realistic to expect the tax cuts to produce enough growth to pay for themselves.""  Well, then what was the fucking point? Oh yeah, to screw over everyone who isn't rich."


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"The stock market may not grow ""forever"". There will be growth in the stock market, though. The stock market is a positive-sum game, since it is driven in large part by the profits earned by the companies. This doesn't mean that any individual stock will go up forever, it doesn't mean that any given index will go up forever, and it doesn't mean there won't be periods when the market as a whole drops. But it is reasonable to expect that long-term investing in the market as a whole will continue to return profits that reflect the success of companies invested in. Historically, that return has averaged about 8%; future results may be different and exact results will depend on exactly when and how you invest. Re ""what about Japan, which has been flat over 30 years"": Market being flat doesn't mean individual companies may not be growing strongly. Picking stocks may become more important, and we might need to relearn to focus on dividends rather than being so monomaniacal about growth (dividends are not reflected in the indices, please note), but there will be money to be made. How much, and how much effort is required to get it, and whether the market offers the best available bets, deponent sayeth not. Past results are no guarantee of future returns, and your results may be better or worse than average. You should be diversified into bonds and such anyway, rather than only in the stock market."


You're aware there's no such thing as a cheap house in Jersey right? Rental values are listed in price per DAY to make them look less scary.   Also, no, you couldn't. You pay tax in the country you are resident in and the States don't equate property ownership to residency; neither does HMRC.   Interesting side note, in Jersey's neighbour Guernsey you can own a house but not legally be allowed to live in it due to the dual property market.


We are well equipped with controls and oversight.  What we lack is a great person on our floor to help handle our finance function.  We hope that qualified redditors from this subreddit will consider throwing their hats in the ring.


>Salary divided by hours worked (or even effort for that matter) ignores economies of scale.  No, not at all. Let's go back to Economics101.   When more units of a good or a service can be produced on a larger scale, yet with (on average) less variable input costs, economies of scale are said to be achieved.  The good produced in our comparison is salary.  The variable input costs are hours worked. The fixed costs are an annual time period, ie, it takes them both one year to produce their annual salary output regardless.  We have two guys, one is making 100k annually working 5 hours a week. The other makes 500k working 80 hours per week.  They both have a the same fixed costs of time period of a year.   If we plot them both on a graph, you're correct, the 500k salary output is a larger output, but at much greater variable costs. Efficiency is lost by the guy working 80 hour weeks.  The guy getting 100k for 5 hour weeks is optimizing his variable costs much more effectively.  Sure, he could make more, but would suffer diminishing returns on his output.    Dude above claims that you're not successful unless you make 500k.  I was just illustrating that success can be defined outside of straight compensation.


Prime preys on people's sunk costs fallacy. I would never buy it either. Either way, in the last 6 or 7 shipments I got from Amazon I've had problems with 4 of them. Problems like shoddy packaging and items arriving damaged, products not working as described, or breaking on first use or just items that are perpetually out of stock.


Use international transfer (I think it is called swift or something like that). The charges are generally low (fixed charge of around 15 Euros for both sending/receiving banks) and it is generally fast (takes 1-3 working days depending on the country or bank). Choose each bank pays its own costs for the optimal cost otherwise you pay more costs as the whole cost is taken beforehand. There are no capital restrictions in Turkey (yet!). So there shouldn't be any problems.  You could also use HSBC in Turkey, which should have free transfers between HSBC in different countries, if you have HSBC in your home country. But I wouldn't worry about that too much. This is all coming from personal experiences. I'm a Turkish expat having lived in various countries around Europe.


"Doesn't ""no rebalancing"" mean ""start with a portfolio and let it fly?""  Seems like incorporation of rebalancing is more sophisticated than not. Just ""buy"" your portfolio at the start and see where it ends up with no buying/selling, as compared with where it ends up if you do rebalance. Or is it not that simple?"


Loans are not taxable events. The equity you took out is not income. It's a loan, and you pay it back with interest. You pay taxes on the capital gain of the home when you sell it. The tax does not take into account any mortgages, HELOCs, or other loans secured by the house. Instead the tax is calculated based on the price you sold it for, minus the price you bought it for, which is known as the capital gain. You can exclude $250k of that gain for a single person, $500k for a married couple. (There are a few other wrikles as well.) That would be true regardless of the loan balance at the time.


You're right on the average person I guess.  My city is full of mom and pop shops.  They sell with online stores as well.  A lot of American and German made items.  They costs more, but are better quality.  Quality over quantity.  There is no Walmart around here.


damn straight, dat's wut im talking about.  everybody should be allowed to go to college or a trade school.    for free too at that.  it also means people can go at a later date in their age if they chose to as well.  heck, one should be able to get as many degrees as they want for free.


> but if the Bitcoin is deemed currency  I struggle to see how Bitcoin specifically links to   > helps fund terrorist organizations  You know cash is used (Like seriously its the mobs favorite form of payment) in the same way and Bitcoin at least has the feature of being traceable right?


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"It's ""projected"" to go up, until the underwriting banks decide enough time has passed for them to stop pretending they believe in their unrealistically optimistic scenario and start slashing target price estimates by 40%. So a few weeks..."


Yeah, so both of those are not true. Cutting funding for these things drastically alters their ability to provide services, and the Department of Energy, Department of Education, the EPA -- they all provide urgently needed services.    Its not just budget cuts either. Changing policy to reduce efficacy, purposefully understaffing, eliminating the scientists ability to convey findings to the public.  It's gotten noticeably harder to access govt data since this administration started dismantling these orgs.


I wanted to know how safe is such investment with online banks vis-a-vis regular banks? As far as I know, neither money market accounts nor savings accounts have any investment risk (within reason) since both are insured by the FDIC. Note that this is not necessarily the case with money market funds. is their any downside to such investments? Yes, there are a few. I believe the two biggest ones  are:


Can we wire transfer money from my NRE account to USA checking account? Yes you can Is there any restrictions for transferring money? Nothing in India Hopefully someone else will answer the US side of questions.


Even if you can pull this off (I think it is possible with creativity) it is likely not worth it.  The number of ways this can come crashing down is high and the benefits are marginal at best.  The opportunity cost of carrying this out is likely higher than the saved interest from just carrying the $500 balance.  Do this with too much money and you can find yourself in real trouble if one card gets cancelled (late fees, penalties, and no way to make repayment).    Basically this is theoretically possible but not worth it.  Just work an extra hour each month and pay the interest. Or, if you don't have a job, just pay the interest and spend the time you save to look for a job.


This is why I am amazed that people are saying this time the market is different; it will only correct itself; we won't see another crash like '08.  When in reality, all of the data is pointing to a bubble that is about to burst worst than '08.


Have a look at swift codes website, but on wikipedia, there seems to be some variation in the interpretation of the standard. Broadly, it should be that a swift code refers to a particular branch, but it is possible that there is a cost associated with running a swift code, so some banks may prefer to share swift codes across branches. You should check and confirm.


"I am strongly skeptical of this.  In fact, after reading your question, I did the following: I wrote a little program in python that ""simulates"" a stock by flipping a coin. Each time the coin comes up heads, the stock's value grows by 1. Each time the coin comes up tails, the stock's value drops by 1.  I then group, say, 50 of these steps into a ""day"", and for each day I look at opening, closing, maximum and minimum. This is then graphed in a candlestick chart.  Funny enough, those things look exactly like the charts analysts look at. Here are a few examples:    If you want to be a troll, show these to a technical analyst and ask them which of these stocks you should sell short and which of them you should buy. You can try this at home, I posted the code here and it only needs Python with a few extra packages (Numpy and Pylab, should both be in the SciPy package). In reply to a comment from JoeTaxpayer, let me add some more theory to this. My code actually performs a one-dimensional random walk. Now Joe in the comments says that an infinite number of flips should approach the zero line, but that is not exactly correct. In fact, there is a high chance to end up far from the zero line, because the expected distance from the start for a random walk with N steps is sqrt(N).  What does indeed approach the zero line is if you took a bunch of these random walks and then performed the average over those. There is, however, one important aspect in which this random walk differs from the stock market: The random walk can go down as far as it likes, whereas a stock has a bottom below which it cannot fall. Reaching this bottom means the company is bankrupt and gets removed from the market. This means that the total stock market, which we might interpret as a sum of random walks, does indeed have a bias towards upwards movement, since I'm only averaging over those random walks that don't go below a certain threshold. But you can really only benefit from this effect by being broadly diversified."


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"First, point: The CRA wants you to start a business with a ""Reasonable expectation of profit"". They typically expect to see a profit within 5 years, so you may be inviting unwanted questions from future auditors by using a breakeven strategy. Second point: If the goal is to pay as little tax as possible, you may want to consider having the corporation pay you as little as possible. Corporate income taxes are much lower than personal income taxes, according to these two CRA links: How it works is that your company pays you little as an outright salary and offers you perks like a leased company car, expense account for lunch and entertainment, a mobile phone, computer, etc. The company owns all of this stuff and lets you use it as part of the job. The company pays for all this stuff with corporate pre-tax dollars as opposed to you paying for it with personal after-tax dollars. There are specifics on meals & entertainment which modify this slightly (you can claim 50%) but you get the idea. The actual rate difference will depend on your province of residence and your corporate income level.  There is also a requirement for ""Reasonable Expenses"", such that the expenses have to be in line with what you are doing. If you need to travel to a conference each year, that would be a reasonable expense. Adding your family and making it a vacation for everyone would not. You can claim such expenses as a sole proprietor or a corporation. The sole-proprietorship option puts any after-expense profits into your pocket as taxable income, where the corporate structure allows the corporation to hold funds and limit the amount paid out to you.  I've seen this strategy successfully done first-hand, but have not done it myself. I am not a lawyer or accountant, consult these professionals about this tax strategy before taking any action."


I don't hate your point, but driver chattiness has nothing to do with Uber vs Lyft. I've taken lots of both and many drivers do both as well. I've never been compelled to sit in the front in a Lyft and tip has always been an option with Lyft. No obligation if you don't want to.


To be fair, part of the $5 goes to Paypal whether you sign up with them or not.  I bought the special and certainly have no regrets.  But I do hope Louie uses a competitor of theirs like WePay next time.


"They didn't seem to have a problem with it before...  ...but hey, maybe the position of the loan officer is back.  Most of Americans, due to their migration down the wealth continuum, are unlendable.    Credit cards and payday loans for everyone! (the modern equivalent of ""let them eat cake"")  I'm waiting for the first company specializing in debt consolidation for the unbanked and undocumented to go public. (One day Americans are going to wake up and ask ""How did we become wet backs in our own country?"")"


> Lego's durability is curbing sales.  Their durability is a side effect of their requirement for tight tolerances, which is needed so that a stack of 100+ bricks doesn't perceptibly lean off-kilter. If they let up on the durability, they lose the tight tolerances, and then the cheaper knock-offs that are already sitting at the looser tolerances will be recognized by consumers as just as good, and squeeze them out from many markets.  /u/fruit-based is correct: 5 years of double-digit growth is crazy for a core sales proposition that has been around for literally decades. It's a good run, it's not the end of the world to acknowledge that trend stops. Time to take a breather, retrench, and use the time to figure out how to penetrate new markets in less developed nations in Africa, for example. Not to explicitly seek to return to the double-digit growth, but solidly serve the existing customer base while steadily growing new bases.  If they build an automatic brick sorter and storage robot, with voice-recognition and a tie-in to a [Bricklink](https://www.bricklink.com/)-like directory to retrieve/buy requested-described bricks, then I'll grant you that they'll return to double-digit growth again, as an buying frenzy of parents go out to buy the robots and keep adding to the storage system bins so their feet will thank them later. :-)


If the items you sold are items you previously bought for a higher price, the money you get selling them is not income, as you are taking a loss. However, you cannot deduct such losses. If you sell anything for more than what you paid for, the difference is a gain and is taxable. See this IRS web site for the explanation: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/tax-tips-for-online-auction-sellers


"Will the bank be taxed on the $x received through selling the   collateral? Why do you care? They will, of course, although their basis will be different. It is of no concern for you. What is your concern is that the write-off of the loan is taxed as ordinary income (as opposed to capital gains when you sell the stocks) for you. So when the bank seizes the stocks, they will also report to the IRS that they gave you the amount of money that you owed them (which they will ""give you"" and then put it on the account of the loan). So you get taxed on that amount as income. In addition, you will be taxed on the gains on the stocks, as giving them to the bank is considered a sale. So you may actually find yourself in a situation where you'd be paying taxes twice, once capital gains, and once as ordinary income, on the same money. I would strongly advise against this. If it is a real situation and not a hypothetical question - get a professional tax advice. I'm not a professional, talk to a CPA/EA licensed in your state."


These boxes are prepared in such a way that you cannot fold them like carton box. They are used mostly for packaging the high-quality and heavy products where perceived value is important. An example of rigid box is an Iphone.


"70k is doable, but to get that right out of school you will need experience at a real company.  The investment club sounds cool, but it doesn't carry as much weight.  Companies need to be able to call someone you worked for and verify that you are a worthy employee.  Also, your club won't count towards ""experience"" - which is required nowadays for an entry level position.  Get an internship, ASAP and put that ahead of everything including grades.      source: '15 grad"


I agree with you, but to play devils advocate--I am a big fan of self-improvement goals, and I've noticed when I make goals with friends, I am more likely to stick with them and surpass them. And we can even take it a step further where we want to beat everyone else subconsciously and prove we are superior. This is the same.


"> This emphasis on time drops away completely under Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) arrangements, but that leads directly to legal issues because we treat time as sacred no mater how much is spent at the desk or water cooler.  Well no.  The problem is that we treat time asymmetrically.  Time under 40 hours is treated as ""rightfully"" the employer's time, and more work should be piled on to reach 40 hours.  Time over 40 hours is treated as negotiable and subject to necessity and desire.  A *real* ROWE fully allows for negotiating in the direction of working 20-30 hours/week."


It would essentially make goods from other countries more cheaper than goods from US. And it would make imports from these countries to China more expensive.  The below illustration is just with 2 major currencies and is more illustrative to show the effect. It does not actually mean the goods from these countries would be cheaper. 1 GBP = 1.60 USD  1 EUR = 1.40 USD 1 CNY = 0.15 USD Lets say the above are the rates for GBP, EUR, CNY. The cost of a particular goods (assume Pencils) in international market is 2 USD. This means for the cost of manufacturing this should be less than GBP 1.25 in UK, less than 1.43 in Euro Countires, less than 13.33 CNY in China. Only then export would make sense. If the real cost of manufacturing is say 1.4 GBP in UK, 1.5 EUR in Euro countires, clearly they cannot compete and would loose. Now lets say the USD has appreciated by 20% against other currencies. The CNY is at same rate. 1 GBP = 1.28 USD 1 EUR = 1.12 USD 1 CNY = 0.15 USD Now at this rate the cost of manufacturing should be less than GBP 1.56 GBP, less than 1.78 EUR in Euro Countires. In effect this is more than the cost of manufacturing. So in effect the goods from other countires have become cheaper/compatative and goods from China have become expensive. Similarly the imports from these countires to China would be more expensive.


The key there is Large companies.  The vast majority of companies in the US are small businesses with little or no international presence, and are taxed at the full 35%.  Their very large competitors, however, have the ability to flout US corporate taxes, and therefore keep more of their profits - whether in terms of retained earnings or higher dividends to shareholders.


If they don't have chiefs they have elders, and regardless, you don't see them building rocket ships and shooting themselves off into space either, even though they've had a much longer period of time to make such an achievement than western civilization has.


As opposed to the conservative tactic to remove all social safety nets (under the guise of balancing the budget) at a time when people actually need them the most?  The world is a complex place. There's no perfect party line solution.  We need a little of this and a little of that.


">The contrary of course, is a socialist ""utopia""; a world of everyone being dependent on the government to provide them their basic income.  This is not socialism. But it is a straw man that is typical of the modern libertarian mindset.  >Instead, we would live in a world of infinite entrepreneurship, in which the means of production are nearly free for anyone, and people prosper by their ambition and drive.  This is actual socialism, you understand that, right? Did you forget to read the part of socialism that defines it as workers controlling the means of production?  >The amount of resources available to all would be incredible, and people would be free to do things they actually want to do.  Ya, and this is also exactly socialism's end goal."


Okay, I went through a similar situation when my mother died in March of this year. The estate still needs to go into probate. Especially if there was a will. And when you do this, your husband will be named as the executor. Then what he will need to do is produce both of their death certificates to the bank, have the account closed, and open an estate account with both of their names on it. Their debts & anything like this should be paid from this account as well. Then what you can do is endorse the check as the executor and deposit it into this account. After all debts are paid, the money can be disbursed to the beneficiaries (your husband). Basically, as long as they didn't have any huge debts to pay, he will see the money again. It just may be a couple of months. And you will have to pay some filing fees.


I still cannot food shop online, for everything else it's fine but for some reasons when it comes to food I just need to be able to wander around looking at the produce on offer and thinking about various dishes that could be made. If someone can make an online browsing experience which isn't centered around you searching for things you want, that would make a huge difference.


"Well, you might want to remember that their ""enormous customer base"" is likely mostly made up of fake accounts. Also, if people are stupid enough to hand Facebook all of their personal info, and then attach payment information on top of it, allowing Facebook to definitely say that the user who said they just had an abortion is definitely Sarah Conner because they have a verified credit card on file... Well, that's going to backlash pretty heavily when loans and jobs start hinging on your Facebook profile, which they already do in some cases. That's basically the wet dream of social media and it's why Google+ tried to force ID verification of accounts. Currently they have all this data but can't definitely say it connects to a specific person."


That is completely wrong. Governments care about this, because the economy, their power, is built on growth. If all your citizen can do is work, watch TV and sleep then they are not spending money, the economy is not growing, and the governments power is not growing.  QE stopped a deflationary death spiral by plugging a hole in the banks in financial institutions, unfortunately it did not change the underlying reasons the US economy was on the verge of that deflationary death spiral.


"The reason is that although the American economy is functioning normally, mortgage rates are stupid-low, and are below a prudent expectation of long-term (30 year) rates of return in the market.   I manage endowments, so I say ""prudent"" in the context of endowment investment, which is the picture of caution and subject to UPMIFA law (the P being prudent).    What's more, there are tax benefits.  Yes, you pay 15% long-term capital gains tax on investment income.  But your mortgage interest is tax deductible at your ""tax bracket"" rate of 25, 28 or 33% - this being the tax you would pay on your next dollar of earned income.  And in the early years of a mortgage, mortgage payments are nearly 100% interest.  So even if it's a wash: you gain $10k in the market but pay $10k in mortgage interest -- you pay $1500 tax on the gains, but the interest deduction redudes tax by $2800. So you are still $1300 ahead.   TLDR: the government pays us to do this."


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It possibly could have made sense historically when interest rates were higher. In the UK, you used to get negligible (if any) interest on a current (checking) account, but could get modest interest from a savings account, so transferring the bulk of your salary to a savings account and paying from there (or transferring back to the current account when needed) could make some sense (but even then was probably not worth the effort). Nowadays (at least in the UK), most (easy access) savings accounts pay very little interest, but there are current accounts (example list here from comparison site) that pay more interest provided you go through several hoops. Typically you have to pay your salary (or a minimum number of £000s per month) into the account, and have a minimum number of direct debits going out. Some have fees, some only last for a year.


"Discounting premiums based on some past history is not unique to auto policies.  Other insurers will discount premiums based on past claims history they just don't shout about it as a marketing means to attract customers.  Life insurance is underwritten based on your health history; if you want to consider your ""preferred"" underwriting status based on your clear health history a ""discount based on your healthy habits"" you're free to do so.  All sorts of lines of insurance use all sorts of things to determine an underwriting classes.  The fact that auto insurers trumpet specific discounts does not mean the same net effect is not available on other lines of coverage. Most states require auto rates and discounts to be filed and approved with some state regulator, some regulatory bodies even require that certain discounts exist.  You could likely negotiate with your business insurance underwriters about a better rate and if the underwriters saw fit they could give you a discount.  Auto insurers can offer discounts but are generally beholden to whatever rate sheet is on file with the applicable regulatory body. For the person who downvoted, here's a link to a spreadsheet outlining one of the CA department of insurance allowable rating factor sheets related to auto insurance."


I don't see that this system is very effective at rewarding productivity, which (particularly in software) is an inherently difficult thing to judge. That's why we've traditionally relied on human managers to make judgments between personnel in regards to compensation.  But yeah, you bet I'm selfish. If I can get paid more than someone else for doing the same job, I'm going to do it. And I'd prefer to work somewhere that allows me to do that.


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It depends on where you live and what your situation is. If you're a born and bred New Yorker who thinks that White Plains, NY is a stop on the way to Canada, than you're ok. If you're a single person living in downtown Boston, you may want to err on the side of spending less. You may find yourself in a situation in a few short years where you significant other has a job in the suburbs and the prospect of sending your child to a city school is not appealing.


"Oftentimes, the lender (the owner of the security) is not explicitly involved in the lending transaction. Let's say the broker is holding a long-term position of 1MM shares from Client A. It is common for Client A's agreement with Broker A to include a clause that allows the broker to lend out the 1MM shares for its own profit (""rehypothecation""). Client A may be compensated for this in some form (e.g. baked into their financing rates), but they do not receive any compensation that is directly tied to lending activities. You also have securities lending agents that lend securities for an explicit fee. For example, the borrower's broker may not have sufficient inventory, in which case they would need to find a third-party lending agent. This happens both on-demand as well as for a fixed-terms (typically a large basket of securities). SLB (securities lending and borrowing) is a business in its own right.  I'm not sure I follow your follow-up question but oftentimes there is no restriction that prevents the broker from lending out shares ""for a very short time"". Unless there is a transaction-based fee though, the number of times you lend shares does not affect ""pocketing the interest"" since interest accrues as a function of time."


"This seems to be a very emotional thing for people and there are a lot of conflicting answers.  I agree with JoeTaxpayer in general but I think it's worth coming at it from a slightly different angle. You are in Canada and you don't get to deduct anything for your mortgage interest like in the US, so that simplifies things a bit.  The next thing to consider is that in an amortized mortgage, the later payments include increasingly more principal.  This matters because the extra payments you make earlier in the loan have much more impact on reducing your interest than those made at the end of the loan. Why does that matter?  Let's say for example, your loan was for $100K and you will end up getting $150K for the sale after all the transaction costs.  Consider two scenarios: If you do the math, you'll see that the total is the same in both scenarios.  Nominally, $50K of equity is worth the same as $50K in the bank. ""But wait!"" you protest, ""what about the interest on the loan?""  For sure, you likely won't get 2.89% on money in a bank account in this environment.  But there's a big difference between money in the bank and equity in your house: you can't withdraw part of your equity.  You either have to sell the house (which takes time) or you have to take out a loan against your equity which is likely going to be more expensive than your current loan. This is the basic reasoning behind the advice to have a certain period of time covered.  4 months isn't terrible but you could have more of a cushion.  Consider things like upcoming maintenance or improvements on the house.  Are you going to need a new roof before you move?  New driveway or landscape improvements?  Having enough cash to make a down-payment on your next home can be a huge advantage because you can make a non-contingent offer which will often be accepted at a lower value than a contingent offer. By putting this money into your home equity, you essentially make it inaccessible and there's an opportunity cost to that.  You will also earn exact 0% on that equity.  The only benefit you get is to reduce a loan which is charging you a tiny rate that you are unlikely to get again any time soon. I would take that extra cash and build more cushion.  I would also put as much money into any tax sheltered investments as you can.  You should expect to earn more than 2.89% on your long-term investments.  You really aren't in debt as far as the house goes as long as you are not underwater on the loan: the net value of that asset is positive on your balance sheet.  Yes you need to keep making payments but a big account balance covers that.  In fact if you hit on hard times and you've put all your extra cash into equity, you might ironically not being able to make your payments and lose the home. One thing I just realized is that since you are in Canada, you probably don't have a fixed-rate on your mortgage.  A variable-rate loan does make the calculation different.  If you are concerned that rates may spike significantly, I think you still want to increase your cushion but whether you want to increase long-term investments depends on your risk tolerance."


The bullshit out of your mouth is absolutely ridiculous.   It's all about a higher risk from a drug addicted loser. Sure there's other shit, but the risk of injury and lawsuits goes way up and no business should deal with it.   Drug users are less reliable too.