"No magic answers here. Housing is a market, and the conditions in each local market vary. I think impact on cash flow is the best way to evaluate housing prices. In general, I consider a ""cheap"" home to cost 20% or less of your income, ""affordable"" between 20-30% and ""not affordable"" over 30%. When you start comparing rent vs. buy, there are other factors that you need to think about: Renting is an easy transaction. You're comparing prices in a market that is usually pretty stable, and your risk and liability is low. The ""cost"" of the low risk is that you have virtually no prospects of recouping any value out of the cash that you are laying out for your home. Buying is more complex. You're buying a house, building equity and probably making money due to appreciation. You need to be vigilant about expenses and circumstances that affect the value of your home as an investment. If you live in a high-tax state like New York, an extra $1,200 in property taxes saps over $16,000 of buying (borrowing) power from a future purchaser of your home. If your HOA or condo association is run by a pack of idiots, you're going to end up paying through the nose for their mistakes. Another consideration is your tastes. If you tend to live above your means, you're not going to be able to afford necessary maintenance on the house that you paid too much for."


>For any dynamic enterprise, there's the innovator, and the investor who's money makes it real. I think Stewart had 2 points here, though. The first being that innovators innovate for the sake of innovating, the second being that a 2% increase in the capital gains tax is not going to force investors to look at Somalia for better investment opportunities.


they can't keep putting out sustaining innovations. they need to tweak their business models to produce innovations that shake-up the market; disruptive innovations. they need to make sure their value propositions focus on the job consumers perform, and find ways to make those jobs simpler and more affordable.


"**Cycle of poverty** In economics, the cycle of poverty is the ""set of factors or events by which poverty, once started, is likely to continue unless there is outside intervention"". The cycle of poverty has been defined as a phenomenon where poor families become impoverished for at least three generations, i.e. for enough time that the family includes no surviving ancestors who possess and can transmit the intellectual, social, and cultural capital necessary to stay out of or change their impoverished condition. In calculations of expected generation length and ancestor lifespan, the lower median age of parents in these families is offset by the shorter lifespans in many of these groups. *** ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/economy/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.27"


This is a pretty good list, but there are several adjustments I'd make for investment banking specifically. The picture is slightly different for trading, consulting, and other business careers. edit: I know for a fact that all bulge bracket investment banks recruit at Berkeley, UCLA, and CMU for IBD. I would say the big difference between target and semi-target is that, expending minimal effort, you can get into IBD from a target with a 3.5 GPA. edit2: Liberal arts colleges are spread between the three categories. It really depends on the alumni network. **Targets**: Harvard, *Penn*/Wharton, Princeton, MIT, Duke, NYU, Stanford, Columbia, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, *Georgetown*, Cornell, *Northwestern*, Chicago, *Caltech*, and other top schools I might've left out (Amherst or other good liberal arts schools, I'm less familiar here) **Semi-Targets**: *Berkeley*, *UCLA*, *CMU*, *USC*, Vanderbilt, *Georgia Tech*, UVA, UNC Chapel Hill, Notre Dame, Emory, Michigan, Indiana, Texas, etc. (think great state schools) **Non-Targets**: You get the picture. Less recruiting here, but some might still get recruited at.


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This is not allowed, and there is a name for it: IBAN discrimination. Searching for that term will give you some pointers what to do about it. The EU regulation that prohibits this is 260/2012, article 9, paragraph 2: A payee accepting a credit transfer or using a direct debit to collect funds from a payer holding a payment account located within the Union shall not specify the Member State in which that payment account is to be located, provided that the payment account is reachable in accordance with Article 3. You can report this at the relevant national authorities. In the Netherlands, this is De Nederlandsche Bank, which has a special e-mail address for this: meldpuntIBANdiscriminatie@dnb.nl


They're digitized now too on what's called an ECDIS (electronic chart display information system) that automatically updates but an actual ECDIS is expensive. There are plenty of other plotters and iPad programs and stuff that are available that can be updated as well but they're not approved for commercial navigation. A lot of professionals still use them though because they're handy and more intuitive.


When you buy your list from eSalesData, we go the whole nine yards in ensuring that your data is a hundred percent fresh and accurate. Each list is run through 6 stages of verification and cross referencing against a master database prior to delivery. And that means you get only the cleanest, most recent list that guarantee you a bounce-free campaign.


PKO Bank polski has a feature of free incoming,outgoing transfer.


> The essential reason for this is that rising premiums in silver plans would trigger an increase in tax credits for low-income individuals whose premium-paying responsibilities are limited by the ACA. So if I'm understanding this correctly, a reduction in subsidies for silver plan recipients would result in higher premiums overall, which would result in low-income individuals losing enough income to qualify for other tax benefit programs that would cancel out these higher premiums. If that is the case, what an odd take on that scenario. It's finding the one silver lining in a very, very bad situation. The case described would push a lot of people off the cliff of self-sufficiency, and the headline makes that sound like a good thing?


"Eh. A FICO change is more important than you think. Underwriting waterfalls almost always include **minimum** FICO scores. This only really becomes important when you get into securitization and the standards (both GSE and Private-Label) required for MBS issuance. Because -- of course -- an underwriter can originate a loan and then hold it it on the books (this is very prevalent in non-conforming Jumbo loans). That said, if you want to sell the whole loans to a GSE or private label, they have to meet underwriting requirements (Reps & Warranties). To your original answer: you're right that it probably won't make a difference but not because FICO doesn't matter. Moreso because there are only 9 million potential ""borrowers"" affected and that 9 million most likely doesn't constitute any real demand for mortgages. This also ignores the possibility that FICO requirements in underwriting standards adjust to FICO 9; but I really doubt that they will."


I work in logistics and in tandem with Amazon. Automated trucks is a LONG way down the pipe. They are not going to be able to implement that on a large scale for what I would imagine is at least 5-10 years. That's not to say it can't happen sooner, but with where we are at with the technology, that seems to be realistic.


"Its very much is a ""Amazon is taking over the world"" type article when that is far from the case. More so it claims Amazon is taking over the infrastructure but supports the claim with nothing to support that actual claim. What they try to use is nothing more than points to a company growing and expanding. A lot of the infrastructure Amazon is ""taking over"" is owned and operated by them."


In the US the best way to solve the problem, IMHO, would be via a trust. Talk to a properly licensed trust/estate attorney and a tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). Using intermediary who's not a 501(c) organization may pose income tax issues to that intermediary as providing support to the needy is not a valid business expense. It may also pose gift tax issues, since the aggregate amounts may exceed the statutory exemption limits. Using a (non-revokable) trust you can avoid these issues, but others may come up (such as what to do with the trust income or undistributed moneys). Talk to the advisers about how to avoid them.


Interesting. I've actually experimented with my Uber rating from time to time by tipping (in cash, obviously) every time for a week and then never tipping for a week. Tipping definitely does impact the rating (even though I can't imagine why I'd ever have deserved less than 5 stars every time, tip or otherwise). I travel a lot, so I've also noticed that it depends on where you are - in certain areas tipping is expected, even if that's technically against the rules. I'm not sure how that expectation would change if the driver knew that he *may* have gotten a tip, but it would be an interesting experiment.


ESPN get over $8 per subscriber per month. The next best channel is TNT with something like a $1.27. 45+% of Dis revenues comes from Cable operations, of which, I believe ESPN makes up half of that figure. Their streaming service might augment the declining revenue from Cable, but like I said, it's plugging a hole, but the boats still sinking.


"When we calculate the realized yield of a bond, we assume the coupons are invested at an interest rate. I assume it is some kind of vehicle that guarantees a return, thinking it is government bond, savings account or something. Investing in a benchmark bond index might be risky though for this ""interest rate""."


For those who say that we should spend more in stimulus, I'd be interested to see your ballpark amount that would be ideal to spend and what the expected result would be. I'm genuinely interested to see if there is a consensus range of spending/expectation out there.


GMA would call back the notes provided they are able to find alternative funds at cheaper rates. Yes you are right the interest rates are at all time low ... however not one would lend me a Billion dollars, people have to trust me that I would be able to return the funds ... even if I am willing to pay 50% interest per annum, I would not get the funds ... Similarly GMA notes are unsecured notes, not backed by any assets. Further there is history to it ... in short today GMA is not in a position to get a cheaper funds available to them ... the day they get it, they will call in the older notes and maybe issues new notes or get some other form of funding


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-23/brady-signals-retirement-changes-are-still-on-tax-writers-table) reduced by 60%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Almost 12 hours after President Donald Trump ruled out changes to 401(k) retirement-savings plans, a top congressional tax writer indicated that retirement savings remains under review. > One alternative plan would call for people to fund their retirement with after-tax earnings, but allow them to withdraw the money tax-free later on, according to Senator Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican - essentially moving toward the model for &quot;Roth&quot; individual retirement accounts. > Giant asset managers such as Vanguard Group and Fidelity Investments have said they fear that cutting 401(k) tax deferrals to just $2,400 a year would reduce the American public&#039;s notoriously low savings rate even more, jeopardizing their retirement income. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/78ovy5/brady_signals_retirement_changes_are_still_on/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~234978 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*: **save**^#1 **retirement**^#2 **tax**^#3 **accounts**^#4 **income**^#5"


Care to support that. I first came to know Buffet in about 1996. No one in history had done what he did for that length of time. He has basically the same track record today, except it's longer. He may have benefitted from some luck. But I think it's equally likely he did what he did in spite of bad luck. The only thing I'm certain he's been lucky at is being born with a unique memory and brain power.


A stock dividend converts some of the reserves and surplus on the company's balance sheet into paid-up capital and securities premium account without involving any actual cash outflow to the shareholders. While cash dividends are eyed by the investors due to their cash yield, issuance of stock dividends are indicators of growing confidence of the management and the shareholders in the company. The fact that shareholders want to convert free cash sitting on the balance sheet (which can ideally be taken out as dividends) into blocked money in exchange for shares is symbolic to their confidence in the company. This in turn is expected to lead to an increase in market price of the stock.


This is what is called a Structured Product. The linked page gives an overview of the relative pros and cons. They tend to hold the bulk of funds in bonds and then used equity index futures and other derivatives to match returns on the S&P, or other indices tracked. All combine to provide the downside protection. Note that your mother did not receive the dividends paid by the constituent companies. She only received the capital return. Here is a link to Citigroup (Europe) current structured product offerings. Here is a link to Fidelity's current offerings of structured products. Here is Investopedia's article detailing the pitfalls. The popularity of these products appears to be on the wane, having been heavily promoted and sold by the providers at the time your mother invested. Most of these products only provide 100% protection of capital if the market does not fall by a specified amount, either in successive reporting periods or over the life of the product. There are almost as many terms and conditions imposed on the protection as there are structured products available. I have no personal experience buying this type of product, preferring to have the option to trade and receive dividend income.


are you being serious right now? anyone who lets their 4 year old have heroin is a terrible parent. in fact, i'm going out on a limb and saying anyone who lets their children have heroin before the age of 8 is just completely unfit.


No, what they say is irrelevant. This is something that can easily be analyzed by external parties. There are specific methods of doing business that are inherently political, such as working with local governments to seize property via eminent domain. The how is a big topic, too big for this thread, but it's not required that we blindly trust business or government.


Extortionate expense ratio aside, comparing the fund to the vanguard balanced fund (with an expense ratio of 0.19%) shows that your bank's fund has underperformed in literally every shown time period. Mind you, the vanguard fund is all US stocks and bonds which have done very well whereas the CIBC fund is mostly Canadian. Looking at the CIBC top 10 holdings does seem to suggest that it's (poorly) actively managed instead of being an index tracker for what that's worth. Maybe your bank offers cheaper transaction costs when buying their own funds but even then the discount would have to be pretty big to make up for the underperformance. Basically, go Vanguard here.


Not sure about the US but in Canada, Costco website is useless. There is no link at all from the warehouses to the online presence. There is no way of checking whats in the warehouse, whats in stock or anything. Usually, what you see online isnt even available in the store.


Dunn & Bradstreet offers detailed credit reports on businesses. They are not cheap, but they appear to have information on RIOCAN.


Fun Fact Followup: The war on terrorism is directly correlated to increases in measures to follow money that isn't being claimed as income (aka laundered). The acts being instituted to prevent the funding of terrorism have made cash increasingly difficult to spend and made the tracking of earnings more of a priority.


"Investopedia explains how a stock split impacts the stock's options: Each option contract is typically in control of 100 shares of an underlying security at a predetermined strike price. To find the new coverage of the option, take the split ratio and multiply by the old coverage (normally 100 shares). To find the new strike price, take the old strike price and divide by the split ratio. Say, for example, you own a call for 100 shares of XYZ with a strike price of $75. Now, if XYZ had a stock split of 2 for 1, then the option would now be for 200 shares with a strike price of $37.50. If, on the other hand, the stock split was 3 for 2, then the option would be for 150 shares with a strike price of $50. So, yes, a 2 for 1 stock split would halve the option strike prices. Also, in case the Investopedia article isn't clear, after a split the options still control 100 shares per contract. Regarding how a dividend affects option prices, I found an article with a good explanation: As mentioned above, dividends payment could reduce the price of a stock due to reduction of the company's assets. It becomes intuitive to know that if a stock is expected to go down, its call options will drop in extrinsic value while its put options will gain in extrinsic value before it happens. Indeed, dividends deflate the extrinsic value of call options and inflate the extrinsic value of put options weeks or even months before an expected dividend payment. Extrinsic value of Call Options are deflated due to dividends not only because of an expected reduction in the price of the stock but also due to the fact that call options buyers do not get paid the dividends that the stock buyers do. This makes call options of dividend paying stocks less attractive to own than the stocks itself, thereby depressing its extrinsic value. How much the value of call options drop due to dividends is really a function of its moneyness. In the money call options with high delta would be expected to drop the most on ex-date while out of the money call options with lower delta would be least affected. If a stock is expected to drop by a certain amount, that drop would already have been priced into the extrinsic value of its put options way beforehand. This is what happens to put options of dividend paying stocks. This effect is again a function of options moneyness but this time, in the money put options raise in extrinsic value more than out of the money put options. This is because in the money put options with delta of close to -1 would gain almost dollar or dollar on the drop of a stock. As such, in the money put options would rise in extrinsic value almost as much as the dividend rate itself while out of the money put options may not experience any changes since the dividend effect may not be strong enough to bring the stock down to take those out of the money put options in the money. So, no, a dividend of $1 will not necessarily decrease an option's price by $1 on the ex-dividend date. It depends on whether it's a call or put option, and whether the option is ""in the money"" or ""out of the money"" and by how much."


"tl;dr: I agree with Pete B.'s assertion that you should continue shopping. That's not the whole story though; there are other factors that can raise your rate, and affect your closing costs. The published rate is typically the best rate you can get. Here are some other factors that can raise your rate: You should have received a loan estimate which will itemize the fees you will pay. On that document you will see if you are paying a price to ""buy down"" the rate, and all the other fees. How are you calculating the 2.5%? Note that some fees are fixed. An appraisal on a $40K home may cost the same as an appraisal for a $400K home. If you add up the total closing costs and view it as a percentage of the loan, the smaller loan may have a higher percentage than the larger loan, even though the total cost of the smaller loan is less."


This is a retarded statement. Excel was never meant to be used for gigantic complex models based on large data sets but it's still incredibly valuable. I've been using it for 20 years in my career and when it comes to building quick and dirty analyses and forecasting models I will run circles around anybody trying to use R or Python.


"I think your logic is flawed when you say CD's are ""better than records"" I hope you are not talking about sound quality...Unless you are working with Blu-ray quality audio files on those CD's (which I can assure you are not going for 25 cents to $1). Again assuming we are not talking about Blu-ray quality CD's compress the audio file down thus sacrificing the quality of the sound. your cited source even says "" are many examples where a vinyl record may sound better than its equivalent CD for extremely specific reasons. Conversely, there are many CD's that may sound better than a vinyl record for specific reasons."""


"I think anyone who is seriously contemplating a real estate purchase needs to sit down and read some history -- in particular the accounts of the 1930's and what happened to people who jumped into real estate in the midst of the depression. If you're not aware: by and large, what happened is they lost their asses: the property continues to fall in value, and then they're on the hooked for increasing taxes as local and state governments raise taxes in a desperate attempt to plug budget holes. And, of course, interest rates are headed nowhere but up. That will inversely impact your home's value, given that most people buy homes exactly like you're thinking about them: not how much the home is worth, but rather how much payment can you afford (as rates go up, you can afford less). A contemporary piece which has lots of accounts of this over multiple years is [The Great Depression - A Diary](http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Depression-A-Diary/dp/1586489011). IMHO real estate is to be avoided until well after a bottom has been reached, and that's IMHO still some years away. Someone coming out of college now should ferret away as much money as possible, live as cheaply as possible, and stay far, far away from thoughts of ""gee, it sure would be a good idea to go drop half a million dollars on a house when I'm making $70K."" While you're predicting raises and employment, neither is safe to take for granted. Indeed, many folks thought that in the late 00's and got absolutely destroyed financially as a result."


"That's because the one guy in Portland who knows Thai food has gone down the rabbit hole and knows what Thai food is on a very deep level. He's friends with biggest Thai foodies on the planet. He knows far more about Thai fold than the average Thai person in Thailand. I haven't eaten at his restaurants, but I assume they're good...I also assume he has problems still due to ingredients and the palate of his customers. Everywhere else in America, including the rest of Portland, the people have trouble securing good ingredients or have forgotten what Thai food even tastes like (Thai Town). I took Thai friends to multiple places in Thai town--all the best reviewed ones...by Americans--and they were basically disgusted. Thai food is one of those types of food that can taste pretty good even when it's the lowest quality, most haphazardly formed dish on the market. In America, families tend to form restaurants where they serve a million different types of dishes, which becomes a logistical nightmare when there aren't good markets that have what you need. In Thailand, many of the best places specialize in very few dishes on an expert level. In Thailand, for every one place that specializes in something like beef noodles that is utterly amazing, there are ten beef noodles places that taste okay and a tourist is likely to assume whatever beef noodles they have is as good as it gets....unless they're lucky enough to stumble upon the mind blowing beef noodles. In America, most of the Thai restaurants serve a million different types of dishes. They all remind me of the restaurants you see in the more tourist heavy parts of Bangkok where there are a million pictures on the wall with the advertised prices and a ton of different dishes, none of which are exceptional. In Thailand, if a place is serving a lot of different dishes, most of those restaurants will be marginal. Or! they'll have a lot of different dishes from a specific region (E-San, for example) or serving a particular style of food which they are experts in (duck restaurants in Thailand often have a lot of other Chinese dishes that accompany the duck). That's hard to do. For every one of those in Thailand, all will taste decent, 1/10 will be mind blowing. In the US, you don't even have beef noodle places or duck rice places...you have ""Thai restaurants"" made by people who left Thailand long ago, only to return to eat at the same restaurants tourists walk into."


"Historically, Banks are mandated to take relatively safe risks with their money. In exchange, they gain a de-facto permission to invent new money. They have regulations about what mix of assets they are permitted to own. Real estate speculation will be in a different category than a mortgage to someone with good credit. Second, mortgages with a secured asset are pretty safe almost all of the time. That person might stop paying their mortgage, but it is secured; when that happens, the bank gets the secured asset (the right-to-apartment or house or what have you). In a sense, the bank loses only if both the person paying the mortgage is less creditworthy than they look, and the secured asset cannot recoup their losses. In comparison, the person paying the mortgage loses if the secured asset cannot recoup their losses. The bank is buffered from risk two fold. What more, the bank uses the customer to determine what to invest in. Deciding what to do with money is expensive and hard. By both having a customer willing to put their good credit on the line and doing due diligence on the apartment, the Bank in effect uses you as a consultant who decides this may be a solid investment. Much of the risk of failure is on you, so you have lots of incentive to make a good choice. If the Bank was instead deciding which apartment where worth buying, who would decide? A bank employee, whose bonus this year depends on finding a ""great apartment to invest in?"", but the consequence of a bad choice doesn't show up for many years? The people selling the bank the apartments? Such a business can exist. There are real estate companies that take money, and invest it in real estate. Often the borrow money from Banks secured against their existing real estate and use it to build more real estate. (Notice the bit about it being secured against existing real estate; things go south, Bank gets stuff). The Bank's indirect investment in that apartment in the current system is covered by appraisals, the seller, the mortgage holder, and the system deciding that the mortgage holder is creditworthy. Banks sell risk. They lend you money, you go off and do something risky with it, and they get a the low-risk return on investment of your loan. Multiple such low-risk investments provides them with a relatively dependable stream of money, which they give out to their bondholders, deposit account customers, shareholders or what have you. When you take a mortgage out for that, you are buying risk from the bank. You are more exposed to the failure of the investment than they are. They get less return if things go really well."


Are you going to South Africa or from? (Looking on your profile for this info.) If you're going to South Africa, you could do worse than to buy five or six one-ounce krugerrands. Maybe wait until next year to buy a few; you may get a slightly better deal. Not only is it gold, it's minted by that country, so it's easier to liquidate should you need to. Plus, they go for a smaller premium in the US than some other forms of gold. As for the rest of the $100k, I don't know ... either park it in CD ladders or put it in something that benefits if the economy gets worse. (Cheery, ain't I? ;) )


If you want to pay them off as quickly as possible, pay the minimum payment on the larger two and dump as much as you can into the one with the 8.75% interest. Then, even though it has a slightly lower interest rate, I would attack the one with the next smallest balance after that, while continuing to make the minimum payment on the one with the largest balance.


"Eh - no problem at all. Wait a decade or two and they'll train up the best engineers in the world. Remember that Germany began its process of industrialization by making cheap knock-offs of British goods, and that Japanese products were considered sub-par crap as recently as the 1960's (integral to one of the most memorable jokes in the first ""Back to the Future"" movies.)"


> You need to look at where the profits are coming from. Sure. If profits are coming from non-recurring revenue sources, then it isn't a great indication of ongoing profitability. If, on the other hand, profits are coming from lean staffing, low costs and a focus on the bottom line...then you're talking about how a well-run business is operated. It has been a long time since I worked on the floor of an IB so I can't speak to work happiness these days, but I do know that much of the exodus is in the form of people leaving for the buyside (as always), or for greener pastures working on FinTech out in SF.


(All for US.) Yes you (will) have a realized long-term capital gain, which is taxable. Long-term gains (including those distributed by a mutual fund or other RIC, and also 'qualified' dividends, both not relevant here) are taxed at lower rates than 'ordinary' income but are still bracketed almost (not quite) like ordinary income, not always 15%. Specifically if your ordinary taxable income (after deductions and exemptions, equivalent to line 43 minus LTCG/QD) 'ends' in the 25% to 33% brackets, your LTCG/QD income is taxed at 15% unless the total of ordinary+preferred reaches the top of those brackets, then any remainder at 20%. These brackets depend on your filing status and are adjusted yearly for inflation, for 2016 they are: * single 37,650 to 413,350 * married-joint or widow(er) 75,300 to 413,350 * head-of-household 50,400 to 441,000 (special) * married-separate 37,650 to 206,675 which I'd guess covers at least the middle three quintiles of the earning/taxpaying population. OTOH if your ordinary income ends below the 25% bracket, your LTCG/QD income that 'fits' in the lower bracket(s) is taxed at 0% (not at all) and only the portion that would be in the ordinary 25%-and-up brackets is taxed at 15%. IF your ordinary taxable income this year was below those brackets, or you expect next year it will be (possibly due to status/exemption/deduction changes as well as income change), then if all else is equal you are better off realizing the stock gain in the year(s) where some (or more) of it fits in the 0% bracket. If you're over about $400k a similar calculation applies, but you can afford more reliable advice than potential dogs on the Internet. (update) Near dupe found: see also How are long-term capital gains taxed if the gain pushes income into a new tax bracket? Also, a warning on estimated payments: in general you are required to pay most of your income tax liability during the year (not wait until April 15); if you underpay by more than 10% or $1000 (whichever is larger) you usually owe a penalty, computed on Form 2210 whose name(?) is frequently and roundly cursed. For most people, whose income is (mostly) from a job, this is handled by payroll withholding which normally comes out close enough to your liability. If you have other income, like investments (as here) or self-employment or pension/retirement/disability/etc, you are supposed to either make estimated payments each 'quarter' (the IRS' quarters are shifted slightly from everyone else's), or increase your withholding, or a combination. For a large income 'lump' in December that wasn't planned in advance, it won't be practical to adjust withholding. However, if this is the only year increased, there is a safe harbor: if your withholding this year (2016) is enough to pay last year's tax (2015) -- which for most people it is, unless you got a pay cut this year, or a (filed) status change like marrying or having a child -- you get until next April 15 (or next business day -- in 2017 it is actually April 18) to pay the additional amount of this year's tax (2016) without underpayment penalty. However, if you split the gain so that both 2016 and 2017 have income and (thus) taxes higher than normal for you, you will need to make estimated payment(s) and/or increase withholding for 2017. PS: congratulations on your gain -- and on the patience to hold anything for 10 years!


"My revised, bottom-line advice: offer to send a 2nd payment (preferably in the form of money order or cashier's check) for the difference you are agreeing to pay. I cannot imagine any reason why they would object to this - there is no fee to cash a check, there's less risk of error, and less work involved. Alternatively, offer to send a new check only once the other has been returned. Don't issue one more full-amount check while the other is still outstanding. There is a good reason not to accept partial payment by them, which is that accepting a partial payment of a debt comes with a varieties of strings attached depending on the nature of the debt (such as with evictions, court processes may need to be restarted, etc). They likely want to avoid such a situation - but this does not provide any support for why they can't just take a second payment and then cash it all at once as a single, full settlement of the debt. In a perfect world, you could skip all the non-sense by simply having your bank put a stop-payment on the old check before sending a new one. Unfortunately, this might not work with 100% accuracy - but in your case if the ""partial payment"" is a significant amount of money to you, I'd go ahead and spend the $20-40 to put in the order now as an extra safety on them not doing what they claim, if for some incredibly stupid reason you can't handle this with a 2nd payment instead of one single full one. It turns out banks have lots of surprising and stupid rules, like stop payments on a check expiring in 6 months (and they may even cash stale checks over a year old), no guarantee of a stop being successful, etc. The real rule is: they might cash the check unless you close the account. Sigh - this is one of many reasons I never, ever use checks. I am not aware of any law that requires a check to be physically returned if requested, or proof or destruction provided, or anything like that. It's a large part of the reason why we have the ability to stop payment on a check, and so void it through the bank without having any physical access to the check - but this process is spotty and imperfect, and cannot be relied upon. You can request them to do whatever you like, like void it and send it back, or destroy it, and they can just refuse - or say they'll do it and then just not do it, and you have no real useful recourse. The main goal should be to avoid losing money if someone ""accidentally"" (or intentionally) cashes both checks. So you can ask, or demand (refuse to pay until they return the check), etc - and they can respond more or less any way they want. As a final piece of future advice, consider no longer using checks for purposes like this. Switch to using something like a cashier's check or money order offered by your bank, which (by their very nature) takes the money out of your account immediately, severs all ongoing connection to your bank account, and is effectively like cash with the added benefit of a paper trail. Keep the stub and and receipt from the cashier's check/money order, in case it is lost or they claim they didn't get the money."


You're asking all the right questions, and if I worked for my landlord's company I might have an answer! I imagine they're capitalizing on people's laziness. I live in the Bay Area where some people probably don't mind paying $35 to not have to walk 100 feet to the office and drop off a check.


you are discounting the cash used, the discount rate for cash should be whatever you determine is your risk premium over the risk free rate not the equity growth rate. if equity growth rate is above your determined required return the equity investment is wealth destroying and if it is above that then it is wealth increasing. The difficulty I see is that the scenario is all wrong, what you are really after is a rent vs buy decision. Do I take this money and rent a place or do I buy a house? In either case you could invest the remainder after paying your rent/mortgage in the equity market no? So what really matters is the difference in cost between renting and buying. Let (EGR)=equity growth rate Rent = rent M = Mortgage payment I = income HA = home value appreciation Now the question is is renting or buying a better decision two scenarios, renting first PMT =(I - rent) I/y = (EGR) N =Time horizon in years FV= Gain from cf left after paying rent then discount to present day at your required rate of return to find present value now scenario for buying, this is more complicated because you are investing two different cf streams at different rates and have to calculate both and add them together. 1) CF 1 the mortgage payments buy you equity in the house which appreciates (hopefully) but can be extremely volatile. This is the cf stream scenario one doesnt have, when renting the rent payments poof disappear forever and you earn nothing on them 2) The income left after mortgage payment which can be invested at the market rate measured the same way as above. **This is extremely simplistic and doesnt take into account expected maintenance, property taxes and other costs intrinsic to the investment. It also doesnt take into account the lost down payment setting you well behind the renter. TL DR: It is complicated but you determine the required return(discount rate) based on the perceived risk of the investment and your particular views and it doesnt matter what expected growth rates are since any investment with an expected growth rate below your required rate is wealth destroying since you are paying for something which returns cash flows too small for its risk level. If you use growth rates as discount rates then all your investments will net to zero


"Every one of those articles correctly point out that $3.7 trillion is **the size of a bond market**. Not one calls them a **""business worth $3.7 trillion.""** The size of a market is not not the value of a business. I guess even after all this you're still unable to grasp that. His quote: ""The banks achieved this gigantic rip-off by secretly colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, **a business worth $3.7 trillion**"". Are you really too dumb to understand the difference between ""a business worth $3.7 trillion"" and the value of an entire market? The derivatives market is ""worth"" on the order of hundreds of trillions. Which businesses exactly are worth that much? This is the type of ignorance that Taibbi articles relies upon to make them work. I'm done here since you see two numbers that are the same and conclude they mean the same thing."


It's almost as though there are violent people and some of them happen to be liberal, whereas conservatives start thinking about armed insurrection as soon as a president they disagree with for reasons they themselves don't even understand (considering they magically support his policies as soon as he leaves office) takes power.


For Govt Employees receiving Leave Encashment as part of retirement or separation; there is no tax applicable for the leave encashment. Refer Income Tax


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/18/16162234/regional-inequality-cause) reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot) ***** > In the contemporary United States, zoning restrictions that prevent adequate levels of house building mean that much of the higher incomes earned in rich states simply pass through in the form of higher housing costs. > Two big shifts in migration and economics This set of four charts in Ganong and Shoag&#039;s paper tells the fundamental story - in the old days, there was a strong tendency for poor states&#039; per capita incomes to grow faster than those of rich ones and an equally strong tendency for people to move away from poor states to go live in rich ones. > The housing fix for regional inequality entails more rather than less concentration of economic activity in rich coastal metro areas. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6ujy5s/the_real_driver_of_regional_inequality_in_america/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~194007 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*: **state**^#1 **rich**^#2 **income**^#3 **move**^#4 **housing**^#5"


">So perhaps what people mean when they say ""bankrupt"" is that, if the government were any other group of citizens, it would be bankrupt. Unlike treasury securities, no one is owed any debt from social security. All you have is empty promises from politicians."


Hi LY! I have not been to SE Asia yet, so I do not know how important or possible this is, but being able to charge devices is usually pretty important when traveling. Is it possible to run a 5v or 12v charger from your bike's electrical system? Others please chime in on...


Have a look at the reviews of the New York Times on the kindle: http://www.amazon.com/The-New-York-Times/dp/B000GFK7L6 In summary: Many of the stories are missing, it costs $27.99 per month, maximum of one photo per story - all charts and graphs are omitted. All in all, I wouldn't buy it. (For reference, I subscribe to the weekly Science journal for $50 per year.)


"Having worked as a vendor at different Walmart I will say the Whole Foods deal is horrible business, on top of that why is everyone acting. Like amazon makes money on retail? They are yet to make money on it and the only thing that made amazon profitable was AWS and only a few years ago. Walmart actually makes money, and if they have a better chance to survive and beat amazon than people give them credit for. Amazon on the other hand never been in the physical store gig, it's a whole different ball game out there, they can't even compete on price. From a proven track record business perspective I say amazon is building their business strategy on hope prayer and a string if they think they can turn Whole Foods around from the business model disaster they operate on. And Walmart has slowly began realizing that to survive they need to become Kroger in their grocery business."", and they been pushing that a lot out there it's working for them. There's also the issue of market fragmentation, walmart doesn't operate in the same market segment as target or Whole Foods, and they have failed to push their business into places they would be successful. Walmart main competitor isn't target or amazon, it's grocery stores and dollar general."


"No to both. The deposit refund is not taxable, but in states where security must earn interest, that small amount is subject to tax. I just returned a $750 deposit to a tenant, and after a year, it accrued $0.24. A rebate of fees you pay such as ATM fees is just you getting back your own money. As is ""cash back"" on credit card purchases. Not taxable."


Ok, so you like posting on reddit. but you won't actually do the work to make sure you're making sense or are correct. Gotcha. I'm someone who knows her in real life. As I've stated in this thread elsewhere, her and I have disagreed on things we've talked about professionally, we don't work togeather, but I respect her success, and my ONLY purpose here is to talk about how most of you are calling her out for sounding dumb, and accusing her of not knowing anything, when she actually DOES! You may not agree with her perception of the world as it is. You may not like what she's suggesting. And I have had disagreements with her on other topics, but watching people look like complete assholes and accusing her of ignorance when she isn't, and its EASY to find that out... is what I can't stand.


I'm not the tech guy here (you'll get plenty of feedback, trust me). I just wanted to say it's an awesome entrepreneurial idea here, because this is such a difficult field to first begin reading about. It's admirable what you're making and I hope it takes off. Really clever branding as well!


At the most basic level, the employee is getting a share of ownership in the company and would get a percentage of the sales price. That said, as littleadv alluded to, different share classes have different priorities and get paid in different orders. In a bankruptcy, for example, some classes almost never get paid in practice because they are so far down the ladder of priority. The first step you should take would be to try to clarify what you are getting with the company itself. Failing that, contact a financial professional or an attorney in your area who can read the terms and give you a better understanding of the contract before you sign.


For most goods there is no license required, unless you are trading in restricted goods. Remittance need to be routed via banks and they should comply with FMEA. Your Bank or a qualified CA can guide you.


Generally, interest-only mortgages are a bad idea, because a lot of people get them so that they can buy more house than they could otherwise afford (lower payment = affordable, in their minds). If the house continues to go up in value, they probably get away with it, because when the balance becomes due, they can refinance. However, the last few years has shown how risky that strategy can be, and this kind of things is what cost a lot of people their houses. In your case, if the house is something you could afford on a regular 15 or 30-year mortgage, and you really are as disciplined as you say you are, you might get away with it. But you have to take into account the risk, and consider what happens if there is a job loss or similar difficulty in the future. Another thing to consider is the term of the mortgage. How many years will you get this lower interest rate? Interest rates are at historic lows right now, and pretty much everyone thinks they're going up soon. You might be better off locking in a higher rate for 15 years.


Yes, this phenomenon is well documented. A collapse of an economy's exchange rate is coincidented with a collapse in its equities market. The recent calamities in Turkey, etc during 2014 had similar results. Inflation is highly correlated to valuations, and a collapse of an exchange rate is highly inflationary, so a collapse of an exchange rate is highly correlated to a collapse in valuations.


The safest way is to not sign contracts with terms that are onerous to you.


I don't think it's a coincidence that many of the people who voted for, and continue to support Trump also believe in the prophesies of Nostradamus. Anything Trump says is so vaguely worded it could mean almost anything. For instance, his whole $12 a month thing could be construed, with enough tweaking, to mean Medicare, as that's about what someone working part time in a minimum wage job would be paying for medicare. So, you see? It makes perfect sense.


>This goes on until they simply drop dead. Substitute debt for alcohol and you have our situation exactly. *Exactly.* It is well known that the US entered an unprecedented depression after its unprecedented borrowing during World War 2. It is all very simple and easily predicted.


While you can borrow money from a 401(k) for your home down payment, there are disadvantages, including but not limited to: The 401(k) is designed as a way to save for retirement. Smaller contributions and balances (due to the loan) in your account will add up and significantly reduce your balance over time. If you lose your job you will have to pay back the loan quickly, within 60 days. Interest on the 401(k) loan is also not tax-deductible, even if you're using it to pay for a home. My advice: max out any employer contributions to your 401(k) because it's free money. After that, extra savings for a house should be in a separate account.


I have been through default in Ukraine august 1998. That was a real nightmare. The financial system stopped working properly for 1 month, about 30% of businesses went bankrupt because of chain effect, significant inflation and devaluation of currency. So, it is better to be prepared, because this type of processes result in unpredictable situation.


In computing, you'd generally return naa%, for 'not a number'. Could you not put '-%' to show there is no value at this point? Surely the people seeing this aren't idiots and understand the charge on 0 is 0?


Start ups are a con if you're the employee that does all the work and finds that the company has no ground to stand on. In that case, you're closer to an idiot for taking the job in the first place than anything else. This isn't a stab at start ups being a horrible investment: This is a stab at the people that take up a job that ends up making them the backbone of all of it and they just keep on trucking to make it happen without consideration to their value.


That's kind of my point, though. The Segway was marketed as a revolution to the entire world of transportation, something that would change life as we know it. But all it did was provide a useful gadget to a few small niches. The reality is nice, but it didn't come close to the hype.


Owing taxes to two or more levels of government isn't double taxation. It's a feature of the American union. I'm not for this bill in general, mostly for the timing and the loss of the highest bracket, but both the state and federal governments have to generate revenue, and basing rates on pure incomes with a few loopholes as possible is the most progressive way to do it. By owing taxes unadjusted for other taxes paid, there's more incentive for states to lower local taxes and to balance state programs with federal programs, and for state reps to more fairly redistribute federal transfers instead of targeting states with (usually artificially) low local taxes and fewer state programs (usually Republican).


"Is it possible if (After getting EIN) I change my LLC type (disregarded entity or C type or S type or corporation or change in number of members) for tax saving ? You marked your question as ""real-estate"", so I'm guessing you're holding rental properties in your LLC. That means that you will not be able to qualify for S-Corp, only C-Corp treatment. That in turn means that you'll be subject to double taxation and corporate tax rate. I fail to see what tax savings you're expecting in this situation. But yes, you can do it, if you so wish. I suggest you talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) before you make any changes, because it will be nearly impossible to reverse the check-the-box election once made (for at least 5 years)."


I place 90% of the blame on Carly, and then the board: that bitch was primed by her contract to gut and fillet the company. When a board links a CEOs remuneration to annual profit, it makes unscrupulous individuals do things which have clear and obvious negative long term impacts, but which will hike the annual profit for THIS year and another YEAR or so, but then turn badly negative. Because Carly is a little bitch, and wanted to extract as much money as was humanly possible from her position at HP, she embarked on the most disastrous set of actions possible. The direct result is what we see now. CEO compensation should NEVER be linked to profitability for an individual year, but to their performance throughout their tenure, and then beyond. It's my belief a CEO should take a base salary of no more than 50 times the MEAN worker's salary is. NOT the average. Because that simply encourages the board to enrich the management team, rather than the workers. If the company is profitable for a single year, CEOs should receive a large bonus - say no more than 20 times the MEAN salary at the company. AND 3 years AFTER the CEO leaves, he'd be entitled to another round of payments base on long term performance of the company. This means CEOs have a duty and a very large responsibility to ensure that their replacement is actually a better CEO than they are! When board members leave, there's no incentive to them personally, to ensure their replacement is even capable, let alone excellent. The other issue I have with CEOs is their stock options, or stock grants. I believe all companies should have strict rules about stock ownership by the board. They must own a certain number of shares, and those shares must be purchased before they join the board, and demonstrably NOT by any mechanism which the company pays for. Directors and officers with no personal investment interest in the performance of the company are a concern.


“... Have you seen fucking L.A” and “... Arkansas”. Sure, that’s how it is. I guess the analysis from OP’s link is a future where the world keeps developing. Taking the bus in Sicily when I first went there 25 years ago, was virtually impossible. It came when the driver felt like it, and it went to to/from a very limited amount of locations. Today it’s not a problem at all from early morning to early evening. I guess that in a few years, it will change even more. For the better.


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Quite interesting. I'd like to see an interview of someone who pays $10k a month for a Zynga game. They haven't really described the demographic of the customer who is like that. This reminds me a lot of the Starbucks phenomenon, more so than casinos. People are willing to spend $4 per latte, spending maybe $50 a month, on an impulsive, addictive purchase.


"I'm going to give a simpler answer than some of the others, although somewhat more limited: the complicated loan parameters you describe benefit the lender. I'll focus on this part of your question: You should be able to pay back whenever; what's the point of an arbitrary timeline? Here ""you"" refers to the borrower. Sure, yes, it would be great for the borrower to be able to do whatever they want whenever they want, increasing or decreasing the loan balance by paying or not paying arbitrary amounts at their whim. But it doesn't benefit the lender to let the borrower do this. Adding various kinds of restrictions and extra conditions to the loan reduces the lender's uncertainty about when they'll be receiving money, and also gives them a greater range of legal recourse to get it sooner (since they can pursue the borrower right away if they violate any of the conditions, rather than having the wait until they die without having paid their debt). Then you say: And if you want, you can set a legal deadline. But the mere deadline in the contract doesn't affect how much interest is paid—the interest is only affected by how much money is borrowed and how long has passed. I think in many cases that is in fact how it works, or at least it is more how it works than you seem to think. For instance, you can take out a 30-year loan but pay it off in less than 30 years, and the amount you pay will be less if you pay it off sooner. However, in some cases the lender will charge you a penalty for doing so. The reason is the same as above: if you pay off the loan sooner, you are paying less interest, which is worse for the lender. Again, it would be nice for the borrower if they could just pay it off sooner with no penalty, but the lender has no reason to let them do so. I think there are in fact other explanations for these more complicated loan terms that do benefit the borrower. For instance, an amortization schedule with clearly defined monthly payments and proportions going to interest and principal also reduces the borrower's uncertainty, and makes them less likely to do risky things like skip lots of payments intending to make it up later. It gives them a clear number to budget from. But even aside from all that, I think the clearest answer to your question is what I said above: in general, it benefits the lender to attach conditions and parameters to loans in order to have many opportunities to penalize the borrower for making it hard for the lender to predict their cash flow."


It's a good point and I think you answered the question yourself, most IPOs don't have the option. There is a real risk of an undersubscribed IPO, which can be a real problem for a company since they can't easily go back to the market for money. Facebook might have a tough time issuing an IPO under the current market conditions, especially following Zynga's weak showing. They might feel safer with a traditional IPO.


Wow you guys sling dirt wherever you can. This is exactly the kind of garbage that pushed me to vote for Trump after nearly 20 years of party line voting for Democrats. The people pushing the leftist agenda are the most vile reprehensible creatures Ive ever come across and if they want Democrats in power I certainly dont.


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You're trying to change the subject. I guarantee to you, the amount of interference in your life, and death, would be FAR less intrusive with single payer, which is at least in responsible nations - accountable to the public. What we have now is forced privatization. Which means a total lack of accountability, why? Because the insurance industry and drug industry claim they need it in order to be profitabe WHICH IS BULLSHIT. Nobody is calling them out on this, so, what we're getting is Obama's Chicago school **[neoliberal right wing ideology](http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376)** being forced on this country - AND [other countries](http://ttip2014.eu) - [because of trade policy](http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2013/11/38-million-retirees-say-no-to-a-trade-deal-that-would-make-medicine-more-expensive.html), even when they know it can't work! Its a race to the bottom that is only going to get worse. IT [wastes quite conservatively AT least a third](http://www.pnhp.org/resources/pnhp-research-the-case-for-a-national-health-program), much more probably more than half of every health care dollar. Thats the facts. It worthless arguing with you, though, because you're not listening.


"Agreed on all points. You're still not saving a TON of money, given that you have to have a reasonable balance of salary/distributions, but an S-corp is the way to go if you're making substantial profit in order to save tax money. I'll reiterate (my wife is a CPA and she guides me on my business) - you can't legally save ""untaxed earnings"" for next year."


>ever heard of unions? They love seniority. One of the main reasons why labor intensive manufacturing has left the midwest and new england. Unionized industries like airlines and auto manufacturing have seen most major firms go bankrupt in the last decade. >Over time, this is how asian countries will take over with their education and work ethic being at the top of their values. This could happen but I think Asian aversion to innovation will prevent them from racing past the US. Becoming a developed country shouldn't really be that hard. There is an easy playbook followed by Japan, South Korea etc. Leading the global economy in a rich country is a much more difficult task. >and as for those who went to college, did poorly, picked bad majors, and are wondering why the fact they went to college isnt landing them a plush job, welcome to how it has always been. Just doing the minimum of going to college hasnt been enough for a very long time and people were naive to think that there was ever a golden path or ticket to success. This is Obama's base: entitled whiners who need the government to give them goodies because they have no marketable skills.


This will be a complex issue and you will need to sit down with a professional to work through the issues: When the house was put up for rent the initial year tax forms should have required that the value of the house/property be calculated. This number was then used for depreciation of the house. This was made more complex based on any capital improvements. If the house wasn't the first he owned, then capital gains might have been rolled over from previous houses which adds a layer of complexity. Any capital improvements while the house was a rental will also have to be resolved because those were also depreciated since they were placed in service. The deprecation will be recaptured and will be a part of the calculation. You have nowhere near enough info to make a calculation at this time.


If the APR is an effective rate. If the APR is a nominal rate compounded monthly, first convert it to an effective rate.


"This scheme doesn't work, because the combination of corporation tax, even the lower CCPC tax, plus the personal income tax doesn't give you a tax advantage, not on any realistic income I've ever worked it out on anyway. Prior to the 2014 tax year on lower incomes you could scrape a bit of an advantage but the 2013 budget changed the calculation for the tax credit on non-eligible dividends so there shouldn't be an advantage anymore. Moreover if you were to do it this way, by paying corporation tax instead of CPP you aren't eligible for CPP. If you sit with a calculator for long enough you may figure out a way of saving $200 or something small but it's a lot of paperwork for little if any benefit and you wouldn't get CPP. I understand the money multiplier effect described above, but the tax system is designed in a way that it makes more sense to take it as salary and put it in a tax deferred saving account, i.e. an RRSP - so there's no limit on the multiplier effect. Like I said, sit with a calculator - if you're earning a really large amount and are still under the small business limit it may make more sense to use a CCPC, but that is the case regardless of using it as a tax shelter because if you're earning a lot you're probably running a business of some size. The main benefit I think is that if you use a CCPC you can carry forward your losses, but you have to be aware of the definition of an ""allowable business investment loss""."


If you are not open to changing the amount of money you are willing to spend, your options are limited. Why change your amounts and proportions? Your situation changed. You got married, divorced, purchased a new car, the company added free disability coverage. If the amount spent per year can't change, then you are asking how to review if your proportions are correct. The first thing is to look at what must you spend it on. If you have a mortgage or car loan, the bank will tell you the minimum amount. If you own a car the state will tell you the minimum amount for auto coverage. If there is any money left look at life, and disability. These can wreck the life of your dependents. When you have meet those needs, then increase auto and home to cover additional liability.


Tthe easiest place to see Fed announcements as soon as they're published is the Federal Reserve itself. If you want the information as soon as it's made publicly available, scrape the Federal Reserve press releases. I assume you're most interested in the announcements after the FOMC meetings, so you might want to scrape the FOMC calendar. The statements come out right after the meeting, and the minutes are released three weeks later. If you want to catch instances where the minutes are leaked, that's a bit trickier. For a lot of other market data, services providers like Bloomberg, Reuters, etc. are usually the best bet for realtime information, since these companies earn their revenue and keep their customers by providing the data as fast as humanly possible. They may offer an analysis or a distilled version of the FOMC minutes for traders to use within minutes of the announcement itself (I'm not sure if they do or not), but the announcements themselves will come from the Federal Reserve itself first and foremost.


Shareholders get to vote for the board, the board appoints the CEO. This makes the CEO care, which in turn makes everybody else working in the company care. Also, if the company wants to borrow money a good share price, as sign of a healthy company, gives them more favorable conditions from lenders. And some more points others already made.


"You have run up against the ""build a better mousetrap"" problem. It's impossible to build a better mousetrap than the sprung neck breaker we all know. You might THINK your design is better. *but it isn't*. The market has decided that you can't beat the normal mouse trap. Yes, others are available, and maybe some are cheaper, and maybe some are better, *but the vast majority of sales will always be for the traditional item*. In marketing terms you are insane if you want to get into the mousetrap business, with a new design of mousetrap."


I have a similar plan and a similar number of accounts. I think seeking a target asset allocation mix across all investment accounts is an excellent idea. I use excel to track where I am and then use it to adjust to get closer (but not exactly) to my target percentages. Until you have some larger balances, it may be prudent to use less categories or realize that you can't come exactly to your percentages, but can get close. I also simplify by primarily investing in various index funds. That means that in my portfolio, each category has 1 or 2 funds, not 10 or 20.


I know that for me personally, if I buy that giant box of Goldfish instead of the bags, it doesn't mean I'm saving money... just eating a lot more Goldfish. The trick, I think, to buying in bulk is to make sure that you're not consuming in bulk. You're not likely to go through more dishwasher detergent just because you bought the big bottle, but you may find the kids are eating a lot more fruit snacks, or you're throwing away half of that huge bag of baby carrots that went bad, because you bought in bulk.


"I'm finishing up a finance & accounting internship at the corporate office of a transportation company (it's a subsidiary of a gigantic UK parent). I've enjoyed it for the most part and my 2 ""bosses"" are extremely nice (corporate accounting manager and her 2nd). I'm going into my junior year at BC Carroll (finance major) and want to end up in corporate finance, IB, or wealth management ideally. What should be my next course of action for the upcoming recruitment season this fall before/after I finish this internship? Thanks for any advice, this sub is very insightful."


Let me guess.... starte rejected the Medicaid expansion? Didn't join the exchange? I was in the same position, difference is I was able to cut my deductible and premium in half without hurting my coverage because in the exchange all of the policies were presented and compared apples to apples while before they were hidden or difficult to compare with larger financial benefits for brokers to push the customer to policies that we're bad for them but very good for the broker....


I think that anybody that thinks the US dollar will ALWAYS be the reserve currency need a reality check. Nothing in this world is permanent and things change all the time. Our monetary system is wonderful if only we could fix our political system we may see real improvements.


No. Similar to how the hospitals now get you a social security number for your newborn, so you can leave with a little crying tax deduction, the IRS has cracked down on FSA reimbursements. They expect to be able to follow the money from your tax deduction to a nanny/sitter's income. Your last line is the choice you face, and User58220's warning shouldn't be ignored. She will need to declare the income. The tax due depends on many factors. Not reporting it can result in penalties and prosecution. The last I dealt with this, the employer required the SSN of the provider. No exceptions. You are now asking about the risk of getting caught, after already sharing that you're operating outside of the law. Sorry, I can't answer this one.


"It's not misleading at all, it says gasoline. If you read that as ""oil"", who's fault is that? Besides, this is entirely legitimate manufacturing, same as China importing parts and assembling them is. People should be more mindful of the immense number of steps there are in creating modern capitalist goods, and the fact that those steps will have geographical factors."


Alright guys, let's get some real business discussion going on (well, at least let's try). This is surprising. Citi has not been doing well but I didn't think there was any pressure on Vikram to resign either. The timing is very weird too - right after a successful Q3 and with no planned transition plan announced in the Q3 earnings. As for Pandit's legacy, it's definitely an unsuccessful one. First, the whole thing started on the wrong foot with Citi buying his hedge fund just to make him the CEO -- and subsequently closing the fund and writing off $200 million. The bank's shares are trading at roughly half book value which shows how much the street didn't trust Citi (and him).


I'm not sure how this gets entered in TurboTax, but this income from the company should be included in the Schedule C (or C-EZ) Line 1 Gross Receipts total, along with all of your 1099-MISC income from your business and any other income that your business took in. You don't need a 1099 from them, and the IRS doesn't care (at least from your perspective) if you got a 1099 or not; in fact, they probably expect you to have some non-1099 income. We don't know why the company chose not to issue 1099 forms, but luckily it isn't your concern. You can fill out your tax return properly without it. Note: This answer assumes that you didn't have any tax withheld from your checks from this company. If you did have tax withheld, you'll need to insist on a 1099 to show that.


"Fama-French would be a couple of names if you want to look at this from a value/growth dichotomy. A simplified form of this was to take the stocks with a lower Price/Book Value that would be the value stocks while the others would be the growth. The principle is that some of the beaten-down stocks will appreciate more than the growth stocks will. 6 Ways To Improve Your Portfolio Returns Today also makes note of the ""growth vs value"" split if you want another reference that way. Historically, growth has been more volatile and produced lower returns, though past performance isn't necessarily always going to hold as some people like to invest in what is known as a ""slice & dice"" portfolio where a portion in invested in each of 4 corners: Large-growth, large-value, small-growth, and small-value. Some may add in bonds, REITs, and foreign stocks but the idea is that in different years, different parts of the market will do better and this is a way to capture that in a sense."


The government won't, as I understand it, it keeps the debt from spiraling out of control. It also promotes spending which keeps our economy from recession (which is a natural occurrence and is needed to shed dead weight). This boosted economy can only last so long, it will eventually keel over dead, again as I understand it - when is a matter for speculation.


Eventually everyone will tip. And then lyft and uber will just cut the share drivers get. Look at the minimum wage laws for waiters. I hate tipping. I'd rather a fair wage be factored in. When Lyft and uber set prices, whether we tip or not doesn't matter in the long run


You can't currently avoid it. The reason the legislation was introduced was to prevent the big-name developers from setting up shop in a low-VAT country and selling apps to citizens of EU countries that would normally be paying a much higher VAT. You need to register for VAT and file quarterly nil-returns so that you get that money back. It's a hassle, but probably worth it just to recoup those funds. From an article in Kotaku from late 2014: You see, in the UK we have a rather sensible exemption on VAT for businesses that earn under £81,000 a year. This allows people to run small businesses - like making and selling games in your spare time, for instance - without the administrative nightmare of registering as a business and paying VAT on sales. Unfortunately, none of the other EU member states had an exemption like this, so when the new legislation was being put together, there was no exemption factored in. That means that if someone makes even £1 from selling something digital to another person in another EU country, they now have to be VAT registered in the UK AND they have to pay tax on that sale at whatever rate the buyer’s country of residence has set. That could be 25% in Sweden, 21% in the Netherlands, and so on. [...] There’s one piece of good news: even though anyone who sells digital stuff now has to be VAT-registered in the UK, they don’t actually have to pay VAT on sales to people in the UK if they earn less than £81,000 from it. (This concession was achieved earlier this month after extensive lobbying.) But they’ll still have to submit what’s called a “nil-return”, which is essentially a tax return with nothing on it, every quarter in order to use the VAT MOSS service. That’s a lot of paperwork. Obviously Brexit may have a significant impact on all this, so the rules might change. This is the official Google Link to how they've implemented this and for which countries it affects: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/138000?hl=en Due to VAT laws in the European Union (EU), Google is responsible for determining, charging, and remitting VAT for all Google Play Store digital content purchases by EU customers. Google will send VAT for EU customers' digital content purchases to the appropriate authority. You don't need to calculate and send VAT separately for EU customers. Even if you're not located in the EU, this change in VAT laws will still apply.


This seems like such an obvious thing to short, imo. If there's an economic bubble that pops 2008 style or 2001 style, I bet facebook will be injured and that will directly affect zynga. Facebook is already waning in popularity.


"You are correct that, barring an equity capital raise, your money doesn't actually end up in the company. However, interest in their stock can help a company in other ways; Management/board members hopefully own shares or options themselves, thus knowing that ""green"" policies are favorable for the stock price (as your fund might buy shares) can be quite an incentive for them to go green(er). Companies with above average company share performance are also often viewed as financially healthy and so creditors tend to charge lower interest for companies with good share performance. Lastly, a high share price makes a company difficult to take over (as all those shares have to be acquired) and at the same time makes it easier for the company to perform takeovers themselves as they can finance such acquisitions by issuing more of their own shares. There is also the implication that money flowing towards such green companies is money flowing out of/away from polluting companies, for these ""dirty"" companies the inverse of the previous points can hold true. Of course on the other hand there is quite an argument to be made that large enough ""green"" funds should actually buy substantial positions in companies with poor environmental records and steer the company towards greener policies but that might be a hard sell to investors."


A mutual fund has several classes of shares that are charged different fees. Some shares are sold through brokers and carry a sales charge (called load) that compensates the broker in lieu of a fee that the broker would charge the client for the service. Vanguard does not have sales charge on its funds and you don't need to go through a broker to buy its shares; you can buy directly from them. Admiral shares of Vanguard funds are charged lower annual expenses than regular shares (yes, all mutual funds charge expenses for fund adninistration that reduce the return that you get, and Vanguard has some of the lowest expense ratios) but Admiral shares are available only for large investments, typically $50K or so. If you have invested in a Vanguard mutual fund, your shares can be set to automatically convert to Admiral shares when the investment reaches the right level. A mutual fund manager can buy and sell stocks to achieve the objectives of the fund, so what stockes you are invested in as a share holder in a mutual fund will typically be unknown to you on a day-to-day basis. On the other hand, Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are fixed baskets of stocks, and you can buy shares in the ETF. These shares are bought and sold through a broker (so you pay a transaction fee each time) but expenses are lower since there is no manager to buy and sell stocks: the basket is fixed. Many ETFs follow specific market indexes (e.g. S&P 500). Another difference between ETFs and mutual funds is that you can buy and sell ETFs at any time of the day just as if you could if you held stocks. With mutual funds, any buy and sell requests made during the day are processed at the end of the day and the value of the shares that you buy or sell is determined by the closing price of the stocks held by the mutual fund. With ETFs, you are getting the intra-day price at the time the buy or sell order is executed by your broker.


I would base my decision off of regulatory climate and look primarily into eastern Europe to tackle the higher growth climate; let's say Estonia or Lithuania. Estonia ranks better in surveys tracking hours senior managers spend dealing with regulatory issues. Lithuania seems to have the edge in terms of just getting the business started, land purchased and enforcing contracts and cross border trade. They probably have better demographics in terms of workforce. Links: http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/WorldStats/ESI-senior-management-time-regulation.html


Well then that kind of makes drug tests seem stupid then, right? I grew up in an area where oil money was big, heard handful of stories of people failing drug tests and being fired. Heard a few other rare stories of people working 20+ years in the oil industry who knew how to pass and smoked weed daily. But you seem pretty convinced this has worked well for you. So I guess its fair to ask then, do you believe this is the best we can do? What are your thoughts about medical conditions, should opiates be treated the same as weed? Do you know that theres different types of weed? I encourage you to keep learning, and you can start to understand why so many people might be defending this topic. The war on drugs is over, the facts are out and proven its an extreme waste and set back to humanity. Step back for a second, look more at the bigger picture, is this really the best we can do?


this post offers excellent pointers that can help you choose a suitable line of credit you can use for financing your day-to-day expenses. please help up promote it to all your friends especially to those who are planning to apply for and get secured and prepaid credit cards!


"The issue with college is the current ""business model"" which is to get as many asses in seats as possible. Colleges were initially designed to teach a select few, and not intended for mass attendance. The day colleges went from being institutions geared towards attracting like-minded people interested in intellectual pursuits into education factories crumbling under the weight of administrative bloat is when the classical concept of a college education died. We don't educate people anymore, we process them to fit a particular mold in the labor pool. That being said, if you are someone who is genuinely interested in educating yourself, college is still the way to go. Just be aware of what you're getting yourself into, and understand that a degree is not a ticket to employment."


Give it to your mailman to return to sender. For this kind of material, return service is always requested, and it will let the bank know that they have incorrect address information. If the owner needs the cards, he'll contact the bank, or the bank will contact him to verify the address. Either way, as long as its not in your name, I don't think you should be worried.


Landed an internship in undergrad through a combination of networking and just sending out resumes to lots of places with decent IR departments. Then from there I had the experience that finding a job post-grad wasn't too hard. It's a relatively small community and now that I've become basically specialized in telecom, media, and technology it's easy to know where to look. There are plenty of corporate PR firms too if that's more your angle. I really recommend you join your local NIRI chapter. Best networking move you could make, and anyone interested in IR can join. It's a super rewarding career because I love finance but I still get a lot of interpersonal interaction and you're as close to the clients as possible, even at the most entry level.


"None of what I say is advice directed to you. It is how I would continue to analyse the situation you have, were it mine. First off, I prefer to work in certainties more than possibilities. Saying that, paying down the mortgage makes sense as I can calculate the amount I will save. I also believe that rate rises are coming in the future, based on the talk from the BofE, so any money I pay off now means guaranteed less interest to pay in the future. Also, the lower my loan-to-value ratio, the better/lower interest rates I can receive in the mortgage market. If I do not want to work until retirement age, it'd be nice to have as few bills as possible in the decade or so prior to retirement age. I could then do early-retirement or part-time work in the run-up to retirement. I could use my savings to fund life until retirement pays out. I'd be aiming to put 15% of my gross income into ""future investing"" - using ISAs to build up a savings pot, taking advantage of retirement products. That way all the money is not tied to a normal retirement age before it can accessed. And it's not touchable by future greedy Government taxation... Any income leftover above the 15%, I'd be throwing at the mortgage - taking advantage of the 10% overpay window, remortgaging as LTV comes down. In theory, overpaid mortgage equity is money that could still be accessed (provided house prices don't decline and remortgaging is a possibility). So, in short, I'd follow a plan along these lines of logic. 1) Make sure I have 4-6 months of living expenses as a Rainy Day Fund. Insulate myself from fluctuations in my financial situation. 2) Put away 15% of annual gross income towards ""future saving"". ISAs first, pension second. 3) Overpay the mortgage and look to remortgage as LTV drops. When LTV nears 60%, look to lock in to a longer-term fix. eg. 2 year fixes at 90% LTV, 5 year fixes at 60%. 4) Reassess steps 2 & 3 as life happens, circumstances change, work fluctuates, etc. 5) Once the mortgage is paid off, build as much wealth as possible - ISAs first, then non-tax efficient savings products. Aim for keeping expenses down and raising my savings % rate as much as possible. [Your analysis was thorough and shows you are thinking through consequences. Never forget to factor in the risk of carrying debt. Having no/low debt as you get older means there's more income left to build wealth. Ignore the American view of carrying debt for life and trusting investments to outperform the debt. You have to pay monthly to keep that debt around - and it ain't a pet!]"


These models are specially designed with spring supported chest for ironing thicker and folded linen. Our economic range flatwork ironers offer you an excellent combination of efficiency, quality and convenience, making it the finest special designed flatwork ironer available in the world. The ability to fold and feed, as you need them, allow you to process from 60 to 70 single bed sheets per hour.


"You need to take an accounting course. Badly... A ponzi scheme is when you use the capital from new members/investors to pay out returns to existing/older members. It violates the basic principles of the accounting equation by operation as investors are equity holders whom you are paying returns to using the assets procured from new investors (investors give you an asset in exchange for a share of equity). Members of a ponzi scheme are investors, not creditors. In a bank, depositors are NOT investors. Depositors give you an asset (cash) in exchange for a liability (cash+interest). > Does buying govt securities count as ""lending""? Yes. If you purchase a bond, you're lending money to the issuer."


Well -- It hits them where it hurts 140 to 113 in 3 days of trading -- Yep that hurts and hurts them exactly where it should. Yes I am aware of the executive selling prior to the announcement. But other CEO's are seeing this too and will not want it to happen to them. So I respectfully disagree that they won't be held into account. They already have been by the market.


"My wife and I have Gap, Kohl's and Amazon cards. They each give extra benefits when using them at their stores, and usually 1% cash back at other places, although we don't use the Gap or Kohl's anywhere else. We don't carry a balance, so as mentioned, the rate doesn't matter. And they are so spread out when we've gotten them (Kohl's for a good 3 years, Amazon about 2 months ago) that I don't expect any issues for credit checks. In fact I just got approved for a mortgage loan, way more than what I know I can really afford. In my mind, credit cards are a bad idea when you use them as ""real"" credit. If they are used more like a debit card (spending money that you have), its like a loan (you don't have to pay it off til later), and you get paid for it (whether in cash or merchandise)."


">I don't know, they focus solely on debt as if it's the reason for the recession. Well, if you remember that personal debt is largely mortgages, and that the housing situation is what drove the bubble and collapse, it seems pretty reasonable. There are factors that attenuated it. Banks leveraging heavily off of investments that were ultimately backed by housing made the collapse worse. And you could say that the longer-term story, the thing that really drove unemployment changes that won't change quickly, is long-term shifts in the economy. China opening up to trade, automation reducing demand for people to perform simple tasks. The bubble collapse just exposed some of those, drove companies that were ultimately in trouble across the line. >At least they acknowledge that it would have to happen gradually, but they act like any and all debt is terrible. Well, it's not great, and people have been saying ""we should deal with our debt problem"" and not doing anything about it for a long time, because it's easier to just borrow from the next generation... >Plus, you know, it's Business Insider asking us to put aside politics, which is pretty funny. Yes, the article was not apolitical. Another point...one reason that we're spending more on health care is because we've figured out ever-more-expensive ways to make people live longer. A person will almost always spend all the money required to extend their life. Once their resources are exhausted, a medical company has to go looking for someone else to foot the bill if they want to keep selling product. In this case, taxpayers are an option. Ditto for people living longer after retirement, and having a longer-and-longer Social-Security-funded vacation; Social Security was designed in a world where most people didn't *have* all that much ""retirement"". But remedying that has real implications, and it's worth being aware of those. You can send people back to work. They're increasingly fragile and maybe a bit senile. You can simply refuse to subsidize medical care as much, which will result in people dying earlier."


If you're in the 25% tax bracket, then you probably shouldn't be doing a Roth conversion right now. You'd prefer to do Roth conversions when you can do so at a 15% rate. You could contribute some of your current annual contributions to Roth directly, but even that isn't a great idea except to diversify your holdings. Odds are you won't be paying 25% average tax rate on your retirement, unless you're doing very well in your retirement account. Odds are you'll be somewhere around 15%. Converting at a 15% rate therefore is fine; basically, you'll have something like this, based on some assumptions (I'm making up dollars, brackets, etc.; obviously these will change): Doing this, you pay 0-15% tax on up to 75k, then pay 0 tax after that on the Roth (which you paid 15% tax on already). Therefore, you don't end up paying more than 15% on any single dollar, and you pay less on the total sum. But you also don't really want to be paying 25% on any of it, since that won't really help you out any and could hurt you (will hurt you, if you end up getting some of that 15% bracket income from the Roth). If you're in the 25% bracket now, then you probably are better off just keeping everything in regular IRA (unless you're expecting to be in the 28% bracket after retirement?). Putting some in Roth isn't a terrible idea, just for diversification's sake, but it's probably going to cost you money unless tax rates rise dramatically (which they certainly could, though not as likely to rise on the 'middle class' 0-100k range). They'd have to double for you to be worse off this way. And finally: do not ever withdraw from the 401k to pay taxes on a conversion. You're subject to a 10% penalty for doing that (as it's an early withdrawal) and also have to pay taxes on that withdrawal. Ick. For more information about when Roth makes sense, read site moderator JoeTaxpayer's Blog article on the subject, which explains this in great detail.


An advantage of using a major credit card is that they act as a buffer and source of recourse between you and the merchant. Cheated and the store won’t answer you letters? Call Visa (or more accuratly, call the number on the back of the card). (That is, #2 on this answer, which you can also reference for a whole list of benefits.)


Although there are no transaction fees from PayPal, your bank should treat this as a cash advance rather than a payment and so will charge you fees. The cash advance fee will be larger than 1%, so you'll definitely lose money. Plus you'll start paying interest immediately (unlike for purchases). PayPal warns that you'll get cash advance fees here.


I know this is the rule in general but what about things like De Beers diamond company artificially inflating the price of diamonds? From what I've read there are lots and lots of diamonds in storage but they control the flow. Couldn't this tactic work with other products/commodities using the right marketing campaigns?


"The complete opposite of ""sunk cost"" is the term ""unrealized gain""; until you sell it, then it is a ""realized gain"". There is also a term ""paper profit"" to point out the ephemeral nature of some of these unrealized gains."


Unless a study accounts for whether the users are following a budget or not, it is irrelevant to those who are trying to take their personal finances seriously. I can certainly believe that those who have no budget will spend more on a credit card than they will on a debit card or with cash. Under the right circumstances spending with cards can actually be a tool to track and reduce spending. If you can see on a monthly and yearly basis where all of your money was spent, you have the information to make decisions about the small expenses that add up as well as the obvious large expenses. Debit cards and credit cards offer the same advantage of giving you an electronic record of all of your transactions, but debit cards do not come with the same fraud protection that credit cards have, so I (and many people like me) prefer to use credit cards for security reasons alone. Cash back and other rewards points bolster the case for credit cards over debit cards. It is very possible to track all of your spending with cash, but it is also more work. The frustration of accounting for bad transcriptions and rechecking every transaction multiple times is worth discussing too (as a reason that people get discouraged and give up on budgeting). My point is simply that credit cards and the electronic records that they generate can greatly simplify the process of tracking your spending. I doubt any study out there accounts for the people who are specifically using those benefits and what effect it has on their spending.


No problem and more than happy to help! Both posting locations I've indicated for you to browse and apply any helpful info. And to answer your question in your post: I think the Federal Trade Commission would address any regulatory concerns as internet does not seem to fall under the FCC for communications, but likely the FTC regarding advertising. I don't think you will have many obstacles, but in addition to the FTC link below, maybe check out privacy policies and legal links on other job sites for reference. Also posting your question in r/legaladvice etc. may get you good free feedback from legal redditors. Hope this helps and best of luck! https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/advertising-and-marketing


If you are in the United States, Real Estate gains are taxed as capital gains 15% currently but will go up in 2011. You may be able to exclude $250,000 filing single (500k married filing jointly) if you have lived in the condo 2 out of the last 5 years. See IRS Publication 523 for more information. You are only taxed on the profit from the sale. If you paid $100,000 and you sell it for $125,000 you would owe capital gains tax on $25,000 if you don't meet the conditions in IRS Publication 523.