vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
What is best for everyone is maximizing the effectiveness of the resources at hand.  We are most certainly not doing that, as there is just so much capacity sitting idle right now.  Demand is what we are lacking.  Stimulus creates demand.  Demand puts people to work, it builds companies, it brings ideas to fruition.  Effective limiters can be used to avoid consequences of an overheating economy when that time comes, but we are far away from that point.  Imposing these silly superstitions that somehow someday the U.S. is going to get to a point where we can't pay back our debt is making us lose focus on the fact that real people are suffering today, and that we can do something about it.  Without artificial constraints like congress putting a limit on the debt, **it is impossible for the U.S. government to default.**
No, it makes no sense.   The US national debt is different from other debt on TWO KEY WAYS : 1.) The national debt is not money we owe to our government IT IS MONEY WE OWE TO OURSELVES. 2.) If the GNP of our country can grow at a rate equal to or greater than the national debt interest, then the figure of national debt has no bearing on anything. So a more philanthropic endeavor would be to help grow the economy.
"You should immediately tell your bank you've been scammed, request for the transactions' cancellation or revocation and get back most - if not all - of the money transferred. I've placed numerous orders online in the past and was always very careful about their trace-ability but I have to admit once I acted carelessly and got scammed. I didn't think of it much before placing an order for a very low priced laptop through a private seller on Amazon. I'd never purchased anything this way before but thought ""Amazon will protect me if anything goes wrong..."" so I sent an e-mail to the seller. He gave me his bank details (with Spanish IBAN) via a non-suspicious e-mail with the usual logos and e-mail address domain name, made the payment and guy came back to me saying he'll ship the laptop once he sees the funds received. Waited max. 2 days, trying to contact him but no response. Contacted Amazon giving the seller's ID and the ""transaction""'s ID I'd received from him and they told me there's nothing they can do as that transaction is not recorded on their systems. Immediately after realizing I've been scammed and done my goof, I contacted my bank via e-mail explaining the situation. I was informed that the transaction can be cancelled but they cannot guarantee the return of the entire amount. After 2-3 days, I saw my balance richer by €950 and the payment I'd made to the scum was €1,000. I'd highly recommend that you check the fraud protection policy of your bank and in case there's something that can be done, then just get in contact with them explaining the situation."
The balance is the amount due.
You don't need to file or do anything. The bank will report all transfers over 10 000, but chances are slim that it will even be looked at, if you don't do this every week. Worst case, someone will ask you about the source, and you tell them exactly what you wrote above (I had multiple international transfers over 60k and nobody ever asked). You said you paid his tuition, and he is now paying you back, so in case someone asks, you should be able to produce the documentation on the tuition payment - a bill, or your bank statement showing you paid it; and the amount should be matching, so you have proof. Note that if he pays you interest, it is taxable income. You are obligated to list it on your next tax filing.
I edited my W4 over several years, trying to get rid of my refund.  It's a balancing act, just be careful to not owe more than about $1000 each year.  They can hit you with a small penalty.  It's never been enough to concern me, but it's there. It's also a balancing act if you get a raise, a bonus, any kind of differences in pay...
"Yes, that's all they do.  It's effectively an ""automatic saving/investing"" program.  Bank of America does something similar with ""Keep the Change"", transferring the leftovers from checking to savings. The basic concept here is that people are lousy at saving, so if you put money into savings/investments in some way that is not in your control, it will be better than if you do it under your control even if it costs something because you're going to spend whatever your checking account balance is - so if that balance is artificially reduced, you'll not spend that money and instead have it in savings.  This may be effective for some people, I don't know.  Not something I would touch with a ten foot pole."
I doubt it's legal, but for next time, just go onto the website and your balance will be right there front-and-center... no need to deal with some ill-informed cranky lady in a call center half-way across the world.
I bought a Thinkpad in Dec 2007 using BillMeLater, which was working with IBM/Lenovo at that time.  I was getting the notebook at the lowest price available, from the manufacturer.  I had the money to pay for it -- around $1400.  But I went ahead and took the offer from BillMeLater.  It was essentially a 12-month zero-interest credit card balance transfer loan.  Sketchy bit its very nature.  They spammed my inbox with solicitations, which was annoying.  But I set my bank to pay the monthly amount (or slightly over, since it decreases each month) and to make the final payoff -- all at the time of purchase.  This  worked just fine -- but I still had spam from BillMeLater for quite a while.  I still ran a slight risk that something would go wrong, at which point I'd face interest charges -- but I would then have paid off the item plus those interest charges.  Luckily I avoided that.  I'm not sure I'd bother doing this again, but if the sticker price was high enough, I might be tempted....
The right answer to this question really depends on the size of the transfer.  For larger transfers ($10k and up) the exchange rate is the dominant factor, and you will get the best rates from Interactive Brokers (IB) as noted by Paul above, or OANDA (listed by user6714). Under $10k, CurrencyFair is probably your best bet; while the rates are not quite as good as IB or OANDA, they are much better than the banks, and the transaction fees are less.  If you don't need to exchange the currency immediately, you can put in your own bids and potentially get better rates from other CurrencyFair users. Below $1000, XE Trade (also listed by user6714) has exchange rates that are almost as good, but also offers EFT transfers in and out, which will save you wire transfer fees from your bank to send or receive money to/from your currency broker.  The bank wire transfer fees in the US can be $10-$30 (outgoing wires on the higher end) so for smaller transfers this is a significant consideration you need to look into; if you are receiving money in US, ING Direct and many brokerage accounts don't charge for incoming wires - but unless you have a commercial bank account with high balances, expect to spend $10-$20 minimum for outgoing.  European wire transfer fees are minimal or zero in most cases, making CurrencyFair more appealing if the money stays in Europe. Below $100, it's rarely worth the effort to use any of the above services; use PayPal or MoneyBookers, whatever is easiest. Update:  As of December 2013, CurrencyFair is temporarily suspending operations for US residents: Following our initial assessment of regulatory changes in the United States, including changes arising from the Dodd-Frank Act, CurrencyFair will temporarily withdraw services for US residents while we consider these requirements and how they impact our business model.  This was a difficult and very regretful decision but we are confident we will be able to resume services in the future. The exact date of re-activation has not yet been determined and may take some time. We appreciate your patience and will continue communicating our status and expected return.
I'm not sure if someone else answered already in the same manner I will. I can't guarantee for sure if it's the same in the U.S.A. (it might since major credit cards companies like Visa/MC/AMEX are American companies) but in Canada having/keeping unused CC is a disadvantage because of the following: Banks and financing companies look more at the total amount of credit available to you than at how much purchases you have on your cards. Ex: Let's say that you have the following: - Visa cc with $10,000 limit and $2000 worth of purchases (made more than 30 days ago) on it. - Mastercard cc with $10,000 limit as well and $1000 worth of purchases (less than 30 days old) - A major retail store cc with $2000 limit and $0 balance. Hypothetical situation: You want a bank loan to do some expensive house repairs and are looking for a lower interest rate than what your cc can offer. The bank will not care about the amount on the cards. They will add-up all the limits of your cc and treat your loan request as if ALL your cards were filled to their respective limit.  So in this case: they will consider you as being right now in debt of $10K+$10K+$2K = $22,000 instead of only $3000 and they might:  1. refuse you the loan 2. grant it only if you transfer all purchases on a single card and cancel all the others. 3. Once the $3000 is transferred on one of the cards (and the others cancelled), they can require that you reduce the limit of that card. Hope this helps!
Sorry, you cannot transfer EPF into PPF. The investments in PPF are limited to 150,000 per year. Withdrawal is in 7th year, i.e. After completion of 6 financial years. 50% of the Balance of 4th year can be withdrawn. 2.Withdraw the money and find a new form of investment. This is definitely possible. A lump sum investment into NPS [New Pension Scheme] or various Retirement schemes, or equity / real estate etc Is there any other 3rd solution for this situation? Keep the money AS-IS as the money will still continue to grow. The interest is stop getting accrued after 3 years of NO contribution. Within 36 months if an account will not get any deposit then it will be considered as dormant/inactive account. So you can wait for sometime before you decide to withdraw.
It is all a balancing act. You must pay them a respectable wage. You must treat them with respect. They in turn must perform their duties as good as or better than expected of them. If either party doesn't fulfill their half of the deal then it would be expected that they part ways if the issue can not be fixed
On what basis did you do your initial allocation of funds to each stock?   If you are 're-balancing' that implies returning things to their initial allocation.  You can do this without any research or recommendations. If you started out with say 10 stocks and 10% of the funds allocated to each stock, then re-balancing would simply be either buying/selling to return to that initial allocation.  If you are contributing to the portfolio you could adjust where the new money goes to re-balance without selling.  Or if you are drawing money from the portfolio, then you could adjust what you are selling. If on the other hand you are trying to decide if you want to alter the stocks the portfolio is HOLDING, then you have an entirely different question from 're-balancing'
"Visa Electron should be usable in any ATM (and shop) that accepts Visa, especially if the ATM also contains the ""Plus"" logo. However, if it's (for example) the card issued by La Banque Postale (in French) there are quite low withdrawal and spending limits.  These limits are over a period of the most recent seven days, so it can take a while before you can withdraw more.  So maybe not suitable to transfer a significant amount to your CZK account. As an alternative to finding an ATM that might have a fee, you can maybe use it to buy something small, then get cashback from stores that offer that. As it's a debit card, it needs to check the balance in real-time, so there are reports of it being often declined if it can't get a fast response from the home bank. In other words, make sure you have an alternative."
I am super sorry about your divorce and nod to you for taking care of your kids and spouse.  This may sound super snarky, although not my intention, but you have an income problem.  Despite making almost double the national average, you are supporting two households, and live in a high cost of living area.  (BTW been there, done that and also in IT.) The best way to avoid paying CC interest is to pay them off, and cut them up.  Some might poo-poo the idea as you can earn some $ by getting CC rebates, but you are not in that mode right now.  Consolidations, and balance transfers are a losing game as you can probably feel the November deadline looming.      If I was you, I would get a second job, even if it was something like pumping gas.  Making an extra $500/month increases your balance reduction by 650%.  Sell stuff.  Recently an older version of Visual Studio, that was sitting unused on my shelf, went for $400 on Ebay.   The best way to solve this problem is through sweat equity.  There are no easy answers.  It sucks, but putting your big boy pants on and being prepared to work 20 hours of the day is the easiest way out of this.   If you do this you will learn a lesson about CC utilization that most don't learn.
I would strongly advise that you do not use Western Union or any other wire transfer service for any money transfer, unless you personally know and trust the recipient of your funds, and the method by which you can communicate the details of the transaction. As was mentioned, wire transfers are irreversible and very difficult to trace to ensure the actual recipient got the funds. In some countries and situations, literally anyone can show up at any Western Union location, correctly recite the details of the transaction (which is proof enough they are the intended recipient) and receive the cash. If the vendor accepts PayPal, then simply set up a PayPal account, linked to your credit card, and pay the vendor that way. This can be done 100% online, assuming you have a valid card.
Banks only send your balance to credit bureaus once a month; usually a few days after your statement date.  Thus, as long as your usage is below 10% in that date range, you're ok. Regarding paying it off early: sure.  Every Sunday night, I pay our cards' charges from the previous week.  (The internet makes this too easy.)
Start with his website, specifically his seven steps. Most everything else is around motivating people to actually do the plan. As he often says personal finance is 80% personal and 20% finance, by which he means that things that make sense financially (paying off high interest debt first) don't necessarily motivate action (so instead pay off the smallest debt first to get motivation). Really the rest is details around those seven concepts. On his site there is a link to a free one-hour podcast for the iPod, and you can pay for the full three hours of his radio show on podcast. He started on radio, and it is probably his best format. The reason Dave Ramsey has limited appeal beyond the US is that he is explicitly evangelical. He views his system as an extension of his Christian beliefs. That sells very well in parts of the US, but doesn't port very well. There is actually nothing religious in his program, other than the occasional reference to biblical verses in an attempt to tie his program into his religion, but people who are really interested and want to teach his program, not just practice it, are going to find they need to be an Evangelical (or at least a Christian) to fit in. Addendum: I should mention that Dave Ramsey is changing the FPU program (and I expect it will trickle into other things) to be more explicitly (although apparently not overtly) religious and have a stronger emphasis on budgeting. See here.
"Trump is paying off his election ""debt"" to the oil industry because if he doesn't their money won't be there the next time he needs it. If you think he gives a shit about anything else, you've been smokin' Colorado way to much."
The federal program is struggling financially. The NFIP is $25 billion in debt after paying out damages for hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. It will probably have to borrow more money to pay for Harvey, which is on track to be one of the most destructive in U.S. history. The NFIP is only authorized to borrow up to about $30 billion, meaning the agency could hit its limit after all the Harvey claims come in.
The rent you are paying is not out of line with your income, but New York is a very expensive place to live in general. Moving might help you reduce your expenses. I hope you realize at this point that it was pretty silly of you to borrow $4k for a new bedroom set while you were $47k in debt. You referred to your low-interest loans as ""free money,"" but they really aren't. They all need to be paid back. Ask yourself: If you had forced yourself to save up $4k before buying the furniture, would you still have purchased the furniture, or would you have instead bought a used set on Craigslist for $200? This is the reason that furniture stores offer 0% interest loans. They got you to buy something that you couldn't afford. Don't take the bait again. You didn't mention credit cards, so I hope that means that you don't owe any money on credit cards. If you do, then you need to start thinking of that as debt, and add that to your debt emergency. If you do use a credit card, commit to only charging what you already have in the bank and paying off the card in full every month. YNAB can make this easier. $50/hr and $90k per year are fairly close to each other when you factor in vacation and holidays. That is not including other benefits, so any other benefits put the salaried position ahead. You said that you have a few more years on your parents' health coverage, but there is no need to wait until the last minute to get your own coverage. Health insurance is a huge benefit. Also, in general, I would say that salaried positions have better job security. (This is no guarantee, of course. Anyone can get laid off. But, as a contractor, they could tell you not to come in tomorrow, and you'd be done. Salaried employees are usually given notice, severance pay, etc.) if I were you, I would take the salaried position. Investing is important, but so is eliminating this debt emergency. If you take the salaried position, one of your new benefits will be a retirement program.
So you're expecting people to go in debt getting a degree for jobs that don't require an advanced education and will not likely pay enough for them to pay off their student loan debt. That in the words of the author of this article is just plain dumb.
*1. Apple - holding over 100b cash in their vault more than any banks have in their reserves in the world and more than enough to pay off all of the debts of the U.S.*  There is $14 trillion in US government debt. You're off by a couple of orders of magnitude.
&gt; If you're saddled with a ton of debt and also don't have a degree to show for it, I'd say it's much more likely you're going to have trouble paying it off.  This is how generational poverty continues.
I really don't understand. Do many Greeks actually feel entitled to having the rest of Europe pay to keep them afloat without making any changes to curb corruption, fraud, or fix bloated government programs or raising taxes?    It seems so simple when presented by the media  Problem: Greece can't afford to run the govt or pay off its national debts  Responsible Solutions:  1) Make spending cuts and try to curb govt bloat and corruption.  2) Increase taxes and make an effort to prevent illegal tax avoidance.  The stories I've seen imply the people refuse to accept either approach to a solution.   If they refuse  both of those approaches Europe must pay to keep them afloat.  It seems so ignorant and childish to me. You gotta pay for your own shit, otherwise there will be consequences.
Indeed, a well respected study found that American children are still not dumb enough that they don't understand that they are paying off 20 Trillion of debt borrowed from a bank that prints its own money, but expects to be repaid in real money.  It also recommended that lead be added to the diet and where children seemed resilient and stubborn and asked to many questions, it be administered with a .38  Shalom bitches it concluded
"To answer #3 specifically, there are a number of exemptions from The Individual Shared Responsibility Payment (the ""fine"" or ""penalty"" for being uninsured). One of those is: You lived in a state that didn’t expand its Medicaid program but you   would have qualified if it had. That exemption (others may well apply based on income to many people in this category) applies for the entire year if: You live in a state that hasn’t expanded its Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act [and] Your income and household size would have qualified you or your family for Medicaid if the state had expanded coverage As such, people who are stuck in the Medicaid gap in those states will not be fined. People in this category also have a special option to enroll in a non-Medicaid plan if their estimated annual income increases later in the year, even outside the normal enrollment period."
It is crazy.  The same guy (Madigan) has been in power since the EARLY 80's, and yet public opinion is split about 50/50 between whether he or governor Rauner who has been in power 2 years is to blame.       Politicians paid off unions through unfunded pensions to members to ensure support.   This has happened for decades, and has finally gotten to the point where the money ran out and the pensions are falling due.       Illinois and Chicago also regularly borrow for day to day government expenses (as opposed to infrastructure).  This means much of the debt being paid off today, paid for government expenditure decades ago in areas today's residents gain no benefit.
This is a very misleading headline.  The USPS is mired in debt because they over-extended their labor costs and obligations, despite declining revenues and a dying business model. The Internet has stolen their market, wholesale, and yet they still over near permanent employment, health insurance and defined benefit pensions.  If the USPS does not make it's $5B payment into the health care fund, what happens when employees need to draw on that fund in the future? Who will pay for hip replacements and cancer treatments?  This is an obligation, just like servicing trucks, paying salaries, buying gas, etc. They're dying because letters turned into free email and junk mail turned into spam and website analytics.
One can expatriate and (depending on where you go) get some protections from the debt following you. Some DACA dreamers are finding this option a best choice given the current political environment. But, this is obviously an extreme measure :(
Here are the advantages to the HDHP/HSA option over the PPO option, some of which you've already mentioned: Lower premiums, saving $240 annually. Your employer is contributing $1500 to your HSA.  As you mentioned, this covers your deductible if you need it, and if you don't, the $1500 is yours to keep inside your HSA. The ability to contribute more to your HSA.  You will be able to contribute additional funds to your HSA and take a tax deduction. Besides the medical expenses applied to your deductible, HSA funds can be spent on medical expenses that are not covered by your insurance, such as dental, vision, chiropractic, etc.  Anything left in your HSA at age 65 can be withdrawn just like with a traditional IRA, with tax due (but no penalty) on anything not spent on medical expenses. With the information that you've provided about your two options, I can't think of any scenario where you'd be better off with the PPO.  However, you definitely want to look at all the rest of the details to ensure that it is indeed the same coverage between the two options.  If you find differences, I wrote an answer on another question that walks you through comparing insurance options under different scenarios.