vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
What a joke. The world economy would have collapsed without Goldman Sachs and Citibank? That is blatant propaganda and you're deluded if you believe it. Government intervention caused the housing bubble, and government intervention is what those huge banks relied on when they made 30:1 securities swaps wagers. Those bankers acted like criminals and the government cheered them on and made it easier. There is absolutely zero incentive for either the bankers or the politicians to be fiscally responsible, that is the problem.  Printing money has not caused harm? Are you mental? Printing money is outright theft from every working man. It is the epitome of corruption and the hallmark of a failing government slipping into fascism and plutocracy. They won't even tell us how much money is on the books anymore. It is an arbitrary amount which changes at their discretion.  There is more debt in the system than actual value, and the debt gains interest faster than the value appreciates. The entire currency system is designed to transfer money to the wealthy and carry a debt which can never be paid off. Those dollars that you and I work for every day are just a means to control us.
Then the other set of referrals they get is from you directly going to their website asking for a quote. They know what type of link you've followed (banner, or google result, etc), they may know some info from your browser's cookies (time spent where) or other tracking service, and from your data they may guess how tech-savvy and shop-wise you are, and scale your offer accordingly. [Comparison-site shoppers are lumped together at a relatively high savvy-level, of course!]. Companies breaking down your data and their own in a particular way can find advantages and hence offer you better terms, as said in the main answer (this is like Arbitration in stock exchanges, ensuring a certain amount of sanity: if there's something to exploit, somebody will, and everybody will follow). It may be that they find a certain group of people maybe more accident-prone but cheaper to deal with (more flexible in repair-times, or easy to bully in accepting shared-fault when they weren't at fault), or they want a certain client (for women, for civil servants, for sporty drivers, for homeowners --- often for cross-selling other insurance services). Or they claim to want pensioners because the company can offer them 'a familiar voice' (same account manager always contacting them) while they're easier to bamboozle and less likely to shop around when offered a rubbish deal. Also, 100% straight comparison of competing offers isn't possible as the fine details of the T&Cs (terms & conditions) would differ, as well as various little pinpricks in the claims handling process. And depreciation of a car, and various ways of dealing with it: You insure it for the buying prices, but two years later it's worth about 40% less on paper --- so in case of total loss, replacing like-for-like will cost you still at least 80% of the value for which you've been insuring it while they'll probably offer you the 100-40= 60%. Mostly because instead of your trusted car you have something unknown that may have hidden defects, or been mistreated and about to die.
How am I dodging them? I answered your question directly about the pace of change of technological progress. I said its not faster than the pace at which people can get retrained and reeducated. Do you want a direct reply or a reply in context? Yes, technological change is increasing. It always has been. So what? I put it in context for you in terms of automation and the whole debate about basic income.
And what's the cost-of-living in Silicon Valley?  How long are the work-days, how abundant the vacation time?  Most of the publicly-held companies there apparently have solid sources of revenue, but for all too many start-up companies, where's the value proposition?  As I've learned from first-hand experience, a high salary isn't as great as it sounds in an expensive area to live, and Silicon Valley is up there with New York, Washington DC, and Boston for the *really* expensive areas of America.  &gt;“Companies like Color are being given a second, third, or fourth shot at the game because it’s a big game,” says Bill Nguyen, Color’s chief executive officer. “The prizes are pretty darn huge. There are fundamental changes happening in information because of Facebook and mobile devices.”   HOW DOES THIS NOT SOUND LIKE A SPECULATIVE BUBBLE TO PEOPLE?
2 years at GS IBD and 1 years at ONEX private equity. And a few more years in PE at 3G should qualify you to be VP of finance at many (midsized) companies. Definitely crazy to here that he got to KraftHeinz but heh if 3G believes in him what do I know.
"Whats your point? Nothing you posted in that essay refutes what I said. Do you even know what TARP is? It's the Troubled Asset Relief Fund put into action to address the lack of liquidity on banks balance sheets, and it was paid back early after Goldman leaked it to the press and was paid at 6.2% interest taking place during the GFC moron. This is about your title in which you said that ""...financial firms that feed at the taxpayer trough."" You really have no idea what you're talking about, please don't vote."
We specialize in the events and wedding parties producing newness photo booths &amp; other equipment for fun purposes using high technology. Our organization has a wedding photographer in USA. A contract should also include a copy of the photographer's terms and conditions and this must be visible to the clients before they sign the contract. The professional companies or as individual freelancers and you can select from any one of these. Some couples tend to look at the cheaper affordable photographers to serve at the lucky occasion.
&gt; What kinda skill set is it that they can't find in a population of 300 million plus?  The skill set where they work for half the market salary and are scared of complaining about working conditions so they don't get thrown out of the country.
"&gt; I didn't ask for those services or that infrastructure.   That sounds painfully like the ""I didn't ask to be born"" argument. I am sure you are mature enough to realize that we don't get to choose where we are born, or what responsibility we inherit. I am sure there are millions of people born in third world countries who would feel for your horrible plight!  &gt;  I can choose Crest toothpaste and you can still get Colgate.   Ahh, but either exist without society and the stability of civilization? While Democracy and a Republic are imperfect, they are a sight better than a Theocracy or a monarchy.   &gt; they are literally saying I think you should be forced to live under their rule/my beliefs. Which is immoral.   We can have the luxury of being able to talk about ""morality"" of govern and rule while living in civilized society. Kind of hard to imagine you making money on stock, when there is no infrastructure.   &gt; doesn't mean that without the military/DOD we wouldn't be where we are with drones.  True. However, it is hard to deny that the military first developed drones. That argument is similar to listening to a trust fund baby tell you how they would be just as rich as they are now even if they hadn't inherited millions... Or that a Christian would still be a Christian even if he were born in Iran... Statistics tell us otherwise.   &gt; A lot of my income comes from trading stocks   That is very cool, and something I find of interest. I want to get more into this, having made very small money with individual stocks. FNME after the crash, etc. Very simple stuff. I admire what you do. I though I don't think he is speaking about the same thing.   The speculation he was talking about was guys like Goldman Sachs, etc., basically sold off bad assets and then bet against them. Not to mention the implicit selling of fraudulent mortgages. However, these are the options I believe he was referring. I do not remember reading about a blanket option policy, especially seeing as crucial they are to the commodities market."
QE2 will mean that there are about $500 billion dollars in existence which weren't there before. These dollars will all be competing with the existing dollars for real goods and services, so each dollar will be worth a little less, and prices will rise a little. This is inflation. You can probably expect 1.5%-2% annual inflation for the US dollar over the next several years (the market certainly does in the aggregate, anyway). This is in terms of US-based goods and services. QE2 will also reduce the amount of other currencies you can get for the same dollar amount. The extent to which this will occur is less clear, in part because other currencies are also considering quantitative easing. Your long-term savings should probably not be in cash anyway, because of the low returns; this will probably affect you far more than the impact of quantitative easing. As for your savings which do remain in cash, what you should do with them depends on how you plan to dispose of them. The value of a currency is usually pretty stable in terms of the local economy's output of goods and services - it's the value in international trade which tends to fluctuate wildly. If you keep your savings in the same currency you plan to spend them in, they should be able to maintain their value decently well in the intermediate term.
Yes, I am currently an undergrad student majoring in Finance. I have a strong interest in Accounting and Economics (Macro).  I have learned earlier today that due to the fact that people now live longer, our government spending increases (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc). But unfortunately, the funding that it draws from does not increase at a similar rate so the funding for other major aspects such as R&amp;D, Education, etc are being cut to offset the increase in government transfers.   Granted the Feds never spent much on education, why is it that the funding for R&amp;D in terms of percentage is so minuscule? Would it not be in each government's best interest to funnel money towards education, infrastructure, research &amp; development, etc? I'm sorry, when I learn one thing, about twenty billion other questions pop up (could be related or unrelated to what I had just learned)
Well not even in terms of marketing, but how does your management keep in contact with clients and  companies without email? Who does your accounting, hardware maintenance, contracts etc? Heck even most local and state agencies are all digital now. There must be tons of stuff falling through the cracks.
"Note: this answer was provided when the question was only about Life Insurance, therefore it does not address any other ""benefits"" Term Life Insurance is very easy to evaluate, once you have determined how much you need and for how long. For significant amounts of coverage they may require a physical to be performed. The price quotes will be for  two levels of health, so you can compare costs from many companies quite easily.  You have several sources in no particular order: employer, independent company, 3rd party like AARP, AAA, or via you bank or credit union. Note that the 3rd party will be getting a cut of the premium. Also some choices offered from the employer or 3rd party may be limited in size or duration. The independent companies will be able to have terms that extend for 10 years or more. So view the insurance offered by AARP as just another option that has to be compared to all your other options."
"Wealth and GDP aren't the same - it's like saying your salary is your wealth, when in reality your wealth can be much greater or much less. For a point of comparison, there is about 200T globally in financial assets alone, not including things like real estate, commodities, or other real assets (infrastructure, machinery, etc., although certainly a lot of that will be accounted for in financial assets like owning the stock of a company that owns a factory).   A couple more years and I'll give it a ""plausible"" (although I have no idea what kind of return you could get on financial assets prior to the modern banking system, certainly not 5%).    Edit: ha, if he had invested in 1343 he would have been caught up in one of the first bank failures in 1345... Would have capped out at about $1.10 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peruzzi  Edit again: turns out it was illegal to charge or earn interest on money in England until 1545."
There are two answers to this (excluding central banks which are really just a banks to private banks):  **Please note:  This is an oversimplification and not accounting for the fact that banks operate in both categories now.  **  Banks are either depository institutions or financial service/transaction providers.  *  Depository institutions are your typical retail bank (regions, boa retail, wells fargo retail, etc).  They accept deposits from account holders and lend out via reserve lending to mortgages and business loans for their revenue generation.    * Financial service/transaction providers are better known as IBanks.  You have your Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, etc.  These have traditionally been banks that do not accept deposit accounts but revenue generation comes from financial services such as asset management and research or from financial transaction facilitation such as market making (offering both buy/sell quotes in capital markets).  This is generally the role that banks have played historically from the medieval ages on... They started out as being entities that provided access to connecting buyers and sellers of markets.
"No, it doesn't drive me insane at all but I do agree that 'ravaged corporate America' is a bit hyperbolic. I am well versed in all things financial and I find most of these financial moves, although legal, quite reprehensible. In terms of ""finance experts"", which he has proclaimed himself not to be, I would suggest Matt Taibbi as a good read.   http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/what-s-fact-and-what-s-opinion-in-the-discussion-about-bain-and-mitt-romney-20120905"
That's true, though I feel he means it more in terms of hindsight. Yes, low interest rates will cause the stock market, as a whole, to rise. Though it is not actionable by us prior to the rise or fall in rates because we can never know before it happens.  We're then left with only one real way of making money in the market and that's the purchase of undervalued companies with all the aforementioned criteria.
&gt; Also, we're not talking about a car, albeit uber expensive, like Rolls Royce, we're talking about an airplane that costs hundreds of millions of dollars that needs to work within very small tolerances over thousands upon thousands of operating hours. Any school child can see the dangers in outsourcing too much of that.  But Rolls Royce have the experience to build in those tolerances with their years of experience in building jet engines. This is the design experience that Boeing does not have in it's in-house capabilities.  Because of the tolerances and knowledge these components need it is very hard for one company to have all the knowledge, resources, manufacturing ability and skill to produce all the parts.  Even engineers as great as NASA delegate the design and build of components to other companies. For example, if they can outsource a lot of the spacecraft interior to other companies they can focus on what is important - getting that big and heavy tube of metal into space.
"There are several reasons to pay for data instead of using Yahoo Finance, although these reasons don't necessarily apply to you if you're only planning to use the data for personal use. Yahoo will throttle you if you attempt to download too much data in a short time period. You can opt to use the Yahoo Query Language (YQL), which does provide another interface to their financial data apart from simply downloading the CSV files. Although the rate limit is higher for YQL, you may still run into it. An API that a paid data provider exposes will likely have higher thresholds. Although the reliability varies throughout the site, Yahoo Finance isn't considered the most reliable of sources. You can't beat free, of course, but at least for research purposes, the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) at UChicago and Wharton is considered the gold standard. On the commercial side, data providers like eSignal, Bloomberg, Reuters also enjoy widespread popularity. Although both the output from YQL and Yahoo's current CSV output are fairly standard, they won't necessarily remain that way. A commercial API is basically a contract with the data provider that they won't change the format without significant prior notice, but it's reasonable to assume that if Yahoo wanted to, they could make minor changes to the format and break many commercial applications. A change in Yahoo's format would likely break many sites or applications too, but their terms of use do state that Yahoo ""may change, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Yahoo! Finance Modules at any time, including the availability of any Yahoo! Finance Modules. Yahoo! may also impose limits on certain features and services or restrict your access to parts or all of the Yahoo! Finance Modules or the Yahoo! Web site without notice or liability."" If you're designing a commercial application, a paid provider will probably provide technical support for their API. According to Yahoo Finance's license terms, you can't use the data in a commercial application unless you specifically use their ""badges"" (whatever those are). See here. In this post, a Yahoo employee states: The Finance TOS is fairly specific. Redistribution of data is only allowed if you are using the badges the team has created.
I wasn't talking about college or university, which are severely overpriced, I was talking about tech schools or trade schools. I live in a city that has a lot of manufacturing jobs open but not enough people educated in the field to actually get those jobs. So there was a breakdown somewhere along the way in terms of the preparation for good paying manufacturing jobs. This is what we need to address, I think you thought I was talking about something else.
And how do hours vary as you work you way up in equity research? Is an MD looking at comparable hours during earnings season?   I've worked for the finance and IR departments of a couple telecom companies and around earnings season you guys are always putting out your reports in the middle of the night, so I sort of assumed the worst.
NY State schooler here. It is indeed who you know. Some of my better connected compatriots are in the IBDs of Goldman, JP, etc. They are brilliant but so are the harvards and yales that interviewed alongside them. It ultimately came down to speaking with people on a regular basis who can go up to bat for you. Even my back office finance internship was via a resume submission on behalf of my B-School's dean (Which I am eternally grateful for the vote of confidence on his part)   The programs them selves often don't matter. Hell, sometimes they like a good novelty (ala the juliard student in my intern class).   Example in point: Our tiny honors program churns us out with bloomberg certifications, extensive excel experience, and even a few models and pitches under our belts, which as I've gathered from my interactions with other interns, puts us a few steps ahead of the curve. But it's all for naught if we can't network our way into an interviewer's hot seat.   **tl;dr My point here is that if there is a will there is a way. Some times it just takes the will of a few others to create that way.**
While I'd don't necessarily disagree with you, the example you use is a bad one, because there are problems of access to fresh produce (healthy food) in poor areas.  So the fat poor people is not because they eat a lot so much as because of what they can afford to eat, both in terms of time spent and availability of other options.
No.  Consider any professional sports team.  Just because a salary seems large doesn't mean it's large enough.  Especially when you look at the financials of the companies involved.  Are google, microsoft and apple hurting for capital?  Is there not enough venture capital to sufficiently seed new business development?    Don't shakedown other less profitable industries to subsidize industries that are overflowing with cash.  That's a big part of the problem in America's economy. Taking money from everyone to give it to preferred industries, that in many cases don't need it.
&gt;You keep speaking annually. No one gives a fuck about annual costs. You have to earn the entire degree, so the total cost is what I am concerned with, and what I was speaking to.  Yea, and those in state costs are insanely low, nominal cost of 20-30k with scholarships routinely under 15.  No cheaper conference in the US, so not really sure your point.  &gt;Everyone else in finance laughs at you. If finance professionals are leeches on industry, you are the parasites on the cocks of leeches.  I'm sure - that's why they pay us hundreds (or thousands!) of dollars an hour to tell them what to do.
Couple quick ?s to help understand your situation a bit better. Are you currently in school and if so grad or undergrad? Undergrad opens up a whole different world of formal recruiting than you would get otherwise. It sounds like you already graduated, if so, how many years out are you? Further out, the much harder it's going to be without going back to get an MBA or MSF. Your other option is being in the top 1-5% of your career, but like has been said, you still can't get into financial consulting. IT do companies like PWC, BoozAllen, Capgemini, Cognizant and Accenture would be better.   If you're more than 5 years out of undergrad without an MBA, it is going to be EXTREMELY difficult I break in, no less with the firms you mentioned. McKinsey is a lot like Goldman, in some cases the acceptance  rate from recruiting can be more difficult than Harvard. You're going up against extremely intelligent, hard working individuals who are trained in strategy consulting through degrees. Be prepared for this and no matter what you're doing, networking is going to be key to getting in so start now. People you meet at these companies can help you more with that.   Also, what in particular excites you about consulting? Also, what kind of consulting (ie biz dev, strategy, financial, IT, due diligence, govt, etc.). You need to understand that before doing a search. There are major differences between each of them.   Not trying to he a debbie downer, just a realist. If say, for example, I did a basic programming course and really enjoyed it, I wouldn't immediately apply to Google, and Google would expect me to be formally trained by more than just reading programming books. It's not much different with very high end consulting and easily just as competitive as getting into a Google. I hope this helps.   Hopefully with a reply I can help a little more! Not saying it can't be done, just difficult depending on where you are in your career path.