>The days of the secrecy regime are long gone and continued success is based on respected levels of regulation, strong legal protection, and access to international investment opportunities. Tax information is automatically shared with nearly 30 states including the United Kingdom, France, Canada and the United States. In today’s world a financial centre’s reputation is a key factor in success. Good thing governments like Sudan and Zambia doesn't have the clout that the OECD countries do in shutting down blackmoney and tax havens for people trying to dodge their taxes. I'd imagine quite a comfortable living could be made with just black money from the developing world. This is a PR piece for the Cayman Islands.


It's safe. You give people those numbers every time you write a check. If a check is forged, and doesn't have your signature on it, the bank has to return the money to you; they get it back from the other bank, who takes whatever action it deems necessary against the forger. They've been doing this for a few hundred years, remember.


Well they’re working on UI and not actual Waymo tech so yeah who cares. Once Apple OS is running in 40% of new self-driving vehicles in 10 years, I doubt my fellow shareholders will be crying too much.


This article might help: https://www.law360.com/articles/733853/good-news-for-foreign-investors-in-us-defense-industry It appears it's the responsibility of the defence contractor to prove it's not under foreign influence or control if they want to keep their security clearance, the loss of which would likely put them out of business as a defence contractor. So if I understand correctly, there's nothing (aside from money) stopping me, a foreigner, from owning a huge chunk of a US defence contractor. They just won't listen if I try to tell them what to do. If I try and force them to do what I say, the US Department of Defence will get angry and I'll lose all the money I invested.


Yes, but only because the US had a huge crash. Other economies have, in the absence of any credible *real* growth strategy, continued pumping housing. I still think student debt will erode incomes further as it's simply pulling forward demand that will drag on incomes later. When nearly everyone has a degree then nearly everyone doesn't get paid much more for having one. By the same principle of supply and demand all the boomer downsizing vs impoverished 30-something lack of upsizing will mean prices will fall.


Well, you sure do sound confident, so is there any chance you could cite a source? I'm in SF, and have followed the controversy here over the last few years, and I can tell you no one involved—taxi drivers, taxi companies, the ridesharing companies, the passengers, the anti-gentrification protesters, and the government—considers the ridesharing companies to be taxis.


I think that insurance is one of the best things ever created for this reasons:


"This answer is applicable to the US. Similar rules may hold in some other countries as well. The shares in an open-ended (non-exchange-traded) mutual fund are not traded on stock exchanges and the ""market"" does not determine the share price the way it does for shares in companies as brokers make offers to buy and sell stock shares. The price of one share of the mutual fund (usually called Net Asset Value (NAV) per share) is usually calculated at the close of business, and is, as the name implies, the net worth of all the shares in companies that the fund owns plus cash on hand etc divided by the number of mutual fund shares outstanding. The NAV per share of a mutual fund might or might not increase in anticipation of the distribution to occur, but the NAV per share very definitely falls on the day that the distribution is declared. If you choose to re-invest your distribution in the same fund, then you will own more shares at a lower NAV per share but the total value of your investment will not change at all. If you had 100 shares currently priced at $10 and the fund declares a distribution of $2 per share, you will be reinvesting $200 to buy more shares but the fund will be selling you additional shares at $8 per share (and of course, the 100 shares you hold will be priced at $8 per share too. So, you will have 100 previous shares worth only $800 now + 25 new shares worth $200 for a total of 125 shares at $8 = $1000 total investment, just as before. If you take the distribution in cash, then you still hold the 100 shares but they are worth only $800 now, and the fund will send you the $200 as cash. Either way, there is no change in your net worth. However, (assuming that the fund is is not in a tax-advantaged account), that $200 is taxable income to you regardless of whether you reinvest it or take it as cash. The fund will tell you what part of that $200 is dividend income (as well as what part is Qualified Dividend income), what part is short-term capital gains, and what part is long-term capital gains; you declare the income in the appropriate categories on your tax return, and are taxed accordingly. So, what advantage is there in re-investing? Well, your basis in those shares has increased and so if and when you sell the shares, you will owe less tax. If you had bought the original 100 shares at $10 and sell the 125 shares a few years later at $11 and collect $1375, you owe (long-term capital gains) tax on just $1375-$1200 =$175 (which can also be calculated as $1 gain on each of the original 100 shares = $100 plus $3 gain on the 25 new shares = $175). In the past, some people would forget the intermediate transactions and think that they had invested $1000 initially and gotten $1375 back for a gain of $375 and pay taxes on $375 instead. This is less likely to occur now since mutual funds are now required to report more information on the sale to the shareseller than they used to in the past. So, should you buy shares in a mutual fund right now? Most mutual fund companies publish preliminary estimates in November and December of what distributions each fund will be making by the end of the year. They also usually advise against purchasing new shares during this period because one ends up ""buying a dividend"". If, for example, you bought those 100 shares at $10 on the Friday after Thanksgiving and the fund distributes that $2 per share on December 15, you still have $1000 on December 15, but now owe taxes on $200 that you would not have had to pay if you had postponed buying those shares till after the distribution was paid. Nitpickers: for simplicity of exposition, I have not gone into the detailed chronology of when the fund goes ex-dividend, when the distribution is recorded, and when cash is paid out, etc., but merely treated all these events as happening simultaneously."


If any Euro countries leave the Euro, they will have to impose capital flow restrictions - it's a given, to avoid a complete implosion of the entire system. The idea of retroactive controls is very interesting - this may be one of the first times in a currency collapse that such a system would be feasible (i.e., both the country being fled from and the countries being fled to are under common control). No doubt they would try such a thing if they thought they could get away with it.


I'm not sure if GM fits with other companies that reduced quality to increase profits. GM had to reduce quality because they are/were overpaying their labor, were stuck in expensive pension payments and were broke. It seems more like they reduced quality get out of bankruptcy.


"I'm so sick of hearing the words ""bipartisan politics."" As soon as those words enter into any conversation about something that needs to be done, both sides fuckey around and nothing gets done. Fuck bipartisan politickin assholes."


That was a super obvious jab at the reason why hard disk games maintain their relavence. Moreover, noone ever said it was steaming?!? Of course it's a download. How did you interpret that comment the way you did? Are you out for blood today on reddit?


"I agree with you that this is the ""human"" reaction, but supposedly the people running these companies are supposed to be amazing businessmen, hence the reason they're making beaucoup bucks on top of billion dollar businesses. I've run smaller, yet still million dollar businesses before, and while there have been tough times where we've had to take damage control measures before, we sure didn't do that while completely ignoring the cause of the problem, nor the future as it was likely to be. To do otherwise is simply myopic, as the music industry is finally beginning to find out."


They've been around long enough now for there to be past performance figures you can google for. I think you'll find the results aren't very encouraging. I personally don't think there's a huge risk that the robots will lose all your money, but there's every reason to expect they aren't likely to perform better than traditional managers or beat the market. At the end of the day the robots are employing a lot of analysis and management techniques that traditional managers have been using, and since traditional managers use computers to do it efficiently there's not much gain IMO. Yes in theory labour is expensive so cutting it out is good, but in practise, in this case, the amount of money being managed is huge and the human cost is pretty insignificant. I personally don't believe that the reduced fees represent the cost of the human management, I think it's just marketing. There might be some risk that the robots can be 'gamed' but I doubt the potential is very great (your return might in theory be a fraction of a percent less over time because it's going on). The problem here is that the algorithms are functionally broadly known. No doubt every robo adviser has its own algorithms that in theory are the closely guarded secret, but in reality a broad swath of the functional behaviour will be understood by many people in the right circles, and that gives rise to predictability, and if you can predict investment/trading patterns you can make money from those patterns. That means humans making money (taking margin away) from the robots, or robots making money from other robots that are behind the curve. If robo advisers continue to take off I would expect them to under perform more and more.


"> What's their performance been like in recent years? IIRC the last time they were able to pay a dividend was in 2000, so I'm gonna go with ""not great"". Thanks a lot for the effort, I didn't factor in tax at all, it makes more sense then. I still think it's an interesting concept that shares are worth less than what you ""get"" for them (according to their accountants, who knows what the value actually would be if you tried to sell whatever they own now), and I found basically nothing on google. The whole is usually more than the sum of its parts, not (significantly) less."


> Right now, with an exception made for extreme weather, basically every country on earth produces enough food to feed its citizens. No. The middle east in particular is super sensitive to production changes in Europe https://www.reuters.com/article/us-food-trade-idUSKBN0M92CG20150313


Will I able to put the Rs amount back in the NRE account the same amount which I have paid against that house? If you have purchased the property by debiting an NRE account [you should have the paper trail], the same amount of funds can be transferred back to NRE Account. For example the house was for 50 lacs, and you paid Rs 30 lacs from NRE account, when you sell the house, you can transfer back only 30 lacs into the NRE account. Will I need to pay TAX on NRE account money before transferring out of India? You need not pay tax on the funds in NRE account. However if you have made gains by buying and selling a house [irrespective of the source of funds], you have to pay capital gains tax.


"All other factors being equal, owning your primary residence is almost always a good investment over the long haul. Why? Because you have to live somewhere, and rentals, especially long-term leases that are important when you have kids in school, etc., are generally in the same ballpark as a mortgage in most markets. Giving $1,500 to a landlord gets me 30 days of living somewhere. Giving $1,500 to the bank gets me a place to live and equity in an asset which requires maintenance, but always has intrinsic value. Detroit is one extreme, Manhattan or Silicon Valley is another real estate extreme... everywhere else is somewhere in the middle. What isn't always a good investment is speculating in highly elastic ""investment property"" like vacation condos as an amateur. It's a cyclical market, but our attention spans are too short to realize that. As most of the other answers to this question indicate, people tend to be down in the dumps and see all of the problems with real estate when the market is not very good. Conversely people only see the upside and are oblivious to problems when the market is high."


>I find that TV quality has taken a real nose dive in the last 10-15 years. You are watching the wrong stuff. TV is in a Golden Age. This is a list of good Dramas that aired this year alone: Boardwalk empire Boss Breaking Bad Game of Thrones Homeland Justified Mad Men Shameless Sons of Anarchy Walking Dead There are dozens of decent shows, in addition plus a few gems on broadcast. There has never been a better time for TV than now. The quality and creativity of TV now outshines the movie industry.


> My town has less than 150k people and for the eclipse we are predicting a million visitors in the area. On past history this estimate could be right (although 1m seems like a lot) or it could be wildly inaccurate. During the 1999 eclipse there were areas in Cornwall that were gridlocked with traffic and planned events that saw hardly any attendance; visitors to Lake Balafon in Hungary had to watch it from a traffic jam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_August_11,_1999


"Usually the new broker will take care of this for you. It can take a couple of weeks. If you are planning to go with Vanguard, you probably want to actually get an account at Vanguard, as Vanguard funds usually aren't ""No Transaction Fee"" funds with many brokers. If you are planning to invest in ETFs, you'll get more flexibility with a broker."


Some of those could be bubbles since they violate price-rent metric. maybe or maybe not. People parking money is not necessarily a bubble if the money stays parked. I look at overseas real estate and some areas will never have prices anywhere near in line with incomes because they are global markets. locals couldn't dream to afford to own their own property.


There is no reason to ever do DCA. You'll notice that no asset managers would ever dream of it. You should invest your money as soon as you get it. Throughout history, this is the utility maximizing choice. The market rises on average. Why would you keep money out of it?


As of now you are doing that. When you start earning larger sums of money, you will not withdraw and keep it in your house. You will leave it in the bank and they will earn money on it( By lending it out at a higher interest rate). When you are broke, that same bank will offer you a credit card or some other instrument that will help you survive. They will charge you money on that and make interest of you. When you have too much money and you start wiring money they will charge you a wire transfer fees. There are more than 500 ways in which banks make money off you. If you plan receiving $100 and $250 all your life and withdraw it immediately and don't plan doing anything else all your life, then you will probably not let the bank make any money off you. However, there are a very few people like that and banks barely lose anything accepting those customers.


I am assuming this is USA. While it is a bit of a pain, you are best off to have separate accounts for your business and personal. This way, if it comes to audit, you hand the IRS statements for your business account(s) and they match your return. As a further precaution I would have the card(s) you use for business expenses look different then the ones you use for personal so you don't mess another one up.


Finally women in a male dominated industry are calling out what is fact. I have worked in finance all of my life and I have seen appalling acts of sexual discrimination/harrassment against women. I am happy to see the culture in Silicon Vally expose the truth.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4742712/Why-chickens-washed-chlorine.html) reduced by 93%. (I'm a bot) ***** > There is no legal requirement to wash US chickens in chlorine or other disinfectants, but 97 per cent of its birds are cleaned in this way after slaughter. > Jim Sumner, president of the US Poultry & Egg Export Council, said US chickens are treated humanely and are only washed with chlorine to make them &#039;extra safe&#039; for consumers because it guards against food poisoning bugs. > Supporters of chlorine-washed chicken point out both the US and European food safety authorities have declared the chemicals used to wash chickens in the States do not pose any risk to human health. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6qi0kj/too_fat_to_stand_and_their_flesh_rots_while/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~179191 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **chicken**^#1 **farm**^#2 **poultry**^#3 **birds**^#4 **food**^#5"


In Germany ARD/ZDF (German equivalent of BBC) have a budget of 38.51bn€ per year for their television programs. But that includes investigative news programs, regional news and stuff like that. Not sure if that is something Netflix will ever get into.


Any kind of savings account is a passive income stream.


Being from outside the US and the media's bias towards Obama, you probably see more of Romney's screw-ups than Obama's. Trust me, Obama has had some major gaffes when not reading from a teleprompter. Example: the only news I've seen reported on the major networks about Julia Gillard, is when she tripped on her heels a few weeks ago, unfortunately this is what the media thinks we need to see rather than actual news events.


The point of title insurance is that when you buy a house, it is possible that you may eventually find out that the seller didn't actually own the property - either because they were trying to deceive you, or some transfer of ownership in the past wasn't carried out properly. If that happens you can find yourself with no house, and still owing the mortgager the purchase price. Hardly anybody can afford to take that kind of hit, which is why you need some form of protection against it. The traditional way of doing this was to get a lawyer to do a title search, in which they check that everything in order. However this costs tens of dollars at least to do the work for every sale, and hardly ever finds anything. Title Insurance is a company volunteering to take the hit for you if there turns out to be a problem, in return for a payment of less than the title search would cost. In essence they are saying that it's cheaper to take the risk than do the work. What are the statistics? This report seems to indicate that payout is around 5% of premium, but title insurance is a one-off premium and the payout can theoretically happen many years down the line. However it is almost certain that the insurance companies have done the math and believe that selling this insurance will be profitable for them, so they believe that payouts are going to be substantially less than 100%. Is title insurance worth it for you? If the payout is 5% of premiums, the in a purely statistical sense it is not worth it. You would on average gain more by not taking it. However that is true of almost all insurance. The policy is there to protect you in the unlikely but not impossible event where you would otherwise lose a huge amount of money. Unless you can afford to lose the value of your house, you need some form of protection. We've already seen that the only other form of protection is a title search, and they cost more. The other issue is that if you are taking a mortgage, your mortgager will absolutely insist that you have either a title search or title insurance. There is no other way - and title insurance is the cheaper of the two. In this case it is best to look on the title insurance as simply a cost of doing business. It's irrelevant whether it's worth it or not - you can't do the transaction without it.


"> in a market, you can only gain a ""monopoly"" by giving the customers the most value You get a monopoly by destroying your competition. Microsoft is a good example of how a company with market dominance can squeeze out competition. This isn't some old-timey problem that's fed to us in some grand conspiracy by the public schools. If I choose not to buy from Comcast, how does that give me power over them? They're the only player in town, so everyone else pays them regardless of what I do. I think you're just disappointed in the people who are elected. But individuals have much more power over elected officials than they do corporations."


"> From what I understand, the prices of futures are decided after the parties ""discover"" the price they think is appropriate for the underlying asset after some time. What do you mean by that? The price you buy a futures contract at in the market is the price you get. The concept of price discovery doesn't always apply as directly to derivatives as it does to equities. When you buy a futures contract not only are you aiding price discovery for the underlying asset, you're also signaling the value of tangible things like storage, weather, and transportation costs as well as intangibles such as future macroeconomic events, global policy decisions, etc. Also consider that derivatives markets have significant percentages of market participants who are hedgers. The classic example is a farmer who's going to be harvesting his corn in Oct/Nov but wants to ""lock in"" the price of his corn right now. So he can sell futures contracts (for delivery any time after Nov) at whatever they happen to be priced at currently in the market. Maybe he sells Dec contracts for 400 (400 cents per bushel, 5k bushels per contract assuming he's based in the US and trading these at [CME](http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/agricultural/grain-and-oilseed/corn_contract_specifications.html)). Whatever happens to the price of corn between now and December, he knows he can deliver his corn for $4/bushel."


>Obama said he didn't build it Obama said he didn't build the roads that his workers drive to work, and he didn't build the schools that educated them so they're not idiots, he didn't build the police that keep his possessions safe. That's what Obama said. And that's what the god damn taxes are for.


If you're refinancing a conforming (Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac) mortgage, don't go with an FHA. Try a HARP refinance, which won't increase your mortgage insurance even if your home has lost value. HARP also limits the risk-based pricing adjustments that can be charged, so your rate should be very competitive. With an FHA mortgage, even once you get the loan-to-value ratio down to 80 percent, you still have mortgage insurance for several years, plus the upfront costs. In your case, I think it's a bad deal.


Should be able to do so. I'm also toying around with the idea of buying the winner 3 months of Reddit Gold, as a prize. Will have to confirm with the banker (wife) first. Also if this does well we might change it up for the next game. $5,000 and enable penny stocks, or something similar. The previous winner would have Reddit Gold until the next game is up. Seems like a fitting prize.


No, index arbitrage desks typically aimed to profit from arbitrage opportunities between index derivatives (mostly futures) and the underlying. The desk I worked at was a market making one that provided customers exposure to their index of choice. Inventory management was one of the things we did, but not the main, or only one. Also, names for the desk varied across different banks on the street.


If not Target, then who is the party who is and ought to be most knowledgeable about the details and outcomes of the promotion? In my view, they did choose to honour it when they let the promotion run a second time with the exact same set of rules, with full knowledge of the slickdeals thread. If they had any opposition at all, they would have stopped the promotion, minted new coupons with unique codes, sent down new policy to retail management, or programmed the tills not to allow the purchase of gift cards with gift cards. If you disagree that all the above signifies consent, then fine. Target was negligent and now they are paying for it. Satisfied?


>If you want socialized health-care then fine, advocate for the government providing this service directly. Attempting to get 'health-care for free' by mandating businesses pay for it is simply a wrong-headed way to go about it that guarantees less employment and less health-care for the poor. Funny, I seem to recall that being what the left was advocating for... guess who didn't like that idea? If you said conservatives and the business community, you are right!


"Costco does indeed pay its employees well, and is modest in terms of executive compensation, but make no mistake: they aren't selling chickens for $5 out of the goodness of their hearts. The Costco setup doesn't lend itself for consumers to ""pop in and out"" (i.e. their locations, both physical and the actual store layout/mass aren't conducive to quick trips). Costco sells dirt-cheap rotisserie chicken (and even pizza, hot dogs, etc.) to spur members to make a quick trip, and turn that into a larger purchase. They do a lot of things the ""right"" way as a company, but these are deliberate business strategies."


I would argue that the pace of technological change isn't so great as to prevent people with obsolete skills to get reeducated/retrained and be able to have other careers. Many proponents of UBI say that technological change is so fast that being reeducated is pointless.


"I've picked up loads of interesting and cool items from Aliexpress. Few computers, amplifiers, DAC's, electronics components and so forth. So far it's literally been ""you get what you pay for"", the really cheap stuff was really cheap, the things I paid more for were better quality. If you are careful you can find some gems, or a shipping container full of fidget spinners for $5000K."


I wouldn't recommend trying to chase a good return on this money. I'd just put it into a savings account of some sort. If you can get a better interest rate with an online account, then feel free to do that. I'd recommend using this money to pay for as much of college out of pocket as you can. The more student loans you can avoid, the better. As @John Bensin said, trying to make money in the stock market in such a short time is too risky. For this money, you want to preserve the principal to pay for school, or to pay down your loans when you get out. If you find you have more money than you need to finish paying for school, then I'd suggest setting some aside for an emergency fund, setting aside enough to pay your loans off when you're out of school, saving for future purchases (house, car, etc), and then start investing (maybe for retirement in a Roth IRA or something like that).


That is kind of the point, one of the hopes is that it incentivizes banks to stop storing money and start injecting it into the economy themselves. Compared to the European Central Bank investing directly into the economy the way the US central bank has been doing. (The Federal Reserve buying mortgage backed securities) On a country level, individual European countries have tried this before in recent times with no noticeable effect.


What you are asking about is called Interest Rate Parity. Or for a longer explanation the article Interest Rate Parity at Wikipedia. If the US has a rate of say zero, and the rate in Elbonia is 10%, one believes that in a year the exchange rate will be shifted by 10%, i.e. it will take 1.1 unit of their currency to get the dollars one unit did prior. Else, you'd always profit from such FOREX trades. (Disclaimer - I am not claiming this to be true or false, just offering one theory that explains the rate difference effect on future exchange rates.


I've had loans from B of A and Wells Fargo, and both have always been quick to correct any mistakes and work with me on any problems. I think it may be partly due to the fact that I understand the problem, can clearly tell them what I expect, and I treat them like an equal that would want to help fix the problem. Some people seen to always have problems, and others seem to never have them. I believe there is a reason for that.


"It's a popular saying for a reason: ""There's no such thing as bad debt. Only a bad price."" This isn't the first time they've defaulted and reissued bonds and it won't be the last. Actually, I think this is number 4. In any case, no one is forcing anyone to buy. I see no reason why Argentina shouldn't give it a shot. They just shouldn't be surprised when no one wants to even wipe their ass with them. Just because one issue is tied up in legal battles doesn't mean you have to stop raising capital. Seems SOP to me, I don't know."


Good point on gym memberships. I've known people who pay $5 per month at the gym but never go because they don't feel like they are wasting too much money. Now compare that with someone who's paying $40 or more, they want to get their money's worth so they go more often.


I like Wendy's food but the 3 restaurants in my town have horrible service. 8.63 times out of 10 when I go through the drive-thru they mess something up. The worst case was ordering 2 jr bacon cheeseburgers. They put everything but the hamburger patties on them.


2 brands of ketchup are required: Heinz and house brand. Mustard is similar, but with French's and house brand. 2 options is all you need, one that tastes good and the other that's cheap as possible. I don't even know if Trader Joe's has house brand, so that makes it hella easier.


Great question. First, my recommendation would be for you to get a card that does not have a yearly fee. There are many credit cards out there that provide cash back on your purchases or points to redeem for gift cards or other items. Be sure to cancel the credit card that you have now so you don't forget about that yearly fee. Canceling will have a temporary impact on your credit score if the credit card is your longest held line of credit. Second, it is recommended not to use more than 20% of all the available credit, staying above that line can affect your credit score. I think that is what you are hearing about running up large balances on your credit card. If you are worried about staying below the 20% line, you can always request a larger line of credit. Just keep paying it off each month though and you will be fine. You already have a history of credit if you have begun paying off your student loans.


"How many of you enjoyed your first job out of your undergraduate studies? Have any of you switched careers before completing a ""standard"" year because you didn't like it? I'm doing some really fun stuff in my current internship, there is a lot that I enjoy, and I'm a lot luckier than most - but I can't see myself doing this job for more than a year (if I'm even given an offer)."


Once you accept payment for an insurance claim, the insurance company has discharged its obligation to you. You could burn the money in a barrel and they would not care. There is no expectation or requirement that you repair or restore the insured item. You can do whatever you wish with the money.


"> It costs money to host a website. A technical problem with existing solutions. P2P moves terabytes of data every day in the conspicuous absence of money changing hands. If advertising is somehow 100% necessary for the client-server model, kill 'em both. The websites I like most don't even make anything. Reddit is all about comments from you guys. Image sites are all about artists. Youtube is all about some weirdo making mud huts. Each site on the web only provides a reliable point of exchange for user-generated files. Site owners demanding compensation for ""their"" content is an invitation to asking who controls the means of producing content."


"**Here Is The Corrected Title/Headline For This Post/Submission:** ""The United States has not discovered a magic formula that can produce happiness and prosperity everywhere. It cannot implant its ideals or values in vastly different social and political environments,"" writes Dr. Stephen Kinzer."


"This is an excellent question, one that I've pondered before as well. Here's how I've reconciled it in my mind. Why should we agree that a stock is worth anything? After all, if I purchase a share of said company, I own some small percentage of all of its assets, like land, capital equipment, accounts receivable, cash and securities holdings, etc., as others have pointed out. Notionally, that seems like it should be ""worth"" something. However, that doesn't give me the right to lay claim to them at will, as I'm just a (very small) minority shareholder. The old adage says that ""something is only worth what someone is willing to pay you for it."" That share of stock doesn't actually give me any liquid control over the company's assets, so why should someone else be willing to pay me something for it? As you noted, one reason why a stock might be attractive to someone else is as a (potentially tax-advantaged) revenue stream via dividends. Especially in this low-interest-rate environment, this might well exceed that which I might obtain in the bond market. The payment of income to the investor is one way that a stock might have some ""inherent value"" that is attractive to investors. As you asked, though, what if the stock doesn't pay dividends? As a small shareholder, what's in it for me? Without any dividend payments, there's no regular method of receiving my invested capital back, so why should I, or anyone else, be willing to purchase the stock to begin with? I can think of a couple reasons: Expectation of a future dividend. You may believe that at some point in the future, the company will begin to pay a dividend to investors. Dividends are paid as a percentage of a company's total profits, so it may make sense to purchase the stock now, while there is no dividend, banking on growth during the no-dividend period that will result in even higher capital returns later. This kind of skirts your question: a non-dividend-paying stock might be worth something because it might turn into a dividend-paying stock in the future. Expectation of a future acquisition. This addresses the original premise of my argument above. If I can't, as a small shareholder, directly access the assets of the company, why should I attribute any value to that small piece of ownership? Because some other entity might be willing to pay me for it in the future. In the event of an acquisition, I will receive either cash or another company's shares in compensation, which often results in a capital gain for me as a shareholder. If I obtain a capital gain via cash as part of the deal, then this proves my point: the original, non-dividend-paying stock was worth something because some other entity decided to acquire the company, paying me more cash than I paid for my shares. They are willing to pay this price for the company because they can then reap its profits in the future. If I obtain a capital gain via stock in as part of the deal, then the process restarts in some sense. Maybe the new stock pays dividends. Otherwise, perhaps the new company will do something to make its stock worth more in the future, based on the same future expectations. The fact that ownership in a stock can hold such positive future expectations makes them ""worth something"" at any given time; if you purchase a stock and then want to sell it later, someone else is willing to purchase it from you so they can obtain the right to experience a positive capital return in the future. While stock valuation schemes will vary, both dividends and acquisition prices are related to a company's profits: This provides a connection between a company's profitability, expectations of future growth, and its stock price today, whether it currently pays dividends or not."


The biggest red flag is the fact that your parents may lose their house. There are multiple parts of the decision. The red flag comes in because you are stretching your finances to the max to afford the house you are interested in. Buying down the interest rate makes some sense depending on how long you plan on staying, but not a a way to afford house X. Of course a bigger down payment will also influence the size of the house. You are also buying something in case your parents need a place to live. What happens if that never occurs? You now have something bigger than you need. You are mixing investments and housing. There is no guarantee that you will even break-even on the house as a investment. It can take several years to make back the closing costs involved in buying and selling a house, based solely on stable price and your monthly payments. If the price drops you might never make the money back. You might be better off renting what you need now or waiting until the current house is lost and then renting what you need then.


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http://priceofoil.org/2014/07/09/cashing-in-on-all-of-the-above-u-s-fossil-fuel-production-subsidies-under-obama/ So here I see 21.6 billion dollars on fossil fuels, and it's also a report on 2016. I feel like the commenter below you had a large point when they said that this leaves too much out. And btw, defending our oil interests overseas is indescribably more expensive than a recyling policy (which also comes with environmental benefits). The fact that you think they are comparable is laughable


Credit card fees on a credit card used for personal expenses are not tax deductible. Credit card fees on a business credit card are deductible on schedule C (or whatever form you're using to report business income and expenses). If you are using the same card for both business and personal ... well, for starters, this is a very bad idea, because it creates exactly the question you're asking. If that's what you're doing, stop, and get separate business and personal cards. If you have separate business and personal cards -- and use the business card only for legitimate business expenses -- then the answer is easy: You can claim a schedule C deduction for any service charges on the business card, and you cannot claim any deduction for any charges on the personal card. In general, though, if you have an expense that is partly business and partly personal, you are supposed to figure out what percentage is business, and that is deductible. In an admittedly brief search, I couldn't find anything specifically about credit cards, but I did find this similar idea on the IRS web site: Generally, you cannot deduct personal, living, or family expenses. However, if you have an expense for something that is used partly for business and partly for personal purposes, divide the total cost between the business and personal parts. You can deduct the business part. For example, if you borrow money and use 70% of it for business and the other 30% for a family vacation, you can deduct 70% of the interest as a business expense. The remaining 30% is personal interest and is not deductible. Refer to chapter 4 of Publication 535, Business Expenses, for information on deducting interest and the allocation rules. (https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/deducting-business-expenses) So, PROBABLY, you could add up all the charges you made on the card, figure out how much was for business and how much for personal, calculate the business percentage, and then deduct this percentage of the service fees. If the amount involved is not trivial, you might want to talk to an accountant or a lawyer.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax-plan-details-corporate-rate-individual-brackets-deductions-cuts-2017-9) reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot) ***** > &quot;After years of work, we are moving forward with a unified framework that paves the way for bold, transformational tax reform - tax reform that will bring more jobs, fairer taxes, and bigger paychecks,&quot; Brady said in a statement. > While there is no precise number in the plan, officials have indicated the rate could end up somewhere around 10%. Personal tax changes: A bottom individual tax rate of 12%. The plan specifies three tax brackets, with the lowest rate being 12%. That would represent a slight bump in the bottom bracket, which is now 10%. People currently in the 15% marginal tax bracket would most likely be included here. > &quot;An additional top rate may apply to the highest-income taxpayers to ensure that the reformed tax code is at least as progressive as the existing tax code and does not shift the tax burden from high-income to lower- and middle-income taxpayers,&quot; the plan reads. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/72ves8/gop_tax_plan_overview/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~217749 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **tax**^#1 **rate**^#2 **plan**^#3 **bracket**^#4 **deduction**^#5"


"Do you mean how much income tax the IRS will assess? Loans are not income, therefore they do not incur income tax. So as long as the money isn't being given, but being loaned, you don't have to pay income tax on it. And just in case you think there's a loophole of ""Instead of paying my workers, I'll just 'loan' them their paychecks, and then forgive the debt at the end of the year"", no, the IRS does consider loan forgiveness to be a form of income. So you need to look at whether the loan is going to you, or whether your business is a separate legal entity that is getting the money. If it's a capital contribution, then you are selling a stake in your company. Or, more precisely, as long as the money is going into the business, the company is selling a stake in itself. In that case, there generally isn't tax owed. Here's a Quara question that touches on this: https://www.quora.com/Is-money-raised-through-investors-taxed"


For the type of market neutrality you desire, free from crash risk, it's best to hedge the shares with covered calls when implied volatility is expensive and puts when implied volatility is cheap with the nearest at the money expirations. A put only strategy can be very expensive and should only be used with the longest term options available since they can cost many tens of % per year. Securities become almost perfectly correlated during a crash; therefore, market crash risk of one security is essentially equal to the market crash risk, so hedging the security itself makes a position market neutral for crash risk. This strategy will have intermittent opportunity cost risk in the form of slower returns during market expansion to pay for smaller losses during a crash; however, the expected long run return hedged this way should be greater than the underlying's expected long run return with less volatility.


Monetary base and growth are no longer correlated, at least that's what we know from QE in the US. Source, some research I did as an undergrad and papers I can't cite from my phone. But in all seriousness, I doubt there are many mainstream economists that would cite the monetary base as a key driver of growth.


Prices have fallen, but this article didn't go there. Maybe because they haven't fallen nearly as much as the 15% drop in sales. Regardless, I doubt anyone is feeling out anything. This has gone on for too long because of human emotions and low interest rates. These new regulations are purely political and will achieve nothing. Other than being a scapegoat.


Oh god you're not joking are you. I'd heard people as stupid as you existed but this is the first time I've actually experienced it. I'm going to go get into the fetal position and cry myself to sleep.


Somalia, that's your trump card? I'm equally disgusted at both parties and the role they played during the financial crisis which affected the entire world, and because I won't play sheep and walk in lock-step to the polls for Obama (or Romney), your suggestion is that I move to Somalia? Can you not see how ridiculous you are?


As pointed out in a comment, it would be more natural to get a regular mortgage on the second house, which is essentially using the second house as collateral for its own loan. If you are to use the first house, either mortgage it or get a home equity line of credit on it and use that money to buy the second house. The relative merits of the options may depend in part on where you live, whether or not you live in the homes, and the relative cost of the two properties. For example, in the US, first and second homes get preferred tax treatment in addition to rates that are typically better than commercial loans (including mortgages for investment properties). If you're going to get a better rate and pay less taxes on one option and not on the others, that's definitely something to weigh.


"The advice to pay off near-7% debt is tough to argue against. That said, I'd project out a few years to understand the home purchase. Will you plan for the 20% down John recommends? The Crazy Truth about PMI can't be ignored. The way the math works, if you put 15% down, the PMI costs you so much, it's nearly like paying 20% interest on that missing 5%. If your answer is that you intend to save for the full downpayment, 20%, and can still knock off the student loan, by all means, go for it. I have to question the validity of ""we will definitely be in a higher tax bracket when we retire."" By definition, pretax deposits save tax at the marginal rate. i.e. If you are in the 25% bracket, a $1000 deposit saves you $250 in tax that year. But, withdrawals come at your average rate, i.e. your tax bill divided by gross income. There's the deductions for itemized deductions or the standard. Then 2 exemptions if you are married. Then the 10% bracket, etc. Today, a couple grossing $100K may be in the 25% bracket, but their average rate is 12%. I read this Q&A again and would add one more observation - Student Loans and Your First Mortgage is an article I wrote in response to a friend's similar question. With the OP having plan to buy a house, paying off the loan may be more costly in the long run. It may keep him from qualifying for the size mortgage he needs, or from having enough money to put 20% down, as I noted earlier. With finance, there are very few issues that are simply black and white. It's important to understand all aspects of one's finances to make any decision. Even if thee faster payoff is the right thing, it's not a slam-dunk, the other points should be considered."


There is a third type of asset that a GIC falls into: Cash. So while it does share some characteristics of a bond, such as (often) having a fixed interest rate, and having the ability to ladder their maturities, they would generally be considered part of your Cash component of your portfolio.


"There is more than one exchange where stock can be traded. For example, there is the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. In fact, if you look at all the exchanges, there is essentially continuous trading 24/7 for many financial instruments (eg US government bonds). The closing price quoted in papers is usually the price at the close on the NYSE. However, options close after that and so there is after-the-close trading in many stocks with active options, so the price at the close of options trading at CBOE is often used. The ""real"" price is always changing. But for the purpose of discussion, using the closing price in NYSE (for NYSE listed stocks) is pretty standard and unlikely to be questioned. Likewise, using Bloomberg's price makes sense. Using some after-hours or small market quote could lead to differences with commonly accepted numbers - until tomorrow :)"


+1 to YosefWeiner. Let me add: Legally, technically, or at least theoretically, when you buy stock through a broker, you own the stock, not the broker. The broker is just holding it for you. If the broker goes bankrupt, that has nothing to do with the value of your stock. That said, if the broker fails to transfer your shares to another broker before ceasing operation, it could be difficult to get your assets. Suppose you take your shoes to a shoe repair shop. Before you can pick them up, the shop goes bankrupt. The shoes are still rightfully yours. If the shop owner was a nice guy he would have called you and told you to pick up your shoes before he closed the shop. But if he didn't, you may have to go through legal gyrations to get your shoes back. If as his business failed the shop owner quit caring and got sloppy about his records, you might have to prove that those shoes are yours and not someone else's, etc.


Icahn also bought a substantial amount of GM in the early 2000s... They were bankrupt just a one short recession later. (Though by that time I'm sure he had cut his losses) Icahn's fund's track record over the last few years hasn't been great either, as they've consistently underperformed the market. Point being... Having Carl Icahn invest in your company doesn't mean it's a good company and it's well documented that your chances of getting rich by selling Herbalife are only slightly better than your chances of hitting the lotto. The FTC ruling spared Herbalife in the short term..but I think it's inevitable that they'll run out of steam at some point. Though without having a good idea of when, it's a very risky short.


We buy data various providers (sharadar and quotemedia to name a few) and to answer your second question how we pay for it — with credit card :-) If you mean where we take money from; from our personal budgets. We want to introduce subscriptions in future but what is free currently will stay free forever (at least thats our plan).


I guess it depends on what you mean by 'too big'... IMO, the amount of Data collected aggregated and controlled by Google, FB, MS and Apple... is more than a little concerning. It's not the size of the company or specifically, how much money they have that causes me worry, or even the fairly obvious monopolistic-like stranglehold they have on their respective markets, but rather the profound influence they have on the USA and indeed the world at large. Google and facebook can 'paint' trends, create forces in the markets and politics with what equate to simple or minor changes to the way their softwares interact with the us... the population at large.


Cynical capitalism. But hey, i think Google goes beyond that. They support and fund decentralization technology which could break their centralized business. Why? Because they know they can't shut it down so they may as well be a part of it. But while monopolistic tactics work, they won't refrain from using them.


You could take these definitions from MSCI as an example of how to proceed. They calculate price indices (PR) and total return indices (including dividends). For performance benchmarks the net total return (NR) indices are usually the most relevant. In your example the gross total return (TR) is 25%. From the MSCI Index Defintions page :- The MSCI Price Indexes measure the price performance of markets without including dividends. On any given day, the price return of an index captures the sum of its constituents’ free float-weighted market capitalization returns. The MSCI Total Return Indexes measure the price performance of markets with the income from constituent dividend payments. The MSCI Daily Total Return (DTR) Methodology reinvests an index constituent’s dividends at the close of trading on the day the security is quoted ex-dividend (the ex-date). Two variants of MSCI Total Return Indices are calculated: With Gross Dividends: Gross total return indexes reinvest as much as possible of a company’s dividend distributions. The reinvested amount is equal to the total dividend amount distributed to persons residing in the country of the dividend-paying company. Gross total return indexes do not, however, include any tax credits. With Net Dividends: Net total return indexes reinvest dividends after the deduction of withholding taxes, using (for international indexes) a tax rate applicable to non-resident institutional investors who do not benefit from double taxation treaties.


As the fed liquidates their fiat, the stock market will go down to zero and bonds will evaporate as their denominated in worthless paper. [The government is going to come for people's gold and seize assets](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/mark-faber-i-am-convinced-whole-derivatives-market-will-cease-exist-and-will-go-zero) Guns and canned goods are the only safe investments from here forward.


Didnt I just say I am not going to cite? Not all of us get paid to astroturf on the intertubes during the day ;) EDIT: discussions usually contain links to studies. Or petitions signed by over 100 of scientists. Including Nobel-caliber ones.. Hold on to your opinion until you run into undeniable scientific facts. They come up so frequently that you will run into them eventually. And I will save my valuable time..


This article is correct, but it's focused on just one issue with IBM which is the tip of an iceberg. IBM has taken its office work policy too far, especially in light of all of its recent office closures. The company has driven out its most senior skilled labor while limiting its recruiting to a very narrow set of remaining offices, located exclusively in the most competitive hiring environments. And no, IBM does not have cash on hand to BOTH pay new recruits premium salaries AND continue supporting their massive product portfolio - in fact, all hiring is presently frozen for lack of stable finances. Don't be surprised as it continues to tank after it fails to meet contract obligations due to a lack of skilled resources.


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You can. You can take out a conventional mortgage and keep the cash. A mortgage is nothing but a secured loan against your home. You can open a HELOC and treat it as a negative-equity bank-account. Note that both a mortgage and a HELOC tend to have significant up-front or administrative costs attached to them. It costs the loaning institution some money to ensure they are in a safe position, and they will want to pass it on to you. They don't want you taking out such a loan and not using it. On the other hand, the interest rates on such a loan are often much lower than interest rates on other loans. If you have a reliable source of significant income, getting a completely unsecured line of credit may be possible with a rate only a few percentage points higher than a HELOC without having to pay a cent in fees. The bank doesn't have to appraise your home or ensure ownership before such a loan, just assess income (which is easy, especially if you have a regular paycheck auto-deposited into an account at the same branch; toss in some signatures from your employer and good to go). If that is feasible, you could end up with a lower rate. Withdraw from the line of credit, pay off your other loans, then work to repay the line of credit. If an unsecured line of credit has a rate 1-3% higher than a secured one, and you are borrowing 5000$ against it and pay it off over 2 years, the total interest you would save from a secured line is about 50$-150$. Note that in some jurisdictions your home is protected against loss from bankruptcy, unless you have used it as collateral for a loan, or it is easier to claim the home if you are insolvent if you have used it as collateral. Determining what the consequences of securing your loan against the house could itself be expensive.


"You hit on the biggest advantage of keeping things out of tax-advantaged accounts: Easier access to the money. It hurts to take money out of a 401(k) early. It may hurt more in the future. (Do you think the reason the 10% penalty is there in order to protect you from yourself?) It also may be converted into a vehicle besides what you have it in now, due to a ""national liquidity crisis."" You have plenty in tax-advantaged accounts, IMO."


If the government defaults on its debt, the holders of the debt get hung out to dry. You'll personally still owe just what you owed before, but the risk profile for the lender just shot up through the roof if the debt they hold is government-backed.


Someone will always be able to find weapons and followers. That's halfway to a government. History has shown, over and over again, that human nature abhors a vacuum of society and authority. (If the implication of your post was not to advocate some sort of anarcho-capitalist fantasy, I apologize.)


If the 'gratuity' is a payment from your previous Indian company made when you left them, then the US tax system will treat it exactly the same as wages paid by your previous company. Whether or not you need to pay taxes on your wages and gratuity will depend on whether your are considered resident in the US for tax purposes for this financial year. It is likely that you will be. Assuming you are, then the US requires that you pay tax on all income, wherever it is earned in the world. You will need to fill in a tax return and declare both your gratuity and your wages in India for that year. India and the US have a 'double tax agreement', which means essentially that you won't be taxed twice if you have already paid tax on the gratuity and wages in India. But you do have to declare them.


In fairness, I've probably gotten something wrong. My actual field is meat. Of course I get some exposure elsewhere, but I'm sure I've gotten something wrong. Bottom line though is I think it's really important for people to understand their food and the laws governing it. I'll keep discussing every chance I get.


Sure you can say there are some successful ones from millions. But if you look at most of Reddit for example, they are weed smoking losers living at home and getting paid minimum wage, that is if they even have a job. While you and your friends smoke once a month, many smoke daily and brag about it like it's a good thing. They all have the fake medical cannabis card and visit the shop weekly. Daily weed smokers are not fit for the job and are at a higher risk because they are impaired. They also often or almost always lack motivation.


Now thats how you run a fucking economy . . .but I hope you know that if the Israelis or Americans attack you, that shit won't work, and most probably, they are the ones most likely to attack you. Actually as the Japanese and Koreans found out, it just sounds really fancy and is really expensive . .doesn't do anything . .but looks really good


As far as broad principles, I think that you are on track. The only suggestion I would have is to look into HSAs. They are another great tax-advantaged account, accessible to those with high incomes.


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"With a gross income of $ 95,000 per year, and a net savings rate of over $ 18,000 per year, a budget of $ 3,600 per year for automobile interest and depreciation is not irresponsible. But poor car choices, poor car maintenance habits, and driving habits that risk totalling cars are irresponsible. Also, not fully understanding a lease deal is irresponsible. The ""great lease deal"" might be encouraging you to make a different ""poor car choice"" than you made last time. A ""great deal"" on a bad car is not really a great deal. Also, depending on the contract and your driving habits, you might have a surprising cost at the end of the lease."


Just so you know, when you started off with being angry about being down voted, you sounded like a stupid teenager who is just saying bullshit to sound big and I assumed just as much (sorry). You should not worry about upvotes/downvotes as they dont not mean anything and so you should not let it get to you. You're going to get downvoted a lot on reddit, dont worry about it. I actually moved from Australia also to the US so you obviously have a better view then I do here ( im definitely talking out my ass here :D). So i know that china has more phones available then iphones but are iphones really that popular ? By what you say, it sounds like apples market dominance is extremely high there. Haha, from what I have read, I always thought that chinese workers worked in pretty bad conditions and there would not be any opportunity to play games while at work.


Fund the Roth. If your loan interest is deductible (see firedfly's comment) then your effective cost for the loan is lower than 6.25% You get tax free earnings on the same amount in a Roth. Assuming you can get 6%, it's at least break even, probably better. And you can never gain back the time for compounding on the retirement account. With that said, there may be an emotional component to the decision. If you really just want to get rid of the debt, go ahead and do it.


You seriously think physics and engineering are niche degrees? Every year major companies in the US bitch about the lack of qualified candidates in fields like this. This is one reason that H-1B visa requests have risen in the last decade. Meanwhile, we are turning out more english/psych/law majors than the country can handle.


> the meal has become more expensive and also shrunk in size and quality > So, like every other place that serves food? Not like every place. McDonald's food has decreased in quality and prices have gone up. There are too many fingers in the pie - corporate, shareholders and franchisees are all trying to get the most money out of it. So prices go up and they slash and slash the quality. I live in Arizona. Here, McDonald's has priced itself *above* offerings from small independent restaurants. For the price of a Big Mac combo, I can have a sit-down meal at a real restaurant with much, much better quality. If I want to spend less, I can get takeout for less than McDonald's. The takeout will have more food that is of higher quality. There's no reason to go to McDonald's. None. You can get better food at a lower price. No wonder they're suffering.


I just don't think thats such a rip off considering what it is you are getting, but you are calling it unrealistic. A fresh double cheese burger with unlimited toppings/sauces, hand cut fries fried in 100% peanut oil (...and they really do not skimp on the portions for fries its usually enough fries for at least 2 people its usually like 1/2 a paper bag full of fries), and a drink where most of the five guys i have been in have the soda machines with 1000's of drink choices, and to top it off there are free peanuts. You say their food is awful, but i don't really see what there is to complain about. Its 80/20 beef that is never frozen, fries that are cut fresh right in front of you and fried in quality oil (peanut oil is fairly expensive as far as cooking oils go), ive never had issue with the freshness of the vegetable toppings. Am I missing something here? I think that's a pretty solid value for $12.


Anything from being a plumber to being a nurse, or dental assistant to an electrician or most any other contractor. We own a couple dental offices and everyone we know has a difficult time finding dental assistants (job typically requires 6 months of training and 1 year of work) Hell I had a $6k-$10k job for an electrician (about 3 full days worth of work) couldnt get a single one to call me back because they were busier with bigger jobs. Luckily I can get a plumber to come in because he's already a client of mine but there are lots of plumbers here that won't go to new homes because they have enough existing clients.


How the hell do taxes work in Washington? British Columbia has experienced massive growth over the last 20 years (mostly foreign) and our schools got over crowded. Magically though, they had more money from city taxes and were able to build more schools, and improve the old ones.


"Just sign the form. The bank I worked for gave a .25% discount on auto deduct. Either you misheard that part or the person who sold you on the loan was new/ didn't explain it properly. It's an ""optional form"" but it does change your rate. Edit: you're not being pushed around. Someone got in trouble and is trying to cover their butt by getting it back quickly."


Libya thought toppling Gaddafi would imprpopve their system. Sometimes destroying for the sake of destruction, without a proper plan, makes things worse. As bad as things are, things can be many thousand times worse. The US with all its problems is still one of the best places to live. Dont assume that what we have built will be so easily rebuilt.


What's going on here is that the variable rate loan is transferring some of the risk from the bank to you. In a reasonable deal taking on risk brings with it reward. It's the same thing as deductibles on insurance--they're transferring some risk to you and thus your expected total cost goes down. Thus the proper evaluation of such deals is whether you can afford the outcome if you draw the short straw. If you feel you can afford the highest payment that can result then the variable rate is a good deal. If you're near your limit then stay with the safe option of the fixed rate. For a house this is easy enough to evaluate--run the calculations assuming the highest payment and see what the debt-to-income ratio is. Note that when we were getting mortgages there was another factor involved: the variable rate loans had a higher initiation cost. Combined with the very low difference between fixed and ARM rates at the time we went fixed but given the rates you quote going variable would have been a no-brainer for us.


"Chit funds started as group of people pooling money every month and drawing a lot to determine who would get the entire funds that month. For example 5 people pool together Rs 1000/- on first month person ""A"" gets the draw and takes the Rs 5000/-. Next month again same set of people pool Rs 1000/-, the person who got the money last month is removed from the list and again a draw is made. Thus everyone pays Rs 1000/- for 5 month and gets back Rs 5000/- some sooner and some later. This was done more to buy big ticket purchases, or group of ladies getting together. There is always a leader who would ensure that everyone pays and manages the process. In more business oriented chit fund, unknown people come together and contribute Rs 1000/-. There is a organiser who is a local strong man who runs this and ensures that everyone pays. The variation here is that every month instead of a lucky draw, you can buy for discount. Say this month you need the money badly, you are willing to take only Rs 4800/-, there maybe some one who is more desperate and may say he is OK with only Rs 4600/-. The balance Rs 400 is distributed amongst the other 4 members. Thus the other who had contributed Rs 5000/- over 5 months now get Rs 100 more. The next month this person is eliminated from bidding, and others 4 can bid for Rs 5000 or less. The balance is again re-distributed amongst others. This is typically run by people who do not get loans at good rates from bank and essentially borrow outside the financial industry. The people who are part of this most of the times make good returns / better than banks. But this entire industry is unregulated and hence the Strong man can dupe you, there are cases where people who take the first shot at money vanish without trace. Every city has quite a few of such funds running. It is advisable you do not indulge in such funds."


You might have to pay a premium for the stocks on the dividend tax–free exchanges. For example, HSBC on the NYSE yields 4.71% versus HSBC on the LSE which yields only 4.56%. Assuming the shares are truly identical, the only reason for this (aside from market fluctuations) is if the taxes are more favorable in the UK versus the US, thus increasing demand for HSBC on the LSE, raising the price, and reducing the yield. A difference of 0.15% in yield is pretty insignificant relative to a 30% versus 0% dividend tax. But a key question is, does your country have a foreign tax credit like the US does? If so you (usually) end up getting that 30% back, just delayed until you get your tax return, and the question of which exchange to buy on becomes not so clear cut. If your country doesn't have such a tax credit, then yes, you'll want to buy on an exchange where you won't get hit with the dividend tax. Note that I got this information from a great article I read several months back (site requires free registration to see it all unfortunately). They discuss the case of UN versus UL--both on the NYSE but ADRs for Unilever in the Netherlands and the UK, respectively. The logic is very similar to your situation.


ZeroHedge is the best, although it appeals to a particular audience (highly educated economics/business folks with a very negative view of government). They pull articles from all over the web, so you get a really good aggregator with maybe 20 articles/day of high quality work. Bloomberg I read if there's a good topic. That pops up on facebook for me and I read probably 10/day. Wall Street Journal is great if you want mainstream (read: delayed) business news. Most of the things that are truly news are long-term in nature and you'd read about them on ZeroHedge far before the WSJ. I used to read Dealbook a lot, although I've gotten away from it lately due to the lack of mergers & acquisitions activity. Lastly, I used to have a blogroll of maybe 5-10 investment blogs with truly great writers/thinkers, but alas, most have stopped writing now. sorry about the delay. forgot I saw your question.


"I'll give the TLDR answer. 1) You can't forecast the price direction. If you get it right you got lucky. If you think you get it right consistently you are either a statistical anomaly or a victim of confirmation bias. Countless academic studies show that you can not do this. 2) You reduce volatility and, importantly, left-tail risk by going to an index tracking ETF or mutual fund. That is, Probability(Gigantic Loss) is MUCH lower in an index tracker. What's the trade off? The good thing is there is NO tradeoff. Your expected return does not go down in the same way the risk goes down! 3) Since point (1) is true, you are wasting time analysing companies. This has the opportunity cost of not earning $ from doing paid work, which can be thought of as a negative return. ""With all the successful investors (including myself on a not-infrequent basis) going for individual companies directly"" Actually, academic studies show that individual investors are the worst performers of all investors in the stock market."


Laws like this replace tipping income with regular income, taking away the loophole that the IRS can't track cash tips. Most servers are not reporting their cash tips because they think they don't have to pay taxes like everybody else. It's tax fraud. Fuck them.


The only fair thing to do is to let each of you pay their own loans. That way, your brother will probably get out of debt faster and starts saving or investing (assuming equal down payments), while you'll be stuck with your loan for a while longer. If you want to minimize the interests you have to pay, you could simply borrow money from your brother. That way, he'll contribute towards your loans, and you will know exactly how much you owe him. Your brother may lend you money interest-free, or you could agree on an interest rate which is lower than what you pay on your loans, which will somewhat compensate your brother and still be beneficial to you. It still won't be fair though, because your brother might be able to invest his extra money with better interest rate, and lending money to you would prevent that.


"Expanding like crazy compared to what? Apple? You mean the company that has maintained a 25% operating margin while growing top line by 160% since 2010? No company has EVER had a market cap of $1T, let alone maintained it. What is your point? All you're talking about is relative price and ""history"" which has little to no bearing on what is going to happen in the future. I see no indication of any argument related to the actual valuation of Apple stock. It is still, at $650B, pretty reasonably valued considering the facts, e.g., ability to generate cash, maintain margins, grow revenues, and for management to make sound financial moves, i.e., return $ to shareholders. You come off extremely condescending yet you seem not to have much of an understanding in regards to what dictates stock price over the long term."


Perhaps it's best to balance out how it works out for all, especially the most vulnerable, before setting yourself for or against a policy such as this. You are lucky that you don't have any pre-existing conditions, while others aren't. You earn enough that you are able to afford insurance, even if you're not happy with the fact that you have to pay for it. But you are unlucky to be working for a company with short-sighted dickheads that look more at the immediate bottom line than they do at their employees. To be honest, if they are scrapping by so much that they need to move everyone to part time to avoid health insurance costs that they already had before, you'd better start looking for another job right away.


> It's a huge joke. People are putting their stock in it, but there was a front page story just yesterday about another crypto currency that went from $300 to $0.10 with a single transaction. Hi, long time crypto nerd here... Just wanted to say that transaction was on one exchange and the price pretty much went back to normal in a few seconds. Due to the lack of experience in trading some people just dump like that on a whim, its not the norm, but it does happen. In any case, that was some +1,000 units worth which again is super rare. They likely bought a long time ago and forgot them... again, fairly uncommon.


"I don't usually play ""what if..."" but here is my guess: * He would have bankrupt the United States (sooner than it is going to happen) after hiding all assets. * Rename the new Government something with ""Trump"" in it (Trumpmerica?) * As part of his ""Get Trumpmerica Back to Work"" initiative he would add his profile to Mt Rushmore and erect statues of himself in all city parks. * And reissue currency with his face on all the different denominations. *edit to add - I lied.. I play ""what if's.."" all the time"


Detroit is a joke. They're pissing money away left and right, the city managers refuse to take any kind of cuts or change anything that they are doing. It needs an emergency manager to come in there and clean things up.


You can reprocess the spent fuel to extract unburned uranium fuel, as is done elsewhere in the world. Thorium based fuel produces less long lives actinide waste (high level nastiness) and in my opinion would be a key step toward making nuclear a viable option. Nuclear is very politically volatile so a decade long planning effort can be subjected to winds of change with respect to politics, licensing, funding, and public opinions which can make for enormous inefficiencies. Solar has public favor so there are plenty of incentives. Nuclear would have to receive a push like that. Done properly a nuclear power plant should not contaminate the land it sits on. Currently plants have extensive environmental monitoring required by regulation. Nuclear power plants don't have extensive storage ponds for spent fuel. Every plant has a storage pool to wait for decay heat to subside as part of the refueling cycle. An issue with nuclear is that mistakes don't just biodegrade on a human timescale as they do for chemical based mistakes. The nuclear industry is currently paying for the sins of its birth and formative years.


"Arbitrage is basically taking advantage of a difference in price. Generally extending to ""in different places for the same thing"". A monetary version would be interlisted stocks, that is stocks in companies that are on both the NYSE/Nasdaq and Toronto stock exchanges. If somebody comes along and buys a large number of shares in Toronto, that will tend to make the price go up - standard supply and demand. But if someone else can buy shares instead in NY, and then sell them in Toronto where the first person is buying up shares, where the price is higher, they the the arbitrageur (second person) can make pretty easy money. By its very nature, this tends to bring the prices back in line, as NY will then go up and Toronto will then go down (ignoring FX rates and the like for ease of explanation). The same can work for physical goods, although it does tend to get more complex with taxes, duties, and the like."


"In your comment, you said: It just seems a little stupid to me to go and put away money for the explicit purpose of emergencies (presumably in a way that's somehow different from how you would normally save money). Seems better to go and treat the money as you would normally, and then pull whatever you need from the money that you had saved. The problem with that logic is that people save money for many different things. You might save for a vacation, or a new refrigerator, or a new car, or a house, or your kids' college education. If you ""pull whatever you need"" for such expenses, you may find that when a real emergency occurs, you don't have enough money. The things you used it for may have been legitimate, reasonable expenses, but nonetheless you may later wish you had deferred those expenses until after you had built up a cushion. So the idea of an emergency fund is to designate certain money that is not to be used for ""whatever you need"", but specifically for unforeseen circumstances. Of course there can be debate about what counts as an emergency, but the main point is to distinguish saving for planned future expenses from saving for unplanned future expenses. Note that this doesn't mean the money has to be in a separate account, or saved in any special ""way"". It just means the money has to be considered by you as an emergency fund. For some people, it may be psychologically useful to put the emergency fund in a separate account that they never withdraw from. But even if you just have all your money in one savings account and you mentally tell yourself, ""I don't want to ever let the balance drop below $10,000, just so I have a safety cushion"" then you are effectively designating that $10,000 as an emergency fund."


From Wikipedia: A hard money loan is a specific type of asset-based loan financing through which a borrower receives funds secured by the value of a parcel of real estate. Hard money loans are typically issued at much higher interest rates than conventional commercial or residential property loans and are almost never issued by a commercial bank or other deposit institution. Hard money is similar to a bridge loan, which usually has similar criteria for lending as well as cost to the borrowers. The primary difference is that a bridge loan often refers to a commercial property or investment property that may be in transition and does not yet qualify for traditional financing, whereas hard money often refers to not only an asset-based loan with a high interest rate, but possibly a distressed financial situation, such as arrears on the existing mortgage, or where bankruptcy and foreclosure proceedings are occurring. This implies to me that these loans are only against real estate. Presumably, because it doesn't move and can't be simply taken away, as in the case where you have say, a high value diamond or painting.


There is also a very real cost to having people know each other's salaries. Bitterness, at people who have a higher salary, and at the company paying someone a higher salary (or even the same or lower salary) when you do so much more work with them. I'm guessing the average person overestimates their abilities like you said. This means that no matter how fair your salary scheme, if people know each other's salaries, the majority of people will be bitter and thus less productive.


I agree but the reality is that despite laws on the books, no matter how egregious corporate behavior in the US is, rarely do the courts impose any real punishment. It's always a small fine by the courts or the government which only encourages the bad behavior. Its always pennies on the dollar of what they got and no jail time for anyone. Business know this. Heard of Blue Bell ice cream? They knew there was a problem with their ice cream, instructed employees to cover it up and continues to sell ice cream which killed people. The state of Texas gave them a fine sure to have everyone repeat this and the company will delay for decades any settlement with the families. It's the American way. You have no power over corporations.


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I can understand the argument that it's not a good allocation of resources to extend the life of someone by a few months, but what's your argument against treating accidents, mental illness, disabilities, autism etc? And how much would the additional bureaucracy of charging people cost? In the UK, the NHS costs about £3000 per working person. Seems well worth the cost.


In the UK at least, dealers definitely want you to take finance. They get benefits from the bank (which are not insubstantial) for doing this; these benefits translate directly to increased commission and internal rewards for the individual salesman. It's conceivable that the salesman will be less inclined to put himself out for you in any way by sweetening your deal as much as you'd like, if he's not going to get incentives out of it. Indeed, since he's taking a hit on his commission from you paying in cash, it's in his best interests to perhaps be firmer with you during price negotiation. So, will the salesman be frustrated with you if you choose to pay in cash? Yes, absolutely, though this may manifest in different ways. In some cases the dealer will offer to pay off the finance for you allowing you to pay directly in cash while the dealer still gets the bank referral reward, so that everyone wins. This is a behind-the-scenes secret in the industry which is not made public for obvious reasons (it's arguably verging on fraud). If the salesman likes you and trusts you then you may be able to get such an arrangement. If this does not seem likely to occur, I would not go out of my way to disclose that I am planning to pay with cash. That being said, you'll usually be asked very early on whether you are seeking to pay cash or credit (the salesman wants to know for the reasons outlined above) and there is little use lying about it when you're shortly going to have to come clean anyway.


>Like I said they are a media company. And, a broadcast company with several channels, don't forget that part that makes you totally wrong. >Even tho you have not. You actually barely done any such thing. No, I have repeatedly acknowledged their faults, you disagreed with the extent of my acknowledgement. Frankly, this is the sort of behavior I expect out of a petulant or severely autistic child. You do not tolerate anyone else having an opinion. >You seem to have a habit of making assumptions and bullshit claims, should really address that. My sampling is far from limited here. I know enough to say with absolute certainty Vice journalism is on par of Buzzfeed, and has a noticeable liberal bias. If I wanted fluff pieces to read I would go to Vice and that matter Buzzfeed. But if I want actual investigative journalism I go elsewhere. Buzzfeed's scoops are about stars dating each other, political stories, etc. Vice does pieces on buying nukes on the black market, the inside tour of North Korea (you know that claim that they have the same fat kid and fake grocery stores full of fake food? That's from Vice's investigative journalism), etc. If you can't distinguish between the two, I think you're ironically making assumptions and bullshit claims. Oh, and about your sampling, you're continuing to justify a sweeping generalization which you don't even recognize as fallacious. Do you not understand that your derivative argument is faulty? That you are making a notorious mistake that is well-documented in logical academia? >lol. Your analysis is no more subjective than mine is. Claiming your analysis is objective is outright laughable. I am judging quality by the story on its own merits: that's objectivity. You are judging the quality of a story by your negative opinion of the producer and publisher's reputation: that's subjectivity. It makes you subjectively dismissive of my objective analysis. Your analytical skills are outright laughable.


"Limited Price is probably equivalent to the current par value of a ""limit order"". Markets move fast, and if the commodity is seeing some volatility in the buy and sell prices, if you place an ordinary buy order you may not get the price you were quoted. A ""limit order"" tells your broker or whomever or whatever is making the order on your behalf that you will pay no more than X yuan. While the market is below that price, the trader will attempt to get you the quantity you want, but if they can't get you your full order for an average price less than the limit, the whole thing is rolled back. You can set a limit at any price, but a limit order of 1 yuan for a pound of sterling silver will likely never be executed as long as the market itself is functioning. So, you are being provided with a ""par value"" that they can guarantee will be executed in the current market. Entrustment prices are probably prices offered to the managers of trust funds. A trust is simply a set of securities and/or cash which is placed under the nominal control of a third party, who then must in good faith attempt to fulfill the goals of the actual owner of the securities with regards to growth or retention of value. Trustees almost never speculate with the money they control, but when they do move money it's often a sizeble chunk (hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars instead of a few thousand dollars here and there). So, in return for the long-term holdings, large buys and sells, and thus the reduced cost of maintaining a business relationship with the broker, the broker may offer better prices to trust fund managers."


One of the fundamental of technical analysis suggests that holding a security overnight represents a huge commitment. Therefore it would follow that traders would tend to close their positions prior to market close and open them when it opens.


Well the idea is after getting the employees to put their best attempt to transition their processes to excel, afterwards the leftover advanced processes that absolutely require excel will be given an exception (until a better solution can be researched and prototyped). But at the moment until then I have to find out ways to get these advanced functionality in other ways!


The real idea is to get inflation even higher than it currently is to try and get more bullets in the future for the next recession. We'd like nominal rates to be much higher than before so that we can have even larger real negative rates when needed. This takes time and finesse and I'd say Yellen is doing a fine job. Every mark she is reaching for in the dual mandate is exactly where it needs to be for a perfect storm. Almost all people borrow money to get houses. That doesn't make them likely to default. What made defaults skyrocket in '08 was predatory lending and NINJA loans, as well as a group of men who actively did everything they could to make the system fail because of credit default swaps whose payout was significantly higher than the loss.


You need to look at where the profits are coming from. In this case, compressed wage growth and extreme cost-cutting. I mean shit, Dimon ripped out all of JPMs Bloomberg terminals. Work happiness at banks are much lower and people are leaving, save for at certain types of banks. The profits are just coming from employees. Overtime is a lot lower to non-existent in right to work states and you'll pull 10-30 hours over what you signed on for on a weekly basis. If you're not aware of what capital requirements are then I really can't dive into this. I suggest you read up on Basel 3, the US system, liquidity cover ratio (LCR) and then understand generally what products yield more and the risks attached to those. If you do know those then I feel like you know where my response is going, but I'm happy to get into it more.


Why do people act as if the minimum wage was created for high school students who are working part time? There's no real way to debate the fact that the minimum wage was created as a requirement for employers to pay a livable wage to employees. It wasn't created as some kind of skill building wage for teenagers. “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country...By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of a decent living.” - FDR


I'm amazed at how shoddy some (not all) products are after they start being made in China. It's like there is no quality control and obviously head office back in the states is only looking at the bottom line. Cheaper often is cheaper.


I started my account with $500 so I know where you're coming from. For the words of caution, in about 2009 we entered a pretty significant bull market. During this period you could basically buy almost any big name company and do pretty well for yourself. So don't be too cocky about your ability to pick winners in the middle of a bull market. Over the last few years you'd have to try pretty hard to consistently pick losers. I absolutely think you should put real money in the game when you have this sort of interest. However, at your $400-600 level broker fees will eat any sort of active trading or short term profit you could muster. Stock trading is not a great way to make money in the short term. If you're looking to save for something specific you should put that money in a zero risk savings account. You should do more research on brokers. Find the lowest possible trade commission at an organization where you can meet the account opening minimum. A $10 commission is 11% more than a $9 commission.


I did some empirical research, comparing the exchange rates for wire transfers vs. the exchange rates for ATM withdrawals. With my bank, wire transfers typically take a 4% float off the exchange rate. ATM withdrawals seem to take just over 2%. And ATM withdrawals don't have a wire transfer fee, as long as I'm withdrawing from a branch of the same bank (overseas). The only problem with ATM withdrawals is the daily limit. As far as I can see, Tor's answer above has it completely backwards, at least with my bank, ATM withdrawals are a much better value. Do the research yourself...call the bank you're going to transfer from and find out what their current exchange rate is. Compare it to the current spot rate (e.g. XE.com) to determine how much of a cut the bank is taking. Then, if you can, withdraw some cash from the foreign location with your ATM card and see how much of the original currency is deducted from your account. In this way you can empirically discover for yourself the better rate.


If anyone is interested in looking into it, the company Pinnacle has actually been using theory from quantitative finance for a long time. I went to one of their talks during useR!2017 in Brussels, really interesting betting company.


Still not easy to grasp for a 5-year-old, but they're entertaining. Particularly the second one, which is slightly less informative but a lot more fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk&feature=fvwrel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc EDIT: Yup, it's biased towards Hayek, but that much is pretty evident. I still think that the videos are worth a watch, if only to give you a small introduction to where the two of them stand on certain issues.


"Top down approach needed when bottom-up approach of markets leads to periods of high unemployment Imagine a chart that starts with one point at the top and breaks it down into the details by the time you get to the bottom. People can read this chart either from the top and go down or from the bottom and go up. Wikipedia does have articles on Top-down and bottom-up design if you want more detail than I give here. Top down refers to the idea of starting at a high level and then working down to get into the details. For example, in planning a vacation, one could start with what continent to go, then which country, then which cities in that country and so forth. Thus, the idea here would be to start with macroeconomic trends and then create a strategy to fix this as the other way is what created the problem. The idea of taking a subject or system and breaking it down into individual pieces would be another way to state this. Bottom up refers to the idea of starting with the details and then build up to get a general idea. To use the vacation example again, this is starting with the cities and then building up to build the overall itinerary. Within political circles you may here of ""grassroots"" efforts where citizens will form groups to gain influence. This would be an example of bottom up since it is starting with the people. The idea of taking individual components and putting them together to build up something would be another way to state this. The statement is saying that a completely different style of approach will be necessary than the one that created the problem here."


Those compensated by commission, not your moneyed elite. Those types are going to get out of taxes anyway. Capital gains crush the middle and upper middle class like no other. BTW, now you sound even less like you know what you're talking about.


Is there really that many subscribers? It's about 10$ a month depending on what country you live in. 100m*10*12 = 12 b revenue per year. Unless I'm wrong, but this is the internet, I am sure someone will correct me.


It means you must pay federal (and possibly state) tax on any income you produce in America -- including Internet and mail-order sales. Tax treaties may keep you from having to pay tax on it again in your own country, or may not.


Never met any myself, but I know some manufacturers use them and are happy with their services. There is definitely a legitimate need for it, just a lot of swamp that gets dragged in. I would call around the midwest and ask. All the business folks I've met there seem to be very nice and happy to help. Try casting, extruding, or large welding shops and see if they have any recommendations. I know this isn't the best way... but it is a way of finding someone who is probably reputable.


"Oh there's plenty of subreddits where sanders is a hard left socialist monster, if they ever stop screaming coded racism about the Obama false president. /r/conservative is a start. I got banned in minutes for mentioning Eisenhower I think. A common post ""liberals eat their young and old"". WTF?"


The simplest thing is to transfer to your current account. You'll have the ability to borrow (assuming employer allows) 50% of the balance if you need to, and one less account to worry about. Transferring to an IRA is the other common choice. This offers the ability to convert to a Roth IRA and to invest any way you choose. The 401(k) options may be limited. Without more details, it's tough to decide. For example, if you are in the 15% bracket, the Roth conversion can be a great idea. And the 401(k) might be not so great, just deposit to the match, and then use the IRA. For example.


Just get out. If the investment isn't going up, you are losing money to inflation, as well as the opportunity cost of not having the money somewhere more profitable. These things happen to the best of us. Just learn from it and move on. Some valuable lessons: Just keep trying. Mistakes like this are all part of the learning process. Best of luck.


"The laws just mean you can't make your decision on the basis of religion. Make your decision because they don't interview well, they can't do the job, they have poor qualifications, etc. Substitute, say, ""black people"" for the reference to religious expression and you see where this is a problem. Paraphrased, you've got: ""Why should I be forced to hire black people who I fundamentally oppose (and do not wish to support, however indirectly via a paycheck), why is their right to be black more valid than my right to not like black people?"""


"Oh sorry maybe I misread your question. The article didn't have anything concrete. I just watched the video to see the there was some clear examples or data but I didn't really catch anything. He said something about Trump not wanting to create jobs and said ""Chinese are working on AI"" because the gov't announced a plan. But he offered no real data for his views at all from what I heard. I'm not a specialist in economics so maybe I missed something obvious that someone else can clue us in on"