Dollar cost averaging can be done in a retirement plan, and can be done for individual stock purchases, as this will increase your returns by reducing your risk, especially if you are buying a particular stock for the first time. How many time have I purchased a stock, bottom fishing, thinking I was buying at the low, only to find out there was a new low. Sitting with a thousand shares that are now down $3-$4K. I have a choice to sell at a loss, hold what I've got or double down. I usually add more shares if I'm thinking I'll recover, but at that time I'd wished I'd eased into my investment. That way I would have owned more shares at a smaller cost basis. Anything can happen in the market, not knowing whether the price will increase or decrease. In the example above a $3,000 loss is equal to the brokerage cost of about 300 trades, so trading cost should not be a factor. Now I'm not saying to slowly get into the market and miss the bull, like we're having today with Trump, but get into individual stocks slowly, being fully invested in the market. Also DCA means you do not buy equal number of shares per period, say monthly, but that you buy with the same amount of money a different number of shares, reducing your total costs. Let's say you spend $2000 on a stock trading at $10 (200 shares), if the stock rose to $20 you would spend $2000 and buy 100 shares, and if the stock dropped to $5 you would spend $2000 and buy 400 shares, by now having amassed 700 shares for $6,000. On the other hand and in contrast to DCA had you purchased 200 shares for $2000 at $10/share, then 200 shares for $4000 at $20/share, and finally 200 more shares for $1000 at $5/share, you would have amassed only 600 shares for $7000 investment.


> General Motors Co will cut nearly a quarter of its U.S. pension obligation by transferring the management of its pension plans for 118,000 white-collar retirees to a third party and offering lump-sum buyouts. The two moves unveiled on Friday will cut $26 billion from the automaker's massive U.S. pension liability of nearly $109 billion. It's almost like the OP didn't read the story.


It's two things. One, hg Tv is reality television... It isn't real, never has been, never will be. It sells the 80s American dream. Two, cost of living and relative wage varies across regions. E. G. The big mac effect. Bigger question, in my opinion, is why do we care? I'm not a hippy, check my history, but my wife and I very recently downsized, with kids on the way. And it's fine. We went for a smaller home in a safer area with better schools. Couldn't be happier.


Budget means both expenses and revenue. In quite a few cases, say personal finance, typically one refers to budget more from expenses point of view as the revenue is typically fixed/known [mostly salary]. The Operating budget and capital budget are laid out separately as Operating budget gives out day to day expenses that are typically essential, employee salaries, routine maintenance of infrastructure etc. The revenue is also tied in to match this. These are done within the same year. Where as capital budget is to build new infrastructure say a new bridge or other major expense that are done over period of years. The revenues to this are typically tied up differently and can even be linked to getting more funding from other agencies or loans.


Whey protein, coffee, skills, skills, skills did I mention skills? Learn useful things and no debt. As for actual investment vehicles.. I have bad views of what is going to happen of the next 10 years.. I doubt you'll be allowed to own anything you invested in....


Once the business is shut down, you'll need to show that the corporation is in bankruptcy and the amounts are unrecoverable. You can then report it as investment loss. I suggest talking to a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State), and maybe an attorney, on what the specific technical details are.


So you wouldn't really be using the IRA money for building the house, but for padding your savings? I would just leave the money in the IRA. Don't take it out just in the off-chance you need it, especially when you already have money in savings. If you want to replenish your savings do it by putting some of your income in there.


Could you not open an additional checking account using both of your names? Of course, this additional account will technically also be yours, but if he's the only one placing money into it, then he's not spending your money from your existing checking account. I'd recommend going to bank of america, letting them know you have an existing checking account and stating that you'd like to open a second checking account. I don't see any problem with this, do you?


> Food delivery has limited success for luxury or novelty food items (e.g., fruit baskets, steaks, coffee, snack food, etc.), but for general eating/family eating, it's not an everyday food shopping need. In the UK, all of the non-low end chains have food delivery where they delivery everything (usually better selections than the large shops) to your door. I used to live 5-6 minutes away from the shop, and I still did food delivery for perhaps £2-3. If your average store can do delivery, then surely Amazon can beat them at the same game.


It sounds like you're drastically oversimplifying basic business economics, and implying that any company is just as well off breaking even (zero profit) as it is with turning a big profit. This is blatantly incorrect and naive. For one thing, it is certainly be easier to justify expansion or attract new investments if your company is profitable.


As long as you can get a cash advance on the credit card if you need it, then you're not putting the money beyond use if you use it to pay down card debt, you're just putting it where it gets the best rate of return.


"If the ""crash"" you worry about is a dissolution of the euro, then the main thing you should concern yourself with is liquidity. For that, purchase the most highly liquid gold ETF or futures contract, whichever is more appropriate for the total amount of money involved. Any other way and you will lose a significant chunk of your assets to transaction costs. If, on the other hand, the ""crash"" you were concerned about were the total collapse of the world economy, and people around the world abandon all paper currencies and resort to barter as a method of trade, then I can see buying several small pieces being a rational strategy, although then I would also question whether you were a sane individual."


It's called economics, buddy. Supply and demand. That's why IT wages are a lot higher than those in, say, the textile industry. Won't bother explaining it because I think you already understand this but just don't like it.


From my limited experience, having taken a class on Bankruptcy in order to become a paralegal, Chapter 11 is the portion of the Bankruptcy Code that allows certain corporate entities to reorganize. Basically, the entity files for bankruptcy protection to halt credit collections or any number of reasons, and then work with the courts to get out. If the entity can put together a reasonable sounding restructuring plan, the court may allow them to do it. A restructuring plan essentially is a plan of who to pay back, when, and by what means (this is seriously a simple explanation, it's much more complex than this). So if the Court approves the plan, the entity will attempt to carry it out and come out of bankruptcy several years down the road in a more solvent position. If the Court rejects the plan or the plan fails, then the entity has to then engage in Chapter 7 proceedings (selling assets to pay off debts).


> Are you saying that OP was just unlucky because he didn't realize that forex wasn't covered under SIPC? Pretty much. Opening an investing account has tons of T&C. You're not going to read every single bit of it.


Hey man, take my upvote. God forbid a fast food restaurant tries to provide somewhat healthy and fresh options at the small risk of one or two of 2,250 stores having a limited outbreak! I guess if you're an investor it's a good time to buy some stock. It's crazy to me. ONE store out of over two thousand has an issue and the stock drops?!


It's really hard to explain until you've been inside one. There's one here in San Jose and it was a magical experience. Shit you not. In other bookstores you'll be lucky to find a recommended book section, and even rarer to find some kind of context about why the book is good (say a blurb or review). All the books in the front have a blurb from Amazon reviews and average star rating. At another end of the store there are recommendations based on other popular books. It's as if Amazon made a bookstore for people who actually like reading books.


Reports -> I&E -> Cash Flow Select the Mutual Fund account only.


"It can be pretty hard to compute the right number. What you need to know for your actual return is called the dollar-weighted return. This is the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rate_of_return computed for your actual cash flows. So if you add $100 per month or whatever, that has to be factored in. If you have a separate account then hopefully your investment manager is computing this. If you just have mutual funds at a brokerage or fund company, computing it may be a bunch of manual labor, unless the brokerage does it for you. A site like Morningstar will show a couple of return numbers on say an S&P500 index fund. The first is ""time weighted"" and is just the raw return if you invested all money at time A and took it all out at time B. They also show ""investor return"" which is the average dollar-weighted return for everyone who invested in the fund; so if people sold the fund during a market crash, that would lower the investor return. This investor return shows actual returns for the average person, which makes it more relevant in one way (these were returns people actually received) but less relevant in another (the return is often lower because people are on average doing dumb stuff, such as selling at market bottoms). You could compare yourself to the time-weighted return to see how you did vs. if you'd bought and held with a big lump sum. And you can compare yourself to the investor return to see how you did vs. actual irrational people. .02, it isn't clear that either comparison matters so much; after all, the idea is to make adequate returns to meet your goals with minimum risk of not meeting your goals. You can't spend ""beating the market"" (or ""matching the market"" or anything else benchmarked to the market) in retirement, you can only spend cash. So beating a terrible market return won't make you feel better, and beating a great market return isn't necessary. I think it's bad that many investment books and advisors frame things in terms of a market benchmark. (Market benchmarks have their uses, such as exposing index-hugging active managers that aren't earning their fees, but to me it's easy to get mixed up and think the market benchmark is ""the point"" - I feel ""the point"" is to achieve your financial goals.)"


It is all a balancing act. You must pay them a respectable wage. You must treat them with respect. They in turn must perform their duties as good as or better than expected of them. If either party doesn't fulfill their half of the deal then it would be expected that they part ways if the issue can not be fixed


"Checks sold as ""business checks"" are larger than checks sold as ""personal checks"". Personal checks are usually 6"" x 2 1/2"" while business checks are 8 1/2 "" x 3 to 4 "". Also, business checks typically have a tear-off stub where you can write who the check was made out to and what it was for. In this computer age that seems pretty obsolete to me, I enter the check into the computer, not write it on a stub, but I suppose there are still very small businesses out there that doesn't use a computerized record-keeping system. These days business checks are often printed on 8 1/2 by 11"" paper -- either one per sheet with a big tear-off or 3 per sheet with no tear off -- so you can feed them through a computer printer easily. Nothing requires you to use ""business checks"" for a business account. At least, I've always used personal checks for my business account with no problem. These days I make almost all payments electronically, I think I write like one paper check a year, so it's become a trivial issue. Oh, and I've never had any problem getting a check printer to put my business name on the checks or anything like that."


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I feel like the economics based on slave labor should have a name but I can't think of one. It's not really capitalist because that would require a voluntary trade and slave labor is not voluntary. But in economic theory slavery can be powerful. The Nazi's really surprised the allied planners with how effective their use of slave labor really was.


"The market capitalization of a stock is the number of shares outstanding (of each stock class), times the price of last trade (of each stock class). In a liquid market (where there are lots of buyers and sellers at all price points), this represents the price that is between what people are bidding for the stock and what people are asking for the stock. If you offer any small amount more than the last price, there will be a seller, and if you ask any small amount less than the last price, there will be a buyer, at least for a small amount of stock. Thus, in a liquid market, everyone who owns the stock doesn't want to sell at least some of their stock for a bit less than the last trade price, and everyone who doesn't have the stock doesn't want to buy some of the stock for a bit more than the last trade price. With those assumptions, and a low-friction trading environment, we can say that the last trade value is a good midpoint of what people think one share is worth. If we then multiply it by the number of shares, we get an approximation of what the company is worth. In no way, shape or form does it not mean that there is 32 billion more invested in the company, or even used to purchase stock. There are situations where a 32 billion market cap swing could mean 32 billion more money was invested in the company: the company issues a pile of new shares, and takes in the resulting money. People are completely neutral about this gathering in of cash in exchange for dilluting shares. So the share price remains unchanged, the company gains 32 billion dollars, and there are now more shares outstanding. Now, in some sense, there is zero dollars currently invested in a stock; when you buy a stock, you no longer have the money, and the money goes to the person who no longer has the stock. The issue here is the use of the continuous tense of ""invested in""; the investment was made at some point, but the money doesn't really stay in this continuous state of being. Unless you consider the investment liquid, and the option to take money out being implicit, it being a continuous action doesn't make much sense. Sometimes the money is invested in the company, when the company causes stocks to come into being and sells them. The owners of stocks has invested money in stocks in that they spent that money to buy the stocks, but the total sum of money ever spent on stocks for a given company is not really a useful value. The market capitalization is an approximation, which under the efficient market hypothesis (that markets find the correct price for things nearly instantly) is reasonably accurate, of the value the company has collectively to its shareholders. The efficient market hypothesis isn't accurate, but it is an acceptable rule of thumb. Now, this value -- market capitalization -- is arguably not the total value of a company: other stakeholders include bond holders, labour, management, various contract counter-parties, government and customers. Some companies are structured so that almost all value is captured not by the stock owners, but by contract counter-parties (this is sometimes used for hiding assets or debts). But for most large publically traded companies, it (in theory) shouldn't be far off."


"In your case, I believe the answer is that you don't owe any taxes, if your deductions exceed your income. There is something called the Alternate Minimum Tax to catch ""rich"" people, who claim ""too many"" deductions. Basically, it taxes their ""gross"" income at a lower rate, but allows them no deductions if they make $175,000 or more. You are not in that tax ""bracket."""


"For the purposes of report generation, I would recommend that you present the data in the currency of the user's home country. You could present another indicator, if needed, to indicate that a specific transaction was denominated in a foreign currency, where the amount represents the value of the foreign-denominated transaction in the user's home country Currency. For example: Airfare from USA to London: $1,000.00 Taxi from airport to hotel: $100.00 (in £) In terms of your database design, I would recommend not storing the data in any one denomination or reference currency. This would require you to do many more conversions between currencies that is likely to be necessary, and will create additional complexity where in some cases, you will need to do multiple conversions per transaction in and out of your reference currency. I think it will be easier for you to store multiple currencies as themselves, and not in a separate reference currency. I would recommend storing several pieces of information separately for each transaction: This way, you can create a calculated Amount for each transaction that is not in the user's ""home"" currency, whereas you would need to calculate this for all transactions if you used a universal reference currency. You could also get data from an external source if the user has forgotten the conversion rate. Remember that there are always fees and variations in the exchange rate that a user will get for their home country's currency, even if they change money at the same place at two different times on the same day. As a result, I would recommend building in a simple form that allows a user to enter how much they exchanged and how much they got back to calculate the exchange rate. So for example, let's say I have $ 200.00 USD and I exchanged $ 100.00 USD for £ 60.00, and there was a £ 3.00 fee for the exchange. The exchange rate would be 0.6, and when the user enters a currency conversion, your site could create three separate transactions such as: USD Converted to £: $100.00 £ Received from Exchange: £ 60.00 Exchange Fee: £ 3.00 So if the user exchanged currency and then ran a balance report by Currency, you could either show them that they now have $ 100.00 USD and £ 57.00, or you could alternatively choose to show the £ 57.00 that they have as $95.00 USD instead. If you were showing them a transaction report, you could also show the fee denominated in dollars as well. I would recommend storing your balances and transactions in their own currencies, as you will run into some very interesting problems otherwise. For example, let's say you used a reference currency tied to the dollar. So one day I exchange $ 100.00 USD for £ 60.00. In this system I would still have 100 of my reference currency. However, if the next day, the exchange rate falls and $ 1.00 USD is only worth £ 0.55, and I change my £ 60.00 back into USD, I will get approxiamately $ 109.09 USD back for my £ 60.00. If I then go and buy something for $ 100.00 USD, the balance of the reference currency would be at 0, but I will still have $ 9.09 USD in my pocket as a result of the fluctuating currency values! That is why I'd recommend storing currencies as themselves, and only showing them in another currency for convenience using calculations done ""on the fly"" at report runtime. Best of luck with your site!"


There are API libraries available to various banks in various programming languages. For example, in Perl there are many libraries in the Finance::Bank:: namespace. Some of these use screen-scraping libraries and talk to the GUI underneath, so they are vulnerable to any changes the bank makes to their interface, but some of the better banks do seem to provide back-end interfaces, which can then be used directly. In either case, you should still be sure that the transactions are secure. Some bank sites have appallingly bad security. :( A good place to start is to call your bank and ask if they offer any programming APIs for accessing their back end.


Can we just focus on one? Can you explain the NBA? I'm curious why it's ok to suggest that blacks have darker skin, but not they're stronger or more athletic? They're both physical traits. Who cares if it's true or not true? You'll never uncover the right answer if you go in wanting the answer to be a certain way.


tl;dr: when everything is going great, it's not really a problem. It's when things change that it's a problem. Finally, home loans are extended over extremely long periods (i.e. 15 or 30 years), making any fluctuations in their value short-lived - even less reason to be obsessed over their current value relative to the loan. Your post is based on the assumption that you never move. In that case, you are correct - being underwater on a mortgage is not a problem. The market value of your house matters little, except if you sell it or it gets reassessed. The primary problem arises if you want to sell. There are a variety of reasons you might be required to move: In all of these scenarios it is a major problem if you cannot sell. Your options generally are: In the first option, you will destroy your credit. This may or may not be a problem. The second is a major inconvenience. The third is ideal, but often people in this situation have money related problems. Student loans can deferred if needed. Mortgages cannot. A car is more likely to be a lower payment as well as a lower amount underwater. Generally, the problem comes when people buy a mortgage assuming certain things - whether that's appreciation, income stability/growth, etc. When these change they run into these problems and that is exactly a moment where being underwater is a problem.


In Addition to @JoeTaxpayer's answer, in the UK credit cards offer additional protection than if you were to pay by debit card. This includes (but is not limited to) getting your money back if the company you've bought something from goes bust before your order is complete.


Rating agencies should be paid on accuracy, i.e. each bond issued pays x $ into a pool, and the bond companies whom are accurate over the maturity get a share of the pool. Those whom are not, must add money to the pool. (Like an accuracy market!)


But it also can't be 1.46%, because that would imply that a 30Y US Treasury bond only yields 2.78%, which is nonsensically low. The rates are displayed as of Today. As the footnote suggests these are to be read with Maturities. A Treasury with 1 year Maturity is at 1.162% and a Treasury with 30Y Maturity is at 2.78%. Generally Bonds with longer maturity terms give better yields than bonds of shorter duration. This indicates the belief that in long term the outlook is positive.


"Life insurance may be tax-privileged under certain circumstances. The intent must be to buy an annuity, at retirement age. Unlike ""banksparen"", you must consider what happens if you die early."


Investopedia states: While early exercise is generally not advisable, because the time value inherent in the option premium is lost upon doing so, there are certain circumstances under which early exercise may be advantageous. For example, an investor may choose to exercise a call option that is deeply in-the-money (such an option will have negligible time value) just before the ex-dividend date of the underlying stock. This will enable the investor to capture the dividend paid by the underlying stock, which should more than offset the marginal time value lost due to early exercise. So the question is how well do you see the time value factor here?


I actually did this once. I wrote a large check along with a letter indicating that I would not be around to receive the next bill so I was prepaying. Not only did they credit the entire check, they didn't send that bill and listed the charges on the next month's bill. They must have done that by hand because there's no way the machines would have understood.


Blame Bernanke, blame 98% of congress- but don't leave out the democrats as your article does, blame the president, blame the schools, blame others & blame yourself. All of this could be averted if people spent one day a year not watching TV but discussing topics with people. We should not be scared to place blame, but only if it is well thought out and rational.


In almost every circumstance high expense ratios are a bad idea. I would say every circumstance, but I don't want backlash from anyone. There are many other investment companies out there that offer mutual funds for FAR less than 1.5% ratio. I couldn't even imagine paying a 1% expense ratio for a mutual fund. Vanguard offers mutual funds that are significantly lower, on average, than the industry. Certainly MUCH lower than 1.5%, but then again I'm not sure what mutual funds you have, stock, bonds, etc. Here is a list of all Vanguard's mutual funds. I honestly like the company a lot, many people haven't heard of them because they don't spend nearly as much money on advertisements or a flashy website - but they have extremely low expense ratios. You can buy into many of their mutual funds with a 0.10%-0.20% expense ratio. Some are higher, but certainly not even close to 1.5%. I don't believe any of them are even half of that. Also, if you were referring to ETF's when you mentioned Index Fund (assuming that since you have ETFs in your tag), then 0.20% for ETF's is steep, check out some identical ETFs on Vanguard. I am not a Vanguard employee soliciting their service to you. I'm just trying to pass on good information to another investor. I believe you can buy vanguard funds through other investment companies, like Fidelity, for a good price, but I prefer to go through them.


"I think your question might be coming from a misunderstanding of how corporate structures work - specifically, that a corporation is a legal entity (sort of like a person) that can have its own assets and debts. To make it clear, let's look at your example. We have two founders, Albert and Brian, and they start a corporation called CorpTech. When they start the company, it has no assets - just like you would if you owned nothing and had no bank account. In order to do anything, CorpTech is going to need some money. So Albert and Brian give it some. They can give it as much as they want - they can give it property if they want, too. Usually, people don't just put money into a corporation without some sort of agreement in place, though. In most cases, the agreement says something like ""Each member will own a fraction of the company that is in proportion to this initial investment."" The way that is done varies depending on the type of corporation, but in general, if Albert ends up owning 75% and Brian ends up owning 25%, then they probably valued their contributions at 75% and 25% of the total value. These contributions don't have to be money or property, though. They could just be general ""know-how,"" or ""connections,"" or ""an expectation that they will do some work."" The important thing is that they agree on the value of these contributions and assign ownership of the company according to that agreement. If they don't have an agreement, then the laws of the state that the company is registered in will say how the ownership is assigned. Now, what ""ownership"" means can be different depending on the context. When it comes to decision-making, you could ""own"" one percentage of the company in terms of votes, but when it comes to shares of future profits, you could own a different amount. This is why you can have voting and non-voting versions of a company's stock, for example. So this is a critical point - the ownership of a company is independent of the individual contributions to the company. The next part of your question is related to this: what happens when CorpTech sees an opportunity to make an investment? If it has enough cash on hand (because of the initial investment, or through financing, or reinvested profits), then the decision to make the investment is made according to Albert and Brian's ownership agreement, and they spend it. The money doesn't belong to them individually anymore, it belongs to CorpTech, and so CorpTech is spending it. They are just making the decision for CorpTech to spend it. This is why people say the owners are not financially liable beyond their initial investment. If the deal is bad, and they lose the money, the most they can lose is what they initially put in. On the other hand, if CorpTech doesn't have the money, then they have to figure out a way to get it. They might decide to each put in an amount in proportion to their ownership, so that their stake doesn't change. Or, Albert might agree to finance the deal 100% in exchange for a larger share of ownership. Or, he could agree to fund all of it without a larger stake, because Brian is the one who set the deal up. Or, they might take out a loan, and not need to invest any new money. Or, they might find an investor who agrees to put in the needed money in exchange for a a 51% share, in which case Albert and Brian will have to figure out how to split the remaining 49% if they agree to the deal. The details of how all of this would work depend on the structure (LLC, LLP, C-corp, S-corp, etc), but in general, the idea is that the company has assets and debts, and the owners can have voting rights, equity rights, and rights to future profits in any type of split that they want, regardless of what the companies assets and debts are, or what their initial investment was."


"There are several ways you can get out of paying your student loans back in the USA: You become disabled and the loan is dismissed once verified by treating doctor or the Social Security Administration. You become a peace officer. You become a teacher; generally K-12, but I have heard from the DOE that teachers at state schools qualify as well. So the ""malicious"" friend B is prescribing to the theory that if one of those conditions becomes true, friend A will not have to pay back the loan. The longer you drag it out, the more chance you have to fulfill a condition. Given that 2 of these methods require a commitment, my guess is that they are thinking more along the lines of the first one, which is horrible. Financially, it makes no sense to delay paying back your loans because deferred loans are only interest-free until you graduate and are past your grace period, after which they will begin accruing interest. Unsubsidized loans accrue interest from the day you get them, only their payback is deferred until you graduate and exhaust your grace period. Anytime you ask for forbearance, you are still accruing interest and it is capitalizing into your principal — you are just given a chance to delay payback due to financial hardship, bad health, or loss of job. Therefore, at no point are you benefiting beyond the time you are in school and getting an education, still looking for a job, or dealing with health issues. In the current market, no CD, no savings account, and no investment will give you substantially more return that will offset the loss of the interest you are accruing. Even those of us in the old days getting 4.X % rates would not do this. There was a conditional consolidation offer the DOE allowed which could bring all your loans under one roof for a competitive 5.x-6.x % rate allowing you a single payment, but even then you would benefit if you had rates that were substantially higher. From a credit worthiness aspect, you are hurt by the outstanding obligation and any default along the way, so you really want to avoid that — paying off or down your loans are a good way to ensure you don't shoot yourself in the foot."


I would recommend that you take out a loan large enough to cover both your Capex requirements AND give yourself a cash buffer. Depending on the simulation and how aggressive you want/need to be (are you competing against other teams?), you may just want to leverage as much as you can and use high amounts of cash for all expenses and projects.


Perhaps this will prod the administration to form some sort of new-era WPA to put a lot of people back to work. There will be a lot of retired military returning soon, adding to the unemployment problem. The country's infrastructure is falling apart. Putting a whole lot of people to work fixing things would be a very good thing.


As other posters have pointed out, many other potential factors at play here besides value, but that said, a huge part of my long-term money that I don't want to manage myself is in actively managed EM funds.


Want to make printable digital scrapbooking calendar as a gift for family or friends? Design your own wall or desk calendar and print ot at home or send them to a lab. You'll find all kinds of templates and calendar kits here. They are perfect for Christmas, Mother's Day, and Father's Day presents.


If his credit union participates in the national Co-Op, then he will be able to withdraw money at any participating credit union. He could just bring cash a check out in his name, just like he would at home.


Seriously, what he said. Learn HTML / CSS / php / MySQL and you can earn 100k/yr with ease. I've seen people learn it on their own within a year or less. As long as you're diligent and have a passion for building something awesome out of nothing you will learn slowly but surely. Even beginner programmers can make 60k a year without trying.


Oil will not crash to $10 a barrel. Green movement in wealthy parts of Europe and North America all you want, but the majority of the worlds population resides in poor and shit places. Green energy will not take hold in these areas any time soon. Things as simple as recycling is still a very foreign concept to a good majority of the worlds population and you expect to change their infrastructure in the next few years? Decrease in oil dependency may be easy in SF, but have you seen fucking Arkansas? Vancouver's public transportation can easily support people getting out of their cars, but have you seen fucking L.A? Sure, more bike lanes for Copenhagen and coal free Denmark, but fuck me...AFRICA.


Tax accountant here. The money is yours and you can do what ever you want with it. Just make sure to put it on the books as Loan Receivable and have an Interest Income account.


"I agree that cutting spending is generally a bad idea in a bad economy. However, we cannot sustain deficit spending forever. Our government has been spending money it doesn't have for decades. Now that we need spending to boost the economy, we've started to run out of ammunition. Years of stupid spending have caught up with us in the midst of a major depression. It's bad, but reality. So many people (including many people here on Reddit) have ideas that our debt-GDP ratio isn't a problem. Many people have pointed out that other countries have survived with much higher GDP ratios than ours. That is true, but we can't make that comparison based on that one variable. Those countries seemed to be on the brink of a major economic expansion as they conquered market shares in the global economy or developed new industries. As their economies started booming, they were able to pay down their debts. People argue that when our economy improves we can do the same. The problem is that after spending $5 trillion, we are still in a terribly stagnant economy after three years of recovery. How long do they think it is going to take before the recovery kicks in? It's inevitable that sooner or later we need to cut debts. Even if we do see a sudden economic rebound, the amount of debt it would take to get there would be extreme at this rate. That would require major cuts in spending which would send us right back where we started. Some people say that paying the debt is similar to paying down a mortgage. By those standards we are doing fine and it is more than affordable. That is a bad argument. For one thing, the revenue we generate in taxes is coming from economic growth developed by that spending. If you cut one, you cut the other. The way our economy is working right now, in order to generate more revenue to pay down the debt, we need to take on more debt. Also, unlike a mortgage, we are at the mercy of the financial markets. When investors decide that we have too much debt, the rates will rise or they stop buying altogether. Then we have to rely on the federal reserve to finance it, which can cause serious inflation. If we lose our reserve status (anyone who thinks this isn't possible is sadly delusional) then we are basically going to end up like Greece because we wouldn't be able to pay off our debts to foreign investors with our printing press. It's also important to note that America has a very big advantage it doesn't really deserve. We have the world reserve currency. People say that we deserve to have that because our economy is stronger. That is circular logic, because so much of our economic strength is due to the fact we had the reserve currency in the first place. Where would we be without it? Would we still be the strongest economy in the world? I think that's an impossible question to answer, because we have had it and given a free pass for so long that we don't know what life would be like. We can sit and chastise Europe for not doing as well as us, but the truth is we have a huge advantage so it's not a valid comparison. Also, we may be doing better for now. But if our sovereign debt bubble bursts (either due to the loss of world reserve currency status or otherwise) we won't be any better off. I don't believe in austerity in a depression, but this unsustainable deficit spending seems equally reckless. I think we need a more strategic plan that rests somewhere in the middle ground. Cutting spending on wasteful projects and redirecting that money into areas that are going to have a high return on investment in the form of GDP growth. Obama's roads don't qualify. Otherwise, if we keep wasting money we will someday reach the point where deficit spending is no longer an option and we have to cut it regardless of how stagnant the economy is. That would be really bad and we need to change gears before we reach that tipping point. To answer your question, I think the people you speak of are wrong, but not stupid. They certainly have good points. The problem is that everyone looks at it as an ""either/or"" situation rather than seeing a continuum where the real answer may lie somewhere in the middle."


Yup. SAP and Oracle are customized to each individual company with little to no overlap. Being experienced in one companies SAP setup does not guarantee that one would be familiar with another companies set up. Adding to that, Companies complaints about having people graduate without the skills they need is a load of bullshit. Instead of complaining should have partnered with the schools to make sure that students were learning and gaining experience in the things they actually need.


"Since you are going to be experiencing a liquidity crisis that even owning physical gold wouldn't solve, may I suggest bitcoins? You will still be liquid and people anywhere will be able to trade it. This is different from precious metals, whereas even if you ""invested"" in gold you would waste considerable resources on storage, security and actually making it divisible for trade. You would be illiquid. Do note that the bitcoin currency is currently more volatile than a Greek government bond."


There are two things you need to keep in mind when you look at Inflation as an entity. Inflation is necessary to keep in check the value of goods. As per Moore's Law for example, a mobile phone that you buy for £100 today will be available for £50 in two years. With increased purchasing power, one needs to maintain balance between the purchasing power and its value. If you think about the 'loss' at a rate of 2% you would have £96.04 (in terms of today's value) in two years. But if you looked at the same cell phone as leverage for your business where it allowed you to do work and earn £1000 in two years - the investment would clearly offset the cost of inflation. Inflation is incentive for people to spend their money. If you for example spent all of your £100 today, it is £100 income for someone else. He has further incentive to spend it creating a chain of transactions. In theory while this is a true mathematical loss, the increasing purchasing power helps you leverage your financial asset to get a return on your investment.


Fuck. This isn't a business post, necessarily (in the business subreddit, I know), but I go to whole Foods to find really niche products (specialty-local coffee) and to get their desserts and eat a meal there while walking around. I hope they don't drop these portions of the WFM model.


Safety shoes were once used by mine workers in South Africa and very few staff across the world. These Shoes were bulky, ugly and were used by men only if they really required strong protection. They come with waterproofing, steel toes, solid leather material to avoid any injuries to the feet. But today, ask any leather safety shoes supplier in Qatar, safety shoes are making fashion statements.


"If it could, it seems yet to be proven. Long Term Capital Management was founded by a bunch of math whizzes and they seem to have missed something. I'd never suggest that something has no value, but similar to the concept that ""if time travel were possible, why hasn't anyone come back from the future to tell us"" I'd suggest that if there were a real advantage to what you suggest, someone would be making money from it already. In my opinion, the math is simple, little more than a four function calculator is needed."


Capital One's normal master card is known to approve people with limited or bad credit history. If not that look into a secured credit card. You put down a deposit of $200 or more and you get that much in credit, sometimes more.


They are the largest non government employer in the country. They have an absolutely massive consumer base. They made that profit while constantly lowering prices for their customers. I bet you use them on a regular basis. It is kind of funny watching your faux indignation. Isn't Apple your product provider of choice? One of the most expensive over priced producers currently on the market. With one of the lowest paid work forces on the planet. But well paid for their market. You just ooze hypocrite. Like most Apple social warriors. Its funny listening to people like you speak for others you would never be caught mingling with.


"Why even bother? Why are you working? Go get food stamps for this one reason, it's the only thing THEY give you in exchange fir policing all land use. You cannot even get police services. 911 is just a [make it worse] option : ""Stop attacking me or I will [make it worse] for both of us"" Soon a criminal wont even care vecause things can't get any worse. Why are you working?"


There are several questions to answer before help can be given. How much revenue did you have this year? What is expected revenue growth for next few years? Are you operating as a sole proprietor, partnership or corporation? If a corporation did you maintain your books on the cash basis or accrual? I recommend you seek a CPA not a bookkeeper. And, don't wait until end of year to fund one.


This might be better suited to r/personalfinance but if you're looking to invest I'd say start with an index fund. The MER's (fees) for most other mutual funds take too heavy a chunk of returns to be worth it in a market where actively managed funds are either underperforming of performing at par with passive funds. Additionally if these are your first investments, make sure you're doing it with investment goals in mind. Is this money you're saving for short, medium, or long term? For medium and long term investing make sure you're doing it through a tax efficient instrument like an IRA or 401k.


> Also by your own definition, no one in the middle class is in poverty. No. By the US government's definition of poverty, nobody in the middle class is in poverty because they don't want to admit that the middle class is poor now. > I’ve also never said everything is fine, I’ve only said it’s improving systematically. And you're wrong. Technology is improving our lives as our broken economic system erodes our prosperity. You can focus on the improvements and ignore the growing problems and pretend everything's alright, but it's not. Worldwide, the middle class is losing prosperity as measured by net-worth. We have no money, and since we earn our money from each other, no way to earn it. This is a growing systematic problem that technology can't solve, and is only making worse. Since economic health depends on the ability of the public to spend money, reducing how much they have to spend is dangerous. It makes for recession-prone, bubble-prone, collapse-prone economies. Since economic collapse is a driving force behind radicalization, drug use, war, and starvation, we see these problems growing in places even as advances make them easier to solve. The root of all of this is a broken economic system that is pushing us towards a dystopian future.


Yeah, that's what I do, just buy the indices and forget it. My portfolio is so boring it's elegant, and makes money too. 4.5% YTD and 5.9% in 2016, not bad for a 30/70 stock bond split for this 70-year-old. Oh, did I tell you my costs are .06%! I am enjoying the freedom of my retirement.


> Also, wtf did the rich people do to deserve to be punished? When America thrived from the 40s-60s the top marginal tax rates were in the 70%'s. The rich still got rich. Then they lobbied it down to the 30%s, doubling their take at our expense.


There is a wide variety of housing styles tailored to give numerous options for families who are considering real estate property from Military in Virginia. This also means that the prices are pretty flexible, and people from different income levels can actually buy Military Homes for sale. One can choose from townhouses with several bedrooms to detached houses.


By in large they are. I've worked in this industry. Inversions work because the US has CFC tax and the highest tax rate in the world, 35%. This means that any money made by the company in any part of the world is subject to US tax less tax paid locally. E.g. Burger king in Dublin pays 12.5% locally and 22.5% to the US. The company inverts to a country that doesn't have CFC then transfers all the non-US companies to the other jurisdiction. Now what also tends to happen is income stripping such as intra-group, inter-company loans with the interest stripping earnings. That or intellectual property. However a company can only do that where the new group is made up of 80% other co and 20% existing co, at a minimum. This doesn't happen too much. Have a look at this article by a top Irish law firm: http://www.arthurcox.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/April2014_SpotlightOn.pdf


You could use paypal to transfer money. You can pay with paypal and your UK contact could transfer the money to his bank account through paypal. I just received money this way from the US and paid 9 EUR for this. Receiving the funds is as quickly as clicking a button on the paypal site. Transfering it (without costs) took 1-3 days). It is by far the easiest way. If you are uncomfortable using paypal, the other option would be through your own bank account, where you would transfer using IBAN/SWIFT. The SWIFT bank account is usually the IBAN code plus a branch code. Often it is difficult to find the branch code, in that case you can use the IBAN+XXX. In the latter things might be delayed, but I actually haven't noticed the delay yet, since international transfer always seem to take between 1 and 10 days. The international transfering of money costs, except if it is within the EU region. The way to transfer money through Internet banking differs, from bank to bank. They keywords you need to look for are: SEPA, SWIFT, IBAN or international transfer.


"If you don't want to get income tax taken out of your check, then get a 1099 job and stop blubbering like a baby. You are not doing your case any help. If fact, I am more positive that ""anti-taxers"" are out of their gourd."


>I might have an answer! I imagine they're capitalizing on people's laziness. I live in the Bay Area where some people probably don't mind paying $35 to not have to walk 100 feet to the office and drop off a check. Except that at their end they then have to deal with the cheques, have someone to receive them and so on, deal with the inevitable bounced cheques too.. Seems like a shitty plan, but yeah, I suppose if someone can gouge you they may well do so.


The calculation is to figure out how many dollars you get in return for the amount of dollars you spend. In your case, you know you get 1000 points for $1000 dollars, and can redeem one movie ticket for 1000 points. Therefore, Granted that you could also redeem a $8-9 ticket, making your return 0.8-0.9%. In addition, this can get more complicated for some points cards that may give out free points, and is especially so if there's an intermediary such as AIR MILES, for which points can be earned in numerous ways. To get really nitty gritty, you could to keep a spreadsheet where you list number of dollars spent, number of points gained, number of points redeemed, and value of reward received. Thus, you can figure out exactly what your cost is for each point (second factor from above), as well as the ultimate value of each point with respect to rewards redeemed (first factor). I'm considering doing that myself since I'm prone to spreadsheet addiction, but this method is likely overkill for most points cards.


Yes. Not doing so would be like turning down a raise. The best advice in almost every situation is to at least contribute up to the amount that the company will match so you get the full benefit. One thing to clarify that you might not be understanding. The vesting period is only for the money the company matches, not your own investment. Even if you leave the company before the account is vested or fully vested, you can transfer to a 401k at your new employer, or roll over into an IRA, or take as taxable income (and pay a penalty if it is an early withdrawal), all your contributions together with any investment gains or losses that have occurred. Ditto whatever part of your employer match that has vested by the time you leave. Often, the employer matching contributions are invested in the same funds in the same proportions that you have chosen for your own contributions and thus will have incurred the same gains or losses as your own contributions, but what you are entitled to take with you is the part that has vested. Also, you mention that it is unlikely that you will stay the entire 5 years. However, if you plan to at least stay a couple of years it makes sense to get the 20%, 40%, etc. of the match that you vest during your stay. Again, it's free money.


How much should a rational investor have in individual stocks? Probably none. An additional dollar invested in a ETF or low cost index fund comprised of many stocks will be far less risky than a specific stock. And you'd need a lot more capital to make buying, voting, and selling in individual stocks as if you were running your own personal index fund worthwhile. I think in index funds use weightings to make it easier to track the index without constantly trading. So my advice here is to allocate based not on some financial principal but just loss aversion. Don't gamble with more than you can afford to lose. Figure out how much of that 320k you need. It doesn't sound like you can actually afford to lose it all. So I'd say 5 percent and make sure that's funded from other equity holdings or you'll end up overweight in stocks.


I am 10 years out of college and been debt free for 4. My school would have cost me $180k for 4 years. I was aware of the cost to go to the school I wanted and so I worked in highschool for every possible scholarship available. I then went into a degree program which I knew was a good investment, engineering. I came out of college in the middle of the recession with you guessed it, around $100k in debt. I moved to a place where the cost of living made it so I could get a job and save. I did not live a lavish lifestyle, I invested my money well, and I worked hard. Garbage in, garbage out. Go to a bad school, not worth it. Do not work hard in college, not worth it. Work hard in a major which has no economic value, not worth it. Do not set yourself up for success by working hard in high school, getting things like AP credits and scholarships, not worth it.


With painful 20/20 hindsight, I earnestly say - max it out hard. The reason is the sheer opportunity of it. As a young person you have time on your side - you have so many years for the earnings to compound! It is many times more advantageous to max it out now, than fail to do so and be in your 40s trying to catch up. Use the Roth 401K if your company supports that. After that, max out a Roth IRA if your income is low enough to use them. Otherwise, max out a traditional IRA (this will not be tax deductible because your income is too high), and the next day, convert it to Roth. That conversion will be tax-free since you already paid taxes on that money. 401K money is untouchable. No one can ever take it from you - not with a lawsuit, not with bankruptcy. As such, never give it up willingly by borrowing from it or cashing it out early, no matter how serious the problem seems in the short term. How do you invest a 401K when the market is so scary? I found out when I became a Board member overseeing management of an endowment. Turns out there's a professional gold standard for ultra-long-term, high growth, volatility-be-damned investing. Who knew?


"It depends on how big the dilution is. Could be a good trade. Do the math yourself, many times nobody else has as all the employees think they are going to get rich because ""options"" :)"


Sao Mai Building rất cám ơn vì được Jimmy Group lựa chọn là 1 trong những địa điểm thích hợp để đặt Trụ Sở Trong thời gian qua, nhiều đơn vị biết đến Sao Mai Building làm Hương không hiểu là vì sao … nay Hương đã hiểu là vì Jimmy Group đã đăng thông tin địa chỉ 12 Yên Thế – Quận Tân Bình của Sao Mai Building. Hương rất trân trọng và thật lòng cảm kích JIMMY đã cho đăng thông tin về Sao Mai trên trang tài chính sạch của nhà đầu tư là Vàng Vật Chất và càng cảm kích hơn khi Jimmy Group đã góp phần giới thiệu về Sao Mai Building trong suốt thời gian qua. Rất cám ơn Jimmy Group và cá nhân JIMMY !


Yes, as long as you are responsible with the payments and treat it as a cash substitute, and not a loan. I waited until I was 21 to apply for my first credit card, which gave me a later start to my credit history. That led to an embarrassing credit rejection when I went to buy some furniture after I graduated college. You'd think $700 split into three interest-free payments wouldn't be too big of a risk, but I was rejected since my credit history was only 4 months long, even though I had zero late payments. So I ended up paying cash for the furniture instead, but it was still a horrible feeling when the sales rep came back to me and quietly told me my credit application had been denied.


they rather import than hire low quality local. that's pretty much what all US companies do right now. remember Cisco firing 1800 (5% of staff)? at the same time they are about to hire over 2000 abroad at new Cisco offices.


"Those advantages you've described (tax treatment and employee match) are what you receive in exchange for ""locking up"" the money. Ultimately it's a personal choice of whether that tradeoff makes sense for you situation (I'll echo the response that the real answer to your question is planning). Roth options (either 401K or IRA) may be good compromises for you, since you can withdraw those contributions (but not the earnings) without any penalty, since you've already paid taxes on them. Another avenue to explore may be a self-directed IRA or a Solo 401(k), depending on your circumstances and eligibility. In both cases, there are plan providers that structure the plan to allow you to use the money to invest in things besides traditional stocks, bonds, and mutual funds (often referred to as ""checkbook control"" accounts). They are very commonly used among Real Estate investors (this thread from BiggerPockets has quite a bit of info). You'd want to consult with an accountant or financial adviser before going down that path."


People did go to jail for crimes ranging from mortgage fraud to traders cheating customers when selling MBS products. Two, it wasn't a little bit of regulation, Dodd frank put massive capital handcuffs on wall st. The bill being voted on now is to decrease some of the harshest parts of DF, not to remove the whole thing. And three, the only thing that compares to 2008 is 1929 to 1941, the Great Depression. Something like that won't be seen again for 100 years. The best thing to do when the economy goes through a recession is to hold on to what you have, ride it out, and if you have the capital, buy when stocks are cheap.


It depends on the market that you participate in. Stock markets are not zero sum as JoeTaxpayer explained. On the other hand, any kind of derivative markets (such as options or futures) are indeed zero sum, due to the nature of the financial instruments that are exchanged. Those markets tend to be more unforgiving. I don't have evidence for this, but I believe one of the reasons that investors so often lose their money is psychology. The majority of us as humans are not wired to naturally make the kinds of rigorous and quick decisions that markets require, especially if day trading. Some people can invest time and energy to improve themselves and get over that. Those are the ones who succeed.


> Cheaper energy is equivalent to a pay raise No it isn't. A pay raise can be distributed as the payee feels fit, cheaper energy only serves one area of expenditure, which as I stated, isn't the major area that somebody who is struggling financially needs help. We don't need more competitive pricing in products, we need business in America to stop focusing on profits for their shareholders over providing decent wages to their employees. America is one of the most (if not the most) competitively priced marketplace in the world. The average person doesn't give a shit that flowerpots cost $3.40 each instead of $3.60, they care that they have shitty healthcare, cannot afford to buy a house, cannot afford rent, cannot afford decent food, have no job security. Corporate profits have skyrocketed, the super-rich keep getting richer, bankers make decisions based on their bonuses rather than the sustainability of their decisions. Cheaper energy isn't going to solve one of those problems. Corp. profits vs wages: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/trade-record-corporate-profits-your-miserable-salary


"Does your company offer a 401k? or similar pre-tax retirement plans? Is your company a publicly traded company? These questions are important, basically the key to any of your investments should be diversification. This means buying more than one kind of investment, amongst stock(s), bonds, real estate or more. The answer to ""How Much"" of your salary should go to company stock, is subjective. I personally would contribute the max toward a retirement plan or even post-tax savings, which would be invested in a variety of public companies. Hope that helps."


Stock markets have not been the cause of any of the problems. They display the symptoms of the problems, but they don't cause them. The problems have been caused by the corruption of government (lobbying and political donations), insufficient, excessive and inappropriate regulation, and ignorance on the part of those who vote (demanding more services and less taxes and worrying more about wedge issues than sound governance).


If you are younger, and you not under undue pressure to buy a home at any particular time, investing in the market is a reasonable way to prepare. Your risk tolerance should be high. Understand that this means you may buy in 3-4 years instead of 1-2 if the market takes a down turn. It took ~3-4 years for the S&P 500 to recover from the 2008 crash. I doubt anything that severe is in the making, but there is always an element of risk involved in investing. If you and your family will be busting at the seams of your current rental in a year, then maybe the bond fund advice others have provided is a better option. If you are willing to be flexible, a more aggressive strategy might be appropriate. Likely, you want something along the lines of the Vanguard S&P 500 mutual fund - something that is diversified (a large number of stocks), in relatively safe companies (in this case the 500 companies that Standard and Poor's think are most likely to repay corporate bonds), and 'indexed' vice 'actively managed' (indexed funds have lower fees because they are using 'rules' to pick the stocks rather than paying a person to evaluate them.) It's going to depend on you and your situation - and regardless of what you choose consistency will be key: put your investment on automatic so it happens every month without your input.


"What was the true reason they wanted to use my accounts for? We wouldn't know the true reason. The scammer can do multiple things. What exactly he would do in your case ... I am very eager to know what a person was up to who would give to me so much information about themselves. I know some of you will jump on the chance to yell ""it was not their true address"", but.... it is where they wanted me to send the cards to. And I was to give proof of my identification ie; a copy of my drivers license, my articles of incorporation and the real estate development project prospectus. Also they were only willing to work with certain banks ie; Citibank, Bank of America etc. I can not understand what they were doing wanting such access to accounts that had no money in them save the amount I used to open them with. It looks more like they would open accounts under your name, but they would be controlling the accounts. i.e. what goes in and out. i.e. they would be able to deposit and withdraw from a new account they set-up. They would want to use this account for illegal activities, so that if caught, the account opening paper trail leads to you. Even if they gave you an address, it could be rental. Like they have copies of your Company registration and ID proofs, they can use these to get another rental property ... and then send letters to some and ask them to met there."


Assisted living can give seniors a new lease of life; it can be the best place for them. There are many benefits offered by these assisted living facilities: Safety – it provides a safe and comfortable environment for elders. Certain installations like bars to grab onto while in the shower or ramps and panic call buttons can go a long way in reducing falls and accidents. As safe as we may try to be, accidents do happen. There is always a 24-hour emergency alert system so if residents have emergencies in their own apartment or room, they can summon immediate help. These facilities also hire trained professionals who work round the clock to attend to these emergencies. Meals – there are many elders who don’t enjoy eating alone. Assisted living community offers freshly prepared meals. The main pull, however, are the communal meals. People tend to eat better when they have company. Transportation – most centers provide group transportation for shopping, community events, and clinic appointments. This gives elders the freedom to go where they want to, with no restrictions what so ever. Less worry- residents will not have to worry about repair responsibilities. If something is not working, they simply alert the administration and the problem is fixed. Living is a community eliminates the fear of letting in a stranger to fix a bathroom pipe and getting an expensive repair bill. Socialization- this is perhaps the best reason to let elders stay in an assisted living community. Social skills of elders can decline as lifelong friends have health issues or have died. This can cause depression to set in and a reluctance to be socially active. At assisted living communities, ones the residents adjust to the lifestyle, they start enjoying the company of like-minded people. They play cards together, listen to music, exercise, have snacks, go to community events and even invite people over to entertain them. They can even enjoy intellectual stimulation as most communities provide classes, book clubs and art workshops to help them expand their horizon and keep their senses sharp. Summerfield is one such Utah Retirement home, where residents get assistant as per their requirement and still enjoy their independence. Visit Us: http://sta.sh/01elak39wpju


I like the article concept, about seeking help where needed. This is something where an advisory board comes into play. That said, it is super important that you seek advice specifically in areas you are lacking. You want fresh ideas and people that will challenge your ideas.


"The June 2014 issue of Barclays Wealth's Compass magazine had a very nice succinct article on this topic: ""Value investing – does a rules-based approach work?"". It examines the performance of value and growth styles of investment in the MSCI World and S&P500 arenas for a few decades back, and reveals a surprisingly complicated picture, depending on sector, region and time-period. Their summary is basically: A closer look however shows that the overall success of value strategies derives mainly from the 1970s and 1980s. ... in the US, value has underperformed growth for over 25 years since peaking in July 1988. Globally, value experienced a 30% setback in the late 1990s so that there are now periods with a length of nearly 13 years over which growth has outperformed. So the answer to ""does it beat the market?"" is ""it depends..."". Update in response to comment below: the question of risk adjusted returns is interesting. To quote another couple of fragments from the piece: Since December 1974, [MSCI world] value has outperformed growth by 2.6% annually, with lower risk. This outperformance on a risk-adjusted basis is the so-called value premium that Eugene Fama and Kenneth French first identified in 1992... and That outperformance has, however, come with more risk. Historical volatility of the pure style indices has been 21-22% compared to 16% for the market. ... From a maximum drawdown perspective, the 69% drop of pure value during the financial crisis exceeded the 51% drop of the overall market."


OP: - I graduated with a Finance Degree from USC with a focus on financial analysis and valuation - Failed to get accept into one of the major investment banks with a 3.7 (turned out for the best). I thought my world was fucking over. My career trajectory in the last 4 years has been: Commercial Insurance (1.5 years, 40hrs/week)> Consulting (1.5 years, 80hrs/week) > Technology firm (current, ~40hrs/week). At this point, I have parlayed by financial modeling experience into a strategy and corporate planning role. My income has gone from 50K to 85K in those 4 years. Takeaway: Don't worry so much about being at a target school. Connections/internships (which you can get despite your school of choice) will determine where you end up. Join any relevant investing / finance clubs. Develop a network and learn to leverage that network's network (I didn't learn the true value of this until after I graduated). Furthermore, there are a VARIETY of small, boutique firms where you could get an internship/first-job that would be great springboard into a larger firm. Sometimes your circumstance dictates a small start with a rapid increase. Do not get so hung up on your school and focus more on the opportunities your school opens up for you, and take advantage of those.


"Corporations aren't required to uphold your civil rights. A business can kick you out for hate speech, for any speech, or for carrying a gun, or whatever other reason they want. They can't do it on the basis of inclusion in a protected class, and I'm fine with that being the line. Who said I want to start a fight with you? I merely responded to your points. Corporations should be able to ""oppress"" as much as they want except against people in a protected class based on their inclusion in that class. (Ie, if you don't want to bake a gay wedding cake for John because he's gay, that's not okay. If you don't want to bake a gay wedding cake for John because he's being a dick to your staff, that's fine.)"


Without knowledge of the special provisions of your loan contract, the one with the highest interest rate should be paid first. Or, if one's fixed payment is much larger than the other, and it is a burden, then it should be paid first, but refinancing may be an option. Socially speaking and possibly even economically since it could affect your reputation, it is probably best to either refinance the cosigned loan or pay that off as rapidly as possible. Economically speaking, I would recommend no prepayment since the asset that is leveraged is your mind which will last many decades, probably exceeding the term of the loan, but some caveats must be handled first: Many would disagree, but I finance the way I play poker: tight-aggressive.


If you have a negative balance on your credit card, you can call the issuer and have them send you a check for the amount. Some will do it automatically for large amounts or if it stays negative over some period of time. Usually credit card issuers don't let paying more than the current balance, but it still can happen sometimes if you pay off your balance and then get a refund, for example.


Geloman's Indian Spares provide all types of Indian motorcycle's spare parts in the United States. We design the every spare part of the Indian motorcycle. Our huge spare parts collection corresponds to the 741 model. If you have an Indian 741 Motorcycle and you want to service and change the spare parts this motorcycle, then you can visit our workshop. It derived from the two famous Indian Scout models already in production for several years.


Just my opinion, but if their prices were the same at Amazon AND if there customer service wasn't a joke, I'd rather buy it in person. The ability to return things if needed are much easier at a store than through the mail.


I imagine that they check it because if they accept one from you and then their bank discovers it when they try to pay it in, it's their loss.


"The ""Yield Pledge"" looks like a marketing promise to me. It may well be true, but I'm not sure it's useful. As you say, it's currently not the best account out there. If those extra $24 per $10000 are really important to you, why not do your own analysis? Put the money in the highest interest account you can find, and then every three months survey the accounts available and, if it isn't still the highest, transfer the funds to the one that is. Personally I wouldn't put that much effort in for $24, but you may be different."


> Observe this in the corporate world by looking at the example of General Motors. G.M.’s 2009 bankruptcy came at the end of a long decline dating back to the early 1970s, when Japanese cars first began to intrude on U.S. markets. So what you're saying is that Microsoft has only 40 years left. That sounds terrifying indeed.


So the OP said you can live a decent life on min wage, but the only way to do it is to suck off of the rest of your family, or work staggered shifts? Ahh, never seeing your spouse, the american dream in action!


No. Getting more credit lowers your credit utilization ratio (if you don't use it), which raises your credit rating, this can also be done by asking for a higher limit on your existing credit card. Also, there is a chance that the company you got your first card from won't pull your credit a second time when they go to the underwriter. As any extensions of credit lower your credit score, although the credit utilization ratio is weighted more heavily.


Yes, if the call expires worthless, leaving you with stock. Then you can exercise your put when the stock goes below put strike price.


Lucky that I found the trade association for my industry, volunteered to do an additional 2-3 hours of work for free for two years and got a lead on an internship for my troubles? I guess, if you call that luck. I don't, I fucking earned it.


"If you make $10 in salary, $5 in interest on savings, and $10 in dividends, your income is $25, not $10. If you have a billion dollars in well-invested assets, you can take a loan against those assets and the interest payment on the loan will be smaller than the interest you earn on the assets. That means your investment will grow faster than your debt and you have a net positive gain. It makes no sense to do this if the value of your asset is static. In that case, you would be better off just to withdraw from the asset and spend it directly, since a loan against that static asset will result in you spending your asset plus interest charges. If you have a good enough rate of return on your investment, you may actually be able to do this in perpetuity, taking out loan after loan, making the loan payments from the loan proceeds, while the value of your original asset pool continues to grow. At any given time, though, a severe downturn in the market could potentially leave you with large debts and insufficient value in your assets to back the debt. If that happens, you won't be getting another loan and the merry-go-round will stop spinning. It's a bit of a Ponzi scheme, in a way. The U.S. government has done exactly this for a long time and has gotten away with it because the dollar has been the world's reserve currency. You could always get a loan against the value of the U.S. currency in the past. Those days may be dwindling, with more countries choosing alternative currencies to conduct business with and the dollar becoming comparatively weaker into the foreseeable future. If you have savings, you can spend more than you make, which will put you into debt, then you can draw down your savings to pay that debt, and at the end of the month you will be out of debt, but have less in savings. You cannot do this forever. Eventually, you run out of savings. If you have no savings, you immediately go into debt and stay there when you spend more than you make. This is simple arithmetic. If you have no savings, but you own assets (real estate, securities, a collection of never-opened Beatles vinyl records, a bicycle), then you could spend more than you make, and be in debt, but have the potential to liquidate assets to pay off all or part of the debt. This depends on finding a buyer and negotiating a price that helps you enough to make a real difference. If you have a car, and you owe $10 on it, but you can only find a buyer willing to pay $8 for the car, that doesn't help you unless you can refinance the $2 and your new payment amount is lower than the old payment amount. But then you're still $2 in debt on the car even though you no longer possess it, and you've still increased your debt by spending more than you made. If you stay on this path, sooner or later you will not have any assets left and you will be in debt, plain and simple. As a wrinkle in the concrete example, let's say you have stock options with your employer. This is a form of a ""call."" You could also purchase a call through a broker in the stock market, or for a commodity in the futures market. That means you pay up front for the right to buy a specific amount of an asset at a fixed price (usually with an expiration date). You don't own the stock, you just have the right to buy it at the call price, regardless of the current market value when you buy it. In the case of employee stock options, your upfront cost is in the form of a vesting schedule. You have to remain employed for a set time before a specific number of stocks become eligible for you to purchase at your option price (the stocks ""vest"" on a certain date). Remain employed longer, and more stocks may vest, depending on your contract. If you quit or are terminated before that date, you forfeit your options. If you stick around through your vesting schedule, you pay real money to buy the stock at your option price. It only makes sense to do this if the market value of the stock is higher than your option price. If the current market value is lower than your option price, you're better off just buying the asset at the current market value, or waiting and hoping that the value increases before your contract expires. You could drive yourself into debt by spending more than you make, but still have a chance to eliminate your debt by exercising your call/option and then re-selling the asset if it is worth more than what you pay for it. But you may have to wait for a vesting period to elapse before you can exercise your option (depending on the nature of your contract). During this waiting period, you are in debt, and if you can't service your debt (i.e. make payments acceptable to your creditors) your things could get repossessed. Oh, don't forget that you'll also pay a brokerage fee to sell the asset after you exercise your option. Further, if you have exhausted your savings and nobody will give you a loan to exercise your stock (or futures) options, then in the end you would be even further in debt because you already paid for the call, but you are unable to capitalize it and you'll lose what you already paid. If you can get a loan to exercise your option, but you're a bad credit risk, chances are good that the lender will draft a contract requiring you to immediately pay back the loan proceeds plus a fee out of the proceeds of re-selling the stock or other asset. In fact the lender might even draft a contract assigning ownership of your options to them, and stipulating that they'll pay you what's left after they subtract their fee. Even if you can get a traditional loan, you will pay interest over time. The end result is that your debt has still cost you very real money beyond the face value of the debt. Finally, if the asset for which you have a call has decreased in value lower than the current market value, you would be better off buying it directly in the market instead of exercising your option. But you'll pay transaction fees to do that, and the entire action would be pure speculation (or ""investment""), but not an immediate means to pay off your debt. Unless you have reliable insider trading information. But then you risk running afoul of the law. Frankly it might be better to get a loan to pay off your debt than to buy an ""investment"" hoping the value will increase, unless you could guarantee that the return on your investment would be bigger than the cumulative interest and late fees on your debt (or the risk of repossession of your belongings). Remember that nothing you owe a debt on is actually yours, not your house, not your car, not your bicycle, not your smartphone. Most of the time, your best course of action is to make minimum payments on your lowest-interest debts and make extra payments on your highest interest debt, up to the highest total payment you can tolerate (set something aside in a rainy day fund just in case). As you pay off the highest-interest debt, shift the amount you were paying on that debt to make extra payments on your next highest-interest debt until that one is paid off, and repeat on down the line until you're out of debt, then live within your means so that you don't find yourself working at McDonald's because you don't have a choice when you're in your 80's."


I don't know if anyone has heard of this road trip that's coming up, but it should be a great gathering of some of business' brightest minds. I'll be at the Portland, OR event and possibly the Seattle event. Who else is going?


If the Euro went bust then it would be the 12th government currency to go belly up in Europe (according to this website). Europe holds the record for most failed currencies. It also holds the record for the worst hyperinflation in history - Yugoslavia 1993. I'm not sure what would happen if the Euro failed. It depends on how it fails. If it fails quickly (which most do) then there will be bank runs, bank holidays, capital controls, massive price increases, price controls, and just general confusion as people race to get rid of their Euros. Black markets for everything will pop up if the price controls remain in place. Some countries may switch to a foreign currency (i.e. the US dollar if it is still around) until they can get their own currency in circulation.


I don't know what you mean by ad spend, but have you checked out glassdoor or indeed.com? They both give you a salary range for common positions in your area. Don't offer the maximum number you see, be reasonable based on your experience and such.


Although this is off-topic since it is about economics I'm going to write a short answer in case it is decided that it is on topic. I will remove this if it gets migrated. The key to why printing extra money causes inflation and a change in exchange rate has nothing at all to do with whether or not it is announced or done in secret. The quantity of money in circulation (by whichever measure) is what informs the value of the currency not whether you tell people that it has changed or not. Announcing it should increase the volatility somewhat around the time of the announcement but the long term effects will be the same no matter what. Whether or not they announce it printing more money will mean that there is more in circulation which will reduce the value of each unit of the currency by the dilution amount which in turn will increase inflation and decrease the exchange rate.


It is almost always cheaper to do regular maintenance then to fix problems because you didn't change the oil or check the transmission fluid.


Simply put, the government has no balls to fight corruption. Ideally, the government would have enough people to oversee and make sure corruption like this doesn't happen. But the politicians cut a lot of money out for this type of enforcement (primarily because they had money donated to them by these same businesses). This looks great for the politician as it looks like they're cutting government fat, let's say something like a hundred million dollars. These opportunists fleece these companies and when they go under, they plead and beg the government to bail them out or else they'll have to fire all these people and it'll kill the economy. So the government steps in and bails out these companies for a few billion - now they look like they are being proactive and 'saving' the economy. All at the expense of you of course. It's too bad politicians don't do what they believe is best but do what their donors believe is best for themselves.


This isn't super specific to your question, but I'd recommend that you invest a ton of time in practice questions (then review the answers to the ones you got wrong). This is a good strategy for most exams, but it's particularly true for the Series 7, as the S7 is notorious for using questions on the actual exam that are almost identical to practice questions. I was amazed at how many questions I recognized almost word-for-word when I took it. I recently took my CFP test, so I'm pretty brushed-up on testing concepts and that sort of thing right now. If you are running into anything in particular, feel free to PM me!


A credit card is not a bank account. It is, essentially, a contract to extend a line of credit on an as needed basis through a process accepted by the provider(purchase through approved vender, cash advance, etc). There is no mechanism for the bank to accept or hold a deposit. While most card issuers will simple retain the money for a period of up 30-60 days to apply toward transactions, I have had a card that actually charged a fee for having a negative balance in excess of $10 for more than 30 days(the fee was $10/month). So no you can not DEPOSIT money on any credit card. You need an account that accepts deposits to make a deposit.


Absolutely. We used to go to Applebee's or TGI Fridays back in the 90's regularly. Food was good, atmosphere was fun. Closest analogue I can come up with today would be Bar Louie - nice. Now, they've cut back on so many expenses it's just not what it used to be. Food is crap, service is meh, the value just isn't there anymore. I'd rather go to my local guy with 40 craft taps and a damned good burger I know was fresh rather than spend the same amount of money on a reheated burger and a bud light.


In the United States, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation protects the first $500,000 you have at a brokerage including up to $250,000 in cash. This means that if the firm holding your securities fails financially, you have some coverage. That insurance does not prevent your investment itself from losing money. Even traditionally save money market funds can potentially lose value in a situation called Breaking the buck. This means that the Net Asset Value of the fund falls below $1/share. Alas, during periods of market calamity, even traditionally safe stores of value are subject to increased risk.


Eh, to be completely fair to Marissa, she was Google's first Product Manager. The entire point of a PM is that they're the CEO of their product and determine the strategy of the product going forward. Yeah she made a bunch of idiotic moves, but on paper, she was a pretty decent fit and had tons of experience in the same market Yahoo was in, and at an executive level as well.


A business consultant is more of an expert you turn to for help with your business. They teach you skills you don’t know, analyze your business and create an action plan for you to implement. Business consultants the goals you have for your business and help you create the plan of action required for you to actually accomplish those goals!


There is no sure thing in investing. Everything has a risk component. Sure, people talk about these cryptocurrencies like they have nowhere to go but up, but there are massive risks with these. For example, they could be declared illegal, the exchanges could go bankrupt (and some have), the backing companies off the ICOs could fail, the algorithms behind them could have a fatal flaw with unknown consequences, they can be stolen in unusual ways, everyone could suddenly realize that they have no real value...


I think you hit the nail on the head there! HP used to innovate with lots of R&D investment, until it started to stall and like what you mentioned, these CEOs simply look at most of these as 'COST centre' and took them out. > Tough to innovate with nothing but sales and marketing. I like that!


I got that notion from Max Kaiser, his ideas about that are mostly about interest rate apartheid - banks and rich people get money at zero interest, we pay 9, 10, 30%. I think it involves everything from how we are seen in the eyes of the law to assuming risk, etc. We are expected to play by the rules and they are not.


The vanilla advice is investing your age in bonds and the rest in stocks (index funds, of course). So if you're 25, have 75% in stock index fund and 25% in bond index. Of course, your 401k is tax sheltered, so you want keep bonds there, assuming you have taxable investments. When comparing specific funds, you need to pay attention to expense ratios. For example, Vanguard's SP 500 index has an expense ratio of .17%. Many mutual funds charge around 1.5%. That means every year, 1.5% of the fund total goes to the fund manager(s). And that is regardless of up or down market. Since you're young, I would start studying up on personal finance as much as possible. Everyone has their favorite books and websites. For sane, no-nonsense investment advise I would start at bogleheads.org. I also recommend two books - This is assuming you want to set up a strategy and not fuss with it daily/weekly/monthly. The problem with so many financial strategies is they 1) don't work, i.e. try to time the market or 2) are so overly complex the gains are not worth the effort. I've gotten a LOT of help at the boglehead forums in terms of asset allocation and investment strategy. Good luck!


A 401(k) is an investment just like any other investment. You generally get two types of return lumped into that number, but there can be more and you should read your funds prospectus carefully. If you aren't investing in direct companies, you're using mutual funds for instance, then you should read the funds prospectus to see how they handle these situations for the underlying securities they hold for you. Although I think this is the basic answer to the question as you asked.


I think the strategy may be promising, you can run seasonality tests on a lot of different instruments..... but always fear the data mining bias, meaning the future probability of these events may only be 50/50. I.e. Is there an actual relationship or are you uncovering a relationship of noise? The classical way to doing this is to partition your data into two sets, (i.e. every odd year vs even year). Uncover relationships in one set. Then test the other to see if it is present there.


"Yahoo Finance: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=VFINX+Profile Under ""Management Information"""


Call Comcast during a non-peak time (first thing in the morning?), wait on hold, and politely explain what happened and request a $50 credit. Also politely request that your premium support request be handled for free given how much hassle you've had getting disconnected. They'll be able to tell your premium request was never answered because there are no notes on your support tickets. Calling them is much easier than any of your other options.


Because now instead of getting a little profit from the kits they might get a lot more when peple have to buy one of their brands. I am sure they thought this through and know a lot more about I than anyone here.


I like to put money I am going to spend in my Quicken register (similar to Money in my limited experience) and that is the big ticket feature missing from mint.com. Mint.com can only tell you what you did, or in a very general sense what you plan to do. As a register, mint.com is flexible enough for me to categorize my transactions. As a planning / budgeting tool mint.com is very simple and fast to get going, but lacks the depth of a budget I want to manage every week. Mint.com also tracks my investments, but I freely admit my investment management is nothing more than putting money into the same accounts. I bother with investment tracking other than looking to see it isn't zero. I say try mint.com. Mint.com has a place to totally delete your account.


"Also within Germany the tax offices usually determine which tax office is responsible for you by asking where you were more than 180 days of the year (if e.g. you have a second flat where you work). That's a default value, though: in my experience you can ask to be handled by another tax office. E.g. I hand my tax declaration to my ""home"" tax office (where also my freelancing adress is), even though my day-job is 300 km away. So if you work mostly from Poland and just visit the German customer a few times, you are fine anyways. Difficulties start if you move to Germany to do the work at your customer's place. I'm going to assume that this is the situation as otherwise I don't think the question would have come up. Close by the link you provided is a kind of FAQ on this EU regulation About the question of permanent vs. temporary they say: The temporary nature of the service is assessed on a case-by-case basis. Here's my German-Italian experience with this. Background: I had a work contract plus contracts for services and I moved for a while to Italy. Taxes and social insurance on the Italian contracts had to be paid to Italy. Including tax on the contract for services. Due to the German-Italian tax treaty, there is no double taxation. Same for Poland: this is part of EU contracts. By the way: The temporary time frame for Italy seemed to be 3 months, then I had to provide an Italian residence etc. and was registered in the Italian health care etc. system. Due to the German-Italian tax treaty, there is no double taxation. Same for Poland: this is part of EU contracts. Besides that, the German tax office nevertheless decided that my ""primary center of life"" stayed in Germany. So everything but the stuff related to the Italian contracts (which would probably have counted as normal work contracts in Germany, though they is no exact equivalent to those contract types) was handled by the German tax office. I think this is the relevant part for your question (or: argumentation with the German tax office) of temporary vs. permanent residence. Here are some points they asked: There is one point you absolutely need to know about the German social insurance law: Scheinselbständigkeit (pretended self-employment). Scheinselbständigkeit means contracts that claim to be service contracts with a self-employed provider who is doing the work in a way that is typical for employees. This law closes a loophole so employer + employee cannot avoid paying income tax and social insurance fees (pension contributions and unemployment insurance on both sides - health insurance would have to be paid in full by the self-employed instead of partially by the employer. Employer also avoids accident insurance, and several regulations from labour law are avoided as well). Legally, this is a form of black labour which means that the employer commits a criminal offense and is liable basically for all those fees. There is a list of criteria that count towards Scheinselbständigkeit. Particularly relevant for you could be"


"This is a joke article, right? Besides the fact the author apparently can't use a space bar to save his life, the article is basically saying ""Silly CEO, you expect all these creative free spirits to do actual 'work'? What's wrong with you, being concerned with things like 'profit'. If you want to hire a bunch of disloyal slackers who will jump ship the second someone else utters the word 'stock options', you're going to have to get over this whole 'work ethic' thing."""


It just means that they think that in the long-term, interest rates should be around 3-4%, i.e. probably between 3% and 4%, but perhaps a bit lower or higher occasionally.


Well, all the client visits in the world aren't going to help them if their active strategies are on par with passive so if they have resigned themselves to that fate they should just call it a day and wrap up shop.


How about the fact that when a stranger calls me at 3pm on a Tuesday it means only a few things: * I've forgotten to pay a bill * Someone I know is in the hospital * Someone wants my opinion on something I don't care about At 3pm on a Tuesday (like nearly every other weekday afternoon) I'm busy. I answer the phone to ensure it isn't a forgotten bill or someone in the hospital, but it's usually someone trying to sell me stuff or ask for my opinions. I always decline. BECAUSE I'M BUSY, LIKE EVERY OTHER WORKING ADULT WITH A FAMILY!