"The question that I walk away with is ""What is the cost of the downside protection?"" Disclaimer - I don't sell anything. I am not a fan of insurance as an investment, with rare exceptions. (I'll stop there, all else is a tangent) There's an appeal to looking at the distribution of stock returns. It looks a bit like a bell curve, with a median at 10% or so, and a standard deviation of 15 or so. This implies that there are some number of years on average that the market will be down, and others, about 2/3, up. Now, you wish to purchase a way of avoiding that negative return, and need to ask yourself what it's worth to do so. The insurance company tells you (a) 2% off the top, i.e. no dividends and (b) we will clip the high end, over 9.5%. I then am compelled to look at the numbers. Knowing that your product can't be bought and sold every year, it's appropriate to look at 10-yr rolling returns. The annual returns I see, and the return you'd have in any period. I start with 1900-2012. I see an average 9.8% with STD of 5.3%. Remember, the 10 year rolling will do a good job pushing the STD down. The return the Insurance would give you is an average 5.4%, with STD of .01. You've bought your way out of all risk, but at what cost? From 1900-2012, my dollar grows to $30080, yours, to $406. For much of the time, treasuries were higher than your return. Much higher. It's interesting to see how often the market is over 10% for the year, clip too many of those and you really lose out. From 1900-2012, I count 31 negative years (ouch) but 64 years over 9.5%. The 31 averaged -13.5%, the 64, 25.3%. The illusion of ""market gains"" is how this product is sold. Long term, they lag safe treasuries."


Many examples in Europe and other countries have shown once you break that barrier people will go to extreme lengths to avoid it. So much so back in the 80s in the UK tax rates over 75% were imposed, needless to say when they reduced it to 40% they actually got more money. Ultimately it does more harm than good to the economy and means well paid jobs leave the country and go elsewhere. The exact same thing is happening right now with the French moving to London. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18234930


I agree that religion shouldn't be protected. Let's get rid of this protection for Christians crap and let those little snowflakes realize that they don't get to push their make believe on others. Disability, the unifying factor is *the disability.* There's some non-able-bodied component. Sexual orientation is biological.


"Market cap is the current value of a company's equity and is defined as the current share price multiplied by the number of shares. Please check also ""enterprise value"" for another definition of a company`s total value (enterprise value = market cap adjusted for net nebt). Regarding the second part of your question: Issuing new shares usually does not affect market cap in a significant way because the newly issued shares often result in lower share prices and dilution of the existing share holders shares."


>**Most have three wheels and do not tilt. An exception is in Cambodia, where two different types of vehicles are called tuk-tuks, one of which (also known as a remorque) has four wheels and is composed of a motorcycle (which leans) and trailer (which does not)** Today i learned!


If you are looking to transfer money to another person in the US, you can do do with no tax consequence. The current annual gift limit is $14k per year per person, so for example, my wife and I can gift $56k to another couple with no tax and no forms. For larger amounts, there is a lifetime exclusion that taps into your $5M+ estate tax. It requires submitting a form 709, but just paperwork, no tax would be due. This is the simplest way to gift a large sum and not have any convoluted tracking or structured loan with annual forgiveness. One form and done. (If the sum is well over $5M you should consider a professional to guide you, not a Q&A board)


No, there is no downside. I personally don't use duplicate checks. I simply make a record of the checks I write in the check register. A copy of the check, whether a duplicate or a photo, isn't really proof of payment for anyone but yourself, as it is very easy to write a check after the fact and put a different date on it.


I'm probably being unduly harsh, but I only have my experience to draw on. Windshield wipers that the dealer could never get to work right Replacing brake lights every couple of months - dealer couldn't fix Am electronic 4wd system that fails twice, necessitating a transmission replacement at 30k miles. This was a brand new vehicle, all under warrant protection I used to travel a lot for work, with a lot of rental cars, and driven a lot of different cars. The GM products just always seemed a little more rattley with the worst seats for me. I had the misfortune of driving a Cruize in Europe for a few weeks and I've felt church pews that were luxurious compared to that thing - though the diesel motor (Opel made) was nice. I compare that to the Toyotas I've driven for a couple hundred thousand miles with nothing but maintenance, and that's where I struggle. Maybe they are better. But my experience hasn't gotten there yet.


I'm not a huge fan of tax-advantaged retirement accounts anyway, so I wouldn't fault you for not contributing even if you weren't likely to develop a disability. Do you have disability insurance? I hope so. If you already have the disease then you may not be able to get it now if you don't have it already because they may not cover existing conditions. If not, try to get it however you can. You may be able to withdraw the money without much problem if you can prove it's a permanent disability. (Information here.) Do you have 401(k) matching from your employer? If that match is vested in a reasonable period of time, then even with the penalties you'll end up ahead. Beyond that (this wasn't part of your question but I'm just trying to help) I'd think about what kind of work you can do after you can't work at your current job. You have the luxury of an early warning, so plan for it. Also, check out National Industries for the Blind. Our Lions Club sells some of the Skilcraft products (brooms) as fundraisers and they're quality products.


Because collective bargaining by the gov't and your employer is the only way that we've been able to combat some of the increases. An uninsured individual will be billed 4-10x what your insurance company would pay due to collective bargaining. The largest employers (Cisco, EMC, and others) are self-insured and pay health care providers to administer their plan. SMBs get the short end of the stick and pay much higher rates for less coverage because they don't have economies of scale. A public option would allow any uninsured individual to obtain health care at a reasonable, income-based cost.


"Maybe if people were paying them for their political opinions, that would be a valid argument, but people are paying them for their services. I would hope that they would do what they need to do to keep their company in business. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say ""boy, they did lay everybody in the company off and took a few local businesses with them, but they stood by their principles"". That's not what businesses are for."


As far as I know, you can have anybody be a beneficiary on life insurance while you are unmarried. Once you are married, you may or may not have to have your spouse sign off (I'm not sure if it's a state or federal law). People typically will have family, but it could just as easily be a waiter who gave you great service at a restaurant. I would suggest you look into creating a will. Within that will, you can: This way, it should not matter as much who the guardian is, but rather who is in control of the trust. I would imagine as long as your children are minors, the state would put them under your ex's custody (if they aren't already). Does that make sense?


I go out often to restaurants, and I've never had to wait more than 20 minutes with a reservation, and it's extremely rare than I have to wait more than 5 minutes. If you had to wait 2 hours you were not speaking up for yourself, and that's a horribly run restaurant.


Normally if the amount of a cashiers check is over $5,000, a bank (like Wells Fargo) may put a 10 business day hold on it to make sure the transaction is sound.


Definitely not with gift cards and to a lesser degree not even with debit cards. For most transactions they work the same but you'll run into problems when dealing with situations where a hold is placed that's higher than the transaction amount. This is the norm with gas purchases--at the time you run the card you don't know how much gas you're going to pump so they put through an authorization for some fixed amount--say $75 or $100. If you do not have this much available it will fail and you can't use the card to purchase the gas. Unless you're living paycheck to paycheck the debit card should work in this case but the gift card very well might not. I've also seen this happen on a larger scale with a car rental. A co-worker only had a debit card--and the substantial hold the rental car place wanted to put on the card was unacceptable.


They've pretty much shot any credibility they possessed. Follow the money.


Good grief! Ask a Republican to define their terminology to avoid conflict and confusion, and you get labeled a liberal. Honestly, the stupid labeling thing is one of the most obfuscating and idiotic parts of our political discourse these day. The idea here is to remove obfuscation so we can get to the point. Clarify yourself! You have declared paying government employees better than others is waste. You’ve also declared the current government delivery system is waste. But the whole system is NOT waste. Parse it out. You don’t want people paid more than a business can afford, right? So there is no financial loss? You don’t want a system in place that can’t afford to pay for itself, now or in the foreseeable future (after all, everyone should have a chance to recover), right? But when you say there is waste in the government, I have to be sure you are discussing complete value, including social, educational, technological, national, military, and not just budget. This is important because MY arguments hinge on the non-budget side, whereas yours seem to focus on the financial aspects. Not that these are the whole of either of our views. They are simply the focuses we have used in this discussion. So, stop with the cheap jabs, and we’ll continue. There are many wasteful aspects of the government. I agree with that. It there are many things the go ernment does that private industry either can’t or won’t do. Biggest of these is corporations will not go out of their way to protect their citizens. They will do what they are paid to do, and nothing else. The postal service will probably never be closed or privatized. If it were, however, I would love too see how the cost of delivery and the pay for delivery employees are affected. I agree the question of why government waste exists is the most important. But in order to see it clearly, we must get a lay of the land. We need to review two edge cases: 1) Where is the most waste? Why is it so extreme here? 2) Where is the least waste? Why is this part of the government more efficient? Then we can inspect the different influences in each system and explore why efficiency isn’t enforced or encouraged in so many government areas, and what can be done to improve efficiency, or if it is an area that the nation would do better with privatization instead.


Haha, aside from the fact that consensually choosing which career path you would like to go down is not at all akin to slavery and severely diminishes what actual slaves went (and in some places still go) through, even if your premise was right, your supposition is still wrong. People on the corner begging for money make a pretty decent amount of money with no employer. Certainly more than I make.


"It may seem weird but interest rates are set by a market. Risk is a very large component of the price that a saver will accept to deposit their money in a bank but not the only one. Essentially you are ""lending"" deposited cash to the bank that you put it in and they will lend it out at a certain risk to themselves and a certain risk to you. By diversifying who they lend to (corporations, home-buyers each other etc.) the banks mitigate a lot of the risk but lending to the bank is still a risky endeavour for the ""saver"" and the saver accepts a given interest rate for the amount of risk there is in having the money in that particular bank. The bank is also unable to diversify away all possible risk, but tries to do the best job it can. If a bank is seen to take bigger risks and therefore be in greater risk of failing (having a run on deposits) it must have a requisitely higher interest rates on deposits compared to a lower risk bank. ""Savers"" therefore ""shop around"" for the best interest rate for a given level of risk which sets the viable interest rate for that bank; any higher and the bank would not make a profit on the money that it lends out and so would not be viable as a business, any lower and savers would not deposit their money as the risk would be too high for the reward. Hence competition (or lack of it) will set the rate as a trade off between risk and return. Note that governments are also customers of the banking industry when they are issuing fixed income securities (bonds) and a good deal of the lending done by any bank is to various governments so the price that they borrow money at is a key determinant of what interest rate the bank can afford to give and are part of the competitive banking industry whether they want to be or not. Since governments in most (westernised) countries provide insurance for deposits the basic level of (perceived) risk for all of the banks in any given country is about the same. That these banks lend to each other on an incredibly regular basis (look into the overnight or repo money market if you want to see exactly how much, the rates that these banks pay to and receive from each other are governed by interbank lending rates called Libor and Euribor and are even more complicated than this answer) simply compounds this effect because it makes all of the banks reliant on each other and therefore they help each other to stay liquid (to some extent). Note that I haven't mentioned currency at all so far but this market in every country applies over a number of currencies. The way that this occurs is due to arbitrage; if I can put foreign money into a bank in a country at a rate that is higher than the rate in its native country after exchange costs and exchange rate risk I will convert all of my money to that currency and take the higher interest rate. For an ordinary individual's savings that is not really possible but remember that the large multinational banks can do exactly the same thing with billions of dollars of deposits and effectively get free money. This means that either the bank's interest rate will fall to a risk adjusted level or the exchange rate will move. Either of those moves will remove the potential for making money for nothing. In this case, therefore it is both the exchange rate risk (and costs) as well as the loan market in that country that set the interest rate in foreign currencies. Demand for loans in the foreign currency is not a major mover for the same reason. Companies importing from foreign entities need cash in foreign currencies to pay their bills and so will borrow money in other currencies to fulfil these operations which could come from deposits in the foreign currency if they were available at a lower interest rate than a loan in local currency plus the costs of exchange but the banks will be unwilling to loan to them for less than the highest return that they can get so will push up interest rates to their risk level in the same way that they did in the market before currencies were taken into account. Freedom of movement of foreign currencies, however, does move interest rates in foreign currencies as the banks want to be able to lend as much of currencies that are not freely deliverable as they can so will pay a premium for these currencies. Other political moves such as the government wanting to borrow large amounts of foreign currency etc. will also move the interest rate given for foreign currencies not just because loaning to the government is less risky but also because they sometimes pay a premium (in interest) for being able to borrow foreign currency which may balance this out. Speculation that a country may change its base interest rate will move short term rates, and can move long term rates if it is seen to be a part of a country's economic strategy. The theory behind this is deep and involved but the tl;dr answer would be the standard ""invisible hand"" response when anything market or arbitrage related is involved. references: I work in credit risk and got a colleague who is also a credit risk consultant and economist to look over it. Arbitrage theory and the repo markets are both fascinating so worth reading about!"


You are currently $30k in debt. I realize it is tempting to purchase a new car with your new job, but increasing your debt right now is heading in the wrong direction. Adding a new monthly payment into your budget would be a mistake, in my opinion. Here is what I would suggest. Since you have $7k in the bank, spend up to $6k on a nice used car. This will keep $1k in the bank for emergencies, and give you transportation without adding debt and a monthly payment. Then you can focus on knocking out the student loans. Won't it be nice when those student loans are gone? By not going further into debt, you will be much closer to that day. New cars are a luxury that you aren't in a position to splurge on yet.


A lot of good answers, but there’s one more factor: ignorance. The majority haven’t considered it, or considered it and assumed it’s not an option without investigating. PLUS, the widespread myth that every other country is primitive, unhealthy, and dangerous.


The simple answer is that you have to read the terms and conditions when you sign up for a checking account at the bank. The process of fraud investigation varies from bank to bank. Ultimately most banks will refund the money if you are not deemed negligent. Some banks offer quick reimbursement during fraud claims, but many will not refund the money until the investigation is complete (which can take several weeks). Checking accounts are terrible security problems. If you're looking for ways to avoid a hassle, stop writing checks and using ATM/Debit cards. If you must send checks to pay bills, use the bill-pay system that is now common with most banks (they use a service to send checks on your behalf and don't even charge you for postage unless you ask for expedited processing).


It's not really that useful as a currency right now though, is it? Leaving aside that you could only spend it in certain locations or the time it would take for a transaction to be confirmed, the fact that every transaction in which you pay with Bitcoin counts as a realization of the capital gain would make it quite cumbersome for most anyone to actually use it as a currency. Then there's the issue of the fluctuating price of a bitcoin, which would make using it as a pricing mechanism quite cumbersome as well.


There are a number of ways to get out of debt. First, stop spending on that card. You could apply for a 0% APR credit card and if you qualify with a credit limit equal (or higher) than what you have now, then you could transfer the balance and start on paying that down. You could also work out a payment plan with Chase - they would rather have some of the money vs. none of it. But you need to reach out sooner rather than later to avoid having it sent to collections. Since your cash flow is terrible, you could also pick up a second or third part time job - deliver pizzas, work at the mall, whatever, to help increase your cash flow and use that money to pay down your debts. The Federal Trade Commission has some resources on how to cope with debt.


Jesus this is a horribly written and unnecessarily long article. Could be summed up in 3 paragraphs, and honestly, credit card processing fees isn't some conspiracy. I'd guess that most people who use credit cards are aware this is how visa and MasterCard make money. This article is written like it's for 14 year olds.


Absolutely. I actually spoke with a man from LeBatts brewery about this story, he told me that it it was sheer luck that other breweries didn't end up using the combination of a specific clarifying agent and foaming agent which caused the snottiness. The rest of the brewing industry was also cost-cutting but through a combination of bad luck, not knowing when to stop, and a lack of testing, it was Schlitz that became a textbook example of what not to do. Today most new/changed products use test marketing to prevent this sort of nationwide debacle.


"FTA: >SD: And to all the young filmmakers listening, I had 5% of the net of that movie. That was in my contract. And it cost $19 million. And it made $150 million worldwide. There's no net. That's how movie math works. I read a book some 20 years ago on screenwriting that said never to ask for a cut of the net profit, always ask for the gross. The net is what is left over after everyone else gets paid out of the gross and there's usually nothing left over. Sleazy folks love using this confusion over net vs. gross to hoodwink people. I remember when oil companies where in the news for their record profits, there would be people posting saying ""Oh, well, I'd like to see what the net is. This doesn't take into account exploration, development, and extrapolation data flux coupling. Which is all very expensive. The gross profit means nothing."""


Part of the problem with electric cars is also that they won't allow small commuter vehicles on the roads in most states. We have a gap between motorcycles and highway capable cars. Vehicles that are too big to be a motorcycle, but too small to pass crash testing that's needed for a highway vehicle. The exact size car that you would want for an inner city commute, is illegal or regulated out of usefulness in most states.


They are $67 each at Costco Pharmacy in Canada. (Two-pack $114). Even though universal medicare coverage does not include a universal drug plan, the Canadian government caps pharmaceutical profit margins, subsidizes prescriptions for certain people and negotiates drug prices for all. (Universal pharmacare plans are still on the radar and hopefully coming soon)


You need to clarify with Bob what your agreement is. If you and Bob are working together on these jobs as partners, you should get a written partnership agreement done by a lawyer who works with software industry entity formation. You can legally be considered a partnership if you are operating a business together, even if there is nothing in writing. The partnership will have its own tax return, and you each will be allocated 50% of the profits/losses (if that's what you agree to). This amount will be reported on your own individual 1040 as self-employment income. Since you have now lost all the expense deductions you would have taken on your Schedule C, and any home office deduction, it's a good idea to put language in the partnership agreement stating that the partnership will reimburse partners for their out-of-pocket expenses. If Bob is just hiring you as a contractor, you give him your SSN, and he issues you a 1099, like any other client. This should be a situation where you invoice him for the amount you are charging. Same thing with Joe - figure out if you're hiring him as an independent contractor, or if you have a partnership. Either way, you will owe income and self-employment tax on your profits. In the case of a partnership, the amount will be on the K-1 from the partnership return. For an independent contractor who's operating as a sole proprietor, you report the income you invoiced for and received, and deduct your expenses, including independent contractors that you hired, on your Schedule C. Talk to your tax guy about quarterly estimated payments. If you don't have a tax guy, go get one. Find somebody people in your city working in your industry recommend. A good tax person will save you more money than they cost. IRS Circular 230 Notice: Please note that any tax advice contained in this communication is not intended to be used, and cannot be used, by anyone to avoid penalties that may be imposed under federal tax law.


Spectrum-wise, Sprint is actually in the best position of all four major carriers. They have enough nationwide 800 MHz spectrum for good voice and LTE coverage and penetration, and they have enough 2.5 GHz spectrum to outdo every other carrier in capacity. They are the one carrier that really doesn't need any more spectrum right now. The argument about tower count is largely irrelevant with today's mobile data demand. You will find that Verizon and AT&T have built out at least as densely (and usually much moreso) as Sprint and T-Mobile, even with having 10-20 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum each, precisely because of capacity demands. All four major carriers are rolling out microwave spectrum for capacity (AWS and PCS for Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, and BRS/EBS for Sprint), and dense site placement is going to be a necessity. The argument about accuracy is also ridiculous considering the performance at the edge-of-cell and in the sector nulls; you're going to need multiple sites regardless if you want acceptable coverage for everyone. The company hurting the most spectrum-wise is T-Mobile since they only own a few 700 MHz licenses and can't even use them in most places until after the FCC incentive auction next year. AT&T could use a little more microwave, but they do have 20 MHz of WCS nationwide that they're about to start deploying. EDIT: More info: http://www.fiercewireless.com/special-reports/how-much-lte-spectrum-do-verizon-att-sprint-and-t-mobile-have-and-where Those charts do omit the 10x10 WCS AT&T will be deploying, as well as the PCS that Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile have/will refarm.


"This is trash. No way Willy and Markus did that to bitcoin. It's called trading. Of course they were actively trading during a giant volatile bubble in which bitcoin jumped 1000s% just as 10000s of other people were. Mt. Gox is credited with popping the 2013 bubble not inflating it. Even though Mt. Gox got hacked and ddos'd all the time there is no way bitcoins price was manipulated that much by ""Willy"" and ""Markus"" as a result."


I worked for Waffle House (same sort of employee pool) for a good while, they had horrible retention rate for cooks. But in the last few years they started paying a lot better ($14.50 an hour at top rate) now they have people doing the work of what used to take 2.


"Eh, for the most part US labeling laws are pretty good. There are exceptions, but most of the time there's a reasonable argument at least. In the above example, it would need to be ""made with 100% chicken,' as opposed to ""100% chicken."" That seems fair to me. Not that misbranding never occurs, because mistakes happen, and people do also break the law, but misbranding is taken seriously. Even with no safety threat that's still a type three recall."


I'm in Estonia, so a while back I did some coding for a US company, who figured it would be cheaper to outsource to Estonia. Since I had too much on my plate at that time, I outsourced the task to a guy in the US, who was having a hard time finding a job, because of all the outsourcing.


"Okay, I Read a large part of it and stopped. It may have some valid points, ie how chivalry may be dying because of the feminist movement and the equal positions it has created for women. However, blaming the guilt on women for dressing slutty is just as morally bad as the rapist. Rape is something of all times and places, and even in cultures where women are ""properly"" covered rape happens. It disgusts me that it is trying to justify rape by blaming the victims."


theres nothing you could probably do but hold an intervention or something, and i dont even know how effective that is. maybe gamblers anonymous? im not really sure this is the subreddit for this kind of question.


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I've looked into Thinkorswim; my father uses it. Although better than eTrade, it wasn't quite what I was looking for. Interactive Brokers is a name I had heard a long time ago but forgotten. Thank you for that, it seems to be just what I need.


"Alright, so this is all out of the way. As a further note, I have a degree in computer science so I'm not oblivious to the technical aspects of bitcoin. I reject the idea that banning bitcoin is akin to banning the internet - in fact, I reject the notion that bitcoin is anywhere as revolutionary as ""the internet"" was (which itself, as a construct, is far older than most people let on). I've always acknowledged that there are many innovative technical aspects to bitcoin which are likely to find their way into our current system of money and transactions. The reality, however, goes back to my original contentions - that bitcoin is difficult (if not nearly impossible) to track, and thus serves as a black-market vehicle for those who wish to transact outside the power of the government. Whether or not you see this as ""good"" or ""bad"" doesn't matter; ""the government"" within any defined national border is the plenary power - period - and thus (for lack of a better phrase) ""resistance is mostly futile."""


Yes you do. You're under the jurisdiction of at least one country where you're resident, or where you're citizen. You may be under jurisdiction of more than one country. Each country has its own laws about what and how should be taxed and countries have treaties between them to resolve jurisdiction issues and double taxation situations, so you should talk to a tax accountant licensed to provide you with an advice.


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"> h that, there's pretty much no real way to look at a menial-style job and say, ""That deserves $15 an hour."" > The two reasons above combine and make a strong argument for something like a basic income or drastically expanded welfare and safety net programs. > A further failing of the ""retrai Agreed. Growth always leaves certain demographics behind. I think $15/hour is dependent on location.. in Seattle even @ $15 you're screwed. In other areas, $15 an hour is great! The economy is evolving whether we accept it or not. While re-training certainly shouldn't be the only approach.. it needs to be a big part of the humane solution to displaced workers."


Eh using a benchmark that's designed for Hedge Funds is a little different. I was guessing the other comment was referring to SPX or similar for the 10%. Most people don't understand HF as investment vehicles. They are meant to be market neutral and focused on absolute returns. Yes, you can benchmark them against each other / strategy but most people here seem to think that HFs want to beat the S&P 500.


>You really shouldn't talk about things when you clearly don't put yourself in a position to be informed on the topic. You're just espousing unhelpful ignorance. Irony. >Oh, and also thanks for the downvote, which you broke the rules of this subreddit giving, since my comment clearly contributes to a discussion (that you decided to join). Although, I don't really care about upvotes or downvotes, so feel free to give me another. Or two. Or three. IDC you little twerp. Its always the people that complain about being downvoted that care about their upvote count.


The short answer is: the money is yours from the insurance company, they actually can't tell you how to spend it, they can only decide from their tables and your plan, how much you get. The longer answer: Usually the insurance company pays one blanket amount, then itemizes the rest, where you have to submit receipts. You're also lucky, because damage over time is rarely covered, damage is usually only covered as sudden damage, so they don't pay out for maintenance issues. You can repair your house the way you want, I even do some of my own labor, because some repair jobs just don't get covered what they really cost to do right. HOWEVER, your mortgage company can withhold part of your claim to verify satisfactory work, this is to maintain the value of the collateral, and the insurance company can choose not to cover pre existing damage. Generally they don't stray from the assessment. I do not know of any law that permits an internal inspection of your home without your consent. They can come look at the outside, but they can't force you to let them inspect inside... Unless they're holding some of your insurance payment hostage, for most banks, receipts are sufficient. A good contractor usually will meet all the needs with an itemized budget and has a bit of wiggle room to fix things the right way, while keeping the bank and mortgage company happy.


"Funny how you're talking about short term economics while I'm talking long term projections. Sweden is on the verge of a housing bubble far worse than the one the US saw in 2008. O don't look at last year and the year before I look at what their policies are doing for the future. You're right I've never lived in Europe but countries with a 50% tax rate on income aren't the ideal situation to live just ask switzerland the most stable and consistent economy in all of Europe and arguably the world for the last decade +. Yes they have income tax but not at an outrageous rate and they also have market and personal freedom at level that shadows what we have here ""the land of the free"" switzerland actually follows our constitution better than our own government does. This country was founded on idea of freedom and states rights. Not an over bearing over reaching federal government. As far as comparing the government to your parents house, that's a comparison clearly made by a simpleton. Your parents role in your life is to teach you responsibility and give your life structure. The government's role is to serve you not steal from you. How did the US make it so long with an income tax?"


"There are a few people that do this for a living. They are called ""market makers"" or ""specialists"" in a particular stock. First of all, this requires a lot of capital. You can get burned on a few trades, a process known as ""gambler's ruin,"" but if you have enough capital to weather the storm, you can make money. Second, you have to be ""licensed"" by the stock market authorities, because you need to have stock market trading experience and other credentials. Third, you are not allowed to buy and sell at will. In order to do your job, you have to ""balance the boat,"" that is buy, when others are selling, and sell, when others are buying, in order to keep the market moving in two directions. It's a tough job that requires a lot of experience, plus a license, but a few people can make a living doing this."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.thenation.com/article/america-has-a-monopoly-problem-and-its-huge/) reduced by 88%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Some century and a quarter ago, America was, in some ways, at a similar juncture: Political and economic power seemed concentrated in a few hands, in ways that were inconsonant with our democratic ideals. > Importantly, these laws were based on the belief that concentrations of economic power inevitably would lead to concentrations in political power. > Chicago economists would argue-with little backing in either theory or evidence-that one shouldn&#039;t even worry about monopoly: In an innovative economy, monopoly power would only be temporary, and the ensuing contest to become the monopolist maximized innovation and consumer welfare. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/78l28c/america_has_a_monopoly_problemand_its_huge/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~234550 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*: **power**^#1 **market**^#2 **economic**^#3 **economy**^#4 **Monopoly**^#5"


The shortest-hand yet most reliable metric is daily volume / total shares outstanding. A security with a high turnover rate will be more efficient than a lower one, ceteris paribus. The practical impacts are tighter spread and lower average percentage change between trades. A security with a spread of 0% and an average change of 0% between trades is perfectly efficient.


Sterilize the whales, enforce rules to prevent SeaWorld from ever acquiring another whale, triple the size of the living areas for the whales (or even quadruple), allow them to perform if they want to, and enforce rules that no human will touch these whales ever again unless for medical procedures (more to prevent more humans from being killed). I feel like that would work. SeaWorld gets good PR for increasing the living area, they can't acquire anymore whales, and the whole issue is a non-issue in 20+ years when all the whales are dead and then we can go back to SeaWorld again. Edit: I would also suggest the same thing for all of the current show animals. If they are to be kept, they can not be used in shows and must have a natural-esque habitat.


What is the per capita increase that they are anticipating for full-time employees? This is not meant to be a political question, I'm just curious what the actual number is :P >The test entails increasing the number of workers on part-time status, meaning they work less than 30 hours a week. Under the new health care act, companies will be required to provide health care to full-time employees by 2014. That would significantly boost labor costs for businesses.


The point i wanted to make is that you can't rule out war, countries conquered/stole from each other throughout all of history, the only reason we don't now is because of prosperity. Take that away and all bets are off. The great depression hit all corners of the globe, what's going to happen to the american debt? Whoever bought that is going to want their money back. Is china going to stay friends? What about north korea, when they see countries around them failing, they don't seem too friendly even now. Russia? We don't know enough about their culture to know what their intentions are, to them the americans are just the same, building their military same as everyone else. The wall-street crash of 1930s was based on speculation and stock investments, the amount of shit piled up, about to explode is so many times bigger. Also, people back then were more prepared for a depression, they were more self-sustainable and lived in communities. Really, when the economic collapse happens, a huge amount of people are going to die, people with disabilities, those needing medication, morbedly obese etc. They represent a large proportion of the population and they are going to die off within weeks of the collapse. Without a doubt it will be worse than the great depression. I don't care about the politics, i'm not even american for starters, survive through the shitstorm first.


You can make a start to learn how to make better investing decisions by learning and understanding what your current super funds are invested in. Does the super fund give you choices of where you can invest your funds, and how often does it allow you to change your investment choices each year? If you are interested in one area of investing over others, eg property or shares, then you should learn more on this subject, as you can also start investing outside of superannuation. Your funds in superannuation are taxed less but you are unable to touch them for another 30 to 35 years. You also need to consider investing outside super to help meet your more medium term goals and grow your wealth outside of super as well. If you are interested in shares then I believe you should learn about both fundamental and technical analysis, they can help you to make wiser decisions about what to invest in and when to invest. Above is a chart of the ASX200 over the last 20 years until January 2015. It shows the Rate Of Change (ROC) indicator below the chart. This can be used to make medium to long term decisions in the stock market by investing when the ROC is above zero and getting out of the market when the ROC is below zero. Regarding your aggressiveness in your investments, most would say that yes because you are still young you should be aggressive because you have time on your side, so if there is a downturn in your investments then you still have plenty of time for them to recover. I have a different view, and I will use the stock market as an example. Refer back to the chart above, I would be more aggressive when the ROC is above zero and less aggressive when the ROC is below zero. How can you relate this to your super fund? If it does provide you to change your investment choices, then I would be invested in more aggressive investments like shares when the ROC crosses above zero, and then when the ROC moves below zero take a less aggressive approach by moving your investments in the super fund to a more balanced or capital guaranteed strategy where less of your funds are invested in shares and more are invested in bonds and cash. You can also have a similar approach with property. Learn about the property cycles (remember super funds usually invest in commercial and industrial property rather than houses, so you would need to learn about the commercial and industrial property cycles which would be different to the residential property cycle). Regarding your question about SMSFs, if you can increase your knowledge and skills in investing, then yes switching to a SMSF will give you more control and possibly better returns. However, I would avoid switching your funds to a SMSF right now. Two reasons, firstly you would want to increase your knowledge as mentioned above, and secondly you would want to have at least $300,000 in funds before switching to a SMSF or else the setup and compliance costs would be too high as a percentage of your funds at the moment ($70,000). You do have time on your side, so whilst you are increasing your funds you can use that time to educate yourself in your areas of interest. And remember a SMSF is not only an investment vehicle whilst you are building your funds during your working life, but it is also an investment vehicle when you are retired and it becomes totally tax free during this phase, where any investment returns are tax free and any income you take out is also tax free.


"Because ETFs, unlike most other pooled investments, can be easily shorted, it is possible for institutional investors to take an arbitrage position that is long the underlying securities and short the ETF. The result is that in a well functioning market (where ETF prices are what they should be) these institutional investors would earn a risk-free profit equal to the fee amount. How much is this amount, though? ETFs exist in a very competitive market. Not only do they compete with each other, but with index and mutual funds and with the possibility of constructing one's own portfolio of the underlying. ETF investors are very cost-conscious. As a result, ETF fees just barely cover their costs. Typically, ETF providers do not even do their own trading. They issue new shares only in exchange for a bundle of the underlying securities, so they have almost no costs. In order for an institutional investor to make money with the arbitrage you describe, they would need to be able to carry it out for less than the fees earned by the ETF. Unlike the ETF provider, these investors face borrowing and other shorting costs and limitations. As a result it is not profitable for them to attempt this. Note that even if they had no costs, their maximum upside would be a few basis points per year. Lots of low-risk investments do better than that. I'd also like to address your question about what would happen if there was an ETF with exorbitant fees. Two things about your suggested outcome are incorrect. If short sellers bid the price down significantly, then the shares would be cheap relative to their stream of future dividends and investors would again buy them. In a well-functioning market, you can't bid the price of something that clearly is backed by valuable underlying assets down to near zero, as you suggest in your question. Notice that there are limitations to short selling. The more shares are short-sold, the more difficult it is to locate share to borrow for this purpose. At first brokers start charging additional fees. As borrowable shares become harder to find, they require that you obtain a ""locate,"" which takes time and costs money. Finally they will not allow you to short at all. Unlimited short selling is not possible. If there was an ETF that charged exorbitant fees, it would fail, but not because of short sellers. There is an even easier arbitrage strategy: Investors would buy the shares of the ETF (which would be cheaper than the value of the underlying because of the fees) and trade them back to the ETF provider in exchange for shares of the underlying. This would drain down the underlying asset pool until it was empty. In fact, it is this mechanism (the ability to trade ETF shares for shares of the underlying and vice versa) that keeps ETF prices fair (within a small tolerance) relative to the underlying indices."


If you have a mortgage, making part of it a mortgage-backed overdraft (ANZ call theirs a Flexi loan) is worth looking at. I'm in a similar situation, consulting since 2010. I pay GST and provisional tax every six months. If I've budgeted right, the balance on the mortgage-backed overdraft loan goes to zero right before I send the massive payment to the tax department in May and October. One problem is that some banks don't like to give these accounts to sole traders. Using a mortgage broker may help get around that restriction.


I'm talking about transporting the goods and services necessary for a company to do business. No rent money involved. In fact, we somewhat already have that in the form of FedEx. Now if you don't think private companies could do the same for other facets of infrastructure, then you are just confused.


Contrary to what many people think, credit card companies pass nearly all fraud costs via purchased goods onto the merchant who sells them. As a result, they stand a very high chance of getting the money from a fraudulent purchase of a specific purchased item back, as they just chargeback the merchant who has to stomach the cost. This is not the case for cash transactions obviously, where as soon as the money leaves the ATM fraudulently it is as good as gone. As a result, the risk profile of the two types of transaction is wildly different, and the credit limits of each reflect this.


It doesn't make any financial sense for you personally, because the impact on the debt would be so little it would have no significant benefit to you, and you'd be out the money you donated.


"I hope a wall of text with citations qualifies as ""relatively easy."" Many of these studies are worth quoting at length. Long story short, a great deal of research has found that actively-managed funds underperform market indexes and passively-managed funds because of their high turnover and higher fees, among other factors. Longer answer: Chris is right in stating that survivorship bias presents a problem for such research; however, there are several academic papers that address the survivorship problem, as well as the wider subject of active vs. passive performance. I'll try to provide a brief summary of some of the relevant literature. The seminal paper that started the debate is Michael Jensen's 1968 paper titled ""The Performance of Mutual Funds in the Period 1945-1964"". This is the paper where Jensen's alpha, the ubiquitous measure of the performance of mutual fund managers, was first defined. Using a dataset of 115 mutual fund managers, Jensen finds that The evidence on mutual fund performance indicates not only that these 115 mutual funds were on average not able to predict security prices well enough to outperform a buy-the-market-and-hold policy, but also that there is very little evidence that any individual fund was able to do significantly better than that which we expected from mere random chance. Although this paper doesn't address problems of survivorship, it's notable because, among other points, it found that managers who actively picked stocks performed worse even when fund expenses were ignored. Since actively-managed funds tend to have higher expenses than passive funds, the actual picture looks even worse for actively managed funds. A more recent paper on the subject, which draws similar conclusions, is Martin Gruber's 1996 paper ""Another puzzle: The growth in actively managed mutual funds"". Gruber calls it ""a puzzle"" that investors still invest in actively-managed funds, given that their performance on average has been inferior to that of index funds. He addresses survivorship bias by tracking funds across the entire sample, including through mergers. Since most mutual funds that disappear are merged into existing funds, he assumes that investors in a fund that disappear choose to continue investing their money in the fund that resulted from the merger. Using this assumption and standard measures of mutual fund performance, Gruber finds that mutual funds underperform an appropriately weighted average of the indices by about 65 basis points per year. Expense ratios for my sample averaged 113 basis points a year. These numbers suggest that active management adds value, but that mutual funds charge the investor more than the value added. Another nice paper is Mark Carhart's 1997 paper ""On persistence in mutual fund performance"" uses a sample free of survivorship bias because it includes ""all known equity funds over this period."" It's worth quoting parts of this paper in full: I demonstrate that expenses have at least a one-for-one negative impact on fund performance, and that turnover also negatively impacts performance. ... Trading reduces performance by approximately 0.95% of the trade's market value. In reference to expense ratios and other fees, Carhart finds that The investment costs of expense ratios, transaction costs, and load fees all have a direct, negative impact on performance. The study also finds that funds with abnormally high returns last year usually have higher-than-expected returns next year, but not in the following years, because of momentum effects. Lest you think the news is all bad, Russ Wermer's 2000 study ""Mutual fund performance: An empirical decomposition into stock‐picking talent, style, transactions costs, and expenses"" provides an interesting result. He finds that many actively-managed mutual funds hold stocks that outperform the market, even though the net return of the funds themselves underperforms passive funds and the market itself. On a net-return level, the funds underperform broad market indexes by one percent a year. Of the 2.3% difference between the returns on stock holdings and the net returns of the funds, 0.7% per year is due to the lower average returns of the nonstock holdings of the funds during the period (relative to stocks). The remaining 1.6% per year is split almost evenly between the expense ratios and the transaction costs of the funds. The final paper I'll cite is a 2008 paper by Fama and French (of the Fama-French model covered in business schools) titled, appropriately, ""Mutual Fund Performance"". The paper is pretty technical, and somewhat above my level at this time of night, but the authors state one of their conclusions bluntly quite early on: After costs (that is, in terms of net returns to investors) active investment is a negative sum game. Emphasis mine. In short, expense ratios, transaction costs, and other fees quickly diminish the returns to active investment. They find that The [value-weight] portfolio of mutual funds that invest primarily in U.S. equities is close to the market portfolio, and estimated before fees and expenses, its alpha is close to zero. Since the [value-weight] portfolio of funds produces an α close to zero in gross returns, the alpha estimated on the net returns to investors is negative by about the amount of fees and expenses. This implies that the higher the fees, the farther alpha decreases below zero. Since actively-managed mutual funds tend to have higher expense ratios than passively-managed index funds, it's safe to say that their net return to the investor is worse than a market index itself. I don't know of any free datasets that would allow you to research this, but one highly-regarded commercial dataset is the CRSP Survivor-Bias-Free US Mutual Fund Database from the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago. In financial research, CRSP is one of the ""gold standards"" for historical market data, so if you can access that data (perhaps for a firm or academic institution, if you're affiliated with one that has access), it's one way you could run some numbers yourself."


Dry Dead Skin- Due Body Countouring to city pollution and presence of harmful gases in the atmosphere our skin is getting affected day by day its making our skin dull and dry. It will make one look unattractive. It is very important to restore the natural shine and smoothness of your skin as soon as possible before the pollution will do the worse of his effects on your skin.


"The main difference between a bull market and a bear market is due the ""the leverage effect"". http://www.princeton.edu/~yacine/leverage.pdf The leverage effect refers to the observed tendency of an asset’s volatility to be negatively correlated with the asset’s returns. Typically, rising asset prices are accompanied by declining volatility, and vice versa. The term “leverage” refers to one possible economic interpretation of this phenomenon, developed in Black (1976) and Christie (1982): as asset prices decline, companies become mechanically more leveraged since the relative value of their debt rises relative to that of their equity. As a result, it is natural to expect that their stock becomes riskier, hence more volatile. More volatile assets in a bear market are not such good investments as less volatile assets in a bull market."


I don't think the two are particularly linked. While Brick is right in that the price of oil is denominated in dollars, I don't think that's responsible for most of the movement here. Oil has been weak for intrinsic reasons related to oil: supply/demand imbalance, largely. (Oil also was way over-priced back when it was > $100 a barrel; a lot of that was due to worries about instability in the Middle East.) The dollar has been strong for other, separate intrinsic reasons. The American economy has had a stronger rebound than Europe or Asia; while we were hit hard in the 2008 recession, we rebounded pretty quickly from a whole-economy point of view (we still have a lot of weaknesses in terms of long-term unemployment, but that doesn't seem to be hurting our productivity much). Pick another time period, and you won't necessarily see the same matching path (and I would even say that those paths don't match particularly well). Marketwatch covered this for example; other sites show similar things. There is a weak correlation, but only in the short term, or for specific reasons.


It's not so much of a technical issue as much as the tradeoff in energy efficiency, weight, powertrain loss, and several other variables. With a casual consideration for transmission choice, a CVE seems like it'd actually be the optimal choice if we could make one that wouldn't rapidly disassemble itself with such massive amounts of low end torque.


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However what actually appears to happen is that the 100k is invested into the company to fund some growth plan. So is it actually the case that E's company is worth 400k only AFTER the transaction? Is the 100k added to the balance sheet as cash and would the other 300k be listed as an IP asset? The investor gets 25% of the shares of the company and pays $100k for them, so Owner's Equity increases by $100k, and the company gets $100k more in cash. The $400k number is an implicit calculation: if 25% of the company is worth $100k, 100% of the company is worth $400k. It's not on the books: the investor is just commenting that they feel that they are being over-charged.


"Would love to see it happen but unfortunately agree with you. There is already demand for a non-cable ISP but telecoms have dug in for the long fight and are actively fighting these out of existence. Combine this with the fact that new media still needs to get it's content from somewhere and a ton of this content is owned by cable providers. They were willing to experiment with these new media sources when they were a tiny slice of the pie but now that new media is gaining mass market appeal, they want to massively overcharge for content to either a) drive the companies out of business or b) continue reaping their insane profits. The telecoms essentially have a monopoly and are using that to prolong the existence of dying businesses.. I see this playing out in one of several ways. 1. The government wises up and either breaks up the monopolies or allows internet to become available through other means (as a public utility or allowing these ""mom and pop"" ISP's to exist). Don't know about the rest of the world but it will be a while before this happens in the US. 2. New media providers find way to distribute and market independent content and rid themselves of at least one factor holding them back. Unfortunately most people don't seem to be interested in independent content. I would suspect this is largely due to these companies owning the vertical and telling you what you should watch as well. 3. These companies die a long slow and painful death at the hands of piracy at which point a sane and legal way of getting content is free to exist without being squashed out of existence."


For all stocks, expected Dividends are a part of the price it is traded for - consider that originally, the whole idea of stocks was to participate in the earnings of the company = get dividends. The day the dividend is paid, that expectation is of course removed, and thereby the stock value reduced by just the amount of dividend paid. You will see that behavior for all stocks, everywhere. The dividend in your example is just uncommonly high relative to the stock price; but that is a company decision - they can decide whatever amount they want as a dividend. In other words, the day before dividend payments, investors value the stock at ~14 $, plus an expected dividend payment of 12 $, which adds to 26 $. The day after the dividend payment, investors still value the stock at ~14 $, plus no more dividend payment = 0 $. Nothing changed really in the valuation.


Checks actually have a limited lifespan before the bank no longer has to honor them, which simplifies this question. After about 6 months you assume that check won't be cashed. If they find it after that, you write them a new check. If they don't, you really should pester them to do so.


The barrier to entry is extremely high in the ISP world. You either have to piggyback on an existing ISP and their lines, or you lay your own. Obviously Google is going with the latter, which is a huge undertaking that not only involves the work to actually lay the fiber, but also get regulatory approval and the funds to do so. They have the resources to do this, but only when the cities cooperate and work with them. Then there's the work involved with setting up all of the networking infrastructure to actually route customer traffic, set up peering agreements, etc. Basically, there are two kinds of entities that can do all this: existing ISPs (who obviously want to maintain the status quo), and companies with lots of influence and money and technical resources. You won't find a startup doing what Google is doing, at least not without some big players backing them.


Right now I'm busy trying a graphlab recommender that works with the MovieLens data set. Recommender systems are worth studying because search results are being generated according to these algorithms. When you Google something you don't see what everyone else sees. The search results were tailed to your search history and Google user profile.


Quite a lot changed since back then, so I consider it highly unlikely that you could point to one single cause. You can think about it more clearly when you remove money from the equation. Know that money is only an intermediary in the exchange of goods, and it is in fact the exchanged goods that matter. So to reframe your question. You produce some goods and exchange them for the goods you consume. The amount of goods that you can exchange what you produced for determines your quality of life. So what parts could change? 1. you could actually produce less. The alledged increase in productivity is really hard to accurately measure because even if you know for a fact that one worker's producitivity increased when buying a machine, maybe that comes at a cost of less productivity in other areas. 2. Not everything that you pay for does actually increase your quality of life, for example speeding tickets don't. Other stuff might increase your quality of life but in a manner that you don't easily recognize. For example more prisoners that you pay for might reduce your chance of being mugged, however if you're not being mugged on a regular basis you wouldn't notice. 3. Other people get a higher percentage. Most countries' tax rates rise with rising income, so when the currency is being devalued, tax rates rise relative to your purchasing power in addition to other taxes and fees that might be introduced or increased. But even without government your bosses might simply take a bigger cut of the company's earnings. 4. We might produce the wrong stuff. If more stuff gets produced that you do not want. The production of the stuff you do want will decline even if total productivity is increased. And that is only what I can think of from the top of my head. You will probably find that all of those happen and most likely other causes as well.


I didn't say anything about the financial sector as a whole shrinking, I said that a lot of high paying jobs in that sector were lost and won't be replaced. Maybe some of those people found jobs in other parts of the financial sector, but likely at lower salaries. Meanwhile jobs in other sectors are being added, which happen to have a lower average salary. The author is drawing false conclusions from his data set, which is too sparse to be considered serious economic analysis in the first place.


It's unmanaged resources you have to be an idiot to put your private corporate dateaup there even if it is locally encrypted. I work for a large company that deals with a lot of high end tech patents and we just had a huge security issue come up because our engineers were using Dropbox with internal items. We have now setup Mobilecho for a corporate Dropbox and will be deploying that across the board on top of our mobileiron mdm solution.


It doesn't matter. The effect of that money being spent and entering into the economy as a whole is strongly positive. This moralist argument is that unemployment is somehow tempting or enjoyable, but the only real support for that is the loathing associated with it. Fighting with imaginary demons can hurt real people and economies.


Short-term to intermediate-term corporate bond funds are available. The bond fund vehicle helps manage the credit risk, while the short terms help manage inflation and interest rate risk. Corporate bond funds will have fewer Treasuries bonds than a general-purpose short-term bond fund: it sounds like you're interested in things further out along the risk curve than a 0.48% return on a 5-year bond, and thus don't care for the Treasuries. Corporate bonds are generally safer than stocks because, in bankruptcy, all your bondholders have to be paid in full before any equity-holders get a penny. Stocks are much more volatile, since they're essentially worth the value of their profits after paying all their debt, taxes, and other expenses. As far as stocks are concerned, they're not very good for the short term at all. One of the stabler stock funds would be something like the Vanguard Equity Income Fund, and it cautions: This fund is designed to provide investors with an above-average level of current income while offering exposure to the stock market. Since the fund typically invests in companies that are dedicated to consistently paying dividends, it may have a higher yield than other Vanguard stock mutual funds. The fund’s emphasis on slower-growing, higher-yielding companies can also mean that its total return may not be as strong in a significant bull market. This income-focused fund may be appropriate for investors who have a long-term investment goal and a tolerance for stock market volatility. Even the large-cap stable companies can have their value fall dramatically in the short term. Look at its price chart; 2008 was brutal. Avoid stocks if you need to spend your money within a couple of years. Whatever you choose, read the prospectus to understand the risks.


I definitely agree. But this is the least click baity and most unbiased article I’ve seen about this topic. A lot of outlets are trying to frame it to look like they just fired a bunch of people for no reason.


I am not aware of that ha. I really know nothing. I was just thrown into it one day and came up with my own thoughts on what I wanted to do then it just kept happening. This is me stepping back and actually trying to learn. Maybe I’m not doing so bad though so that’s good to hear


Not that much money gets stuffed into mattresses, but a lot of money enters the black market and cannot be used until cleaned, a lot of money enters offshore banks to hide it, a lot of money that is intended to be trickled down to consumers for the purposes of commerce gets diverted into consolidating ownership of corporations, etc. There is definitely a tipping point at which consumers lack liquidity to participate in constant commerce, which impedes economic performance, without a doubt, depending on the extent it undermines opportunity.


200% margin for a short sale is outrageous. You should only need to put up 150% margin, of which 50% is your money, and the 100% is the proceeds. With $100 of your money, you should be able to buy $100 of GOOG and short $100 of PNQI.


"It's not a scam because you lose money. It's a scam because the way to make money is by signing up other people to be part of your ""sales team"" or whatever they call it. You're not making money by selling products, you're making money by signing schmucks up who hopefully go on to sign up more schmucks."


"Yesterday I was reading in the travel StackExchange about an Indian guy who was about to hand his passport over to his Employer in Africa. His problem was that he had taken an unauthorized trip back to India against orders, but still - he was about to hand over his passport to his foreign employer. And he had nothing on his mind other than how to please his employer to keep his job. This is the reality for a lot of people. They either don't have leverage, or don't know what leverage they do have. I'm a programmer, and I know because I've been told - reading, engaging in the community, and gaining real experience. Remember that other people can be younger, less skilled, more naive, more easily intimidated, and it doesn't make them stupid or worse people. Why would anyone let their employer stick a chip in their body? Because they don't know any better. Because the employer is an authority, or they want the job, or the are scared of the consequences if they don't. Posting that it's a bad idea is a good step to helping people. They can google ""Should I let my Employer Stick A Microchip Into My Body?"" and find this. Call out Three Square Market, and their stupid idea."


index ETF tracks indented index (if fund manager spend all money on Premium Pokemon Trading Cards someone must cover resulting losses) Most Index ETF are passively managed. ie a computer algorithm would do automatic trades. The role of fund manager is limited. There are controls adopted by the institution that generally do allow such wide deviations, it would quickly be flagged and reported. Most financial institutions have keyman fraud insurance. fees are not higher that specified in prospectus Most countries have regulation where fees need to be reported and cannot exceed the guideline specified. at least theoretically possible to end with ETF shares that for weeks cannot be sold Yes some ETF's can be illiquid at difficult to sell. Hence its important to invest in ETF that are very liquid.


Read your link. Thanks. The basic idea is that capitalism will work it out. And that each of us will pay a security agency to handle our disputes, and that rival security agencies will collaborate and negotiate with each other. And that private courts will be fair to protect their brand. This overlooks some harsh realities that already exist with capitalism. Customers generally do not have time to purchase based on accurate information for every product. For example, airlines compete almost solely on price. Insurance companies compete on price and provide horrible, sometimes fraudulent service. But customers are left in the dark (who is to say the insurer committed fraud if it disputes it?) Banks operate with gross incompetence and deceipt and are left untouched by the justice system. We have already discovered that just letting corporations operate without an restrictions creates serious problems. There has to be force that tempers their worst tendencies, even if that force (government) is imperfect. I remain confused why people think that corporations are somehow more trustworthy and efficient than government agencies. Or that corporations can be used to address externalities.


"It depends on when you can get the money, not when you know that you won or when you choose to take the ticket in. If you can present your ticket this year and get paid this year, the taxes are due this year, whether or not you actually choose to claim the prize this year. If you cannot receive payment until next year, then taxes will be due next year. This is ""constructive receipt,"" which applies to most individual tax situations. This assumes that you chose to receive a lump sum. If you get installments, then your taxes would be due as the installments are available, but the constructive receipt still applies."


"The gold itself isn't debt, but most people stashed their gold away in a ""bank"" of some sort and got a piece of paper saying something along the lines of (Reddit bank owes you 50 grams of gold) and you would trade this as a form of money."


This can be best explained with an example. Bob thinks the price of a stock that Alice has is going to go down by the end of the week, so he borrows a share at $25 from Alice. The current price of the shares are $25 per share. Bob immediately sells the shares to Charlie for $25, it is fair, it is the current market price. A week goes by, and the price does fall to $20. Bob buys a share from David at $20. This is fair, it is the current market value. Then Bob gives the share back to Alice to settle what he borrowed from her, one share. Now, in reality, there is interest charged be Alice on the borrowed value, but to keep it simple, we'll say she was a friend and it was a zero interest loan. So then Bob was able to sell something he didn't own for $25 and return it spending $20 to buy it, settling his loan and making $5 in the transaction. It is the selling to Charlie and buying from David (or even Charlie later, if he decided to dump the shares), without having invested any of your own money that earns the profit.


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"Other than the inconvienent fact that Treasury cannot sell to the Fed by law your theory is nice. You forget the step where the open market buys from the Treasury since they desire bonds to invest in, and the Fed can buy only from the open market. Secondly, the Fed does not give cash to the Treasury. The mint (a branch of the Treasury, not the Fed) prints cash. So it seems your understanding of how the money system works is quite wrong, yet since this is the Economy subreddit instead of the Economics subreddit, I expect you to get upvotes for saying what is popular even though it is laughably incorrect. You seem to not like cash that was not ""even existing previously"". All cash was not existing previously. How do you expect people to make transactions? Barter? You call them interest free loans (but above claimed they will never be paid back?), but then the Fed is making a profit on them? It seems you contradict yourself with all that handwaving. It would be interesting for you to explain how (and why) money (not cash) gets added and removed to the economy. Yay for ignorance!"


It's funny how the general public only complains about over regulation of companies when it's not in their favor. There's a reason so many businesses owners are GOP or Libertarian, the government is trying to do a lot of hand holding and micromanagement which is awful.


A *lot* of big companies offer credit cards. And it makes total sense. For example, if you have a Macy's card, you get access to special discounts that you wouldn't normally get. It saves the consumer money and builds loyalty to the brand. Same for Southwest credit cards. It's a completely normal move. EDIT: Also, Uber doesn't actually have to do much - it's the issuing bank that manages the program. *Most* of the branded credit cards you see are Chase, BTW. Amazon and Southwest are both run by Chase.


"I don't have anything definitive, but in general positions in a company are not affected materially by what is called a corporate action. ""Corp Actions"" can really be anything that affects the details of a stock. Common examples are a ticker change, or exchange change, IPO (ie a new ticker), doing a split, or merging with another ticker. All of these events do not change the total value of people's positions. If a stock splits, you might have more shares, but they are worth less per share. A merger is quite similar to a split. The old company's stock is converted two the new companies stock at some ratio (ie 10 shares become 1 share) and then converted 1-to-1 to the new symbol. Shorting a stock that splits is no different. You shorted 10 shares, but after the split those are now 100 shares, when you exit the position you have to deliver back 100 ""new"" shares, though dollar-for-dollar they are the same total value. I don't see why a merger would affect your short position. The only difference is you are now shorting a different company, so when you exit the position you'll have to deliver shares of the new company back to the brokerage where you ""borrowed"" the shares you shorted."


"There are healthy people and there are sick people. Each are that way because of their genetics, behavior, and (somewhat) luck. To some extent health insurance is insurance, and covers that luck... But mostly the Affordable Care Act and healthCare.gov are about health care... It's a scheme to allocate burdens, not to insure against risk. Healthy people dont think this is fair. ""When I invest time at the gym, invest money and time on healthy food, invest in learning healthy habits... And someone else doesn't... Why should I have to pay for their heart replacement? The freerider chooses to risk heart disease while I foot their bill, I pay twice prevention for myself and a cure for him, while he increases the cost for us all. "" Genetics is a touchy subject, but... if someone has a hugely expensive heridatible disease... Should that person and their spouse bear the burdens of having and raising their kids? If they can't afford to do so, should the rest of society have to take money away from their own families to finance that family's reproduction?"


I boycott a lot of overseas products. I think it's bullshit if you want to take your business out of the U.S to avoid taxes than don't expect to sell in the U.S. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.


Obama did a fine job that doesn't mean the spike immediately after trump was elected was because of Barack. Also the economy collapsing because of shitty housing loans really can't be blamed on GWB but you seem like a blue team player so whatever


"I think he makes a little mistake here: > And so, we might see that there has been this tendency for our psychology and our humanity to be less and less innovative, at a time when, in fact, we may need to be more and more innovative, if we're going to be able to survive the vast numbers of people on this earth. In the first part of the sentence, he is talking about our ""per capita"" rate of innovation, i.e., we as individuals don't have to be as innovative to benefit as much as we used to because we have more access to innovative ideas, and hence can get that benefit from better copying. In the latter part of the sentence, the ""need to be more and more innovative"", he's talking about the cumulative innovation, not per capita. The argument contradicts itself because the reason we *can* be individually less innovative is because we can produce *the same or greater* cumulative innovation by aggregating fewer local innovations over more people. This is how idea evolution (i.e., memetics) works as opposed to material wealth. Say, for instance, we all contribute a little to GDP. If there are more people contributing, GDP will grow. But we each can only access our little portion of it, so GDP per capita really tells a better story. Ideas don't work like that. If we aggregate everyone's useful innovations into an ""innovation GDP"", we all share the full cumulative GDP. It doesn't get divided such the we can only access a small portion of the idea. Hence less per capita contribution can still produce more ""innovation value"". So in the latter sense we are becoming ""more innovative"" on aggregate. He also seems to miss the important factor of efficiency. We have evolved means to make selection of *good* ideas more efficient via, for instance, the scientific method. Hence with the same or less innovation at the hypothesis level, we can produce more useful idea output with less effort (trial and error). He has some good discussion points, but I think he's missed a few key parts of the math."


If the question is where banks get the money used to pay interest they owe: they do so by lending that money to us at a higher interest rate. They make a gross profit from the interest we pay, they pass part of that to their depositors as interest, part of it goes to service their own debts, part of it may go to stockholders as dividends, and the rest is net profit.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/palestinian-minors-arrested-israel-suffer-abuse-171024215105404.html) reduced by 94%. (I'm a bot) ***** > He is one of the hundreds of Palestinian minors in the occupied territories that are arrested by Israel on a yearly basis. > Unprotected: The detention of Palestinian Teenagers in East Jerusalem&quot;, includes 60 affidavits collected from Palestinian teenagers who were arrested by Israel between May 2015 and October 2016. > According to the Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer, more than 12,000 Palestinian children have been arrested by Israel since 2000. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/78n26s/palestinian_minors_arrested_by_israel_suffer_abuse/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~234725 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*: **arrest**^#1 **Israeli**^#2 **minor**^#3 **Palestinian**^#4 **right**^#5"


"I mean that is disjointed, are you implying the financial collapse of Hoover and Coolidge was the result of government entitlement programs and that the New Deal was other than that? You've got things reversed, the stock market collapse was financial deregulation and speculation with hands off free market principals you seem to root for. The New Deal and Truman Doctrine expanded entitlements and have avenues for access to education, trade skills, work digging and filling holes, publicly funded infrastructure and technology. Truman in fact wanted a single payer system. ""Concrete"" economics work, the hand of the free market cannot fill the void left by withdrawal of public funding."


Preparation & processing an application for obtaining Code Number / sub -code number to the newly establishment & Branch office in various part of states for extending the benefit of ESI Scheme to employees employed in that regions. We would process an online application to obtain TIC of newly joined employees within 10 days from the date of joining and data for the same shall be provided by you in time. We would be retrieving the Individual Insurance No.s & maintain their contributions in the devised ESIC Register to be maintained. Monthly Payment Challans to be computed online and same shall be forwarded to you for payment on or before 21st of every month. To ensure payment before due date, data shall be provided in time. Preparation and compilation of Half Yearly Returns and Annual Returns would be our responsibility in cases where manual challan is prepared. All the Payments and Returns would be filed within the stipulated time and the adherence would be monitored by us. Guidelines to the Insured Persons (I.P.) pertaining to the Benefits under the ESIC Act, 1948 and provision of Information related to Insurance Medical Practitioner(Imp's) and Hospitals through ESIC. We would be liasoning on behalf of the establishment with the Regional Office & Branch Office for ensuring smooth functioning. We would also be attending the periodical Inspections and hearings on behalf of the establishment. The Responsibility of the Assessment would be limited for the period which would be coverable under our service tenure. We will keep the Company posted on all Amendments & Development of the Act.


There are two basic kinds of derivatives - forward contracts and options. A forward is an agreement between two parties for one party to buy/sell some asset to the other at a price that they agree upon today at some date in the future. An option is an agreement that gives one party the right, but not the obligation, to buy/sell the asset at some date in the future. Most derivatives that exist are a combination of these two things. For instance, a futures contract is a standardized forward contract that is traded on an exchange, and a swap is a portfolio (or chain) of forward contracts linked together. American/Bermudan options are just options that allow you to exercise on more than one day.


Tell your employer during your initial contract Terms of Service discussions. Ordinarily, this is boilerplate but you should ask for a rider in your contract which says - in some form - I already have IP, I will continue to work on this IP in my own time, and any benefit or opportunity derived from this IP will continue to be entirely mine. I requested exactly such a rider when I took up a new job just over a year ago and my employer was extremely accommodating. That I already had a company in which that IP could reside actually made the process easier. As @JohnFX has already mentioned, not telling your employer is both unethical as well as storing up potential legal hassles for you in the futre.


It certainly is possible for a run on the bank to drive it into insolvency. And yes, if the bank makes some bad loans, it can magnify the problem. Generally, this does not happen, though. Remember that banks usually have lots of customers, and people are depositing money and making mortgage payments every day, so there is usually enough on-hand to cover average banking withdrawl activity, regardless of any bad loans they have outstanding. Banks have lots of historical data to know what the average withdrawl demands are for a given day. They also have risk models to predict the likelihood of their loans going into default. A bank will generally use this information to strike a healthy balance between profit-making activity (e.g. issuing loans), and satisfying its account holders. In the event of a major withdrawl demand, there are some protections in place to guard against insolvency. There are regulations that specify a Reserve Requirement. The bank must keep a certain amount of money on hand, so they can't take huge risks by loaning out too much money all at once. Regulators can tweak this requirement over time to reflect the current economic situation. If a bank does run into trouble, it can take out a short-term loan. Either from another bank, or from the central bank (e.g. the US Federal Reserve). Banks don't want to pay interest on loans any more than you do, so if they are regularly borrowing money, they will adjust thier cash reserves accordingly. If all else fails and the bank can't meet its obligations (e.g. the Fed loan fell through), the bank has an insurance policy to make sure the account holders get paid. In the US, this is what the FDIC is for. Worst case, the bank goes under, but your money is safe. These protections have worked pretty well for many decades. However, during the recent financial crisis, all three of these protections were under heavy strain. So, one of the things banking regulators did was to put the major banks through stress tests to make sure they could handle several bad financial events without collapsing. These tests showed that some banks didn't have enough money in reserve. (Not long after, banks started to increase fees and credit card rates to raise this additional capital.) Keep in mind that if banks were unable to use the deposited money (loan it out, invest it, etc), the current financial landscape would change considerably.


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Depends on how long you're willing to invest for. Broadly speaking, the best (by which I mean, more reliably repeatable) way to make money from market corrections is to accept them as a fact of life, and not sell in a panic when they happen, such that the money you already invested can ride back up again. Put another way, just invest your money in one or two broad, low cost index funds with dividends reinvested (maybe spreading your investment over the course of six months or so) and then let time do its work. Have you worked out how much you've missed out on by holding your money as cash all this time (I presume you've been saving up a while) instead of investing it as you went? I suspect that by waiting for your correction, you've already missed out on more than you're going to make from that correction.


Monetizing mobile is just the one thing your regular investor can think of. FB can create their own customer web browser. FB-phone. They're moving into Skype's market with video conferencing and chat. Their data mining alone is worth a fortune. They know everything about you plus every site you visit. In-line newsfeed adverts. **Now I agree with everything you say**, but their earning potential is huge if they're creative. For some reason, people think that throwing ads on their mobile is going to be their next big cash cow, when I think it'll be minimal. The biggest thing to FB's potential success is not driving the user base away. I'd go long at $22 pretty comfortably.


La empresa ofrece los mejores alojamientos en Cuba. Si quieres hacer paquetes turísticos en Cuba, entonces puedes venir a nuestro sitio web de la compañía. Son diferentes tipos de instalaciones para alquileres de vacaciones. Tenemos una amplia gama de apartamentos, hostales, casas privadas, económicos y lujos distribuidos en las casas de campo. La empresa ofrece la mejor oferta de vacaciones, Cuba es país agradecido por disfrutar de las vacaciones. Tal como la variedad permite al visitante tener Hospedaje en Cuba, ubicados en zonas rurales, ideales para el disfrute del ecoturismo, Alquileres de vacaciones en ciudades con estilo colonial donde el tiempo parece haber dejado de permitir revivir tiempos antiguos. Hasta alojamiento en ciudades o ubicación de playas para el disfrute de nuestro eterno verano.


Your best bet would be to add your name to the title through the bank or have her sell it to you for the amount she owes then you get a loan for that amount like they said before. If you guys split up at this point she'll legally get to keep the car you've been paying for. You could apply for a new loan and have her cosign but it'll make your monthly payments higher. Have her sell you the car for the amount owed them you get a loan for that amount. Since you are together and you've been paying for it you won't lose any money and your monthly payments won't be expensive if you don't owe that much on the car. Pretty much having her sell it to you would be the smartest idea cause keeping Her name on the title will allow Her to legally drive away in your car if you split and you don't want that lol


The point of unemployment insurance *from a governmental spending perspective* is as stimulus. The government is interested in keeping society working properly for as many people as possible, it is not concerned with giving *you* money between *your* jobs. Unemployment insurance helps make sure that recessions do not turn into depressions, because the economy won't grind to a halt as soon as people get fired.


"listed simultaneously in New York, London, and maybe even some Asian markets - is this correct? If the exchanges are not connected, then in primary market the shares are listed. On other exchanges, the ""Depository Receipts"" are listed. i.e. the Company will keep say 100,000 shares with the primary stock exchange / depository. Based on this it would create new instruments ""Depository Receipts"". They can be 1:1 or whatever ratio. hypothetically, if I want to buy all of the company's stock Even if it is on one exchange, buying all stocks would trigger various regulatory aspects of Companies Act, or Stock Exchange rules. This is not simple or easy like clicking some buttons and buying everything. That is, let's say that in New York the company has listed 1000 shares, and in London only 10 shares, each worth 10 USD Market capitalization is sum of all outstanding shares into value."


> The single payer health care makes it so much easier to be a contractor or to create a startup. You have no idea how much I want a Single Payer for that exact reason. Also that it would allow everyone to have access to healthcare. Single payer would not only reduce healthcare burdens on employers but control the cost of healthcare. I hope we have a state by state implementation of Single Payer.


"A golf course project driven by an African-American university trained Hypnotherapist who wants ""to see this turned into a great place to live, work and play and have it be predominantly black. A great place to play golf, go to the beach, with great schools, a place that turns out scholars, athletes and artists. A place that’s banging, as they say.” I love me some internets."


Sure, sure, as long as we shift over to a socialist or post-scarcity economy first. While I have to compete with the arbitrarily-enhanced for jobs, fuck no I'm not letting them go forward. Note: I'm in favor of transhumanism, in favor of the Singularity, in favor of post-scarcity economies. I'm *not* in favor of capitalism, which makes human progress into a danger to be contained.


"It is true that all else being equal, you will pay a lower amount of total interest by paying down your highest interest rate debts first. However, all else is not always equal. I'm going to try to come up with some reasons why it might be better in some circumstances to pay your debts in a different order. And I'll try to use as much math as possible. :) Let's say that your goal is to eliminate all of your debt as fast as possible. The faster you do this, the lower the total interest that you will pay. Now, let's consider the different methods that you could take to get there: You could pay the highest interest first, you could pay the lowest interest first, or you could pay something in the middle first. No matter which path you choose, the quicker you pay everything off, the lower total interest you will pay. In addition to that, the quicker you pay everything off, the difference in total interest paid between the most optimal method and the least optimal method will be less. To put this in mathematical notation: limt→0 Δ Interest(t) = 0 Given that, anything we can do to speed up the time it takes to get to ""debt free"" is to our advantage. When paying large amounts of debt as fast as possible, sacrifice is needed. And this means that psychology comes into play. I don't know about you, but for me, gamifying the system makes everything easier. (After all, gamification is what gets us to write answers here on SE.) One way to do this is to eliminate individual debts as quickly as possible. For example, let's say that I've got 10 debts. 5 of them are for $1k each. 3 of them are for $5k each, 1 is a $20k car loan, and 1 is a $100k mortgage. Each one has a monthly payment. Let's say that I've got $3k sitting in the bank that I want to use to kickstart my debt reduction. I could pay all $3k toward one of my larger loans, or I could immediately pay off 3 of my 10 loans. Ignore interest for the moment, and let's say that we are going to pay off the smallest loans first. When I eliminate these three loans, three of my monthly payments are also gone. Now let's say that with the money I was paying toward these eliminated debts, and some other money I was able to scrape together $500 a month that I want to use toward debt reduction. In four months, I've eliminated the last two $1k debts, and I'm down to 5 debts instead of 10. Achievement Unlocked! Instead of this strategy, I could have paid toward my largest interest rate. Let's say that was one of the $5k loans. I paid the $3k toward the bank to it, and because I still had all the monthly payments after that, I was only able to scrape together $400 a month extra toward debt reduction. In four months, I still have 10 debts. Now let's say that after these four months, I have a bad month, and some unexpected expenses come up. If I've eliminated 5 of my debts, my monthly payments are less, and I'll have an easier month then I would have had if I still had 10 monthly payments to deal with. Each time I eliminate a debt, the amount extra I have each month to tackle the remaining debts gets bigger. And if your goal is eliminating debt quickly, these early wins can really help motivate you on. It really feels like you are getting somewhere when your monthly bills go down. It also helps you with the debt free mindset. You start to see a future where you aren't sending payments to the banks each month. This method of paying your smaller debts first has been popularized in recent years by Dave Ramsey, and he calls it the debt snowball method. There might be other reasons why you would pick one debt over another to pay first. For example, let's say that one of your loans is with a bank that has terrible customer service. They don't send you bills on time, they process your payment late, their website stinks, they are a constant source of stress, and you are getting sick of them. That would be a great reason to pay that debt first, and never set foot in that bank again. In conclusion: If you have a constant amount of extra cash each month that you are going to use to reduce your debt, and this will never change, then, yes, you will save money over the long run by paying the highest interest debt first. However, if you are trying to eliminate your debt as fast as possible, and you are sacrificing in your budget, sending every extra penny you can scrape together toward debt reduction, the ""snowball"" method of knocking out the small debts first can help motivate you to continue to sacrifice toward your goal, and can also ease the cash flow situation in difficult months when you find yourself with less extra to send in."


Indeed. 10-20 years down the line who knows where the computing capabilities will be at. But for now, and the foreseeable future IMHO, there are simply too many variables involved to take a human completely out of the cockpit. I will still want to know that there are two sets of eyeballs looking out the of the cockpit and monitoring the gauges.