"I've had an echo (well, now three of them) for more than two years. It starts out as a novelty. Then you find the things that are useful, which is mostly just kitchen timers, quick math &amp; conversion questions, music &amp; radio &amp; podcasts, and trivia questions to settle an argument. Sometimes I ask about the weather, something in the news, etc. And then, occasionally I'll order something or add something to a shopping list. The only home automation device I control with the echo is the thermostat (""Alexa, make it cooler""). The latest development is our acquisition of the Echo Show, which just adds a touch screen. That has added the ability to a. Shop visually, which I still don't do often; b. Entertain/distract my toddler for a few minutes in the kitchen (""Alexa, play Daniel Tiger""); and b. Video chat with my mom, for whom I also bought one (again, for keeping the kid occupied while we're cooking). So, all in all, I don't think I'm really using it the way Amazon wants (i.e., voice purchases, and buying more Alexa-connected devices because i have this hub), but I'm still happy with it and use it every day. And as you might gather, i am neither single nor old nor affluent. So that's my story."


That's a thread derailer right there. No, is the quick answer. I have just about enough faith in the justice system here to think that a spurious discrimination claim would eventually just be thrown out. But in that case something has to sway you and you'd better be damn sure it doesn't look like gender was the deciding factor.


Rule of thumb: To retire with a yearly income of $X, you need to save $(20*X) -- in other words, the safe assumption is that you'll average 4% returns on your stabilized savings/investments. In the case of retiring with a $50k passive pretax income, that means you need savings of $1M by the time you retire. If you want the $50,000 to be real post-tax spendable dollars, and your savings aren't in something like a Roth 401k or Roth IRA, increase that proportionately to account for taxes. How you get there depends on what you start with, how much you put into it every year, how you invest it and how many years you have before your retirement date. Passive investment alone will not do it unless you start with a lot of money; passive ongoing investment may depending on how much you can make yourself save when. To find out whether any specific plan will do what you need, you have to work with real numbers.


Firstly, thank you for taking the time to respond, let me see what I can answer to help give you a bigger picture. * I am the rental manager but like I say, it's a small unit where the operations team is only 5 strong. We all have a hand in everything really and it was my precedent for implementing procedures in the past that triggered them to ask me into looking into this. * Honestly, I don't think I have much of a budget. That being said, if there's a price to anything and I can justify the company spending the money, they will be fair. From a personal perspective, I never even considered that third party software would be required for this kind of thing. If there's any you could recommend (licensed or open sourced) that would be greatly appreciated. * From what I can tell, the people in charge want a process in which we can fully understand CSAT from both a service and product standpoint. We can use the information gathered from our service feedback to improve ourselves and we can use the information gathered about the vehicles we lease (the products) so we can market them correctly in the future. Seeing how the customer feels on the vehicle's fuel economy, performance, comfort on the driver, downtime, etc. which can lead us to marketing the vehicles better or influence what vehicles we purchase moving on. * For the most part, I think the working processes are going to remain the same, where the customer support manager will have a more active role in getting these calls/visits/emails out to the customers and react accordingly. Again, thank you so much for your help.


"A small localized war is not tits up. Think WWIII where there is no escape from the war. No one is going to want your Monopoly Money. Especially because your ""currency"" currently relies on infrastructure maintained by the state to exist. Don't delude yourself to think it is stateless. ""Hey bro, I know were in the middle of warzone. Let's just find a wi-fi hotspot so I can pay for food."""


"Tricky question, basically, you just want to first spread risk around, and then seek abnormal returns after you understand what portions of your portfolio are influenced by (and understand your own investment goals) For a relevant timely example: the German stock exchange and it's equity prices are reaching all time highs, while the Greek asset prices are reaching all time lows. If you just invested in ""Europe"" your portfolio will experience only the mean, while suffering from exchange rate changes. You will likely lose because you arbitrarily invested internationally, for the sake of being international, instead of targeting a key country or sector. Just boils down to more research for you, if you want to be a passive investor you will get passive investor returns. I'm not personally familiar with funds that are good at taking care of this part for you, in the international markets."


Honestly I've found that when a restaurant messes up an order, it is almost always because the cashier messed up. So if restaurants implement touch pad ordering, and then the food preparer reads directly what I ordered, it is almost always made correctly. I love online ordering.


"Diversify into leveraged short/bear ETFs and then you can quit your job and yell at your boss ""F you I'm short your house!"" edit: this is a quote from Greg Lippmann and mentioned in the book ""The Big Short"""


Regarding your second bullet I would highly suggest reading Michael Lewis' book *Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World*. I just finished it myself and it provided some great insight not only into the Greek / Sovereign debt crisis.


A trailing stop will sell X shares at some percentage below the current market price. Putting in this order with a 10% trailing stop when the stock price is $50 will sell the stock when it hits $45. It's a market order at that point (see below). A stop order will sell the stock when it reaches a certain price. The stop order becomes a market order when the magic price is hit. This means that you may not sell it at or below your price when the order is executed. But the stock will sell faster because the trader must execute. A stop limit order is the same as a stop order, except the stock won't be sold if it can't be gotten for the price. As a result, the sell may not be executed. More information here.


@ Chris: Companies like Keane, ours, and others know where to look for these funds and where to ask at the correct agencies that are holding this money that is not part of the public links that you have access to. This is how we find this information. Our types of companies spend significant time, money and resources in finding out about the money, then finding who it actually belongs to (because it does not always belong to who is mentioned on the list) and then finding the correct individual. @ jdsweet: I apologize if you think this is a marketing ploy. It is not. Our company doesn't even take phone calls from people that want us to find them money. Only if we contact someone, because at that time we're confident that the person we touch base with is due the funds. Again, I am not plugging our company, but trying to let Neil know that in some cases he is right, you don't need a third party to claim funds for you - if you can find them. In this case, he has looked and cannot find them. Keane is charging a fair amount to retrieve funds he cannot find and doesn't know about and is not charging him anything to do all the work. Again, as mentioned above, the direct answer is that we know how to access information and lists that have this money hidden from the public because the agency holding the funds doesn't want you to know about it so that they can escheat the funds. Escheating is the state's legal way to confiscate your money. See, if you don't put in a claim for the money (depending on what type it is and where it is located) the agency and state holding the funds has certain time frames for you to get the money. If you don't, again, they get to keep it and that is what they want despite what they say. That is why there is approximately $33 Billion that is known to the public and really $1 Trillion that's out there. I apologize if you think that this is a plug for my company, it's not because we're not looking for calls, we make them. I'm also not asking Neil for his business. From all accounts on my side, this seems like a fair deal.


If you intend to flip this property, you might consider either a construction loan or private money. A construction loan allows you to borrow from a bank against the value of the finished house a little at a time. As each stage of the construction/repairs are completed, the bank releases more funds to you. Interest accrues during the construction, but no payments need to be made until the construction/repairs are complete. Private money works in a similar manner, but the full amount can be released to you at once so you can get the repairs done more quickly. The interest rate will be higher. If you are flipping, then this higher interest rate is simply a cost of doing business. Since it's a private loan, you ca structure the deal any way you want. Perhaps accruing interest until the property is sold and then paying it back as a single balloon payment on sale of the property. To find private money, contact a mortgage broker and tell them what you have in mind. If you're intending to keep the property for yourself, private money is still an option. Once the repairs are complete, have the bank reassess the property value and refinance based on the new amount. Pay back the private loan with equity pulled from the house and all the shiny new repairs.


Another case of a company retaining control of the pension fund and suddenly not being able to pay out. When will people learn? Pension shouldalways be paid out to a third party account that the employer can't touch once it has been deposited. That way you dont risk the company taking your pemsion with it when it goes under.


> This constant belief that services should cost a percentage instead of a fixed rate that everyone pays is a joke. Your position makes good sense but if everyone paid a fixed rate in taxes then about %25 of the people would go broke. It doesn't seem fair that someone working within the system is bankrupted by the system. Seems to me we need to first fix unfairness in wages. Anyone who works full time for the system should at least be able to afford a modest life including health care, retirement, and taxes. Then I think it is right to demand they pay taxes to the system. Would you agree?


This story is about military grocery stores - i.e.: grocery stores for military personnel on military bases. There are no discounts for military personnel in a regular grocery store. But they may have subsidised prices in grocery stores located inside a military installation, and these are those stores that the story is talking about.


This article may be a good place to start [Introduction to Smart Pricing: How Google, Priceline, and Leading Businesses Use Pricing Innovation for Profitability](http://www.ftpress.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1569334) It gives a brief overview of three pricing strategies, cost plus, competition based pricing and consumer based pricing. **Edit** -This may also be helpful [Social Science Research Network](http://www.ssrn.com/en/)


"If they'd just let me cast stuff from an app like I do with 90% of the stuff I watch off Netflix I'd probably watch stuff a ton more from it. Netflix + chromecast is so brainless that I can just toss on any old thing without investing much time or effort. Watching Prime stuff is, like I said, an inconsistent hassle. Like... I just fired up the Amazon app on my phone. Oh, there's the new Tick show right at the top. I click on it. The only option is to add it to my ""Watchlist."" What's that noise? What if I just want to watch it now on my phone? Where even is that watch list useful? I really feel like Amazon is too worried about selling their relatively cheap hardware. If they just let me actually watch their content, I'd be able see some actual value in it. And yeah, the hardware is cheap, so why not just get a fire stick? Because then I have another fucking power cord I have to route through my wall and another input to manage on my TV. I already have a streaming device for everything else that offers a consistent and stable experience for every other stream service I use. Why can't Amazon just play nice?! Oddly, I think they want to sell their hardware to help push their content... but I'm _trying_ to watch their content already!"


"To someone not used to the us way of labeling it does feel pretty disingenuous to call something ""made from 100% chicken"" and it's obviously meant to be deceptive. You also have stuff like ""Parmesan cheese"" which is neither Parmesan nor cheese but some cheap variant which contains cellulose or something."


"Not trying to shit on your story, but it seems everyone who went to a non target is saying ""all you need is X"". Sure, whatever the hell ""X"" is helps, but nothing can compare to having OCR. The banks literally go to your school to recruit kids. You have a decent resume and do a resume drop, you're guaranteed several first rounds *at least* The superday is all up to you"


Just from the premise that radical social change is necessary, I think it falls to economists to start coming up with models for not just the economy as-is, but for alternative forms of economy. Obviously people can laugh off the idea of returning to sustainable tribes, but maybe we can at least consider forms of currency that price the worst catastrophe in human history into the market.


There are quite a few questions as to how you are recording your income and expenses. If you are running the bakery as a Sole Proprietor, with all the income and expense in a business account; then things are easy. You just have to pay tax on the profit [as per the standard tax bracket]. If you running it as individual, you are still only liable to pay tax on profit and not turnover, however you need to keep a proper book of accounts showing income and expense. Get a Accountant to do this for you there are some thing your can claim as expense, some you can't.


It's not the legitimate checks or bounced checks that are the problem, it's phony checks issued against real accounts with actual money in them. All the security measures on the check don't amount to crap if someone can print up some legitimate looking checks with bogus amounts on them, or even just steal some printed checks and sign something resembling the authorized signature.


> we make a trade-off between time to execute and market impact. Is your time frame any longer than intraday? I imagine you wouldn't want to carry that risk overnight if you're a broker or selling a route.. > we will join the bid for some fraction of our size, and also hit the offer when it looks like the price might be moving away from us So, say for instance you join a bid a few levels down, you aren't really get filled, you start hitting the offer and eventually you realize you're competing with someone for the shares offered, so you take out the price level and bid on all the exchanges so that you're first on the bid at that level, then repeat until someone that can match your appetite starts to fill you on the bid? > In some certain situations we will even sweep the book several levels deep to avoid tipping off market makers and having them adjust in anticipation of the rest of our order. Right, so say you need 100k shares, there are 10k offered at 9.98, 25k offered at 9.99, and 65k at 10.00, you might just enter an intermarket sweep order of 100k @ 10 limit and hope that you can get most of the shares off before everyone can cancel? I imagine there has to be a lot of bidding it up to attract sellers and then letting people take out your bids all day... I have a few other questions I would appreciate your insight on. Just trying to ascertain how orders are filled when, as you put it, time is more important than market impact to the client - when they need to take a large amount of liquidity as quickly as possible and as orderly as possible. Let me know if you'd rather I pm you about this or the additional questions, I work in the industry as well so I know privacy is paramount.


Having the counties man up and foreclose would be the best thing possible. The new owners could sell the property at a rate that the bank doesn't want to sell it for then the new homeowners can move in, thereby causing one less vacant house. If they foreclosed on this as quickly as some of the banks have they could clean up the entire county and sell the properties in less than 6 months. If all of the distressed property is sold at a loss there will be negative effects on people trying to sell right now - but guess what - a year from now those distressed properties will be off the market and it'll rebound back up to current levels or higher.


"Very simple. You open an account with a broker who will do the trades for you. Then you give the broker orders to buy and sell (and the money to pay for the purchases). That's it. In the old days, you would call on the phone (remember, in all the movies, ""Sell, sell!!!!""? That's how), now every decent broker has an online trading platform. If you don't want to have ""additional value"" and just trade - there are many online discount brokers (ETrade, ScotTrade, TD Ameritrade, and others) who offer pretty cheap trades and provide decent services and access to information. For more fees, you can also get advices and professional management where an investment manager will make the decisions for you (if you have several millions to invest, that is). After you open an account and login, you'll find a big green (usually) button which says ""BUY"". Stocks are traded on exchanges. For example the NYSE and the NASDAQ are the most common US exchanges (there's another one called ""pink sheets"", but its a different kind of animal), there are also stock exchanges in Europe (notably London, Frankfurt, Paris, Moscow) and Asia (notably Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo). Many trading platforms (ETrade, that I use, for example) allow investing on some of those as well."


In general spreadsheets can do all of what you ask. Have a try of some online training like these to get started.


This is a somewhat complicated question because it really depends on your personal situation. For example, the following parameters might impact your optimal asset allocation: If you need the money before 3 years, I would suggest keeping almost all of it in cash, CDs, Treasuries, and ultra safe short-term corporate bonds. If however, you have a longer time horizon (and since you're in your 30s you would ideally have decades) you should diversify by investing in many different asset classes. This includes Australian equity, international equity, foreign and domestic debt, commodities, and real estate. Since you have such a long time horizon market timing is not that important.


Conversions are done on a pro-rata basis. If you haven't yet paid tax on the money, you need to do so in the process of converting. Let's say you have a total of $50k in your account: If you decide to convert half of this to a Roth ($25k), you'd owe tax on $20k of that, because 80% of your holdings in the traditional IRA have not been taxed yet. The non-deductible contributions have been taxed, so you don't need to pay tax again on that part. More information is here.


In many countries, giving something free to the employee is considered a taxable income equivalent, and taxes have to be paid on it. As it cannot be assigned to specific employees, the company pays a flat tax on it, so it actually costs the company more. Also, not all employees value it equally, or consider it as a part of their income, so reducing the salary accordingly would not be considered ok by many employees. As a result, the company can only do it as an additional offer, which is too expensive for small businesses.


If you've agreed to pay the money, then you owe them whether they have a valid credit card number of yours or not. If they want to report your debt to a collections agency and/or credit bureau, they can. Which would suck for you. It may not be that likely over $9.99 or whatever, but my point is that it's still a small risk even with a temporary card number.


Invisible Hand is a good online shopping Extension. It compares prices of products to other web retailers as you are looking at the product.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.mercatus.org/publications/reforming-bank-examination-procedures-cfpb) reduced by 90%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The legislation under consideration today includes vital reforms to the bank examination process by banking regulators, to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau&#039;s jurisdiction and enforcement powers, and to the statutes enforced by the CFPB. These changes will help to provide more certainty and predictability to banks, and they will begin to alleviate barriers to entry which have made it all but impossible to open new banking institutions in recent years. > Bank regulators have shown an unwillingness to coordinate bank examinations. > Reform of the examination process, of the CFPB&#039;s powers and statutory authority, and of the use and abuse of reputation risk in bank examination and regulation will go a long way toward pruning the regulatory thicket that has stifled new bank formation in recent years. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6n51bh/reforming_bank_examination_procedures_and_cfpb/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~166242 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **bank**^#1 **statute**^#2 **examination**^#3 **regulator**^#4 **Financial**^#5"


"For person A to be protected (meaning able to recover some or all of the money should the other party try to welsh on the deal), the two of them must have entered into a valid, binding contract where both parties acknowledge and agree to the debt and the terms. Such a contract is subject to the Statute of Frauds, a collection of laws governing contracts which is mostly borrowed from English common law. The basics are that in all cases, a ""contract"" is only formed when both parties agree, technically when one party accepts an offer made by the other party. Both the offer and acceptance must be made sincerely. For a contract, once entered, to be enforceable, proof of the contract's existence and terms must itself exist. Certain types of transactions (real estate, large amounts of money) require contracts to be in written form, and witnessed by a trusted third party (in most cases this party is required to be a notary public). And contracts must have a certain amount of quid-pro-quo; contracts that provide a unilateral benefit can be thrown out on a case-by-case basis. A contract that simply states that Person B owes Person A money, without stating what benefit Person A had provided Person B in return for the money (in this case A gives B the money to begin with), is unenforceable. The benefits must of course be legal on both sides; a contract to deliver 5 tons of cocaine will not be upheld by any court in any free country, and neither will any contract attempting to enforce hush money, kickbacks, bribery etc (though some toe the line; one could argue that a signing bonus is tantamount to bribery). In some cases even seemingly benign clauses, like ""escape clauses"" allowing one party a ""free out"", can make the contract unenforceable as they could be abused to the severe detriment of one party. There are also jurisdiction-specific rules, such as limits on ""finance charges"" for debts not owed to a ""bank"" (a bar, for instance, cannot charge 10% on an outstanding tab in the United States). This is HUGE for your example, because if Person A had specified an interest rate in excess of the allowed rate for non-bank lenders, not only will the contract get thrown out even though Person B agreed to the terms, but Person A could find themselves on the hook for punitive damages payable to Person B, FAR in excess of the contracted amount. Given that the agreement meets all tests of validity for a contract, if either party fails to perform in accordance with the contract, causing a loss or ""tort"" for the other party, the injured party can sue. Generally the two options are ""strict performance"" (the injuring party is ordered by the court to comply exactly with the terms of the contract), or payment of net actual damages and dissolution of the contract. In your example, if Person A had lent Person B money, strict performance would mean payment of the debt in the installments agreed, at the rate agreed; actual damages would be payment of the outstanding balance plus current interest charges (without any further penalty). Notice that it's ""net"" damages; if Person A was to issue the loan in installments, and missed one, causing Person B to suffer damages from the loss of expected cash flow directly resulting in their failure to pay according to the terms, then Person B's proven damages are subtracted from A's; very often, the plaintiff in a suit to recover money can end up owing the defendant for a prior failure to perform. There are further laws governing bankruptcy; basically, if the other person cannot satisfy the contract and cannot pay damages, they will pay what they can, and the contract is terminated with prejudice (""no blood from a turnip"")."


Completely different. Canadians can be deemed non-residents by severing their residential ties with Canada and emigrating to another country, and no longer required to file unless they have certain sources of Canadian income. *See* http://travel.gc.ca/travelling/living-abroad/taxation No such classifications exist with US citizenship. You file a return no matter what, even if you haven't stepped foot in the US in decades.


Hmm, looking at the macro economy, hoarding money will decrease the monetary supply, so the Fed will offset that with increases to the monetary supply to achieve target interest rates. Which will lead to higher inflation, hurting your savings minus debt. Exactly what's going on in the rest of the economy. For investment sake, can't you find something with at least some sort of return, rather than getting nothing with physical currency?


"If a stock is trading for $11 per share just before a $1 per share dividend is declared, then the share price drops to $10 per share immediately following the declaration. If you owned 100 shares (valued at $1100) before the dividend was declared, then you still own 100 shares (now valued at $1000). Generally, if the dividend is paid today, only the owners of shares as of yesterday evening (or the day before maybe) get paid the dividend. If you bought those 100 shares only this morning, the dividend gets paid to the seller (who owned the stock until yesterday evening), not to you. You just ""bought a dividend:"" paying $1100 for 100 shares that are worth only $1000 at the end of the day, whereas if you had just been a little less eager to purchase right now, you could have bought those 100 shares for only $1000. But, looking at the bright side, if you bought the shares earlier than yesterday, you get paid the dividend. So, assuming that you bought the shares in timely fashion, your holdings just lost value and are worth only $1000. What you do have is the promise that in a couple of days time, you will be paid $100 as the dividend, thus restoring the asset value back to what it was earlier. Now, if you had asked your broker to re-invest the dividend back into the same stock, then, assuming that the stock price did not change in the interim due to normal market fluctuations, you would get another 10 shares for that $100 dividend making the value of your investment $1100 again (110 shares at $10 each), exactly what it was before the dividend was paid. If you didn't choose to reinvest the dividend, you would still have the 100 shares (worth $1000) plus $100 cash. So, regardless of what other investors choose to do, your asset value does not change as a result of the dividend. What does change is your net worth because that dividend amount is taxable (regardless of whether you chose to reinvest or not) and so your (tax) liability just increased."


I'm going to guess you're on Verizon and your wife has an iPhone. I just went through this exact same situation with my mom's phone last week. When you're off contract with Verizon you're saving $25/month on your plan (at least, I am), so staying off contract is big. If you do the monthly payment you're paying full retail over 2 years, without interest, so you do stay off contract at least. Here's the thing, as long as it's a 16GB iPhone 5 or better, you're going to be able to Craigslist it for the cost of the deductible, no problems. To me that makes the decision pretty easy to make. As long as you can Craigslist it for more than the deductible, get the insurance replacement. Then when you want a new phone you can sell your old one. Since you can sell the phone, I think that makes the comparison between the deductible and deciding to pay off the $100 now and start payments on the new phone less relevant. The real comparison I'd suggest looking at is the value of the phone and the deductible.


"In addition to Alex B's excellent overview, I'd like to add a few more bits of advice. First of all, one term you should know is ""commercial real estate"" - which is precisely what this is. There is a business element, but it is strictly (and almost entirely) intertwined to the underlying real estate, which makes this a special category of business which is generally considered simply ""commercial real estate"" (just like office buildings, shopping malls, etc). All real estate and businesses value are based on alternatives - what other options are there? In appraisal, these are generally called ""comparables"". A professional appraiser is generally available for commercial real estate of this type. While a full, official commercial appraisal can run into the thousands, many/most (all?) appraisers are willing to sell you a simplified version of their service, which can be called a ""letter of opinion"" and can help you get an idea for the market price (what other similar commercial properties are running for). A loan company would strictly require this, but if you are thinking of an all cash or form of seller-financing this would technically be optional. Your best bet is to read about some of what is involved in commercial real estate appraisal and evaluation, and you may even want to speak with commercial loan officers - even if you don't know that you want to get a loan to acquire the property! It's their job to help inform you about what is required and what they look for, so they can be a potential resource beyond your own research as well. With this said, the only way to estimate value (and, conveniently, the best way) is to look at other properties! And by ""others"", I mean that you should really not consider buying absolutely anything until you've viewed at least 6-10 other options in some depth - and you probably want to double or triple that number if you are looking to make this the last big business transaction of your life. If you don't you'll be relying on little more than dumb luck to carry you through - which in this area of business, you don't want to do because the dollar amounts and liabilities involved can bankrupt you in no time flat. With that general advice out of the way, here's a tiny nutshell version of valuation of commercial real estate. There are a few key parts involved in commercial real estate: land, improvements (buildings, docks, stuff like that), income, and wages. Land: the value of the land is based upon what you could sell it for, as-is. That is to say - who else might want it? This alone has many important factors, such as zoning laws, the neighborhood (including your neighbors), water/utilities, pacts on the land (someone may have insisted the land not be paved into a parking lot, or really anything like that), alternative uses (could you put a golf course on it, or is the land suitable for a big building or farming?), etc. And is this in a growing area, where you might hope the value will increase over the next decade, or decrease, or basically stay flat (and possibly cause losses compared to inflation)? Improvements: anything on the land is both an asset and a liability. It's an asset because it could add to the value of the land, but it might also reduce the land value if it interferes with alternate land uses. It's a liability, both in the legal sense and in that it requires maintenance. If you want to rent them out, especially, that means concern about any foundations involved, termites, roofs, sewage/septic tanks, utilities that are your responsibility (pipes, poles, wires), as well as any sort of ac/heating you may have, docks, and so on. These things are rarely free and absolutely can eat you alive. Income: Ah, the best part, the constant influx of cash! But wait, is it a constant influx? Some businesses are purely seasonal (summer only, winter only), some are year-round but have peak times, and others don't really have a ""peak"" to speak of. If you are renting, are there issues collecting, or with people over-staying? How about damage, making a mess, getting rowdy and disturbing others? Regardless, there is obviously some income, and this is usually the most dangerous part of the equation. I say ""dangerous"", because people absolutely lie like dogs on this part, all the time. It's easy to cook the books, assuming they even attempt to keep proper books in the first place! Businesses of this form often have a lot of cash business that's easy to hide (from Uncle Sam, or sometimes even the owners themselves if there are employees involved) - and fake! And some people are just shoddy bookkeepers and the info is just wrong. But, there will clearly be some kind of yearly income involved. What does this matter? Well...how much is there? How much is tied to the owners (personal friends do business and they will leave if the ownership/management changes)? In commercial real estate the income will be calculated for a fiscal year, and then there is something called a ""multiple"", which is market dependent. Let's say the whole place takes in $100k in rent a year. As part of buying this business, you are buying not just assets, but expected future income. In some commercial areas the multiple is as little as .5 to 2 - which means that the going rate is about 6-24 months worth of income, as part of the purchase price. So with 100k rent a year, that means 50k-200k of the purchase price is attributable to the income of the business. And if business is half of what you thought it would be? That means the net value of the whole enterprise decreases by 25k-100k - on top of the reduced income every year you own it! Income provides cash flow, which should pay all the expenses (cleaning up from wind storms, replacing windows that are broken, hauling off trash, replacing a well that ran dry), and then the extra that remains is positive cash flow. If you take out a loan, then ideally the cash flow would also pay that completely so long as you don't have any big unexpected expenses in the year - and still have some left over for yourself. Wages: Well, that money doesn't collect itself! There's sales, keeping the books, collecting the rent, performing maintenance, customer service, cleaning, paying the bills, keeping the insurance people happy, handling emergencies, and everything else involved with running the business. Someone is going to do it, and the biggest error people make here is not to put any value on their time - and to make it so they can never afford to take a vacation again! Pay yourself, and give yourself the flexibility to pay others when you can't (or don't want) to do it all yourselves. So, what's the point of all this? How do you actually make any money? In two ways: 1) selling the whole thing later, and 2) cash flow. For 1, it's important that you not be in a situation where you are betting that in the future there will be a ""person richer, and dumber, than I am now"". If the current owner wanted 2 million, then 1 mil, then less, over multiple years...this suggests either he is delusional about the value of his place (and most property owners are), or that its actually hard to find a buyer for such a business. You are going to want to make sure you understand why that is, because most of the value of real estate is...well, in the real estate itself! For 2, you need cash coming in that's considerably more than the cost of running the place. Also, cash flow can strongly change the value of the business for resale (depending on the multiple, this can make a huge difference or prevent you from selling the thing at all). You mentioned you want to put in more cabins, more marketing/sales efforts, etc. That's great, but first, that would mean added investment beyond the purchase price. Is it legally and physically practical to add more cabins, and what is their current utilization rate? If they are only renting 10% of their current capacity, increasing capacity may be premature. This will also vary through the year, so you may find there is a problem with being sold out sometimes...but only for a small percentage of the time. Which means you'll be adding buildings only to have them used for a fraction of the year, which will be very hard to make a profit from. If cash flow is good, ideally even being enough to cover a loan payment to help cover the purchase price (and remember that commercial real estate loans are much smaller loan-to-value ratios than in residential real estate), there is one final barrier to making money: the damn non-regular maintenance! Roofs, wells, and wooden walls all have a sad tendency to cost you nothing right up until the point they cost you $30k+ on a single day. Is there enough cash flow to make these sort of certainties (and if you plan to be there for years, they are a certainty) not put you in the poor house? This was rather long, but I hope this overview helps you appreciate all that you'll need to look into and be cautious of during your future en-devour! Commercial real estate is generally costly and high-risk, but also can be high reward. You'll need to compare many opportunities before you can get a ""feel"" for what is a good deal and what is a terrible one. You'll need to consider many factors, such as resale value and cash flow/income (which they will have to tell you and you can assume is not true, due to ignorance or malice), as well as maintenance and liabilities, before you can begin to really estimate the value of an enterprise of this sort. There are people who can help you, like appraisers and commercial brokers, but ultimately you'll need to do a lot of research and comparisons yourself to help you make a good decision. Finally, there is no very simple method for evaluating commercial real estate value. You need a variety of information, and you must be skeptical of what you are told because of the very large sums of money involved. It is doable (lots of people do it), but you must take care and do your due diligence so you don't get bankrupted by a single bad purchase."


You should. The impact on the credit score is small, and probably not worth the money of the annual fee. I would only change that if you plan to get a mortgage or car loan the next month - then wait until afterwards.


I would even say 1% is not even reasonable in this age. The short answer is there probably isn't much you can do directly. However, there are a few things to consider:


"As a Brit, I try to avoid just saying ""no"" outright at work. Rather, I would question why they needed something if I didn't see the need for it (it may well be that I'm just not seeing something that they are, because they have more experience). I also try to phrase questions in a way that is respectful and doesn't back my superiors into a corner. Of course ultimately it just comes down to social skills which you'd use in daily life outside work anyway."


I'm taking a problem associated with humans. People in Rome got powerful and wealthy enough that they were able to break the democratic societial bounds and did things like bound over the Rubicon. What is a government but a voluntary society? I guess I don't understand the question.


"Mutual funds can be relatively low risk and a good starting point. Really it depends on you. What are your goals? This is a pretty open ended question. These can all be low risk and provide some return. Note ""Less Knowledge"" is never a good qualifier for an investment. Your money is your business and you are entitled to know what your business is up to."


How is that data meaningful though? Let's follow your example and say someone went to the horror film, well do we know they'd pay for it, or did they go because it's free? The second any movie goer goes once this company is in the red, it makes no sense and there must be more to it than this data play


I studied for a month, five days a week eight hours a day. Two four hour shifts so i could take a nap. Passed my first attempt with an 80%. I used STC and the consensus in the industry is they are the best. I passed the 66, so i have no advice for you in that regards.


No, GnuCash doesn't specifically provide a partner cash basis report/function. However, GnuCash reports are fairly easy to write. If the data was readily available in your accounts it shouldn't be too hard to create a cash basis report. The account setup is so flexible, you might actually be able to create accounts for each partner, and, using standard dual-entry accounting, always debit and credit these accounts so the actual cash basis of each partner is shown and updated with every transaction. I used GnuCash for many years to manage my personal finances and those of my business (sole proprietorship). It really shines for data integrity (I never lost data), customer management (decent UI for managing multiple clients and business partners) and customer invoice generation (they look pretty). I found the user interface ugly and cumbersome. GnuCash doesn't integrate cleanly with banks in the US. It's possible to import data, but the process is very clunky and error-prone. Apparently you can make bank transactions right from GnuCash if you live in Europe. Another very important limitation of GnuCash to be aware of: only one user at a time. Period. If this is important to you, don't use GnuCash. To really use GnuCash effectively, you probably have to be an actual accountant. I studied dual-entry accounting a bit while using GnuCash. Dual-entry accounting in GnuCash is a pain in the butt. Accurately recording certain types of transactions (like stock buys/sells) requires fiddling with complicated split transactions. I agree with Mariette: hire a pro.


"You can learn very little from it. Company directories are often given share options or shares as a bonus, and because of that they are unlikely to buy shares. When they sell shares, you'll hear people shouting ""so-and-so sold his or her shares, they must know something bad about the company"". The truth is that you can't eat or drink shares. If that company director owning shares worth a million dollars wants to buy a new Ferrari, he will find that Ferrari doesn't give free cars to people owning lots of shares. He actually has to sell the shares to get the money for the car, and that's what he does."


If it is US, you need to take tax implications into account. Profit taken from sale of your home is taxable. One approach would be to take the tax hit, pay down the student loans, rent, and focus any extra that you can on paying off the student loans quickly. The tax is on realized gains when you sell the property. I think that any equity under the original purchase price is taxed at a lower rate (or zero). Consult a tax pro in your area. Do not blindly assume buying is better than renting. Run the numbers. Rent Vs buy is not a question with a single answer. It depends greatly on the real estate market where you are, and to a lesser extent on your personal situation. Be sure to include maintenance and HOA fees, if any, on the ownership side. Breakeven time on a new roof or a new HVAC unit or an HOA assessment can be years, tipping the scales towards renting. Include the opportunity cost by including the rate of return on the 100k on the renting side (or subtracting it on the ownership side). Be sure to include the tax implications on the ownership side, especially taxes on any profits from the sale. If the numbers say ownership in your area is better, then try for as small of a mortgage as you can get in a growing area. Assuming that the numbers add up to buying: buy small and live frugally, focus on increasing discretionary spending, and using it to pay down debt and then build wealth. If they add up to renting, same thing but rent small.


I am no expert on the situation nor do I pretend to act like one, but, as a business owner, allow me to give you my personal opinion. Option 3 is closest to what you want. Why? Well: This way, you have both the record of everything that was done, and also IRS can see exactly what happened. Another suggestion would be to ask the GnuCash maintainers and community directly. You can have a chat with them on their IRC channel #gnucash, send them an email, maybe find the answer in the documentation or wiki. Popular software apps usually have both support people and a helpful community, so if the above method is in any way inconvenient for you, you can give this one a try. Hope this helps! Robert


So by your logic, if a guy mugs you on the street, you're being extorted by his mechanic for charging so much to fix the mugger's car? Like the mugger, Boeing didn't have to resort to extortion to pay it's bills. It could have gotten money honestly, but extortion was easier, it already had the weapons, and it wasn't afraid of the consequences.


> If a high school drop-out with nothing but a typing diploma could do it, so can you. horrible summary to a great testimony what he did was 1. work his ass off, 2. became and stayed persistent, 3. kept his goals in mind every second for years


Hope you figure it out. There wouldn't be a different RFR / discount rate because you're assuming a return on parked cash - that's what it's for. Since both situations would theoretically happen simultaneously you use the same rate unless you would do something different with cash in each instance.


Most commonly, unless you read 'fair value target price,' an analyst's target price is a 12-month target price. Typically, there is a firm wide policy determining which time horizon to use. No analyst would provide an open ended target price, it doesn't make any sense (you discount cash flows to a certain period, adjust for inflation, etc). So there is always a time horizon.


If it was me, I would organize something along these lines. in large part because down the road when it comes time to purge stuff like small receipts, utility bills etc, you'll be doing it per year, at the 7 year point or something similar. Year first Under that major categories such as Mortgage, Utilities, Credit, Major Purchases, Home Improvement, Other I'd do a monthly breakdown for Other since it's likely to have a lot of little stuff, and bulking it up by month helps to organize it. But I'd not bother with that for the other items, since there's going to be limited items in each one. If you are scanning stuff on a regular basis, and using a decent naming convention for the receipts, then you could easily sort by date, or name, within any of the larger categories to see for example, all the electric bills. in order. You might also want to look at a cloud service such as DOXO as an alternative to storing this stuff at home (they also work with a number of companies to do electronic billing etc) In terms of retention, if you are a homeowner, save anything related to your mortgage and anything that goes towards the house, even little maintenance stuff, and any improvements, as all of that goes against the cost basis of the house when you sell. Generally, after 7 years, you are unlikely to need anything in the way of small receipts, utility bills, etc. in any case, be sure you have regular backups offsite, either by storing stuff in the cloud such as doxo, or via a regular backup service such as carbonite. you don't want to lose all your records to a house fire, natural disaster, or having your computer stolen etc.


Honestly their website fails when compared to amazon and Walmart. the stores don't seem to have any control in what they get in. The one around my area has just received tons of years old overstock. I rarely go there anymore because I hate that I can never find what I was after. That's besides the point that you get harassed by the associates about sales plans batteries and about 5 other things as soon as you try to check out. that just infuriates me


The correct p/e for bp.l is 5.80. Bp.l is on the London stock exchange and prices are in local currency. The share price of 493 is reported in pence (not dollars). The EPS is reported in pounds. Using .85 pounds = 85 pence, you calculate the EPS as follows: 493.40/85 = 5.80 PE Yahoo totally screwed up. They converted the .85 pounds into US dollars ($1.34) but didn't convert the 493 pence. By using the 493 as dollars, they got 493.9/1.34 = 368 pe! Notice that Yahoo reports the American Depository Shares (symbol 'BP') with an EPS of $8.06. That correctly reflects that there are 6 shares of BP.l per ADS (1.34 * 6 = 8.04). But why is the share price listed at $46.69? Well... 493 GBp (pence) = 4.93 pounds 4.93 pounds = 7.73 USD 7.73 USD * 6 shares per ADS = 46.38 USD


"Your best shot in terms of credit card ""compatibility"" would probably be a very large private European Bank, like Deutsche Bank, HSCB or the like issueing a MasterCard. In England it is quite difficult to get an account without being a resident, but I think HSBC offers a so called ""Passport"" account to non-residents with all the usual cards and benefits, even overdraft, but it's probably expensive. I think you underestimate how heterogeneous the banking world in Europe is. There are plenty of different local systems in each country. France has it's custom CB system and Germany has a system called GiroPay and a cashless system called GeldKarte (which no one really uses). Even if you have a Mastercard or Visa with pin from a European bank, there is no guarantee that it'll work everywhere reliably. I remember my German housemate having loads of trouble with his amazon.de Mastercard in England. In addition, you will most likely be charged for paying with your CC and ATM/Cashpoint withdrawals in any other country. Fees can range up to 3% for a transaction. So ideally you profile which European country you travel to the most and set up the account there. You should also look for cooperations between certain European banks. I remember Barclays and Deutsche Bank cooperating. On a side note: I'm still amazed by how backwards some banking systems are, e.g. the English. I've been using secure (pin/tan) online-banking in Germany for over 10 years. Transfers are quick, international transfers are free, as long as they are in Euro etc. Everything runs pretty smooth. Not so in England, you need to confirm online transactions over the phone (wtf?) and your only security is a pin and memorable information. Inter-bank transfers, if not set up online, cost up to 30 pounds, even though I could just go to the other bank, draw the cash there and pay it in to the account for free. International transfers start at 20 quid etc. I could hardly imagine, living in a cheque reliant system like the states anymore."


It totally is. The money they have comes from new investors buying in, and not from profits. That's the definition of a Ponzi scheme. They keep going back to the street again and again for more rounds of investment, and they are no closer to profitability. There are more and more competitive options out there so they're not even increasing their market dominance.


Either, since I don't think you can go wrong (but it also depends on what you plan on doing). Its not just the language that's important, but the way it teaches you to think about algorithms or frameworks that might apply elsewhere. At the very least, if you don't take a programming course, pick up SQL or VB to script Excel stuff.


I can see a long-term existence for it. I doubt it will replace national currencies but I also think there is some value. Gold is purely speculative as well but it's thrived for a very long time. I see this as basically a digital version of gold.


"I'm not familiar with the law and taxes in India but can provide guidance based on general accounting and tax principles. You are right that receiving money as a loan is not income and isn't liable to income tax. Therefore i suggest you actually formalise this loan through a written contract with your friend. The contract should include all the usual elements of a loan: amount, interest (even if preferential or zero), principal, term, consequences of default and currency of loan. You can then simply state the purpose of transfer as ""Personal Loan Agreement"". If you have such a document and are questioned by tax authorities you can easily show that the inward remittance is from a loan and should therefore be treated like any commercial loan for tax purposes. As long as you disclose the debt in your tax return (if required in India) and your friend discloses any interest received as income i think you'll be above board and won't be liable for any income tax. To make sure, you might be better off having a quick consultation with an accountant or tax specialist in India to advise you and draft the loan agreement."


The article doesn't say how many hours they worked, so let's work it out. If this was 12 hours a day 6 out of 7 days then it's a completely different ballgame and 220k is just what it costs. I don't care what they make in a year, I care what they would make if they were working 40 hrs a week. >The special-ops sergeant who made $265,059 is the highest paid policeman so far this year. His pay includes $115,394 in overtime. That means he made 115k by working past 8 hours a day, five days a week. Presumably. So 265k - 115k is still 140k per year at 40 hrs. That means that cop makes 70 dollars an hour.


I have money withdrawn near when the bill is due (not early at all) and my credit score is top-notch. It's far, far more important that you don't pay late. I don't think paying early earns you brownie points with FICO. Now, if you have an interest-bearing checking account, and if you pay your balance in full each month, and are very, very organized, then paying at the last minute, but on time, lets you take full advantage of the free float that the credit card issuer gives you. If you have trouble rubbing two brain cells together when it comes to bills (like I do sometimes) then either set up auto-deduct from your checking account or pay the bill as soon as it comes in.


1) Every credit card company charges vendors a fee. That's sufficient to make an acceptable profit per charge even if some of that money goes into marketing expenses -- and the cash-back offer is a marketing expense. 2) Many if not most consumers pay interest; probably everyone does so occasionally when we get distracted and miss a payment. 3) The offer encourages you to put more payments on the card -- and in particular on their card -- than you might otherwise. See #1; that increases net income.


"For scoring purposes, having a DTI between 1-19% is ideal. From Credit Karma: That being said, depending on the loan type you looking at receiving (FHA, VA, Conventional, etc), there are certain max DTIs that you want to stay away from. As a rule, for VA, you want to try to stay away from 41% DTI. Exceptions are made for people with sufficient funds in the bank (3-9 months) to go to higher DTIs. If you keep a 19% utilization overall, that will get you a higher score but it will also show that you have a monthly payment on a particular revolving credit account. While the difference between 729 and 745 seems like a lot of points, there are rules as to how the interest rates are determined. So you will find that many banks have the same or similar rates due to recent legislation in Dodd-Frank. In the days of subprime mortgages, this was not the case. Adjustable rate mortgages did not necessarily go away, the servicer just has to make sure that the buyer can weather the full amount once it reaches maturity, not the lower amount. That is what got a lot of people in trouble. From ""how interest rates are set"": Before quoting you an interest rate, the loan officer will add on how much he and his branch want to earn. The branch or company sets a policy on how little that can be (the minimum amount the loan officer adds on to his cost) but does not want to overcharge borrowers either (so they set a maximum the loan officer can charge) Between that minimum and maximum, the loan officer has a great deal of flexibility. For example, say the loan officer decides he and his branch are going to earn one point. When you call and ask for a rate quote, he will add one point to the cost of the loan and quote you that rate. According to the rate sheet above, seven percent will cost you zero points. Six and three-quarters percent will cost you one point. In our example, at 7.125% the loan officer and branch would earn one point and have some money left over. This could be used to pay some of the fees (processing, documents, etc), which is how you get a ""no fees -no points"" mortgage. You just pay a higher interest rate. Where this scoring helps you is in credit card interest rates and auto loan and personal loan rates, which have different rate structures. My personal opinion is to avoid the use of the credit cards. Playing games to try to maximize your score in this situation won't help you when you are talking about 20 points potentially. If you were at the bottom level and were trying to meet a minimum score to qualify, then I would recommend you try to game this scoring system. Take the extra money you would put on a credit card and save it for housing expenses. Taking the Dave Ramsey approach, you should have at least $1000 in emergency funds as most problems you encounter will be less than $1000. That advice rings true."


It is a very important to replace your window with aluminium window frames. It has many benefits. aluminium windows very easy to operate and it is long lasting. moreover, its price is more reasonable compared to other alternatives. Thus, the price of your home will increase and will benefit you in your revenue.


You do not need to report gifts from US residents (US citizens/green card holders/tax residents due to length of stay) since filing gift tax return is their responsibility. In case of foreigners you need to report gifts in excess of $100K. In any case, transfers between spouses are exempt from gift tax.


I had a situation like that happen at work. A girl in H.R. did that and milked maternity leave until her six months were up. Then called in and said she was resigning. My boss was talking about her to some of the staff saying she'd probably not going to come back and that the H.R. Director should be looking to replace her position. He was right, her husband had a high paying tech job and she didn't need the income so why would she stick around a dysfunctional company? The other maternity leave was a girl in my department who got pregnant by a dude a few cubicles away. She had to go on disability 3 months before her maternity leave officially kicked in. She had my boss over a barrel and convinced him to pay the difference between disability and her salary for the entire period she was out. It appears she threatened to quit unless she got a raise and another promotion because she came back with a better title and her pay check got larger from then on. She basically held a bunch of incomplete work over his head as ransom for months. As of July when I left she just got around to doing it...so basically it took her a year to complete a project that should have taken about a week or so.


You can execute block trades on the options market and get exercised for shares to create a very large position in Energy Transfer Partners LP without moving the stock market. You can then place limit sell orders, after selling directly into the market and keep an overhang of low priced shares (the technical analysis traders won't know what you specifically are doing, and will call this 'resistance'). If you hit nice even numbers (multiples of 5, multiples of 10) with your sell orders, you can exacerbate selling as many market participants will have their own stop loss orders at those numbers, causing other people to sell at lower and lower prices automatically, and simultaneously keep your massive ask in effect. If your position is bigger than the demand then you can keep a stock lower. The secondary market doesn't inherently affect a company in any way. But many companies have borrowed against the price of their shares, and if you get the share price low enough they can get suddenly margin called and be unable to service their existing debt. You will also lose a lot of money doing this, so you can also buy puts along the way or attempt to execute a collar to lower your own losses. The collar strategy is nice because it is unlikely that other traders and analysts will notice what you are doing, since there are calls, puts and share orders involved in creating it. One person may notice the block trade for the calls initially, but nobody will notice it is part of a larger strategy with multiple legs. With the share position, you may also be able to vote on some things, but that solely depends on the conditions of the shares.


On a personal Loan Yes. On a business loan, it would depend on the Bank and they would like to understand the purpose of the loan and need it to be secured. They may not even grant such kind of business loan.


So.... If everybody took your advice, how would you ever be able to hire other people? The economy would be composed of millions of ever-competing single-person ventures, in which some would strive, and the ones who fail would just move in to the next venture... Being an entrepreneur requires a certain skill set and appetite for risk that not everyone has, or is in a position to take on, so the rational that only entrepreneurs deserve riches is very reductionist and dismissive of how value-creation happens.


You really just need to learn about finance, trading and the markets. I know a chemical engineer that did an IB internship. He joined our universities Investments club and just learned everything from there. He never took a single business class


Imagine 4 guys in charge of the entire Evian company. CEO, CFO, Legal and Operations. The rest are robots and automated. You go to the factory and you see the 'machine' producing bottled water on its own, from the springs, to the plant, to the bottling, packing, even trucks are self-driving. Kind of creepy.


Umm actually asking to be refinanced at a lower rate *IS* asking them to forgive/give up part of the mortgage. Peoples greed in getting themselves into upside down mortgages are why we have problems, not the banks not helping them out enough.


What mistakes did it make? They never made any real effort to break into the US smartphone market. What should they do to survive? Hold onto their emerging market share whilst making a real effort to break into the US smartphone market. It certainly wouldn't hurt to position themselves as the premium smartphone manufacturer in the developing world either.


A South Korean buyer wanted to import huge quantity of Crude Oil from a supplier in Saudi Arabia where the supplier asked for a Bank Guarantee. The buyer's company instantly contacted us and we facilitated their Crude Oil deal by providing BG MT760 after they successfully obliged to BWT’s Terms.


I think it's advisable to exercise a fair amount of caution when posting information about yourself online. With the advances in data aggregation efforts, information that would have been considered sufficiently anonymized in years past might no longer be sufficient to protect you from bad actors online. For example, depending on which state, and even which county you live in, the county recorder's office may allow anyone with Internet access to freely search property records by your name. If they know approximately where you live (geolocation from the IP address that you use to post to a blog--which could be divulged if criminals compromised the blogging site) and your surname, they might be able to find your exact address if you own your home. If you have considerable wealth it could open you to targeted ransom attacks from organized criminals.


The 'Stora Enso' entity was formed in 1998 via a merger of 2 older companies, one that started in 1888 and the other in 1889. They claim documentation of work as early as the 1200s-1300s. Not officially a 1,000 year old business either way.


Now that the labor market in China is near saturation and wages are rising, I think that the Western factories that rely heavily on unskilled labor will start to move from China to sub-Saharan Africa. Edit: I disagree with this line: > tried-and-true strategies of delivering charity Those charities have come under a lot of fire recently, especially from African academics, for distorting the market economies in Africa. Massive supplies of free grain ruin the market for farmers. They inhibit the development of the agricultural sector in Africa and may be harming Africans in the long-term as much as they help in the short-term. Foreign direct investment, better governance, and foreign-built factories will probably help Africa more than food aid.


Berkshire Hathaway would be a good example of a company that has yet to pay dividends, yet is a highly valued stock. A couple of key points here to note is how on the first hand you have that the dividend policy will never change, yet couldn't one argue that there will always be new investors wanting more shares and thus the price keeps going up until someone gains control and decides to issue dividends? I'm just pointing out how on the one hand you are claiming a never changing and yet on the other thinking there will be a termination when the reality is that unless there is a zombie apocalypse of some form, life will continue and there will be new people to want to buy the stock and some people be willing to sell at the new prices.


I see too often in America that when people make it, they kick the ladder out from under them. Your poor childhood explains your current pretentions and entitlement complex, but doesn't justify them. Instead of posting about how you only demand the best when going on business-sponsored trips, you should be trying to help people make it from where you were as a kid (conditions which the majority of Americans can relate to), to a confident and stable position. But you're just going around shoving your pretentions in people's faces.


I'm fully aware of that fact, however enrollment via the club card is what gets your name and address on every freaking mailing list between SkyWays and Harriet Carter. It's also one more damned thing I have to make sure I've got, or have to remember whatever bullshit phone number I made up when I enrolled. Just no.


Is their risk taking creating jobs though? When i bought Apple stok a few years ao, what entrepreneurial spirit did I promote or encourage? Why not give extra tax breaks for the sale of stock purchased during a public offering (since that goes to helping the company) but not for secondhand (less necessary) trading. Should we give big tax breaks to people who lend businesses money?


Malaysia is a highly competitive country and well known for its prowess in various corporate sectors across the globe. As a result, many international investors have a keen interest to gain market penetration and invest in Malaysia to expand to their business empires.


I would say yes, it makes sense to keep some money in taxable accounts. Retirement accounts are for retirement, and the various early withdrawal penalties are designed to enforce that. If you're anticipating using the money before retirement (e.g., for home purchase), it makes sense to keep it out of retirement accounts. On the other hand, be aware that, regardless of what kind of account it is in, you face the usual risk/return tradeoff. If you put your money in the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 tanks just before you were going to buy a house, your down payment evaporates and you will have to wait and buy a house later. You can manage this by shifting the allocation of this money and perhaps cashing it out if a certain amount is gained (i.e., it grows to the level of your target down payment) and you are close enough to the house purchase time that you don't want to risk it anymore. Basically, if you invest money for a pre-retirement use, you may want to keep it in a taxable account, but you also need to take account of when you'll need it and manage the risk accordingly.


You will make very little cash in real estate. Don't think of it like a money farm, unless if you have the capital to forgo the loan. The rent will pay the equity towards owning the place which at any point you can sell into cash. But you won't get lots of spending cash upfront, it takes a while to build. Source: have a good friend who does this- the second he gets any capital he instantly buys and manages a new property. Poorest rich guy I know


I'm familiar with the software, a pigeon could very literally use it. It is is extremely basic so it's just aggravating to know that is what's stopping his hiring decision. The software literally uses color coding and easy to read click able buttons. But nobody wants to train anyone.


"That's pure Evil right there. Instead of addressing the ""need"" for an H1B or any of the myriad flaws in either the notion or the implementation, this basically sets out to entrench the leaders The hysterical part is that it is inevitable that this will come out of the worker's pocket. So that $60M, instead of being a fee paid by Microsoft, actually doesn't cost them a dime that isn't offset by a tidy little lending operation (or several messy ones)."


Is it possible for Saudi Arabia to create that much renewable energy to replace oil? Saudi Aramco itself is estimated to be a trillion dollar company. In terms of Solar energy, America just has more land to farm solar. Where will their edge come from? Maybe cause political unrest/financial instability of many middle eastern countries?


Do you have any legal options? Not really. Citi is under no obligation to refinance your loan on your terms. But that goes both ways, and you are under no obligation to refinance with Citi! Get more quotes from another lender. It'll feel really good when you find a lender that wants your business. You might get a better deal. And think how good it will feel to cut ties with Citi!


I love how all of these articles are burying this fact and editorializing their headlines to paint a different picture. Pretty scummy really. The guy certainly has earned all the criticism he gets, but it's much more likely that his leave is stress related and by choice.


What you are describing does not sound like an investment; it sounds like a loan. An investment involves you putting up a stake and sharing in the profits or losses of the business - there is no guarantee you will get your money back. A loan involves you putting up money for which you will receive interest and principal repayment in accordance with an agreed schedule - you get this irrespective of how the business is performing. Also, is the arrangement with your friend or his company? They are different legal entities and your risk profile is different in both cases. Whatever the arrangement you need to sign a contract which details all the terms and conditions - how much you will pay, to whom and when; how much you will get back, from whom and when; a method for resolving disputes; what happens in the event of insolvency or bankruptcy; what happens if someone breaks the terms of the contract; if your payout depends on the value of the business at some future date, how it is to be valued; etc. etc. Two points: I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer.


My sister just purchased a house for $35k in moderate sized midwestern city. Even fully financed, that's <$200/month. The house has 3 bedrooms and a decent sized yard. There's lots of houses in that area for similar prices, some in better shape than others.


You wouldn't know it's value (Enterprise Value) without knowing its cash balance. The equation: EV = Market Cap + Minority Interest + Preferred Stock + Debt - Cash Enterprise Value is the value of the company to ALL shareholders (creditors, preferred stock holders, common stock holders). So, taking on debt could either increase or decrease the EV depending on the cash balance of the company. This will have no effect, directly, on the market cap. It will, however effect the present value of its future cash flows as the WACC will increase due to the new cost of debt (interest payments, higher risk of bankruptcy, less flexibility by management).


I think maybe 10%, at best, of my mail is useful. Probably 5%. And of the useful mail, it really isn't urgent. I would have no problem getting mail once a week. There are many other readily available modes of communication if something is urgent.


>never met a single person in my life that wouldn't leave their job for a 50% pay raise. But I have met many married people in my life, they will leave their spouses for a lot less. Some people want to settle and some people want options. wait... i'm not sure what we are talking about any more....


This is a very interesting post. As a frequent online shopper, I also just choose to buy from websites that have secure and verification seals. And having one is indeed a good way for online merchants to increase their sales and profits. I also visited the link shared on the post and found this very informational: http://www.validsafe.com/


"I think there's a sub~~ject~~ for this financialcareers or something. I'll just say, as your career goes on, every ""next"" place you interview for will ask what your last salary was and partly base their offer on that. So taking a job like this that bumps you up considerably pays off for every other job you get down the road."


"I'll concede that you're probably speaking in good faith- I genuinely believe that you're original statement was one that meant to point out that the ruling class seek to squeeze all the value they can out of being the ruling class, which includes maximizing the size of the rest of the population to drive down wages and get the most labor out of payrolls as possible to maximize profit. I can concede that completely and never suspected that you felt otherwise. That said, ""reasonable"" people are often unequipped to deal with extreme or academic scenarios using reason alone. My entire point of digression came from the use of the term ""commodity,"" as it refers to things of value who's value arises from their ability to be traded at a profit. Your statement regarding people fitting this definition was true in the time of feudalism- pushing that definition back to the idea that the labor of people was tradable (but people owned themselves) was a major improvement in human rights (happening for different people at different points in history). I drew a point of contention because it's an *important* and *historical* point of contention that should never slip backwards ever, without being pointed out."


It very much depends on whether you want to drive around in an expensive car, or whether you want an expensive car parked on your driveway. And whether you want to buy a new car, or a used one. And whether you know a reliable garage that doesn't rip you off or not. For example, if my wife who drives maybe 5,000 miles a year wanted a 5 series BMW, we could buy a five year old one with 120,000 miles, for about £120 per month purchase price if it lasts 6 years. 11 year old and 150,000 miles should be no problem for that kind of car. So that's quite affordable. For me, driving 25,000 miles a year, the numbers are quite different. Fact is, if you drive around in my wider neighbourhood, you will sometimes see very expensive cars parked in front of very rundown houses. Some people find it more important to drive around in an expensive car than to live in a nice place. That's priorities. Many people can afford expensive cars if they rearrange their priorities (and I'm not saying it's a good thing). PS. If you want to be seen in an expensive car (for example, you take your wife out), you can always rent a car for a day or two.


From HSA Resources - I understand that I can reimburse myself from my HSA for qualified medical expenses that I pay out-of-pocket but is there a time limit? Do I need to reimburse myself in the same year? You have your entire lifetime to reimburse yourself. As long as you had your HSA established at the time the expense was incurred, you save the receipt and it was not otherwise reimbursed, you can reimburse yourself for the expense from your HSA even years later. The important thing not asked or mentioned above is that the HSA must be in place before the expense occurred. In your case, should the LASIK procedure be before the HSA is established, it's not an eligible expense.


"That's true. However, let's say Andy lives on top of a bunch of coal. Charlie and Daniel create a piece of paper that says ""Andy's House Title"", and give it to John, who's pretty buff. He kicks Andy's ass, ties him up, and forces him to mine coal. This is good for Charlie and Daniel, who can get cheap coal. It's good for John, who's king of Andy's house and gets all the profits off the coal. Not so good for Andy. And that's part of why some other nations have a problem with us. We're buying coal for John, sending him guns, and helping him kick their asses when they try to throw him out."


You can change your withholdings (IRS form w-4) to take additional money from your paycheck and get it back when you file a refund. Maybe you could buy a gift visa, place it in a bag and freeze it in a tub of water. That could help put the impulse on ice for 24hrs. It is natural right to enjoy the money you work for. Be sure to include some enjoyable spending in your budget or you will be miserable. When breaking a habit, try to do one thing different, no matter how silly it is. Anything to bring your attention back to the big picture.


If they leave the extra funds in the account the IRS will consider it as employer match. They weren't funds from your paycheck, they were from the employers profits. Because they don't have a formal matching program the extra funds will still keep then under the max match. There is one other explanation that needs to be considered. If the last paycheck from 2011 was near the end of the year (the last Friday of 2011 was December 30th) the 401K funds from that final paycheck may not have been deposited into your 401K until early January 2012. If you count contributions when looking at your 401K statement it will look like one two many for 2012; but the IRS only cares when it was deducted from your paycheck, not when it was deposited into your account. The Department of Labor only requires they be deposited by the 15th of the following month.


"I think this is a bit too simplistic, because you need to keep in mind that Buffet was managing the money as his career. Had he paid the 1% fee he could have ""made more money"" doing something else. People who hire money managers usually do so because it A. saves them time managing their own portfolios and B. because they don't believe they would do a better job managing it themselves."


"Investors are ""forever"" comparing the prices of stocks to other stocks. As others have pointed out, this is done faster and more frequently nowadays with high-speed computer programs. There may be no ""fresh"" news on stock A, but if there is fresh news on stock B (as there usually is), the news on B affects the COMPARISON with stock A. That could be what causes trading in stock A that has ""no news."""


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://m.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/New-law-bans-California-employers-from-asking-12274431.php) reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot) ***** > California employers can no longer ask job applicants about their prior salary and - if applicants ask - must give them a pay range for the job they are seeking, under a new state law that takes effect Jan. 1. > If a woman is paid less than a man doing the same job and a new employer bases her pay on her prior salary, gender discrimination can be perpetuated, the bill&#039;s backers say. > The San Jose Unified School District said it needs to attract and retain educators and &quot;In order to so, it needs the ability to ask applicants about their salary history.&quot; The Western States Trucking Association said it &quot;Effectively eliminates an employer&#039;s ability to negotiate wage, as well as creates a new reason to sue."" ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/76dhxw/california_introduces_new_law_banning_employers/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~228343 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **employer**^#1 **bill**^#2 **salary**^#3 **state**^#4 **applicant**^#5"


"I did sort of the same thing as you after a some time in consulting. The biggest annoyance for me was how poorly I thought the most basic, obvious bullshit through. Figure out how you'll bill for travel -- when do you fly vs. drive, what's your mileage rate, etc. Get your proposal template looking razor sharp, and have a standardized invoice ready (don't say ""net 30"" or 45 or whatever, some clients won't understand what you're talking about and there's no way to explain it without sounding like a douche). Be prepared to negotiate heavily at first. Until you start to get a steady client base, people are going to lowball you, perhaps rightfully so. Consider the consequences of establishing yourself at a low rate, or being considered unreasonable and inflexible. Also, since you're working with a partner, figure out how you're going to register your business by considering your financial situations or, preferably, hiring an accountant. I also *strongly* recommend working with your partner and an attorney to draft an operating agreement. I've seen so many horror stories with people who either didn't have one, made their own shitty one, or otherwise got screwed on technicalities."


Good stuff. But the question is, why would these politicians want to change things? Most of them are self serving and there's no incentives from either parties to change. They've proven they can't govern themselves and the average voter keeps voting in incumbents.


Have you tried them? They're NOTHING like other veg patties. The texture, the greasy fatty beef flavor, the smell... I'm seriously in love with them. My sister's vegan, tried one, and won't eat them because they feel/taste too much like meat for her.


You're correct, there's always a conflict of interest in private professions whether you're a CPA, doctor or lawyer. There's always a possibility of backroom dealings. The only true response is that governmental bodies like the SEC, IRS and otherwise affiliated private organizations like the AICPA can take away your license to practice, send you to jail, or fine you thousands of dollars and ruin your life - if you're caught. I would personally draw a line between publicly traded corporations, amoral as you said, and public accounting. A CPA firm's responsibility is to the public even though they aren't a governmental body. Accounting records are required to do business with banks and the IRS. Without public confidence in the profession, CPA firms wouldn't exist. It's truly an incentive to do a good job and continually gain confidence. They incidentally make money along the way.


Regardless of your belief in no name equals fake... what are your thoughts on the content of the article? The points that were brought up were relatable no? As a person who understands a lot about researching on social platforms, I would have thought you could have a good insight to share, to help the author and the reader in this thread?


"Have you asked yourself why the worker is paid very little? The private sector is efficient, that in and of itself is reason to privatize. I have a feeling this ""better way"" you keep talking about involves me having a lot more of my property and/or income redistributed."


I started out thinking like you but I quickly realised this was a bad approach. You are a team, aren't you? Are you equals or is one of you an inferior of lower value? I think you'll generate more shared happiness by acting as a team of equals. I'd pool your resources and share them as equals. I'd open a joint account and pay both your incomes directly into it. I'd pay all household bills from this. If you feel the need, have separate personal savings accounts paid into (equally) from the joint account. Major assets should be in joint names. This usually means the house. In my experience, it is a good idea to each have a small amount of individual savings that you jointly agree each can spend without consulting the other, even if the other thinks it is a shocking waste of money. However, spending of joint savings should only be by mutual agreement. I would stop worrying about who is bringing in the most income. Are you planning to gestate your children? How much is that worth? - My advice is to put all this aside, stop trying to track who adds what value to the joint venture and make it a partnership of equals where each contributes whatever they can. Suppose you fell ill and were unable to earn. Should you wife then retain all her income and keep you in poverty? I really believe life is simpler and happier without adding complex and stressful financial issues to the relationship. Of course, everyone is different. The main thing is to agree this between the two of you and be open to change and compromise.


"Indeed. I would've had a full-time position with the company I worked for part-time over the past year... but through no fault of my own, mine was cancelled due to ""budget miscommunications"". I absolutely cannot stand people claiming ""Oh well, it's all just hard work"". Bullshit. I put in the hard work. I have the talent. What's my reward? To get flung out in the cold."


Yes. A mortgage is a kind of debt. Someone lends you money to buy your house, and you owe them the money, so you have debt.


"> Sounds like you live in a fantasy land where everyone has infinite do-over lives and market forces are magic panacea. No, but way to attack a straw man. It's much easier than actually forming a rational argument. > Clean air and water is a public good No, they are not. > We shouldn't leave issues like this to crop up from short-sightedness and cognitive biases of private parties left to their own devices. Only a complete dumb fuck would paint a private/public dichotomy as short-term vs long-term. Politicians don't have any more of a long-term vision than any other person. > If the US had been run the way you want, we'd have had prevalence of leaded gasoline, paint, and lead in drinking water for decades more. And we'd have higher crime rates due to the brain damage caused by lead. Bullshit, because the government wasn't listening to the scientists telling them about the harm of lead in the first place. You're talking out of your ass. > Making all roads private and for-profit creates a profit motive in acquiring lands that are strategically important in transportation It's almost as if more resources would go towards things that are more widely used. > opening up opportunities for monopolies and collusion Oh look, more talking out of your ass, complete with the ""answer to no one"" nonsense that only exists in the fantasy world in which consumers consistently harm themselves and no legal framework exists to stop unlawful behavior. It's fucking retarded. You have neither evidence nor even economic reasoning to support this. > Law and law enforcement is a matter of trust. No, *your* monopolized version of law is based upon trust. It's based upon the notion that you can hold an all-powerful entity accountable for its actions by appealing to that very same entity with a vote that makes no difference on the margin. And that's not trust, it's a religion."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/02/housing-demand-strengthens-but-heres-why-some-buyers-are-giving-up.html) reduced by 73%. (I'm a bot) ***** > &quot;Buyers toured in full force last month, even though there were fewer homes hitting the market. New listings fell 3.3 percent from May and were down 1.6 percent from a year ago. Faced with a low supply of homes for sale and extremely competitive conditions, many homebuyers are struggling to make it to the offer stage."" > The supply of homes for sale in July was down 11 percent annually, and homes were selling on average four days faster. > &quot;Home prices also remain stubbornly high, failing to show hints of the usual seasonal cooldown. Low and moderately priced homes are being snatched up especially quickly, keeping many would-be buyers from being able to get into the market."" ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6r8ybg/housing_demand_strengthens_through_summer_but/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~181826 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **home**^#1 **market**^#2 **buyers**^#3 **year**^#4 **percent**^#5"


I've been with my credit union for 8 years now and I love it! I also don't deal with any of the problems you are talking about. I don't pay fees at any atm, at least not ultimately. If an atm charges me a fee then it's refunded to me at the end of the month. My online banking is very good, even have an app that allows me to remote deposit checks. Oh, and my loan interest rates are really decent too. While the banks are nickel and dimeing you to death my CU pays me every month and charges no fees.


It is COMPLETELY no use to pay earlier (during a billing cycle) to better your credit score! Your credit score gets affected ONLY once a month from each creditor, and that happens when they post your monthly statement. Thus, no matter what you do or pay and how many times a month or how many days earlier than your due date, it has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on your score. Anything you do will be reflected only after the statement. What you pay in between those two statements is irrelevant. So, as far as credit score goes IT DOESN'T MATTER. However, if you want to save on interest being charged, it is wise to pay as early as possible, so your balance is as low as possible for day-by-day calculation of your interest.


For every seller, there's a buyer. Buyers may have any reason for wanting to buy (bargain shopping, foolish belief in a crazy business, etc). The party (brokerage, market maker, individual) owning the stock at the time the company goes out of business is the loser . But in a general panic, not every company is going to go out of business. So the party owning those stocks can expect to recover some, or all, of the value at some point in the future. Brokerages all reserve the right to limit margin trading (required for short selling), and during a panic would likely not allow you to short a stock they feel is a high risk for them.


Amazon Gold Ventures Limited - YousaytooProjects Marmjito Mining Sector This group of mines are located in the catchment area of work Marmajito underground mine. They are operating the mines Naranjos, La Picuda and Las Brisas. The first two exploit the seam. Marmajito in its lateral extension and the third operates the hearts of the Grain Córdoba. These mines are located in the hamlet Marmajito, south of town the municipality of Segovia. MINE COORDINATES EAST AND COORDINATES NORTH Los Naranjos 931,183.64 1'273,730.24 630 550 La Picuda 932,187.87 1'273,114.64 591 500 Las Brisas 930,845.26 1'273,260.24 690 570 The areas granted by the company Frontino Gold Mines in their respective operation contract are: Los Naranjos: 9 Ha 1281.83 m2 The Picuda: 4 HA 7214.6 m2 Las Brisas: 4 Ha 629.46 m2 These areas are bounded by the following coordinates. COORDINATE POINT AND COORDINATE N 1 931,173.71 1'273,700.46 2 931,411.94 1'273,827.48 3 931,422.51 1'274,039.10 4 931,092.60 1'274,126.60 COORDINATE E COORDINATE N 1 932,051.43 1'273,191.47 2 932,152.57 1'273,298.64 3 932,404.37 1'273,110.56 4 932,287.72 1'273,000.00 COORDINATE E COORDINATE N 1 930,607.24 1'273,363.31 2 930,814.27 1'273,375.04 3 930,869.35 1'273,219.11 4 930,670.89 1'273,143.91 Marmajito sector mines have operating agreement in effect with the Frontino Gold Mines Company, with a duration of three months, renewable. The areas are well located with respect to farm work today, the Naranjos except mine, which is advancing on a crusade to Córdoba intercepting the vein out of the area. The mine La Picuda has a fixed lower boundary which is already below the lowest level on the contract, are advances are also side that fall outside the allocated area.


I hope that there are no significant differences between the things you list once the formulas for compounding interest are understood. I will, again, lay out these formulas below. First, definition of the variables: R means Total Return ratio. The sum of all money you get, both dividends (or interest payments) and return of initial capital. I is a ratio. It is the percent (10.4%) divided by 100 (0.104) then added to one (1.104). P means the number of periods in which the interest rate is paid and compounded. R = I^P I = R^(1/P) P = log(R) / log(I) Once you have R you multiply it by the amount of your initial investment to find out how much total money is returned. For simplicity the following amounts are approximate: 2 = 1.104^7 1.104 = 2^(1/7) 7 = log(2) / log(1.104) So to double your money in seven years you need a yearly interest rate of 10.4, if compounded yearly.


That looks very much like an S&P 500 E-Mini index future. However, ES1 is a strange symbol. Futures have the month of expiry encoded in their symbol as well: http://commodities.about.com/od/understandingthebasics/ss/futurescontract_3.htm For example, the September 2011 future in this series would be ESU1. I'm not very familiar with Bloomberg so perhaps this is the front contract (i.e. the one that's closest to expiry (in the is case the September 2011 one)). Only problem is that prices don't exactly match what CME has (high of 1190 and low of 1186.25, for when this page gets out of date): http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/e-mini-sandp500.html - but they are so close I suspect it must be some sort of S&P 500 index future.


Our company provides the best tour package in Cuba. If you want to enjoy Holiday, then you can visit our company website. And we provide the different type of the offer for holiday package and Vacation rentals services. You can come to the company office and get all information for Vacation rentals in vinales. The Vinales is beautiful city of the world. People from all over the world come to the city of Vinals.


"I don't know how annuities work it's all smoke and mirrors to me. This is a huge red flag to me. I would ask the agent what the penalty is to cancel this contract, and see ho much you can get back. If done right, you should be able to transfer these funds to an IRA or other pretax account. To be clear, I'd make a similar remark if you said your were in a S&P ETF or any investment you don't understand. ""Appropriate investment"" means little if the investor has no understanding of what they are buying. Update in repose to comments -"


Your question is missing too much to be answered directly. Instead - here are some points to consider. Short term gains taxed at your marginal rates, whereas long term gains have preferable capital gains rates (up to 20% tax rate, instead of your marginal rate). So if you're selling at gain, you might want to consider to sell FIFO and pay lower capital gains tax rate instead of the short term marginal rate. If you're selling at loss and have other short term gains, you would probably be better selling LIFO, so that the loss could offset other short term gains that you might have. If you're selling at loss and don't have short term gains to offset, you can still offset your long term gains with short term losses, but the tax benefit will be lower. In this case - FIFO might be a better choice again. If you're selling at loss, beware of the wash sale rules, as you might not be able to deduct the loss if you buy/sell within too short a window.


Some businesses sell a franchise. You will be buying the name and reputation, access to the corporate infrastructure, requirements to use specific supplies and procedures. These tend to come with financing from the parent company. You will need to bring cash to the table, but they will loan you the rest. When purchasing a business, like buying a house, what is part of the deal can be negotiated. Sometimes the new owner and the seller agree to transfer everything. In other cases almost nothing except one item is included. The one item could be the location, the name, the inventory, the customer/client list. All these can be assets or liabilities depending on the specific situation, and which side of the table you are on. In the United states the US government has the Small Business Administration. They also have Small Business Development Centers SMDC to help. These are also supported by state governments and colleges and universities. They can help identify the steps needed to start a small business.


Very smart. Let other people pay you interest. Don't pay other people interest. And, yes, I know it's possible to borrow money from one place and lend it to another place at a slightly higher rate, but why bother.