"In the United States, many banks aim to receive $ 100 per year per account in fees and interest markup.  There are several ways that they can do this on a checking account.  These examples assume that there is a 3 % difference between low-interest-rate deposit accounts and low-interest rate loans. Or some combination of these markups that adds up to $ 100 / year.  For example:  A two dollar monthly fee = $ 24 / year, plus a $ 2,000 average balance at 0.05% = $ 29 / year, plus $ 250 / month in rewards debit card usage = $ 24 / year, plus $ 2 / month in ATM fees = $ 24 / year. Before it was taken over by Chase Manhattan in 2008, Washington Mutual had a business strategy of offering ""free"" checking with no monthly fees, no annual fees, and no charges (by Washington Mutual) for using ATMs.  The catch was that the overdraft fees were not free.  If the customers averaged 3 overdraft fees per year at $ 34 each, Washington Mutual reached its markup target for the accounts."


"Some benefits of having a business checking account (versus a personal checking account) are: The first 3 should be pretty easy to determine if they are important to you. #4 is a little more abstract, though I see you have an LLC taxed as a sole proprietorship, and so I'm guessing protecting your personal assets may have been one of the driving reasons you formed the LLC in the first place. If so, ""following through"" with the business account is advised."


A 401K (pre-tax or Roth) account or an IRA (Deductible or Roth) account is a retirement account. Which means you delay paying taxes now on your deposits, or you avoid paying taxes on your earnings later.  But a retirement account doesn't  perform any different than any other account year-to-year. Being a retirement account doesn't  dictate a type of investment. You can invest in a certificate of deposit that is guaranteed to make x% this year; or you can invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds that infest in stocks or bonds. Those stocks and bonds can be growth focused, or income focused; they can be from large companies or small companies; US companies or international companies. Or whatever mix you want. The graph in your question shows that if you invest early in your adulthood, and keep investing, and you make the average return you should make more money than starting later. But a couple of notes:  So to your exact questions: An S&P 500 investment should perform exactly the same this year if it is in a 401K, IRA, or taxable account With a few exceptions:  Yes any investment can lose money. The last 6 months have been volatile and the last month and a half especially so. A retirement account isn't any different. An investment in mutual fund X in a retirement account is just as depressed a one in the same fund but from a taxable account.


"Legally: gods know. I would strongly recommend asking the Law asre of Stack Exchange to advise on that. Practically: What's the worst that happens? They audit, you say ""Yeah, I could probably have claimed these deductions but I didn't want to; is that a problem?"", they decide and either nothing happens or they issue you the unwanted refunnd. They aren't going to fine you for overpaying. Unless this would expose something criminal -- or you're a public figure and it would be embarassing -- this strikes me as falling firmly within the bounds of ""no harm, no foul""."


"The stock market is not a zero-sum game.  Some parts are (forex, some option trading), but plain old stock trading is not zero sum. That is to say, if you were to invest ""at random"", you would on average make money.  That's because the market as a whole makes money - it goes up over time (6-10% annually, averaged over time).  That's because you're not just gambling when you buy a stock; you're actually contributing money to a company (directly or indirectly), which it uses to fund activities that (on average) make money.  When you buy Caterpillar stock, you're indirectly funding Caterpillar building tractors, which they then sell for a profit, and thus your stock appreciates in value.  While not every company makes a profit, and thus not every stock appreciates in true value, the average one does. To some extent, buying index funds is pretty close to ""investing at random"".  It has a far lower risk quotient, of course, since you're not buying a few stocks at random but instead are buying all stocks in an index; but buying stocks from the S&P 500 at random would on average give the same return as VOO (with way more volatility). So for one, you definitely could do worse than 50/50; if you simply sold the market short (sold random stocks short), you would lose money over time on average, above and beyond the transaction cost, since the market will go up over time on average. Secondly, there is the consideration of limited and unlimited gains or losses. Some trades, specifically some option trades, have limited potential gains, and unlimited potential losses. Take for example, a simple call option.  If you sell a naked call option - meaning you sell a call option but don't own the stock - for $100, at a strike price of $20, for 100 shares, you make money as long as the price of that stock is under $21.  You have a potential to make $100, because that's what you sold it for; if the price is under $20, it's not exercised, and you just get that $100, free.   But, on the other hand, if the stock goes up, you could potentially be out any amount of money.  If the stock trades at $24, you're out $400-100 = $300, right?  (Plus transaction costs.)   But what if it trades at $60?  Or $100?  Or $10000?  You're still out 100 * that amount, so in the latter case, $1 million.  It's not likely to trade at that point, but it could. If you were to trade ""at random"", you'd probably run into one of those types of situations.  That's because there are lots of potential trades out there that nobody expects anyone to take - but that doesn't mean that people wouldn't be happy to take your money if you offered it to them.   That's the reason your 16.66 vs 83.33 argument is faulty:  you're absolutely right that if there were a consistently losing line, that the consistently winning line would exist, but that requires someone that is willing to take the losing line.  Trades require two actors, one on each side; if you're willing to be the patsy, there's always someone happy to take advantage of you, but you might not get a patsy."


Yea, like others are saying -- it's legitimate.  Just insurance.  In fact, as far as derivatives go -- weather futures are probably one of the least crazy.  FYI, all derivative and exotic securities are legitimate -- just a matter of price.  CDS? Fine.  CDOs? Yep.  Even the CDO^2 -- They're all fine as long as the price is set right.  A truly efficient market would shun some of these as they are too hard to untangle and understand what the real risks are.  However, we don't have a truly efficient market (nor a particularly free one -- but that's another discussion).


This point stands. It's an accurate description.   However, for clarity, they're not skimming money off your order in the traditional sense. They see your order, beat you to the punch, and place their own. They then sell it back to you at a higher price. Think brute force for the stock market.


Aside from cost, the real problem is lack of jobs after obtaining a degree. My degree got me low paid work. In the mid 1990's I considered getting another degree but none of the colleges I spoke to could tell me how many of their graduates got jobs related to their degree or what the jobs paid. I already had one worthless degree and couldn't see going into debt for another worthless degree.


Unless Obama becomes dictator, he can't.  I am not a big Obama fan but the guy is not the man who had a congress that stamped everything for his approval (which Bush had, he pretty much declared war, passed bills with a republican congress).    Obama can't really even cut spending on defense or even give tax cuts with the current congress and senate.  He tried shutting down Gitmo but congress wouldn't fund the shutdown.  Alot of the agencies are missing appointments because senate will filibuster anything they can.


Except in the EU where you can in fact sell your software licence on.   This case is interesting for us here in Europe as we already have legal precedent that this transaction is allowed, although not specifically about digital media.  What I am not as clear about is if they lose the case in US can they trade here still?


I'm in MIS with a comajor in International Business at a top 10 school for Business. I am thinking about adding Accounting as a double major. It all depends on what you want to do with your future and where you want to go. I wouldn't personally do Finance unless you're at a top recruiting school. Accounting is by far the most stable though, you will always find a job. It is regarded as the language of Business


I'm not aware of any digital cable boxes that you can just buy, call the cable company and give them the MAC address and it will work, like with a cable modem. But any cable box that supports CableCard will probably work with Comcast. You still have to rent the cable card, which is generally several dollars a month.


for full disclosure I'm an Independent Contractor and work with Jeff Richman. @ Neil:  Question 1: How legitimate is this?  If you were never contacted by the company you would never know about the money. Period, end of story. Not trying to be rude but that is the bottom line truth. Look up asset recovery businesses. They are in every city almost. They work for individuals, governments and businesses. Very legitimate business. Question 2: Since this doesn't seem to be the case, how does this company know that I potentially have unclaimed assets to claim?  I understand your concern and the best analogy I can think of to explain this is:  A company's copier breaks down. A copy machine repair man is called. He shows up and opens the copier and studies it intensely and closes it back up. He takes a hammer out of his bag and hits the copier on the side in two different places, twice. The copier starts working. He charges the company owner a $1000.00. The company owner is glad to pay it because without the knowledge of the repair man, his business is not making money. This is the same: The professionals at Keane have specific knowledge about how to, where to and who to ask for these lists. Granted, it's not your business we're talking about here but without them, you get nothing.  2 professionals have advised you to move forward; your brother's accountant and lawyer. Take the money. It costs you nothing. If they want money from you up front or want you to pay for stuff, run.


I'm in full agreement and came here to say just that. I felt like such a presentation is meant to cater to an ADD generation or some such. I'd rather two or three subsections each with a continuous flow of the story. As is, the all-encompassing story was tough to follow and unnecessarily chopped up.


Stock Keeping Unit. An inventory item. In this case, an item on the menu. The commentor is saying that they have too many different dishes available. No one can be great at all things. When you have a lot of different dishes, one of two things have to happen: either you have a larger kitchen staff to handle the greater variety or the quality of your overall food declines. Applebees has chosen the second option.


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This is assuming that you are now making some amount X per month which is more than the income you used to have as a student. (Otherwise, the question seems rather moot.) All figures should be net amounts (after taxes). First, figure out what the difference in your cost of living is. That is, housing, electricity, utilities, the basics that you need to have to have a place in which to live. I'm not considering food costs here unless they were subsidized while you were studying. Basically, you want to figure out how much you now have to spend extra per month for basic sustenance. Then, figure out how much more you are now making, compared to when you were a student. Subtract the sustenance extra from this to get your net pay increase. After that is when it gets trickier. Basically, you want to set aside or invest as much of the pay increase as possible, but you probably have other expenses now that you didn't before and which you cannot really do that much about. This mights be particular types of clothes, commute fares (car keepup, gas, bus pass, ...), or something entirely different. Anyway, decide on a savings goal, as a percentage of your net pay increase compared to when you were a student. This might be 5%, 10% or (if you are really ambitious) 50% or more. Whichever number you pick, make sure it's reasonable giving your living expenses, and keep in mind that anything is better than nothing. Find a financial institution that offers a high-interest savings account, preferably one with free withdrawals, and sign up for one. Each and every time you get paid, figure out how much to save based on the percentage you determined (if your regular case is that you get the same payment each time, you can simply set up an automated bank transfer), put that in the savings account and, for the moment, forget about that money. Try your best to live only on the remainder, but if you realize that you set aside too much, don't be afraid to tap into the savings account. Adjust your future deposits accordingly and try to find a good balance. At the end of each month, deposit whatever remains in your regular account into your savings account, and if that is a sizable amount of money, consider raising your savings goal a little. The ultimate goal should be that you don't need to tap into your savings except for truly exceptional situations, but still keep enough money outside of the savings account to cater to some of your wants. Yes, bank interest rates these days are often pretty dismal, and you will probably be lucky to find a savings account that (especially after taxes) will even keep up with inflation. But to start with, what you should be focusing on is not to make money in terms of real value appreciation, but simply figuring out how much money you really need to sustain a working life for yourself and then walking that walk. Eventually (this may take anywhere from a couple of months to a year or more), you should have settled pretty well on an amount that you feel comfortable with setting aside each month and just letting be. By that time, you should have a decently sized nest egg already, which will help you get over rough spots, and can start thinking about other forms of investing some of what you are setting aside. Whenever you get a net pay raise of any kind (gross pay raise, lower taxes, bonus, whichever), increase your savings goal by a portion of that raise. Maybe give yourself 60% of the raise and bank the remaining 40%. That way, you are (hopefully!) always increasing the amount of money that you are setting aside, while also reaping some benefits right away. One major upside of this approach is that, if you lose your job, not only will you have that nest egg, you will also be used to living on less. So you will have more money in the bank and less monthly expenses, which puts you in a significantly better position than if you had only one of those, let alone neither.


The biggest issue with personal bankruptcy is that your credit rating determines a lot more than whether someone will lend you money. In particular, someone with bad credit will find it *extremely* difficult to rent a house or apartment, something that will be of utmost importance if you've just turned in your home as collateral.


"Getting a mortgage for the interest write-off is like buying packs of baseball cards for the gum. That said, I'd refer you to The correct order of investing as much of that question really overlaps with this. This question boils down to priorities, the best use of the funds. There are those who suggest that a mortgage brings risk. Of course it does, just not for the borrower, the risk is borne by the lender. Risk comes from lack of liquidity. Say your girlfriend buys the house with cash, and leaves little reserve. She loses her job, and it's great that she has no mortgage. But she does have every other cost life brings, including a tax bill that can turn into a house getting foreclosed on. The details that you didn't disclose are those needed to look at the rest of the ""priorities"" list. A fully funded 401(k) with appropriate balance, and no other debt? And a 1 year emergency fund? I wouldn't argue against buying the house with cash. No real savings and passing on the 401(k) matched deposit? I'd think carefully about the longterm impact of the cash purchase."


Can I transfer funds from India to USA which I have borrowed in India. Funds borrowed in India may not be transferred outside of India as per Foreign Exchange Management Act. Loans in rupees to non-residents against security of shares or   immovable property in India:-   Subject to the directions issued by   the Reserve Bank from time to time in this regard, an authorised   dealer in India may grant loan to a non-resident Indian, e) the loan amount shall not be remitted outside India;


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These places are being ruined by places like Smash Burger, Chipotle, and Blaze Pizza. Let's not even talk about the food, the service usually sucks and why should we sit down and have to tip someone for that service?   Now let's talk about food, I don't see much of a difference in quality between fast-casual and comparable items at restaurants like Applebee's, Friday's, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Chilli's. You can also argue that perhaps Wendy's or McDonald's has improved it's quality enough to be considered close in quality.   Obviously you're not going to get a steak at a fast-casual place or McDonald's but why would select Applebee's if you are longing for a steak?


Women entered the work force en mass. And, with twice as many potential employees the cost of labor decreased. That is, of course, the non-PC version and it began earlier than the 80s but it's essentially correct--labor like any other commodity increases in value relative to its scarcity.   If all the women (or all the men, or all of any sizeable group) left the labor market the price of labor would begin to increase as companies bid up the price they were willing to pay for each employee. With today's level of globalization this becomes a much more complicated equation--do local wages rise or do jobs migrate to abundant (and cheap) labor? But, it's the same idea.


I don't know of any and it is unlikely that you will be able to find one.  Most credit card processors charge a flat fee plus percentage.  The flat fee is typically in the 35 cent range making the cost of doing business, in the manner you are suggesting, astronomical.   Also what you are suggesting is contrary to best practices as hosting services, and many other industries, offer deep discounts when making a single payment for an extended period of time. This is not very helpful, but I think it is unrealistic to find what you are suggesting.


To me it looks pretty good (10% per year is a pretty good return). Lagging behind the indexes is normal, it is hard to beat the indexes over a long period of time, the longer the period - the lesser the chances to succeed. However, half a year is a relatively short period of time, and you should check your investments a little bit deeper. I'm assuming you're not invested in one thing, so you should check per investment, how it is performing. If you have funds - check each fund against the relevant index for that fund, if you have stocks - check against the relevant industry indexes, etc. Also, check the fees you pay to each fund and the plan, they come out of your pocket, lowering the return.


Size note- last I looked self insuring a fleet is insanely capital intensive as you basically have to put enough aside to cover most instances of risk. It's possible for some companies, but others will need alternatives as it's just too much upfront cash.


I was joking. Clearly. But in a world where 100000 jobs did go away the economy would be fucked. How many people depend on the spending of 1000000 people? Just theoretically.  Also bankers account for a tiny proportion of the kinds of people employed in banks.


"Queuing for service also occurs in the US... except that position in the queue is determined by wealth (i.e. US care is rationed based on the amount of money in your pocket). Essentially in the US the poor have been kicked out of the line, which on first blush makes the line ""disappear"".  Queuing in Canada is based on medical need (those in the most dire need are treated first). Beyond that, the other choke point is available resources (eg. not enough orthopedic surgeons)."


I'd be tempted to pay off the 35k in student loans immediately, but if you have to owe money, it's hard to beat zero percent. So I don't think I would pay it all off. Maybe cut it in half to make it a more comfortable payment. Currently, you are looking at $6K a year to pay them off, which is about 20% of your income. Cut that in half and you will sleep better! Definitely pay off the medical and credit cards. You're probably paying 20% on that. Clean it up. If you need a car, buy yourself a car. You have no savings, so I would put the rest in some kind of money market savings account. You are at an age where many people go through frequent changes. Maybe you get your own place, and you'll need to furnish it. Maybe you go back to school. Maybe you get married or have kids. Maybe you take a year off and backpack through Europe or Asia. You have a nice little windfall that puts you in a nice position to enjoy being young, so I would not lock it up into a 401k or other long term situation.


My mention of Lego being expensive is in my personal experience of sets as I grew up, where what were seemingly similar sets appeared to skyrocket in price over a matter of years.  Another point of reference for me is the fact that 'retro' collectors Lego is supposedly still of lesser value than modern sets, making it almost a reverse collector's item, if you're into that kind of vintage collectable unboxed lark.


"It appears as others have said that companies are not required to state this on as any sort of Asset. I remembered a friend of mine is a lawyer specializing in Intellectual Property Rights so asked him and confirmed that there's no document companies are required to file which states all patent holdings as assets. There are two ways he suggested for finding out. Once you find a company you're interested in can search patents by company using one of the two following: US Patent Office website's advanced search: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm aanm/company for example entering into the textarea, ""aanm/google"" without the quotation marks will find patents by Google. The other is a Google Patent Search: http://www.google.com/patents/"


I have a loaded Accord right now.  Model 3 is faster, safer (most likely given Tesla's track record, doesn't need gas, and (hopefully) cheaper and easier to maintain (no oil changes, etc).     It's also just a hair smaller than my Accord and sits more forward, which I really like. The Accord feels like a boat to me.


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Have you been to any cities recently? We're having a housing crisis in NYC because wealthy people are flocking here from all over the world driving up prices. Crime rates are hitting 50 year lows so often they don't even announce it anymore. You're describing the state of things 30 or more years ago.


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I find it funny that I was downvoted and you were upvoted. The article about this today says that 230,000 jobs were expected, not 200,000. The unemployment rate went from 6.1% to 6.2%. So tell me again how this is good news?


My experience is from travelling in Central Europe and Germany, so I've dealt with much smaller amounts of money, but the general principles are the same. Many Visa-brand ATM cards allow you to withdraw money from European ATMs for a 1% fee (plus any fees the bank may charge, my bank charged zero fee) in local currency.  Even if the bank charges a 2-3% fee, the combined max 4% fee is going to be a lot smaller than most currency exchange places will offer.  There are a lot of exchange offices that are built to scam tourists out of their money.  We had no choice but to use one that ended up taking around 10% of the exchanged money (luckily we were only exchanging a small amount of currency).  Call your bank and ask what their fees are, and if they are large, find a bank with small or zero fees and move your accounts there.  Be sure to notify your bank that you are going to be travelling for an extended time in a foreign country.  Literally any ATM (Geldautomat) accepted our card (thank you VISA).  We literally walked off the plane with some USD and no foreign currency, and were able to stop at an ATM right outside our hotel (the taxi had a card reader, as most in Munich did). If you have a source of income secured within the country (which I am hoping you do if you will be living there) you could live off of your income, and use your USD to pay off things like credit card bills.  Get a Travel Rewards Credit Card (or similar card that offers no foreign transaction fees or free currency transfers).  Use this card for anything and everything you can, and pay it with a transfer from your US bank account.  Under this method you'll probably have to convert some currency, but you can do so from an ATM easily enough.


"1. You don't know what an ad hominem is and you should feel bad.   2. That comment is in response to someone calling me a trumptard. Can you even read?   3. I didn't vote for Trump.   4. I still didn't vote for Trump.   5. You're laughably uneducated about claims and data.   6. Data has to actually support the claim you're making.   7. You have to prove that polls are the way they are for the reasons you say they are.   8. They made claims without data.   9. Those claims are still unsupported.   10. The data they ""actually provided"" wasn't for the right country.   11. You could not draw a conclusion even if it was the right data.   12. It says a lot about you that you're more concerned about my opinion than the person calling people trumptards and telling them to shut the fuck up."


Given that the laws on consumer liability for unauthorized transactions mean no cost in most cases, the CVV is there to protect the merchant.  Typically a merchant will receive a lower cost from their bank to process the transaction with the CVV code versus without. As far as the Netflix case goes, (or any other recurring billing for that matter) they wouldn't care as much about it because Visa/MC/Amex regulations prohibit storage of the CVV.  So if they collect it then it's only used for the first transaction and renewals just use the rest of the card info (name, expiration date, address). Does the presence of CVV indicate the merchant has better security?  Maybe, maybe not.  It probably means they care about their costs and want to pay the bank as little as possible to process the transaction.


"Banks are currently a lot less open to 'creative financing' than they were a few years ago, but you may still be able to take advantage of the tactic of splitting the loan into two parts, a smaller 'second mortgage' sometimes called a 'purchase money second' at a slightly higher interest rate for around 15-20% of the value, and the remaining in a conventional mortgage.  Since this tactic has been around for a long time, it's not quite in the category of the shenanegans they were pulling a few years back, so has a lot more potential to still be an option.  I did this in for my first house in '93 and again in '99 when I moved to a larger home after getting married.  It allowed me to get into both houses with less than 20% down and not pay PMI. This way neither loan is above 80% so you don't have to pay PMI.  The interest on the second loan will be higher, but usually only a few percent, and is thus usually a fraction of what you were paying for the PMI. (and it's deductible from your taxes) If you've been making your payments on time and have a good credit rating, then you might be able to find someone who would offer you such a deal.  You might even be able to get a rate for your primary that is down in the low 4's depending on where rates are today and what your credit rating is like.   If you can get the main loan low enough, even if the other is like say 7%, your blended rate may still be right around 5% If you can find a deal like this, it's also great material to use to negotiate with your current lender ""either help me get the PMI off this loan or I'm going to refinance.""  Then you can compare what they will offer you with what you can get in a refinance and decide what makes the most sense for you.  On word of warning, when refinancing, do NOT get sucked into an adjustable rate mortgage.  If you are finding life 'tight' right now with house payments and all, the an ARM could be highly seductive since they often offer a very low initial rate.. however then invariably adjust upwards, and you could suddenly find yourself with a monster payment far larger than what you have now.  With low rates where they are, getting a conventional fixed rate loan (or loans in the case of the tactic being discussed here) is the way to go."


"My answer is specific to the US because you mentioned the Federal Reserve, but a similar system is in place in most countries. Do interest rates increase based on what the market is doing, or do they solely increase based on what the Federal Reserve sets them at? There are actually two rates in question here; the Wikipedia article on the federal funds rate has a nice description that I'll summarize here. The interest rate that's usually referred to is the federal funds rate, and it's the rate at which banks can lend money to each other through the Federal Reserve. The nominal federal funds rate - this is a target set by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve at each meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). When you hear in the media that the Fed is changing interest rates, this is almost always what they're referring to. The actual federal funds rate - through the trading desk of the New York Federal Reserve, the FOMC conducts open market operations to enforce the federal funds rate, thus leading to the actual rate, which is the rate determined by market forces as a result of the Fed's operations. Open market operations involve buying and selling short-term securities in order to influence the rate. As an example, the current nominal federal funds rate is 0% (in economic parlance, this is known as the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB)), while the actual rate is approximately 25 basis points, or 0.25%. Why is it assumed that interest rates are going to increase when the Federal Reserve ends QE3? I don't understand why interest rates are going to increase. In the United States, quantitative easing is actually a little different from the usual open market operations the Fed conducts. Open market operations usually involve the buying and selling of short-term Treasury securities; in QE, however (especially the latest and ongoing round, QE3), the Fed has been purchasing longer-term Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities (MBS). By purchasing MBS, the Fed is trying to reduce the overall risk of the commercial housing debt market. Furthermore, the demand created by these purchases drives up prices on the debt, which drives down interest rates in the commercial housing market. To clarify: the debt market I'm referring to is the market for mortgage-backed securities and other debt derivatives (CDO's, for instance). I'll use MBS as an example. The actual mortgages are sold to companies that securitize them by pooling them and issuing securities based on the value of the pool. This process may happen numerous times, since derivatives can be created based on the value of the MBS themselves, which in turn are based on housing debt. In other words, MBS aren't exactly the same thing as housing debt, but they're based on housing debt. It's these packaged securities the Fed is purchasing, not the mortgages themselves.  Once the Fed draws down QE3, however, this demand will probably decrease. As the Fed unloads its balance sheet over several years, and demand decreases throughout the market, prices will fall and interest rates in the commercial housing market will fall. Ideally, the Fed will wait until the economy is healthy enough to absorb the unloading of these securities.  Just to be clear, the interest rates that QE3 are targeting are different from the interest rates you usually hear about. It's possible for the Fed to unwind QE3, while still keeping the ""interest rate"", i.e. the federal funds rate, near zero. although this is considered unlikely. Also, the Fed can target long-term vs. short-term interest rates as well, which is once again slightly different from what I talked about above. This was the goal of the Operation Twist program in 2011 (and in the 1960's). Kirill Fuchs gave a great description of the program in this answer, but basically, the Fed purchased long-term securities and sold short-term securities, with the goal of twisting the yield curve to lower long-term interest rates relative to short-term rates. The goal is to encourage people and businesses to take on long-term debt, e.g. mortgages, capital investments, etc. My main question that I'm trying to understand is why interest rates are what they are. Is it more of an arbitrary number set by central banks or is it due to market activity? Hopefully I addressed much of this above, but I'll give a quick summary. There are many ""interest rates"" in numerous different financial markets. The rate most commonly talked about is the nominal federal funds rate that I mentioned above; although it's a target set by the Board of Governors, it's not arbitrary. There's a reason the Federal Reserve hires hundreds of research economists. No central bank arbitrarily sets the interest rate; it's determined as part of an effort to reach certain economic benchmarks for the foreseeable future, whatever those may be.  In the US, current Fed policy maintains that the federal funds rate should be approximately zero until the economy surpasses the unemployment and inflation benchmarks set forth by the Evans Rule (named after Charles Evans, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, who pushed for the rule). The effective federal funds rate, as well as other rates the Fed has targeted like interest rates on commercial housing debt, long-term rates on Treasury securities, etc. are market driven. The Fed may enter the market, but the same forces of supply and demand are still at work. Although the Fed's actions are controversial, the effects of their actions are still bound by market forces, so the policies and their effects are anything but arbitrary."


If someone invest certain amount on my company and after a year I am   able to return the exact capital with the profit, what will I do to   that investor?  Did the investor receive shares in the company for the money that was invested in the company? This is the big question here as if so then there isn't the need to return the money but rather grow the business so that the investor's shares are worth more. Will that person still invest in my company?  You may need to consider what you mean by invest as generally there are a couple of ways to finance a business: Equity - Ownership of the company is sold to raise money to run the company. Debt - The company is lent money that is to be repaid over time. Investing is usually the first case not the second. What if I have enough profit to continue my business, do I still need   that investor? You wouldn't need the investor. However, you may want that investor as they could provide more funds, connections or other benefits to the company that may be worth considering here.


>I'm talking about the manufacturers profits and employees.  You only talked about manufactures not employees.  Tho what employees have anything to do here is beyond me.  > Costco tends to use their consumers and distribution access to their advantage and often at the expense of manufacturers.  As they should.  But as I said, they are not Walmart.  Costco isn't going to push a supplier to make their product as cheap as possible because they know their customers don't want Walmart quality stuff.  This means they aren't going to push the supplier as nearly as badly as Walmart will.  >A large producer like my employer have and will tell costco to go fuck themselves.  They do that and they lose any possible profits from Costco.


I'm assuming that when you sell the house you expect to be able to pay off these loans. In that case you need a loan that can be paid off in full without penalty, but has as low an interest rate as possible. My suggestions:


"It's all good.  The statement that someone has to move out of the way for someone else is a different discussion.  If you want to be hired as a CEO, the most likely path to get ""hired"" is an Ivy League education and very strong background in your own company.    http://www.bestcolleges.com/features/colleges-with-highest-number-fortune-500-ceo-graduates/  If that is not possible, the second choice is going to be being highly skilled in your field and working your way up.  That's going to take skill, networking, luck, and a very strong drive to not just be the best in your field, but the best in the industry for the job.  Tim Cook (AAPL) is a graduate of Duke and Auburn.  Jack Welch commanded GE with an education from UMass and the University of Illinois.  They both showed an intense passion for the companies they worked in.  The third choice is going to be starting your own company with your own passion and intelligence and backing that with other people who share your passion.  Take everything from column A, column B, and marry yourself to your passion and you find this list.  Reed Hastings, Micheal Dell, Steve Jobs (post Pixar was learning and failing spectacularly), Larry Ellison, Jean Paul Dejoria (guy has a really cool story about coming up.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2013/10/28/business-tips-from-once-homeless-billionaire-john-paul-dejoria/), Sheldon Adelson (He made me over a million by bringing LVS back from 1.50 to 77.  I wish I'd bought more), Howard Shultz (Starbucks), The list goes on and on and on.  When it is time for them to exit, they pick from the first two examples to fill the position.  Smaller companies have several different exit strategies they can employ.  There is one thing you will find with every Fortune 500 and Fortune 50 company.  They don't do it for the money.  The money happens, but by the time you have established yourself as CEO, you have more than you will spend and you know it.  There will come a day that you realize you can buy a Bentley, but you may or may not want to.  It's just a car.  You can buy a double door glass sub zero, but you probably wont.  It's stuff and that's not what wakes you up in the morning.  I'm not saying money isn't important (it is and it's not.  Once you have the ""A ha! moment I am talking about, it becomes a way of keeping score).  But it's not the passion that drives some of these men to work until the day they die with a grin on their faces.  For the guys who think it's about money, ask yourself why CEOs get diagnosed with cancer and never stop working outside treatment.  Your first instinct may be to be with people you love or travel the world.  They are already around people they love and doing what the love every day.  An important ingredient to their happiness is a love of their product and the people they choose to directly manage.  If I'm not friends or close enough to trust a GM with my house keys, I wont keep him or her.  Scale that.    Of course you can find examples of CEOs who are assholes or ones like Schireson who have hit a point where they love their family more than their company and can't find balance.  I took the last 8 years off of business building because I simply wasn't in love with any of my businesses.  It wasn't until recently that I found that fire again (mainly from people in my own network wanting to find a new career path and having a surplus of talent I can leverage).  If you want to be a CEO, it's going to come from PASSION.    Good for Schireson.  This probably wont be the last we hear of him or the last company he runs.  It's a bug that bites you and a set of skills you develop.  If you don't have those skills you might as well just be a lobbyist or a lawyer.  I'm not tech though.  I would love to say I can speak from experience there, but that's simply not my passion.  Perhaps they are a different animal.  You have a few former CEOs and owners here that occasionally chime in.  The one takeaway from someone like Sheepman would boil down to this.  Do you have the kind of passion to match someone like Richard Branson?  Do you have business acumen to match?  If not, no one is ""holding your spot"".  If so, why do you want to follow someone's passion if it's not your own in an already crowded or well funded space?  If you do, you are already planning your next company anyway.  TL;DR Being a successful CEO is about passion and not money"


No shit, Sherlock.  Let's see:  - Valuation down like 80% since last year...  - Massive competition from categorically better products with infinitely deep pockets (Android, iPhone)...  - Only customers are a rapidly-eroding base of legacy enterprise customers with aggressive cost/feature requirements and bulk-purchase negotiating power.   Sounds like a winner!


> I don't know how the middle class with survive without them.   They wouldn't. Which is why the unionization re-revolution won't happen here. It will start in China and move back to our shores. That, or we'll see the dirty commies unionizing and redouble our hatred for them, finally bringing serfdom-fiefdom back into fashion.


As a customer I have proof of this happening. I'm an IT manager and have major fluctuations in invoices (of over 60% price changes) that I've had to battle CenturyLink to correct the price. Is there somewhere I can share this with to help the case? Caused about 4 months worth of headaches due to CenturyLink and this would remedy that.


Giant, Trek, and Specialized have partner brick and mortar shops that are selling more than just their bikes. They're selling direct to consumer but the hope is that they are going into these shops and buying other cycling accessories that they manufacture i.e. helmets, shoes, cycling kits, etc.  I don't know much about Canyon but my guess is that they are mainly selling bikes and all the other stuff isn't a big component of their business.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2017/06/27/whatever-happened-cng-powered-cars/) reduced by 86%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Much cleaner than today&#039;s already very clean-running cars - because of the clean-burning nature of CNG. They may even run cleaner, in the aggregate, than so-called &quot;Zero emissions&quot; electric cars - which may not emit emissions at their nonexistent tailpipes but the utility plants that burn oil and coal to produce the electricity that powers them most certainly do produce lots of emissions.  > One must also take into account the emissions generated during the very labor intensive process of earth-rape necessary to manufacture electric cars and to obtain and process the raw materials used to make them and which are not needed to make CNG-powered cars.  > Cars like the six-passenger/full-size Ford Crown Vic and Chevy Impala and - potentially - large SUVs and trucks, also with V8s. And at a reasonable price - less than the cost of a hybrid and far less than the cost of an electric car.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6kzhbv/its_interesting_to_speculate_about_why_solutions/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~158055 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*: **car**^#1 **vehicle**^#2 **CNG**^#3 **electric**^#4 **CNG-powered**^#5"


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/08/case-consumption-tax.html) reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot) ***** > You often hear calls out there - mostly from Right economists but also from some on the Left - for a consumption tax in the U.S. As presented, it&#039;s a super-simple idea: tally your income, subtract your saving, and what&#039;s left is your consumption.  > The tuition line raises a particularly vexing question, and brings us back to the second question: what economic effects would we see from a consumption tax, under various accounting and taxation rules? Clearly, if you tax tuition, you discourage education.  > A consumption tax, compared to, say, a wealth tax or a land-value tax, is a direct assault on GDP and GDP growth.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6txd1l/the_case_against_a_consumption_tax/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~191594 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*: **consumption**^#1 **Save**^#2 **tax**^#3 **account**^#4 **family**^#5"


This edition of News Bites looks at an article by Bob Pozen and Theresa Hamacher, published by the Financial Analysts Journal in December, at a speech by Don Phillips of Morningstar given at the Business & Wealth Management Forum held in October, and at McKinsey & Company’s most recent annual review of the asset management industry. All three discuss factors leading to success in the mutual fund industry.


It depends on your situation. For families with small amounts over the FDIC limit, there's account structures that let you get multiple coverages. Things like holding 100k in an account in joint with your wife, each of you holding 100k in individual accounts etc. For larger sums and institutions, there's CDARS. This system spreads your money out to multiple institutions with an eye to FDIC insurance limits. Some people feel this system is abusing FDIC, so I suppose it's possible it gets outlawed / shut down some day. Alternatively, you can just invest it yourself. Treasury Direct allows small buyers to buy US govt bonds at finished auction rates, or submit a qualified bid at auction. You won't get great rates, but Treasuries are about as good as dollars.


"Because Google recently decided that they will not provide Maps for free to partners who use the data, and Apple was the largest Maps user.   Cutting the Apple created Maps app that used Google data and forcing Google to release their own app basically means Google goes from cashing checks from Apple to having to create and support an app all on their own dime.  Also, do you want to guess why Apple Maps w/ Google data didn't have features like Turn by Turn Navigation? If you guessed ""Google didn't allow Apple to have it"", you guess right.   Apple had to do it not only to try and reach feature parity, but to prevent themselves from having to pay their biggest competitor to use Maps data."


I suspect that the new VATMOSS rules come in to play here.  So you owe VAT for donations from EU countries,  providing you are below £81k there would be no UK vat payable though, however then you couldn't recoup the vat you paid out.   Note I am not an accountant but I did speak to one this week about a similar issue.


Imagine that your normal mode of using credit gets you a score of X. As time goes by your score trends upward if the positive items (length of credit) outweigh your negative items. But there are no big increases or decrease in your score. Then you make a one time change to how you use credit. If this is a event that helps your score, there will be a increase in your score. If it is bad thing your score will drop. But if you go back to your standard method of operating your score will drift back to the previous range. Getting a car loan for a few months to get a bump in your credit score, will not sustain your score at the new level indefinitely. Overtime the impact will lessen, and the score will return your your normal range. Spending money on the loan just to buy a temporary higher credit score is throwing away money.


I'll say this right now.  There is absolutely no way he will go to prison for this.  As a former head of Goldman Sachs and a former governor, he's a very powerful man and has friends in politics and finance.


I'm a die-hard Tesla fan who doesn't yet own a model 3. I fully expect to pay at least $45 for the model 3 I would want. I'm not sure expectations have been tempered yet. How many people will be expecting all the bells and whistles for $35k minus the rebates? Even for just this next car release in a few weeks, their actual demand and production ability are volatile.


This could a sign of things to come. Wireless carriers have been gobbling up spectrum that can bring affordable wireless broadband to customers, and now Ford adds Pandora.   I think it's a good time to take profits from SIRI.


I'd use it to start paying for your master's degree. Each dollar you don't borrow for school returns 5.84% guaranteed. On the other hand, if you invest it in the  stock market and get an average return of 8.34% a year you would both have to pay capital gains taxes on that money and expose yourself to the risk of the stock market disappointing you.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/07/17/the-world-does-not-have-a-debt-problem-it-has-a-wealth-inequality-problem-that-must-be-tackled-now/) reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot) ***** > It&#039;s commonplace to say that the world has a debt problem.  > The result is simple: we remain in the economic doldrums at best; income growth remains poor, whilst the stock of world savings grows outrageously and governments, as the borrowers of last resort for the savings of the world&#039;s wealthy, have to continue to run deficits which they say curtails their opportunity to take action to redress any of the economic issues arising.  > What is to be done about it? The answer is that if the world is facing such an enormous glut of savings then they have to be taxed as fast as possible to prevent they imbalances they create.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6o8ndo/the_world_does_not_have_a_debt_problem_it_has_a/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~170541 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **save**^#1 **growth**^#2 **debt**^#3 **economy**^#4 **money**^#5"


The city gathering endorsed new laws to criminal action amid March's spring break period, for example, no drinking on the shoreline and no liquor sold following 2 a.m., two hours sooner than before. Law in Panama City apparently called for stricter laws after various violations were submitted amid a year ago's spring break celebrations, including an affirmed group assault of an oblivious lady, shootings, and medication related occasions.


“For example,” says the report, “75-year solvency could be achieved by raising taxes or reducing benefits for new recipients by about one-fifth if we started today. However, if policy makers wait until 2034, payroll taxes would have to be increased by nearly one third and it would be impossible to achieve solvency solely from reducing benefits for new beneficiaries.”    Social Security was enacted in 1935. Medicare was enacted in 1965. Life expectancy at those times was 61 and 70, respectively. Today, average life expectancy is 80.   Pushing the receipt age for these benefits makes the most sense and results in a two-fold savings, 1) benefits put into the system through additional payroll deduction and, 2) benefits are not taken out of the system.


Bush tax cuts and similarly. We no longer believe that the wealthy have to play by the rules. We perpetuate this notion because too many believe they too will be captains of great wealth.   The wealthy in turn have invested in emerging markets like china or commodities like gold. Basically its being horded by the wealthy and banks.   In a fixed money system like monopoly what happens? Someone wins and gets all the money. With inflation at least they are making more money so that eventually a huge withdrawl of cash from the system is healed. Because Monopoly was meant to be a cautionary tale of oligarchy.


It seems like their main problem is not hiring - clearly they've hired some bright technical people.  It just seems like the iPhone and Android came along and management refused to admit that the new platforms were going to compete with the Blackberry and its ecosystem.


It's very, very unlikely that you received a phone call at work with an incorrect birth date from an actual lending company that thinks it loaned you any money.  It's much more likely that you received a phone call at work from a collections agency that would have bought some loan from the aforementioned agency for pennies on the dollar.  They would have been hunting around trying to find someone with your name who was born thirteen years earlier.  It's even more likely that this is some sort of phishing scam.  If you're worried, you can check your credit rating, but it is likely that you can safely ignore the situation.  If they call back, ask for thorough details about the credit card.  If they're a real collections agency and for some reason they won't leave you alone, IIRC the most surefire course of action is to hire a lawyer to send them a cease-and-desist letter.


Well, I think the first negotiation tip would be not to advertise that all  you do is million dollar contracts.  If everyone knows that's what you're going to settle on, nobody is going to be willing to offer any more than that.


"> Sure, it's more than 5 minutes to charge up a car. But that's offset by spending NO time waiting for the other 90% of your daily driving. Just plug in when you get home, and you've got a full ""tank"" of electricity every morning.  We aren't talking about it being an issue when you are home. Not sure how you got that idea.  The issue I had with it is long distances."


On most exchanges, if you place a limit order to sell at 94.64, you will be executed before the market can trade at a higher price. However most stocks in the US trade across several exchanges and your broker won't place your limit order on all exchanges (otherwise you could be executed several times). The likeliest reason for wht happened to you is that your order was not on the market where those transactions were executed. Reviewing the ticks, there were only 8 transactions above your limit, all at 1:28:24, for a total 1,864 shares and all on the NYSE ARCA exchange. If your order was on a different exchange (NYSE for example) you would not have been executed. If your broker uses a smart routing system they would not have had time to route your order to ARCA in time for execution because the market traded lower straight after. Volume at each price on that day:


No evidence of 'elite prep school' so far based on my google search. Princeton and Goldman Sachs take a ton of normal people (extremely hardworking and clever of course but it's not about coming from the right family). It's not Morgan Stanley


Because a wire transfer requires the individual bank to bank process, it is usually more expensive than an automated clearing house, which requires minimal involvement by individuals at financial institutions. Many ACH transactions come with only a small fee, or even no fee at all, since they are run with more efficiency. However, if you want a better guarantee that your money will arrive on time, it might be worth it to pay the wire transfer fee. With both cases, it is possible for errors to be made. However, since you often get to review the information before it is sent with a wire transfer, the method is a little more secure. Also, because identities are verified with wire transfers that take place between bank accounts, there is less chance of fraud. Wire transfers that take place between financial institutions are generally considered quite secure. from http://www.depositaccounts.com/blog/difference-between-wire-transfer-and-ach.html


"First, don't use Yahoo's mangling of the XBRL data to do financial analysis.  Get it from the horse's mouth: http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html Search for Facebook, select the latest 10-Q, and look at the income statement on pg. 6 (helpfully linked in the table of contents).  This is what humans do. When you do this, you see that Yahoo omitted FB's (admittedly trivial) interest expense.  I've seen much worse errors. If you're trying to scrape Yahoo... well do what you must.  You'll do better getting the XBRL data straight from EDGAR and mangling it yourself, but there's a learning curve, and if you're trying to compare lots of companies there's a problem of mapping everybody to a common chart of accounts. Second, assuming you're not using FCF as a valuation metric (which has got some problems)... you don't want to exclude interest expense from the calculation of free cash flow.  This becomes significant for heavily indebted firms. You might as well just start from net income and adjust from there... which, as it happens, is exactly the approach taken by the normal ""indirect"" form of the statement of cash flows.  That's what this statement is for.  Essentially you want to take cash flow from operations and subtract capital expenditures (from the cash flow from investments section).  It's not an encouraging sign that Yahoo's lines on the cash flow statement don't sum to the totals. As far as definitions go... working capital is not assets - liabilities, it is current assets - current liabilities.  Furthermore, you want to calculate changes in working capital, i.e. the difference in net current assets from the previous quarter.  What you're doing here is subtracting the company's accumulated equity capital from a single quarter's operating results, which is why you're getting an insane result that in no way resembles what appears in the statement of cash flows.  Also you seem to be using the numbers for the wrong quarter - 2014q4 instead of 2015q3. I can't figure out where you're getting your depreciation number from, but the statement of cash flows shows they booked $486M in depreciation for 2015q3; your number is high. FB doesn't have negative FCF."


Don't pay it, see a lawyer.  Given your comment, it will depend on the jurisdiction on the passing of the house and the presence of a will or lack thereof.  In some states all the assets will be inherited by your mom.  Debts cannot be inherited; however, assets can be made to stand for debts.  This is a tricky situation that is state dependent.   In the end, with few assets and large credit card debt, the credit card companies are often left without payment.  I would not pay the debt unless your lawyer specifically told you to do so.   Sorry for your loss.


>So if some 3rd world country with 0 infrastructure offers a better tax environment, we should just join them in the race to the bottom?  US companies don't want to domicile in a 3rd world country. That's not who we compete with for corporate domiciling. We compete with other anglophone countries and some northern European countries with far lower tax rates.  >but whatever is happening in the tax code that makes these inversions possible needs to be fixed.  That would be the high tax rate. Unless you want to make it illegal for an American company to buy another company or to sell itself. I expect we will hear that soon from some of the totalitarian leftists.  the NYTimes has the cyclical average effective corp tax rate for S&P500 companies at 29%. That's pulled from CapIQ which pulls directly from SEC documents.  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/25/sunday-review/corporate-taxes.html  Citizens for Tax Justice is a hopelessly distorted propaganda outfit. The summary (let alone the org's name) should have alerted you that any findings are distorted bullshit.  These dumb fucks don't think stock compensation is an expense. They do not understand the economic reasoning behind accelerated depreciation. They are financially and economically retarded. On top of that they desire the full 35% corporate tax rate on all global income of US corporations without any deferments, by far the most punitive corporate tax treatment in the entire world.


"My solution when I lived in Singapore was to open an account with HSBC, who at the time also had branches in the US. When I was home, I used the same debit card, and the bank only charged a nominal currency exchange fee (since it never had to leave their system, it was lower than had it left their system). Another option, though slightly more costly, is to use Paypal. A third option is to cash-out in CAD and convert to USD at a ""large"" institution - the larger your deposit/conversion balance, the better the rate you can get. To the best of my knowledge, this shouldn't be taxable - presuming you've paid the taxes on it to start with, and you've been filing your IRS returns every year you've been in Canada."


December, 2, 2011 (03:00pm) :-  Nifty Futures up by ( 1.57%) on the strong global crisis.  Steps look by USA, Chinese, & European central banks are praised by every investors.  Bharat Petroleum up by (7.12%) on the strong crude oil cues in Nynex.  Nifty looks a strong support at 4930 & up 100 points on the strong European opening FTSE trading at 5564 up by 75 points, DAX and CAC trading at 3180 up by 50 points.  Nifty futures have strong support levels at 4930 & then 4850 & resistance at 5140 & then 530.0 levels.


I feel sorry for the workers who are going to lose their jobs. I wonder how big of a bonus the scumbags in charge are going to make this year?   The new CEO was hired this year was paid a $1 million base salary, a $150000 signing bonus, $6 million in restricted stock.


The best investment opportunity that guarantees unending cash flows. You will get a replicated website with your own payment button that opens unending and continuous flow of $5 payments directly into your account. There are other biz opportunities (complete home base business) inside the member area. All these opportunities will be yours in less than 10 minutes. Respond to this ad now and start your journey to prosperity


That's completely false.  If you buy a house and live in it for 30 years, it should rise about 2-3% with inflation (neglecting any bubbles), then when you sell it, it may be worth 75 to 100% more than you paid for it.  But if you sell it for 50-60% more, you didn't actually make any money (due to inflation), you lost money, but are still expected to pay capital gains on that.


Most cooperative banks are insured upto Rs 1,00,000/- .  It depends on what is the current status of the Bank and withdrawal of the funds would be based on the decision taken by the administrator. There maybe no interest payable, it would again be decided by the administrator.


This depends on the jurisdiction, but such companies are typically subject to regulations (and audits) that require them to keep the customers' accumulated premiums very strictly separated from the company's own assets, liabilities and expenses. Additionally, they are typically only allowed to invest the capital in very safe things like government bonds. So, unless something truly catastrophic happens (like the US government defaulting on its bonds) or people in the company break the regulations (which would invovle all kinds of serious crimes and require complicity or complete failure of the auditors), your premiums and the contractual obligation to you would still be there, and would be absorbed by a different insurance company that takes over the defunct company's business.  Realistically, what all this means is that insurance companies never go bankrupt; if they do badly, they are typically bought up by a competitor long before things get that bad.


Capital losses do mirror capital gains within their holding periods. An asset or investment this is certainly held for a year into the day or less, and sold at a loss, will create a short-term capital loss. A sale of any asset held for over a year to your day, and sold at a loss, will create a loss that is long-term. When capital gains and losses are reported from the tax return, the taxpayer must first categorize all gains and losses between long and short term, and then aggregate the sum total amounts for every single regarding the four categories. Then the gains that are long-term losses are netted against each other, therefore the same is done for short-term gains and losses. Then your net gain that is long-term loss is netted against the net short-term gain or loss. This final net number is then reported on Form 1040. Example Frank has the following gains and losses from his stock trading for the year: Short-term gains - $6,000 Long-term gains - $4,000 Short-term losses - $2,000 Long-term losses - $5,000 Net short-term gain/loss - $4,000 ST gain ($6,000 ST gain - $2,000 ST loss) Net long-term gain/loss - $1,000 LT loss ($4,000 LT gain - $5,000 LT loss) Final net gain/loss - $3,000 short-term gain ($4,000 ST gain - $1,000 LT loss)   Again, Frank can only deduct $3,000 of final net short- or long-term losses against other types of income for that year and must carry forward any remaining balance.


"> So I asked this question in /r/DebateaCommunist and got some interesting answers, mostly about how banks exist to make money out of nowhere and to fool people. What do yall have to say?  That isn't what they said. Nobody mentioned fooling people from what I can see from a cursory glance. And if they did, they're being facetious.  Also, they didn't mean ""make money from thin air"" in the sense of it being a magical trick. They make money from a sort of market inefficiency: they broker between people who want to invest money and those who want to borrow it.  The top two answers are about right: a bank borrows money from investors (who deposit money in checking and savings accounts), and lends it to borrowers in the form of loans or mortgages. The difference between the interest rates is their profit.  You deposit $1000 with me at 2% for 20 years. I give you $1485.95 at the end of that term. Where did I get the extra five hundred books? Well I lent it out in mortgages over the same terms at 6% and received $3207.14 over the same period of time. Your $1000 made you $485.95, and made me $1721.19 which I keep for the purposes of providing you with ATMs, dealing with bad debts and staffing the place. Simple, eh?  Of course, they also provide other services in addition to this, and the way in which they do it is regulated, but that's all a bank is at its core.  A central bank is slightly different: they issue money (i.e. ""print"" it), and supply it at a headline interest rate to the commercial banks. And of course banks borrow amongst themselves. But then we get ourselves down the rabbit hole of ""grown up"" economics and LIBOR and the like... there are whole textbooks used to explain exactly how that mechanism works and what's going on there.  But if you want to get rich, find a way to start a bank. Seriously. Doing it to the old school way is seriously profitable if you can be trusted."


+1 for YNAB. I used to use MS Money until it was decommissioned. I used that to historically record my spending and investing, and plot my net worth. Whilst YNAB will do that, it is actually geared towards forward planning much more so. In this area, it is fantastic. I like that there are mobile apps for it too.


The plan doesn't make sense.  Don't invest your money. Just keep it in your bank account. $5000 is not a lot, especially since you don't have a steady income stream. You only have $1000 to your name, you can't afford to gamble $4000. You will need it for things like food, books, rent, student loans, traveling, etc. If you don't get a job right after you graduate, you will be very happy to have some money in the bank. Or what if you get a dream job, but you need a car?  Or you get a job at a suit & tie business and need to get a new wardrobe? Or your computer dies and you need a new one? You find a great apartment but need $2500 first, last & security? That money can help you out much more NOW when you're starting out, then it will when you're ready to retire in your 60's.


In major East Coast cities, the universities often own large tracts of real-estate because they're simply very rich institutions with the longest lifespans and time horizons in the entire city.  But yeah, MIT is pretty much *the* engineering school in the United States.  CalTech can *maybe* compete.  And no, I'm not saying that because I like MIT.  I think they're suicide-inducing slave-mongers with a depressing campus who own half of Cambridge but pay no property taxes because they're a university.  I *like* the land-grant state universities and went to UMass Amherst.


"tl;dr: Anyone who doesn't like what VISA and MasterCard did to wikileaks should not be in favour of this.  This is a slippery slope (yes, really), where participating the the marketplace shall only be allowed by people the powers that be likes. What is ""intolerance""? Should James Damore never be allowed to use paypal for any purpose? How about VISA, MasterCard, should he never be allowed to have a credit card again?  If the government doesn't ""like"" what you're doing then they have made (or can make) it illegal, and you are taken out of the marketplace of ideas and money, if the government thinks this is best.  This is government-sized actions (denying people the possibility to deal with money) done extrajudicially by private entities.  ""I have decided that your legal enterprise should not be allowed to make money"" is terrible!  If you are in favour of this then you should be in favour of the phone company, the electricity company, and gas company to deny service to anyone who's ever been accused of being a paedophile."


I havent used Fresh, I'll have ti give it a try if its available in my area.       For liquer/beer it's sometimes cheaper.  For the whiskey I drink, is the same price as the nearby store if I buy two bottles at a time.


Academy of Financial Studies (AFS), based in Delhi is offering effective programs for investors as well as traders in investment banking in india. Investment banking is the process of raising money through debt (loans and bonds) or else equity (IPOs or Private Equity placements). This money is used for funding the capital expenditures, dividend payouts and working capital etc.


While IANAL (tax or otherwise), I have always found that keeping original receipts is the only way to go. While anything can, at some level, be forged or faked, a photo is one more step removed from the original.  A mere listing on a web site isn't much proof of anything. Keep your originals for a suggested seven years; while the IRS is trying to audit much faster than that, and any inkling of fraud can be investigated at any time, you should be well and clear with originals kept that long.


How do credit unions work in the US?   Why not just get rid of deposit insurance for commercial banks and keep it for credit unions. Restrict credit unions ability to filter money to the new 'investment bank' sector by keeping them out of repo and money markets (not sure if this is done currently) and bang - Corporates/institutions can still lend short and banks can still lend long in the professional world, while unsophisticated retail customer's checking accounts at least are protected from the inevitable crash.


Indeed the IRS publication references the 3-6 year time span. And no limit for fraud.  But. I get a notice that some stock I owned 10 years ago has a settlement pending, and the records of this stock purchase and sale would potentially get me back some money.  I get my Social Security statement (the one they stopped sending, but this was before then) and I see the 1995 income shows zero.  Both of these were easily resolved with my returns going all the way back, and my brokerage statement as well. For the brokerage, I recently started downloading all statements as PDFs, and storing a copy away from home. Less concerned about the bank statements as I've never had an issue where I'd need them.


"I can describe the method for determining a price floor, which may help. It starts with looking at the cost of mining. There's a ridiculously small amount of gold in the best ore, so it's measured in tonnes of ore to produce a given ounce of gold. Mines will only operate at a loss for so long, so for any mine which focuses on gold, when the price of gold is below that price for long enough, the mine will cease operation. Since not all mines have the same cost, the supply will not appear as a step function, it will reduce slowly as mines close.  ""Gold Drops Below Cash Cost, Approaches Marginal Production Costs"" offers a marginal cost of production just over $1100. This is not a floor price, as the market can act irrationally at times. It's just a number to consider.  On the demand side, the industrial use (I am thinking gold plating in electronics manufacturing) will serve to provide demand almost regardless of price. When a $100 microprocessor uses say 10 cents worth of gold (at $300/oz) $1500 gold increases the final chip price by 1/2%. The industry is still trying to move away from Gold where they can, but that's a long process.  As far as a ceiling goes, I highly recommend the book Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds which offers insight on a number of mania that have occurred not just in the past few decades, but over the centuries. At $1500/oz, the value of all the gold in the world is about US$7.5trillion (That's 12 zeros). Given that a portion of it is in jewelry and not available as an investment, it's safe to say that the entire world can only easily bid on about 1/3 of this (as the gold council cites 31% of gold going towards investments each year vs 57% jewelry and 11% industrial) or US$2.5T or so. With total world wealth at US$125T it would take a bit more hysteria to push gold from its current 2% of that value (funny how that number lined up perfectly) to much higher.  Note: I provided a number of links, as it's too easy to just throw numbers around. See the links and provide more current data if you're so inclined. Data isn't real time."


You're getting the great recession and great depression confused. I'm talking about 2008, not nearly 100 years ago. I would like to know what country you live in because it's probably not Greece, Italy, or Spain. You would be singing a very different tune.


I mean, they have their original series. They have BBC and AMC shows. Apart from that they've lost most of their other shows. They do have great movies but I've seen most of them years ago. That leaves me waiting for new releases, which are usually disappointing.   Their originals have been pretty disappointing lately too.


In Australia the ATO can determine if you are considered a shareholder or a share trader. The ATO defines a shareholder as: A shareholder is a person who holds shares for the purpose of earning income from dividends and similar receipts. Whilst they define a share trader as: A share trader is a person who carries out business activities for the purpose of earning income from buying and selling shares. To find out the differences between them you can refer to the following link describing The difference between a share trader and a shareholder. The ATO also describes: To be classed as a share trader, you may be asked to provide evidence that demonstrates you are carrying on a business of share   trading, for example: the purchase of shares on a regular basis through a regular or routine method a trading plan  use of share trading techniques in managing your share acquisitions, such as decisions based on thorough analysis of relevant market   information a contingency plan in the event of a major shift in the market. Losses incurred in the business of share trading are treated the same   as any other losses from business. If your activities change from investor to trader, your investment changes from a CGT (capital gains tax) asset to trading stock. This can trigger CGT event for any investments you currently hold as they change from CGT assets to trading stock. Once you have changed over to a trader you will not be entitled to the 50% CGT discount for stocks held over 12 months. You will, however, be able to count any paper losses at the end of Financial Year to reduce your other income.


You really should consider sitting down with an independent financial advisor to run the numbers for the various options and discuss what risks you're comfortable with and what your requirements/goals are. This isn't a simple decision,  unfortunately. Advice I've seen suggested that some portion of the money should stay in the market, earning market rate of return. Exactly how much, and invested in what, is complicated. An annuity is essentially an insurance policy.  The company assumes the risks and promises you specific payments in exchange for keeping the money.  They wouldn't do so if they didn't think that on average they'll pay out less than the combination of your purchase price plus earnings, so you really are paying a fee for this service. Whether it's worth that cost -- and for how much of your money -- depends on how much you have saved and how risk-tolerant you are. I'm going to steal a moment here to point out that many charities offer annuities. These may or may not pay out less than commercial annuities,  but the profits go to a better cause either way. If you plan to leave part of your estate as donation to a charity anyway, this basically lets them have the money earlier while you continue to receive income from it.


They do not try to force sales and are not driven by them either. They truly essentially need clients to be informed enough to make their own choice and eventually to be happy with their decision. Though you visit the shop of electric bike in Canterbury you will probably be welcomed with a hearty hello from the friendly team and expeditiously offered some tea.


"Couple things, I will admit I was wrong about the total graduates at each of those programs; however, numbers taper out the lower the program is down to about 250-300 a class. Also, cut each of those numbers down to about 1/2 - 1/3 and you get the group that's actually focused on finance. Many MBAs do consulting, marketing, product development, etc nowadays.  Also I'm a bit offended by you saying I don't understand the CFA. Couldn't be more mistaken boss, I'm siting for L3 in June like you. The requirement is only 2 years in an ""investment decision"" role, this also means A LOT of back office risk guys qualify. That's a pretty fungible qualification, you don't have to be a PM to qualify. I have a buddy who qualified having done 2 years in fund accounting, not exactly sell-side ER.  I'm also going to guess you're a trader/brokerage/Cap Markets guy? If you wanna throw titles around I'm in a front office role at a BB, too, and worked at worked on buy-side research at a >$150bn value shop. CFA is definitely more desired in sell-side markets focused as opposed to IBD where an MBA is more useful (more strategy focused).   The CFA is vital for boning up on quantitative skills an MBA won't cover, I'll absolutely give you that. But a lot of people fall into the trap of assuming a CFA is their ticket to bigger and better things. If you're working in back office risk management, getting a CFA doesn't immediately qualify you to do ER (which is a VERY common pitfall I see). Like an MBA it teaches everyone how to do the same type of analysis, too (another reason  the title means less and less).   Last weekend I had a conversation with a friend of a friend about this very thing! He's sitting for L3 CFA, works back office at a very notable HF, and expects to be moved up (without any indication that he will) to research when he's done. I asked his opinions about things like the European situation, fiscal cliff, and a hard landing in china. Not only was he not familiar these concepts he didn't even know what HFT was. The CFA gives you the tools to analyze the impacts of pension liabilities on EPS, but it still takes a passion about the markets, as well as creative/analytical judgement, to make it to ER.   My only point is an MBA and CFA are very similar in many ways. Both tend to hold their noses way to high, too. It's about what you chose to get out of it and too often people care more about the title than the process, which is why they are still stuck in mediocrity after completing the designations.   Go through a list of the biggest PMs in the business, most don't have either MBAs or CFAs! They achieved alpha by not following standard quantitative models but exploring creative and strategic avenues others undervalue while maintaining strict discipline. A model is a tool to better describe behavior and understanding of markets, it's not a solution."


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> Why is it not considered to be misleading business practices?  because the details (of below) were either included or available online  > some sort of advance loan program  ...some sort of contractual agreement  it's legit but high interest


Let me guess... The ultimate point of the article being about how this time it really is different and how individuals are more incapable now than ever to make wise investment decisions in the market? Might as well just give up and let the pros do it right? Or just buy an index and forget about it?  Sure, okay.   /throws unread paywall'd garbage article in the trash


As you point out, the moving average is just MA(k)t = (Pt-1 + … + Pt-k )/k and is applied in technical analysis (TA) to smooth out volatile (noise) price action. If it has any logic to it, you might want to think in terms of return series (Pt - Pt-1 / Pt-1) and you could hypothesize that prices are in fact predictable and will oscillate below and above a running moving average.  Below is a link to a study on MA trading rules, published in the Journal of Finance, with the conclusion of predictive power and abnormal returns from such strategies. As with any decision made upon historical arguments, one should be aware of structural changes and or data mining.  Simple  technical trading rules and the stochastic properties of stock  returns Brock, W., J. Lakonishok and B. Le Baron, 1992, Simple technical trading rules and the stochastic properties of stock returns, Journal of Finance, 47, 1731-64. MA rules betterthan chance in US stock market, 1897-1986 I don't know whether you are new to TA or not, but a great commercial site, with plenty of computer-generated signals is FinViz.


"Full employment is a joke. Look at the [labor force participation rate](https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000) most gains in income are being seen with the top ~1%. Most people who have ""recovered"" are referring to the stock market. Which has seen tremendous growth. But IMO this is due to a lack of places to put money. Sure some people lost their jobs and now have one but I wouldn't say that on average we are any better off than pre 08."


As an American living in Canada, you don't get it.  The USA wants all of us expats to pay taxes twice. No other country but one does that.   If the USA would follow the rest of the world and not tax profits again after being taxed abroad, these companies wouldn't leave.  We could be having a better conversation here, but it's meaningless buzzwords of patriotism and boycotting.   Burger King will have growth and profit internationally. It makes more sense for them to focus on that. If they end up with 20% of their profit from the USA, why would they pay 120% taxes?  Obviously it's not quite as simple as that, but you get the general idea. The last thing our politicians want is us talking about eliminating double taxation. Just as you can't be tried for the same crime twice, you should not be taxed twice. When BK pays local taxes in whatever country they're in, whether it's lower or higher than the US is irrelevant. Taxes have been paid. End of story. Doesn't matter if it's a lower rate or creative accounting. It's done.


Definitely! BitCoin could also alleviate some of the concern that people might have about their identity/payment details being used to track their browsing habits.  If your payment method is anonymous, and you can register with a pseudonym, you can read all the twilight fan-fic you want!


It's the same result either way.  Say the bills are $600, and you are reimbursed $400. You'd be able to write off $400 as part of the utilities that are common expenses, but then claim the $400 as income.  I'd stick with that, and have contemporaneous records supporting all cash flow. You also can take 2/3 of any other maintenance costs that most homeowners can't. Like snow removal, lawn care, etc.


>  Baby boomers delayed buying houses because of a decade long recession in the 1970's because of a high price for oil.  Fun fact #1:  new housing starts hit their all-time peak in the 1970s, even more than in the 2000s housing boom.  Fun fact #2: if you look at the housing starts by year for the 20 years from 1970-1989, the top 5 are in the 1970s.  [Source](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=eYX1)


Companies in their earliest stages will likely not have profits but do have the potential for profits.  Thus, there can be those that choose to invest in companies that require capital to stay in business that have the potential to make money. Venture Capital would be the concept here that goes along with John Bensin's points that would be useful background material.  For years, Amazon.com lost money particularly for its first 6 years though it has survived and taken off at times.


You're correct about the 401(k). Your employer's contributions don't count toward the $18k limit. You're incorrect about the IRAs though. You can contribute a maximum of $5500 total across IRA and Roth IRA, not $5500 to each. There are also limits once you reach higher levels of income. from IRS.gov: Retirement Topics - IRA Contribution Limits: For 2015, 2016, and 2017, your total contributions to all of your traditional and Roth IRAs cannot be more than:


That is but ONE liability out of a dozen possibly affected. Which liabilities going up for some businesses is irrelevant. What is relevant is the cost analysis every company must do when setting up it's future plans and forecasts. If government uses a carrot or a stick to incentivize or deincentize certain behavior, guess what companies do?   So if there is a liability above say 5,000 people and they've got 6,500 currently and if they shrank it to 4,999 to avoid paying xyz increase in this or that. Guess what they'll do?   You can say, oh they're not paying their fair share, or think about the 99% but the bottomline is that some companies will go into survival mode if they get anymore squeezed. If this was a good business envionment, fine, but it's not. (and if it was fine they wouldn't need to pull increased taxes to hit revenue).   Here's a great example of how increased burdens can lead to withdrawl of investment:   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/hollande-robbed-of-growth-driver-as-companies-curb-investments.html  There is also a direct correlation where taxes go up beyond a certain point and revenues go DOWN:  http://i.imgur.com/BPUAi.jpg  Fairness is all well and good, but more taxes and liabilities do not automatically mean more revenue. It is a disincentive to produce more when there are more burdens on you. You go into survival mode, you go into hibernation mode.


Some of those could be bubbles since they violate price-rent metric.    maybe or maybe not.   People parking money is not necessarily a bubble if the money stays parked.  I look at overseas real estate and some areas will never have prices anywhere near in line with incomes because they are global markets.  locals couldn't dream to afford to own their own property.


"This information is clearly ""material"" (large impact) and ""non-public"" according to the statement of the problem.  Also, decisions like United States v. Carpenter make it clear that you do not need to be a member of the company to do illegal insider trading on its stock. Importantly though, stackexchange is not a place for legal advice and this answer should not be construed as such.  Legal/compliance at Company A would be a good place to start asking questions."


Important to take note that Buffett is not directly investing in real estate. He bought a lot of stock in a real estate company that owns a lot of real estate (a REIT). Buffett typically buys stocks in companies that have good fundamentals in industries where he sees potential for growth. So indirectly he is betting on real estate, but holding stock in a REIT is much different than owning properties.


"It's astounding to me that the customers are so ignorant about the technology they enjoy that they would blame Netflix for the poor bitrate...I don't understand this whole ""cut the cable"" movement when you are still dependent on the cable company to be your broadband provider...It's all coming through the same pipe and the cable co. has a strangle grip on it."


Simply transferring money you own from overseas to Canada will not mean you need to pay tax on it. However if you sell property at a profit - I.e. sell it for more than you paid for it - you may have to pay tax on any gains. This is true whether or not you transfer the money to Canada. Calculating the amount is quite complicated. You might consider getting a tax expert.


I just had a reverse split done 1 to 35. I went from 110,000 shares and a negative 13k to 3172 shares, and I still had a negative 13k. If your company does a reverse split take the lost and get out, it's bad news all the way around.


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> Because of this attitude, they then jump ship and work for somebody else.  You're saying they take the highest wage that someone will pay them?  What entitled little shits, acting as independent agents in the free market!  Someone should teach these young whippersnappers about adulthood...


"As noted in richardb's comment buried in the comments/debate on the other answer (and all credit for this answer should be due to him): a significant issue with the scheme as originally envisaged in the question (up to £11K pa) is that there is actually a cap on the maintenance part for over 60s: On page 28 of this ""Student finance - how you're assessed and paid"" document it says: If you're 60 or over on the first day of the first academic year of   your course you can apply for a Maintenance Loan of up to £3,566,   depending on your household income. Your loan will be reduced by £1   for every £5.46 of household income over £25,000, up to £43,675. If   your household income is more than this you won't get any Maintenance   Loan. I'd consider that to make this route considerably less attractive... and maybe that's the intention of the rule!  (Although I might not think that was so true if I was actually on the UK's state pension of £6K a year and desperate.  However, I was originally thinking more in terms of comparing the accumulated ""free money"" over the three years with the UK's average - and woefully inadequate - pension pot of £50K, rather than with pensioner income). I'll leave those who found the idea of exploiting government incentives so outrageous to ponder the at least as troubling ethics of discriminating against people based on their age, especially when that government apparently likes the idea of older people retraining. (Just to complicate things: I note that one of the possible criteria for applying for a ""special support grant"" - an alternative to a maintenance loan - is being over 60.  That's a grant not a loan and doesn't have to be repaid, but abusing that would seem even to me to be on a par with faking disability to get benefits or similar)."


No career advice or homework help (unless your homework is some kind of big project and you need an explanation on a concept).   I want to see financial news, legislation concerning the markets and regulation, self posts about financial concepts, opinion articles about finance from reputable sources, etc.


No. The equipment costs are not necessarily a direct expense. Depending on the time of purchase and type of the expenditure you may need to capitalize it and depreciate it over time. For example, if you buy a computer - you'll have to depreciate it over 5 years. Some expenditures can be expensed under Section 179 rules, but there are certain conditions to be made, including business revenue. So if your business revenue is $3K - your Sec. 179 deduction is limited to $3K even if more purchases can qualify. Not every purchase qualifies for Sec. 179 treatment, and not all the State tax rules conform to the Federal treatment. Get a professional advice from a CPA/EA licensed in your State.


I understand that ITM have little time value, so they will have small time decay(theta), but why OTM has a lesser theta than ATM? The Time value represents uncertainty.  That uncertainty decreases the farther away from ATM you get (in either direction).  At-the-money, there is roughly a 50% chance that the option expires worthless. As you get deeper in-the-money, the change that is expires worthless decreases, so there is less uncertainty (there is more certainty that the option will pay off).  As you go deeper OTM, the probability that the option expires worthless increases, so there is also less uncertainty. At the TTM decreases, the uncertainty (theta) decreases as well, since there is less time for the option to cross the strike from either direction.  Similarly, as volatility decreases, theta decreases, since low-volatility stocks have a less change of crossing the strike.


I make it a habit at the end of every day to think about how much money I spent in total that day, being mindful of what was essential and wasn't. I know that I might have spent $20 on a haircut (essential), $40 on groceries (essential) and $30 on eating out (not essential). Then I realize that I could have just spent $60 instead of $90. This habit, combined with the general attitude that it's better to have not spent some mone than to have spent some money, has been pretty effective for me to bring down my monthly spending. I guess this requires more motivation than the other more-involved techniques given here. You have to really want to reduce your spending. I found motivation easy to come by because I was spending a lot and I'm still looking for a job, so I have no sources of income. But it's worked really well so far.