"It's a tough question, because there is society and individual to consider, and the society's effects on the individual.  Currently, employers don't have to provide insurance, they do it to compete in the employee marketplace. Employers have an advantage over employees in that regard, because they can procure insurance at a lower cost that employees can, and they get tax breaks for doing so. Employers providing health insurance get a more stable relationship with their employees, because employees always hold great value in having an employee who provides good benefits.  The company I work for provides good benefits, but suppose tomorrow they told me ""Hey Mutatron, we're not providing benefits anymore, but we'll bump your salary to what your benefits are worth, plus enough to compensate for the tax break we get."" So now, everything is equal to what it was before, but I have to go out and find my own insurance, which is a hassle, but presumably because of the PPACA I can get a good value and carry this insurance with me wherever I go, and never have to mess with changing every time I change jobs.  But suppose all the employers do this, so now there are no employer-provided health plans, and ten or twenty years down the line they've all just taken advantage so that wages haven't kept up and they've essentially pocketed the difference, or passed it on to their customers. Now people have less money to buy health insurance, and those near the bottom will now have to rely on the government to assist with providing health insurance.  This is the way it works now with the minimum wage. A recent report found that WalMart employees rely on welfare to the tune of [$2.66 billion a year](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/10/1141724/-Walmart-fuels-inequality-epidemic-taking-advantage-of-our-safety-net), while the company makes $15 billion in profit. So 18% of Walmart's profits are an indirect subsidy from the US taxpayer, which comes to about $48 per US citizen, or about $208 a year for the top 50% of wage earners.  Even so, I think I'd prefer to get my whole compensation package in one shot, all else being equal. That last part is important, though, I would need to get all the breaks my employer gets for providing myself with health insurance."


Because people use financial terms loosely and I wanted to clarify.   Note: You raised the issue only after you saw the response which is a cheesy way to try to prove something.   Translation: When you know how things turned out it’s always easy to say “I knew it all along”.  There is a term for that behavior, it’s called hindsight bias. Look it up at your leisure.  This is my last response.


"You do not have to pay tax on any earnings inside a TFSA. Quoting Wikipedia's article, ""Investment income, including capital gains and dividends, earned in a TFSA is not taxed, even when withdrawn."" This is backed up by the official TFSA government site, http://www.tfsa.gc.ca/, which states, ""Investment income earned in a TFSA is tax-free."" This makes the TFSA an appropriate vehicle to store investments which produce dividends. For example, if you invest $5500 and receive a total of $500 in dividends this year, you will not pay tax on that $500, either in this tax year or even subsequently, when you withdraw money out of your TFSA. Of course, TFSAs aren't meant to be used for regular withdrawals. If you are planning on investing $5500 this year and withdrawing the dividends, I'd urge you to be careful and consider if this is actually the best sort of savings vehicle for you. But that's really just a general warning, nothing specific to dividends. It is possible to do this. Indeed, withdrawing $500 in dividends this year will increase your available contribution room in the next tax year (not in this tax year). For example, you contribute $5500 at the beginning of this year. By the end of November, you have accumulated $500 in dividends. You withdraw these in December. In the following tax year, you can recontribute this $500 in addition to the standard $5500 contribution room. So, you could contribute $6000. Just be careful with your calculations; I messed mine up and ended up paying a rather substantial penalty for my overcontribution."


> Or at the very least, you can sue the VC company for your back pay.  You do realize that investors are protected from being sued right? The whole set up is for the investor to be able to specify how much money they are willing to lose and are protected from financial responsibility of that company.  So if the company you work for tanks, you can sue them, but they don't have any money so what do you expect to get?


And you've provided no substance that they are, just misguided vitriol.  >What is defensible about any upvoted item on /r/politics that pertains to Trump?  The most recent thing I can recall is the ban on transgenders in the military from last week, which is a reasonable stance to take but /r/politics trashed him for it all the same.  And you did as well, no doubt.  Because you don't think about things rationally anymore, you're just consumed by hatred.  > You don't like it, you're free to leave.  As are you...


"I have my ""safe"" money in index funds but like to dabble in individual stocks. My criteria and thought process are usually like this, let's use SBUX as an example: Understand what the company does. Also paraphrased as ""buy what you know"". A profitable/growing business doesn't need to be complicated. Open stores. Sell coffee. For SBUX, my decision process literally started inside a store: ""Rocky, why are you standing in line to overpay for coffee? Wow, look at all these people! Hmmm. I wonder if this is a good stock to buy?"" Check out their fundamentals. Are they profitable? P.E.ratio, book value, and PEG are helpful, and I tend to use them as a gauge for whether I think the stock is overpriced or not. I compare those values to others in the industry. SBUX right now has a PE of ~30, which looks about average for its peers (PEP, KKD, GMCR). So far so good. Does it pay a dividend? This isn't necessarily good or bad, just useful to know. I like dividend-paying stocks, even if it means the stock price might not grow as aggressively. Also, a company that pays a dividend is naturally confident in its ability to turn a profit and generate cash. So it's a safer pick, in my opinion. SBUX pays a dividend, a small one, but that's a plus for me. Am I willing to watch the stock? With my index funds, I buy and forget. With my stocks, I keep an eye on the situation, read the news, and have to make a buy/sell decision regularly. With SBUX, I don't watch all that closely, I just keep up with the news. IMO, it's still a buy based on all the above criteria. And I feel less silly now standing in line to overpay for coffee."


"The long and short of it is, the mortgage company has a significant interest in the resale value of the home in the event of a default.  Imagine a scenario where you say to yourselves that you're not going to repair the deck just yet (""meh, we'll do that next summer"") and something happens that causes a default on the mortgage. The resale value of the home may be harmed by the deck, even though you're willing to live with it.  That being the case, the mortgage company has every right to insist that you carry out the repairs in order to maintain the property in salable condition, so the essence of it is, you don't have much choice but to do the repairs. Keep in mind too that the insurance company paid for the roof and the deck to be repaired.  If they were to learn that you now have no intention of using the money to repair the property, you could end up in legal hot water with them.  After all, you did accept the check for repairs that you're now not carrying out."


I went in one a couple months ago and the host asked us if we'd ever been there before. I just stopped for a minute and looked at it him. It was a bit longer and more awkward than it needed to be but he got the point


"You asked for simple, and I promise you this is... it just looks a bit math-heavy to start with because we have to handle a couple of different scenarios. Bear with me :) I find the best way to deal with these kinds of questions is to put together a ""Total cost"" for each option, for a sensible amount of time, and see what the difference is. We'll include the current cost for both options, plus the subsequent costs for 12 months: I find that more useful than a straight ""which is more expensive right now"" because it includes the potential costs of the next upgrade, and any changes to the plan. Let's throw some numbers together for the next 12 months (if your current plan is longer than 12 months, read the note at the bottom first) First, write down the cost of these things **The above assume that you have two options if you take the repair option (and only one option if you use the buy-out option). The two options we're assuming here are that you can either:  If you'd choose the same new plan regardless of whether you take the $100 or $150 option, there's no need to include both options: to simplify things you can just use the same numbers for both b/c and Pu/Py and the calculation below will still work. When you've found and written down the above, just do the sums below to find your two total costs over 12 months. Nothing fancy, just plug the numbers above into the equation. eg if Pe (eBay value of the phone) is $80, replace Pe with 80. Don't forget to do the parts in brackets first! That's your total cost for both options for the next year. Note: I'm assuming that your plan ends within the next 12 months. If not, just replace 12 in the above calculations with another term! You can also do this if you want to find out the price difference over a longer period (noting that if you upgrade to the same plan regardless of choice, you'll get the same answer for any period longer than your current contract)"


"Here is one study http://rfs.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/4/711.short I quote from the abstract  ""In a variety of tests, marginal price drop is not significantly   different from the dividend amount. Thus, over the last several   decades, one-for-one marginal price drop has been an excellent   (average) rule of thumb."""


Fair, but to the first point, taking action on the climate change/stranded asset risk would disqualify the fund as a passive investment. Half the point of passive funds is to take that part of risk out of the equation - poor investment decisions - and rely on the average S&P500 performance instead.  I get the second point, though I question whether that point has validity until activist investors are in significant, which is a long way off.


Nope, don't do it.  Basic math shows this...as you pay down your HELOC, you will pay less and less interest, eventually you will have it paid off.  Look at what your RRSP will be worth even using a low rate of return over the next 20 or 30 years.  It will likely show that it would really cost you a LOT more if you cashed in.


Well the thing to understand about HFT is that the volume levels heavily affect not just the earnings but also the ecosystem. HFT is almost always liquidity constrained so the volume and volatility is going to affect the overall profitability of the strategy since less of these things means fewer and smaller trading opportunities.  Since 2008 volume and volatility have been heavily negatively correlated with risk-on/risk-off. During risk-off periods investors seem to panic and trading hits a frentic pace. This describes late 2008 and more recently August 2011. Even in 2012 the highest volume/volatility period was in May when the Euro deals were in danger. Risk-on environments tend to be marked be calm, orderly buying.  Second the dark pool issue is bringing liquidity out of the lit markets where HFT normally makes its money. The primary reason for this trend is that dark pools are allowed to offer sub-penny quotes whereas lit exchanges are not. Because of this arbitrary regulatory constraint most of the time dark pools are going to offer better prices, especially on thick book securities.  But beyond that the level of volume effects some HFT players more heavily then others. Imagine all the HFT firms as a pride of lions. When volume is high and liquidity is flowing it's like the pride has brought in a giant water buffalo. The biggest, baddest cats eat first, but there's still food left for the cubs after they're finished feeding.  But if the pride only brings in say a baby gazelle the alpha cats will eat everything and the runts will go hungry. That basically describes what's happening now. A firm like RennTech or GETCO will make less money in a low volume environment, but still do fine. Marginal firms like Eladian will lose the ability to make any money.  Since the marginal firms need the press and the dominant firms tend to be more secretive than the NSA, you'll tend to read more about the former than the latter.


I would be realistic and recognize that however you invest this money, it is unlikely to be a life-changing sum. It is not going to provide an income which significantly affects your monthly budget, nor is it going to grow to some large amount which will allow you to live rent-free or similar. Therefore my advice is quite different to every other answer so far. If I was you, I would: I reckon this might get you through half the money. Take the other $25,000 and go travelling. Plan a trip to Europe, South America, Asia or Australia. Ask your job for 3 or 6 months off, and quit it they won't give it you. Find a few places which you would really like to visit, and schedule around them a lot of time to go where you want. Book your flights in advance, or book one way, and put aside enough money for the return when you know where you'll be coming back from. Stay in hostels, a tent or cheap AirBnB. Make sure you have a chance to meet other people, especially other people who are travelling around. Figure out in advance how much it will cost you a day to live basically, and budget for a few beers/restaurants/cinema/concert tickets/drugs/whatever you do to have fun.  It's really easy nowadays to go all sorts of places, and be very spontaneous about what you want to do next. You will find that everywhere in the world is different, all people have something unusual about them, and everywhere is interesting. You will meet some great people and probably become both more independent and better at making friends with strangers. Your friends in other countries could stay friends for life. The first time you see Rome, the Great Barrier Reef, the Panama canal or the Tokyo fish market will be with you forever. You have plenty of years to fill up your 401K. You won't have the energy, fearlessness and openmindedness of a 23 year old forever. Go for it.


There's no limit, from the legal perspective (with regards to the US law, that is), to how much you can keep on your bank accounts anywhere in the world. FBAR requirements are reporting requirements, they don't limit how much you can keep in the accounts, they only make you report the accounts to the government. There's no such requirement with regards to the US domestic accounts. That is for the US government, your own government (of the country of which you're a citizen of) may have limitations on what accounts you may have outside of that country, or have reporting requirements of their own. That said, keep in mind that FDIC only insures up to $250K per person (i.e.: on all your accounts) in each institution. So if you have more than $250K in a FDIC insured account - you better spread it across different banks.


I realize this question is a few years old now, but I wanted to address one of the OP's questions that hadn't been answered yet (my answer is framed as though the question were recent): However, on the plus side, the monthly payment would likely be $200 less/mo with this house vs our current rent. On a 30 year mortgage it would be almost $3-400 less. This makes me think that I could use the difference to pay directly toward the principal each month. Is my logic sound? The way amortization works, if the interest rate between 30 and 15 were the same, then making principal-only prepayments on the 30 year to cover the difference in monthly payments would result in the exactly the same schedule as if you did minimum payments on the 15-year - i.e. the numbers would be practically indistinguishable.  Of course, in practice the interest rate is slightly better on the 15-year, which makes the 30-year with prepayments compare slightly less favorably. If you're confident that you'll be able to reliably keep up with the monthly payments, the 15-year would minimize the total amount of interest you pay, and help you get off of PMI slightly faster.  But the 30-year w/ prepayments gives you the option to skip a prepayment or two if you run into any financial difficulty, which is a nice option to have.  But you do have to be disciplined about making the prepayments every month.


"The thing you appear to neglect is that: Many people don't have a choice of when they retire.  Another issue is that ""work 'til I die"" people are often 20-50 years old. If they changed their minds or were forced to retire (see above) or came to a realization later in life that they would like to retire, they've missed their chance. They've lost decades of compounding interest because they thought they knew everything in the world when they were 23. Forced retire savings hedges this 'common' mistake."


I think you're on the right track.  Keep it up. You are still relatively young, and it wont have an impact.  You have experience and you have a lot of education, both will be assets.    I can't comment on the region question because I have only ever worked in one region.  Are you asking from a purely economics/getting paid perspective?  One approach you can take is making a little spreadsheet with average trader salary divided by cost of living in that region. The issue is that trader salaries and bonuses vary SO MUCH in every region, that you can't make any generalizations.


Read the article, the Tesla model S 60 has a 75kwh battery the same as a 75, they were sold as a cheaper car with an upgrade option at any time, this only upgraded all 60s to 75s temporarily to escape from the hurricane, any owner of a 60 knows they can activate this at any time by paying up to the 75 price. They are not extending into the higher and lower charge capacity than the recommended ban


In some stores that is done. When I shop at the Apple store or at the Farmers market the receipt is automatically sent to my email address. Why don't others do it? If the target of the itemized receipt is a credit card company they would be sending data that they spent collecting to another corporation. The grocery store is collecting your data so they can sell it to their vendors. They sell to vendors the info that Gen X shoppers that buy cat food are more likely to use brand X laundry detergent then Millennials. The credit card companies could gather even more Meta data that they could sell. Privacy. Some people don't join the reward program at the store because they don't want a company to know exactly what they buy. Even fewer would want the credit card company to have that information.  The credit card companies would have to want this level of data that would have to be stored, maintained, and protected.


Does MS have Android and iPhone apps?  I think they can reach customers just fine.  > The enormous success of the Chrome browser means that Chrome OS may yet achieve a similar kind of success.  Chrome OS feels like a bargain basement desktop.  It's ill-fitted to both tablets and more traditional computing.  In its niche - smarphone-cored laptops - it's servicable, but that niche is small, and has Microsoft as competition on low-end x86 core laptops.  Chrome OS, in my opinion, will get about the same level of success as OS-X, except without the high-ticket hardware helping to justify ever-widening per-unit profit margins (a situation that isn't likely sustainable either).  Of course, I may be ivory-towering here from my Ubuntu-powered laptop.


They are entitled to the benefit.  End of story.  I dont know what you do not understand here.  Clearly you don't know a fucking thing anyway so I don't know why I am wasting my time with someone so ignorant as you in the first place.  Fix the military from the inside?    The military gets it's funding from congress smart guy, they teach that in junior high school.  I tell you what, since you obviously cant afford one yourself I'll give you a clue.


"Depends on how far down the market is heading, how certain you are that it is going that way, when you think it will fall, and how risk-averse you are.  By ""better"" I will assume you are trying to make the most money with this information that you can given your available capital. If you are very certain, the way that makes the most money for the least investment from the options you provided is a put.  If you can borrow some money to buy even more puts, you will make even more.  Use your knowledge of how far and when the market will fall to determine which put is optimal at today's prices.  But remember that if the market stays flat or goes up you lose everything you put in and may owe extra to your creditor.  A short position in a futures contract is also an easy way to get extreme leverage.  The extremity of the leverage will depend on how much margin is required.  Futures trade in large denominations, so think about how much you are able to put to risk. The inverse ETFs are less risky and offer less reward than the derivative contracts above.  The levered one has twice the risk and something like twice the reward.  You can buy those without a margin account in a regular cash brokerage, so they are easier in that respect and the transactions cost will likely be lower. Directly short selling an ETF or stock is another option that is reasonably accessible and only moderately risky.  On par with the inverse ETFs."


You mean the study which concluded the $15 minimum wage resulted in fewer hours / less employment and Seattle decided to no longer fund the study (presumably) because it didn't find what they wanted to find and blamed the methodology even though it was actually quite credible?   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449603/seattle-minimum-wage-study-city-cut-funding-when-it-didnt-results  [Link to actual study]( http://evans.uw.edu/sites/default/files/NBER%20Working%20Paper.pdf)  [Link to debate with Seattle's Kshama Sawant](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DxfLx6XMdCiY&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjWpriJiqXVAhUG2IMKHfQLDYYQtwIIETAC&usg=AFQjCNFVlJn3c9XWhfONhJRtJizknHr_FA)


"I hear that many women gets tricked with these MLM because it spreads in their workplace and everyone else gets in to them. Also some mothers want to work at home in flexible schedules for raising a child. MLM companies tricks these women in to spending thousands on these scams.  Also friend is now really into MLM but he needs to stop. I mean he already had a massive fight with his friends and families about this and now he's hanging out with MLM people all the time. Also he's losing tons of money and it's terrible. I have to tell him to stop but he's completely brainwashed by MLM company in to thinking that everyone who rejects or question MLM is ""ignorant bigot who can't adapt to innovative business"" so it's really hard."


"There some specific circumstances when you would have a long-term gain. Option 1:  If you meet all of these conditions: Then you've got a long-term gain on the stock.  The premium on the option gets rolled into the capital gain on the stock and is not taxed separately.  From the IRS: If a call you write is exercised and you sell the underlying stock, increase your amount realized on the sale of the stock by the amount you received for the call when figuring your gain or loss. The gain or loss is long term or short term depending on your holding period of the stock. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p550/ch04.html#en_US_2015_publink100010630 Option 2: If you didn't hold the underlying and the exercise of the call that you wrote resulted in a short position, you might also be able to get to a long-term gain by buying the underlying while keeping your short position open and then ""crossing"" them to close both positions after one year. (In other words, don't ""buy to cover"" just ""buy"" so that your account shows both a long and a short position in the same security.  Your broker probably allows this, but if not you, could buy in a different account than the one with the short position.)  That would get you to this rule: As a general rule, you determine whether you have short-term or long-term capital gain or loss on a short sale by the amount of time you actually hold the property eventually delivered to the lender to close the short sale. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p550/ch04.html#en_US_2015_publink100010586 Option 1 is probably reasonably common.  Option 2, I would guess, is uncommon and likely not worthwhile. I do not think that the wash sale rules can help string along options from expiration to expiration though.  Option 1 has some elements of what you wrote in italics (I find that paragraph a bit confusing), but the wash sale does not help you out."


You might miss an opportunity or three by strictly avoiding debt, but I can't think of a problem you will create by being debt free. So maybe it isn't the absolutely smartest thing to avoid debt on principle*, but it certainly is pretty smart at the very least.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.citylab.com/politics/2017/06/which-states-are-stingiest-with-government-benefits/529323/) reduced by 95%. (I'm a bot) ***** > A new Urban Institute analysis finds that allowing states to decide how to spend TANF dollars has led to even more racial discrepancies in who receives benefits.  > The Urban Institute analyzed a federal database that tracks state policy decisions about TANF and found that the states whose populations are more heavily African American are now less generous, more restrictive, and provide TANF for a shorter period of time than whiter states.  > Giving states leeway on how they treat their poor has always been a risky proposition, with states with high shares of minorities historically choosing to leave people out.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6fu0rx/which_states_are_stingiest_with_government/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~138636 tl;drs so far."") | [Theory](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31bfht/theory_autotldr_concept/) | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **state**^#1 **welfare**^#2 **receive**^#3 **benefit**^#4 **family**^#5"


Sure, Yahoo Finance does this for FREE.


Turbotax online is one of the best web applications I've ever used.  It's incredibly seamless and you don't even realize you're using a browser instead of an installed desktop application. I like it because Turbotax will store your old returns for you, and prepopulate fields based upon prior year returns. It's a fantastic service.


I only worked there for all of three months, but I thought it was fine.  Nice, friendly people and it's in a great location.  However, both of my bosses actually left the company when I was there.  To my understanding, there wasn't a whole lot of room for advancement in the company.  There are a few divisions where the bulk of employees reside (sales/investor relations, collections, customer support), typical business departments consisting of a couple employees each (accounting, HR, IT), and then a couple of managers plus multiple executives.  The company isn't too large, I believe there were around 70-100 people when I was working there.  However, I would do a google search and see if you can find someone who worked there more recently or for a longer period of time.


"Okay... graduation rates along with the number of reported salaries (and virtually every statistic you can think of) are reported in the ones I'm looking it. Have a look for yourself:  Just journalism: http://www.grady.uga.edu/annualsurveys/Graduate_Survey/Graduate_2010/Grad2010MergedB&Wv1.pdf School wide: http://www.unl.edu/careers/survey/salary.shtml  There is NO MISREPRESENTATION of information here. The graduation and retention rates are also reported. Do you seriously think that prospective applicants look at these numbers and think ""Wow, everybody graduates and this is what all of them make!"". If they do, that means they are stupid, not that the university is trying to deceive them. I realize the statistics may be skewed, but why in this case would they be skewed negatively? Why would somebody not report their low salary or unemployment? Wouldn't they, like seemingly everybody posting in this particular article, feel indignant that the school let them down with their education and want to accurately portray their salary/unemployment.  Let's go ahead and assume that the salaries are actually skewed lower. The school puts the numbers right there, you can see how many people responded. All I'm trying to say is that universities are not lying to anybody, at least mine wasn't.   Also, it is possible to make your point without name calling, using ""LOL"" as if what I say is laughable, and accusing me of not understanding things."


no insult, Detroit was to cars what Glasgow was to ships... it happened all over the west during the last 30 years.  Ayrshire is funny though, I live in a small town really a few miles out of Kilmarnock, Glasgow is technically more accessible to me (to the north).  Glasgow has been pretty much rebuilt from it's tenements and shipbuilding fame.  Still issues, but they are getting there - Detroit will too.  In ayrshire (south west) we had a MASSIVE industry of lace and mining once.  Some of the best in the world apparently - that all disappeared to the far east during the 50s. during the 80s/90s we had a massive Fullerton plant, beacham Glaxosmithklein and even DEC had production here.  Guess what? as those could be automated - that was all offshored too.  Further North we had 'Silicon Glen' I believe the pun was intended.  IBM had a massive site of many thousand workers, Lenovo took them over and within a few years that was all gone too.  The original IBM workers had great benefits... they originally sold the site and weaned off the staff and then re-leased the site and took all the staff back on via an agency.  The only difference being all the benefits of working for IBM were gone.  That went on for a few years or so and then Lenovo took over IBMs consumer hardware side.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_glen  This being the funnier side of things, InverKip Powerstation, built for Silicon glen and then hardly used:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverkip_power_station  To be fair there is still a huge GlaxoSmithKline site at Irvine and we are supposedly getting another 3k workers back ( a bit like the CAT story )  This area will be very grateful for the work, just like your Southern states.  The trend I interpreted is that, as soon as things could be automated that was when things went away and when margins started to fall out of electronics, that was just the excuse they needed.  In theory a production line that had 100 staff might be doable with just 10 these days - maybe with all the horrific horror stories of abroad, companies are now being able to justify 10 plebs over here?  It starts to sound like I'm being slightly anti-globalist here - I've no problem with globalism, but the same thing that helps companies should allow me to buy shit from abroad at the cost I can find rather than being forced to buy region locked or extortionate crap.  If it costs you £5 to make a shirt in india, you should be selling it to me for £15, not £35!  What you talk of does represent more what happened across Europe rather than just the UK (Poland and the previous eastern bloc being your southern states)  Thatcher, for (good or bad) tore the unions in the UK a new one when she was in power (hence the only 1 time the natural gas powered plant was fired up)  We have rights in the uk that are now being legislated from Europe but to be honest they hardly seem worth the paper they are written on, the unions - like yours just don't have the smite anymore.  On thinking about it - do you think the Earthquake had anything to do with the migration of that CAT site back to the US?


I believe the pizza business will help you set in and running into business faster than the welding business. You have a lifetime experience, a working brand name and original owner's trust, technical and financial support for the future available to help you as well. Having said that, the pizza business may not make you as much money as the welding business in the long run, but it's a safer start. You can start the welding business on the side once the pizza business starts running in the auto mode.


Same day shipping?  If that's even possible, that would be pretty FUCKING awesome, but how would that work? Fedex and UPS ship on specific schedules every day. They would have to set up their own distribution service to ship out to specific spots.  If I can get same-day shipping, I would definitely choose that over next-day or two-day shipping. Hopefully it costs somewhere around 6.99 per item w/ a Prime membership.


"It may not apply for your situation, but if you were running a mutual fund, you could use the term ""front-end load""."


What to do when institutions stop lending you money, or lend at high rates? Live within your means! Your friend has shown financial behavior that indicates he's a bad credit risk. If he cleans up his act, banks will lend to him at reasonable rates again.  Not a whole lot he can do except build his credit again.  He didn't lose it overnight, and he won't get it back overnight either.


"Filter by the filings when you look at the search results.  The 10-K will include the annual report, which included fiscal year-end financial statements.  Quarterly reports and statements are in the 10-Q filing. The filing will include a LOT of other information, but there should be a section called ""Financial Statements"" or something similar that will include all pertinent financials statements. You can also find ""normalized"" balance sheets and income statements on the ""finance"" pages of the main web search sites (Google, Yahoo, MSN) and other sites that provide stock quotes.  If you're looking to do basic comparisons versus in-depth statement analysis those may be sufficient for you."


>-service (many products rely on the company maintaining a server for them to talk to, so you don't know if a product will even work in a few years, which is bad for smart appliances that people expect to use for 10-20 years.  This is one of my main gripes with smart home devices. While the functionality can be enhanced with more nuanced and complex control, and also control from basically anywhere in the world, the lifespan of these devices are going to be so short. And we are paying an arm and leg for them.  You can get a basic thermostat for what, less than $50 and it will do the main function perfectly well and last you as long as you will live in your home. A smart thermostat will have planned obsolescence. It's functions will start to work more poorly as the software gets automatically updated over a few years. Then you have to pay the same 4x price again.


ISIS founds its way all the way from Syria to Afghanistan, but can't make its way accross the border to Israel.  This is a Israel and their Indian cousins, Pakistan should sell tactical nukes to every middle eastern country, that will put the Israelis to rest and give a huge boost to their economy


Some banks charge their own customers if they make use of a teller. That is what you are doing. You are going to a bank where you are not a customer and requesting a transaction that requires a teller. If you cash the check by going though your bank, the issuer's bank only handles it as a non-teller transaction.


So if some 3rd world country with 0 infrastructure offers a better tax environment, we should just join them in the race to the bottom?   I'm not saying our tax code isn't fucked up, but whatever is happening in the tax code that makes these inversions possible needs to be fixed.


Hey dipshit, of *course* I respect the right for people to have a difference of opinion. I just told you twice now you're free to think whatever you want and I didn't for a second try and force you to think another way now did I?  In fact i told you to have fun.


I recommended Currency Trading For Dummies, in my answer to Layman's guide to getting started with Forex (foreign exchange trading)? The nature of the contract size points toward only putting up a fraction of the value.  The Euro FX contract size is 125,000 Euro. If you wish to send the broker US$125K+ to trade this contract, go ahead. Most people trade it with a few thousand dollars.


Cancer patient here. One thing that’s important to distinguish is incidence rate compared to prevalence and mortality rates. We’re living longer, so more change to get cancer. We are also living longer *with* cancer, so for example with the one I have there are more people than ever with it, but that’s because they’re not dying so quickly now. Stats can be really misleading.  In general there has never been a “better” time to get cancer than now.


Any large bank that you trust would be happy to help you by holding the money for you.  One of the big advantages with a Swiss bank account is privacy. The names of lottery winners are public, so this advantage would not mean much to you. Swiss banks are generally very large, secure, and capable of handling large amounts of money, however, so if Switzerland isn't too inconvenient for you, it's worth considering.  You won't want to keep all of it in a bank account for long; the majority of it should be invested. It would definitely be worth paying for a trusted financial advisor to guide you through that.  Avoid the urge to swim in a pile of gold coins.


It's not a 60% raise. He made 60% more than the previous year. There's lots of things that could account for that. One of them is an annual bonus that was larger than his previous annual bonus - the calculation of that bonus was likely negotiated as part of his contract.  A large chunk of the gains seems to be between that and stock/option awards. Often stock/option vest differently in the first year than remaining years, and the value changes over time as the stock market moves. If you have options granted with a strike price set based on the closing price of stock the day you start, and you cash them out as you get them, after a year if it's gone up 5% you make a bit. After the second year if it's gone up 10%, you doubled your income from that source even though you didn't receive any more options that year.  His salary raise doesn't seem out of line. I've gotten larger raises in my career.  Now... suppose all of his compensation was spread out evenly across all of the employees. CAT has a bit over 100K employees. His total compensation was $16M 16M / 100K = $160. You could give every employee $160/yr more for the cost of the CEO's entire compensation package. That comes out at 7-8 cents/hour. If you only do it with his raise and not the one time bonuses and returns from stock/option grants well... $3/employee/yr.  The best way to invest in people is to offer training to help them move to higher value jobs. Things like tuition reimbursement programs based on maintaining good performance in classes are solid benefits to offer. Or even job training to those who show aptitude for different classes of work. Maybe some merit based bonus structure - people who come up with good ideas for cutting costs, improving efficiency, etc and work to see them implemented qualify for some sort of bonus based on a percentage of the value of that change.  The bigger problem with those types of programs is that collective bargaining agreements tend to forbid any sort of merit based pay. They also make jumping line in seniority impossible - i.e. the union agreement would say that the person most qualified for the extra training is the one who's been in the job the longest. Some of these rules make sense if your goal is that everybody is equal and your idea of fairness is based on avoiding inequality. To justify it, they'll throw up things like the boss's cousin's brother-in-law's ex-wife's son could get preferential treatment if the contract doesn't prevent it.


"Should I allow the credit cards to be paid out of escrow in one lump   sum? Or should I take the cash and pay the cards down over a few   months. I have heard that it is better for your credit score to pay   them down over time. Will it make much of a difference? Will the money you save by increasing your credit score (assuming this statement is true) be larger than by eliminating the interest payments for the credit card payments over ""a few months"" (13% APR at $24,000 is $3120 a year in interest; $260 a month, so if ""a few months"" is three, that would cost over $700 - note that as you pay more principal the overall amount of interest decreases, so the ""a year"" in interest could go down depending on the principal payments). Also, on a related note regarding credit score, it doesn't look good to have more than a third of a credit line available balance exceeded (see number 2 here: http://credit.about.com/od/buildingcredit/tp/building-good-credit.htm)."


">An Empire with different ethnic, linguistic, racial and national origin groups spread out over a large area can only redistribute wealth by stealing it with force  This is not strictly true.  In place of ""force"", fraud can be used.  Our current society uses a combination of both, but really the ""fraud"" of the monetary/banking system is far larger and of more importance than the ""force"" part (though the latter obviously backs up the former)."


Maybe you're technically correct, but maybe not. Either way it's irrelevant as Apple is clearly innovating in consumer products with great aplomb. That requires 'engineering' and 'inventions' on lots of different scales. The HDD personal media player?


Fair point, I am sure the vast majority of janitors are not middle class and in NY probably dont make 100k. My point still stands with regard to the other traditionally middle class occupations though. 529 plans are beneficial to the middle class.


There are rules and regulations as to how the credit card information must be stored, and I assume Square adhere to these rules. The point is that the barber doesn't need to see your credit card at all, and doesn't have to keep its number for keeping tabs, you only share the information with Square and they remit payments to everyone else. This is very similar to Paypal, Amazon and Google checkout systems, except that Square combine it with physical card processing.


"Read the terms carefully.  With promotional offers, if you do anything ""bad"", the promotion is terminated and you immediately revert to either your normal rate or a penalty rate. ""Bad"" includes things like: making a late payment, going over your limit, paying less than the minimum payment, etc. I wouldn't sweat the potential credit score impacts. These promotions are pretty much the best deals that you can get for an unsecured loan."


"It's interesting that you use so many different risk measures. Here's what I'd like to know more in detail:  1) About the use of VaR. I've heard (from a friend, may be unreliable) that some investment managers like Neuberger Berman doesn't use VaR for assessing risk and maintaining capital adequacy requirements. Rather, some firms only rely on tracking error, beta, standard deviation, etc. Why do you think is this so? Isn't VaR supposed to be a widely accepted risk measure.  2) The whole ""Expected Shortfall vs. VaR"" debate. I've read some papers comparing Expected Shortfall and VaR. Mainly, they criticize VaR for not being able to consider the 1% probability left where losses can (probably) skyrocket to infinity. If I need to choose between the two, which do you think is better and why?"


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/06/americans-deepest-in-poverty-lost-more-ground-in-2016/) reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Although the overall U.S. poverty rate declined and incomes rose rapidly for the second straight year in 2016, many poor Americans fell deeper into poverty, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.  > The average family income deficit - that is, the amount a family&#039;s income is below its poverty threshold - was $10,505 for all families in poverty in 2016.  > In 2016, 28.4% of families in poverty had incomes $15,000 or more below their poverty threshold, up from 26.2% in 2015.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/74plcr/poorest_americans_lost_more_ground_in_2016/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~223419 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **family**^#1 **poverty**^#2 **income**^#3 **average**^#4 **threshold**^#5"


That's laughable though. Point guards in the NCAA work their asses of as well. How many of them make it? Working ass is always memories to play a much larger role than it does. And we're talking sports. Something probably far more meritocratic than the rest of us plebs are doing.


I haven't watched tv in forever but your post reminded me of just *why* I haven't. Old style tv, while I may not have been able to see the sweat on an upper lip in HD quality, I could watch with out artifacting, lag, and total frame freezing. Digital was fucking *awful* where I lived and, so it seemed, every where else I went.


I haven't done these types of problems in a while, so won't be able to help with the actual problem.  But to answer your question, those types of problems are notorious for including extra information that is not needed to solve the problem.  So if you are think you doing it right, I wouldn't second guess it because they gave you an extra number.


I don't at all agree that it violates Square terms of service.  But having said that, it's a bloody expensive way to do things.  Square charges beaucoup fees, that more than obliterate any kind of points you might earn. Only for emergencies, should one do this.


Although, I really want to side with Jon Stewart, and I do for many of the points he made, I think the crux of this debate rests on the point of motivation. The point about Steve Jobs, some guys in a basement with passion-filled hearts, being the true drivers of innovation, is a comforting one, but unfortunately, incomplete.  For any dynamic enterprise, there's the innovator, and the investor who's money makes it real. The latter isn't fueled by the same passion as the former.   The other key point by JS, was that two things rouse the appetite for risk: potential rewards and stability. That was bang on.


Public infrastructure poisons people. Nestle never sold a bottle of water tainted with lead.  People are buying solar panels privately to get away from public utilities. Privatized roads are safer and less congested. Private companies are leading the charge on renewable energy and infrastructure.  We became the fattest country in the world by privatizing our food supply, not nationalizing it. When you provide something with public funds, you get less of it and pay a higher price. Give the consumers choice in how their money is spent, don't force it on them like a fucking racket. Abolish all taxes.


Based on the multiple replies refuting your understanding of how often the site is used, I would have to say you are simply misinformed.   I get good job contacts from linkedin all the time. Perhaps you are not connected to the right people.


It probably does make sense for you to buy term life insurance separate from your employer, for a few reasons: There are a number of life insurance calculators on the web. Try two or three -- some of them ask different questions and can give you a range of answers regarding how much coverage you should have. Then take a look at some of the online quote sites -- there are a couple that don't require you to enter your personal information, just general age/health/zip code so you can get an accurate quote for a couple of different coverage levels without having to deal with a salesman yet. (It was my experience that these quotes were very close -- within $20/year -- of what I was quoted through an agent.)  Using this information, decide how much coverage you need and can afford. If you're a homeowner, and the insurance company with whom you have your homeowner's policy offers life insurance, call them up and get a quote. They may be able to give you a discount because of your existing relationship; sanity check this against what you got from the quotes website.


"> ""tech firms unite in joint cause that benefits them all"".  Hmm who would have guessed.    It doesn't benefit them all. In fact, the larger and more established the company, the more they stand to gain by *not* having a neutral Internet."


"As to where the interest comes from: The same place it comes from in other kinds of savings accounts. The bank takes the money you deposit and invests it elsewhere, traditionally by lending it out to others (hence the concept of a ""savings and loan"" bank). They make a profit as long as the interest they give for ""borrowing"" from you, plus the cost of administering the savings accounts and loans, is less than the interest they charge for lending to others. No, they don't have to pay you interest -- but if they didn't, you'd be likely to deposit your funds at another bank which did. Their ideal goal is to pay as little as possible without losing depositors, while charging as much as possible without losing borrowers. (yeah, I know, typo corrected) Why do they get higher interest rate than they pay you? Mostly because your deposits and interest are essentially guaranteed, whereas the folks they're lending to may be late paying or default on those loans. As with any kind of investment, higher return requires more work and/or higher risk, plus (ususally) larger reserves so you can afford to ride out any losses that do occur."


How would you respond to these cases: Limited card options - If someone has a bad credit record the cards available may only be those with an annual fee.  Not everyone will have your credit record and thus access to the cards you have. Some annual fees may be waived in some cases - Thus, someone may have a card with a fee that could be waived if enough transactions are done on the card.  Thus, if someone gives enough business to the credit card company, they will waive the fee. On the point of the rewards, if the card is from a specific retailer, there could be a 10% discount for using that card and if the person purchases more than a couple thousand dollars' worth from that store this is a savings of $200 from the retail prices compared to what would happen in other cases that more than offsets the annual fee.  If someone likes to be a handyman and visits Home Depot often there may be programs to give rewards in this case. Credit cards can be useful for doing on-line purchases, flight reservations, rental cars and a few other purchases that to with cash or debit can be difficult if not close to impossible. Some airline cards have a fee, but presumably the perks provide a benefit that outweigh that fee over the year. I'm thinking of the Citibank cards tied to American Airlines, first year free, then an $85 fee.


"Clearing means processing unsettled transactions. Specifically - all the money transfers between the banks, in this case. Clearing Bank for RMB business means that all RMB transactions will be cleared through that specific bank. If bank A in Hong Kong gets a check drawn on Bank B in Hong Kong, and the check is in RMB - A will go to the BoC with the check and will get the money, and BoC will take the money from B. That obviously requires both A and B have accounts with BoC. ""Sole"" clearing house means there's only one. I.e.: in our example, A and B cannot settle the check through C where they both happen to have accounts, or directly with each other. They MUST utilize the services of BoC."


This is all it.   Customers spend 20 minutes trying to figure out the menu. Waaay too many items and too many complexities - 2 for $20, pick 2 apps & pick 3 apps vs ½ priced apps during happy hour, etc etc...


I hope you all can forgive my ignorance of the topic. But what does it mean when you invest in gold? Do you actually own real gold somewhere? I don't know how it works so if someone can explain it to me I'd appreciate it.  :)  Again sorry for asking probably a stupid question lol.


Instead of saying which one is better, which is too subjective, I think it is more important to understand what these institutions are.  They are kind of different animals. Edward Jones pretty much a full service wealth manager.  They meet with you in person, advise you on what retirement and savings accounts to get, they talk to you to evaluate your risk preferences.  They will talk to you about planning for your kids' college and about your insurance situation. They will probably attend your kids' bar mitzvahs and stuff too.  Of course, this isn't free.  With Edward Jones you will pay a fixed percentage of your managed wealth to them every year.  And they will likely put your money in expensive mutual funds.  And those mutual funds will charge a special 12b-1 fee, which is a kickback to the wealth manager.  Plan on giving 2% or so of your total wealth to the manager per year, plus whatever the mutual funds charge.   I don't have experience with Betterment, but they appear to be a robo advisor.  Robo advisors attempt to do the same kinds of things as wealth managers, but rely on computer algorithms and web pages to give you advice whenever possible.  This makes some sense because most people aren't actually that special in terms of their financial situation.  I don't know their cost structure, but presumably it will be significantly cheaper than Edward Jones.  They will almost certainly put you in cheaper funds (index funds and ETF's).  Think of it as a cost-conscious alternative to Edward Jones. Vanguard is a discount broker and a mutual fund family.  Their funds are among the biggest and cheapest in the world.  Fees on many of these funds will be a fraction of the equivalent funds Edward Jones will put you in.  They will charge you nothing at all to manage your money.  They will give you some assistance and advice if you call them but don't expect any house calls.  They aren't particularly in the business of giving advice.  If you know what you want to invest in, this is the cheapest way to do it by far.  Basically you won't have to pay anything at all except the actual cost of the assets you are investing in. Which is the best?  Depends on your own preferences and ability.  If you do not want to learn about personal finance and don't particularly care about whether you are getting the best return--if you don't mind paying for a personal touch--Edward Jones might be a good choice.  For most people who are comfortable asking this type of question online and interested in learning about finance even a little bit, I'd expect that Betterment or Vanguard will be a better choice.  For people who are willing to learn a bit of finance and manage their own affairs, using Vanguard (or a close competitor, like Fidelity) will ultimately result in the most wealth generated (the least given away to the financial industry).


The problem with short would be that even if the stock eventually falls, it might raise a lot in the meantime, and unless you have enough collateral, you may not survive till it happens.  To sell shares short, you first need to borrow them (as naked short is currently prohibited in US, as far as I know). Now, to borrow you need some collateral, which is supposed to be worth more that the asset you are borrowing, and usually substantially more, otherwise the risk for the creditor is too high. Suppose you borrowed 10K worth of shares, and gave 15K collateral (numbers are totally imaginary of course). Suppose the shares rose so that total cost is now 14K. At this moment, you will probably be demanded to either raise more collateral or close the position if you can not, thus generating you a 4K loss. Little use it would be to you if next day it fell to 1K - you already lost your money!  As Keynes once said, Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. See also another answer which enumerates other issues with short selling. As noted by @MichaelPryor, options may be a safer way to do it. Or a short ETF like PSQ - lists of those are easy to find online.


That is just not true. When I had my heart attack I took my time to find the best price/quality emergency room. I didn't just let the ambulance (which I also vetted) take me to the nearest facility which could take me and treat me. /s


If you just want to track an index, then ETFs are, generally speaking, the better way.


There is no 1 2 3 to being successful. Everyone's story is different but generally there is some composition of connections, networking, dedication and opportunity involved.   Anyone offering easy steps to being financially successful is a scammer and anyone willing to buy into it is a chump.   Go out and build a network, learn and offer product/service that has demand is the most general you can be.


It really confuses me how businesses and politicians fail to see how much of a problem this is, even beyond issues is social inequality. An economy in which the middle class is earning less is an economy with less growth potential.   When a company is squeezing employee wages, on par with other businesses, the end result is a smaller pie for them to carve out. The look at their immediate bottom line in which the weight if wages has gone down, but fail to see that they have weakened the market (for broad-based, community serving markets, at least), and so are shrinking demand.   Even if you assume that only 80% of those $93 Billion are for low and middle class wages, that is still $74 billion less demand.   For decades we've heard that the middle class is what fuels the economy, yet the fact that the wages if the middle class are waning are seen as trivial and nothing to worry about...


When Obama took office, the yearly deficit was $1.6 trillion.  When he left office, it was only $600 billion.  Yes the total debt continued to increase because he never got the deficit down to zero like the last Democratic president, Clinton, did, but he made a lot of progress.  In fact, the only time we've seen the yearly deficit decrease is when a Democrat is in the White House.  Unfortunately, Trump seems determined to reverse that trend.  He wants a tax cut, a wall (which he now demands Congress pay for), a roughly 10% increase in the military budget, and a $1 trillion dollar infrastructure spend-fest.  Odds are the next Democratic president will have to start digging us out of that hole.


it's not that i suggest those areas of finance instead, its that those are areas of finance and most consulting isn't finance.  in consulting you'd have a 'financial services' alignment where you do bitch work for a goldman or a bank of america. do you view that as finance consulting? if you want to do modeling or valuation or asset allocation, go straight to that type of job. you'll be hard pressed to find it in consulting (not saying you won't, just hard)


"Except the government in this case has decided to limit itself to Euros, a currency it does not control and therefore one it can ""run out of"", making deficit spending a risky proposal indeed.  The correct approach is of course to never join such a regime in the first place, and then deficit spend as needed to keep your labor force highly employed."


The Key aspect is the risk of market orders;   You should be worried about point 2 & 3 when you are doing market orders.


"The  easiest  way to improve the life of yours and your family's. Spend some time on the step by step easy tutorials, and  you  will gain free time to spend on your life's luxury dreams, whenever and wherever you want to. ""BCOMEWEALTHY""  now too. We know you can do it  !!!  Join us  !!!"


You would be required to report it as self-employment income and pay tax accordingly.  It's up to you to keep proper records (like a receipt book, for example), especially when it comes to cash.  If you can't prove exactly how much you earned and the government decides to guess the amount for you then you won't like the outcome!


> That being said, we're in a historically low-rate environment, so even the 2.77% is probably a bit low.   You might try using some sort of historical average with the argument that it is more indicative of a long term RF assumption. My firm is currently using the 5 year average yield on 20yr US Treasuries, currently about 4%.


We're probably thinking of different jobs. I have read countless stories of how if you want to be an investment banker or a quant, you need to go to an ivy league school and be at the top of your class. But I have also heard that many traders are more akin to blue-collar workers, and only need the gusto.


"There's no difference between ""individual"" and ""business"" in this context. What is a personal transaction that involves credit card? You have a garage sale? Its business. You sell something on craigslist - business. Want to let people pay for your daughter's girlscout cookies - business. There's no difference between using Paypal (which has its own credit card reader, by the way) and Square in this context. No-one will ask for any business licenses or anything, just your tax id (be it SSN or EIN). Its exactly the same as selling on eBay and accepting credit cards through your Paypal account, conceptually (charge-back rules are different, because Square is a proper merchant account, but that's it)."


In various industrial sector it has been observed that use of hot melt glue stick can help to build and deliver the better products in a very quick time than any traditional adhesive can offer.In food packaging industry volatile organic compounds can be eliminated by using hot melt adhesive.


You can basically do this already with Amazon Instant or Itunes. They have some gaps like HBO but so does a service like Steam. You pay per show instead of per channel but that is better. Why pay for Wrestling if you just want to watch Euerka.


If I were you I would do some research online and try to find a CP. You could also ask your family and friends to see who they have to do their taxes. I don't like doing taxes myself, because I always feel like I am missing something that could be costing me money.


It's not really about nation states, the problem is larger than that.  The West who consumes too much, faced off against the East who makes too much.  Seems like everyone's just waiting for the dollar to fail, so some new order can resolve.


"ACH transfers are the evolution of paper check clearing houses. Transactions are conducted in bulk and do not immediately settle -- the drawer and drawee still retain liability for a period of days or weeks after the transaction date. (I'd suggest looking to the legal definition of a check or draft to understand this better.) A for-fee wire transfer still goes through an intermediary, but settle immediately and irrevocably. Wire transfers are analogous to handing cash to someone.  In the US, the various Federal Reserve banks are involved because they are the central banks of the the United States.  In the past, bank panics were started or exacerbated when banks would refuse to honor drafts drawn on other banks of questionable stability. Imagine what would happen today if your electric company refused to accept Bank of America or Citibank's check/ACH transactions? Wouldn't you get withdraw every penny you could from BoA? During the 1907 banking panic, many solvent banks collapsed when the system of bank ""subscriptions"" (ie. arrangements where small town banks would ""subscribe"" to large commercial banks for check clearing, etc) broke down. Farmers, small business people and individuals lost everything, all because the larger banks would not (or could not) risk holding drafts/checks from the smaller banks."


There are hundreds if not thousands of index funds and ETFs in the EU, far too many to enumerate here. It's worth pointing out that Vanguard themselves operate in the UK. The minimum investment if you go direct to Vanguard is £100,000, but you can make smaller investments through a number of fund platforms.


Yeah having the government guarantee basically the entire housing finance industry has done the same thing as university eduction. In a larger sense those in their 20s did get screwed because the Baby Boomers mortgaged their future to keep prices artificially high for their assets.


Can someone recommend a textbook (or other resource) that provides a rigorous introduction to finance for someone with a mathematical background? Ideally, something that provides both a theoretical background for the pricing of assets generally and moves to mores specific instruments with quantitative exercises along the way?


You could look up their old SEC filings before they were placed in conservatorship. Derive WACC from that. Comp to peer financials from the same timeframe; see how they compare. Assume some sort of size premium if you so desire.  That might give you a picture of the business's cost of capital were it an independent entity. Since it's a GSE, you could make the case that its cost of capital is the rate on US treasury securities.   In reality, it's current cost of capital is probably a mix of the two.


"One thing I would add to TTT's answer: One of the benefits of using an LLC for your business is right there in the name - ""limited liability"". It provides a level of protection for your personal assets should your business go bankrupt, get sued, and so forth. However, if someone can show that there's no real separation between your LLC's activities and your personal activities, then they can ""pierce the corporate veil"" and go after your personal assets. If this loan is really purely personal and not related to your business activities, you may create a paper trail that can later be used in this way. My advice would be to just avoid the whole thing and make the loan from personal funds. I don't see any upside to doing this out of the LLC funds."


"I'm reasonably familiar with the field for a non-specialist, certainly with the 14 qubit example and the D-Wave stuff.  I've experimented with quantum lambda calculi, which relate to my own interests.  But an article much like this could have been written back in the mid-90s.    The fact is we don't know yet what limitations, hard or soft (e.g. economic), will be encountered.  Although the article admitted that, it just felt too hyped to me overall.    To be fair to the author, it's not just him: e.g. he quotes Seth Lloyd saying that quantum computing ""allow us to understand the universe in its own language"".  Which, btw, is nonsense when you consider that imposing qubits on some underlying substrate is actually just encoding a specific approach to computation, and has nothing to do with the universe's ""own language"", whatever that means."


If you assume the market is always 100% rational and accurate and liquid, then it doesn't matter very much if a company pays dividends, other than how dividends are taxed vs. capital gains.  (If the market is 100% accurate and liquid, it also doesn't really matter what stock you buy, since they are all fairly priced, other than that you want the stock to match your risk tolerance).   However, if you manage to find an undervalued company (which, as an investor, is what you are trying to do), your investment skill won't pay off much until enough other people notice the company's value, which might take a long time, and you might end up wanting to sell before it happens.  But if the company pays dividends, you can, slowly, get value from your investment no matter what the market thinks.  (Of course, if it's really undervalued then you would often, but not always, want to buy more of it anyway).   Also, companies must constantly decide whether to reinvest the money in themselves or pay out dividends to owners.  As an owner, there are some cases in which you would prefer the company invest in itself, because you think they can do better with it then you can.  However, there is a decided tendency for C level employees to be more optimistic in this regard than their owners (perhaps because even sub-market quality investments expand the empires of the executives, even when they hurt the owners).   Paying dividends is thus sometimes a sign that a company no longer has capital requirements intense enough that it makes sense to re-invest all of its profits (though having that much opportunity can be a good thing, sometimes), and/or a sign that it is willing, to some degree, to favor paying its owners over expanding the business.  As a current or prospective owner, that can be desirable.   It's also worth mentioning that, since stocks paying dividends are likely not in the middle of a fast growth phase and are producing profit in excess of their capital needs, they are likely slower growth and lower risk as a class than companies without dividends.  This puts them in a particular place on the risk/reward spectrum, so some investors may prefer dividend paying stocks because they match their risk profile.


Sorry, no, any time you sell for a profit you owe tax.


Land value tax is only one part of a proper tax system, and doesn't play well with free trade. Taxing land creates a competitive advantage to importing goods.  It works in the 1700s, but with free trade and cheap, efficient transportation of goods it drives local production out of business.  To properly tax land, you have to do it in a way that doesn't allow production outside your borders that earns money from your economy to escape those taxes.


Having been there, honestly just be at the right places at the right times. There are a ton of TukTuk drivers, I never bothered to save any to my phone because there was always a line of them outside no matter where I was. Find the popular pick up points and setup there. Offer to take people through Ankor Wat for the day at a good price.


Proactive Dental was established in East Burpengary on May 17th 2010. We have been providing excellence in dental care to families and local residents since then. Proactive Dental offers the highest level of service and full range of treatments including: Implants, Veneers, Crowns, Bridges, White fillings, Teeth whitening (ZOOM), Endodontic (root canal Therapy), Extractions, Dentures, Mouth guards, Oral prophylaxis (cleaning) and Periodontic treatment (gum Diseases).


Market price of a stock typically trades in a range of Price/Earnings Ratio (P/E ratio). Or in other words, price of a stock = Earnings * P/E ratio Because of this direct proportionality of stock price with earnings, stock prices move in tandem with earnings.


Huge franchises.  I'm talking universes, with multiple recognizable characters and storylines that are ones you can merchandise and make theme parks out of that are the same tier as: Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar?  I got Harry Potter, and Nintendo.


"Private equity firms have a unique structure: The general partners (GP's) of the firm create funds and manage the investments of those funds.  Limited partners (LP's) contribute the capital to the funds, pay fees to the GP's, and then make money when the funds' assets grow. I believe the article is saying that ultra high net worth individuals participate in the real estate market by hiring someone to act as a general partner and manage the real estate assets.  They and their friends contribute the cash and get shares in the resulting fund. Usually this GP/LP structure is used when the funds purchase or invest in private companies, which is why it is referred to as ""private equity structure,"" but the same structure can be used to purchase and manage pools of real estate or any other investment asset."


No, some of Vanguard's funds are index funds like their Total Stock Market Index and 500 Index. In contrast, there are funds like Vanguard PRIMECAP and Vanguard Wellington that are actively managed. There are index funds in both open-end and exchange-traded formats. VTI is the ticker for Vanguard's Total Stock Market ETF while VTSMX is an open-end mutual fund format. VOO would be the S & P 500 ETF ticker while VFINX is one of the open-end mutual fund tickers, where VIIIX has a really low expense ratio but a pretty stiff minimum to my mind. As a general note, open-end mutual funds will generally have a 5 letter ticker ending in X while an ETF will generally be shorter at 3 or 4 letters in length.


"One of those companies *actively conspired* against the US government (*and others* - don't forget that Brussels *also* fined VW), to defeat testing procedures intended to help keep the air breathable *for us all* (even Europeans).  The other is (possibly) ""guilty"" of marketing a bit more aggressively than is in good taste.  I *hope* you could confidently tell me ""who's the worst offender""..."


If you are going to live in the house for awhile, you can probably use a regular mortgage. Shop around and look for a mortgage program that works. Look at local banks/credit unions, particularly those with community development programs.  Usually an investment mortgage is higher rate, higher payment and has higher underwriting standards.


There are a few factors I like to consider when I'm reasoning financially over my households cars. How many KMs will the car travel each year because I like to factor in how often tires will need to be changed, how much tires for my models cost as well as how gas efficient they are. Knowing how much the car is driven and in what environmental/road conditions is also important factors to know because that will help guestimate possible repairs cost. Also possible taxes should be taken in to consideration. For example a few years ago I had a diesel Citroen C5 that had yearly taxes of roughly 500$. The replacement costs only 150$ a year in taxes. So switching cars 3 years early would have saved me 1050$ in taxes. So some information on possible taxes, how far you drive each year, what environmental conditions, type of driving (daily long rides or just short etc..) as well as the fuel efficiency of both cars would help to better calculate your costs for say three scenarios. Car change in 12, 24 and 32 months respectively.


"Re the business license - in California business licenses are given by the municipal/county governments, so you'll have to check that with your city hall or county office. Re taxes - yes, you'll have to pay taxes, as with any income. Services are considered ""imputed income"", and generally you'd recognize income to the extent they would be paying had they been paying the full price (or the actual cost of services provided, if more). Since this is a hobby and not a for-profit enterprise, your deductions may be limited by the actual income and the 2% AGI threshold. See more here."


This sounds very like disguised employment. You act like an employee of the company, but your official relationship with them is as a contractor. You gain none of the protection you get from being an employee, and this may make you cheaper, less risky and more desirable for the company who is hiring you.  Depending on your country you may also pay corporation tax rather than income tax, which may represent a very significant saving. Also, the company hiring you may not have to pay PAYE, national insurance, stakeholder pension, etc. This arrangement is normal and legal providing you genuinely are acting as a subcontractor. However if you are behaving as an employee (desk at the company, company email, have to work specific hours in a specific location, no ability to subcontract, etc.) you may be classified as a disguised employee. In the UK it used to be common practice for highly paid employees to set up shell companies to avoid tax. This will now get you into hot water. Google IR35 It sounds like your relationship in this case is directly with the recruiter. You will have to consider if the recruiter is acting as your employer, or if you remain a genuinely independent agent. The duration of your contract with the recruiter will have a bearing on this. In the UK there are a whole series of tests for disguised employment. This is a good arrangement provided you go in with your eyes open and an awareness of the legislation.  However you should absolutely check the rules that apply in your country before entering into this agreement. You could potentially be stung very badly indeed.


> Um, he's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.


Why aren't we protesting single payer schooling.   We are all charged taxes that go into single entities that then pay for public schooling for all.       In most countries, healthcare is no different to education.  Public option that delivers a level of service, then the ability to pay for private alternatives on top.


"Banks make money on load origination fees. The ""points"" you pay or closing costs are the primary benefit to the banks. A vast majority of the time risks associated with the mortgage are sold to another party. FYI, the same is true with investment banks. In general, the transaction costs (which are ignored by modern finance theory) are the main thing running the incentives for the industry."


> As marketplace businesses most likely will have to increase prices to compensate for return losses, there will be less competitive price pressure on Amazon. It can only serve to incrementally increase prices across the board.  Which encourages better products, as better products have lower return losses, and you make more profit. Which clearly benefits the consumer.


The amount of money you have should be enough for you to live a safe but somewhat restricted life if you never worked again - but it could set you up for just about any sort of financial goal (short of island buying) if you do just about any amount of work. The basic math for some financial rules of thumb to keep in mind: If your money is invested in very low-risk ways, such as a money market fund, you might earn, say, 3% in interest every year. That's $36k. But, if you withdraw that $36k every year, then every year you have the same principal amount invested. And a dollar tomorrow can't buy as much as a dollar today, because of inflation. If we assume for simplicity that inflation is 1% every year, then you need to contribute an additional $12k to your principal balance every year, just so that it has the same buying power next year. This leaves you with a net $24k of interest income that you can freely spend every year, for the rest of your life, without ever touching your principal balance. If your money is invested more broadly, including equity investments [stocks], you might earn, say, 7% every year. Some years you might lose money on your investments, and would need to draw down your principal balance to pay your bills. Some years you might do quite well - but would need to remain conservative and not withdraw your 'excess' earnings every year, because you will need that 'excess' to make up for the bad years. This would leave you with about $74k of income every year before inflation, and about $62k after inflation. But, you would be taking on more risk by doing this. If you work enough to pay your daily bills, and leave your investments alone to earn 7% on average annually, then in just 10 years your money would have doubled to ~ $2.4 Million dollars. This assumes that you never save another penny, and spend everything you make. It's a level of financial security that means you could retire at a drop of the hat. And if don't start working for 20 years [which you might need to do if you spend in excess of your means and your money dries up], then the same will not be true - starting work at 45 with no savings would put you at a much greater disadvantage for financial security. Every year that you work enough to pay your bills before 'retirement' could increase your nest egg by 7% [though again, there is risk here], but only if you do it now, while you have a nest egg to invest. Now in terms of what you should do with that money, you need to ask yourself: what are your financial goals? You should think about this long and hard (and renew that discussion with yourself periodically, as your goals will change over time). You say university isn't an option - but what other ways might you want to 'invest in yourself'? Would you want to go on 'sabbatical'-type learning trips? Take a trade or learn a skill? Start a business? Do you want to live in the same place for 30 years [and thus maybe you should lock-down your housing costs by buying a house] or do you want to travel around the world, never staying in the same place twice [in which case you will need to figure out how to live cheaply and flexibly, without signing unnecessary leases]. If you want to live in the middle of nowhere eating ramen noodles and watching tv, you could do that without lifting a finger ever again. But every other financial goal you might have should be factored into your budget and work plan. And because you do have such a large degree of financial security, you have a lot of options that could be very appealing - every low paying but desirable/hard-to-get job is open to you. You can pursue your interests, even if they barely pay minimum wage, and doing so may help you ease into your new life easier than simply retiring at such a young age [when most of your peers will be heavy into their careers]. So, that is my strongest piece of advice - work now, while you're young and have motivation, so that you can dial back later. This will be much easier than the other way around. As for where you should invest your money in, look on this site for investing questions, and ultimately with that amount of money - I suggest you hire a paid advisor, who works based on an hourly consultation fee, rather than a % management fee. They can give you much more directed advice than the internet (though you should learn it yourself as well, because that will give you the best piece of mind that you aren't being taken advantage of).


Lending of securities is done by institutional investors and mutual funds. The costs of dealing with thousands of individual investors, small share blocks and the various screw-ups and drama associated with each individual are too high. Like many exotic financial transactions, if you have to ask about it, you're probably not qualified to do it.


"I'm really surprised more people didn't recommend UGA or USO specifically.  These have been mentioned in the past on a myriad of sites as ways to hedge against rising prices.  I'm sure they would work quite well as an investment opportunity.  They are ETF's that invest in nearby futures and constantly roll the position to the next delivery date.  This creates a higher than usual expense ratio, I believe, but it could still be a good investment.  However, be forewarned that they make you a ""partner"" by buying the stock so it can mildly complicate your tax return."


I wonder if it would be possible to become a demo house in a new market for this roof at a discounted rate, provided a person were to place a sign out front as is done with companies like ADT and the like.


But mate, you're wrong. Work means nothing. These values are set based on how much one person is willing to sacrifice something for something else. Demand and desire. What if I stole those apples? I did less work than the farmer. But the guy who wants apples is still offering me ONE pelt.


Did you receive a summons, or other notice of proceedings, from the court which granted the judgement? If you were not served with the proceedings, contact the court. It is unlawful to enforce a judgement against someone who was not a party to the original lawsuit.


"I think you have a few choices that cannot be described by math alone: Repair current phone:  149 Replace current phone with new model from carrier:  100 + cost of new phone Replace current phone with new model on payment plan from carrier:  100 + cost of new phone + finance charge (could be zero or cleverly hidden). You can also replace the current phone with either a used or new bought from a separate party.  Quite recently I was selling some gently used IPhones 4S for around $140.   So really you have to determine what is most important to you guys.  Is it important to have the newest model phone with laying out the least amount of cash now?  Then by all means go with the payment plan with your current carrier. Is it most important to be financially efficient, while having a good working phone?  Then pay the deductible; or buy something gently used.   In my opinion, having a phone payment is a losing game, akin to buying a new car every three years or so.  You are buying something on time that quickly depreciates and hiding the true cost of the item in ""painless"" monthly payments."


In general you cannot. Once the security is no longer listed on the exchange - it doesn't have to provide information to the exchange and regulators (unless it wants to be re-listed). That's one of the reasons companies go private - to keep their (financial and other) information private. If it was listed in 1999, and is no longer listed now - you can dig through SEC archives for the information. You can try and reach out to the company's investors' relations contact and see if they can help you with the specific information you're looking for.


No, they cannot refuse to provide you with the current balance or a balance history. The other answers point you to resources that are available to help you put pressure on the dealership. The bottom line is that you now know that you have the right to the details and to audit their recording of the transactions. You should now use that information and demand a better response in writing. If they have to give you a response in writing, they can't deny the answer they gave in a court of law later on. They understand this, and they will take you more seriously if you send a letter. Make sure to keep copies of the letter and send it with certified delivery.


For Cook, it was finding Apple, a company that stood for something bigger than selling electronics and make money. Apple’s vision, back then, was to serve humanity. It means to look at humankind and see how it can be helped to move forward.  Why not? Sure we can criticize them for the workers conditions in China, Congo but things seem to have improved there and he has been a very vocal supporter of environment and gay rights. Also, you can search Apple and Accessibility. They did a lot ot good things for disable people. It's not black and white.


"**American School (economics)**  See also American System (economic plan).  The American School, also known as the ""National System"", represents three different yet related constructs in politics, policy and philosophy. It was the American policy from the 1860s to the 1970s, waxing and waning in actual degrees and details of implementation. Historian Michael Lind describes it as a coherent applied economic philosophy with logical and conceptual relationships with other economic ideas.  ***  **American System (economic plan)**  The American System was an economic plan that played a prominent role in American policy during the first half of the 19th century. Rooted in the ""American School"" ideas of Alexander Hamilton, the plan ""consisted of three mutually reinforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster care; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other 'internal improvements' to develop profitable markets for farmculture"". Congressman Henry Clay was the plan's foremost proponent and the first to refer to it as the ""American System"".  ***  ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/finance/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot)   ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.27"


This person must pay taxes in both the overseas country and in the U.S. This is unusual; generally, only the U.S. demands this. Depending on the specific country, he would likely not be taxed twice as the U.S. generally recognises tax paid in a different country. Note there are some gotchas, though. For example, although Canada has a generally higher tax scheme than the U.S., you may still end up owing tax if you use the Tax-Free Savings Account system in Canada, as that is not recognised in the U.S. As to whether or not this person should form a company, that is far too broad a question. It's going to depend in large part on the tax situations of the countries involved. This person needs to consult an accountant specialising in this situation. That is, on personal versus business tax and on tax involving U.S. citizens. Yes, this person can and indeed must file and pay taxes in the U.S., from outside the U.S.


Its due to pricing.  The bottom fell out on gun prices, they're currently cheaper than they've ever been.... its a buyers market, and everyone is in a buying frenzy as a result (myself included).  If you want to own guns, *you would be stupid not to buy* now while the prices are crashed.


MyDeals247 is the world’s first personalized eCommerce platform - post your request (on what you want) - it creates healthy competition among the local sellers and brings the top 5 lowest offers for the buyer request real-time - you can buy or sell any items in your local area - totally customised to your own personal needs.


I think the rise of low quality merchandise in things other than consumer electronics (where obsolescence is natural due to Moore's Law and the very fast rate of improvement), is due to socialist redistribution that has put $Trillions into the hands of people merely for being poor rather than producing for others. These people typically still shop based on price rather than quality, which creates increased demand (and therefore encourages higher production) of lower quality items, such as plastic versions of things that are actually cheaper if made as metal (lower long-term cost of use).


What is the best form of investment? It only depends on your goals... The perfect amount of money depends also on your particular situation. The first thing you should start getting familiar with is the notion of portfolio and diversification. Managing risk is also fundamental especially with the current market funkiness... Start looking at index based ETFs -Exchange Traded Funds- and Balanced Mutual Funds to begin with. Many discounted online brokerage companies in the USA offer good training and knowledge centers. Some of them will also let you practice with a demo account that let you invest virtual money to make you feel comfortable with the interface and also with investing in general.


True. Someone already thought about this business, and they constantly checking the astronomical calendar and make sure they supply, market and advertise the glasses just before the next solar eclipse, wherever and whenever it happens next.  So I checked it for you, and you are wrong: the next full solar eclipse will be July 2nd, 2019, in South America.  As for me, I live in the USA, originally from Israel, but with German accent as my parents are German.


As an ordinary shareholder, yes you are protected from recourse by the debtors. The maximum amount you can lose is the amount you spent on the shares. The rules might change if you are an officer of the company and fraud is alleged, but ordinary stockholders are quite well protected. Why are you worried about this?


If you buy a gold brick and put it in a pillow, after one year you still have one gold brick. People may value it more than before or less then before, but it's still the one gold brick you had. If you buy a cow and put it on a pasture, after one year you have a fatter cow and plenty of milk. You now have more of the cow and milk you didn't have before. Now that's an investment.


I know IT makes more than that, my point is that if higher skill jobs like IT are being outsourced for the sake of saving money, you can bet your ass that the lowly unskilled labor positions will be the first to go.  as far as the human replacement by machine, I never said it's not going to eventually happen regardless. But a doubling of the minimum wage will make that eventuality become instant.


I am still waiting for the investor lawsuit against Lampert for breaching his fiduicary duty by prioritizing his hedge fund over Sears. He is looting Sears piecemeal and assigning the assets to the hedge fund. How is this anything but a breach of his legal duty? I would not be surprised if this is approaching illegal levels of looting, and not just civil damages.


Yes. It was a very trying time. The company management and board were basically incompetent, and they fired the CEO, who was a great guy.  The company went from being worth essentially nothing, to a billion dollars in less than 5 years. And it got that successful despite the management and directors rather than because of them.  The amazing staff held the company together, and made it successful, while the board concentrated on in-fighting, and management concentrated on lining its pockets with stock options.


"The article states that Boise is trying to build a tech ecosystem and is making it harder to leave to keep that human capital at the firms they're currently with.  The logic behind this: smarter people will produce higher revenues for companies thus higher revenues for the state. Firms are lobbying for this.   They're essentially keeping people at their jobs, to help the firms keep a competitive industry, while ignoring the other impacts it may have such as lower wages because workers can't leave.   Trickle down economics can refer to other benefits besides gains and breaks. The human capital not being able to leave is the benefit, and firms are attempting to justify it for the betterment of Boise's future ""tech eco system"" aka passing it off as benefit to be enjoyed by many later on.   Alex Labeau, president of Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry trade, a group that represents many of the states biggest employers countered: ""This is about companies protecting their assets in a competitive market place""  How is it not trickle down economics when firms are receiving a benefit (that negatively impacts citizens) under the guise that it will keep Idaho's tech hub relevant, thus economically benefitting everyone?"


I am in the United States. There is no need to keep the statements in any form forever. Once the bank gives you a 1099 stating how much interest you have earned, you don't need to keep them. If you only have them in electronic form, that is good enough for the IRS. When you do need to show a bank statement, such as when applying for a loan, the loan company will be keeping a copy. It doesn't matter if it was a scan from the original, from a printed PDF, or if you printed it from your archives. In the US they used send the original check back to the person who wrote it, so they could keep it for their records. Then many banks went to carbons, but if you paid extra they would send you the original. Now the bank that cashes the check scans the check and destroys the original. If you want a copy for your records it only exists as a scanned image.


As a resident of Wisconsin, I can definitively say that the whole reason why we are in this position is because of governor Scott walker and his anti-federalist ideology. Wisconsin has passed several bills, strongly advocated by the governor, effecting in inhibiting worker unionization and collective bargaining. And it is this lacking of both that catalyzed the middle-class decline from the start.


I just passed my 7 with a 90%. I used Training Consultant as main source and supplemented with  Kaplan Qbank. Personally, i think the Qbank is outstanding, it pretty much covered everything that you will see on the test. I would recommend to fully utilize the Qbank and try to get your average score to around 80%. The kaplan material is slightly harder than the actual test, so you can expect your real score to be around 5-7% higher than what you get doing Kaplan exams. Good luck!


PEG is Price/Earnings to Growth.  It is calculated as Price/Earnings/Annual EPS Growth.  It represents how good a stock is to buy, factoring in growth of earnings, which P/E does not.  Obviously when PEG is lower, a stock is more undervalued, which means that it is a better buy, and more likely to go up. Additional References:


"Joe does is ""cost"" the state money with tax incentives? Providing incentives to encourage job goeth by allowing businesses to keep more of their money doesn't cost the government anything because it's not this government money in the first place. Secondly, would you prefer no business growth so those aren't any job or any new tax revenue?"