vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
&gt;Also, if you follow economic theory, the cheapest way to provide healthcare is to have a large amount of people paying into the same pool  That logic only applies if those taking advantage of the healthcare opportunity contribute towards its payments, in this case, via taxation. If 46% of the population isn't paying Federal Income tax ([According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C., 46% of tax filers will owe no federal income tax this year](http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-10-06/income-tax-nonpayment/50676912/1)), the 54% are forced to support the entire group's cost. Even worse, much of the 54% will elect to use their own private healthcare because it is superior to the public option.
&gt;Huh? Agriculture is down to single digits as part of the GDP. What does that have to do with a gold standard and monetary policy? I was being sarcastic. &gt;But as soon as the USA left the gold exchange standard, total factor productivity began to dramatically stagnate. Correlation doesn't equal causation. Remember that this is also the same time that European, Japanese, and Soviet economies were picking back up after WW2. Global production picked up and there was more international competition. &gt;Because our massive debt is doing so well for us? In the beginning it looks nice because there is very little pain and is practically unnoticible, but as we see current events playing out in the US and to a greater extent Europe which isnt as tightly knit economically as the US, fiat currency has huge problems. The EU cannot print money in the same way the USA can. If anything the Euro is a cautionary tale about currency's with too stringent printing limitations. Along with tying together a set of countries at vastly different levels of economic development. The USA is not anywhere near the point of no return, and seeing as we can finance our debt at ridiculously low rates compared to the rest of the world, it would be much simpler to do that, than try and restructure the entire monetary system of the USA. &gt;Established over what? the last 40 years? We are at about 80-90 years now. &gt;Thats hardly enough time to call practical fact when the gold standard existed for hundreds and thousands of years. The gold standard has not been in use for hundreds of thousands of years. Nor was it the only currency previous to fiat. &gt;I am not sure why you think that the USA is in such a great position. The american dream is faultering if you're just starting out in life. Just ask any number of recent college grads who are increasingly living with parents, not getting married and can't find jobs. I don't think asking my local college grad is a good way of determining the USA's macro-economic situation. You're absolutely right that there is a major major disparity of wealth problem.
As Phil notes, converting to Roth means paying tax on the entire amount of the 401k (or, the entire amount moved, anyway).  Most of the time that's a bad idea.  Roth is a good idea when you're young and paying lower taxes (and often have lots of deductions), and when your money will have lots of time to appreciate tax-free. I imagine there could be edge cases, though, where this could be a good idea.  If he's got a lot of savings which he's planning to live off of for a few years (not the income, but the savings itself), then he would have $0 income for those years.  In that case, it's logical to convert some of the 401k to a Roth IRA, to take advantage of lower tax rates (probably up to or through the 15% tax rate, depending on if his total dollars are enough that he'll be paying an actual tax rate (not marginal) higher than 15% or not).   Now, odds are it's better to take that savings and invest it along with the 401k and then live off of those earnings, rather than just spending the savings, but I imagine there are some with circumstances where this would make sense - particularly if, for example, he downsized in houses and has a few hundred K from that, tax-free.
I've read this claim many times in the news: banks are making less profit from the lending business when interest rates are historically low. The issue with most loans is they can be satisfied at any time.  When you have falling interest rates it means most of the banks loans are refinanced from nice high rates to current market low interest rates which can significantly reduce the expected return on past loans.  The bank gets the money back when it wants it the least because it can only re-lend the money at the current market (lower) interest rates.  When interest rates are increasing refinance and early repayment activity reduces significantly. It's important to look at the loan from the point of view of the bank, a bank must first issue out the entire principal amount.  On a 60 month loan the lender has not received payments sufficient to satisfy the principal until around 50th or 55th month depending on the interest rate.  If the bank receives payment of the outstanding amount on month 30 the expected return on that loan is reduced significantly. Consider a $10,000, 60 month loan at 5% apr.  The bank is expected to receive $11,322 in total for interest income of $1,322.  If the loan is repaid on month 30, the total interest is about $972.  That's a 26% reduction of expected interest income, and the money received can only be re-lent for yet a lower interest rate. Add to this the tricky accounting of holding a loan, which is really a discounted bond, which is an asset, on the books and profitability of lending while interest rates are falling gets really funky. And this doesn't even examine default risk/cost.
Actually the Fidelity hypothetical example (with same marginal tax rates) is super misleading.  They are putting the money saved up front from the traditional 401k in to at taxable account. Why? If you put the actual money used for the Roth that would be saved into traditional 401k they look the same no matter the timeline (with a hypothetical unchanging tax rate). Check this out.  So there are only two things to consider when choosing traditional vs roth.
"From the page you referenced, first click the link ""EI premium rate and maximum"". There you'll find the calculation itself, but not the percentage rate. Then from that page, near the bottom, click the link ""EI premium rates and maximums"". It's almost the same title as the prior page, so a little confusing, but that pluralized version has the data you were looking for. Partial quote:  The same rates are applied across Canada, except in the province of Quebec. That province has a different set of rates because they administer their own Parental Insurance Plan. In particular, self-employed workers in Quebec can opt into QPIP (even if they wouldn't qualify to participate in EI) and potentially collect parental benefits. Typical non-self-employed workers in Quebec pay into both EI (at the reduced rates for Quebec) as well as QPIP."
the last 40 years? Thats hardly enough time to call practical fact when the gold standard existed for hundreds and thousands of years. Infact NO fiat currency that has ever existed has survived. That is the real fact, and the dollar and euro themselves are currently going through the end stages of this cancer. &gt;TL;DR The Gold Standard sucks, it has a lot of problems. Fiat Currency rocks for the USA because USA Fuck yeah! We are in a particular advantage where the real risks of fiat currency don't really apply to the USA **55 Million on food stamps with 20-30 million more on other forms of government assistance such as unemployment and welfare, unemployment increasing, GDP growth decreasing, median income decreasing, total employment stagnant (Same number of full time wage earners exist today as in 2000, despite 30+ million more American citizens), decreased consumer confidence, Average age of cars on the road went from 5 years in the 1960s to 12 years today (people dont buy new cars as frequently meaning less disposable income), decreased home ownership, increased retirement age, decreased young american employment.** **I am not sure why you think that the USA is in such a great position. The american dream is faultering if you're just starting out in life. Just ask any number of recent college grads who are increasingly living with parents, not getting married and can't find jobs.**"
Your math is correct. As you point out, because of the commutative property of multiplication, Roth and traditional IRAs offer the same terminal wealth if your tax rate is the same when you pull it out as when you put it in.  Roth does lock in your tax rate as of today as you point out, which is why it frequently does not maximize wealth (most of us have a higher tax bracket when we are saving than when we are withdrawing from savings). There are a few other potential considerations/advantages of a Roth: Roth and traditional IRAs have the same maximum contribution amount.  This means the effective amount you can contribute to a Roth is higher ($5,500 after tax instead of before).  If this constraint is binding for you and you don't expect your tax rate to change, Roth is better. Roth IRAs allow you to withdraw your contributed money (not the gains) at any time without any tax or penalty whatsoever.  This can be an advantage to some who would like to use it for something like a down payment instead of keeping it all the way to retirement.  In this sense the Roth is more flexible. As your income becomes high, the deductibility of traditional IRA contributions goes to zero if you have a 401(k) at work (you can still contribute but can't deduct contributions).  At high incomes you also may be disallowed from contributing to a Roth, but because of the backdoor Roth loophole you can make Roth contributions at any income level and preserve the full Roth tax advantage. Which type of account is better for any given person is a complex problem with several unknowns (like future tax rates).  However, because tax rates are generally higher when earning money, for most people who can contribute to them, traditional IRAs maximize your tax savings and therefore wealth. Edit: Note that traditional IRA contributions also reduce your AGI, which is used to compute eligibility for other tax advantages, like the child care tax credit and earned income credit.  AGI is also often used for state income tax calculation. In retirement, traditional IRA distributions may or may not be state taxable, depending on your state and circumstances.
As soon as you begin to get in regular payments, maybe a single payment of a significant size, or multiple payments for a similar service/item, you are vastly more likely to need to register. From my reading you would likely be safe to begin putting up videos without registration, but if you begin spending a large portion of your time over an extended period (multiple months) and/or begin getting payments of any notable size then you should likely register with the appropriate services (HMRC, etc). As is the case in both the USA and UK, simple registration is pretty cheap and the costs of little/no income are usually pretty minor. Also note that the HMRC trading and self-employment regulations are unusual compared to many US laws/institutions, in that you are explicitly permitted to begin doing something and only register later. So if you start doing videos for an entire tax year + 5 months and make nothing significant, you'd seemingly be fine to never register at all."
Too long for a comment -  It's great that you are saving to the match on the 401(k). Does your company offer a Roth 401(k)? If so, you might consider that, instead. From the numbers you offered, you are likely in the 15% bracket now, but will find you move to 25% in years to come. The 2014 tax rates are out and how the 15% bracket ending at $36,900. (Over $47,000 gross income). I'd rather see you pay tax at 15% now, and use pre-tax accounts as your income rises. If the Roth is available.
Asset prices across the board are at historic highs because interest rates have been too low for too long. Owners/sellers of assets win, and this is primarily the baby boomer generation, and the buyer of these assets loose, primarily gen x and millennials. I'm really not looking forward to at best, stagnating asset prices as interest rates are inevitably increased, or at worst, another crash.
You'd be moving from 33.5K of taxable income + 16.5K of untaxable income, to 65K of taxable income (worst case). So the question is whether the net from the extra 31.5K of taxable income is more than the 16.5K, and since marginal tax rates in the relevant brackets are no more than 32% according to the table you posted (22% federal and 10% provincial), it's definitely a win to move jobs. More precisely, the marginal tax rate is 25% on the first 8044 (41544-33500) and 32% on the rest, making for total extra tax of about 9.5K and thus net income (beyond the 33.5K baseline) of 22K. Compared to the 16.5K this leaves you 5.5K up. If you end up at the 70K end, you're another 3.4K up beyond that.
A lot wrong with this statement. Services which is 90% of their income is not exclusive to tourism. If you read the entire thing properly you'd know 80% of their income from services is not from the US 80% of its tourism is from the US. You're also changing the argument now you're attacking the economic policies of these countries and claiming it is reflective of their tax policy when in reality that's not true. Do you know what the Bahamian fiscal policies are?   EDIT: 50% of Bahamas income is tourism
"By ""basic public pension"" I assume you mean Social Security, which is pretty much the only quasi-universal pension-like thing in the USA.  If she has any other sort of pension (e.g., from a job) you'd need to get more specific info about that. As for Social Security, as described here: While you are working, your earnings will reduce your benefit amount only until you reach your full retirement age. According to the calculator on that site, if she is 65 now, her full retirement age would be 66, so if she retires after that age her SS benefit won't be reduced due to extra income. As described here, if she has considerable income apart from SS, she may have to pay taxes on her SS income.  This would not reduce her income, but means the benefit of her extra blog income would be reduced.  This page describes how to calculate your ""provisional income"" to determine whether SS benefits will be taxed.  According to that page: If your provisional income is less than $25,000 for single or head-of-household returns, or $32,000 for joint returns, then your Social Security benefits will not be taxed. Based on the numbers you gave, this suggests she would not incur an SS tax.  However, she should probably take a look at the Social Security retirement estimator and other tools on that site, if she hasn't already done so, to get a sense of what sort of income SS will be providing her. I'd suggest that she talk to a retirement planner and/or CPA to get a handle on what her finances would be like.  At the least, she should find someone knowledgeable about Social Security policies and tax issues in the USA.  As you say, you are unfamiliar with the way these matters work in the USA, so your ability to help her make financial decisions is limited."
The same can be done in the USA depending on what city and how richly someone wants to live.  I went to a fine public school in suburban US and I walked to school just a few blocks, free, as are all public schools.  As for medical bills and your best friends mother, it is also not expensive to die of cancer in the USA!  But, you did not tell me how big of an apartment can be had in Lisbon for a minimum wage worker spending less than 30% of his income, nor how big is a 2 bedroom apartment there.
Normally interest only mortgages are taken incase one planning to sell off the property after a few years and purchase of the property is for investment. In such a case instead of burdening oneself with a huge EMI, one opts for an interest only mortgage, and towards the end of the term, sell off the house at profit and repay back the entire principal.  I am not to sure if interest only mortgages are encouraged for properties you plan to live in. Although I do not know about the ING scheme, normally there is no prepayment option on interest only mortgages, its Bank way of earning a fixed income for the contracted period and thats the reason why the interest rates are lower than a regular mortgage. If you do the math, you may be paying more in total interest than on a regular mortgage.
Keep in mind that the only portion of the MBS that was rated AAA was the most senior tranche. It achieved this rating due to the buffer to principal losses provided by the equity and mezzanine tranches. So for the principal to be at risk for the AAA senior tranche, 10% of the mortgages in the pool would have to default. Since this number was way higher than historical default rates - it seemed safe. Obviously looking back we know that risk management underestimated the effect that lowered lending standards would have on the default rates (if they did project a rise in default rates, they did not project a large enough rise).  As well, while the MBS is exposed to systemic risk - as happened, when the entire country was affected by the collapse - they were packaged to avoid other risks. For example, the pool would spread out mortgages across the country and other various factors would be hedged so that if a natural disaster hits state X and everyone defaults on their mortgage, you are only losing a small part of the underlying.  I assume (hope) that at some point the quantitative analysis people in risk management at the major investment banks realized that the default rates would rise given the lower lending standards being employed - but chose to ignore it. They chose to ignore it because investors still wanted to buy it, and the banks make money by collecting fees on issuing securities.
&gt; if govt does it's job of keeping some competition in the banking sector, then the rates offered you and me should be near the actual cost to service such loans,   You cannot really believe this.  There is no sector more artificial than banking, and under the current regime there is no such thing as a relation between any interest rates and the cost to service the loans.  Rates have been artificially depressed across the spectrum using every available manipulation, and we are experiencing a coordinated money-printing/government bailout operation on a global scale.  To say that rates anywhere have any relation to the real cost and/or demand for capital is absurd.
Raising money from real property is an ancient tradition which is prevalent throughout the world even today. Delaware, situated in the north- eastern region of USA is no exception to this. Delaware has a lot of good mortgage lenders and the one firm that tops the list is definitely highlands mortgage. They not only tell you what the best mortgage rates are today but also carry out a number of functions.
Not doing this would defeat the entire purpose of a VAT. The reason for a VAT rather than a simple sales tax is that it's harder to evade. Having a simple sales tax with the type of rates that VAT taxes typically are is unworkable because evasion is too easy. Imagine I'm a retailer. I buy products from a wholesaler and sell them to consumers. With a sales tax, if I don't charge the customer sales tax, the customer is happy and I don't care (assuming I don't get caught). And if I keep the sales tax but don't report the sale, I make a lot of money. Now, imagine a VAT. If I don't charge the customer the VAT, I lose money since I paid the VAT on the wholesale products. And if I don't report the sale, how do I claim my VAT refund?
besides accrued interest But that's important. one has $40,000 in their account and the other $9,000. Does one now pay higher income tax because he has more in his account or does he pay the same because he makes the same? If they are interest bearing accounts, then yes the guy with the $40K balance will pay a little more* income tax than the guy with $9K. * If the account earns 1%/ann and the $40K and $9K have been in there all year, then the big account will earn $401.84 interest, and the smaller will earn $90.41.
assuming you are in the USA, i would recommend making this a gift.  you can gift someone up to 14k$ per year without paying a gift tax. additionally, you can gift someone up to 5430k$, but it is a one-time deal (tied to inheritance tax).   you can have a general expectation with the giftee that they will return the money with some interest on some schedule.  you can even write that payment schedule down.  but for legal, tax and personal relationship reasons, you should both consider all these payments gifts. if you think failure to repay will put a strain on your relationship, then you shouldn't make the loan.  if not, then the payments in both directions really are gifts. as a gift, legal documentation can be really minimal. really, only the gifter has to document anything, and that is just on their tax return. even then, i think it is only necessary if you exceed the 14k$ annual gift limit. i would however recommend documenting any interest rates or payment schedules for personal reasons. being a gift, these numbers are just guidelines, but at least you won't find yourself arguing about whether or not the guidelines are being met. depending on how large the amounts involved are, you might want to spread the load over several people to stay under that annual limit. but the limit is per tax year, so you could do half now and half in january.
Once you reach age 75, as well as any money that's still in drawdown, anything you haven't yet crystallised at all gets tested against the LTA under BCE 5B. Broadly, once you go over the LTA, the charges are simple: There's never any explanation given for these two rates, but I think it's all based on trying to at least cancel out the benefit you got from using your pension, on the assumption that: So with the 25% charge + 20% income tax, if you take out £100, you'll end up with £75 gross income, so £60 net income - just the same as if you'd originally paid 40% tax. (This ignores the effect of investment growth, but if you would have saved the £60 in an ISA, the end result is the same: if you had growth of say 50% over the time the money was in your pension, it'll be the same effect if you had £100 growing to £150 and now received 60% of it, or if you had £60 growing to £90 untaxed in an ISA.) The 55% lump sum charge is in case you are paying 40% tax when you take it out, to make sure that it's not a more attractive option than the 25%+income tax: if you have £100, either you get £45 tax free via a lump sum, or you get £75 gross and hence £45 net. I haven't covered lots of cases here: defined benefit pensions. Roughly, when you start receiving the pension, 20x the initial income from the pension is deemed to crystallise under BCE 2 and any lump sum you receive crystallises under BCE 6. In the former case, you could end up having to pay the LTA charge with money you haven't actually got yet, and you can ask the pension administrator to instead reduce your pension to pay it. However, there are lots of special cases for defined benefit pensions, mostly for historical reasons, so you should make sure you check with your pension administrator about this. if you die before age 75, at which point the LTA test is applied via either BCE 5C/5D, or BCE 7. After paying the LTA charge if any, your dependents or whoever else you leave it to gets the remainder tax-free.
"I refuse to vote for Mitt Romney but I don't see what's wrong with his position in this instance. Homes are way too expensive currently and helping people with underwater mortgages would be akin to propping up unsustainable home prices.  The only way to fix the housing market it so value homes at a value that people are willing or able to pay. Given the wage deflation going on in the USA coupled with a good portion of an entire generation of new home buyers saddle with a mortgage sized student loan debts, it's ridiculous to think current home prices represent the ""bottom"" of the market."