"What you need will depend on a number of factors that aren't clear from the question. This coverage is simply called ""Vacant home insurance"", but not all companies are willing to offer this coverage. Unfortunately, in New York, insurers can also legally drop your standard homeowners' coverage if they become aware that your property has become vacant for 30 days or more. The Insurer's Concerns Typically, a ""standard"" homeowners policy will have an exclusion clause for vacant homes. The insurance company's concern is that without someone in the home, they will be at risk for break-ins, squatters and vandalism. If you've ever seen ""Flip Men"" on Spike, you'll know this is a serious concern (great show, by the way). They will use a risk model to calculate an estimated risk for the property (this is why a seasonal vacation home in a sparsely-populated area is often less of a concern than a family home in an urban area). If they estimate the risk to be low, some insurance companies will allow to you buy back that exclusion so that vacant properties are covered. In your case, they have probably decided that either: Your Options First, you need to find a company that is comfortable with taking on the extra risk of a vacant home. This will vary quite a bit by location, but the main ones are Farmer's (they use the Foremost brand name in New York) and Castle Rock. There are lots of insurance agencies that also advertise these products, but most of them are middlemen and use one of these two companies to actually write the coverage. Additionally, since this is a specialty policy, make sure you understand all of the details of the policy, and how they vary from a regular policy including: How to Reduce your Premium costs These are general tips from the Murray Group's website (an independent broker in NY) on how to lower the additional cost of vacant coverage: This may sound expensive, but these steps will all reduce the risk of something really bad happening when you're not there. Additionally, do you know anyone you completely trust (relative, unemployed friend) that might want to live in your old house rent-free for a while? This could work out for you if they are willing to keep the place 100% clean around the clock so that you can show the house at any time. If you have additional/specific questions, you should be able to find an independent insurance broker in your area that would be willing to advise you on your specific situation for a flat fee. Best of luck with getting the home covered and sold quickly!"


Is the pay cycle every 2 weeks? So 30% each two week period is 1.3^26 = 917.33 or an APR of 91633%.  Loansharks charge less, I believe standard vig was 2%/week for good customers. Only 180% per year.


"In practice, most (maybe all) stock indices are constructed by taking a weighted average of stock prices denominated in a single currency, and so the index implicitly does have that currency - as you suggest, US dollars for the S&P 500. In principle you can buy one ""unit"" of the S&P 500 for $2,132.98 or whatever by buying an appropriate quantity of each of its constituent stocks. Also, in a more realistic scenario where you buy an index via a tracker fund, you would typically need to buy using the underlying currency of the index and your returns will be relative to that currency - if the index goes up by 10%, your original investment in dollars is up by 10%."


I think the only way to have an idea of whats going on is to take a sip of all the propaganda lies misinformation half-truths and of course the ever coveted granules of truth. Then sift through all the crap by overlaying all the stories on top of each other then fact checking what comes through as the actual story -the spin


I didn’t say everything is ok, I said things are improving. I also have been speaking generally about the world in the entirety of this comment thread, but you’ve apparently decided that only Americans in poverty matter. I view that as myopic and selfish, but hell let’s go with that for a second.   Regarding specifically the US - it turns out poverty is decreasing here as well:  http://www.povertyusa.org/the-state-of-poverty/poverty-facts/  Also by your own definition, no one in the middle class is in poverty. The census bureau says 43 million people in the us live in poverty. This is way too many, but it is less than 25%. It’s closer to 12%.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States  So once again, I’ve shown how nothing you say has any basis in reality. I’ve also never said everything is fine, I’ve only said it’s improving systematically.   What I say is true and based in fact. What you say is based on your feelings and categorically not true by any measure, and can’t even be saved by your fluid redefinition of terms.  Please understand that things aren’t perfect and the world isn’t fair, but poverty in the US and elsewhere are improving. Feelings can’t change facts, and you’re feelings simply don’t line up with the facts.


Meh, if someone picks it up and gives me a near identical replacement while they fix it, then deliver it back to me such that I'm out no money and no convenience, do I care?  You make a good point about raw numbers, but as an owner I can say the feeling is vastly different and nearly seamless.  And, we were only having the titanium shield added.


An accountant should be able to advise on the tax consequences of different classes of investments/assets/debts (e.g. RRSP, TFSA, mortgage). But I would not ask an accountant which specific securities to hold in these vehicles, or what asset allocation (in terms of geography, capitalization, or class (equity vs fixed income vs derivatives vs structured notes etc). An investment advisor would be better suited to matching your investments to your risk tolerance.


"Hopefully the changes truly reflect one's ability to pay debit and not a way to suddenly create millions of new ""credit-worthy"" borrowers and some debt bubble pops 6 years down the road. Businesses will love people using debt to buy stuff for that sweet revenue."


Volume and prices are affected together by how folks feel about the stock; there is no direct relationship between them. There are no simple analysis techniques that work.  Some would argue strongly that there are few complex analysis techniques that work either, and that for anyone but full-time professionals. And there isn't clear evidence that the full-time professionals do sufficiently better than index funds to justify their fees. For most folks, the best bet is to diversify, using low-overhead index funds, and simply ride with the market rather than trying to beat it.


It says expense ratio of 0.14%. What does it mean? Essentially it means that they will take 0.14% of your money, regardless of the performance. This measures how much money the fund spends out of its assets on the regular management expenses. How much taxes will I be subject to This depends on your personal situation, not much to do with the fund (though investment/rebalancing policies may affect the taxable distributions). If you hold it in your IRA - there will be no taxes at all. However, some funds do have measures of non-taxable distributions vs dividends vs. capital gains. Not all the funds do that, and these are very rough estimates anyway. What is considered to be a reasonable expense ratio? That depends greatly on the investment policy. For passive index funds, 0.05-0.5% is a reasonable range, while for actively managed funds it can go up as much as 2% and higher. You need to compare to other funds with similar investment policies to see where your fund stands.


The card-holder agreement does not explicitly specify a minimum spending requirement. It does though, have the following catch-all clause for closing the account: We may:   • cancel your Account,   • suspend the ability to make charges,   • cancel or suspend any feature on your Account, and   • notify merchants that your Account has been   cancelled or suspended.   If we do any of these, you must still pay us for all   charges under the terms of this Agreement. We may do any of these things at our discretion, even if you pay on   time and your Account is not in default. If your Account is cancelled,   you must destroy your cards. We may agree to reinstate your Account   after a cancellation. If we do this, we may: • reinstate any   additional cards issued on your Account, • charge you any applicable   annual fees, and • charge you a fee for reinstating the Account. One would suspect that American Express would happily collect the fee from anyone who holds the card, but is not using it (in any way). Someone, though, that isn't spending the expected amount of money, but is availing themselves of the 24 hour concierge service, etc., would probably find their privileges revoked and/or their card canceled.


Thanks for the writeup, it was a really informative read. I've been aware for a while now that Reagan and Reaganomics were in a large way the 'start' of most of the current problems in the economic and political landscape, but you filled in a few gaps that were really useful for me.  So I guess ultimately a lot of conservatives see it as a kind of necessary evil in order to bring about the success story that the current economy needs right now. Unfortunately, their strategy is totally wrong. That kind of makes sense with my observation that rather than supporting the cronyism and corruption, they turn a blind eye to it because they think it's necessary.  My view is not so much that labour and finance capital returns need to be balanced (although that is probably a great thing to aim for), but that creation of wealth/capital needs to be intrinsically linked with the creation of real value. The modern banking crisis was a great example of the ability to generate wealth while in fact destroying real value.


Glitter, Inc. is a fashion and lifestyle blog, one of the most widely read online resource on fashion, weddings, design, family, events, travel, DIY recipes, crafts and other interesting stuff. Stay informed on the latest trends and things that matter.


We produce sheet metal products from simple bending to precision complex mechanical assemblies. Uidea has created our services for prototyping and low volume production and mass production with high quality, competitive pricing and short lead time. We have been dedicated to being the most reliable source in China for custom sheet metal fabrication from all over the world.


Same question had popped up in our office,and we got an answer from one of the senior colleague. He said that we can call it CARC (Compounded Annual Rate of Change).


Has the monitoring stopped now that you are at a new bank?   Presumably it has. If it has stopped, then let it go.  Its your mom and while the relationship might be somewhat dysfunctional, it is the only mother relationship you have.  Do you really want her criminally prosecuted?  She may have done you a favor by pointing out the security loop holes present in your old bank.  Thanks mom!


"The word you are looking for is ""budget"" You can't pay off debt if you are spending more than you earn.  Therefore, start a budget that you both work on at the same time, and both agree 100% with.  Evaluate your progress on that budget on a regular basis. From your question, you understand what your obligations are and you seem to manage money pretty well. Therefore your key to retirement is just the ticket you need. As newlyweds, you both have to be VERY aware that the main reason a marriage fails in the US is money issues.  Starting out with a groundwork where you both agree to your budget and can keep it will help you a lot in your upcoming life. Then, for some details Sprinkle your charitable donations anywhere in the list where you feel it is important."


Exactly, the only reason for the US to default is if Congress voluntarily does so. I don't think they are self destructive enough to do it tho, it's okay if it happens with the Dems in power, but the current Congress wouldn't want to have that on their backs. Hopefully at least.


There is some magic involved in that calculation, because what health insurance is worth to you is not necessarily the same it is worth for the employer. Two examples that illustrate the extreme ends of the spectrum: let's say you or a family member have a chronic or a serious illness, especially if it is a preexisting condition - for instance, cancer. In that case, health insurance can be worth literally millions of dollars to you. Even if you are a diabetic, the value of health insurance can be substantial. Sometimes, it could even make financial sense in that case to accept a very low-paying job. On the other extreme of the scale, if you are very young and healthy, many people decide to forego insurance. In that case, the value of health insurance can be as little as the penalty (usually, 2% of your taxable income, I believe).


You don't need to click, I can tell you the answer in one word: **HYPE**.  One universal truth about big corporations and their CEOs, they don't understand anything about computers or technology. It simply isn't their expertise. If they hear from the television that the most important thing in the world is blockchains, they're going to bite that hook.  The most important thing is not blockchains. blockchains are almost completely unimportant. All a blockchain is, is a log file that never gets trimmed or deleted, and everyone gets a copy, and they verify the contents against each other's copies. It's not revolutionary, and you don't need it.


When you sell your primary residence, you are required to capitalize any loss or gain at that point; you do not carry over your loss or gain (as you might in an investment property).  As such, the timing of the purchase of the next house is not relevant in this discussion: you gained however much you gained already.  This changed from the other (rollover) method in 1997 (see this bankrate article for more details.) However, as discussed in IRS Tax Topic 701, you can exclude up to $250,000 (single or filing separately) or $500,000 (married filing jointly) of gain if it is your primary residence and meets a few requirements (mostly, that you owned it for at least 2 years in the past 5 years, and similarly used it as your main home for at least 2 years of the past 5 years).   So given you reported 25% gain, as long as your house is under a million dollars or so, you're fine (and if it's over a million dollars, you probably should be paying a CPA for this stuff). For California state tax, it looks like it is the same (see this Turbotax forum answer for a good explanation and links to this California Franchise Tax Board guide which confirms it: For sale or exchanges after May 6, 1997, federal law allows   an exclusion of gain on the sale of a personal residence in   the amount of $250,000 ($500,000 if married filing jointly).   The taxpayer must have owned and occupied the residence   as a principal residence for at least 2 of the 5 years before the   sale. California conforms to this provision. However, California   taxpayers who served in the Peace Corps during the 5 year   period ending on the date of the sale may reduce the 2 year   period by the period of service, not to exceed 18 months.


You're comparing apples and oranges. This states that they export more GASOLINE than they import GASOLINE.  To answer your question, it's because of geography. New York might buy refined gas from Quebec (hypothetical) while Washington state exports to BC. North America is huge, so transport is an important factor.


This was most likely a scam, although I do know of cases where a transfer intended for one company ended up in the bank account of another company. I am not entirely sure what happened afterwards, but I think the receiving company was asked to return the transfer back to the originating account.  Still, even if this was the case, they wouldn't have just abandoned $1k for a simple administration fee (if there was even any). It doesn't sound logical.


I'd suggest you put only 20% down if you qualify for the 80% amount of the mortgage. Live in the house a year and see what expenses really are. Then if your non-Ret accounts are still being funded to your liking, start prepaying the mortgage if you wish.  It's great to start with a house that's only 50% mortgaged, but if any life change happens to you, it may be tough to borrow it back. Far easier to just take your time and not make a decision you may regret. You don't give much detail about your retirement savings, but I'd suggest that I'd rather have a large mortgage and fund my retirement accounts to the maximum than to have a paid house and start the retirement account at age 35. Some choose that option.


No, your point seems to be that markets will handle this issue by themselves. Heroin users rarely kick the habit without help; like you said, they just use until they die. That is a perfect example of why the government should get involved.


Portlander here too! Have you made sure to consider the tax burden you will have from the inheritance? Investing in extra property is something that you should do when you are all paid up.  You don't want a job loss or other emergency make it impossible to keep the house you live in.  What happens if you buy a house and then lose both your jobs?  Do you let the bank foreclose on both homes? I think you would be in a much more stable position owning fully all your property.  Once your first house is paid off, you can rent that or consider buying another. The key advice here is to stabilize and remove all your debts now.  It is less exciting but safer.  But if you don't owe any money.  Go for it.


I cringe every time I see Trump bragging about the stock market - the momentum is irrational and it's going to bite him in the ass before the end of his first term.  If he's taking credit it for it going up, then the blame is on him for it going down, right?  I just don't see any reality where we go another 3+ years without a normal correction without massive PPT intervention when they didn't even let it fully correct a year or two ago.


"> Or does it differ between every company what non-cash charges they have?  This.  Here's a hint: the FCFF *can* be calculated from Cash Flow from Operations (CFO).   Think of FCFF this way: ""after the business has operated *and* made *all* investments needed to grow, both short and long-term, how much is left over for providers of capital?""   [Here's a good resource for you.](https://www.cfainstitute.org/learning/products/publications/inv/Documents/equity_chapter6.ppt)"


I dislike reading opinion articles because most people have a construed understanding of monetary policy and macroeconomics.  I disagree completely about the Yuan possibly taking over as reserve currency. First of all, some countries use it as a reserve because they deal with china a lot and purchase a lot from china. when you purchase from china you either have to buy with Yuan or US dollar. we obviously print the dollar so we have no issue buying from them in dollar but many countries prefer to use the Yuan because they may have lower dollar reserves or its a higher transaction cost. Secondly, and probably the most important, is that China will be a failed economy/society most likely in the future. 1.5 billion people of many different ethnic groups. extreme inequality will lead to social unrest (already has). China has a lot of shit to take care of. It's quite laughable if anyone thinks the Yuan is a stable currency and can be a good reserve currency.   I posted a link for you to read if you want to understand the monetary system and what the Fed's role is. Here it is again:  http://pragcap.com/understand-the-modern-monetary-system/understanding-modern-monetary-system  read it and tell me what you think.


"Wait, where did you hear that ""fable""? Cause the guy actually mentioned that he went to Harvard, Yale and Stanford, I believe, and at none of those was Marx studied? Aforementioned are stages in the development of the productive forces, formation of classes and respectively of the distribution of wealth in the society. It looks like you don't have a clue about Marx and have just aired some ""broad and sloppy"" meaningless opinion."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://itif.org/publications/2017/07/05/why-expanding-rd-tax-credit-key-successful-corporate-tax-reform) reduced by 76%. (I'm a bot) ***** > In their effort to find &quot;Pay-fors&quot; for a lower corporate rate, some have suggested that Congress reduce or even eliminate the R&D tax credit, a tax incentive for companies to invest more in R&D that has been in force since 1981.  > We should follow the model from other nations, many of which have not only reduced statutory corporate tax rates but also expanded, sometimes significantly, their tax incentives for business R&D. In fact, the United States continues to lose ground compared to other nations when it comes to tax incentives for research, falling from 10th among OECD nations in 2000 to 25th today.  > While ITIF does not believe that corporate tax reform should be revenue neutral, at least on a static scoring basis, one way to pay for at least some of the static revenue loss from lower rates is to eliminate many special tax breaks.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6m6m00/why_expanding_the_randd_tax_credit_is_key_to/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~162833 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **tax**^#1 **credit**^#2 **research**^#3 **rate**^#4 **corporate**^#5"


Of course; the generation Xers are those in the age range where many were approaching the time when they would, but had not yet, transferred the bulk of their retirement savings to lower risk investments. Anyone who hadn't yet transferred their retirement savings from any direct market funds got totally Effed in the A.   Granted, some of this happened because people were simply banking on continual market rise. But a lot of these people simply got really bad advice from financial planners who looked and seemed totally qualified to advise, just as a lot of people got reassured from qualified sources that their adjustable rate mortgage on their million dollar home would be *no problem.*


If upper and bollinger bands either converge (both bands are getting more and more close together) or diverge (both bands are getting more and more away from each other), does that mean the market is TRENDING? The answer is no. The divergence or convergence of BB-upper & lower band does not indicate if the market is trending or not. It only indicated if volatility is increasing or decreasing. Or is market trending only in case if both bands, upper and lower, are parallel and at the same time NOT horizontal? The answer is yes. To understand the reason consider that BB is constructed from a central Moving Average along with standard deviation. Upper Band=MA+2*SD, Lower Band=MA-2*SD. A moving average is a trend following indicator and volatility has nothing to do with trend (as SD only measures the price movement around the mean). Which essentially means BB has trend following qualities. The upper and lower bands remain more or less parallel in between band contraction and expansion. Refer below:   You shall see distinctly phases when BB bands are not parallel and are parallel and not horizontal. As mentioned above, when BB bands are expanding or contracting they do not give indication of the trend direction. When they are parallel, close or apart and not horizontal, they provide a good directional bias through the general slope. Though a more effective method to determine trend and its direction is the central MA of BB. Again, refer below:  Here you can see that some portion of the bands are parallel and more or less horizontal. The price action would tell you that the stock is now range-bound as opposed to trending. The primary use of the BB bands are to gauge volatility as @misantroop stated. The primary trend direction is usually derived from the central MA.


"So basically, rather than spend money on upgrades to the existing 108 fighters, 'retire' them from active combat and switch them to the training pool, and just worry about fielding the new ones. An interesting point in the article:  > ""We have actually had this dialogue with the F-16, we had this dialogue with the F-15, we had this dialogue with the F-22. We just haven't had it for a while.""  Modern fighter jets don't really act much like planes anymore, budget-wise. The EOL cycle has really sped up - it used to be you could buy a fighter jet or a transport and use it for 25 years before worrying about replacing it with the latest and greatest. Now, the latest and greatest are still on the ground before they're obsolete. It might make a lot more sense to treat a fighter jet like a computer with an upgrade cycle of 3-5 years, roll the cost of maintenance and upgrades into the initial purchase for however long you're intending to keep the aircraft. I suspect a lot of generals would go pale if they knew the full cost of ownership of this generation of fighters going forward."


Well, the potential problem is that the FTSE 100 could go down, or just not up. Really, it's as simple as that. After all, why diversify if the FTSE 100 will only go up? So, the question is, why wait to diversify? Why not add in the Gilt ETF for a little government bond exposure? Why not a Corp. bond ETF? Maybe a little of that Global ex-UK for a little foreign stock exposure?  That said, saving is better than not saving, so if starting it off with just the FTSE 100 gets you saving, go for it.


To get the factors you want, start with a complete amortization calculator and a tax deduction calculator, filling in values for your down payment, purchase price, tax rates, and mortgage rate.  If you are talking about a specific property, you should be able to get taxes for the current year, and perhaps using historical values estimate taxes going out.  Some calculators will include PMI (which you should avoid like the plague in an actual purchase).  Given some preliminary data, you can calculate your insurance. So once you have your PITI (principal, interest, tax, and insurance) monthly payment and tax deduction, you can calculate how much you spend a month on the house minus the deduction. To estimate maintenance costs, you could either figure out about what you'd need to replace in the given time you plan to stay put and use a rough estimate on what it is.  You can also use some rough estimates like this (1% of the property value yearly!) or this (moving the number up to a whopping 2%). Don't forget closing costs as a buyer and seller.  You can find estimates for these as well, and they are a function of the purchase price (usually around 2%). So to figure out how much it costs you to live in a house for X months, you can do So your total cost is Total Return Is: You can adjust that total return for inflation using this calculator to get your total return adjusted for inflation.  If projecting into the future, you can try a formula found here. To figure out the return on your investment, use So to figure out the total return adjusted you need for a given ROI, find


I think it is, unless you have another protection. For example, I have a legal plan sponsored by my employer that amongst other things, covers representation in case of audits for personal taxes. If, however, you don't have any other legal plan to cover this, I'd suggest getting the TurboTax audit protection. Hiring a professional to represent you in case of an audit will cost several hundreds of dollars per hour. Of course chances are slim, but that's the nature of insurance.


> yelp didnt as well hide positive reviews unless you pay them a monthly fee  There is nothing I've seen that indicates this is the case. Can you provide a source for that? According to Yelp you pay them for putting you higher on the search results and other things that don't affect the filter system at all.


I would go with the family route if I was you. And i think many other people would if they were fortunate to have such a great option.  This will allow you to move faster when your trying to buy a new house because you can easily get a mortage if you see a stellar deal. Also you can establish credit in much cheaper ways than paying the 4% or so on a mortgage. finance a car that you have the money to buy because the interest rates are much lower .9% and you build the credit while paying less interest. Or even better, try and make most of your purchases on a 0 fee credit card and every 6-8 months get a new credit card to have multiple lines of ongoing credit.  to use the mortage to establish credit isnt worth the 4% hit in wealth that it offers. now mind you if your options were to buy the house with your own money outright or get a mortgage i would say get the mortgage because the added leverage would help your investments beat the market most years . figure if you get 6% an average portfolio each year and you can write off the taxes on your mortgage you will be ahead by more than 2%


There is no law that requires you to have a separate bank account for your business, or to pay all expenses from a business bank account. It is a GOOD IDEA to have a separate bank account and pay all business expenses from that account and all personal expenses from your personal account, because that makes sorting out what is what much simpler, both in case of an audit and for your own accounting. Whether a particular expenditure is a deductible business expense has nothing to do with what account you pay it from. If you pay advertising expenses for your business from your personal account, that's still (almost certainly) a deductible business expense. If you buy groceries from your business account, that's almost certainly not a deductible business expense. In your case, there are all kinds of rules about when and how much travel is deductible.


WTF - she worked as a Temp and still they were trying to stop her going anywhere else?  These agreements are very one sided and demonstrate disproportionate market power.  If someone is THAT valuable, they should be working harder to keep them and paying them properly, rather than forcing them to not work competitively.  And seriously, and I don't mean to demean the skills of your friend, but a Dental Hygienist? How much damage to a business can she do if she goes to work for another dentist?


Our BHO Purge pumps include the latest and most relevant features that will improve and refine your process. At BHO VAC, you can find all kinds of BHO Purge Pumps made with the highest possible quality and easy to use with our wide range of proper vacuum fittings.


> free the orcas, they'll look like heroes, and everyone will flock to SeaWorld because they're good guys now. They listened and changed. People love those stories.  This is no percent what would happen at all. People go just to see Shamu flop around.


Other way around chief:  >Alibaba is paying $7.1 billion in cash and stock to buy back half of Yahoo's holdings. Another $550 million is being paid to Yahoo under a revised technology and patent licensing agreement with Alibaba.  Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/yahoo-closes-7-6-billion-deal-alibaba-group-161614948--finance.html


One of the main purposes of government is to take on risk the private sector can't shoulder (e.g. A bridge, not necessarily a money maker), and sponsor innovation. Regulation of things like fuel standards force industry to invest and adapt - this keeps the economy vibrant, stops complicity in business and promotes growth.   People view regulation as an all or nothing thing stifling innovation - not the case. Many regs are good. Look at clean water standards or even the Department of Labor Fiduciary Rule. POTUS numb nut over here just neutered the DOL fiduciary rule which would force investment advisor (brokers) to put a clients needs above their own, when investing in retirement accounts. GREAT for the average citizen- but coopted by the trumpers as government over regulating the economy. Sick.    Good example of supporting innovation  here. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/japans-stimulus-propels-science-spending-new-heights  Info on fiduciary rule here (first bullet point).   http://www.dolfiduciaryrule.com/


"The danger to your savings depends on how much sovereign debt your bank is holding.  If the government defaults then the bank - if it is holding a lot of sovereign debt - could be short funds and not able to meet its obligations. I believe default is the best option for the Euro long term but it will be painful in the short term.  Yes, historically governments have shut down banks to prevent people from withdrawing their money in times of crisis.  See Argentina circa 2001 or US during Great Depression.  The government prevented people from withdrawing their money and people could do nothing while their money rapidly lost value. (See the emergency banking act where Title I, Section 4 authorizes the US president:""To make it illegal for a bank to do business during a national emergency (per section 2) without the approval of the President.""  FDR declared a banking holiday four days before the act was approved by Congress.  This documentary on the crisis in Argentina follows a woman as she tries to withdraw her savings from her bank but the government has prevented her from withdrawing her money.) If the printing press is chosen to avoid default then this will allow banks and governments to meet their obligations.  This, however, comes at the cost of a seriously debased euro (i.e. higher prices).  The euro could then soon become a hot potato as everyone tries to get rid of them before the ECB prints more.  The US dollar could meet the same fate. What can you do to avert these risks?  Yes, you could exchange into another currency.  Unfortunately the printing presses of most of the major central banks today are in overdrive.  This may preserve your savings temporarily. I would purchase some gold or silver coins and keep them in your possession.  This isolates you from the banking system and gold and silver have value anywhere you go.  The coins are also portable in case things really start to get interesting.  Attempt to purchase the coins with cash so there is no record of the purchase.  This may not be possible."


a typical debit card is subject to several limits:


Possibly a single player game hence the need to simulate a market?   I would supposed that you could use a Cobb Douglas demand function. This way you could set demand for x_1 = c(m/p_1) and demand for x_2 = (1-c)(m/p_2)   Where p_1/p_2 are the prices of good 1 and 2, m is income, and x_1/x_2 are good 1 and 2 respectively.


Or maybe it's analyzing a critical aspect of the economic relationship between China and the US. US agricultural exports bring in over $100 billion each year, and China is a huge consumer of American-grown crops, meaning that whenever China cuts back on imports, American business suffers. NPR is an American radio station with an American demographic, which means that they are going to prioritize how the disagreement affects Americans.  The article does a good job of examining the nature of the problem, too. It doesn't read like a pro-Syngenta article at all.


"Wait a minute.   16 years later, and we still have to remove shoes and laptops, but the one good thing that came out of post-9/11 security is the first to go away?   ""Yeah honey just drop me at the curb, you can't get through security anyway.""  ""Oh you sure? k, safe travels BYE""  I'm seriously convinced this is to boost parking revenue."


Three major advantages that I can think of (and some of these have been pointed out in comments):


"I think one major point you're missing here is the decreased interest rates following the 9/11 attacks.  After rates were dropped in late 2001 many less fortunate people could ""afford"" mortgages on large houses, especially when using variable rate mortgages. This was the root cause of the bubble that was not taken into account by the bank's and rating agencies models."


"I don't understand why he couldn't just log onto his account online, see the ""current balance"" and pay that?   I've got 4-5 credit cards (2 of them are Chase) and they *ALL* have an online portal which will show you a daily-calculated ""current balance"" right on your screen... you can then enter in your checking account and transfer over that amount to pay the whole thing off virtually instantly.   Does Chase continue to charge interest even after the balance goes to $0?"


Get ready to impress people around you. Just opt for Men’s linen vests that never go out of fashion& make you look smart every time you wear them. Go for smart, casual tailored look this summer. There are a number of choices available, reflect your best style with Men’s linen vest.


Standard Deviation is a mathematical term that is useful in many areas. It can be considered a measure of how tight the data points are to the average. If there is consistency in the measurement system, then a point that is two standard from the average can be considered an outlier. It doesn't even need to be time based. We can say that a child born weighing less than X pounds is more than 2 standard deviations below the average.  Using it to look at a price or an index value doesn't make a lot of sense because many expect there to be long term growth. For example you would never say that you will buy a new jacket for your child when they are two standard deviations above their average height. You can say you will buy or sell a financial instrument when the P/E ratio is 2 standard deviations from some average. It could be the average of the long term history, or the index, or the sector. You could do the same thing for earnings per share or many other business of financial statistics. A standard deviation calculated from a time series assumes that the measurement will normally stay withing some bounds. And that straying from those bounds is a sign of the right time to buy or sell.


Hard to say in general. It depends on the actual numbers.  First you need to check the suggested retail price of a new car, and the price that you can actually get it for. The difference between these prices is between non-existing and huge, depending on the car. Some dealers will sell you a car that has done 50 miles for a huge rebate - that means they can't sell their cars at full price but don't want to reduce the price. Used cars can be quite expensive compared to a new car or not, also depending on the brand.  Estimate that a brand new car should drive 12 years and 200,000 miles without major repairs (go for a car with generous warranty or check reviews to make sure you are buying a long lasting car). Calculate the cost per year. Since you prefer driving a nicer new car, increase the cost for the first four years and reduce the cost for the last four years. With that information, check what the used car costs and if that is reasonable. Assuming 12 years life, a six your old car should be quite a bit less than 50% of a new one.  You can improve your cost a bit: If your annual mileage is low, you might find a rather new car with huge mileage quite cheap which will still last many years. Or if your annual mileage is excessively high, you can look for a car that is a bit older with low mileage.  Anyway, paying 70% of the price of a new passenger car for a used car that is six years old (you say <7 years, so I assume six years) seems excessive; it would mean the first user effectively paid 30% of the new price to drive the car for six years, and you pay 70% to drive another six years (estimated). You'd be much much better off buying a new car and selling it for 70% after six years.


By mentioning Half-Life 3 you have delayed it by 1 Month. Half-Life 3 is now estimated for release in Nov 3453. ___ ^I ^am ^a ^bot, ^this ^action ^was ^performed ^automatically. ^To ^disable ^WIHL3 ^on ^your ^sub ^please ^see ^/r/WhenIsHl3. ^To ^never ^have ^WIHL3 ^reply ^to ^your ^comments ^PM ^'!STOP'.


Yes you will need an emergency fund for the rental. Besides appliances, or a roof, that might need to be replaced, you will also have to protect against being unable to rent the unit.  Another risk is that you may have a tenant damage the unit. While you can get the money through the courts it may take months or longer. You can't wait for the money before you repair the unit. Keeping the rental unit funds separate from the rest of your funds will allow you to make sure you are adequately protecting yourself.


"Sounds like you live in a fantasy land where everyone has infinite do-over lives and market forces are magic panacea.  Clean air and water is a public good that shouldn't be left up to multiple parties upstream or in the region to hash out in a legal system how to remedy problems on a case-by-case basis while individuals have to deal with resulting cancer, brain damage, etc.  We shouldn't leave issues like this to crop up from short-sightedness and cognitive biases of private parties left to their own devices.  There should be regulation of industries that minimize the risk/impact of pollution without being counterproductive by halting the economy altogether.  If the US had been run the way you want, we'd have had prevalence of leaded gasoline, paint, and lead in drinking water for decades more.  And we'd have higher crime rates due to the brain damage caused by lead.  Making all roads private and for-profit creates a profit motive in acquiring lands that are strategically important in transportation, opening up opportunities for monopolies and collusion.  Your proposal will replace a government ""monopoly"" on roads answerable to voters with a private monopolies or cartels that answer to no one because there is no competition.  And this will kill the benefit we have in network effect of public roads.  Law and law enforcement is a matter of trust.  We need to have trust and reasonable expectation of fairness/uniformity in the law enforcement and justice system for individuals and companies to conduct their lives/business.  I am not convinced that a nation with disparate systems with their own private laws and security forces and with no hierarchy somehow achieves that goal."


Bitcoins have the potential to be an alternative to gold or USD, but not yet. Their value is too volatile, and there are still serious security concerns. I would strongly advise anyone against putting more than a small % of their worth in Bitcoins.


The thing is simply this, if it were not for Israeli control of America's economy, the Fed the Treasury . . .America would not be arming Israel and spending billions of dollars in Military Aid.   The Palestinians, can't even get water and medical supplies because Israel has been blockading them for the last decade.  As America's economy fails and Military power wanes and its opinion is no longer of any importance and the world comes to openly admit that Israel is the root cause of terrorism and the facilitator, financier and operator of Groups like ISIS, things will change. While you may not be disarmed, it will indeed be fun to watch brave Israeli forces fight an armed Palestinian force with the ability to hit back meaningfully.  I am sure Middle east peace will find you a lot quicker


Hello i am Jack living in USA. If you are interested in medical programs than here is something good for you. Have a look.. Emergency Medical Technician - Basic EMT training course, offered throughout the New York area, and take the first step to a real future in the rapidly growing world of healthcare with a career in FDNY, private, and hospital-based ambulance services.


Depending on your local laws, such a layoff may be an unlawful act. If the whole purpose of the lay-off is to strip the employees of their RSU's, the employer may be liable and get sued. However, you have to check that with a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction. In many places there are no laws against this. In any case, you may claim that there was no good faith/just cause in the action and still sue the employer. Mere threat of a lawsuit may thwart the whole deal, so I suggest the employees to lawyer up and talk to the employer. That, by the way, will require to create a union - a representative body for the employees. In some places that by itself may be a just cause for termination (in some extremely anti-union jurisdictions, I would guess if there were some they would be in the US). Bottom line - talk to a lawyer.


[Evidence?](http://governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=17)  What you are asking for is evidence based on theoreticals.  You can’t have that evidence unless it has actually been tried.  So what you get instead is the same thing we see in Congress: a discussion of theoreticals.  The biggest problem is the way we react to taxes changed based on the current circumstances we are in.  Our circumstances have yet to repeat themselves.  We are s relatively young country.  Good luck finding evidence to support either side.  Instead, look for and debate good arguments from each side.


If you have other savings, the diversification occurs across the accounts. e.g. my 401(k) has access to the insanely low .02% fee VIIIX (Vanguard S&P fund) You can bet it's 100% in. My IRAs are the other assets that make the full picture look better allocated.  A new investor has the issue you suggest, although right now, you can deposit $5500 for 2013, and $5500 for 2014, so with $11K available, you can start with $6 or $9K and start with 2 or 3 funds. Or $9K now, but with $500 left over for the '14 deposit, you can deposit $6K in early '15.  The disparity of $3K min/$5500 annual limit is annoying, I agree, but shouldn't be a detriment to your planning.


i think you're right regarding Amazon, but overall the grocery sector is experiencing a price battle especially with chains like Aldi and Winco expanding. Now with Amazon throwing their hat in the ring, I think their muscle and reach puts more downward pressure on prices sector wide even if this is just temporary penetration pricing. will be interesting to see how this plays out.


I believe this argument is most often used when considering which debts to pay back first, or when there are other options available such as investment options, building up an emergency fund, or saving for a large purchase.  In that case, it's simply justifying making minimum payments and paying more over the life of the loan in exchange for larger liquidity in the present. Unfortunately, when it comes to choosing between which debts to pay (e.g. My mom pays more than the minimum on her car because she can't deduct auto loan interest, despite her mortgage carrying a higher interest rate), it's only beneficial if the tax savings offsets the interest savings difference. The formula for that is: tax bracket > (1 - (target loan interest rate / mortgage interest rate)) That said, most people don't think in the long term, either by natural shortsightedness, or by necessity (need to have an emergency fund).


I don't believe this.  Really, if you have the drive and motivation in this country, you really can do anything you want.  Sure, the mold says that you need a 4.0 gpa from Harvard and an MBA from Wharton... but that doesn't mean that its for everyone.  Employers value determination more than anything, so if you really want a job, you *will* find a way to get it; most of the time, the only thing holding us back is ourselves.  Sounds corny as shit i know, but its true.   If you bang on every door, network with every hiring manager, you will get a job.  and if for some reason they turn you down, you can still start your own business.  **tl;dr  no.**


The motley fool is one of the best places.  Other good communities are Yahoo Finance, Seeking Alpha, and Investors Place. I also recently created a chat room connected to this site to discuss stocks/funds/etc. with other money.stackexchange users.  http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/263/investing


"For the Canadian side, I like BNN's website and shows. The first 15 minutes of ""The Close"" is a nice little recap. The weekly show with Andy McCreath is alright as well. I'm curious to know if anyone has better sources."


Well, judging by the guys at my local BK's they're using the microwave way more than they should be.  I mean, it's one thing to quote policy, it's another when I watch the dude take my burger out of the tray and pop it in the nuker like it's nothing.


You can file a revised W-4 with your employer claiming more allowances than you do now. More allowances means less Federal tax and (if applicable and likely with a separate form) less state tax. This doesn't affect social security and Medicare with holding, though.  That being said, US taxes are on a pay-as-you-go system. If the IRS determines that you're claiming more allowances than you're eligible for and not paying the proper taxes throughout the year, they will hit you with an underpayment penalty fee, which would likely negate the benefits of keeping that money in the first place. This is why independent contractors and self-employed people pay quarterly or estimated taxes. Depending on the employer, they may require proof of the allowances for adjustment before they accept the revised W-4.


Brownbag your lunch and make coffee at home.   If your current lifestyle includes daily takeout lunches and/or barista-made drinks, a rough estimate is you have a negative cash flow of $8-20 per day, $40-100 per week, $2080-5200 per year.   If you have daily smoothies, buy a blender.  If you have daily lattes buy an espresso maker.  I recently got myself a sodastream and it's been worth it.   Until you have a six figure portfolio, you aren't going to swing a comparable annual return differential based on asset allocation.


"I don't agree that the market as a whole is a ponzi scheme, but there are some ponzi-like aspects to it. If you buy high quality stocks like Coca Cola, Johnson and Johnson, AT&T, Verizon, Kraft, Wells Fargo (the vanilla bank, not one of the crazy ones), IBM, Berkshire Hathaway etc and simply hold onto them for the next 10-20 years, you will make money. Even over the last decade, when stocks ""went nowhere"", you still came out ahead through the dividend payments. It was just at an unsatisfactory rate of return. Also ""the market"" consists of a lot more than just stocks. Corporate bonds are a big market and I always recommend people to look at bonds. If you cannot judge whether a company is credit worthy, how can you invest in the common stock? I've made a lot more money myself in the bond market than in the stock market.  However, for many stocks, they do look a lot like ponzi schemes. This is true, in particular, with many of the tech stocks (Cuban was a tech investor, so that is probably where his sentiment is coming from). You have many of these companies that create great products. However, they never have positive cash flow because all the money is spent to develop new products. As the share price goes up, the company issues new shares to fund research, stock options to employees to enrich them, etc. However, eventually, they run into a string of bad research that do not yield a new product and the share price plunges. Perhaps the company goes bankrupt. So you have a company that developed great products, but the shareholders never got a penny in dividends and the final shareholders have paper worth zero.  Take a look at Research in Motion for example. Creating the Blackberry has to be one of the biggest successes in tech over the last decade. However, has the shareholders gotten any richer? Only if they traded amongst themselves, nobody got a dividend. What happened to the many billions of dollars they made during the peak popularity years of Blackberry? It went to executives, employees, and was squandered on development that did not effectively defend the phone's dominant market position. Now the stock price is back down to the pre-prime years, and if a shareholder held onto it throughout the entire period, he would not have received a single penny. And this is a profitable enterprise, things look even more bizarre when you start looking at the tech companies that have NEVER had a positive earnings quarter and no plans to ever have positive earnings (something like Pandora comes to mind). Often, management at these more bizarre companies run the company as a toy - to play with their own ideas and to issue themselves stock as compensation. And of course, they sell a lot of the stock to cash in before they delve into the next risky venture. They have no intention of ever enriching anybody who holds into the stock in the long run. If for some reason they make money, they will put it all into their next toy project until one of them fails and wipes everything out.  If you invest in a profitable business with reasonable management, you will generally come out ahead. Some businesses get displaced by unpredictable circumstances and they go bankrupt. But on average, if a company is good at doing something and they pay out the earnings, you come out ahead. You get in trouble when businesses are good at something, and they take all the money they make and put it into doing something they are not good at. A business might only provide good cashflow for 10-20 years when the product is popular and before competitors cut into margins. If that money is squandered, the long term shareholder may ultimately have very terrible results. The long term shareholder ends up being the guy who keeps going all-in on a 80%-chance-to-win bet (that is what management is doing when they bet the company on the next unproven product), but eventually he gets zeroed out on one loss.  This is why if you look at Buffett's investments, they are all in simple businesses that spits off cash to the owner/shareholder. Businesses like soft drinks, snacks, rail roads, vanilla banking, utility-like energy companies, insurance, etc. You might be good at judging the odds of whether a business will succeed or not (aka make more money than your original investment or not). But you don't want management of that company to make a wildly different bet for you. Just because they are great at operating a company doesn't mean they are good enough at judging odds or disciplined enough to make those bets for you. I may have predicted accurately that Business X will be a great success, but if manage takes those profits and goes all in on Business Y, without giving me a chance to cash out, that may have disasterous results."


"It's not just u/foood and Dems that dislike Rauner. Any politically conscious moderate understands that both Madigan and Rauner are to blame. Madigan's leadership in reckless spending has helped produce a massive deficit, but Rauner's ""my way or the highway"" attitude has been far more damaging to the state and is the primary root cause of the current now years-long budget impasse."


I keep one card just for monthly bills (power company,car loan, etc.).  This one is unlikely to get hacked so I won't have to go change the credit card information on my monthly bills.  I pay the credit card from my bank account.  I just don't want a lot of businesses with direct access to my bank account.


Have you made the effort to even look?    Don't take the argument that because the average american spends little of their money on chinese goods its ok.  From your already linked and cited article.  What is an average american?  What about the 50% that are above average?  Spending, in fact is not the issue.  Jobs are.  Off-shoring is talking a toll on american manufacturing.  Then there are the white collar IT jobs.  Free trade agreements created jobs.  Where they equal to the jobs that moved out because of NAFTA?  No.


Many (if not all) of these companies have former I-bankers in their corp dev groups.  The author's platform is one of many that can connect buyers and sellers directly. At the end of the day, if you are a buyer, do you have the resources and competence to conduct proper due diligence? Quite possibly.  As a seller, do you have the ability to understand industry dynamics and the ability to maximize your valuation? Doubtful.  Buy side M&A has merit, but sell side M&A has proven to deliver value to the majority of clients.


The intrinsic value of a company is based on their profits year on year along with their expect future growth. A company may be posting losses, but if the market determines there's any chance they will turn a profit one day, or be a takeover target, it assigns value to those shares. In normal times, you'll observe a certain P/E range. Price to earning ratio is a simple way to say the I will pay X$ for a dollar's worth of earnings. A company that's in a flat market and not growing may command a P/E of only 10. Another company that's expanding their products and increasing market share may see a 20 P/E. Both P/Es are right for the type of company involved.


I believe that recharacterizing a contribution for a given year can only be done before the tax filing deadline for that year. So it would be too late to recharacterize them now. At this point, I believe the only things you can do are (see What if You Contribute Too Much?): The implications are not at the time of retirement -- rather, the implications are that every year since the excess contribution, you have to pay a penalty of 6% of the excess contribution, until you take it out (or it is absorbed into a future year's contribution limit). If you haven't been reporting that penalty on your tax returns in the last few years since your contribution, that also means you have been underpaying your taxes and you need to go back and fix that.


An employer also needs somebody to show up on time, be reliable and can take written instruction.  A college degree also means that they can find different classrooms throughout the day, listen for 50 minutes and DO THAT FOR YEARS.  Nearly anybody can do something for 5 minutes.  I've employed people and those two are most difficult to suss out in less than 90 days.


FASFA financial aid formulas determine 'expected family contribution'.  For example my alma mater now has a 'list price of over $65k/year.  The average student today actually pays $42k/year after grants.  Students with rich parents pay more than that.  Students with poor parents pay less than that.  Lets say list prices for my kids colleges average $110k/year while they are in school.  If we 'only' make $200k then based on our income alone, EFC would start in the low $50ks per year.  If we have $1M saved in taxable accounts, 529s, rental properties, etc, then we also have to pay 5.64% of the value of those every year for the eight years my kids will be attending - an *extra* $56.4k/year every year for 8 years.  If that $1M is in assets that don't count such as retirement accounts and equity in primary residence, then it doesn't increase the price my kids are billed.  That's a pretty big incentive to put everything I can in home equity, Roth IRA, Spousal Roth IRA, traditional 401k, after-tax 401k, and HSA.  If I could afford to save more I'd switch from traditional to Roth 401k and pre-pay retirement taxes at a higher marginal rate rather than have the savings on the side subjected to the college wealth/income taxes which are effectively a much higher difference between the 25% (now) and 15% (later) federal tax brackets.  Profile and consensus formulas have slightly different percentages and count some home equity if you have an expensive house, but the general idea is the same.


"Like you said, it's important to keep your personal assets and company assets completely separate to maintain the liability protection of the LLC. I'd recommend getting the business bank account right from the beginning. My wife formed an LLC last year (also as a pass-through sole proprietorship for tax purposes), and we were able to get a small business checking account from Savings Institute and Trust that has no fees (at least for the relatively low quantity of transactions we'll be doing). We wrote it a personal check for startup capital, and since then, the LLC has paid all of its own bills out of its checking account (with associated debit card). Getting the account opened took less than an hour of sitting at the bank. Without knowing exactly where you are in Kentucky, I note that Googling ""kentucky small business checking"" and visiting a few banks' web sites provided several promising options for no-fee business checking."


So the OP said you can live a decent life on min wage, but the only way to do it is to suck off of the rest of your family, or work staggered shifts?  Ahh, never seeing your spouse, the american dream in action!


I would think you need proof that you actually bought it when it was cheaper, but that's a guess. You are supposed to pay the capital gains tax on bitcoin gains, same as if you made money on a stock  https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/02/21/if-you-traded-bitcoin-you-should-report-capital-gains-to-the-irs/amp/


Our two rentals have yielded 8.5% over the past two years (averaged). That is net, after taxes, maintenance, management, vacancy, insurance, interest. I am only interested in cash flow - expenses / original investment. If you aren't achieving at least 4.5-5% net on your original investment you probably could invest elsewhere and earn a better return on a similar risk profile.


"Personally, I would: a) consider selling the car and replacing it with a 'cheaper' one.  If you only drive it once a month, you are probably not getting much 'value' from owning a nice car. b) move the car (either current or replacement) out to your parent's place.  The cost of a plane ticket is about the same as the cost of the garage, and your parents would likely hold on to it for free (assuming they live in the suburbs, and parking is not an issue) option b should lower your insurance costs (very low annual mileage) and at least you'll get some frequent flier miles out of your $350 a month. That being said: this is a ""quality of life"" issue, which means that there isn't going to be a firm answer.   If you are 25, have little debt, which you are paying off on time, have an emergency fund, and you are making regular contributions to your 401k, you are certainly NOT ""being seriously irresponsible"" by owning a nice car.  But you may decide that the $1000 a month could be better spent somewhere else."


> You see zero ads? Really? Have you watched a YouTube video recently?  It's funny that statement has been met repeatedly now with disbelief where most people would simply ask how I block all of the ads. Which I assure you, I am doing.


Do you really think that toll booth collectors deserve a 58k base salary?  I mean, sure, pay them for the hours they work, but that is a job that requires no education and is already being done by computers.  I can't know of many jobs where the skill/pay ratio is so badly skewed.  Fuck me, sit in a booth all day working as a cashier and you can make more than teachers, PhDs, professors, public workers, construction people, and on and on.


Well, if you did not vote for Hillary/Democrat, I applaud you!  I always voted for democrats: Obama twice, Al Gore (idiot), Kerry (much bigger idiot), and Bill Clinton twice.  Last election I voted for the first time for a Republican. I would not vote for the other 2 alternative from smaller parties - don't agree with them, they are idiots, and it's a waste of my vote.  Anyway, back to Trump, not my ideal for a president, he's doing very good job in many areas. Don't agree with everything he does, but the majority of what he did I agree.


Regulation is necessary for preserving competition. Regulatory capture is the problem.  Capitalism is all about efficiency, costs are very similar for all participants, so if you're more efficient than your competitors you gain market share (even if that means marketing or lobbying efficiency). Monopolies, cartels are always natural attractors for markets, and with serious barriers to entry (infrastructure by its nature is very much about network effects overcharged by economies of scale gains) it's not much of a surprise that we're in the current situation even after Ma' Bell got split up.  Or, you can go for the maximum property rights libertarianism, but then you are very much in the danger of getting eaten by marketing-fanaticized big-estate zombies. (Since people are not to be trusted even basic acceptance and coordination of property rights is/would be difficult, and with increasing craziness in the wilderness your security insurance premium would go up until you just can't afford it anymore. That's why I'm a bit afraid of all out anarchy as touted on AnCap subreddits.)


government regulations are and have been killing off American enterprise, e.g.  The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is divided into **50 titles** representing broad areas subject to Federal regulation. Each Title is divided into chapters that are assigned to agencies issuing regulations pertaining to that broad subject area. Each chapter is divided into parts and each part is then divided into sections -- the basic unit of the CFR.  Those interested in a specific topic, such as Telecommunications, need only purchase a specific volume or groups of volumes that pertain to the desired topic.   A full set of the CFR consists of approximately **200 volumes**. The approximately 200 CFR volumes are revised at least once a year on a quarterly basis as follows:  [full link is here](http://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/laws-regulations/code-federal-regulations-cfrs-print)


it is pretty much the same as a normal margin loan but cheaper because you don't own the underlying share.the if the margin is $1000 at 5% you could borrow $20000 in total so the actual amount would be $19000 in total that you would have to pay interest on so at the moment it is 5.1% which is $19000x5.1% /365 days =$2.66 a day and if the share price rises you don't pay extra in interest costs unless you have borrowed more.it still stays at 2.66 a day until you have sold the shares


> 500 million active consumers worldwide, with about 1,500 data points per person.  500 million is a lot of people to keep track of, but 1500 data points per person probably isn't enough to get a reliable answer out of a machine learning algorithm. Unless each 'data point' is meant to mean something they definitively 'know' about each user.


Whether or not you use a real estate agent, at some stage most people use a lawyer to do the actual buying and selling and set up the agreements. If you've never dealt with a lawyer directly before it's probably because your agent has acted as a front-person for the lawyer. If you go to a lawyer and tell them what you want to do they will sort it out, and should tell you in advance how much it will cost. You and your friend will probably need one each.


An activity which can help improve your credit score and actually make you money is stoozing. It's a little complicated but can be beneficial to do. Using either a credit card which allows fee free money withdrawals from cashpoints or building up debt using your credit card gives you access to your credit amount. You then use a long term 0% balance transfer card to transfer the debt which you pay off at the minimum rate. It's 0% so no costs are associated except for the initial fee paid for the balance transfer amount. The money that would have been used to pay off the credit amount (or money withdrawn from a cashpoint) can then be deposited in a savings account so you are now earning interest on the credit balance. Continuing to make monthly minimum payments via direct debit will help improve your credit rating and the savings money will earn interest. (it is also available if you suddenly need to pay off the 0% card)


I feel like as millennials rise and become the next round of CEOs they'll already have more core knowledge than what a current traditional CEO has around concepts of technology. To me this is just the natural evolution of the CEO.    As far as current CEO's, ya great learn some tech stuff, however it won't really skyrocket them in my opinion (don't get me wrong, if you're CEO of Apple or Google, I'm going to guess you know some tech stuff). However for non-tech industries, if current CEO's want to learn more about tech I think that's great but, most of them still won't get it, they'll just say the normal buzzwords and enough to get by. Then a CTO/CIO will step up. Also one risk here is, you get a CEO who wants to learn tech or gets a wild hair and then they think they know everything and then the backsliding begins, I actually worked at a company that went this direction because a CEO learned about a new product that would replace our backend processing software and wanted everyone to start converting to it, then the CIO had to come in and take reins.


Typically developing economics are marked by moderate to high inflation [as they are growing at a faster pace], higher in savings rate and higher lending rates. If you reduce the lending rate, more business / start-up will borrow at cheaper rate, this in turn means lowers savings rate and leads to higher inflation. To combat this Central Banks make borrowing expensive, which lowers inflation and increases the saving rate. Essentially all these 3 are tied up. As to why these countries offer higher interest on USD is because most of the developing countries have trade [current account] deficit. They need to bring in more USD in the country. One of the ways is to encourage Non Resident Citizens to park their foreign earning back home, ensuring more funds USD inflow.  The rate differential also acts as a guide as to how the currency would be valued against USD. For example if you get 8% on USD, less than 12% had you converted same to Rouble, at the end of say 3 years, the exchange rate between USD and Rouble would factor that 4%, ie rouble will go down. Developed countries on the other hand are marked by low inflation [they have already achieved everything] as there is no spurt in growth, it more BAU. They are also characterized by low savings and lending rates.


Your website needs to be technically geared towards SEO best practices. If you are not on the first page of search engine results, then you are losing ground to your competitors. We get you there. We help you do that before you invest in any marketing activities. SEO In Utah boost your ranking figure and the profits you make will cover your initial costs. Feel free to visit us at: http://sitesbysara.com


Need an ambience where you can meet your team mates and have some brainstorming sessions but cafes don’t fit your bill? Or perhaps looking for a professional meeting room where you can network and collaborate with your prospective clients but can’t afford to enter into contractual leasing obligations?


I use KMyMoney in Linux. They distribute a Mac version too. Plus, it is free!


"Good, though I don't expect the Republican Congress to let this get implemented. Mandatory arbitration and ""tort reform"" are basically just ways for companies to legal-Houdini their way out of taking responsibility for their actions. The fact that the self-declared ""party of personal responsibility"" supports things like that is the height of hypocrisy.  Class-action lawsuits are not without problems. The people who were wronged often recover only a small portion of the damages they deserve, but when the government abdicates its responsibility to enforce the law, class-action lawsuits are often the only way to hold companies accountable for their misdeeds."


They also have greatly reduced access to reproductive care and traditional health care at all. I'm for free condoms in every public school and college campus. But no the religious right won't stand for it. The real reason is the right loves poverty because it's profitable and keeps wages low and unemployment high.


Here are the specific Vanguard index funds and ETF's I use to mimic Ray Dalio's all weather portfolio for my taxable investment savings. I invest into this with Vanguard personal investor and brokerage accounts. Here's a summary of the performance results from 2007 to today:  2007 is when the DBC commodity fund was created, so that's why my results are only tested back that far. I've tested the broader asset class as well and the results are similar, but I suggest doing that as well for yourself. I use portfoliovisualizer.com to backtest the results of my portfolio along with various asset classes, that's been tremendously useful. My opinionated advice would be to ignore the local investment advisor recommendations. Nobody will ever care more about your money than you, and their incentives are misaligned as Tony mentions in his book.  Mutual funds were chosen over ETF's for the simplicity of auto-investment.  Unfortunately I have to manually buy the ETF shares each month (DBC and GLD). I'm 29 and don't use this for retirement savings. My retirement is 100% VSMAX. I'll adjust this in 20 years or so to be more conservative. However, when I get close to age 45-50 I'm planning to shift into this allocation at a market high point.  When I approach retirement, this is EXACTLY where I want to be. Let's say you had $2.7M in your retirement account on Oct 31, 2007 that was invested in 100% US Stocks. In Feb of 2009 your balance would be roughly $1.35M. If you wanted to retire in 2009 you most likely couldn't. If you had invested with this approach you're account would have dropped to $2.4M in Feb of 2009.  Disclaimer: I'm not a financial planner or advisor, nor do I claim to be. I'm a software engineer and I've heavily researched this approach solely for my own benefit. I have absolutely no affiliation with any of the tools, organizations, or funds mentioned here and there's no possible way for me to profit or gain from this. I'm not recommending anyone use this, I'm merely providing an overview of how I choose to invest my own money. Take or leave it, that's up to you. The loss/gain incured from this is your responsibility, and I can't be held accountable.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://news.sky.com/story/japans-economy-posts-longest-unbroken-growth-streak-in-more-than-a-decade-10988359) reduced by 71%. (I'm a bot) ***** > It was the strongest quarter of growth since the first quarter of 2015.  > It means Japan is growing faster than the likes of the United States, whose economy grew by just 2.6% on an annualised basis during the same period, and appreciably faster than the UK. Japan&#039;s economy has now grown for sixth successive quarters, the longest growth streak it has enjoyed since 2006, representing a triumph for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office in 2012 promising a revival.  > Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan&#039;s new economic and fiscal policy minister, said the stronger-than-expected growth reflected continued strength in consumer spending and business investment.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6ttbyy/japans_economy_beats_the_forecasts_growing_by_4/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~191182 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*: **Japan**^#1 **growth**^#2 **quarter**^#3 **economy**^#4 **year**^#5"


">There are ways  So you have no idea how to uphold these ""standards"".   If Canada did it, the Star would have been shut down years ago. And the CBC as well.  Journalism was never respected in the US. The advent of the 24 hour cable news hole and the internet raised awareness of just how ....*imperfect* what passes for journalism is, as journalists revealed other journalist's failings. Also, if you dropped your left-wing bias and did an analysis of all major papers in the U.S., you'd find that News Corp. papers are no worse, and actually somewhat better than the rest as far as accuracy."


You can borrow against a 401k for 5 years. This defers any penalty fees that the IRS mandates. Put the cash back in your 401k within those 5 years. you can also solo administer 401k plans even if you have an unincorporated business, so you can start one of those if you have any other form of cashflow, and there may be a way to get the other plan rolled into your solo one.  http://www.irs.gov/publications/p560/ch04.html#en_US_publink10009053


"As an opinion column that uses the word ""toxins"" I can't help but dismiss it entirely.  [Here is the summary of the study](http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/news/07-09-2012/higher-diversity-fewer-inputs-make-profitable-farms) which is much clearer about their results, the problems, and lacks the ""oh no not CHEMICALS"" woo."


"Here's a dump from what I use. Some are a bit more expensive than those that you posted. The second column is the expense ratio. The third column is the category I've assigned in my spreadsheet -- it's how I manage my rebalancing among different classes. ""US-LC"" is large cap, MC is mid cap, SC is small cap. ""Intl-Dev"" is international stocks from developed economies, ""Emer"" is emerging economies. These have some overlap. I don't have a specific way to handle this, I just keep an eye on the overall picture. (E.g. I don't overdo it on, say, BRIC + Brazil or SPY + S&P500 Growth.) The main reason for each selection is that they provide exposure to a certain batch of securities that I was looking for. In each type, I was also aiming for cheap and/or liquid like you. If there are substitutes I should be looking at for any of these that are cheaper and/or more liquid, a comment would be great. High Volume: Mid Volume (<1mil shares/day): Low Volume (<50k shares/day): These provide enough variety to cover the target allocation below. That allocation is just for retirement accounts; I don't consider any other savings when I rebalance against this allocation. When it's time to rebalance (i.e. a couple of times a year when I realize that I haven't done it in several months), I update quotes, look at the percentages assigned to each category, and if anything is off the target by more than 1% point I will buy/sell to adjust. (I.e. if US-LC is 23%, I sell enough to get back to 20%, then use the cash to buy more of something else that is under the target. But if US-MC is 7.2% I don't worry about it.) The 1% threshold prevents unnecessary trading costs; sometimes if everything is just over 1% off I'll let it slide. I generally try to stay away from timing, but I do use some of that extra cash when there's a panic (after Jan-Feb '09 I had very little cash in the retirement accounts). I don't have the source for this allocation any more, but it is the result of combining a half dozen or so sample allocations that I saw and tailoring it for my goals."


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


Yes, there are a bunch. I have used Paypal and it worked quite nicely. I see endless ads these days for Square, a tiny card reader that you plug into a smartphone that lets you swipe the card. (With Paypal you have to type in the credit card number.)


"As far as I can recall, savings and chequing accounts exist due to regulations on the banking industry that put were into effect after the depression to prevent a ""run"" on the bank.   A chequing account is a ""demand"" account, meaning you can go and demand your money, and they have to pay immediately, by means of a withdrawal or a cheque.  Banks used to get out of hand and loan out pretty much all the money they had on deposit, and of course those people with loans just put the money they borrowed into another chequing account and the bank loaned that out to someone else.  The money that people believed they had access to multiplied indefinitely.  However, when everyone goes to take that money out at the same time, you have a run on the bank.  Therefore, government regulations stipulate a % that the bank must have on-hand.  The typical number is 5%.  That effectively limits the money multiplier to 19 times. Savings accounts get around this restriction by putting limits on how much and how quickly you can withdraw the amounts.  They pay you more interest because the money in a savings account is worth more to them, because it's not subject to those restrictions. Some chequing accounts pay interest, but you have to maintain a minimum balance.  Some savings accounts allow you to write cheques, but I assume the withdrawal limitations probably still apply. There's also something to do with deposit insurance (as in, the chequing accounts are covered by government deposit insurance, but savings accounts are not).  I'm not 100% certain of that though."


Having both purchased income properties and converted prior residences into rental properties I have found that it is difficult to get the banks to consider the potential rental income in qualifying you for a loan.  It helps if you have prior rental experience but in many cases you will have to qualify outright (i.e. without consideration of the potential income).  The early 2000s were great for responsible borrows/investors but today's regulations make it much more difficult to finance income property.


It sounds like you're putting all your extra money into insurances because you feel that one can never have too much insurance. That's a very bad idea, financially. Basically it means you'll end up giving your money away to insurance companies in order to satisfy that feeling. Do realize that the expected value of every instuance is negative: on average, you'll pay more money than you'll receive. Otherwise, insurance companies would go bankrupt, so they are very good at ensuring that they get more in premiums than they pay out. Insurance should only be bought to cover essential risks, things that would ruin you: major health problems, death (to cover dependants), disability, liability. For everything else, you should self-insure by saving up money (up to a few months' wages) and putting it into safe and liquid investment vehicles as an emergency fund. That way, you are much more flexible, don't pay for the insurance company's employees, fancy offices and profits, and may even earn some interest.


Maybe, but other companies have done similar things to purposely destroy wages at recessions.    And since Gates isn't at a paternalistic command now, I expect Microsoft to get naturally more exploitative as the business class replace engineer/programmer-managers.


Problem is that in California it's up to the lawyer to prove that the employee is lying. So if an employer is sloppy as was probably the case here the employees can say whatever the fuck they want to say and it's considered the truth until proven otherwise.  Just writing down all the hours you supposedly worked the night before reporting it to the labor board is sufficient.  Had an employee once that lied their ass off. Overwhelmingly proved they were lying. Still had to pay legal fees in the thousands of dollars (while they get everything free). And they can continue to do this as many times as they want for up to three years after their termination as long as each time it's a different complaint (in theory someone bored and persistent enough could bankrupt a small business this way with no and I mean no recourse whatsoever)   Fuck California.


Online you can find better than average free psychic chat room. Psychic readings exactness can change contingent on your association with a specific otherworldly peruser. It doesn't make a difference whether one is ensured or a world acclaimed psychic, nobody can offer flawlessness with regards to precise free psychic chat room expectations constantly. There are numerous approaches to look for direction yet a talk perusing can furnish you with and encounter that most nearly takes after an in person session since you can see one another up close and personal.


Just the Y-axis is manipulated, doesn't make it garbage. How else would you graphically demonstrate the strong correlation all in one graph given that the levels of the two series differ so much ... Would it be more convincing if he gave you the correlation coefficient over the relevant period (which I bet would be pretty close to 1 and would convey the same point as the graph).


Amazon just delayed my entrance into e-books for a few years. First off, the prices are still crazy, and secondly, now you dont even own the shit you pay the same price as a paperback for.  They are managing to remove all of the benefits of going digital. I think they may be screwing themselves long term with these moves, publishers with integrity are going to start going around them..distributing e-books is very easy..


Jim Rogers has been negative on India for decades.  I remember him saying something similar during early 90s.  He is a road travel adventurer type and makes his investment decisions on how his trips turn out.  India can be hell on even most seasoned of the adventurers!


"There is no simple answer to that, because no one knows exactly what the probability distribution of S&P 500 returns is. Here is a sketch of one possible way to proceed. Don't forget step 4!  The problem is that the stock market is full of surprises, so this kind of ""backtesting"" can only reliably tell you about what already happened, not what will happen in the future.  People argue about how much you can learn from this kind of analysis.  However, it is at the least a clearly defined and objective process.  I wouldn't advise investing your whole nest egg in anything based just on this, but I do think that it is relevant information."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-30/as-poverty-surges-in-italy-populists-propose-a-citizens-income) reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Five Star&#039;s version would give Italians below the poverty line as much as &euro;780 a month.  > To keep Five Star from dominating the debate, Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, a Renzi ally, has approved a less ambitious plan he calls &quot;The first universal tool against poverty.&quot; The scheme, dubbed &quot;Inclusion income,&quot; would give 1.7 million people as much as &euro;485 a month as long as they&#039;re actively seeking work, at a cost of about &euro;2 billion a year.  > BOTTOM LINE - Italy&#039;s populist Five Star Movement is proposing a universal basic income-an idea that rival parties have started to adopt ahead of elections expected next year.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6x7otl/as_poverty_surges_in_italy_populists_propose_a/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~201948 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*: **Five**^#1 **Star**^#2 **year**^#3 **Party**^#4 **program**^#5"


It's much more complicated than that. But to be extraordinarily brief, tech companies (and pharma and everyone else) off-shore the further development of IP (etc.) once it's going to be successful. They then license it back to the US-based entity, and gin up all manner of tax benefits. (Source: I did this for a living.)  The problem is that the revolutionary product that's generating billions of dollars was conceived of in the US, developed in the US under the benefits of the US economy at large, protected by US laws, often subsidized by US tax dollars, initially driven by US markets, and is owned by a US parent company. However, having used the vehicle to wealth that is the US, the company then cuts off the tax revenue to the US that's suppose to continue to fuel the broader context that gave rise to the benefits in the first place.   Say what you want about US corporate tax rates. This money has been subjected to 0% taxes in most cases and no chance in US tax rates will chance that calculation.   [This TED Talk is worth watching](https://www.ted.com/talks/mariana_mazzucato_government_investor_risk_taker_innovator)


It's a good point to make with bot presence. For the most part Twitter is made of people, even if there are a lot of false or bot accounts. That being said I don't find it as strong a marketing channel because of the nature of Twitter at its core.   If you follow 1000 people you're likely to have nearly 10,000 tweets going through your feed. It's hard to really fight for attention but you can still get decent response and views when done right.   As for Instagram...  I think in the long term, just as any other social network, the lifespan of it depends on the content. As long as people are having new experiences and taking photos of them there will always be more content.   That being said there are tons of accounts that pretty much post the same content. It saturates things like the explore feature because they're using less than kosher tactics to get likes.   Ultimately I think policing of Instagram as they have been is the best strategy for keeping it going.   Even though I'm a marketer, I'm also a Millennial with pretty typical values. Blatant advertising is annoying and intrusive when it comes to user experience and many young people today feel that way.   By policing things like auto-engaging, false locations (you used to be able to just type locations like 'Follow Me') and being very keen on following through with reports of spam accounts is a good way to keep younger people on it.   Unless you're paying for ads marketing on Instagram typically consists of native content that looks good on feeds and needs engagement to rise up. This is a good way to curb marketing while still maintaining a good user experience.   As a side note, part of why I use Snapchat less is how they shove ads down your throat, which gets old pretty fast. Ads on snapchat pretty much ruined the platform for me personally aside from using it for communication.   As long as Instagram maintains this balance based around the user and not the advertisers I think it will be going for quite some time.


For me the aggressive approach makes sense since I have a longer time horizon before I need to withdraw the funds.  This style should also match your personality and you should have the patience and appetite to deal with market fluctuations which can be wild in some cases (as we saw in 2008-2009).  Not an easy question to answer since everyone's situation is different and everyone has to make their own decisions.


Lightning safety experts at Lightning Eliminators and Consultants Inc., understands the need of these industries to protect production equipment to avoid sudden drops or surge in voltages or even to disconnect from the main supply grid. The company has over 4 decades of experience in lighting safety and protection for these sectors, continuous research and professional solutions allowing to a considerable reduction of lightning damage. Visit us online here: https://lightningprotectiondesignblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/09/industrial-lightning-protection-and-safety/


When Eddie Lampert took over, he boasted that people didn't care about crap like that if it meant lower prices. They spend something like 1/4 or 1/8 on store maintenance as everyone else does. So now only does that show, they still can't beat walmarts pricing.


"I'm not convinced this is completely possible without additional data.  I'm categorizing my purchases now, and I keep running into things like ""was this hardware store purchase for home repair, hobby tools and supplies, cookware, ..."" Ditto for department stores, ditto for cash purchases which appear only as an ATM withdrawal. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I guess, sometimes I just give up. In the end, this budget tracking isn't critical for me so that's good enough. If you really want accuracy, though, I think you are stuck with keeping all your receipts, of taking notes, so you can resolve these gaps."


From Wikipedia: 'Bezos was one of the first shareholders in Google, when he invested $250,000 in 1998. That $250,000 investment resulted in 3.3 million shares of Google stock worth about $3.1 billion today.'  His wealth may be tied to amazon but he is a savvy investor. Recently, I was watching an early interview he did with Charlie Rose, and I read more about him - which led to reading the Wikipedia article.


"This one struck a nerve I see.   I also certainly understand your side- it's not ""right"" for the consumer to do it, in a strictly moral sense of the word. However, they're operating in a marketplace where Target will use any and all tricks in the book to increase revenue, including tax dodging/sheltering, lobbying against their citizens' interest, using non-union shops (see the Canadians' discussion below), etc. That is, Target is doing everything it can to gain the upper hand against consumers/employees/labor, etc, in the old ""labor vs capital"" battle.   To ask individuals to adhere to a stricter set of marketplace rules is to put ""us"" (or any individual) at a disadvantage in said marketplace. Consumers need to be able to be just as ruthless in the marketplace as corporations. In this case, Target screwed up and thus pays for it. If Target found a perfectly legal loophole, it's guaranteed they would drive the whole ship through it. I mean, there's a reason corporate taxes rates are abysmally low.   The argument I would accept is this: One could argue that the consumers, by using the gift card deal in a way that deliberately violates the terms of the contract of said card, are committing fraud. That's fine- I have no problem with saying it's wrong on that technicality. However, economics has been called the ""dismal science"" for a reason- there's no morality in a marketplace."


"Even less reason for influencers to tag it then?    The way it works for us is our PR company pretty much gives us a list of their affiliate ""Key Opinion Leaders"" (KOL) with all of their rates.  We then choose a couple after looking at their pages. PR firm sends out product samples then lets us know when the post is up. PR firm pays KOL, we pay PR firm.    So for this to come up as ""advertised"" on insta, my understanding from the above thread is that the KOL needs to tag it. However as the client we would absolutely not want ""Paid"" or ""Sponsored"" to show up if we can help it, it destroys the illusion.   Last thing I will note is what /u/pwnicholson posted about regarding FTC rules. That is fine if you need to tag it for regulatory reasons. We don't in Aus, so it won't happen. In saying that, the data looks juicy so we'd probably do it here and there to see the numbers, but otherwise the 'illusion' is very important imo."


"Be familiar with and able to verbally run through how to do a discounted cash flow analysis. Additionally be up to date with current financial market(s) trends, both domestically and globally. Know where the U.S bond yields are trading, and where they are going, interest rates too. Apart from that big picture stuff I wouldn't stress too much about technicals because he/she may not even ask about them at all if its more of a ""fit"" interview."


>Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto announced the budget deal late Monday. The deal calls for a $34.7 billion budget that includes more than $300 million in Democratic spending priorities and is part of an agreement to overhaul the state's largest health insurer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield.    So Christie got what he wanted by holding a national holiday hostage.  I thought that America doesn't negotiate with terrorists.


"> Though I'd counter that if your goal is to manipulate economic exchanges between individuals with the intention of guiding the economy at large to a specific desired outcome, I think that capitalism is not the economic system for you :P   Touche :)   I will say that, to your point, I have come to believe that there are two forces at odds that are required for a robust and long lived prosperous society:  1.  A capitalist system that encourages innovation through competition and  2.  A government to check the inevitable concentration of wealth that capitalism naturally trends toward.  They most effective ways for a government to check that concentration is through a progressive tax system, and a check on the power that the concentration of wealth creates (eg: forcing employers to pay a living wage instead of using a bully pulpit to extract the maximum effort for the lowest possible cost, as shown by the ""robber barons"" etc of the 1900s).  Either way, I'll admit that I am not talking about pure capitalism.  However, like the philosopher Georg Hegel theorized, all ideas go through a process of thesis (the first idea: aka capitalism), antithesis (the countering idea: in this case socialism), and then synthesis (the resulting compromise).  The synthesis then becomes the new thesis for the system to further evolve upon.  It's time for American capitalism to evolve."