Since near-term at-the-money (ATM) options are generally the most liquid, the listed implied vol for a stock is usually pretty close to the nearest ATM volatility, but there's not a set convention that I'm aware of. Also note that for most stocks, vol skew (the difference in vol between away-from-the-money and at-the-money options) is relatively small, correct me if I'm wrong, IV is the markets assessment that the stock is about 70% likely (1 Standard Deviation) to move (in either direction) by that percent over the next year. Not exactly. It's an annualized standard deviation of the anticipated movements over the time period of the option that it's implied from. Implied vol for near-term options can be higher or lower than longer-term options, depending on if the market believes that there will be more uncertainty in the short-term. Also, it's the bounds of the expected movement in that time period. so if a stock is at $100 with an implied vol of 30% for 1-year term options, then the market thinks that the stock will be somewhere between $70 and $130 after 1 year. If you look at the implied vol for a 6-month term option, half of that vol is the range of expected movement in 6 months.


"compulsive eating, and other compulsions, are also an issue If this is true, then this is not a money problem. This is a psychological problem that manifests itself in overspending. I would make an appointment with a counselor or therapist ASAP to start dealing with this problem before the symptoms get any worse. That said, here are some practical things that you can do to reduce overspending: The most important thing is that this be done TOGETHER. You cannot dictate to him how yo spend your (plural) money, you cannot take away credit cards and give him an ""allowance"", etc. It mush be something that you both agree is important. If you cannot agree on a plan to get on a budget, then counseling would be in order."


People clamoring for more and more regulation will always be disappointed because businesses will always find ways to get around it. And, it is the usually the incumbent businesses that are able to do so, while new businesses find increased barriers to entry. The correct solution is to remove the root source of the tuition bubble, get rid of the government subsidies for higher education altogether.


"A checking account almost never earns any significant interest. A checking accounts often does not have any limits in terms of how many times you can draw funds from it. A checking account often comes with a debit card allowing you to pay online, draw cash from an ATM machine etc. A savings accounts has much higher yields, so you should be getting a decent interest. Unfortunately in the current climate this is not always true (especially not with the big banks) so you may want to look into a high-yield savings account. A savings account is often limited in terms of number of transactions, meaning you can't constantly draw funds from it, it must be stable. A savings account often does not come with a debit card. No, a savings account should not be used for regular transactions. It's an account to park your money for a medium/long time. Understand that banks loan out the money in your savings account to third-parties, so if it would constantly fluctuate, they can't have this money available to others. In return of you parking your money with your bank, you should get a nice return (interest). Yes, but it's not common. Assuming you are from USA, passing banking data (account number and routing number) to third-parties is not safe. In Europe it's totally safe to share your account number to accept money. Depends, some banks do charge fees, some don't. Often there are fees when you're not using the account (no transactions), or when you don't have a certain minimum in an account. Assuming you are American (please specify this information clearly in future) I would look into an ""internet bank"", like Ally. They don't have many fees and they have an excellent high-yield savings account. They also give you a debit card. Disadvantage is that they don't have physical branches."


Yeah, that's it! We just need to **RAISE TAXES** on those icky **RICH PEOPLE** -- as opposed to, you know, **FINING** people who engaged in **CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES**. See the difference? The latter is justice, whereas the former is robbery.


> plus they get to be the Wal-Mart of the internet and outprice all of their competitor It's all [about market cap](http://evonomics.com/amazon-accounting-corporate-profits-rich-peoples-income-invisible-bezos/) not the appearance of investment. They turn most of their profits into dividends, so they get taxed (from investors) once at a 20% rate, rather than a 35% then 20% (48% total). They are basically exploiting a glitch where dividend payments are tax deductible to the company, rather than (rightfully) being considered profits being collected by the owners.


Banks, the big ones, have shareholders and the board to answer to. Credit Unions have members and the board to answer to. You become a member by joining a CU. Banks' prime objective is profit maximization, a credit union's prime objective is members' welfare. Personal experience: I didn't mind that the banks charge fees, what was frustrating was keeping up with the policy changes. Have X amount to avoid Y fees. Once you fulfill that, do something else to avoid some other fees. You miss one notice and you'll pay dearly! This constant jumping of hoops was enough to switch. Not saying CUs don't change rules, but in my opinion, not as frequently as big banks. On fee, for instance, my overdraft with my CU is $5. With BofA it was something like $35 before regulations put a cap on such ridiculous fees.


>Show me some other great empire in history that managed to purchase its own debt. Name a great empire that did not purchase it's own debt. You calling something a Ponzi scheme when it clearly fails even the most naive definition and after being pointed out the hole in your naming is plain willful ignorance.


The biggest issue I can see is that in order to have your parents protected properly, they'll have to register an interest in the property (ie, the 25%). I can't see the mortgage lender being too happy to have a second lienholder on the house for a total of 100% of the purchase price. Usually their conditions state that they'll need to be informed of other debts secured on the house and might actually have a say in that. Another way of accomplishing this is putting your parents on the house's deeds but that might also complicate matters with the lender and cause additional problems when it comes to selling the property. Not to mention that if anything bad happens to your parents, their stake in your property would be counted as one of their assets and you might find yourself in the situation where you have to come up with 25% of the property value right now or you might find that you have to sell the property to the first bidder simply because you do need the money as quickly as possible. Personally I wouldn't do it (especially without legal advice), the legal structure can be a nightmare and you'll just end up painted into a corner.


"I know some CEOs (for both big and small companies). A few have admitted to me on a few occasions they themselves don't have the slightest idea about being a CEO. The world changes too fast so they have absolutely no idea what's going to work and what isn't when it comes time to make decisions. All they can do is rely on the recommendations of the people that work under them at which point it becomes a matter of trust: Do you trust the recommendations from your CTO? Who did he trust to make that recommendation? The trust chain goes waaay down and it makes you wonder if the people who ""know"" (at the end of the chain) shouldn't have been able to just make the decision themselves."


Prediction: costs won't go down. The basis for that is the cost of insurance for health has never gone down in the history of that product mainly due to the fixed market. There is competition, but pricing is so rigged as health insurance companies and employers have completely removed pricing from consumers experience. Until everyone has individual/independent insurance away from their jobs, healthcare costs will never be in check. When employers gtfo of your business and stop providing benefits and people have to buy their own insurance, that is the only time there will be any real market or real pricing in healthcare/medical.


>Ms. Beauregard has to break it to her mother that she does not intend to keep the Hitchcock dining room set or the buffet full of matching Lenox dinnerware, saucers and gravy boats. Why does she have to tell her? Tell mum that she will cherish her stuff and keep it forever. Once the old girl kicks off, chuck the shit straight in the bin.


> then everyone will run off to by guns & ammo before the government comes to take them all. It's gotten sadly predictable. Won't happen, the driver for the increased sales was fear of new restrictive legislation, not the shooting itself.


"> Bernie sources: I would agree, it looks like the tax would cover all those that buy stock, bonds, and derivatives. However, this article didn't really cover the specifics. What would the tax be? Would it a flat dollar amount per transaction? That would make sense as it would focus more on those that do high volume traders. That wouldn't really impact me, as I already pay $9 per transaction. And I don't do many transactions. A couple dollars more, and I would be fine. > To answer your Enron example, no corporation would have enough power to actually do something like that if they didn't have at least partial backing by the government. Ah, but corporations [edit - wouldn't] have the power to do much of anything without someone to enforce their policies. Name one market that doesn't have an enforcement agency of some type. That is a mighty big assumption that the ""free market"" would make it work... especially since one doesn't really exist. And that would be the crux of my argument. All of the things you say about the perfection of the market to regulate itself is so far not proven. Take a market like Kansas - over the last 6 years, they just underwent one of the largest deregulation, de-taxation experiments of any state in the union. The results were less than stellar. Kansas is lagging the national average in growth. And they took a hundred million dollar surplus and turned into a couple billion dollar deficit almost overnight. And who suffers, of course the most poor. They shut down schools, fired teachers, and shelved many infrastructure jobs - jobs that would have been fielded by lower wage workers... And those infrastructure projects were undoubtedly in lower income areas. I would say, if you truly believe in what you preach then live it. Start a commune somewhere. Demonstrate how it is effective. That would have more power than preaching some amorphous unproveable policy over the internet."


It works across the entire city of London. This isn't a pipe dream with no real-life examples. In reality, people watch out, drive slower, and keep their eyes open so they don't cross all the time. No one wants to die in the streets after all. > You lack common sense and to be honest, I have never have read anything so ridiculous. This is the 'common sense' that I have lived with all my life in a city shared by millions of people in a first world country. > You are saying that despite the fact that it is not only safer for pedestrians to use a consistent and well known area to walk, If people don't use cross walks, you should change the rules so drivers don't expect people to use cross walks and thus start paying attention to the *reality* that people are crossing all the time. > I can think of many reasons of why you lack any sort of logic, but I just don't have the time to pick apart why this is the worst comment I have ever read on reddit. Nope you can't. I do dare you to though, because it'd be an interesting discussion.


"Greatowl's response is pretty cynical. I'm not a wall street analyst but I do read some of the research and there is a lot of respectable analysis out there. There are many smart analysts who consistently get poached from the equity research departments to join the buy side. I'd also contend that level of accuracy is an incomplete measure of performance. It doesnt matter if you're right or wrong, what matters is how much you make when you are right and how much you lose when you are wrong. Soros is purported to have a 30% ""batting average"" but the guy makes a killing when he's right (source: Inside the House of Money)."


"Bonds still definitely have a place in many passive portfolios. While it is true that interest rates have been unusually low, yields on reasonable passive bond exposures are still around 2-4%. This is significantly better than both recent past inflation and expected inflation both of which are near zero. This is reasonable if not great return, but Bonds continue to have other nice properties like relatively low risk and diversification of stock portfolios (the ""offset[ing] losses"" you mention in the OP). So to say that bonds are ""no longer a good idea"" is certainly not correct. One could say bonds may no longer be a good idea for some people that have a particularly high risk tolerance and very high return requirements. However, to some extent, that has always been true. It is worth remembering also that there is some compelling evidence that global growth is starting to broadly slow down and many people believe that future stock returns and, in general, returns on all investments will be lower. This is much much harder to estimate than bond returns though. Depending on who you believe, bond returns may actually look relatively better than the have in the past. Edit in response to comment: Corporate bond correlation with stocks is positive but generally not very strong (except for high-yield junk bonds) so while they don't offset stock volatility (negative correlation) they do help diversify a stock portfolio. Government bonds have essentially zero correlation so they don't really offset volatility as much as just not add any. Negative correlation assets are generally called insurance and you tend to have to pay for them. So there is no free lunch here. Assets that reduce risk cost money, assets that add little risk give less return and assets that are more risky tend to give more return in the long run but you can feel the pain. The mix that is right for you depends on a lot of things, but for many people that mix involves some corporate and government bonds."


you asked for strategies which use deep in the money options: dividend mispricing can use deep in the money options, basically its an arbitrage play on ex-dividend dates. and any kind of spread can use deep in the money options, depending on how wide you want your spread to be


Apple never gave the US government entrance into that terrorist's iPhone and it made their company look great. It took extremely complicated and expensive security hackers from Europe to break in to the phone after a long time. I think it was one of the guys from the Boston marathon bombing? I don't know why my earlier comment got downvoted - it's the truth


This was such a wonderful and clear explanation. It has helped me to understand (at 28) a concept that I have always been a bit murky on. I would feel safe making the bet that you are a teacher of some sort. I would find it extremely interesting to hear you thoughts on why we don't use the gold standard anymore. Do you work in finance?


"Welsh had pushed the stock about as far as one could by using GE's capital as collateral to borrow money at rates much lower than banks. So GE was able to out bank the banks for many years. The problems with this all came back under Immelt. Welsh sort of shit all over the culture of technology and engineering and Immelt was never able to recover that as the capital business fell apart. The company really hasn't been able to make good choices. Anything they buy does worse. They need to stick to markets with a high cost of entry and long lead development times. This is very contrary to the ""Silicon Valley"" tech world of today, but it is where GE has remained successful (See GE Medical and GE Aviation)."


Slippery slope logical fallacy. Nobody is talking about exceeding the GDP per capita, just increasing the minimum wage to a level where someone can actually survive without working 80 hours per week. As it stands, [there is not a single county in the nation where someone can afford to rent a 1 bedroom apartment on the current federal minimum wage](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/only-point-1-percent-of-us-minimum-wage-workers-can-afford-a-1-bedroom.html).


I'm old enough to remember when normal companies didn't openly associate their brands with politics, when Michael Jordan was willing to sell his shoes to Republicans as well as Democrats, and when companies and consumers weren't publicly shamed for their every perceived slight. Yes, I know business and politics have always been intertwined, but we've reached a point of dysfunction that I've never witnessed.


"The Wikipedia page for Repurchase Agreement has two relevant pointers on this topic: The legal title for any securities used in a repo actually pass from seller to buyer during the term of the agreement. In basic terms this means that if one sells a bond on repo with a promise to buy it back, then the ownership actually transfers to the buyer for that period of time. If a coupon is paid during this time period, it can either go to the buyer or the seller. Usually, the coupon payment goes to the initial owner of the security pre-repo (our ""seller""). But sometimes the repurchase agreement will specify otherwise. So, again in basic terms, usually the repo seller/initial security owner receives any payments made during the term of the repurchase agreement. (Both points are in the first paragraph of the section ""Structure and Terminology"".)"


This. White collar crime isn't currently prosecuted to the same degree as blue collar crime. Probably because it's not as visible in everyday life (as opposed to say, a kidnapping). I'm glad to see this and I hope people are beginning to demand harsher punishments for these types of crimes. In a world that is becoming increasingly more structured around financial markets, white collar criminals should be prosecuted accordingly as their actions can have significant consequences in the lives of numerous people.


The lifetime combat death rate for males in early Ireland and medieval Iceland was somewhere around 1/4 or so; it was absurdly high. These also weren't modern societies that were dependent on large-scale projects to keep us all alive such as municipal water and electricity, and a functioning modern banking system. I don't know anything about Quaker Pennsylvania. Details?


"I've tried Mint, and I've tried Quicken. Now, I think Quicken is an annoying, crashy little piece of software, but it is also quite capable; overall I think it has the features you want. You can enter your bills, broken down by category, in advance. You can enter your paychecks, broken down by category (gross income, federal income tax, state income tax, social security, SDI, transfers to tax-protected 401(k) account, etc) in advance. You can enter in your stock trades and it can tell you how much you'll need to end up paying in capital gains taxes. You can even enter in your stock option vesting schedule in advance (it's a royal pain because you can't go back and change anything without deleting everything, but you can do it). It'll forecast your bank account balance in all of your bank accounts in advance with a shiny chart. It'll even model your loans, if you set it up right. I didn't do too much with the ""budgeting"" tools per se, but the account-balances-daily features sound like the closest thing to what you're looking for that's likely to exist. The only thing that's a trifle tricky is that transfers from one account to another may take multiple days (hello, ACH) and you'll have to decide whether to record them at departure or arrival."


"Congratulations on the job offer! That type of matching sounds good if you plan to stay at a company for more than a year. My experience has been that 401k matching can range from 2% up to 8% for your typical starting job, so a total of 6% is good. You would definitely want to contribute at least 5% to take advantage of the ""Free"" money. Loan provision could mean that loans from 401k are allowed. I did some research and found that not all company 401ks allow for you to take a loan out of your 401k. Typically this is bad practice since you are robbing your 401k of it's major advantage - tax free compound interest. Source"


I don’t see this area turning around anytime soon. It’s extremely poverty ridden . Plus I believe a lot of the stipulations in buying one of these $100 homes is that you rehab it and live in it. I’m not positive on the details though. Last time this area was wealthy was during the al Capone era. He had a lot of money in it. But even that was ilegal money.


I started out in compliance at a software company, despite having little interest in compliance. I did that for ~2.5 years, then worked with my manager to arrange to work 10 hours/week in the Marketing department, then after ~6 months of that, I moved to Marketing full time. If you kick ass in whatever job you have and work on extra skills (learning to code/improving at Excel will give you lots of options, such as software engineer or data analyst positions), you ought to be able to parlay the experience you've gained plus the other skills you have into something you're more interested in. Most companies would rather keep a good employee in the building than risk losing him/her.


"Apartment complexes have had a long history of not accepting cash for payment of rent. This eliminates the problem of robbery and strongly reduces the risks of embezzlement. THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE Article 1, Section 10 of the US Constitution states: No State shall ... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts Previous editions of banknotes stated that the notes were redeemable in gold or in lawful money. The Mint Act of 1792 set gold and silver as legal currency (and that one did not have to accept ""base metal coins"" for more than $10 which is why coin rolls only go up to $10). The Coinage Act of 1873 dropped silver and made gold the legal standard for currency. In 1933, the ""redeemable in gold"" was changed by federal statute and the legend you mention was added. Prior to 1933, someone could demand that you pay them in gold and not with a bank note. Legislation in 1933 ended that. This clause in the Constitution leads some political groups to wish to return to a gold standard. I recommend reading the book Greenback as it describes how our currency got the way it did and why that clause appears on currency."


No, you cannot. 401k must not be discriminatory, i.e.: you cannot have different matching for different employees.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://bruegel.org/2017/06/the-universal-basic-income-discussion/) reduced by 94%. (I'm a bot) ***** > UBI&#039;s supporters generally propose UBI as a replacement for the current &quot;Welfare state&quot;, which may increase poverty and inequality rather than reduce them. > Some UBI proponents may argue that by ending current programs, we would reap large administrative savings that we could convert into UBI payments. > Doland took on the challenge and offered a taxonomy of three kinds of libertarians who might take a UBI very seriously, arguing that UBI could very well be a policy for pragmatic critics of well-intentioned but ineffective government, for classical liberals, and for advocates of personal freedom. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6grw2f/bruegel_the_universal_basic_income_discussion/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~142143 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*: **UBI**^#1 **benefit**^#2 **poverty**^#3 **Income**^#4 **Welfare**^#5"


"It's sad just how uninformed most of us are be default. Even a Google search of most politicians will only bring up a barebones summary and a bunch of opinion. Personally, I just can't spend the time each election to figure out what the actual nature of the folks running might be. Stress from work needs alleviation or I'll break down, normal life stuff takes over most of the time, and at the end of each day if I try and do any political research I'll just fall asleep with it on my phone's browser read half-way through. It's impossible to look at every decision someone has made and figure out the reason *without* a swarm of editorials, so if their opponents want to wave a few ""flip flops"" around I'd have *no* way of reliably working the truth from the lies. Not to mention that Google et all filter my results, so anything positive about people I don't like and criticism of people I do like is buried beneath stuff that affirms my bias. In the end, it's a mess that makes it impossible for me to do a damn thing if I wish to be a responsible voter, so I just don't vote. This leaves the polls to those who vote with their hearts closed and wallets own."


This sounds like a grumpy old man more than anything. >He said that if Obama is re-elected and imposes Obamacare and higher taxes, he may just have to let more of his remaining 7,000 workers go. He said he might even shut down the company. That's just poor leadership. If I don't win, I'm just taking my ball home so no one can play. In other news, a new resort company was launched in a territory left unoccupied by Westgate Resorts. Properties in Orlando and Branson selling for below market prices. Plenty of well-trained workers are immediately available.


Yes. Short and sweet.


"Then can you elaborate on what you meant by ""at the end of the day, fiat currencies are based on trust and accountability of the government""? I would normally *agree* with that statement, but your use of it as a point of concern in your previous post appears to contradict what you just said."


Technically you owe 'self-employment' taxes not FICA taxes because they are imposed under a different law, SECA. However, since SE taxes are by design exactly the same rates as combining the two halves of FICA (employer and employee) it is quite reasonable to treat them as equivalent. SE taxes (and income tax also) are based on your net self-employment income, after deducting business expenses (but not non-business items like your home mortgage, dependent exemptions, etc which factor only into income tax). You owe SE Medicare tax 2.9% on all your SE net income (unless it is under $400) adjusted down by 7.65% to compensate for the fact that the employer half of FICA is excluded from gross income before the employee half is computed. You owe SE Social Security tax 12.4% on your adjusted SE net income unless and until the total income subject to FICA+SECA, i.e. your W-2 wages plus your adjusted SE net income, exceeds a cap that varies with inflation and is $127,200 for 2017. OTOH if FICA+SECA income exceeds $200k single or $250k joint you owe Additional Medicare tax 0.9% on the excess; if your W-2 income (alone) exceeds this limit your employer should withhold for it. However the Additional Medicare tax is part of 'Obamacare' (PPACA) which the new President and Republican majorities have said they will 'repeal and replace'; whether any such replacement will affect this for TY 2017 is at best uncertain at this point. Yes SE taxes are added to income tax on your 1040 with schedule SE attached (and schedule C/CEZ, E, F as applicable to your business) (virtually so if you file electronically) and paid together. You are supposed to pay at least 90% during the year by having withholding increased on your W-2 job, or by making 'quarterly' estimated payments (IRS quarters are not exactly quarters, but close), or any combination. But if this is your first year (which you don't say, but someone who had gone through this before probably wouldn't ask) you may get away with not paying during the year as normally required; specifically, if your W-2 withholding is not enough to cover your increased taxes for this year (because of the additional income and SE taxes) but it is enough to cover your tax for the previous year and your AGI that year wasn't over $150k, then there is a 'safe harbor' and you won't owe any form-2210 penalty -- although you must keep enough money on hand to pay the tax by April 15. But for your second year and onwards, your previous year now includes SE amounts and this doesn't help. Similar/related:


The mathematics make it easier to understand why this is the case. Using very bad shorthand, d1 and d2 are inputs into N(), and N() can be expressed as the probability of the expected value or the most probable value which in this case is the discounted expected stock price at expiration. d1 has two σs which is volatility in the numerator and one in the denominator. Cancelling leaves one on top. Calculating when it's infinity gives an N() of 1 for S and 0 for K, so the call is worth S and the put PV(K). At 0 for σ, it's the opposite. More concise is that any mathematical moment be it variance which mostly influences volatility, mean which determines drift, or kurtosis which mostly influences skew are all uncertanties thus costs, so the higher they are, the higher the price of an option. Economically speaking, uncertainties are costs. Since costs raise prices, and volatility is an uncertainty, volatility raises prices. It should be noted that BS assumes that prices are lognormally distributed. They are not. The closest distribution, currently, is the logVariance Gamma distribution.


"Assuming you are executing your order on a registered exchange by a registered broker, your order will be filled at the best bid price available. This is because brokers are legally obliged to get the best price available. For example, if the market is showing a bid of 49.99 and an offer of 50.01 and you submit an order to offer 1000 shares at 5.00, your order will be filled at 49.99. This is assuming the existing bids are for enough shares to fill all of the 1000 shares being offered. If the share you are offering lacks the necessary liquidity to fill the order - i.e., the 49.99 bid is for less than 1000 shares and the ""level two"" bids are not enough to fill the remaining shares, then the order would be posted in the market as an offer to sell the balance (1000 - shares filled at 49.99 and those filled at level two bids) at 5.00. I'm pretty sure that the scenario you are describing would be described as market manipulation and it would be against the law."


For the mechanices/terms of stock investing, I recommend Learn to Earn by Peter Lynch. I also like The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle. It explains why indexing is the best choice for most people. For stock picking, a good intro is The Little Book of Value Investing by Chris Brown. And then there is The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham. IMO, this is the bible of investing.


"Yes, this is a miscellaneous itemized deduction. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p529/ar02.html For this to impact your taxes, you have to be itemizing deductions (have total deductions greater than standard deduction), and the total of all miscellaneous deductions needs to exceed the ""2% floor"" described in the IRS link above."


This problem is unfixable. Maybe the future holds a world where everyone will understand basic computing, how to use technology in a functional way and probably how programing works at a fundamental level and even then you may still have insufferable morons with too much power running business.


"Generally speaking, so-called ""hard assets"" (namely gold or foreign currency), durable goods, or property that produces income is valuable in a situation where a nation's money supply is threatened. Gold is the universal hard asset. If you have access to a decent market, you can buy gold as bullion, coins and jewelry. Small amounts are valuable and easy to conceal. The problem with gold is that it is often marked up alot... I'm not sure how practical it is in a poor developing nation. A substitute would be a ""harder"" currency. The best choice depends on where you live. Candidates would be the US Dollar, Euro, Australian Dollar, Yen, etc. The right choice depends on you, the law in your jurisdiction, your means and other factors."


"One common rule of thumb: you can probably get 4% or better returns on your investments ('""typical market rate of return is 8%, derate to allow for inflation and off years). Figure out what kind of income you will want in retirement and divide by 0.04 to get the savings you need to accumulate to support that. This doesn't allow for the fact that your needs are also going to increase with inflation; you can make a guess at that and use an inflated needs estimate. Not sophisticated, not precise, but it's a quick and dirty ballpark estimate. And sometimes it's surprisingly close to what a proper model would say."


Median household income is rising, but it is far below the level before the Great Recession, and even then, it was still stagnating. What this means is that the economy is running on stimulus, and unless median household income not only regains the level before the Great Recession but also rises at the rate before the 1970s, we are only heading for a future economic correction bigger that the Great Recession and most likely bigger than the Great Depression relatively in every way.


"Wow. It's clear I'm outnumbered. When I'm approached with the question (and keep in mind, it's usually a couple data points and little else) ""I am getting started, with no other money do I fund a retirement or emergency account?"" I often suggest they put the funds into a Roth, in a money market fund, and treat it like an emergency account. If there's in fact an emergency, there's no penalty to withdraw the deposit and we're talking peanuts for interest today. With no emergency, two things could happen: A) As the account grows beyond what's needed for emergencies, the excess can be invested long term. B) As the investor earns more money and saves up enough to have a true emergency account separate from the IRA, the Roth can be fully invested long term. The 'Bad idea' stems from the view that one is using their Roth as an emergency account, which of course is bad. The subtle difference is one has no retirement savings and puts their Emergency account into the otherwise unused Roth. As time passes, they've protected more funds to grow tax free. In the end, the most important thing is whether the person is saving and not tapping for simple non-emergency things. I'd rather see a guy with $25K in his Roth and no other funds than to have $5000 in his bank account because every time it gets larger he feels compelled to spend it. My answer to Matt is to treat it for now as you intended, low risk, CD or cash (money market)."


The snide answer is because they can. The psychological answer is that it drives loyalty. Because you have spent money on the membership, you are more likely to go back several times in the year in order to get your money's worth. Once you are in the store, impulsiveness can have its way with you, as you leave the store with a cart full of items that you didn't know you needed until you saw their low price.


Gonna have to disagree with you there. I've literally worked places where the boss talks about going on vacation to Europe all the time while most of the workforce are on food stamps because they aren't paid a fair wage. Gets pretty old struggling to eat while the ones at the top are being propped up by stolen wages. People talk about tax being theft when I'd argue it's the ones at the top taking an ever increasing piece of the pie who are stealing from everyone.


No, if you are a nonresident alien, you cannot deduct sales tax. You can only deduct state income tax. 1040NR Schedule A (which is page 3 of 1040NR) does not contain an option for sales tax, like 1040 Schedule A does. If you are a resident alien, then you can deduct sales tax.


"> is it worth the risk to give up ""guaranteed"" money welding to take the risk and run another location I think not. you're acting smarter now than 90%+ of college kids who are clueless and are going to end up flipping MBA burgers welding is a very in-demand professional skill. I read recently some earn up to $180,000 per year for mission critical welding like planes, space ships, some military applications, precision equipment etc plus, there's no reason to commit to anything now. you have to wait for the man in control to pass along, a new location to be selected and built and nearly open for business for you to think about it stay the course. you're doing great"


That's what patents are for. You're given a monopoly on your idea for a period of time. Now I think the period of time is too great, and I don't think patents should apply to software or living organisms, but that was their intended purpose.


Whenever one takes a distribution from an IRA, it cannot be put back into an IRA unless one is doing something like (a) take a distribution from the IRA as a rollover where the owner gets cash in hand to be sent to the new IRA custodian within 60 days, and (b) deposit the money with the new IRA custodian within the prescribed time period. For distributions taken by a first-time home purchaser to buy or rebuild a home, the money can be put back and treated as a rollover up to 120 days after receiving it (Publication 590, page 51, column 2). Note also that distributions taken for first-time homebuying lose their Qualified Distribution status if not paid to the seller (or bank, for closing costs etc) within 120 days of receipt of the distribution (Publication 590, page 51, column 1). However, one cannot take a distribution from an IRA, no matter whether the sum comes from contributions, earnings, or previous rollovers, and put the money back into the IRA a few years down the road as having been unnecessarily withdrawn. What you want to do -- take out some money out of your IRA to buy a house and put the money back into the IRA later -- is effectively an interest-free loan from your IRA (even if you don't call it a loan or think of it as a loan), and you are not allowed to do this (except in the special circumstances described above). On the other hand, unless you have a very atypical 401k plan, you can take a loan from your 401k (you will have to pay interest, though) and pay it back over several years. Thus, taking a loan from your 401k might be something you could consider as an alternative to withdrawing money from your IRA. But be aware that there are restrictions on how much you can borrow from your 401k, and usually you cannot withdraw employer match money, even if it has vested. Also, the loan becomes immediately due upon termination of employment, even if the termination was involuntary (i.e. the employee was laid off or fired).


With interest rates so low it could take a while. I agree with your capital comment but one key thing to remember is that the entire company would now change and the long-term viability of it could be jeopardized. Shareholders would focus on short-term, mainly quarterly results at the expense of long-term investment and growth strategies. This is also a reason as to why we're seeing relatively fewer IPOs in recent years compared to earlier time periods despite the value of the market growing.


"As a general rule in many countries, pyramid schemes are illegal, so don't plan on getting rich anytime soon by being involved in one. Anything you earn through such a scheme is subject to forfeiture because it is ill-gotten gains. The entire basis of a pyramid scheme is that the focus is principally on recruiting new ""downlines"", not selling a product or service. I would strongly advise you to find a different way to riches. Multi-level marketing very rarely makes much money for anyone except the first people in the food chain, and the odds of finding such an early-stage opportunity are exceedingly small. For every successful MLM program there are probably 25 that never make it off the launch pad. Be honest in asking yourself -- if it was really that easy, why wouldn't everyone just get into MLM? It's more hype than substance. Do you know who buys most of the product? The newest people who ""drink the Koolaid"", because they're convinced they need to have plenty of inventory on hand for their potential customers. I can't tell you how many people I know who spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on buying product they never managed to sell. It's much tougher than people think, even with a good product."


"I didn't have time to expand my reply from earlier to your comment, but please show me exactly what ""issues I don't understand"" and how I ""look like an idiot"". It's not very often I get called an idiot or that I don't understand something when the person directing those at me hasn't even made a comment addressing the issue this article discusses."


> Isn't the whole point of a private flight that you don't have strangers on it? I've never flown private buy have been invited to a few times. The biggest appeal for me would be avoiding all of the bullshit that comes with flying commercial. Gross and uncomfortable seats, annoying delays, getting felt up by the TSA, having to get to the airport two hours early at times due to significant lines at security. If I could avoid all that crap and just had to deal with a couple I didn't know also on the jet, sign me up.


You bought an overpriced hot dog once (hypothetical) It met your need at the moment and benefitted no one else except for you and the person selling it. The point of the free market is that it's free. People can buy what they want and sell what they want. There's an agreed upon exchange. That's business


"For sure, the engineer was told to do that by someone in management who was told to do that by someone higher in management. So, in the trial, the engineer did not say who told him/her to do that? P/S: for a VERY LARGE sum of money, I will go for 3 years in white-collar ""prison"" and not say who told me to do that."


For the present if you can't figure out anything big with a small budget, then start something small e.g Make brownies, bake cakes etc experiment and put up your name tag on the product and see if your friends buy some stock from you, then link them all on facebook. If you are good with your product, people wouldn't care a lot about the packaging add-ons or frills and if orders start coming consistently well, then implement your book build systems, jack up prices, etc. But don't blow all your cash on day one if don't have a queue waiting for your goodies.


"Consumer Reports ranks each model year so I'm not sure what you mean by ""first wave"". It wasn't till this year that the Model S rose to ""average"", it was poor or below average up to last year, which is well past ""first wave"". The Model X still ranks poor."


Trying to make money on something going down is inherently more complicated, risky and speculative than making money on it going up. Selling short allows for unlimited losses. Put options expire and have to be rebought if you want to keep playing that game. If you are that confident that the European market will completely crash (I'm not, but then again, I tend to be fairly contrarian) I'd recommend just sitting it out in cash (possibly something other than the Euro) and waiting until it gets so ridiculously cheap due to panic selling that it defies all common sense. For example, when companies that aren't completely falling apart are selling for less than book value and/or less than five times prior peak earnings that's a good sign. Another indicator is when you hear absolutely nothing other than doom-and-gloom and people swearing they'll never buy another stock as long as they live. Then buy at these depressed prices and when all the panic sellers realize that the world didn't end, it will go back up.


What sort of control is the US exercising if it has to use Air strikes in a residential Area of the Capital? How does shit for brains imagine that he is going to run a Multi Trillion $ Mining operation in the Mountains where the Taliban actually live and there is no road or infrastructure? Maybe he was just being an ignorant asshole when he decided to send more troops, when he could simply have just walked away.


"Here's what's going to happen: At the last minute, he's going to ""discover"" that for some reason first you must send him $10,000. He'll tell you not to worry, as he's still going to send you $40,000... now $50,000. In fact, he's going to tell you that he'll send you $60,000 and tell you to keep the $10,000 as a ""finders fee"". Then you will send him, $10,000 and he will walk away with your $10,000. You'll never hear from him again. This is a very common scam. The best way to avoid it is not to tell him you won't do it for IRS reasons. The best thing to do is to stop accepting email from him and (optionally) report him to law enforcement."


"Depends on your frame of reference. If I say it's been a hot topic at work ""lately"" I highly doubt showing a visible spike in Google searches for a stock market crash in 2017 is misleading. If anything, it reinforces the notion that there presently is increased interest in the topic. Looking"


Too bad if they pulled something like this my family would cancel all of our subscriptions, and I suspect many other people would do the same. These numbers are bullshit because they would mean every password sharer would become a paying customer and that's never going to happen. It's easy enough to stream everything these days and the content on Netflix is so shitty right now this would absolutely be the straw that breaks the camels back for me. You can't offer worse content while increasing the


No, you shouldn't buy it. The advice here is to keep any existing holdings but not make new purchases of the stock.


Two weeks of maybe 2-4 hours a day. Tried to read the book and got through like 2 chapters. Primarily took 100 question practice exams, read the questions I got wrong, then took another exam. Passed with an 86 and it only took like 2 hrs to get through. Probably matters quite a bit if you have a finance background though. No idea what it would be like without one. Edit: used the Knopman Marks books (which use Q bank for exam questions). Edit 2: Sorry, that was the series 79. And I only got an 82.


If you arent sure what field you want to be in, then accounting is your best bet by far IMO. It's applicable to investment banking, investment management, and corporate finance and just in general it's incredibly useful to understand accounting rules. Even if you end up in Sales one day, it's useful to know exactly how to read a P&L properly or how revenue recognition and return accruals work, for example. My recco would be for financial accounting if you havent done those courses yet. Cost Accounting can also be very useful, especially for corporate finance jobs. If you do more accounting courses, basically what will happen is you will become a more well-polished Finance candidate. Now, if you are trying to keep more options open and think you might want to have options in more general business fields (i.e. Consulting, Brand Management, etc.) then branch out and take Marketing, Stats, etc. What I would again not recommend though is taking a programming class. There just arent many jobs where knowing a little bit of Java or Python helps that much. Most companies prefer to have business specialists (e.g. people with finance/accounting/marketing knowledge) and IT/software specialists. If you want to be some kind of Product Manager for a tech company or a quant I suppose you could try to go all in on the programming- take 4, 5, 6 courses to really develop a noticeable background. Taking 1 Java class just has a low marginal return because you wont know anything meaningful to participate seriously in engineering/tech discussions and you will have missed an opportunity to become even more useful as a business specialist with deeper finance/accounting/marketing knowledge.


You can use a service like Transferwise to send money. The trick is that they allow sending money to yourself, from a GBP account to an EUR account, effectively making it an exchange shop. Their rates are usually very good, with the transfers happening on the same day most of the time.


Is there a place to discuss Investment Strategy? Particularly as it pertains to Global Macro and a variety of asset classes ? Alot of the investing subreddits seem to be based around equity investment only, and focused on US large cap for the most part. I rarely ever see posts about EM equities which have outperformed this year for example, and it would be great to talk about things like Asset Allocation.


As you have income from Business / Profession, you would need to use form ITR4S


If you are buying your order will be placed in Bid list. If you are selling your order will be placed in the Ask list. The highest Bid price will be placed at the top of the Bid list and the lowest Ask price will be placed at the top of the Ask list. When a Bid and Ask price are matched a transaction will take place and it will the last traded price. If you are looking to buy at a lower price, say $155.01, your Bid price will be placed 3rd in the Bid list, and unless the Ask prices fall to that level, your order will remain in the list until it trades, it expires or you cancel it. If prices don't fall to you Bid price you will not get a trade. If you wanted your trade to go through you could either place a limit buy order closer to the lowest Ask price (however this is still not a certainty), or to be certain place a market buy order which will trade at the lowest Ask price.


I don't think they could have done anything besides what they did. There's plenty of cheaper alternatives that no one talks about because they're not as good. Lego has been the world leader for decades because of its commitment to perfection. I'm guessing their boom had a lot to do with their diversification. They went pretty strong into TV shows, movies, video games...all of which are getting old.


What you were told isn't an absolute truth, so trying to counter something fundamentally flawed won't get you anywhere. For example: chinese midcap equities are up 20% this year, even from their high of 100%. While the BSE Sensex in India is down several percentage points on the year. Your portfolio would have lost money this year taking advice from your peers. The fluctuation in the rupees and remnibi would not have changed this fact. What you are asking is a pretty common area of research, as in several people will write their dissertation on the exact same topic every year, and you should be able to find various analysis and theories on the subject. But the macroeconomic landscape changes, a lot.


If your Facebook is public and has things that could keep you from getting a job, of course you should change the privacy settings, at the very least. It's pretty basic. I once searched for a guy on Myspace who talked shit about the company he was interviewing with. On his Myspace. Publicly. He didn't get the job.


I completely agree, but this is not different from going to make a coffee or get another beer, go to bathroom do any number of 2 minute tasks that would traditionally be done in the ad break on TV.


">If you have more people in an insurance pool, premium costs go down, which is the whole point of the individual mandate. The costs depend very, Very, VERY much on WHO the people in the ""pool"" are -- actuarial data shows that older people (almost invariably and by definition) have significantly higher costs, ergo this is why their premiums have been higher (or if a particular pool has an inordinate number of older people in it, why everyone in that pool's premiums are higher, because they are essentially an *average*; and the younger members are in essence subsidizing the older ones -- conversely if a firm has almost entirely young, single people, premium costs are significantly {*significantly*} lower). One of the things the legislation does though is place an artificial limitation of the premium price differential -- ergo younger people will (across the board) be seeing a HUGE increase in premium costs (because the law is essentially mandating a major increased operating LOSS on the older pool members, the cost WILL be shifted to the younger people). End result is that premiums for younger people will increase several times over -- which will make buying a policy (which in the past was relatively cheap for young & healthy people) a significantly more difficult burden -- and that will *naturally* make paying the ""fine"" far more financially pragmatic. This is especially true since the OTHER provision of the law is that known pre-existing conditions cannot be used to exclude or change the premium cost -- so, should the individual be diagnosed with something they can, after the fact, still purchase coverage. Basically it is like being able to buy a lottery ticket AFTER the number have been drawn. It is an inherently unstable and unsustainable system."


"With no written agreement in place, the ""right"" rate is whatever both parties can agree to. I could argue that I could have invested the money in S&P 500 index funds and made about 9% annually over the last 15 years and the 15,000 would have been over 40,000. The ""fair"" rate would be whatever rate of return could have been expected from whatever your father would have done with the money otherwise - keep it in a bank account, pay off debt, invest in the market, start a business, whatever. Your father has the benefit of hindsight to know what would have been a good use of the funds over 15 years. Using the rate of inflation results in effectively a zero-percent loan in real interest terms (meaning no profit was made, just accounting for the time value of money). Both parties need to either decide on an amount or equivalent rate, or decide if squeezing the other for a few thousand Euros is worth the strife."


You've never heard of Halliburton? Granted that was Cheney. Cheney received received $398,548 in deferred compensation from Halliburton while Vice President. Don't remember him going to jail. And let's not forget the Bush's. They had numerous investments in oil companies. What's the best way to drive up oil prices? War in the Middle East of course. Vice President/President Gerald Ford also was criticized for his investments. This nothing new. Presidents are allowed to continue to operate their businesses. And I can't think of a single one that was ever punished for doing that. Honestly what I like about Trump compared with other Republicans is the fact he has no interest in war. He has absolutely nothing to gain from war. And every interest in peace. War would probably hurt his businesses. Look at the cease fire in Syria. Look at how he ended a CIA program arming Syrian rebels. That very different from what was happening under Obama and Clinton at the State Department.


"All this ""dirty laundry"" talk is really dumb. I'm very close to someone who was in a boar meeting 2 weeks before this happened and I can tell you that all this is justa result of Pandit not getting along or not living up to the expectations of the president of the board. He told Pandit he didnt think he was doing so good, Pandit told him he thought he was doing great and said ""if you dont like it I can leave"". 2 days later he was gone"


There are other ways to pay for college besides loans. Like joining the military. EDIT: Please explain why this comment was downvoted. It's a statement of fact. My best friend paid for his college via ROTC and is doing much better in in his post-military civilian career than other peers who opted to go the direct college route.


I've had zero taxable income for the past 2 years and yet the calculations say I owe the government $250 for each year for the Self Employment tax. How can they charge a non-zero tax on my income when my taxable income is zero? That is theft. That demands reform.


"I hear you (and those answering) use the words ""my money"" (or ""me to pay for stuff"") The sooner that ends, the better off you'll both be. My wife and I do have our own checking accounts that we maintain so she can write a check without notifying me, or I can buy her a birthday/mother's day/ etc gift without it showing in the joint account, but nearly all money flows through our joint account. Before we were married, the joint bank accounts were opened as was the joint brokerage account. You need to work on the budget as a single project and without judging. It's good that your incomes are similar, it makes the dynamics of pooling seem more fair, but for those where one spouse is making far more than the other, the impulse to 'chip in' equally towards bills leaves the lower earner with nothing. Will your wife go back to work after a maternity leave? Once she's back, and working for a time, things will settle down a bit. There's a postpartum time that's difficult. Women who have been through it will tell you that it can be pretty bad, and the best a guy can do is be understanding and supportive. As long as you are talking ""we"" with your wife, she'll see that you are both in it together. At the risk of sounding sexist, Women's clothing needs are different than men's. I could get away with owning 5 suits which could be replaced at the rate of one per year. If not for my wife, I can see in my own daughter how clothing makes her feel good about herself, and while I'm frugal with most of our budget, my clothing questions are 2 - Will it last? & Will it match other pieces you have? Therefore, clothing gets a line item all its own in the budget. There are a number of financial things to consider, but I see you are in the UK, so I'll generalize. In the States, there are pretax benefits to help care for a child under 13 (called a dependent care account) and for medical expenses not covered by insurance (called flexible spending account). These let you take money from your pay pretax to use for specific expenses. If UK offers similar, I invite a user to edit the detail into my answer. Last - once the kid comes into our lives, there's little room for many of the late teen/early 20's spending. Comics? DVDs? Those are the low hanging fruit of wasted money. Saving for retirement, and for University for the kid take priority. I'm not one to quote cliches but a friend once offered this observation - ""If you are not happy but your wife is happy, you are still far happier than if you were happy but your wife is not happy."""


Perhaps this is lasting result of the recession. I realize that the article specifically states that Lego notably grew and profited through the recession. However, other parts of society and other markets didn't. Now, years later, perhaps those other scenarios are affecting Lego's market. Specifically, I'm drawing a parallel to my personal experience. My kids were born just before the recession. Their grade is the largest grade in the school system. Every grade behind them (the kids born during the recession) is significantly smaller. Whatever the driver(s) was, people were having fewer kids during the recession. Further, although the general view is that the recession is over and the stock markets are back, household spending and income continues to stagnate. With fewer kids and a reluctance to spend, perhaps people in the US and Europe just aren't buying as many premium toys.


> Say profits are 100mil, and a dividend is payed. Say 50 mil worth is payed out as dividend and 30 mil is kept as retained earnings for future investment. This does not equate. Out of net income, it is only possible to either reinvest (retained earning) or payout (repurchase or dividend). You can't have a $20m gap there. > Can the remaining 20 mil be distributed to shareholders A and B, so that they both get 10mil each? What makes them entitled to a separate, special dividend over the other shareholders? > Can certain shareholders be favored and get a bigger cut of profits than the dividends pay out is my question basically. It kinda sounds like you're describing preferred equity, but doing it in a rather round-about way.


I'd imagine it is the same for an adult. The money probably gets withdrawn and that's it. However, if the scammer were to go to a branch in person, I'd imagine there would need to be some sort of photo identification to withdraw money. If it were online, then the scammer would also need the account holder's username and password. Either way, chances are that once the money is gone, it's gone - unless the scammer can be found. Even then, the scammer might not have that money anymore.


You are correct. She cannot claim the initial loss of $1,000 on her taxes, she can only report the $500 profit. However, the IRS does allow her to add the $1,000 loss to the basis cost of her replacement shares. e.g.


Some things will get better (technological advances) and some will get worse (war) and who is president will have only the most peripheral influence on these things. Plan for the economy to reflect an increasing dependence on automation and a decreasing dependence on human labor. Social sciences will need to redefine what 'work' means to a population increasingly geared towards disassociation from the means of production.


The main things to ask about are going to revolve around the best way to structure your business. Know what your plans are for partnership. Know whether or not you'll need a lot of up front capital, and if you'll be subjected to an abnormal amount of risk in the course of day to day operations. If you'll be working with one or more partners, ask for help with an operating agreement. You'll find out whether or not you need an accountant throughout these discussions. Edit: Going through those points will enable your lawyer to help you file under the appropriate structure. Ask for help with anything you're unsure about.


Public Securities Association Standard Prepayment Model is what the acronym psa stands for. My understanding is that it allows for adjustments in monthly pre-payment amounts, which will then affect the yield of the bond. Not really sure what the most important bond measure would be... but if I had to guess I'd say its the mechanical bond price/ bond yield relationship. Yields go down, prices go up and vice versa.


Paying off the high-interest debt is a good first start. Paying interest, or compound interest on debt is like paying somebody to make you poor. As for your 401k, you want to contribute enough to get the full match from your employer. You might also consider checking out the fees associated with your 401k with an online fee analyzer. If it turns out you're getting reamed with fees, you can reduce them by fiddling with your investments. Checking your investment options is always a good idea since jobs frequently change them. Opening an IRA is a good call. If you're eligible for both Roth and Traditional IRAs, consider the following: Most financial institutions (brokers or banks) can help you open an IRA in a matter of minutes. If you shop around, you will find very cheap or even no fee options. Many brokers might try to get your business by giving away something for ‘free.' Just make sure you read the fine print so you understand the conditions of their promotional offer. Whichever IRA you choose, you want to make sure that it's managed properly. Some people might say, ‘go for it, do it yourself’ but I strongly disagree with that approach. Stock picking is a waste of time and market timing rarely works. I'd look into flat fee financial advisors. You have lots of options. Just make sure they hear you out, and can design/execute an investment plan specific to your needs At a minimum, they should: Hope this is helpful.


its about going all in instead of lets say keeping a half time job as backup, or maybe its about not doing something that is best for the business and doing something that will be easier to get rid of in case things dont work out (a different way of not going all in)


What a bunch of idiots, I worked for Lowe's and their entire computer backend is ancient as fuck and a huge mess. I don't know if they still do it but before I left they bought a shit ton of iphones for basically scanning a product's tag so it can show you the product in front of you, only now on an iphone screen. They basically were trying to force you to use these iphones but they didn't really have a purpose, they did what we already did only now with an extra layer of obfuscation. And then once you were done with the phone if you had to do any kind of ordering or lookup you had to get on the computer anyways and enter all your shit into their ancient backend anyways. Product counts were never even reliable, someone always fucked something at some point in time so it might be accurate, it might say you have -2 products, it might say you have 3 products when the store only stocks one at a time. Plus all the crazy stupid shit they make employees do on computers, or take shitty tests to learn about what you are selling, except you have been selling those products you are just now suppose to be learning about for the past 6 months already.


Bond ETFs are traded like normal stock. It just so happens to be that the underlying fund (for which you own shares) is invested in bonds. Such funds will typically own many bonds and have them laddered so that they are constantly maturing. Such funds may also trade bonds on the OTC market. Note that with bond ETFs you're able to lose money as well as gain depending on the situation with the bond market. The issuer of the bond does not need to default in order for this to happen. The value of a bond (and thus the value of the bond fund which holds the bonds) is, much like a stock, determined based on factors like supply/demand, interest rates, credit ratings, news, etc.


> But so long as the incremental improvement to your bottom line is there, the investment is sound, with or without taxes. wat If E(ROA)>0 it's a sound investment? Not at all. > any investment the company makes that improves their net income automatically means more money for the company Where is this money coming from? If it's debt-financed it escapes corporate tax rate because interest payments are deductible. Is it coming from the company's retained earnings? We have less of that now because we hiked up the corporate tax rate. Your argument also neglects the impact corporate taxes have on equity financing and corporate leverage.


I would recommend to live in Harrison area if you work in Jersey City. Less city life but also lower living cost.


I personally keep my LinkedIn and personal website updated and go to plenty of developer meetings. Fuck stagnation.I'm not about to work in a field for a single penny less than I make now. If I was doing development the company culture should be better and management should be respectful of my time at the least, but trying to work for the pittance they try to put out is ridiculous when you know your skills will earn them double what you make (or more.)


"Not in the case of Steve Jobs! He failed with Lisa, Macintosh, Newton, Next, almost brought Apple to bankruptcy, loss control of his company, and a terrible personality. His ""success"" was the work of many gray people whom he took advantage of. Apple II was all Steve Wozniak idea and creation. Also the iPod and iPhone are other people ideas and creations. Steve, was very good in marketing. Excellent in that area. That's it."


"My question boiled down: Do stock mutual funds behave more like treasury bonds or commodities? When I think about it, it seems that they should respond the devaluation like a commodity. I own a quantity of company shares (not tied to a currency), and let's assume that the company only holds immune assets. Does the real value of my stock ownership go down? Why? On December 20, 1994, newly inaugurated President Ernesto Zedillo announced the Mexican central bank's devaluation of the peso between 13% and 15%. Devaluing the peso after previous promises not to do so led investors to be skeptical of policymakers and fearful of additional devaluations. Investors flocked to foreign investments and placed even higher risk premia on domestic assets. This increase in risk premia placed additional upward market pressure on Mexican interest rates as well as downward market pressure on the Mexican peso. Foreign investors anticipating further currency devaluations began rapidly withdrawing capital from Mexican investments and selling off shares of stock as the Mexican Stock Exchange plummeted. To discourage such capital flight, particularly from debt instruments, the Mexican central bank raised interest rates, but higher borrowing costs ultimately hindered economic growth prospects. The question is how would they pull this off if it's a floatable currency. For instance, the US government devalued the US Dollar against gold in the 30s, moving one ounce of gold from $20 to $35. The Gold Reserve Act outlawed most private possession of gold, forcing individuals to sell it to the Treasury, after which it was stored in United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox and other locations. The act also changed the nominal price of gold from $20.67 per troy ounce to $35. But now, the US Dollar is not backed by anything, so how do they devalue it now (outside of intentionally inflating it)? The Hong Kong Dollar, since it is fixed to the US Dollar, could be devalued relative to the Dollar, going from 7.75 to 9.75 or something similar, so it depends on the currency. As for the final part, ""does the real value of my stock ownership go down"" the answer is yes if the stock ownership is in the currency devalued, though it may rise over the longer term if investors think that the value of the company will rise relative to devaluation and if they trust the market (remember a devaluation can scare investors, even if a company has value). Sorry that there's too much ""it depends"" in the answer; there are many variables at stake for this. The best answer is to say, ""Look at history and what happened"" and you might see a pattern emerge; what I see is a lot of uncertainty in past devaluations that cause panics."


I can't decide what to do about apple. Huge market share, huge gobs of cash that they don't know what to do with, huge eps and potential to be the best dividend stock of all time. But they have basically one product that carries the entire organization, the i-phone, which i personally don't like. How do i think about that company? Is it super low risk, or actually super high risk? I just don't know.


WRONG. Assuming each account has the same investment option the rate of return is not dependent on the initial amount of money in the account, but rather the allocation amongst said investment. Suppose based on your investment allocation in either account you gain 10% interest over the year. In the first scenario your ending balance will be (30000+4800)*1.10 = $38,280. In the second scenario your first account will be worth 30000*1.10 = $33,000, and the second account will be worth 4800*1.10 = 5280, for a total of 33000+5280 = $38,280.


This is what helped me. - I did my own taxes - get your own job, not from your parents, or parents friends, but entirely by yourself. Complete independence will equate to financial independence - Wikipedia (for specifics and definitions) paired with finance genre movies - audiobook, or YouTube video, 'why an economy grows, and why it doesnt' That's a good start. Good luck! Don't be too gung ho to invest and all that crap, you got lots too learn. Rule 1: don't be too eager, that's how you lose all your money! My best financial investments to date were: 1) my education (engineering) 2) I didn't pay my student loan off, instead, I bought a property, and I made $70,000 in 8 months off of one, and $100,000 off of another one in 2 years, 3) still making minimum payments on my student loan, a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow 4) pack my own lunches every day, eating out every meal ends up costing more than most mortgage payments. This is in Vancouver BC, Canada.


"Oh that's easy just google relevant deals and you should find CIMs online. Here is a link to an example. I just googled ""confidential information memorandum"". I'd air on the side of caution in having these shared directly from a client considering the information is confidential. https://barbadosunderground.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/cahill-energy-translation_seekpanda-english1.pdf"


"As you clarified in the comments, it is not a contract work but rather an additional temporary assignment with the same employer. You were paid for it in form of a ""bonus"" - one time irregular payment, instead of regular periodic payments. Irregular wage payments fall under the flat rate withholding rule (the 25% for Federal, some States have similar rules for State withholding). This is not taxes, this is withholding. Withholding is money the employer takes from your salary and forwards to the IRS on the account of your tax liability, but it is not in itself your tax liability. When you do your annual tax return, you'll calculate the actual tax you were supposed to pay, and the difference between what was withheld and your actual tax will be refunded to you (or owed by you, if not enough was withheld). You can control the regular pay withholding using W4 form."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/richmondfedorg/publications/research/working_papers/2017/pdf/wp17-12.pdf) reduced by 98%. (I'm a bot) ***** > 7 3 Local Dynamics The local dynamics of the simple search and matching model have been studied by Krause and Lubik. > In the previous literature, for example Mendes and Mendes and Bhattacharya and Bunzel, the backward dynamics are defined via the map g by rearranging to isolate &theta;t :  1/&xi; &theta;t = a&theta;t+1 c&theta;t+1 + d = g. 11 Under risk aversion, the dynamics depend on the time path of output yt. > 4.2 Stability Properties We now study the dynamics of the backward map zt = f. We first establish the properties of the function f. We then study the stability properties of the steady state, where we distinguish between two broad areas of dynamics in the backward map, namely stable and unstable. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/788alk/fed_global_dynamics_in_a_search_and_matching/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~233564 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*: **dynamic**^#1 **model**^#2 **0.1**^#3 **1**^#4 **map**^#5"


"The weird thing is that if you use the credit impact simulators with the credit monitoring services, they show that the impact of paying your credit cards off completely is more negative than carrying a small balance, which doesn't make a great deal of sense, one would think. From what I can gather, the rationale is that carrying a small balance shows you making payments over time, as opposed to having a zero balance. This doesn't quite compute with me, but I don't truly understand the inner workings of the scoring models. To confirm this, I used simulators with both TransUnion and Experian, and both showed this. I know that it's easy to find people on both sides of this argument, so I can't say which is the best option (certainly whichever side someone falls on is the one they'll argue is the right one! chuckle). In all fairness, your best tool is time. The effects of your prior bad decisions will lessen over time as they move further away in your history and then disappear altogether. Obtaining a credit card just because you think you need one is not a compelling argument, by any means. If you can't rationalize reasons why you need it then maybe you should question the wisdom of such a decision. If you don't have a particular need for better credit right now, why be in a hurry to take on debt? Whatever the formulas are for calculating credit scores, the specific details are a pretty closely-guarded secret (they're proprietary for starters, plus it theoretically prevents people from ""gaming the system"" for a better score), but if you do enough research online, you can get a pretty good sense of how they work in general. Whatever you do with your credit should be in line with your overall financial goals. If you want to remain debt-free (at least for now) then having a credit card you can't otherwise justify a need for just introduces temptations which could prove tough to resist (""wants"" quickly turn into ""needs"" when you can put it on a card you pay later), then you're right back in the same place you were earlier in your life. Instead of trying to figure out the ""best strategy"" for a credit card, first ask yourself how necessary it is to you right now in light of your financial objectives, then go from there. I hope this helps. Good luck!"


Let me explain this for you: - Massive decrease in sales from 2009-2010= bad government (Obama/Bernanke). - Even bigger increase in sales from 2010-2013= substantive economic growth due to a well-run company. - Later downturn in 2013-2014= bad government (Obama/Bernanke) Basically, when a company is increasing overall revenue and profits, that's because economics and free-markets. When a company is losing sales and revenues, that's because Obama. If their stock-price goes up when it shouldn't, that's also because Obama. Stock prices that are high right now are only high because Obama/Bernanke, except when they are high because of something else. When stock prices go down, it will also be because of Obama/Bernanke. Hopefully that clarifies things for you.


I tried to find that out once, and learned 'theoretically never'. The reason is that the guy who gave you the check (name him guy-1) might have deposited a check from guy-2 a day before, and without that money, his check will bounce. Now guy-2 might have deposited a check from guy-3 a day before, and without that money, his check will bounce. Repeat for a while, and then bounce the check from guy-99, and it takes the banks months to unravel it. Yes, improbable. But. A friend working in a bank explained me that, he had seen chains of three and four unravel, which took 20+ days.


"That would have been right after he started. He started immediately before the 9/11 attack. The stock pretty consistently lost value for years as GE Capital disintegrated. The 2007/8 economic dip hit GE's money business like a city bus as they owned a bunch of consumer debt (some of the shittiest debt around). Lately, Jeff hasn't been able to sneeze without the stock price dipping. Their ""digital"" push is more a punchline than a real business movement. The company needs some direction. Buy or sell the right parts. Quit focusing on quarterly cost cutting as a means to meet unrealistic goals. Etc. The company needs new leadership, if only for the optics to the market."


"I always used Uber until one day they just stopped accepting any payment method I added! No matter what I used, credit cards, debit cards, Paypal, it always claimed that it was an invalid payment method. I worked with Uber support for weeks to resolve this, including being given access to their super-secret web-based option that requires them to explicitly enable for you. THAT worked exactly one time, then I was right back where I was. I created a Lyft account out of desperation, and it worked every time with the same payment methods that Uber had issues with. So, I used Lyft exclusively for awhile. The only difference I noticed was that Uber drivers, at least for awhile, seemed to be professionals in other industries who drive for fun or just extra cash. I would ride with someone who's day job was providing IT consulting for area casinos, and it was always a really fascinating conversation! Conversations with Lyft drivers tended to center around how they had just done a title loan against the REALLY old car I was driving in, because he lost everything in the divorce and couldn't get back on his feet… Eventually, I found that my issue with Uber was a ""family"" profile I had created and forgotten about that included debit card information that had expired, and once I deleted the profile, things worked again. (NEVER got any feedback from their support department when I shared this with them) So now I tend to favor Lyft just because of the issues with Uber's corporate culture. I was in a LOT of start-ups during Silicon Valley's heyday, and even though I encountered some levels of misogyny, anything even remotely close to the stories I've heard out of Uber would have caused an uproar!"


"Why does the value of gold go up when gold itself doesn't produce anything? Why do people invest in gold? Your perception, that the value of gold goes up in the long run, is based on the price of gold measured in your favorite paper currency, for example the US Dollar. An increasing price of gold means that in the visible gold market, market participants are willing to exchange more paper currency units for the same amount of gold. There are many possible reasons for this: While HFT became extremely important for the short term price movements, I will continue with long term effects, excluding HFT. So when - as a simple thought experiment - the amount of available paper currency units (US $ or whatever) doubles, and the amount of goods and services in an economy stay the same, you can expect that the price of everything in this economy will double, including gold. You might perceive that the value of gold doubled. It did not. It stayed the same. The number of printed dollars doubled. The value of gold is still the same, its price doubled. Does the amount of paper currency units grow over time? Yes: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE/ In this answer my term ""paper currency units"" includes dollars that exist only as digits in bank accounts and ""printing currency"" includes creating those digits in bank accounts out of thin air. So the first answer: gold holds its value while the value of paper currency units shrinks over time. So gold enables you to pass wealth to the next generation (while hiding it from your government). That gold does not produce anything is not entirely true. For those of us mortals who have only a few ounces, it is true. But those who have tons can lease it out and earn interest. (in practice it is leased out multiple times, so multiple that gain. You might call this fraud, and rightfully so. But we are talking about tons of gold. Nobody who controls tons of physical gold goes to jail yet). Let's talk about Fear. You see, the perceived value of gold increases as more paper currency is printed. And markets price in expected future developments. So the value of gold rises, if a sufficient number of wealthy people fear the the government(s) will print too much paper currency. Second Answer: So the price of gold not only reflects the amount of paper currency, it is also a measurement of distrust in government(s). Now you might say something is wrong with my argument. The chart mentioned above shows that we have now (mid 2015) 5 times as much printed currency units than we had 2008. So the price of gold should be 5 times as high as 2008, assuming the amount of distrust in governments stayed the same. There must be more effects (or I might be completely wrong. You decide). But here is one more effect: As the price of gold is a measurement of distrust in governments (and especially the US government since the US Dollar is perceived as the reserve currency), the US government and associated organizations are extremely interested in low gold prices to prove trust. So people familiar with the topic believe that the price of gold (and silver) is massively manipulated to the downside using high frequency trading and shorts in the futures markets by US government and wall street banks to disprove distrust. And wall street banks gain huge amounts of paper currency units by manipulating the price, mostly to the downside. Others say that countries like china and russia are also interested in low gold prices because they want to buy as much physical gold as possible. Knowing of the value that is not reflected by the price at the moment. Is there one more source of distrust in governments? Yes. Since 1971, all paper currencies are debt. They receive their value by the trust that those with debt are willing and able to pay back their debt. If this trust is lost, the downward manipulation (if you think that such a thing exists) of the gold and silver prices in the futures markets might fail some day. If this is the case (some say when this is the case). you might see movements in gold and silver prices that bring them back to equilibrium with the amount of printed paper currencies. In times of the roman empire you got a good toga and a pair of handmade shoes for an ounce of gold. In our days, you get a nice suite and a good pair of shoes for an ounce of gold. In the mean time, the value of each paper currency in the history of each country went to zero and the US $ lost 98% of its initial value. As long as there is not enough distrust, more paper currency is made in equity markets and bond markets on average. (Be aware that you earn that currency only after you were able to sell at this price, not while you hold it) Gerd"


"While it is not common, it is also not ""uncommon."" A subtle distinction. If you are poor, you almost certainly get some kind of government assistance (not even talking about Obamacare or Trumpcare, but just general assistance.) If you are middle class or rich, that is where you get hit the most. They seem to realize you ""can't get blood from a stone"" and don't try to get payment out of poor people. But middle class and rich people, yes it just takes longer but they do hang in there with billing. My own experience is that years and years ago (way before Obamacare) I had a time in the hospital with a lot of tests, but I was poor and sleeping on a relatives floor at the time. I got all the tests I needed, and they took great care of me, and the hospital wrote it off as ""charity care."""


Mixing friendship and money, whether that's loans or landlording, is risky. Often things work out, but sometimes the unexpected happens, and it doesn't. If things go wrong, are you prepared to walk away from either the friendship or the money? After you've considered that, the next question is how your roommates feel about the deal. You're looking to charge your friends $2000 to rent part of a property that, from the sound of it, they could rent much cheaper from a stranger. Maybe the market is different in Cleveland, but in my area, I'd expect to pay $2000 in rent for a place worth closer to $300,000 than $100,000. Have your roommates expressed interest in the idea, and have you discussed dollar values with them? Are you still interested if they ended up paying $1600 in rent? $1000?


Bake backup to azure into their new powercli releases. Force poor saps like me who certify with microsoft products learn about their cloud so we can parrot back the marketing material to our corporate masters. Build a pretty flexible product that isn't junk (so I hear). EDIT: My VMware is showing. Powercli should be Powershell.


I'm fairly convinced there is no difference whatsoever between dividend payment and capital appreciation. It only makes financial sense for the stock price to be decreased by the dividend payment so over the course of any specified time interval, without the dividend the stock price would have been that much higher were the dividends not paid. Total return is equal. I think this is like so many things in finance that seem different but actually aren't. If a stock does not pay a dividend, you can synthetically create a dividend by periodically selling shares. Doing this would incur periodic trade commissions, however. That does seem like a loss to the investor. For this reason, I do see some real benefit to a dividend. I'd rather get a check in the mail than I would have to pay a trade commission, which would offset a percentage of the dividend. Does anybody know if there are other hidden fees associated with dividend payments that might offset the trade commissions? One thought I had was fees to the company to establish and maintain a dividend-payment program. Are there significant administrative fees, banking fees, etc. to the company that materially decrease its value? Even if this were the case, I don't know how I'd detect or measure it because there's such a loose association between many corporate financials (e.g. cash on hand) and stock price.


"Hahaha the good old argument of authority. China made more progress on medicine by massively training doctors after it's revolution and sending them to rural areas. Comparatively, in the same development phase, the US was full of medicine shows selling snake oil to gullible idiots. In Europe, the public sector is the only one that can authorize a drug and is the only buyer (monopsony) ensuring drug prices remain low and that drugs like opioids never make it to people... The USA is one of the richest countries in earth, yet you perform worst that ALL other developed countries in health outcomes and health costs as a proportion of your GDP.. but sure, you're the ""experts"", you know something we don't.. probably how to rip people off."


BTC is infinitely divisble. RIGHT NOW it's only up to 8 decimals. But if needed, more can be added. But the only way I see that happening is if a satoshi is somehow worth more than $1. If that happens though, even people with a fraction of a bitcoin will be millionaires.


No. Not directly. A company issues stock in order to raise capital for building its business. Once the initial shares are sold to the public, the company doesn't receive additional funds from future transactions of those shares of stock between the public. However, the company could issue more shares at the new higher price to raise more capital.


What's to prevent a leaner, meaner competitor from coming into the market and out-competing a PBC that isn't focused on offering the best product for the lowest price? It seems nice, but unsustainable for any single business as long as they don't have a monopoly on the market they're in.


> pay more in taxes in a day than you will in a lifetime. That literally has nothing to do with anything, aside from how Koch Industries receives incredible amounts of tax breaks and subsidies, even while selling chemicals to Iran and such other despicable acts.


Good post - just to note to self to add my comments this weekend A couple thoughts that came to mind (sorry, was working on an idea this weekend): * When comparing companies, reviewing accounting policies in detail for any substantive differences. A notable example would be telecom companies who expense wireless subsidies vs. capitalizing them - obviously makes a large difference in a EBITDA-based * I always approach a company from a SOTP perspective... hidden assets or otherwise, many businesses have various segments, which if they can be reliably broken off, provide good insight into underlying op performance * If appropriate (i.e. will never be reinvested), tax-adjusting cash balances that are offshore * Cyclical industries, always compare on a mid-cycle basis * Dynamic schedules (i.e. at various prices) for dilutive instruments and proceeds thereof. For most large caps this is not relevant, but for certain industries it is much more popular (e.g. resource, tech)


That hurt them I admit, but I think it just accelerated an already growing trend of Chipotle's quality going to shit. I've eaten there twice recently and it just tasted so bland. I did notice the whole staff was white high school kids so that may play a role, I wouldn't expect them to make an amazing burrito. No offence to them or anything but I wouldn't expect an Asian person to make an amazing lasagna either. [I wonder if the trouble they got into for hiring illegal immigrants a few years back forced them to get rid of their talent?](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-05-24/chipotles-undocumented-worker-problem-resurges) Because right now it's mediocre at best. [Shout out to Freebirds.](https://freebirds.com/)


"This is only partly true. The main problem is that the average person is not a fully informed healthcare consumer. For example if you go to your local doctor with lower back pain: One doctor might prescribe a whole bunch of expensive diagnostics tests; another might tell you to go to a physiotherapist; and yet another might tell you to take some cheap pain killers and come back in six weeks time if nothing has changed. Most people will have no way of knowing which is the best course of action. Then, in a country like the US which is very litigiousness, all the doctors will recommend the most comprehensive and expensive care-package so that they don't get sued. Ultimately economists do not work in healthcare and are not qualified to recommend the best financial model for healthcare delivery. To quote Donney ""Who knew that healthcare was so complicated?"" certainly not the economists."


So you're saying as long as they are always slightly up investors will be happy? I can believe that. Also, here is some evidence to support you. http://www.hedgeweek.com/2017/07/20/254194/hfr-reports-hedge-funds-allocations-beat-redemptions Though you have to admit negative returns must be especially hard to own to your investors when everything is up


"How is it rhetorical? Of course it can be answered, it's based on an actual concern and actual research done by other economists and it invokes discussion. Being called a ""Debbie Downer"" is just an ad hominem that translates to: I don't like the way question you're making cause it's sad, so I'm just not going to answer it"


> since there are apparently some people dumb enough still not to get it, How can one not get it? The whole internet knows the bull story. You need to ask yourselves why the actual battery companies balked at building plants for his cars and he has to go out and do it himself.


She will have no problem finding a job elsewhere if Zynga goes sour. Their engineers are very talented because they pay high and they are very selective. People in the industry know that. Whether the company makes money or not only affects her bonus. In the mean time, enjoy the big salary and the benefits.


Why do savings accounts for businesses offer less yield than bank accounts for individuals? The money held in savings account on a collective average substantial amount stays with the Bank. The Bank is better able to predict and thus invest this money in individual savings account in market to make more money. Money held in Business accounts are unpredictable and can get withdrawn, the Bank is thus not able to predict the behaviour and hence not able to invest this better to get good returns, hence the interest offered is low. Most Banks have special products for Businesses that would give better return but come with some kind of lock-in or minimum balances.


I have a Surface RT and I am pretty happy with it. Not sure what you mean by 'not compatible', considering I use googledrive and onedrive to transfer my D&D PDF's and Inventory Excel sheets and Spellbook Word files between it and my Win7 Desktop. It's entirely compatible, you just can't install .exe applications. Which, I grant you, is frustrating when it's just so close to a full system. But it's way more compatible with my desktop than an ipad or android. Also, the Surface RT and Surface Pro both released at the same time. I will grant you that was a marketing mistake, and they should have had a more obvious name difference because one is a full fledged computer in tablet form, and the other is a hybrid.


"> Neither is synonymous with ""the American Dream"" -- self employment is not necessary to achieve it. You can't really ""achieve it"" if you're working for some other man. This might change in the future, but in today's environment working for other people is an oppressive abusive relationship where you never get paid what you're worth and you are only there to help someone else get a leg up."


Your preferred answer: It's not debt, it's magic. It never has to be paid back. Ok, go ahead tell us all you know about QE and how it isn't debt. Your half baked version of the socratic method isn't working too well.


It’s 60-70% of US transportation. Not ICE passenger transport. Around 60% of that is for LD vehicles. Down to around 35% of the total. Global oil consumption is different that US oil consumption though. Many countries are not as heavily saturated by vehicles on a per capital basis as the US. It’s possible the stat I was reading was around 20% could be eligible for replacement by electric. Other important note: Most vehicles are considered “electric” even if they are simply Hybrids that use an ICE to charge a battery.


I don't have subscription myself, but I know somebody who does. I think it is actually pretty expensive what they do. They have millions of old records from all over the world scanned and digitized. Somebody has to go to all the archives, request the documents and scan them in. They have records that are hundresds of years old and you won't find otherwise on the internet.


Dropping college enrollments is more a function of a healthy economy and low unemployment. It will pop again once the next recession comes. College is cyclical, like many other businesses. Don't use this as an excuse not to improve yourself and your skills!


> Second, ensure your product experience is outstanding, creating ongoing repeat from happy consumers. TiVo's customer experience IS outstanding. I have been a loyal TiVo DVR user since 2003 and their interface and feature set is greatly superior to the junk DVRs that the cable companies provide. The problem for TiVo seems to be overcoming the convenience and cost benefits that the cable company provides with their inferior product. What would have been an ideal business model for TiVo would have been to get cable companies to offer TiVo boxes - or cable boxes with the TiVo interface, perhaps as an upsell product from ther basic DVR. I honestly believe that if a user tried a TiVo for a short period of time they would choose to pay a little extra for it.


In Chicago, for HD and dvr, typical price for phone/internet/tv bundle is about 100-120 a month. My parents pay double that because they make no effort to look for the deals. But that's for several hundred channels, not sure whether programming is comparable in France.