vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
"One scenario described in the original question -- a non-insider who trades after informal conversations with friends, where no insiders directly benefit from any such disclosure -- might not be illegal.  (IANAL -- this is just my personal interpretation of articles in the news recently.) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-05/insider-trading-cases-imperiled-as-top-u-s-court-spurns-appeal the appeals court said prosecutors needed to show that the person disclosing the information received a clear benefit -- something more than the nurturing of a friendship ... In a 1980 case the Supreme Court rejected the idea of “a general duty between all participants in market transactions to forgo actions based on material, nonpublic information."""
"Seriously.  I can't tell you how many times I hear this scenario: Kid graduates college; kid runs out and signs lease on apartment ""because that's what you do""**; kid complains that he's in financial trouble and can't make ends meet.   Housemate sharing is most famously displayed in hit shows like Big Bang Theory or New Girl.  They get a much nicer place with better furnishings for way less money.  (However don't hook up with close neighbors or friends of other housemates, they do it for awkward laughs but it really results in awkward departure.)  It's more financially responsible.  It means the rest of your financial life will have more slack.  And when you move, obviously, it's no big deal, you just give all the notice you can, and go to the next town and find another housemate share.   ** I suspect a very significant factor is bringing home dates.  Well, there's nothing sexy about taking your date to McDonalds because you can't afford anything more.  See those shows... it works fine, you just have to be sensible about housemate choices.  Pick housemates who view things the same way, and who themselves are invested in making the shared space attractive, and aren't going to mind some ...activities... once in awhile."
I've been in the workforce for a little over 20 years. This sounds like one of the situations that starts out as a nice little bonus, but ends with me holding the bag and wishing I never would've gotten involved.
"&gt; For instance, one of his sage-like pieces of advice is to put a clause in your contract saying ""subject to the approval of all business partners"". Then if you feel like backing out, you claim that your cat is your business partner and he didn't like the deal. I am not making this up.   I'm no contract lawyer, but shouldn't the signature on the contract mean a binding approval of its terms for the signer and everyone they implicitly represent?  I mean, otherwise, what power does the signature hold for the other party, if the signee can just claim later that their unspecified business partner doesn't like your face?"
Lines of credit can be dangerous for those that misuse it because if the amount owed is driven up due to bad behavior, there is nothing to force the bad behavior to stop. A perfect example of this can be found with governments. Some governments borrow money until their line of credit is used up, and then they just keep increasing their credit limit. There is no incentive for the officials in charge of the government to stop doing this because it isn't even their money. If those lines of credits were converted to term loans, the government would be forced to increase revenue and/or decrease expenses, which is the only way to get out of debt. Some other advantages of term loans over a LOC:"
I'm not a lawyer. If someone signed a contract agreeing to that ... you could make a case that if someone agreed to it, caveat emptor and all. But I strongly suspect that a court would find a reason to strike down such an obviously exploitive contract, say you were taking advantage of someone's mathematical naivety, etc.
Yes it would be colluding. Most countries have well defined laws to prevent companies including banks from indulging in such activities.
(6) No transactions can be done anonymously. All parties to every banking transaction must be identified and recorded. So, from the above it should be clear to (if you are a lawyer) why no endorsement is present. That is because your check is not a negotiable instrument anymore, it is merely a request to the bank to transfer funds to the Treasury. The Treasury does not need to ""endorse"" anything. In fact, legally speaking, the Treasury could simply order your bank to empty your account into theirs, and they actually do this all the time to people they are ""investigating"" for supposed crimes. You don't need to endorse checks you receive either because, as I said above, the check is no longer a negotiable instrument. Banks still have people do it, but it is just a pro forma habit from the old days. Since you can't sue the bank, the endorsement is pretty meaningless because it cannot be challenged in court anyway. You could probably just write ""X"" there and they would deposit it."
There is no such understanding, and that's the point. It's just an appeal to popularity. It's the idea that one group of people can have an understanding and that this somehow applies to those who weren't a part of it. That's not how contracts or agreements work.
One situation where it would be prudent not to contribute would be if expenses are so tight that you cannot afford to contribute because you need that cashflow for expenses.
Another point made in another answer is that there's potential upcoming legislation to give some rights to cohabiting partners. In the current draft, those would kick in after three years or having children. If the bill does come into effect, you'd also be able to sign an opt out, but only after getting legal advice, and it would still be possible (though presumably hard) to persuade a court to overturn an opt out. Overall that does create a small risk to you, but not one that comes directly from your girlfriend paying rent. It's likely that if you are both on an equal financial footing and had always kept your finances separate, that there wouldn't be any award made anyway. And you can't run your entire life on hypothetical risks."
- If instead you take a ""soft metrics"" or subjective/holistic approach to evaluation, then you get a culture of brown-nosing and office-politics. People start sabotaging the ""boss's favorite"" and pursuing approval and credit, rather than performance. Instead of fostering a team-oriented, problem-solving approach, it fosters a counter-productive buck-passing, credit-grabbing, and blame-avoidance approach. Note that both of the above intrinsically incentivize risk-avoidance. If you get paid for the number of projects that have your name on them, you find some way to get your name attached to every project, and then move on to the next one, whether the last one was done or not. If you get based on how ""successful"" the projects bearing your name are, then you avoid anything challenging and make sure only to be attached to the easy ones with the best co-workers. And so on. - Alternately, let's say we keep the same, generic, salary-oriented pay-structure, we just make everyone in a certain ""tier"" get equal salary, that everyone knows. That sucks all the life out of everyone's sails so fast it will make your head spin: you cannot get a raise for doing a better job, you get paid the same raise as your worst co-worker, every year, for as long as you work here. We will never cut your pay, all you have to do is not be the canary in the coalmine-- so long as you can identify the worst performer in your group, and so long as it's not you, your job is safe. What time do you have to arrive? 5 minutes earlier than the latest-arriving person. How early can you leave? 5 minutes after the earliest one to check out. How much work do you have to get done? Only as much as anyone else is doing. What will you get for being the hardest-working, earliest-to-arrive, latest-to-leave? The same as the worst performer gets: you'll be splitting your raise with him, since we don't credit individuals here, just job-titles. Most jobs that can be easily automated, are automated.
Everyone is usually better off without insurance.  A very few people are much better off with insurance.  Insurance is a gamble and when you lose, you win.  Very few people lose badly enough to win.  Most people just pay money into insurance and never get as much back as they pay in.  For most people, in most lives, insurance is a bad deal.  The reason people crave insurance is because they cannot calculate the probability of something bad happening as well as an actuary can do so.  The gap in knowledge between you and and actuary is what make insurance providers rich and you poor.  They are smart, you are not.  You think some terrible thing is going to happen to you, they know it probably won't.  So they sell you a product you probably will never need.  Anyhow, most people can't understand probability, and how to analyze risk, so they won't get what I'm saying here. Understanding the real cost of risk is the first lesson in understanding money and wealth.  Rich people usually understand the value and cost of risk.  Hence, they only buy insurance when they expect to lose, that is, to win.  We rich people do everything only when we know already we are going to win.  We don't gamble, unless we are the house.  When a self-made rich man buys something, its because he knows already he is going to come out ahead on it, most probably.
"The other answers describe why this is highly likely to be a scam. This answer describes why you don't want to get involved, even in the unlikely case that it isn't a scam.  I'm describing this using US law (which I'm not particularly familiar with, so if I go astray I'd suggest others fix any flaws in this answer), but most other countries have similar laws as these laws are all implementations of a small number of international treaties have very large memberships. The service you describe (accepting money transfers from one party and transferring them to another) is one which, if you engage in it for profit, would classify you as a ""financial institution"" under 31 USC 5312, specifically paragraph (a)(2)(R): any   other person who engages as a business in   the transmission of funds, including any person   who engages as a business in an informal   money transfer system Because you would be acting as a financial institution: Failure to follow such requirements can lead to a fine of up to $250,000 or a 5 year prison sentence (31 USC 5322). See also: Customer Identification Program and Know Your Customer."
"I once was reviewing one of those contracts with plenty of bad clauses in it, sitting across from the salesman whose commission depending on me signing it.  I started crossing out all the bad clauses, initialed them and said I would sign it if he'd initial the changes as well.  Oh, and there was one clause that said something like ""THIS CONTRACT MAY NOT BE MODIFIED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT...""  Of course, I crossed it out as well.  I signed, he signed.  Everyone was happy.  Fortunately I never had to deal with any of the issues, but what's the worse they could do?"
"I recommend you ask her if her sponsor/leadership has said something like ""if your friends don't agree with you (or say no) then they're not your friends and you should move on"". If so, it's not much of a stretch to apply the above to all her relationships (including you).  Many years ago when I was deep down the MLM rabbit-hole I had 'leadership' say the above line many times. They're leaches, preying on the vulnerable. Teaching the teachers to teach? Nope, teaching the leachers to leach."
"The risk is that the ""free"" service may be supporting itself by steering customers to products which part a sales commission, or that are products of the company/bank that employees then,  rather than those which are actually best for the customer.  If you go in with a skeptical outlook, watching for this sort of conflict of interest, it's possible they might be useful. But that's not exactly a glowing recommendation... If they try to tell you that insurance is an investment, or if they recommend anything other than low-fee index funds without an extremely good reason, run."
"Several things the book specifically recommends are either things no actual counterparty to a deal would agree to, or outright illegal.  For instance, one of his sage-like pieces of advice is to put a clause in your contract saying ""subject to the approval of all business partners"".  Then if you feel like backing out, you claim that your cat is your business partner and he didn't like the deal.  I am not making this up.   The book's central tenet of ""buy income producing assets"" is a good one.  However other than a general recommendation of real estate, it does nothing to specifically help you achieve these goals."
My understanding it that the signature requirement is at the retailer's discretion. If the merchant decides to require a signature it protects them against fraudulent charge-back claims, but increases their administrative costs. In some situations it just isn't practical for a retailer to require a signature. Consider for example mail-order or online purchases, which I've never had to sign a credit card slip for.
The bank has no discretion to decline a loan at will - I've seen 98-year-olds sign a 30-year mortgage, and the bank was overjoyed because it showed that they didn't discriminate against the elderly. The customer could be a crackhead, and the bank can't turn them down if their paperwork, credit, and income is good. The most the loan officer could do is process the loan slowly and hope the crackhead gets arrested before the bank spends any more money. The regulations for employees new to the workforce are a bit less wonderful, but the bank will want 30+ days of income history (30 days, NOT 4 weeks) if you have it. BUT, if you are a fresh new employee, they can do the loan using your written and signed job offer as proof of income. However, I discourage you from using this method to buy a house. You are much, much better off renting for a while and learning the local area before you shop for a house. It's too easy to buy a house without knowing the city, then discover that you have a hideously slow drive to work and are in the worst part of town. And, you may not like the company as much, or you may not be a good fit. It's not uncommon to leave a company within a year or two. You don't want a house that anchors you to one place while you need the freedom to explore career options. And consider this: banks love selling mortgages, but they hate holding them. They want to collect that $10,000 closing fee, they couldn't care less about the 4% interest trickling in over 30 years. Once they sign the mortgage, they try to sell it to investors who want to buy high-grade debt within a month. That sale gives them all the money back, so they can use it to sell another mortgage and collect another $10,000. If the bank has its way, it has offloaded your mortgage before you send the first payment to them. As a result, it's a horrible idea to buy a house unless you expect to live there at least 5 or 10 years, because the closing costs are so high.
"That's the reality of what sometimes people don't grasp. ""The banking elites will never let bitcoin succeed."" Although this is probably true at a certain level, the reality is that when bitcoin poses as a threat, it is also an opportunity at the same time. Bank are all in competition with one another. There are plenty who will take the plunge and get involved if there is money to be made. If they don't do it, another bank will. It's the prisoners dilemma in action, in that banks benefit from defecting and not colluding together. This is also the case when it comes to how Nation States will eventually interact with it. Japan is at a huge advantage by moving first into acceptance. Should be the first domino that keeps every country on the offensive to at least not outright banning it. If it succeeds, large countries are at huge risks of missing out big time."
"A 30-yr mortgage IS a committment. So, you are willing to commit to a place, but not your long-term girlfriend??? Either you don't do this ""cheap"" scheme idea, or you set up as a business arrangement, or you get married. This is quite a laissez-faire statement you make... ""Maybe we will eventually get married, maybe we will eventually break up, who knows."" Anything or anyone that is a ""who knows"" is not what you make a 30-yr committment on. I mean, unless you just want to risk throwing your money away. Now, man up, hire the lawyer to do official paperwork or else get a legal certificate of civil union or marriage or whatever you want to call it. If you try to do your cockamamie scheme ""on the cheap"" now, it will most surely cost you dearly in the future! Mixing money (particulary huge sums of 200,000 $!) when there is no legal obligation like marriage or a business contract, is a fool's errand! Now, grow up and do it the right way if you want to help her - and yourself too."
However, the problem with this is that since the receiver has no idea who sent the message, they're not likely to give it the kind of credibility or notice that they would to something passed to them by a person they know and trust, and your anonymous message will have little weight in the face of the persuasive pitch that got your friend to commit his own money (and future). Another problem, as you've noted, is that you don't travel in the same circles as the people he's likely to recruit, so how would you go about warning them? How would they view their first contact with you when it comes with a message not to trust what someone else they already know is about to tell them? Would they write it off as someone who's butty? Hard to tell. Another huge ploy of these schemes is that they tend to preemptively strike at what you propose doing -- that is, warning people to stay away. They do this by projecting the people giving the warnings as losers who didn't see the opportunity for themselves and now want to keep others away from their own financial success. They'll portray you as someone who isn't smart enough to see this ""huge opportunity"", and since you can't understand it, you don't think anyone else does either. They'll point out that if you were so good with finances, why aren't you already successful? These guys are very good, and they have an answer for every objection you can raise, whether its to them or to someone else. They've spent a long time honing their message, which makes it difficult for anyone to say something persuasive enough to sway others away from being duped. This is a hard path, no doubt. I hope you are able to warn others away. Just be aware that it may come at a cost to you as well, and be prepared for what that might be. I hope this helps. Good luck!"
&gt;offering nothing in return  Well, we have no idea about what else the contracts stipulates.  It may have all kinds of attractive features that make it worthwhile for someone to sign it.  Perhaps access to a spa, complementary champagne, access to a nice beach, live musicians, jumping the scheduled list to get your wedding sooner, it could be anything.  The libel example was just to show that the ability to speak freely, as you pointed out, has a value (which can be very high negative numbers if you say the wrong thing).  This clause is not about proving libel or first amendment rights.  Contracts can have all kinds of stipulations in them, you have to be a certain weight, have certain colored hair styles, stay away from certain places, partake (or not) in particular behaviours.  You can sign all kinds of contracts willingly that penalize you financially for doing things that nobody would legally be able to force you to do without a contract.
I would not pay for anything on LinkedIn. I have read that once you give them your credit card, it is VERY hard to unsubscribe. Read the reviews about that online. They are not good.  I believe in LinkedIn and feel you can benefit a lot from it. If you don't have a profile you are limiting yourself because all employers are searching prospective employees online and the more positive info about you out there, the better. You control what is on LI.
That's BS man. The retailer is supposed to be visually confirming signatures! That's their freaking job!  PIN numbers are LESS Secure because retailers do not provide a visually secure place to type them in. It is Waaaaaay too easy to watch someone typing their pin. Especially with the ceiling cameras that many stores place above every register.  Signatures are MORE secure because they are more difficult to forge. The only reason signatures might be inadequate is because retailers are failing to hold up their part of the equation. They don't want to do their jobs so we should change for them? Screw that.  The hypocrisy in this country I swear to god.
If someone decides to sign a contract and sell something at a loss and you are the end consumer, the fact that the manufacturer is losing money doesn't give you any moral or legal right to take it for free.   Nobody is saying it's right how it's done but until you are signing the contract that stipulates what you get for a movie it has nothing to do with you.
The main issue is that anonymous payment is strongly opposed by banking and governments. The price of giving away your identity to hundreds of strangers daily is much higher than coping with stupid ads. Even the price of having your bank know your spending patterns so tightly, is high.
Standard advice for these scenarios: Stay out of it unless asked specifically for advice, and even then, be wary of being too harsh.  You'll damage your relationship with your friend if you get involved.
"You would be facilitating identity theft. You would be risking people who disagree with your approach thinking you're foolish. Are you really going to gain enough from this decision to offset the risks? Can't you do the same thing with much less detail or a ""fantasy"" account?"
"It's not ""the market"" deciding anything if you're forcing a business to pay someone an arbitrary amount that you declare to be a ""living wage"".  Why do you believe that you get to interfere in a mutual agreement between two people? One guy goes to another and says ""hey wanna do this job for me for X dollars"" and the other guy says ""ok cool sounds good"" and here you are jumping in and saying ""nope, can't allow that, I have to stop you"""
Advice to myself: the benefits of being self-employed totally outweigh the risks!
While I agree with keshlam@ that the gym had no reason (or right) to ask for your SSN, giving false SSN to obtain credit or services (including gym membership) may be considered a crime. While courts disagree on whether you can be charged with identity theft in this scenario, you may very well be charged with fraud, and if State lines are crossed (which in case of store cards is likely the case) - it would be a Federal felony charge. Other than criminal persecution, obviously not paying your debt will affect your credit report. Since you provided false identity information, the negative report may not be matched to you right away, but it may eventually. In the case the lender discovers later that you materially misrepresented information on your mortgage application - they may call on your loan and either demand repayment in full at once or foreclose on you. Also, material misrepresentation of facts on loan application is also a criminal fraud. Again, if State lines are crossed (which in most cases, with mortgages they are), it becomes a Federal wire fraud case. On mortgage application you're required to disclose your debts, and that includes lines of credits (store cards and credit cards are the same thing) and unpaid debts (like your gym membership, if its in collection).