In some case the customer wants the name to be cryptic or misleading. They don't want to advertise the true nature of the business they visited. In other cases the transaction may be reported through another business. A few years ago the local PTA was having a silent auction as a fundraiser. A local business allowed the PTA to use their credit card reader to process transactions over a certain amount. Of course when the credit card statement arrived it looked like you spent $500 at the florist. I have seen PayPal listed when donating to some small charities.  I have noted another case where confusion can occur. I used a debit card to buy a soda from a vending machine: the name and location were the name of the vending machine company and the location of their main office. It didn't say  soda machine city A. It said Joe's vending company city B. In most cases the business and the credit card company want to make it easy to identify the transactions to keep the cost of research and charge backs to a minimum.


Good time to mention the US is also the only country (besides Eritrea) to tax citizens on their worldwide income *regardless of their residency.* And yes, this is very strongly enforced against Average Joes who happen to have dual citizenship but have lived in Canada or UK or what not for the past 30 years. Through FATCA they've coerced global banks to hand them account data on all US citizens.  Who knew a country borne out of a tax protest against an empire would become the most imperialist tax regime in the world?


Businesses underprice -- sometimes severely -- to gain market share all the time. When I started my company 14 years ago we were charging peanuts and losing money on every deal, all we cared about was building a customer base and we figured we would properly monetize later. We lost money in the short run, but the strategy worked.


I can confirm their products are complete and total crap with the exception of their diapers. They're about twice as expensive as regular diapers but everything about them works twice as well. I honestly wish having a kid wasn't so expensive and these diapers have made things even more expensive but we tried a few brands including cloth and these are absolutely the best we found.


Yes, but the point is that a successful person's actions are supplemented by luck.  For every successful person who says they worked hard to get theirs, there's a good number of people who worked just as hard but were not as lucky.


"This is a great question! I've been an entrepreneur and small business owner for 20+ years and have started small businesses in 3 states that grew into nice income streams for me. I've lived off these businesses for 20+ years, so I know it can be done! First let me start by saying that the rules, regulations, requirements and laws for operating a business (small or large) legally, for the most part, are local laws and regulations. Depending on what your business does, you may have some federal rules to follow, but for the most part, it will be your locality (state, county, city) that determines what you'll have to do to comply and be ""legal"". Also, though it might be better in some cases to incorporate (and even required in some circumstances), you don't always have to. There are many small businesses (think landscapers, housekeepers, babysitters, etc.) that get income from their ""business operations"" and do so as ""individuals"". Of course, everyone has to pay taxes - so as long as you property record your income (and expenses) and properly file your tax returns every year, you are ""income tax legal"".  I won't try to answer the income tax question here, though, as that can be a big question. Also, though you certainly can start a business on your own without hiring lawyers or other professionals (more on that below), when it comes to taxes, I definitely recommend you indeed plan to hire a tax professional (even if it's something like H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt, etc). In some cities, there might even be ""free"" tax preparation services by certain organizations that want to help the community and these are often available even to small businesses. In general, income taxes can be complicated and the rules are always changing. I've found that most small business owners that try to file their own taxes generally end up paying a lot more taxes than they're required to, in essence, they are overpaying! Running a business (and making a profit) can be hard enough, so on to of that, you don't need to be paying more than you are required to!  Also, I am going to assume that since it sounds like it would be a business of one (you), that you won't have a Payroll. That is another area that can be complicated for sure. Ok, with those generics out of the way, let me tackle your questions related to starting and operating a business, since you have the ""idea for your business"" pretty figured out. Will you have to pay any substantial amount of money to attorneys or advisors or accountants or to register with the government? Not necessarily. Since the rules for operating a business legally vary by your operating location (where you will be providing the service or performing your work), you can certainly research this on your own. It might take a little time, but it's doable if you stick with it. Some resources: The state of Florida (where I live) has an excellent page at: http://www.myflorida.com/taxonomy/business/starting%20a%20business%20in%20florida/ You might not be in Florida, but almost every state will have something similar. What all do I need to do to remain on the right side of the law and the smart side of business?  All of the answers above still apply to this question, but here are a few more items to consider: You will want to keep good records of all expenses directly related to the business. If you license some content (stock images) for example, you'll want to document receipts. These are easy usually as you know ""directly"". If you subscribe to the Apple Developer program (which you'll need to if you intend to sell Apps in the Apple App Stores), the subscription is an expense against your business income, etc. You will want to keep good records of indirect costs. These are not so easy to ""figure out"" (and where a good accountant will help you when this becomes significant) but these are important and a lot of business owners hurt themselves by not considering these. What do I mean? Well, you need an ""office"" in order to produce your work, right? You might need a computer, a phone, internet, electricity, heat, etc. all of which allow you to create a ""working environment"" that allows you to ""produce your product"". The IRS (and state tax authorities) all provide ways for you to quantify these and ""count them"" as legitimate business expenses. No, you can't use 100% of your electric bill (since your office might be inside your home, and the entire bill is not ""just"" for your business) but you are certainly entitled to some part of that bill to count as a business expense. Again, I don't want to get too far down the INCOME TAX rabbit hole, but you still need to keep track of what you spend! You must keep good record of ALL your income. This is especially important when you have money coming in from various sources (a payroll, gifts from friends, business income from clients and/or the App Stores, etc.) Do not just assume that copies of your bank deposits tell the whole story. Bank statements might tell you the amount and date of a deposit, but you don't really know ""where"" that money came from unless you are tracking it! The good news is that the above record keeping can be quite easy with something like Quicken or QuickBooks (or many many other such popular programs.) You will want to ensure you have the needed licenses (not necessarily required at all for a lot of small businesses, especially home based businesses.) Depending on your business activity, you might want to consider business liability insurance. Again, this will depend on your clients and/or other business entities you'll be dealing with. Some might require you to have some insurance.  Will be efforts even be considered a business initially until some amount of money actually starts coming in?  This might be a legal / accountant question as to the very specific answer from the POV of the law and taxing authorities. However, consider that not all businesses make any money at all, for a long time, and they definitely ""are a business"". For instance, Twitter was losing money for a long time (years) and no one would argue they were not a business. Again, deferring to the attorneys/cpas here for the legal answer, the practical answer is that you're performing ""some"" business activity when you start creating a product and working hard to make it happen! I would consider ""acting as"" a business regardless! What things do I need to do up-front and what things can I defer to later, especially in light of the fact that it might be several months to a couple years before any substantial income starts coming in? This question's answer could be quite long. There are potentially many items you can defer.  However, one I can say is that you might consider deferring incorporation. An individual can perform a business activity and draw income from it legally in a lot of situations. (For tax purposes, this is sometimes referred to as ""Schedule-C"" income.) I'm not saying incorporation is a bad thing (it can shield you from a lot of issues), but I am saying that it's not necessary on day 1 for a lot of small businesses. Having said that, this too can be easy to do on your own. Many companies offer services so you can incorporate for a few hundred dollars. If you do incorporate, as a small business of one person, I would definitely consider a tax concept called an ""S-Corp"" to avoid paying double taxes.) But here too, we've gone down the tax rabbit hole again. :-)"


You can choose to believe or disbelieve anything you wish, but the end result speaks volumes.  The very next morning after the sale was announced, even with stores completed barren or product, according to you, customers, who were not boycotting, began immediately flowing through the doors shopping again, for product that did not exist in the stores.  But, there I go, being delusional again.


But don't worry, we're getting rid of those pesky financial regulations and your ability to sue us. This way we can apologize, fire some scapegoat, and we won't have to face any real consequences. Got to make sure we keep in the black and continue to create American jobs, right? ;)


"> 100% Chance of Crisis, Worse Than 2008: Jim Rogers  He also called it in 2011 that it was going to be 2012 or 13. He was wrong.  [""In 2002 it was bad, in 2008 it was worse and 2012 or 2013 is going to be worse still – be careful,""](http://www.cnbc.com/id/45219555)"


The mortgage crisis really became a crisis because of these marginally qualified borrowers. They put their 3% down, maxed out their available debt, then the economy turned, so they lost their jobs. Worse yet, they couldn't sell out because their houses were worth less than what they owed on the mortgage. Until the banks started allowing short sales there was nothing to do but lose their savings, get forclosed, and watch their credit rating get destroyed.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/global-warming-american-south/532200/) reduced by 94%. (I'm a bot) ***** > &quot;Most of the risk maps show that climate change is going to be terrible for Trump country. Like, it&#039;s not clear at all-from these maps-why reducing climate change is not a more urgent issue for Republicans, purely as a matter of representing their people,&quot; said Joseph Majkut, the director of climate policy at the Niskanen Center, a libertarian think tank, in an email.  > The only factor of climate change that doesn&#039;t specifically hurt the South is a projected rise in property crime associated with climate change.  > So if climate modeling remains imperfect, what&#039;s the point of doing it? Researchers have spent the last 25 years trying to forecast the economic damages of climate change.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6kcjnl/the_american_south_will_bear_the_worst_of_climate/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~155616 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*: **Climate**^#1 **change**^#2 **economic**^#3 **cost**^#4 **study**^#5"


"I do know people who follow the islam terrorist manifesto. One is a great guy, and one is a fucking closet jihadist nutbag who I am 100% certain will go jihadi on someone one day.   But that's besides the point. If bugs are infesting your house, you lob the bug bomb in there. You're going to kill some ""good"" bugs, but if you don't, the bugs are going to take the whole house.   It's ignorance like yours that is getting people killed left and right in Europe."


A debenture is a security document. This means that the bond is secured over assets. Under English law, you can issue bonds which, if defaulted upon, you can enforce your security against the issuer (i.e. the company), which means you can attempt to get your money back by getting hold of the company's assets.   As for a floating charge, I'll first explain what a fixed charge is. Say you're a bank (a lender) and you lend £1000 to X. You take security by way of a fixed charge over X's photocopy machines. X is unable to dispose of the machines without the lender's consent. This means that if X cannot pay up the loan, you can enforce security by taking possession of the photocopy machines, sell them, and hopefully get enough money back to cover the default.  A floating charge works the same way but over assets which fluctuate, e.g. X's stock of potatoes. X sells potatoes to supermarkets all the time so you can't just take a fixed charge over it for practical reasons, you can't just ask the lender each time you want to sell a potato. When an event of default occurs, i.e. you don't pay back the loan or breach a condition of the loan agreement, the floating charge crystallises, and becomes a fixed charge, thus enabling the lender to sell the potatoes to get their money back.  Random examples, but makes sense?  Source; future English solicitor.


"I don't think it really matters, my understanding is that as a sole trader there is no distinction between your personal and business tax affairs. The distinction between your personal and business account is mainly for your own personal benefit to make it easier to differentiate between ""wages"" and retained earnings. If you want to maintain this distinction with regard to tax then you need to somehow differentiate between tax paid on your ""wage"" and tax paid on retained earnings. You could then either make two payments, or pay from either and transfer the difference from the other. Either way, it's just a matter of perspective rather than something with a physical difference."


I suggest that you first decide on what %'s of the home value you each have a legal claim to. Then split the mortgage using the same %'s. Then, if someone feels their % is slightly higher, they are compensated because they 'own' a correspondingly higher share of the house. Use the same %'s for downpayments (which may mean that an 'adjustment' payment might be required to bring your initial cash outlay from 70/30 into the %'s that you agree to). Tenant income gets split the same way. Utilities are a bit more difficult - as heating depends more on square feet, but water and hydro depend more on how many people are there. You can try to be really precise about working out the %'s, or just keep it simple by using the same %'s as the mortgage.


"the easiest thing would be to go to walmart and stock up on 1000$ money orders paying a 70 cents fee for each. your landlord would almost certainly accept money orders, but double check first just in case. i say stock up because you can't get a money order for more than 1000$ and they usually won't let you buy more than 3 per day. alternatively, you can probably open a bank account using your ssn and your passport.  look for any bank offering ""free"" checking, and they should be able to give you a few ""starter"" checks on the spot when you open the account. in any case, they can certainly get you a cashier's check for free or a small fee.  side note: if you want to shop around for a checking account, look for a bank or credit union offering a ""kasasa"" account."


Yes. Slavery. Perfect analogy. You're going to be fettered with chains, your children will be taken from you, and your wife repeatedly raped. When you misbehave, or when someone just feels like it, they will beat the shit out of you. If you try to leave the job, they will shoot you in the back of the head.


The answer is actually very simple: the cost of data. Seriously. Call the CBOE tomorrow and ask yourself. They have two big programs:  1) the penny pilot program, where options trade at penny increments instead of 5 cent increments. This is only extended to a select few symbols because of the amount of data this can generate is too much for the data vendors. Data vendors store and sell historical data. The exchanges themselves often have a big data vending business too. 2) the weekly options program, where only select symbols get these chains because of the amount of data they will generate. Liquidity and demand are factors in determining if the CBOE will consider enabling those series on new issues. (although they have to give the list of which symbols are on these programs to the SEC)


My brokerage account (E-Trade) automatically spreads cash balances that exceed the FDIC insured amount into several partner banks, so just about any amount gets insured.


In my opinion it depends on the type of product. I would get a warranty for a washing machine or tumble dryer or other product with lots of moving parts that is liable to break down. I also take into account my luck, the one washing machine I didn't get covered broke down 2 weeks outside the normal warranty period... I would not get a warranty for a consumer electronics product like a TV, PC, or iPod because they devalue so quickly. As a rule of thumb, if the model you buy today is going to be on sale for the next few years for around the same price and has moving parts, it is worth considering a warranty. If it will be worth a small percentage of its value because newer faster shinier models come along to replace it don't bother. I would also not get the warranty from the shop I bought the product from. You can get warranties for consumer products from specialist third parties that will allow you to cover multiple products for a discount. These work out a lot cheaper than the one the shop will give you. For example in the UK, DomGen will cover 3 appliances for £14.99/month and 6 for £20.99/month


Fan?  Nah, I mean I own an ipod but whatever, it's just an mp3 player.  More to the point, I'm just not a presumptuous prick and I try not to get all emotional about some dude who ran a company, *ONE WAY OR THE OTHER*.    You're just as bad as every asshat that was writing WE LOVE YOU STEVE post it notes on apple stores, you're just the other end of that spectrum, but still just as much of a dick.


"Offtopic, but what do you think of the idea of the stock market being a ""ponzi scheme""? I've had this same idea that [Mark Cuban reiterated well by writing](http://blogmaverick.com/2008/09/08/talking-stocks-and-money/): >Ive said a lot of this before. The stock market is by definition a ponzi scheme. As long as money keeps on coming in, then there is someone to take the stocks from the sellers. If the amount of money coming in is reduced, the stocks, indexes, et al go down. What if, for who knows whatever reason, the amount of money going into stocks declined significantly ? Who would buy stock from the sellers. I mean goodness gracious, you could see something disastrous happen. Like the Nasdaq dropping from 5000, to under 2000 in just a few years. Its happened before, it can happen again. > >Which is exactly why we get all these nonsensical commercials from brokerages. To keep the money coming in . I wish someone would index the amount of money spent on marketing by mutual funds and brokerages to the Nasdaq and Dow and see if it correlates. > >Money inflows drives the business. We can get all the economic data we ever dreamed of getting, but if money inflows declined significantly for an extended period of time, then every rule of thumb would go out the window until money started flowing in. Yes it would flow in eventually as prices dropped. From big investors like me who wouldnt have gotten hurt by a huge market decline and could come in and buy huge chunks, or companies outright. > >You ? You probably would be like Charles Ponzi’s customers. You wouldnt be able to get your money out of the fund when it went down, and by the time you did, it would be too late. You would have been crushed. > >Ive said it before, a stock that doesnt pay dividends is valued like a baseball card. Just whatever you can sell it for. The concept that you own “your share” of the company is a joke. You are completely at the whim of the CEO and board who will dilute you on a daily basis with stock options, then try to buy back stock to cover it up and push up the price, rewarding the shareholders who get out, rather than those that continue to hold the shares. Meaning you. > >Have you ever seen Warren Buffet talk about buying 100 shares of anything k shares ? or does he take control of , or purchase a material percentage of a company ? > >If you have enough money to have influence , take control or buy it outright, then the stock market can work for you. Thats why I buy stock in public companies that relate to my other business entities. When i pick up the phone and call the CEO of a company i own shares in, they call me back very quickly. When I ask if there are business opportunities that make sense for the company and another company of mine to work together, I wont always get the business, but I will always get a meeting. If Im smart about the investments I make, the more important returns come from the relationships with the companies than the action of the stock. > >If the best you can do is buy shares that are going to be continuously diluted, then you are merely a sucker. There is a good chance that the shares you bought came from shares an insider who got stock options. You just helped dilute yourself with your first share purchase. > >The wealthy can make the stockmarket work for them. Individuals buying shares of stock in non dividend paying stocks… they work for the stockmarket. > >I know Ive painted a pretty bleak picture. > >The stockmarket isnt going away. Would it shock me if the whole thing collapsed ? yes. it would. Its just too engrained in our way of life in the USA. What would change my mind is if a better investment vehicle came along. > >The stockmarket used to be about investing capital in companies that came public or did secondary offerings. That money was used to create amazing businesses and return dividends back to people who truly were investors. There once was a day where most companies paid dividends higher than the interest rates on their bonds. Why ? Because stocks are inherently more risky. If a company goes belly up, bondholders collect first, shareholders usually last. People could buy and hold stocks, and get paid real cash money for being a shareholder in the company at rates far higher than the divident yields we see today. If the company did well, the dividends went up. Investors who held, actually got all their money back in dividends at some point and the rest was gravy. The good ole days. > >But that changed when mutual funds came along and started marketing the concept of growth as a way to attract investors. > >Its not inconceivable that the old mindset could comeback. That a new market of stocks could be created where companies didnt continuously dilute shareholders by issuing stock and options to themselves. Where earnings were earned for the same reason they are in private companies, to not only fund growth, but also provide cash back to investors. Now if that market existed today. Where I could buy 100 shares of stock, and even if it represented just 1/100000 of ownership in the company, I could have confidence that year after year, I would still own 1/100000th of that company, and if that company generated earnings , I would have at least some of that money returned to me. Well then, that wouldnt be a ponzi scheme. That would be a true market of stocks, and I would be happy to recommend to anyone to be careful, but buying stocks in that market could be something worth considering if your appetite for risk canhandle it."


Really, I can only endorse the ones that I go to.  Also, I could insert Wendy's, Harvey's or every other fast food joint near me for being better than McDonalds in my experience.  BK only stands out for me because of how well they're run in my area.   I only commented because the article doesn't surprise me based on my experiences.  I'd like to think that consumers make choices based on experience and eventually poor quality leads to loss of market share.


"Your counterexample of Deserved"" is telling. There are two distinct lines of thought in justice: punitive and preventative. Punitive focuses on retribution, while preventative focuses on isolation or elimination of an individual from a situation where it can do further harm.""  [Deserves got nothing to do with it.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpDkYZWeeVg),is this both?"


"I don't have a crystal ball but chances are your tenant is definitely lying. Rent was late and now the money intended to cover the rent; miraculously is lost in the mailbox. Anyhow, you were already nice to tolerate the late ""payment"". Keshlam's option 1.5 in the comments above is the ideal way to settle in which both parties have learned a lesson and are at a loss. Demand the rent payment but settle for half as a one time courtesy. If this continues or this tenant has shown shady predicaments such as this, you should look for legal means to evict this tenant.  College students are very creative and who's to say this won't happen again? ""The neighbors dog took my wallet."""


"Written with some mild snark , but no insult intended, because financial stuff can be ridiculously confusing... Looked at another way, you're basically asking if the Biblical ""Parable of the Talents"" can be implemented as a business model.  You as the investor wish to be the ""master"", with the entity doing the investing playing the part of the ""servant"". Since the law prohibits actual servitude as described in scripture, the model must substitute a contractual profit- and loss-sharing scheme. OK, based on what you've proposed, and by way of example, let's say you invested a thousand dollars. You give the investment service your money. At the end of a year, they give you back   - Your capital ($1000)  - Plus 1/2 of any profits  OR  - Less 1/2 of any losses So let's say the worst happens and they lose ALL of it. According to your proposal, they have to cover 1/2 of the loss. You end up with $500...but they end up with LESS than nothing. They will be in a deficit situation because all the expense was theirs. They don't just fail to make a profit. They go in the hole. It doesn't matter what percentages you use. Regardless of how the loss is shared, you've only guaranteed YOU can't lose all your money. The company CAN. Given a large enough investment, or enough market fluctuation, a big shared loss could shut down a smaller firm. To summarize:   - You want a service that charges you nothing   - Does all the work of expertly managing and investing your capital  - Takes on part of the risk you would normally bear  - (on top of their usual risk and liability)  - Agrees to do so solely for a percentage of any return (where higher returns will likely involve a higher degree of risk)  - AND that guarantees, after just 1 year, you'll get X% of your capital back, no matter what. Win or lose.  - Even if the market crashes and all your capital, and theirs, is wiped out Superbest, um, to be serious briefly: what you're proposing is, if nothing else, inherently unfair and inequitable. I believe you intended it as a mutually beneficial scenario, but the real-world imbalance in risk and reward prevents it being so. Any financial service that would accept those terms along with the extra degree of risk would be fiscally irresponsible. From a business standpoint it's an untenable model, and no company would build on it. It would be tantamount to corporate suicide. The requirement that a service promise to give you back X% of your money, no matter how great the loss, makes your proposal impossible. You need to think about how much all this costs, realistically, as well what kind of returns you can actually expect. And that more risk for higher return is exactly what a service could NOT take a chance on if it had to ""share"" investors' losses. Besides, it's not really sharing, now is it? They will always lose more than you, always end up in a negative situation, unable even to recoup costs. Circumstances beyond their control could result in a drop in the value that not only wipes out any profit, but requires them to pay YOU for work performed and expenses incurred on your behalf.  Why would they let anyon double-dip like that? Yeah, we all prefer getting something for nothing...but you want valuable services and for them to pay you money for the privilege of providing them? I totally agree that would be fantastic, but in this world even ""free"" doesn't come cheap anymore. And getting back to costs:  Without consistent income the service would have nowhere to work and no resources to work with. No office, computer, phone, electricity, Internet, insurance, payroll, licensing, training, maintenance, security, lobbying, etc., etc., etc. Why do people always forget overhead? There's a reason these services operate the way they do. Even the best are working with fairly slim margins in a volatile sector. They're not into 1-year gambles unlikely to cover their cost of doing business, or having to pay for a negative return out of their own pocket. Look, if you're the Biblical master asking your servant to manage things, overhead is built-in. You're taking all the risk as well. You're paying for all three servants' food, home, clothing, etc, plus you had to buy the servants themselves. So its reasonable that you reap the reward of their labor. You paid for it, and you didn't even punish the servant who buried your money in a hole. The two good servants may have done the legwork, but you took on the burden of everything else. In your proposed service, however, contrary to the servant's usual role, the servant - i.e., the company - would be assuming a portion of your risk on top of their own, yet without any guarantee of profit, income, or even coverage of costs. They're also subject to regulations, fees, liability, legal stuff, etc. that you're not, against most of which you are indemnified and held harmless. If they agree to cover a share of your loss, it exposes to greater liability and more related risk. It robs them of resources they need to  invest in their own business, while at the same time forcing them to do all the work. As a result, your model doesn't give such a service a fighting chance. Getting it off the ground and lasting past the first-year payouts would require more luck than skill.  They'd be better off heading to Vegas and the blackjack table, where the only overhead is a cheap flight and room, where the odds and rules don't change overnight, and they at least get free drinks. If none of the equivalents satisfies, then the Biblical parable appears to describe your only option for obtaining exactly what you want: Move to a country where slavery is legal and buy an investor  :-) Cheers, c"


George Carlin pointed out that economic theory says that if you give the poor money they will stop working, but that if you don't give the rich enough money they will stop working.  Which is it?  To little money makes you stop working or too much money makes you stop working?  It can't be one rule for the poor and one rule for the rich.


Combined spending during his administration grew by 3.5 trillion, not including the tax cuts (~1.5 trillion) and the afghanistan / iraq wars (~2 trillion combined).  That adds up to more than half of the current national debt. I'm not sure how you think that wouldn't be making a huge difference right now.  Sure, there was no 'real' surplus, but we were much less fucked.


>That doesn't exist any more.  This is false.  The GSE Sallie Mae buys student loans from other banks, meaning the banks offload their risk to Sallie Mae.  If Fannie/Freddie has taught us anything, is that the government will [come to the rescue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_takeover_of_Fannie_Mae_and_Freddie_Mac) if things go south.  In a way, the bailouts have shown that the government is backing *all* loans.  Second, students cannot discharge their student loans through bankruptcy, as easily as other loans.  As long as this is true the risk is reduced for the creditors.  If that were allowed, and students began defaulting on their loans (at the expense of their credit), then the assets tied to those loans become worthless, and the banks holding the loans go under, which will probably prompt some massive government/Fed bailout.  >Student homes are not like home loans  Every bubble is different, but they all end the same way.  Cheap credit created by the government results in malinvestments and loans that cannot be paid back.  The bubble will pop and the lenders will not get paid back.  See [Austrian Business Cycle Theory](http://www.slideshare.net/ManAgainstTheState/austrian-business-cycle-theory)


An air conditioning repair and maintenance service includes things like cleaning the evaporator coil, cleaning and washing filters, cleaning the blower wheel, fan blade and drain pan, checking the condenser unit, checking for any noise problems and flushing the drain pipe. The wonderful expertise and the long years of experience of the highly trained and skilled staff of an air conditioner repair company.


"Don't know if it's due to internet or due to reality tv shows turning people off.. Survivor (Started the major reality tv trend, the ""Real World"" wasn't anywhere as big) started in mid 2000 which ironicly is when the chart started to noise dive.   I'm surprised the report didn't even mention how badly reality tv is effecting us as TV stations are loosing viewers which means they have to put on more commercials to make up for lose of money and then they put on more reality tv because it's the cheapest kind of tv show to make without needing to hire stages,actors,casts,techs,crews,whatever.   They then cut back on decent/experimental shows because the tv watching demographic are now a bunch of reality tv viewers (idiots).   Catch 22.  Prime example of this is now that MTV has pretty much gone full reality tv and even other once respected channels like Discovery and History now have a crap load of reality based shows."


Eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes is punishing blue states. No way around it - this is the definition of double taxation that the GOP rails against for corporations.  I'm sorry that my state and local government provide me services I want, utilize and enjoy.


The movie celebrities in movie sectors are not restricted to a specific region; however they are still popular in the entire globe. These celebs make a big count of followers in distinct regions of the globe. Among these celebs the top most and wealthiest as per their celebrity net worth: Adam Sandler and Clint Eastwood.


"This is going to vary tremendously from country to country (and even from state to state, in some cases).  In general, though: Sole proprietorship: LLC: There are a lot of permutations depending on local law.  One thing that isn't actually much of an advantage is the ""limited liability"" component of the LLC.  Simply put: for a really small company the majority shareholders are usually going to be ""forced"" to stand surety for the company in their personal capacity. Limited liability only becomes available once the company has quite a lot of cash/assets (or the illusion of a lot of cash/assets). Update - noticed two further questions that appear very similar: Should all of these be merged?"


"This quote has it almost backwards. Thomas J. Stanley's recent book (he's one of the duo who researched and wrote about The Millionaire Next Door) claims that the top occupation of millionaires is ""business owner / self-employed"" (28%).  ""Real estate investor"" is lumped in with ""other"" (9%), and if the ordering is correct in the list, it's no more than 2% of the total. (source)"


***NO WEBSITE IS PERMANENT!***   Fuck, how stupid are investors? Websites have a popular life of a couple of years at best. Why pay insane P/Es when the expected life is so damned short? Why do stable companies with no horizon in sight have low PEs while extremely volatile, short-lived websites have high PEs? This defies all logic.   Stop chasing sexy and go with something stable and long term. You morons.


Surely the yield should be Yield = (Rent - Costs) / Downpayment ? As you want the yield relative to your capital not to the property value. As for the opportunity cost part you could look at the risk free rate of return you could obtain, either through government bonds or bank accounts with some sort of government guarantee (not sure what practical terms are for this in Finland). The management fee is almost 30% of your rent, what does this cover? Is it possible to manage the property yourself, as this would give you a much larger cushion between rent and expenses.


"To be fair, while he was harsh and over-critical, he was realistic.    Based on your vague wording (understandable, you think you have a unique proprietary idea) but the other stuff you mentioned, I don't think you can confidently say it'll make ""way over $200,000"".  It doesn't seem like you've done much research at all, have a business plan together, or any credible experience to evaluate your idea without personal bias.    Hope you continue to pursue it, but do your homework.  Learn how to put together a business plan, etc.  Because obviously if you came to an investor with your idea explained in the style of your original post, you'd more than likely be laughed off as a delusional kid."


The rule of thumb I have always heard and what we rent our rental house at is 1% per month at the minimum (in the US). The rent has to cover the mortgage, the property taxes, the homeowners insurance, your income taxes (on the rent), the maintenance of the property and the times when the property is vacant. Even at 1% per month that doesn't leave a whole lot of profit compared to what you put in.  I have no idea why anybody would buy a rental property in Australia if all they could get is 5% per year before expenses. They couldn't possibly be making money in that investment, not to mention the aggravations of getting late night phone calls because something broke in the rental house. No way I would make that investment.


I would definitely be putting in enough to get the most out of the match.  Only reasons I can think of not too would be: Other than that, not investing in the 401(k) is turning down free money. Edit based on feedback in comments. The only time I would advocate number 1 is if you are intensely committed to getting out of debt, were on a very tight budget and had eliminated all non-essential spending. In that situation only, I think the mental benefit of having that last debt paid off would be worth more than a few dollars in interest.


The problem with this is that the advertising revenue doesn't justify it, and neither does the pay per channel. When Hulu starts making money, then it might be a possibility. Right now advertisers won't pay as much for a commercial on the internet that reaches the same number of viewers as it would on tv. Unfortunately, the cost doesn't match up to the benefit at the moment.


That's a bit more nuanced than it seems.   The argument is that on balance, the government does not create wealth through value-added services, particularly when compared to private enterprise. That voluntary trade creates mutually beneficial outcomes, but involuntary taxation is at best a wealth transfer and at worst inefficient use of capital that leaves people worse off than they would be without it.  I mean...your characterization isn't totally unfair, but it isn't exactly right, either.


Finance is complex because it's complex. There's no great conspiracy here - the authors of article like this need to recognise that they cant understand everything - physicists don't invent complexity in their theories to keep the public stupid, and neither to finance experts.


Sure, the bible says you should stone gays. Do you see a bunch of people stoning gays? No. But the Koran's peeps, well, they're acting out the Koran's commands to the T.   Did you read any of that link on the Koran, or do you need me to cut and paste some of the verses? I think you will find them interesting unless your mind is closed off.   Is racist your favorite word?


Since your YouTube income is considered self-employment income and because you probably already made more than $400 in net income (after deducting expenses from the $4000 you've received so far), you will have to pay self-employment tax and file a return.  This is according to the IRS's Publication 17 (2016), Your Federal Income Tax, so assumes the same rules for 2016 will remain in effect for 2017: You are self-employed if you: Carry on a trade or business as a sole proprietor, Are an independent contractor, Are a member of a partnership, or Are in business for yourself in any other way. Self-employment can include work in addition to your regular full-time business activities, such as certain part-time work you do at home or in addition to your regular job. You must file a return if your gross income is at least as much as the filing requirement amount for your filing status and age (shown in Table 1-1). Also, you must file Form 1040 and Schedule SE (Form 1040), Self-Employment Tax, if: Your net earnings from self-employment (excluding church employee income) were $400 or more, or You had church employee income of $108.28 or more. (See Table 1-3.) Use Schedule SE (Form 1040) to figure your self-employment tax. Self-employment tax is comparable to the social security and Medicare tax withheld from an employee's wages. For more information about this tax, see Pub. 334, Tax Guide for Small Business. I'd also note that your predicted income is getting close to the level where you would need to pay Estimated Taxes, which for self-employed people work like the withholding taxes employers remove their employees paychecks and pay to the government. If you end up owing more than $1000 when you file your return you could be assessed penalties for not paying the Estimated Taxes. There is a grace period if you had to pay no taxes in the previous year (2016 in this case), that could let you escape those penalties.


The rates seem a little higher that those available at my credit union, but you seem to be able to borrow larger sums of money than many banks/credit unions will allow. Overall, it's a viable way to go.


Given the following variables Where b[n + 1] = b[n] (1 + r) - w and b[0] = s then b[n] = ((1 + r)^n (r s - w) + w)/r For example, illustrating with some figures. The balances in the first four quarters (n = 1, 2, 3, 4) are Check As per the Excel formula provided by OneTruDragonGirl £670.27


From everything I have read I still cannot be convinced of Whole Life Insurance Good!  You have a brain! but it seems to be the first thing any financial advisor is trained to sell. The commissions on whole life are sick.  The selling agent gets upward of 90% of your first year's premium.  I imagine that the regional and district managers split the remaining 10%, but that is speculation.  This is why there is typically a 15 year surrender charge on whole life.  The LI company is not getting any of the money! You may want to reevaluate any financial adviser that promotes whole life.  If it was me, I would fire them the moment the words came out of their mouth.


So the principle is true.  Assuming that you get paid bi-weekly, you end up getting three paychecks two months during the year.  Typically that is in January and July/August.  So if things were different, and your mortgage was setup so you paid half a monthly payment each paycheck, then you would wind up making one full extra payment per year.  Making that extra payment, most often, reduces the mortgage by 7 years on a 30 year note.   While true, many of these companies charge exorbitant fees for the right for you to do so, so the principal reduction is not commensurate with what you are paying.   You can simply do this yourself without paying fees.  On those extra pay days, pay half a payment to principal only, and no fee, no fuss.  This is pretty easy to do with most mortgage companies as they have online payments and it is just a matter of filling out a web form.  For me this does not even cost a stamp as they pull from my checking account at another bank.


This is finance, just because your from India doesn't mean much (And I was born and spent a good part of my youth in Kerala). I pretty actively invest in emerging markets and while India has a large number of problems, it is still looking like a good investment in this global environment.


"I'm just really getting sick of these ""omg, free market"" bullshit arguments. These regulations didn't spring up all over the country without reason. Discrimination, red-lining, and rate gouging were all issues the taxi industry faced at one time. Taxi regulators put these rules into effect to protect customers and assure that people using public transportation could get to where they needed to go.  The difference between Uber/Lyft and taxis that follow the law is that there is regulatory body that impose fines on companies and cab drivers that violate them. And with enough complaints, the regulators can completely revoke their ability to serve as taxi cabs in a city.  Instead you want this free market where the cab drivers can tell their passengers to get fucked if they don't like it. Go read the wiki page on taxi regulation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab#Regulation I can't find a single instance on there where customers benefited from deregulation."


"Yes, he can retract the offer - it was a cash-only offer, and if you're financing, it's no longer ""cash"". Unless, of course, you get the financing through your local bank / credit union, and they hand you a check (like on a personal loan). Then it's still cash. However, the salesman can still retract the offer unless it's in writing because you haven't signed anything yet. The price of financing will always be higher because the dealer doesn't get all their money today. Also, if you finance, you are not paying just the cost of the vehicle, you are paying interest, so your final cost will be higher (unless you were one of the lucky souls who got 0% financing atop employee pricing, and therefore are actually saving money by having a payment)."


This is the result of market competition as well.  * Cheese Company A pays its employees $10/hour. (20k/year) * Cheese Company B pays its employees $20/hour. (40k/year)  This increase in wages results in a 50cent increase/kg in production cost to company B.  Since the grocery chain has a policy to set their sales-price to 100% of purchase price, (in order to break even on a sale-price), this 50cent increase/kg, results in $1/kg when it hits the consumer.  Assume both cheeses are equal, most consumers will purchase the product at a lower price, leading to lost sales for company B.   **Capitalism, is a race to the bottom.**


"> That's not a taxi regulation, that's just a driving regulation: all vehicles must be insured. Are you saying that Uber/Lyft aren't even following the laws of the road?  When you're driving to a call, you're working as a cab driver, or if you don't like that label, you're operating a commercial vehicle. Regular car insurance does not cover operating a vehicle for the purposes of transporting people, a.k.a. driving a taxi. There is special insurance for taxi companies because they have much higher liability and likelihood of being in an accident, thus the premiums are higher. Uber/Lyft drivers do not have this type of insurance individually, but Uber/Lyft each have a ""$1m insurance policy"" in case their drivers are in accidents **when they are loaded**. It doesn't cover them between calls. When an Uber/Lyft driver gets in an accident between calls, their insurance isn't going to cover it because they were operating a taxi, or a vehicle that transports people for money. Their insurance will drop their policy, and they will be liable for the damages, which they likely won't be able to pay out of pocket or they wouldn't be driving for Uber/Lyft in the first place.  > Taxi regulations actually allow red-lining by restricting service areas: ""sorry, I don't go to x town - I'm only licensed for y town."" Even with the regulations, taxis do it anyway. That's why they ask for your destination before they give you an ETA on pickup  You have no idea what red-lining is.  > Rate-setting isn't a good thing.  Yes, it is actually. It keeps the prices stable and manageable. Without prices would drastically increase, which seems to be a big complaint in this thread.  > Yep. The taxi regulations should largely be repealed: they've outlived their usefulness  Again, you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about. Many cities have tried to deregulate their cab industries and all but one in the US has returned to some form of regulation. It's been a complete shit show every time. Service quality went down and prices went up.  See, the thing people in this thread people don't get is I actually know how cab drivers think because I personally know 200 of them. They would absolutely love to have the industry deregulated because then they wouldn't have to take drunk assholes that call for a cab, they could just take the decently sober guy offering them an extra $20. They wouldn't have to drive to the shitty parts of town where they're most likely to get robbed. They wouldn't even have to give rides to shady looking people who are probably going to bail on their fare. Got a wheelchair? Fuck if anyone wants to lift that into the trunk. You want that short ride that only goes three blocks because you're wearing your hootchy skirt with 6"" heels? Why bother? Oh it's 2am on New Year's Eve/Day and you want a ride? And you're freezing your ass off? Ok, how about $80? No? Well the guy behind you with his girlfriend crying will pay it. He won't like it, but it beats being stuck downtown all night."


"I don't know what angle you're trying to push or why, but are you also saying that Kenichi Ueda of the IMF and Beatrice Weder Di Mauro of the University of Mainz are similarly lacking the understanding of financial concepts when they published a [paper](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12128.pdf) ""Quantifying Structural Subsidy Values for Systemically Important Financial Institutions""?  Are you suggesting a similar ""entire shaker of salt"" when they ""estimate[d] the structural subsidy values by exploiting expectations of state support embedded in credit ratings and by using long-run average value of rating bonus""?  Should we really be so skeptical when they conclude:  >Section III has provided estimates of the value of the subsidy to SIFIs in terms of the overall ratings. Using the range of our estimates, we can summarize that a one-unit increase in government support for banks in advanced economies has an impact equivalent to 0.55 to 0.9 notches on the overall long-term credit rating at the end-2007. And, this effect increased to 0.8 to 1.23 notches by the end-2009 (Summary Table 8). At the end-2009, the effect of the government support is almost identical between the group of advanced countries and developing countries. Before the crisis, governments in advanced economies played a smaller role in boosting banks’ long-term ratings. These results are robust to a number of sample selection tests, such as testing for differential effects across developing and advanced countries, for both listed and non-listed banks, and also correcting for bank parental support and alternative estimations of an individual bank’s strength.  I ask because this article is founded on that study - linked to by Bloomberg which is then linked to in OP's Huffpo article.  While you can certainly claim that Mark Gongloff ""shows a basic lack of understanding"" of whatever, why don't you put some skin in the game and demonstrate how he somehow misses the entire point of that study, or better yet really wow us by de-bunking that study."


Landelijke keuken kopen voor een warme sfeer? Bent u op zoek naar een keuken met een warme en gezellige uitstraling, dan is een landelijke keuken echt iets voor u. De details, het materiaalgebruik en de kleuren zorgen voor een warme sfeer in uw woning. Dus meer informatie bezoek onze website.


They are quite literally picking the taxi industry to be the winner and uber to be the loser. Uber provides more value to customers than traditional taxis and they have been successful because of it. Why should the government get to tell me I can't use an app to call a car to pick me up? It's utterly ridiculous.


I'm not that concerned. Does it suck that we live in a world where companies need to work on fraud detection? Sure. But like it or not, that's the world we live in, and regulations aren't going to fix it since it's essentially impossible to enforce. These companies are technology and logistics companies, so they need to work on fraud detection.


"The raw question is as follows:  ""You will be recommending a purposed portfolio to an investment committee (my class). The committee runs a foundation that has an asset base of $4,000,000. The foundations' dual mandates are to (a) preserve capital and (b) to fund $200,000 worth of scholarships. The foundation has a third objective, which is to grow its asset base over time.""   The rest of the assignment lays out the format and headings for the sections of the presentation.  Thanks, by the way - it's an 8 week accelerated course and I've been out sick for two weeks. I've been trying to teach myself this stuff, including the excel calculations for the past few weeks."


"The basic way that these ""work"" is this: Every year I have to deposit 3500 to remain active in the company, else my account gets expired. You are paying money into the system. The only way you make any money is to: By my calculation I(or my child nodes) have to get 18 people to join to break-even my investment. Intuitively this should tell you that: What normally happens in this sort of thing is that people get conned/excited/tricked/whatever and sign a few of their friends up, but then quickly run out of people to bother/annoy/hassle/harass into joining and then they lose money on the whole thing."


"You're right.  I did include ""is it reasonable"" in the title.  Therefore that brings in the acceptability of those taxes.  However I am making the case that I would like capital gains to be taxed most similarly to regular income (or at least in a parallel bracket), which is independent of the amount needed to be brought in.  I think parallel brackets would be the most productive since it would encourage people to both produce and invest, because you would get the lowest taxes by maximizing both."


Yes it is!  You don't need the candidate waving a university diploma to find out in 5 minutes if they can read, write or understand.  As someone who work with many interns, some of them from ivy league universities, I can confirm that many of them, 30%, have terrible attitudes, immaturity, spoiled, disorganized, and it all goes together with being not so smart, despite the degree.  In the past, to be a teller in a bank, you did not have to finish high school. Just needed to be good with basic math.


"Another factor to consider, beyond the fact that growth and volatility go together, is that the times when many people will need to liquidate their investments will correlate with the times that many other people need to liquidate their investments, and such correlation will push down the immediate value of those investments. While certificates of deposit have penalties for early withdrawal, one can establish up front what the worst-case penalty would be for cashing it in at the most inopportune time.  By contrast, stocks offer no such assurance.  Stocks sometimes have weird downward spikes that may be short-lived, but if life circumstances force one to liquidate stocks during such a downward spike the ""penalty"" can be much larger than on a CD."


Yea that’s my point coal generation gets monopolies and subsidies, alternative gets subsidies. Who gets more as a weighted metric? In a per Capita and absolute sense. Also how you do you calculate out subsidies on panels sold that were subsidized? I don’t know.


In China (Shanghai at least) Burger King is actually really good.  Everything is made fresh, they use high grade meat, and keep the place spotless.  Most western fast food places in China are a step above the US but Burger King is a few steps.  Carl's Jr came here a few years back and they are incredible.  They aren't as widespread as Mcdonalds and KFC but the quality is high.


"Ha! They'll be hit with a fine and settle some civil suits and that'll be it.  - Wells Fargo committed 2 million counts of fraud.  They also went to FINRA and burned thousands of their employees who refused to play along.  They were fined about $250m.  Curiously, they were fined a lot more for selling mortgages too complicated for Joe Schmo to comprehend.  - BNP Paribas traded with Iranians despite sanctions.  ""Light treason."" Big fine, but not enough to put them out of business.  - HSBC laundered a bunch of money for the Mexican cartels.  - CSFB, et al. helped thousands of wealthy Americans hide money from the IRS.    - In the 70s, Ford [knowingly](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9e4X1Tnjnp4J:https://philosophia.uncg.edu/phi361-metivier/module-2-why-does-business-need-ethics/case-the-ford-pinto/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) sold cards that would sometimes explode if they were rear ended at 20mph. People died. The guy who led that project became the most celebrated American CEO of the 80s.   - GM knowingly sold cars with defective ignition switches. People died.  - VW installed a device to cheat on emissions tests, in effect lieing to the government every time their cars were smogged.    - BP cut corners, built a shitty rig that burned down, killed a bunch of people, and pissed crude all over the Gulf of Mexico, under an environmentally friendly Democratic president, and they're still around.  It wasn't even their only big spill that year in American waters."


Agreed  They are really good at producing a uniform, consistent product from variable ingredients  That's why Stone brewing hired one of their brewers to teach them how to scale up  No, I don't drink Bud, but I respect their industrial process control


Funny.  I just made a comment about how I like that there is no commission.    There are 2 Best Buys near me that I shop at.  I always find the sales people to be helpful when I need their help.  Maybe some regions have better training methods?


You could look up their old SEC filings before they were placed in conservatorship. Derive WACC from that. Comp to peer financials from the same timeframe; see how they compare. Assume some sort of size premium if you so desire.  That might give you a picture of the business's cost of capital were it an independent entity. Since it's a GSE, you could make the case that its cost of capital is the rate on US treasury securities.   In reality, it's current cost of capital is probably a mix of the two.


Just to offer another alternative, consider Certificates of Deposit (CDs) at an FDIC insured bank or credit union for small or short-term investments. If you don't need access to the money, as stated, and are not willing to take much risk, you could put money into a number of CDs instead of investing it in stocks, or just letting it sit in a regular savings/checking account. You are essentially lending money to the bank for a guaranteed length of time (anywhere from 3 to 60 months), and therefore they can give you a better rate of return than a savings account (which is basically lending it to them with the condition that you could ask for it all back at any time). Your rate of return in CDs is lower a typical stock investment, but carries no risk at all. CD rates typically increase with the length of the CD. For example, my credit union currently offers a 2.3% APY on a 5-year CD, but only 0.75% for 12 month CDs, and a mere 0.1% APY on regular savings/checking accounts. Putting your full $10K deposit into one or more CDs would yield $230 a year instead of a mere $10 in their savings account. If you go this route with some or all of your principal, note that withdrawing the money from a CD before the end of the deposit term will mean forfeiting the interest earned. Some banks may let you withdraw just a portion of a CD, but typically not. Work around this by splitting your funds into multiple CDs, and possibly different term lengths as well, to give you more flexibility in accessing the funds. Personally, I have a rolling emergency fund (~6 months living expenses, separate from all investments and day-to-day income/expenses) split evenly among 5 CDs, each with a 5-year deposit term (for the highest rate) with evenly staggered maturity dates. In any given year, I could close one of these CDs to cover an emergency and lose only a few months of interest on just 20% of my emergency fund, instead of several years interest on all of it. If I needed more funds, I could withdraw more of the CDs as needed, in order of youngest deposit age to minimize the interest loss - although that loss would probably be the least of my worries by then, if I'm dipping deeply into these funds I'll be needing them pretty badly.  Initially I created the CDs with a very small amount and differing term lengths (1 year increments from 1-5 years) and then as each matured, I rolled it back into a 5 year CD. Now every year when one matures, I add a little more principal (to account for increased living expenses), and roll everything back in for another 5 years. Minimal thought and effort, no risk, much higher return than savings, fairly liquid (accessible) in an emergency, and great peace of mind. Plus it ensures I don't blow the money on something else, and that I have something to fall back on if all my other investments completely tanked, or I had massive medical bills, or lost my job, etc.


Are you trolling? It's been declining for 100 years. It's called inflation, and the guys in charge of the currency supply seem to think it's a good thing. Further the only way the government is ever going to pay this debt off is if we continue to see inflation for decades.


Ordinarily a cosigner does not appear on the car's title (thus, no ownership at all in the vehicle), but they are guaranteeing payment of the loan if the primary borrower does not make the payment. You have essentially two options: Stop making payments for him.  If he does not make them, the car will be repossessed and the default will appear on both his and your credit.  You will have a credit ding to live with, but he will to and he won't have the car. Continue to make payments if he does not, to preserve your credit, and sue him for the money you have paid.  In your suit you could request repayment of the money or have him sign over the title (ownership) to you, if you would be happy with either option.  I suspect that he will object to both, so the judge is going to have to decide if he finds your case has merit. If you go with option 1 and he picks up the payments so the car isn't repossessed, you can then still take option 2 to recover the money you have paid.  Be prepared to provide documentation to the court of the payments you have made (bank statements showing the out-go, or other form of evidence you made the payment - the finance company's statements aren't going to show who made them).


I'd be a bit concerned about someone who wanted to transact that large of a transaction in cash.  Also consider what you are going to do with the funds, if you deposit it, you will need to tell the bank where it comes from. Why does the bank want to know, because most legal businesses don't transact business with large sums of currency.. What does that tell you about the likelihood the person you are about to do business with is a criminal or involved in criminal affairs?  The lower bill of sale price might be more than just to dodge taxes, it could be part of money laundering..  If they can turn right around and 'sell' the boat for $10K, or trade it in on a bigger boat for the same amount, and have a bill than says $4K, then they have just come up with a legal explanation for how they made 6 grand.  and you could potentially be considered an accomplice if someone is checking up on their finances. Really, is it worth the risk.


"Banks make money on load origination fees. The ""points"" you pay or closing costs are the primary benefit to the banks. A vast majority of the time risks associated with the mortgage are sold to another party. FYI, the same is true with investment banks. In general, the transaction costs (which are ignored by modern finance theory) are the main thing running the incentives for the industry."


So a company can exploit cheap labour overseas, but their cash cannot help pension funds of people from abroad?  Multinational Corporations have no national identity. Their profits shouldn't be regarded as being gotten in just one country. If Apple's offshore money gives a guy in Bangladesh a better pension, they can buy a nice Japanese scooter, which in turn allows a Japanese girl to buy an iPod.  I'm an idealist, yes.  I wish people would stop dividing this world up with fictitious borders and stop with the whole 'us vs them' thing.


"I think you should really start a limited company for this. It'll be a lot simpler to spread the income over multiple years if your business and you have completely separate identities. You should also consult an accountant, if only once to understand the basics of how to approach this. Having a limited company would also mean that if it has financial problems, you don't end up having to pay the debts yourself. With a separate company, you would keep any money raised within the company initially and only pay it to yourself as salary over the three years, so from an income tax point of view you'd only be taxed on it as you received it. The company would also pay for project expenses directly and there wouldn't be any income tax to pay on them at all. You would have to pay other taxes like VAT, but you could choose to register for VAT and then you'd be able to reclaim VAT on the company's expenses but would have to charge VAT to your customers. If you start making enough money (currently £82,000/year) you have to register for VAT whether you want to or not. The only slight complication might be that you could be subject to corporation tax on the surplus money in the first year because it might seem like a profit. However, given that you would presumably have promised something to the funders over a three year period, it should be possible to record your promises as a ""liability"" for ""unearned income"" in the company accounts. In effect you'd be saying ""although there's still £60,000 in the bank, I have promised to spend it on the crowdfunded thing so it's not profit"". Again you should consult an accountant at least over the basics of this."


Working on existing accounts does look really easy. It takes a special type of person though, and getting those accounts in the first place does take some serious effort.  As an aside, one of the more interesting things I found about salespeople is that they are well compensated, but very stuck. They can move to competition, but changing industries or moving to another region is extremely difficult for them due to the highly networked nature of their business.


Google inquiries (Auto-propose) – Content can be made in view of the prerequisite and web crawlers give enough choices to individuals to locate the correct catchphrases with the assistance of Dubai local seo master. You can presumably pay special mind to a watchword by writing a specific expression on the Google look box. Google inquiries are a standout amongst other alternatives, which can be comprehended by anyone chipping away at an article or a blog. Google auto-propose instrument is generally utilized by SEO organizations in UAE, where they can check by setting their undeniable catchphrases to check for the auto-recommended watchwords.


"If your business is structured as a partnership or sole proprietorship you call this investment ""partner equity"".  If instead it is structured as a corporation, then the initial investment is called ""paid-in capital"".  Either way, this represents the capital the initial investors or partners provided to the company in exchange for their ownership stake. The most important thing in your case is that since that initial investment is in the form of inventory, you are going to have to document the value of that investment somehow.  You will definitely need a comprehensive manifest of what you contributed, including titles and condition, and if possible you should document the prices at which similar items are being offered for sale at the time you start operating.  Having this information will support your claims as to the fair market value of the start-up contribution, should the tax authorities decide to question it."


You have no grounds for a refund. The flight took off on time, and you chose not to be on board. The fact that the airline could not guarantee ahead of time that the flight would leave on time is not relevant. You can certainly try to dispute the charge with the airline, and it sounds like you have done so. The airline correctly indicates that your dispute is unfounded. You can call up your credit card company and explain the situation, and they may accept your dispute. However, I am not aware of any credit card that would reimburse you (that is, issue a chargeback) in this situation. I'm not trying to be unsympathetic. It sucks that you felt you could not rely on the airline, and are now out some money. Fundamentally, though, this was your choice. The airline would be obligated to reimburse you the cost of your flight, or book you on another flight, if the flight was cancelled due to bad weather or other issues, but they owe you nothing if the flight took off on schedule.


"Nonsense. I am not saying the Elon and Tesla are perfect, but all companies have delays. Especially those inventing things nobody did before them.  And some companies have production capacity issues. Especially those experiencing super high demand on their products. Big deal!  Tesla got 0.5 million pre-orders. With approx 2-3 years of waiting time, and people had to pay 1000 USD upfront, out of their pockets. And they did.  Tesla is seeing an extreme demand for their high-priced product. Every entrepreneur and enterprise would love to be in Musk's shoes.   **So, delayed deliveries and shaking liquidity should be considered only ""logistics"" issues, not ""will he fail!"" discussion.**"


"As reported by ZeroHedge in January 2016:   ""While the media claims that this record has been reached because of drastic improvements to the US economy, they are once again failing to account for the central factor: credit expansion.""   ""In order to generate more vehicle purchases, these companies have incentivized consumers with hot, hard-to-resist offers, similar to the infamous “liar loans” and “no-money down” loans of the 2008 recession.""   http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-11/auto-loan-bubble-ready-pop.   Pro tip: Get your news over 1 year in advance by reading ZeroHedge and not shitty Bloomberg or other lamestream media."


Good sales people are difficult to find, so most companies offer them a decent salary and bonus to keep them incentivized.   At the end of the day, sales is what keeps a business afloat. I'm not saying the other job positions aren't important. Afterall, you need a product to sell or you won't be in business long. But great sales people are always in high demand. The more they sell, the richer the company gets.   The sales people are the ones generating revenue and profit for the company, so it makes sense if you look at it from that perspective. Although I agree with you--everyone in the company should receive some sort of bonus for exceptional performance.


Do you need the car, or is this an optional purchase for you?  Do you currently have a car that is in good working order? If you can continue to save for the car instead of buying now, you'll be getting interest on what you've saved -- and that's a lot better than 0% financing.


"Things very similar to the idea of a ""future"" that routinely apply to single stocks are ""warrants"" and ""options""."


non-resident aliens to the US do not pay capital gains on US products. You pay tax in your home country if you have done a taxable event in your country. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/nonusresidenttax.asp#axzz1mQDut9Ru but if you hold dividends, you are subject to US dividend tax. The UK-US treaty should touch on that though.


One reason why you may have gotten this advice is that stocks have an expected real return over time, while commodities do not. Therefore, when gambling on individual stocks, odds are in your favor that they will ultimately go up over time. You may do better or worse than the market as a whole, but they will likely go up as the whole market, on average, rises over time. Commodities, on the other hand, have no expected real return. It is more zero-sum. In fact, after costs, a real loss should be expected on average, making gambling in here more risky.


"I was in the health insurance game for 10 years and never heard of this until the Affordable Care Act came about.  To my knowledge, there is no rule or regulation prohibiting it, however trying to get an insurer underwrite that risk is extremely unlikely. It's the same reason why you don't see AAA offering health insurance. There isn't a contractual relationship between the church and their constituents, so no underwriter worth their salt would put a reasonable price on that risk.   Members can easily come and go, and since insurance through your employer is still the dominant distribution channel for health insurance, it would be seen as an adverse risk, meaning that people who couldn't get it through ""normal"" channels must be getting it through the church, which it would then be assumed that this person applying for coverage is an ""adverse risk"" or someone who is abnormally unhealthy.  There are faith-based healthcare reimbursement programs that are NOT health insurance and do not satisfy the ACA required minimum coverages. From what I've seen and read, it's basically members of the religion or faith that pay money into the system (like paying an insurance premium) and they elect a board that basically evaluates each claim and pays or doesn't pay it, either partially or in full. While this is a nice way to get your bills paid, odds are it won't cover your $300,000 cancer treatment or your $50,000 cesarean section birth."


So, my question is what is the limit below which I don't have to pay taxes while trading. I just invested $10. Do I have to pay taxes for this too? what are the slabs? Any income is subject to tax. That said, investing $10 will probably not generate much of income, even at the discount brokers most of it will be wasted on commissions... I am also having an assistantship. So is holding two sources of income legitimate? Thanks You can have as many sources of income as you want. Working is what is restricted when you're on a student visa. As long as you don't open a business as a day trader or start working for someone trading stocks - you're fine.


Having a very high payout ratio is fine if there aren't any sensible investments available for the company, and citi already had their payout ratio somewhere in the 80% range.   The remaining excess is from them reducing the capital bed they were required to hold for the stress tests; cash that was essentially sitting around doing nothing.  [WSJ link](https://www.wsj.com/articles/BT-CO-20170628-711143) for u/LupusSuperius


In short, I suggest you take a look at your W-4 form and adjust it properly. And yes you can claim your self as a dependent, unless someone else is claiming you. But here is a more detailed explanation of how it works. How Income Tax Works. While most people tend to only think about the tax system and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as the month of April approaches, it's actually a never-ending process. For our purposes, a good way to explain how the system works is to give an example of one American income earner, we will call him Joe. The tax process begins when Joe starts his new job. He and his employer agree on his compensation, which will be figured into his gross income at the end of the year. One of the first things he has to do when he's hired is fill out all of his tax forms, including a W-4 form. The W-4 form lists all of Joe's withholding allowance information, such as his number of dependents and child care expenses. The information on this form tells your employer just how much money it needs to withhold from your paycheck for federal income tax. The IRS says that you should check this form each year, as your tax situation may change from year to year. Once Joe is hired and given a salary, he can estimate how much he will pay in taxes for the year. Here's the formula: At the end of each pay period, Joe's company takes the withheld money, along with all of withheld tax money from all of its employees, and deposits the money in a Federal Reserve Bank. This is how the government maintains a steady stream of income while also drawing interest on your tax dollars. Toward the end of the tax year, Joe's company has to send him a W-2 form in the mail. This happens by January 31. This form details how much money Joe made during the last year and how much federal tax was withheld from his income. This information can also be found on Joe's last paycheck of the year, but he'll need to send the W-2 to the IRS for processing purposes. At some point between the time Joe receives his W-2 and April 15, Joe will have to fill out and return his taxes to one of the IRS service and processing centers. Once the IRS receives Joe's tax returns, an IRS employee keys in every piece of information on Joe's tax forms. This information is then stored in large magnetic tape machines. If Joe is due a tax refund, he is sent a check in the mail in the next few weeks. If Joe uses e-File or TeleFile, his refund can be direct-deposited into his bank account.


"Stock has value to the buyer even if it does not currently pay dividends, since it is part ownership of the company (and the company's assets). The owners (of which you are now a part) hire managers to make a ""dividend policy decision.""  If the company can reinvest the profits into a project that would earn more than the ""minimum acceptable rate of return,"" then they should do so. If the company has no internal investment opportunities at or above this desired rate, then the company has an obligation to declare a dividend.  Paying out a dividend returns this portion of profit to the owners, who can then invest their money elsewhere and earn more. For example: The stock market currently has, say, a 5% rate of return. Company A has a $1M profit and can invest it in a project with an expected 10% rate of return, so they should do so. Company B has a $1M profit, but their best internal project only has an expected 2% rate of return.  It is in the owners' best interest to receive their portion of their company's profit as a dividend and re-invest it in other stocks. (Others have pointed out the tax deferrment portion of dividend policy, so I skipped that)"


Yes though I'd likely put a caveat on that. If you take short-term investments and extrapolate the results to get an annual result this can be misleading. For example, if a stock goes up 10% in a month, assuming this will continue for the next 11 months may not be a great idea. Thus, beware of how much data do you have in making these calculations. When looking at long-term investments, the compound annual growth rate can be quite useful for comparison.


The dealership is getting a kickback for having you use a particular bank to finance through. The bank assumes you will take the full term of the loan to pay back, and will hopefully be a repeat customer. This tactic isn't new, and although it maybe doesn't make sense to you, the consumer, in the long run it benefits the bank and the dealership. (They wouldn't do it otherwise. These guys have a lot of smart people running #s for them). Be sure to read the specifics of the loan contract. There may be a penalty for paying it off early. Most customers won't be able to pay that much in cash, so the bank makes a deal with the dealership to send clients their way. They will lose money on a small percentage of clients, but make more off of the rest of the clients. If there's no penalty for paying it off early, you may just want to take the financing offer and pay it off ASAP. If you truly can only finance $2500 for 6 mos, and get the full discount, then that might work as well. The bank had to set a minimum for the dealership in order to qualify as a loan that earns the discount. Sounds like that's it. Bonus Info: Here's a screenshot of Kelley Blue Book for that car. Car dealers get me riled up, always have, always will, so I like doing this kind of research for people to make sure they get the right price. Fair price range is $27,578 - $28,551. First time car buyers are a dealers dream come true. Don't let them beat you down!  And here's more specific data about the Florida area relating to recent purchases:


The first DirecTV DVRs were TiVos, and they were fantastic. My family had a few.  DirecTV decided they'd rather keep the $1 per month they had to pay TiVo and released their own DVRs, which were widely panned. But if you wanted HD you didn't have a choice. That's why I bought a Series 3 and moved back to cable.  Some time in the last few years DirecTV though better of this decision and started offering new TiVo based boxes.


"Holy shit its people like you who can't be won over and complain about everything.  ""Costoso pays its employees well"" You: Fuck them, they don't employ enough people!!!    ""Costco reduces pay to hire more employees"" You: Fuck them they're literally Walmart!!!!"


DuoSeal Vacuum Pumps are known for their ruggedness world-wide. These pumps have large oil reservoirs to dilute contaminants. Low pump rpm to reduces friction and wear while minimizing reservoir temperature to lessen chemical reactivity. Pump can be ordered with an optional exhaust filter to control oil mist.


"I think the first misconception to clear up is that you are implying the price of a stock is set by a specific person. It is not. The price of a stock is equal to the value that someone most recently traded at. If Apple last traded at $100/share, then Apple shares are worth $100. If good news about Apple hits the market and people holding the shares ask for more money, and the most recent trade becomes $105, then that is now what Apple shares are worth. Remember that generally speaking, the company itself does not sell you its shares - instead, some other investor sells you shares they already own. When a company sells you shares, it is called a 'public offering'. To get to your actual question, saying something is 'priced in' implies that the 'market' (that is, investors who are buying and selling shares in the company) has already considered the impacts of that something. For example, if you open up your newspaper and read an article about IBM inventing a new type of computer chip, you might want to invest in IBM. But, the rest of the market has also heard the news. So everyone else has already traded IBM assuming that this new chip would be made. That means when you buy, even if sales later go up because of the new chip, those sales were already considered by the person who chose the price to sell you the shares at. One principle of the stock market (not agreed to by all) is called market efficiency. Generally, if there were perfect market efficiency, then every piece of public information about a company would be perfectly integrated into its stock price. In such a scenario, the only way to get real value when buying a company would be to have secret information of some sort. It would mean that everyone's collective best-guess about what will happen to the company has been ""priced-in"" to the most recent share trade."


It's none of the school's business what your agreement is with your current employer. It's an odd request and would raise a flag to me about their ability to run a business/school logically and other odd/absurd business practices you may uncover or ways they may treat employees.


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I'm not pro-union not because of a conservative talking point, but because I think workers should have the choice as to whether they want to join or not.  Most unions are compulsory, not voluntary.  When I worked for Kroger as a summer job, I was forced to join the UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers).  A part of my meager hourly wage was required to be given to them, yet I did not want to be a member because I would never receive the benefits.  You had to be working for 6 months to be accepted into the union, yet you were forced to pay dues the first minute you began working.


From your own [post in this discussion thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/6yfcxu/the_debt_trap_how_the_student_loan_industry/dmnfcfs/)  >In any case, an educated populace is crucial to avoid things like our current political climate, where people fall for propaganda and think satire websites are true news.


Most startup community would say don't even bother to secure it unless yours is never done before. If you really done a lot of research and no one has done it before. Maybe you're one of the lucky few in the world with some new idea. Some investors get turned off when you make them sign NDA, especially if you're a first time entrepreneur. But chances are you're probably not.   Instead focus on validating the idea and get market traction.


HP needs to knuckle down and focus on core principles if they want to survive. Time was they were synonymous with printing, they need to get back to that. Stop making disposable inkjets that are cheaper to replace than purchase ink for. Start making bulletproof hardware with 100,000 duty cycles like the old HP Laserjet 4s that many companies still run because the new stuff is shite.


Delaware LLC requires that each business entity have and hold an enterprise Registered in the State of Delaware who can be both a character resident or enterprise entity this is legal to do business in the  Wilmington, Delaware. the Delaware LLC has offered the same asset protections and tax advantages that a corporation offers. Often the LLC is the simpler, more flexible choice for small businesses. This small amount of required information not only makes it easy to start an LLC in Delaware, but it also helps to keep your identity and personal information secure.


1: Gambling losses not in excess of gambling winnings can be deducted on Schedule A, line 28.  See Pub 17 (p 201).  Line 28 catches lots of deductions, and gambling losses are one of them.  See Schedule A instructions. 2: If the Mississippi state tax withheld was an income tax (which I assume it was), then it goes on Schedule A, line 5a.  In the unlikely event it was not a state or local tax on income, but some sort of excise on gambling, then it may be deductible on line 8 as another deductible tax.  It probably is not a personal property tax, which is generally levied against the value of things like cars and other movable property but not on receipts of cash; line 7 probably is not appropriate.  The most likely result, without researching Mississippi SALT, is that it was an income tax.  See Sched A Instructions for more on the differences between the types of taxes paid. Just to be clear, these statements hold if you are not engaging in poker as a profession.  If you are engaging in poker as a business, which can be difficult to establish in the IRS' eyes, then you would use Schedule C and also report business and travel expenses.  But the IRS is aware that people want to reduce their gambling income by the cost of hotels and flights to casinos, so it's a relatively high hurdle to be considered a professional poker player.


"Unfortunately I don't think any of the online personal finance applications will do what you're asking. Most (if not all) online person finance software uses a combination of partnerships with the banks themselves and ""screen scraping"" to import your data. This simplifies things for the user but is typically limited to whenever the service was activated. Online personal finance software is still relatively young and doesn't offer the depth available in a desktop application (yet). If you are unwilling to part with historical data you spent years accumulating you are better off with a desktop application. Online Personal Finance Software Pros Cons Desktop Personal Finance Software Pros Cons In my humble opinion the personal finance software industry really needs a hybrid approach. A desktop application that is synchronized with a website. Offering the stability and tools of a desktop application with the availability of a web application."


> People who wanted a high-end Vegas experience could simply afford to go to Vegas, while at the same time, Revel alienated the lower end customer base by banning smoking and not offering any inexpensive buffet style dining  Ouch. That sounds like a pretty hard fall for them.


A few months ago, I met with the founder of Wealthsimple. As someone with higher than average about both trading and investing, I asked him whether his funds would be able to add more value to my Couch Potato portfolio not in terms of returns but rather in terms of management fees. I also asked him this: if I wish to have a portfolio that has a specific % allocation towards emerging markets, would I be able to do so with Wealthsimple. The answer to both of the above questions was that I'd be better off investing by myself. I'd venture a guess and say that most people on SE Money wouldn't require a service such as Wealthsimple.


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The reason is the same as with cell phones payment plans. As competition grows cell phone companies offer better payment plans for the same price or the same plans for lower price or both so that you stay with that cell operator. Banks also make better offers if the financial situation allows. Suppose several banks offer refinancing with better terms but prohibit refinancing loans from the same bank. Okay, you refinance from another bank and them maybe refinance the new loan again from the original bank - it's a new loan after the first refinance and prohibition no longer works. They just make you jump through more loops and it doesn't make sense neither for them nor for you


The only time when you need to pay taxes on an existing pension is when the pension pays out after you retire, or if you get a lump sum out of the pension, around the time when you retire. The growth in value of your pension fund is not income.


Your question is a bit confusing, you may wish to edit it to clarify the meaning. If we broke up or he stops paying, can I take the car back again? No. Just as if you sold me or the guy down the street your car you cannot just simply take it back.  Being someone's boyfriend does not grant special privileges to you or him.   Don't do this if you have not done so.  If you have try and get it undone.   It is unlikely that this is allowable as the bank will not simply allow you to transfer ownership if you have a loan. In the future, use cash (not loans) to buy your cars.


The value of a company is, simplified, the sum of the value of the equity and the value of the debt. There are some other things to add/subtract to that, but just think about those for now.  You could also say the value of a company is the value of its assets, or more precisely the value of the net cash flows those assets will generate in the future.  So let's say you want to start a company, so you want to buy some assets. Maybe you want to buy a $200 asset. Well, you only have $100, so you take out a loan (debt) for $100 for the remainder. You buy the asset and start generating income.  Let's say after a month you get bored and decide to sell the company. Let's assume the value of the assets hasn't changed. Your equity is worth $100, and you find a buyer who is willing to pay $100 for your company. Great! Right?  Well there's still the $100 loan you owe, so you have to pay that back. And suddenly you now have $0.   So in fact, you should have negotiated $200 with the buyer, because that's what the assets are actually worth. Then you can pay back the loan and still have the $100 in equity you deserve. (Alternatively, you could have negotiated the buyer to assume responsibility for the loan; same outcome for you.)  Did that help?


"Depending on where you live in the UK, buying a house sooner might be a better option. I would echo the advice about putting some money away into a ""rainy day"" fund etc. above but I know that in my area house prices are going up by around 7% per year. I bought a house two years ago and I'm paying 4% interest on my mortgage so I'm effectively making money by owning my house.  Given that you want to buy a house soonish, if your money sits in an account somewhere making no interest, you're effectively losing 7% of your cash each year by not keeping up with house prices, meaning you'll be able to afford a smaller house with the same money. Do bear in mind though that buying a house costs around £4k in lawyers fees, surveys, mortgage setup fees etc. and selling a house can be more since estate agents will take a % of the sale cost. If you live somewhere where house prices are not increasing as quickly then this will not be as good an option than if you live in e.g. London where house prices are currently skyrocketing. If you don't want to live in the house, you may be able to do a buy-to-let as an investment. Generally the rent will cover the mortgage payments and probably a letting agent/property management company's fees, so while you won't see any actual net income, the people renting will be paying the mortgage off and you'll be building equity on the home. It's not entirely without risk though as tenants can trash homes etc."


Meh... how about telling us how they actually run scams?  What to watch out for?  Some real info.  What's here is, mostly, obvious top level stuff.  What I want is the dirt.  Real details.  Real content.  Come on, give it to us.


Lack of demand???  There is no such thing as a lack of demand.  People will always demand stuff they want and need.  If you're saying people are lacking demand of the goods and services that have been overly inflated and misallocated then yes I agree and therefore this lack of demand is the right medicine to signal to the market that we need to reallocate supply and production to create products/services that people want and can afford to buy.  More stimulus and propping up failed industries/services will only mean that we will just continue the failed path that brought us here in the first place.


An option, by definition, is a guess about the future value of the stock. If you guess too aggressively, you lose the purchase price of the option; if you guess too conservatively, you may not take the option or may not gain as much as you might have. You need to figure out what you expect to happen, and how confident you are about it, against the cost of taking the option -- and be reasonably confident that the change in the stock's value will be at least large enough to cover the cost of buying into the game. Opinion: Unless you're comfortable with expectation values and bell curves around them, it's significantly easier to lose money on options than to profit on them. And I'm not convinced that even statisticians can really do this well. I've always been told that the best use for options is hedging an investment you've already made; treating them as your primary bet is gambling, not investment.


Minimum wage in California is $10.50/hour.   Farm work is seasonal, hot, dirty, physical work.   So, for many working at McDonald's for about 2/3 the money is preferable.   Clearly $15/hour isn't enough to get a significant number of non-immigrant people interested in the work.


You can deduct retirement contributions (above the line even), but not as a business expense. So you can't avoid the SE taxes, sorry.


"Saying that sales go online doesn't mean that a typical JC Penny shopper just goes to their site.  These people are going to google, shopping engines and Amazon.   ""Upping your online sales"" isn't that simple.  If the majority of shoppers are searching google and your listings don't show up, then that potential customer is going else where.   You could pay for PPC ads but return on investment on PPC can suck depending on your market and for products that have a long life cycle return happy customers could be years before they return.  Even worse, if JC Penny and Sears DID want to compete online their prices aren't really all that great either, so even if you landed on their site, chances are you can find it cheaper else where, and their overhead (from stores, and employees) makes it hard to cut prices to compete."