Question: US tax for a resident NRI

If you are tax-resident in the US, then you must report income from sources within and without the United States.  Your foreign income generally must be reported to the IRS.  You will generally be eligible for a credit for foreign income taxes paid, via Form 1116. The question of the stock transfer is more complicated, but revolves around the beneficial owner.  If the stocks are yours but held by your brother, it is possible that you are the beneficial owner and you will have to report any income. There is no tax for bringing the money into the US.  As a US tax resident, you are already subject to income tax on the gain from the sale in India.  However, if the investment is held by a separate entity in India, which is not a US domestic entity or tax resident, then there is a separate analysis.  Paying a dividend to you of the sale proceeds (or part of the proceeds) would be taxable.  Your sale of the entity containing the investments would be taxable.  There are look-through provisions if the entity is insufficiently foreign (de facto US, such as a Subpart-F CFC).  There are ways to structure that transaction that are not taxable, such as making it a bona fide loan (which is enforceable and you must pay back on reasonable terms).  But if you are holding property directly, not through a foreign separate entity, then the sale triggers US tax; the transfer into the US is not meaningful for your taxes, except for reporting foreign accounts. Please review Publication 519 for general information on taxation of resident aliens.

Agreed. The 6 is so unappreciated, it's a fantastic car. Maybe the most beautiful US sedan available and way better than the new Camery  and Accord. I thought the 2 and 5 were also great and innovative in the US but never sold well. At least they are doing OK with their auto based SUV's.

>Mr. Bishop says he puts out an average of 35 posts a week, and estimates that he would need to spend a minimum of $9,100 a year if he opted to pay fees to promote each one of them to his more than 1,500 followers.  Who the hell wants to hear about a company 35 times a week?

I edited in the total annual out of pocket for each level to help illustrate what's going on. Your question makes sense, of course, but it's less a matter of afford vs an attempt to save. The way these plans work is to allow some choice based on your past experience. I can afford any option, but knowing the number of visits we have had in the past, the lowest cost option has the highest premium. A young couple who hardly sees a doctor may choose the highest deductible, risking the potential $3434 extra they may pay in a bad year for the savings of $1016.  Personally, I'd not be able to guess accurately enough to benefit from the middle choices, and can see the two extremes being picked most often.

"In theory, say we had two soft drink companies, and no other existed. On Jan 1, they report they each had 50% market share for the past year. Over the next year, one company's gain is the other's loss. But over the year, for whatever reason, the market has grown 10% (all the stories of bad water helped this), and while the market share ends at 49/51, the 49 guy has improved his margins, and that stock rises by more than the other.  In general, companies in the same industry will be positively correlated, and strongly so.  I offer my ""spreadsheets are your friend"" advice. I took data over the last 10 years for Coke and Pepsi. Easy to pull from various sites, I tend to use Yahoo. In Excel the function CORREL with let you compare two columns of numbers for correlation. I got a .85 result, pretty high. To show how a different industry would have a lower correlation, I picked Intel. Strangely, enough, Intel and Pepsi had a .94 correlation. A coincidence, I suppose, but my point is that you can easily get data and perform your own analysis to better understand what's going on."

Regardless of the technicalities of how information was stolen through Kapersky, I am wondering why anyone would use antivirus software, which by definition must operate at a privileged level, that's produced by a company in a country like Russia or China. We already know for a fact that Tencent's WeChat programmatically monitors, censors, and likely reports thought crimes, and I would be surprised if Kapserky is NOT an agent of the Russian government to a similar capacity.

Using the http://calculators.ato.gov.au/scripts/asp/simpletaxcalc/main.asp calculator and noting all the caveats (Medicare etc) and assuming everything is proportionate you get: You earn: $110,000 less $28,647 tax = $81,353 She earns: $54,000 less $9,097 tax = $44,903 Total net: $126,256 You earn: $88,000 less $20,507 tax = $67,493 She earns: $72,000 less $14,947 tax = $57,053 Total net: $124,546 So, there is about $1,710 in it per annum or $33/week. Long day care will be setting you back $75-185/day so this is pretty small beans. This is all back of the envelope stuff and probably worth paying a few hundred dollars to an accountant to work it all out.

"I get the gist of the article, there are some very nice things about Canada. But the idea is pretty silly because it's not that easy to just ""flee to Canada"" in the first place. Canadian immigration standards for citizens from developed/western countries are some of the steepest of anywhere in the world.   For non-refugees and non-targeted peoples/countries, the Canadian immigration system works on a points system that factors in things like age, education, wealth, professional experience and so on. So if you're a young, childless professional with gobs of money in the bank, you have a fighting chance to move there. Otherwise your chances are extremely low of getting in with the conventional application process. It sucks, but that's the way it is.  Finally, there's always **[this](http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/08/28/u-s-hikes-fee-to-renounce-citizenship-by-422/)** reason."


Question: Do overall 401(k) contribution limits sum across employers?

Let me first start off by saying that you need to be careful with an S-Corp and defined contribution plans.  You might want to consider an LLC or some other entity form, depending on your state and other factors. You should read this entire page on the irs site:  S-Corp Retirement Plan FAQ, but here is a small clip: Contributions to a Self-Employed Plan You can’t make contributions to a self-employed retirement plan from your S corporation   distributions. Although, as an S corporation shareholder, you receive   distributions similar to distributions that a partner receives from a   partnership, your shareholder distributions aren’t earned income for   retirement plan purposes (see IRC section 1402(a)(2)). Therefore, you   also can’t establish a self-employed retirement plan for yourself   solely based on being an S corporation shareholder. There are also some issues and cases about reasonable compensation in S-Corp.  I recommend you read the IRS site's S Corporation Compensation and Medical Insurance Issues page answers as I see them, but I recommend hiring CPA You should be able to do option B.  The limitations are in place for the two different types of contributions:  Elective deferrals and Employer nonelective contributions.  I am going to make a leap and say your talking about a SEP here, therefore you can't setup one were the employee could contribute (post 1997). If your doing self employee 401k, be careful to not make the contributions yourself. If your wife is employed the by company, here calculation is separate and the company could make a separate contribution for her. The limitation for SEP in 2015 are 25% of employee's compensation or $53,000.  Since you will be self employed, you need to calculate your net earnings from self-employment which takes into account the eductible part of your self employment tax and contributions business makes to SEP.  Good read on SEPs at IRS site. and take a look at chapter 2 of Publication 560. I hope that helps and I recommend hiring a CPA in your area to help.

Does your wife perform solo or in association with other actor/actresses and other volunteers? The latter arrangement sounds more like an unincorporated association or a partnership, which might be a bit freer to match the revenue and expenses.  By grinding through the proper procedures, it might be possible to get official non-profit status for it, as well.   Ask a professional.

The exchange rate between two currencies is simply the price that the most recent market participants were able to agree on, when trading. ie: if the USDCAD is 1.36, it's because the last trade that happened where someone bought 1 USD cost 1.36 CAD. There is no one person/organization which 'decides' the rate between two currencies. The rate moves you see is just the reality of money changing hands as people in various situations trade currencies for various reasons. Just like with stocks or any other market product, foreign exchange rates can fluctuate wildly based on many things. It is very difficult to forecast where rates will go, because the biggest changes in rates can often be unpredictable news events. For example, when Brexit happened, the value of the GBP plummeted relative to other currencies, because the market traders had less faith in the UK economy, and therefore weren't willing to pay as much to buy GBP. See more here: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/76482/44232. There is a very high level of risk in the foreign exchange market; for your sake, don't get involved in any trading that you do not well understand, first.

You're contributing 98.2% of your contributed amount (deducting 1.8%) each month and at the end of the year, deducting a flat 15 pounds.  The easiest way to do this is to use a spreadsheet. But you're missing some key information. What is your expected growth rate and what is your expected inflation rate? Is this a taxable account where you deduct (for example, 35%) of the growth annually for taxes or is this a non-taxable account?

A few thoughts off the top of my head: Advantages of more than 20% down:  Disadvantages of more than 20% down:

This is something I love about only investing in tech. Every company I'd want to invest in has a great balance sheet anyway, that's just how their economics work, so I don't have to worry about this. I actually work in reverse. Like with AAPL, I'm deducting their cash from their market cap to get an even more attractive valuation*. As opposed to trying to work out all the complex debt and liabilities of a bank or something.  *AAPL actually does have some debt now but it's dead simple to deduct and only a workaround to their offshore cash.

Of course it isn't solely responsible, but the way that sugar is sold and advertised makes sugar an insidious way to eat way too many calories.  This is especially true for people who do not have education about diet, and of course children (who are heavily advertised to by the food industry).  That's not at all the point of the documentary either, they talk about many interesting aspects of the sugar industry.  Your comment illustrates part of that; the industry pays a lot of money to put doubt in people's minds.  They are extremely powerful and it's a good chance whatever you read is sugar industry funded propaganda.  Sugar is absolutely responsible for a huge number of health issues, where the fat comes from is not relevant because it's the extra carbs (mostly from sugar) that are responsible for the huge obesity rate in the US.    I really encourage you to watch this movie.  The association with health problems is well established but for a number of reasons it's extremely difficult to run experiments that show sugar caused specific diseases.  The industry is using the same tactics the tobacco industry used to put doubt in people's minds over the studies. It's actually   quite disturbing to see what they are doing to keep the food industry the way it is, especially when you take into account the extent of the health crisis of preventable diseases.

Not entirely accurate. Urine it depends on frequency of smoking its not a solid number. If say you smoke once and have not for months it would be below a standard test within about 2 maybe 3 days  Maybe even sooner depending on the smoker. To test positive for over 2 weeks you smoke a lot and often.


Question: What is meant by one being in a “tax bracket”?

Tax brackets refer to the range of taxable within which you fall. An income tax bracket usually refers to federal or state tax, not the combined rate. I have put here the tax brackets for 2016 for IRS and State of California.  https://www.irs.com/articles/2016-federal-tax-rates-personal-exemptions-and-standard-deductions  https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2016-california-tax-rates-and-exemptions.shtml According to those, a taxable income of 100,000USD would fall in the 28% bracket for the IRS and 9.30% for State of California. The combined rate is therefore 37.3%. However, this does not mean you would pay 37,300USD. First of all, your applicable tax rate applies only for each dollar in your tax bracket (e.g. 28% * 8,849USD for IRS). Therefore, to calculate your combined taxes you would need to do:  Therefore, your effective tax rate would be much lower than the combined tax rate of 37.3%. Now do note that this is an example to illustrate tax brackets and is nowhere near the amount of taxes you would be required to pay because of various credits and deductions that you would be able to benefit from. Edit: As suggested in the comments, a note on marginal tax rate (referred to here as combined tax rate). This is the rate of taxes paid on an additional dollar of income. Here, every additional dollar of income would be taxed at 37.3%, leaving you with 62.7 cents.

I work from home when I'm not on the road. I don't think I could go back to a desk job. Trust your employees to have discipline and do a good job and you will be rewarded. Those who abuse the system will be weeded out naturally.

I guess the answer lies in your tax jurisdiction (different countries tax capital gains and income differently) and your particular tax situation. If the price of the stock goes up or down between when you buy and sell then this counts for tax purposes as a capital gain or loss. If you receive a dividend then this counts as income.  So, for instance, if you pay tax on income but not on capital gains (or perhaps at a lower rate on capital gains) then it would pay you to sell immediately before the stock goes ex-dividend and buy back immediately after thereby making a capital gain instead of receiving income.

The point of buying an index fund is that you don't have to pick winners. As long as the winners are included in the index fund (which can include far more than 500 stocks), you benefit on average because of overall upward historical market performance. Picking only the top 50 capitalized stocks in the S&P 500 does not guarantee you will successfully track the S&P 500 index because the stocks in the tail can account for an outsized amount of overall growth; the top 50 stocks by market capitalization change over time, and these stocks are not necessarily the stocks that perform better.  As direct example, the 10 year average annual return for the S&P top 50 is 4.52%, while the 10 year average annual return for the S&P 500 is 5.10%. Issues of trading and balancing to maintain these aside, these indices are not the same.

"While the techniques are well known computer science results, at least in academia they havent been exhaustively applied to everything yet. So LDA and NMF text analysis and stuff are somehow ""cutting edge"" in academic research only because not many of the older more established professors can get on board as quickly as new students with a programming background. I agree it seems weird, but in the literature these applications are ""new"" and ""hot"".   source: finance phd student doing research on machine learning and text analysis."

Digital is the buzz word everywhere and to keep pace with the changing trends, the business world has to become digital in every way. SMO Companies India is a premier digital marketing agency which recognizes the requirements of the clients and worked towards the development of strategies for them which can yield positive results. One such very effective medium to reach the target audience is through the Facebook Advertising plans in India. The professionals in the company are experienced techies who can offer remarkable solutions to connect with the target audience and promote the goods or services among them to generate profits. http://smocompaniesindia.com/facebook-marketing-plan.html

"I learned just how stupid and useless Gartner Magic Quadrants were many years ago when I was working at a public utility that was trying to use one to determine ""which web server to use."" (I kid you not)  I had one look at the thing and immediately noticed what *wasn't* there: Apache.  This was about 10 years ago when Apache owned like 75% of all websites on the internet (before Microsoft bribed various DNS parking sites)."

"I think that technology has had a huge impact on the salary aspect of ""unpaid weekend work"". It's so easy to fire off an e-mail in between links while fucking off on Reddit and watching T.V., that I have no problem ""working on the weekend"". I haven't heard of many jobs in the U.S. that don't compensate for every hour that you are on premise, however, and that would be a very disturbing trend to see emerging."


Question: Helping my family sell their oil stocks. What to buy?

"*(""Fee-only"" meaning the only money they make is the fee your folks pay directly; no kickbacks from financial products they're selling.) The answer to this is: for God's sake, leave it alone!  I commend you on wanting to help your family avoid more losses. You are right, that having most of one's retirement in one stock or sector is just silly. And again yes, if they're retired, they probably need some bonds.  But here's the thing, if they follow your advise and it doesn't work out, it will be a SERIOUS strain on your relationship. Of course you'll still be a family and they'll still love you, but emotionally, you are the reason they lost the money, and that will an elephant in between you. This is especially the case since we're talking about a lot of money here (presumably), and retirement money to boot.   You must understand the risk you're taking with your relationships. If you/they lose, at best it'll make things awkward, and you'll feel guilty about their impoverished retirement. At worst it can destroy your relationship with your folks.  What about if you win? Won't you be feted and appreciated by your folks for saving them from themselves? Yes, for a short while. Then life moves on. Everything returns to normal.  But here's the thing. You won't win. You can't. Because even if you're right here, and they win, that means both they and you will be eager for you to do it again. And at some point they'll take a hit based on your advise.    Can I be blunt here? You didn't even know that you can't avoid capital gains taxes by reinvesting stock gains. You don't know enough, and worse, you're not experienced enough. I deduce you're either a college student, or a recent grad. Which means you don't have experience investing your own money. You don't know how the market moves, you just know the theory.  You know who you are? You're me, 20 years ago. And thank God my grandparents ignored my advise. I was right about their utilities stocks back then, too. But I know from what I learned in the years afterwards, investing on my own account, that at some point I would have hurt them. And I would have had a very hard time living with that.  So, tell your folks to go visit a fee-only financial adviser to create a retirement plan.  Perhaps I'm reading into your post, but it seems like you're enthusiastic about investing; stocks, bonds, building wealth, etc. I love that. My advise -- go for it! Pull some money together, and open your own stock account. Do some trading! As much as people grouse about it, the market really is glorious. It's like playing Monopoly, but for keeps. I mean that in the best way possible. It's fun, you can build wealth doing it, and it provides a very useful social purpose.  In the spirit of that, check out these ideas (just for you, not for your folks!), based on ideas in your post:  Good luck."

Gosh, I don't know, maybe emergencies or unforeseen expenses like a car repair or maybe even just discretionary $ where you can buy new eyeglasses/frames or, get the fuck outta here, this is going to blow your mind, be impulsive and get on a plane and book a hotel for  3 or 4 days?  Let me guess, your answer to all that is charge it! And since you don't keep $1k in savings pay the minimum balance.  Also:  * https://meetbeam.com/ * https://www.ally.com/bank/savings-account-rates/ * https://www.synchronybank.com/banking/high-yield-savings/

I like Quicken for personal use, and they have a small business edition if you don't want to move into QuickBooks.

First price isn't artificially maintained at a level. When a refining company signs a contract to buy crude from a supplier, it promises to buy at a certain price with options for increase and decrease due to the fluctuating prices in the market. And it buys crude to build up a certain buffer to supply itself for a certain duration, in case of supply problems. As it had bought oil at a higher price, it would be reluctant to lower the prices even if the current crude it buys is at a lower cost. If it buys oil from the open market, it has no other option than to pass on the hike on to the consumers, so a more intense fluctuation in the prices of oil at the point, where you buy it. Some airlines used hedging to take care of the spurts in the price of oil, to mantian their operating margins.  And moreover refining and distribution is a very low margin business, so the company has an incentive to sell at a higher cost if required.

Possibles: stock offering, secondary placement, increase authorized number of shares, shelf registration.

"No, virtually ever item in the CPI is adjusted using hedonics, which by definition can only be used to lower inflation, not adjust it up.  Hedonics is not necessarily bad, but it doesn't actually reflect inflation, it reflects standard of living vs. purchasing power, which is not useful for a purely monetary measure.  It also does not correctly reflect that despite the fact that a 1970's 20"" TV cannot from an economic standpoint be directly compared to a 2012 20"" TV, if the price is the same (adjusted for inflation), inflation represents how the value of the dollar has accrued vs the value of a 20"" TV, which is what the definition of inflation is.  So, no, I don't think you're correct on this. This is also kind of glossing over the fact that the CPI essentially makes the bold argument that energy and transportation prices never affect inflation."

"Echoing that bank fees are mostly ""because they can"", although partly this is because simply holding onto the money doesn't really pay enough for the physical infrastructure of branches, ATMs and staff. So like a budget airline they make it up on additional fees. But that document doesn't actually say they charge 3% for currency conversion! It's ""0.20% of transaction amount"" for currency conversion, which is not bad (although watch out for the ""spread"" between buying and selling rates). I see ""International POS/ATM Transaction Fee 3% of transaction amount"", which is very different. That's a card fee. The big issue with these is fraud - your card number suddenly being used in a different country will nearly always trigger extra fraud checks. It also involves a much more complicated settlement process. I'm more unimpressed with the monthly service charges and the huge $85 fee for international wire transfers."

"The argument puts forth a false dichotomy in support of an ideological position.  The ""1%"" is also a perjorative term that's rapidly becoming noxious.   Entrepreneurs organise the effort that leads to fulfillment of consumer demand and create jobs when doing so.  Consumer demand does not magically result in supply. It requires an organiser."


Question: Any difficulties in doing deceased relative's taxes?

There are two different tax returns you'll be doing: one is for her, until the day of her death. The other is for the estate. The personal one you could probably do on your own, it's nothing different from the one for a living person, except for the cut-off date in the middle of the year. The estate tax return may be a bit more nuanced, since it is a trust return and not an individual return, and is done under a different set of rules. I'd suggest talking to a tax professional who'd help you. Your estate executioner should be doing the estate tax return (or hiring someone to do it). Sorry for your loss.

I use the taxi app in the tri-citys it's way quicker then calling dispatch. It's as close to getting uber, in bc as far as I can tell. Gives you the dollar amount when booked and tells you can drivers name you're going to get then you can leave reviews on the cab driver as well.    General wait time on busy nights is under 20mins. Try going through dispatch and its hours and many phone calls to get a cab. I'd call this a huge improvement.

Your search for Sydney Handyman ends with Sydney Handyman Hire. Our growth in the last few years has come by earning the trust and building good relationships with clients. We have a track record of providing excellent services which allows our clients to focus on their work.  Address: 6/17-21 Bowden Street, Alexandria, NSW 2015,   Phone No: 1300 336 547

"In the grand scheme of things, Earth is going to be a barren rock and Sol will have turned into a red giant.    ""In our lifetimes"" is a decent measure of ""very long time"" when you're talking about things like economics and Moore's Law."

"How do I get my money from India to UAE account – what are the options, can I do bank transfer from my mom SB account to my international account. As you have transferred money directly to your Mothers account, getting the money back would need some paper work. Consult a CA and Bank in India, they should be able to help you. There are various limits under FEMA that would be applicable. As the amount is small a self declaration would also suffice. If yes how much do I loose in case of 20 lac due to currency conversion and commission (approximate) Not sure I understand this question, are you asking if you had converted X AED into Rs 20 lacs and now you have 20 lacs will you get back ""x"" AED or how much less? If you Buy and Sell on the same day, typically there is a spread of 3-5% depending on the currency pair. However rates would have move up or down since then and hence this cannot be answered. You would have to see what the rates are. b. can exchange with Friends in UAE and deposit the same in INR to their SB account in india. Stick to Banks or authorized remittance services [like Western Union / Money Gram / etc]. Any other method you are circumventing law. One is not authorized to convert currency outside the normal Banking Channel."

Not entirely true.  Argentina walks away without the ability to get credit in the normal way, but with other (more expensive) avenues to get credit if needed.  However, they also no longer have to pay the bond debt, which frees up a fair amount of tax income to go to the things they were previously paying with debt.    Singer comes away with... nothing.  He's out the cost of purchasing the debt.  He's out the cost of litigating.  He actually came away with worse than nothing.  He lost bad.

Yes! You totally get it! I find the previous comment from the other to be the shinny example of what is wrong with the perception of working with an IT professional. Yes there are issues within this industry, but there are in every industry. Yet, the level of rudeness my employees receive from clients because they perceive us as an intrusion in their day is very draining. We're trying to help, tapping your shoes and sighing every 2 minutes that we're not done yet doesn't make the work go faster. One of my employees was screamed at by a manager of a client because their network was down. New to us client and their previous internal person basically used duct tape to assemble their network. We walked into a literal dumpster fire. What the manager didn't realize is that his managers weren't agreeing to what we proposed and there were over 200 emails back and forth between the talking heads before they would finally agree to the work that needed to be done. It was ridiculous.  Overall though I am glad I posted this quandary. It gave me some ideas that hopefully will be really good.

"1 - in most cases, the difference between filing joint or married filing single is close to zero. When there is a difference you're better off filing joint.  2 - The way the W4 works is based on how many allowances you claim. Unfortunately, even in the day of computers, it does not allow for a simple ""well my deduction are $xxx, don't tax that money."" Each allowance is equal to one exemption, same as you get for being you, same as the wife gets, same as each kid. 3 people X $3800 = $11,400 you are telling the employer to take off the top before calculating your tax. She does this by using Circular E and is able to calculate your tax as you request. If one is in the 15% bracket, one more exemption changes the tax withheld by $570. So if you were going to owe $400 in April, one few exemption will have you overpay $170. i.e. in this 15% bracket, each exemption changes annual withholding by that $570.  For most people, running the W4 numbers will get them very close, and only if they are getting back or owing over $500, will they even think of adjusting.  3 - My recently published Last Minute Tax Moves offers a number of interesting ideas to address this. The concept of grouping deductions in odd years is worth noting.  4 - I'm not sure what this means, 2 accounts each worth $5000 should grow at the same rate if invested the same. The time it makes sense to load one person's account first is if they have better matching. You say you are not sure what percent your wife's company matches. You need to change this. For both of your retirement plans you need to know every detail, exact way to maximize matching, expense ratios for the investments you choose, any other fees, etc. Knowledge is power, and all that. In What is an appropriate level of 401k fees or expenses in a typical plan? I go on to preach about how fees can wipe out any tax benefit over time. For any new investor, my first warning is always to understand what you are getting into. If you can't explain it to a friend, you shouldn't be in it.  Edit - you first need to understand what choices are within the accounts. The 4% and 6% are in hindsight, right? These are not fixed returns. You should look at the choices and more heavily fund the account with the better selection. Deposit to her account at least to grab the match.  As far as the longer term goals, see how the house purchase goes. Life has a way of sending you two kids and forcing you to tighten the budget. You may have other ideas in three years. (I have no P2P lending experience, by the way.)  Last - many advise that separate finances are a bad path for a couple. It depends. Jane and I have separate check books, and every paycheck just keep enough to write small checks without worry, most of the money goes to the house account. Whatever works for you is what you should do. We've been happily married for most of the 17 years we've been married."


Question: Latest China devaluation (24/08/2015) and the affect on house prices in UK

No. There is no indication that the recent decline will have an impact on the house market in the UK. The reason(s) for the downward move these last few weeks are mainly due to: The last two points caused the Chinese government to decide to devaluate the Yuan. This in turn triggered an unforeseen panic attack among investors and speculators around the globe starting with the Chinese that are trading on borrowed money (not only on margin but also by using loans). The UK house prices are not influenced by the above factors, not even indirectly. The most important factors for house prices are in general: If you keep the above points in mind you should be able to decide whether now is the right time to buy a house in your area. Given that a lot of central banks (incl. BoE) are maintaining a low interest rate policy (except fed soon), now is a good time to take a mortgage. Sources used: I know interest rates are determined by the BoE which looks at the global picture to determine these rates but the main directive of a central bank is to maintain an inflation close to but not exactly 2 % as to spur on economic growth.  As such, the value of a company as valuated on the stock market is not or barely taken into account. The negligible impact is the reason why I stated that the crash in the summer of 2015 doesn't even have an indirect impact.  Also such a crash is very short lived. It's more the underlying reason for the fears that could cause issues if they drag on.

"For some people, it should be a top priority.  For others, there are higher priorities.  What it should be for you depends on a number of things, including your overall financial situation (both your current finances and how stable you expect them to be over time), your level of financial ""education"", the costs of your mortgage, the alternative investments available to you, your investing goals, and your tolerance for risk. Your #1 priority should be to ensure that your basic needs (including making the required monthly payment on your mortgage) are met, both now and in the near future, which includes paying off high-interest (i.e. credit card) debt and building up an emergency fund in a savings or money-market account or some other low-risk and liquid account.  If you haven't done those things, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, and do not consider making advance payments on your mortgage.  Mason Wheeler's statements that the bank can't take your house if you've paid it off are correct, but it's going to be a long time till you get there and they can take it if you're partway to paying it off early and then something bad happens to you and you start missing payments.  (If you're not underwater, you should be able to get some of your money back by selling - possibly at a loss - before it gets to the point of foreclosure, but you'll still have to move, which can be costly and unappealing.)  So make sure you've got what you need to handle your basic needs even if you hit a rough patch, and make sure you're not financing the paying off of your house by taking a loan from Visa at 27% annually. Once you've gotten through all of those more-important things, you finally get to decide what else to invest your extra money in.  Different investments will provide different rewards, both financial and emotional (and Mason Wheeler has clearly demonstrated that he gets a strong emotional payoff from not having a mortgage, which may or may not be how you feel about it).  On the financial side of any potential investment, you'll want to consider things like the expected rate of return, the risk it carries (both on its own and whether it balances out or unbalances the overall risk profile of all your investments in total), its expected costs (including its - and your - tax rate and any preferred tax treatment), and any other potential factors (such as an employer match on 401(k) contributions, which are basically free money to you).  Then you weigh the pros and cons (financial and emotional) of each option against your imperfect forecast of what the future holds, take your best guess, and then keep adjusting as you go through life and things change. But I want to come back to one of the factors I mentioned in the first paragraph.  Which options you should even be considering is in part influenced by the degree to which you understand your finances and the wide variety of options available to you as well as all the subtleties of how different things can make them more or less advantageous than one another.  The fact that you're posting this question here indicates that you're still early in the process of learning those things, and although it's great that you're educating yourself on them (and keep doing it!), it means that you're probably not ready to worry about some of the things other posters have talked about, such as Cost of Capital and ROI.  So keep reading blog posts and articles online (there's no shortage of them), and keep developing your understanding of the options available to you and their pros and cons, and wait to tackle the full suite of investment options till you fully understand them. However, there's still the question of what to do between now and then.  Paying the mortgage down isn't an unreasonable thing for you to do for now, since it's a guaranteed rate of return that also provides some degree of emotional payoff.  But I'd say the higher priority should be getting money into a tax-advantaged retirement account (a 401(k)/403(b)/IRA), because the tax-advantaged growth of those accounts makes their long-term return far greater than whatever you're paying on your mortgage, and they provide more benefit (tax-advantaged growth) the earlier you invest in them, so doing that now instead of paying off the house quicker is probably going to be better for you financially, even if it doesn't provide the emotional payoff.  If your employer will match your contributions into that account, then it's a no-brainer, but it's probably still a better idea than the mortgage unless the emotional payoff is very very important to you or unless you're nearing retirement age (so the tax-free growth period is small).  If you're not sure what to invest in, just choose something that's broad-market and low-cost (total-market index funds are a great choice), and you can diversify into other things as you gain more savvy as an investor; what matters more is that you start investing in something now, not exactly what it is. Disclaimer: I'm not a personal advisor, and this does not constitute investing advice.  Understand your choices and make your own decisions."

Firstly well done on building a really sold base of savings. An emergency fund needs to have two key characteristics: Be enough to get you through a typical emergency event (often seen as approx. ~6 months’ salary in your style of situation assuming you have no dependents etc) Be liquid and available to you instantly if an emergency arises Once you have decided how much you will need for 1), you then generally find the best interest available on an instant access savings account and leave it there. It's important to note that because you need it very liquid and very secure you will basically never make (nor should  you expect to make) any sizeable rate of interest on your emergency fund. Once this is done, whatever left should be invested in an asset/mix of assets that best fit your risk profile - of which long term bonds are a completely legitimate option, but it's hard to say without knowing more about your long term aims/liabilities/job market etc.

Savings accounts have lower fees. If you don't anticipate doing many transactions per month, e.g. three or fewer withdrawals, then I would suggest a savings account rather than a checking account. A joint account that requires both account holder signatures to make withdrawals will probably require both account holders' signature endorsements, in order to make deposits. For example, if you are issued a tax refund by the U.S. Treasury, or any check that is payable to both parties, you will only be able to deposit that check in a joint account that has both persons as signatories. There can be complications due to multi-party account ownership if cashing versus depositing a joint check and account tax ID number. When you open the account, you will need to specify what your wishes are, regarding whether both parties or either party can make deposits and withdrawals. Also, at least one party will need to be present, with appropriate identification (probably tax ID or Social Security number), when opening the account.  If the account has three or more owners, you might be required to open a business or commercial account, rather than a consumer account. This would be due to the extra expense of administering an account with more than two signatories. After the questioner specified interest North Carolina in the comments, I found that the North Carolina general banking statutes have specific rules for joint accounts: Any two or more persons may establish a deposit account...   The deposit account and any balance shall be as joint tenants...   Unless the persons establishing the account have agreed with the bank   that withdrawals require more than one signature, payment by the bank   to, or on the order of (either person on) the account satisfys the bank's obligation I looked for different banks in North Carolina. I found joint account terms similar to this in PDF file format, everywhere, Joint Account: If an item is drawn so that it is unclear whether one payee’s   endorsement or two is required, only one endorsement will be    required and the Bank shall not be liable for any loss incurred by the   maker as a result of there being only one endorsement. also  Joint accounts are owned by you individually or jointly with others.   All of the funds in a joint account may be used to repay the debts of   any co-owner, whether they are owed individually, by a co-owner,   jointly with other co-owners, or jointly with other persons or   entities having no interest in your account. You will need to tell the bank specifically what permissions you want for your joint account, as it is between you and your bank, in North Carolina.

Let's reverse this.  If you had a business to hold corporate information, and that information was leaked to the world, do you think the corporation would agree that you shouldn't be put out of business?  They would want that and some blood for their troubles.

Took 4 weeks to study for the 7. I studied in the morning for about 3-4 hrs skimming the book and taking practice exams then would go play golf or do something active to take my mind off of studying.  Passed with an 80%.  I took the 66 and barely studied  maybe 5 days going over practice exams. 84%

The best office and business telephone systems offered by this company come with features such as telephony, instant messaging, video conferencing and data sharing, into a single robust IP platform. The services are really affordable and customer services are simply unmatched.

People are downvoting you, but the reality is that a cushion isn't a bad idea.  Not a perpetual thing, but until the OP gets set up with a job place to live etc.  They know the job is going to work out etc., they might want to have some cash, as they are likely not going to forgo eating etc... that said I would treat it as money to be used in place of a credit card (with the high rates) etc...   Again I am not saying spend the money, I am being realistic, that it takes money to secure an apt, and unless you can borrow cheaper than 6% elsewhere (I know I could probably get unsecured money cheaper than that where I live, but I don't know the OPs situation).  I wouldn't invest it given the situation personally.  If you have a great job, it won't matter, you will build up past 1200 soon and can then start to invest a portion of that cash.  If you don't, then you shouldn't be risking debt money, especially if your level of sophistication in the market has you here asking the question.  That 6% savings is tax free as well, so you need to gross it up based on your tax situation.  Also make note of any currency conversions that would need to happen, so depending on what you want to invest in, currency risk could be a real concern as well.  One other reason I think getting down at least a portion of the debt could be good is simplification.  Can't spend money you don't view yourself as having.  Some people might be more disciplined to reign in spending when they see a lower number in their account.  I'm personally not one of those people, but again, I would likely kill the debt off now just to have one less thing on my mind... but only as soon as I am stable (know where I am going to live, have enough to eat, and relatively sure that will continue in the future...)


Question: Reducing taxable income in US in December

Assuming that what you want to do is to counter the capital gains tax on the short term and long term gains, and that doing so will avoid any underpayment penalties, it is relatively simple to do so. Figure out the tax on the capital gains by determining your tax bracket. Lets say 25% short term and 15% long term or (0.25x7K) + (0.15*8K) or $2950.  If you donate to charities an additional amount of items or money to cover that tax. So taking the numbers in step 1 divide by the marginal tax rate $2950/0.25 or $11,800.  Money is easier to donate because you will be contributing enough value that the IRS may ask for proof of the value, and that proof needs to be gathered either before the donation is given or at the time the donation is given. Also don't wait until December 31st, if you miss the deadline and the donation is counted for next year, the purpose will have been missed. Now if the goal is just to avoid the underpayment penalty, you have two other options.  The safe harbor is the easiest of the two to determine. Look at last years tax form. Look for the amount of tax you paid last year. Not what was withheld, but what you actually paid. If all your withholding this year, is greater than 110% of the total tax from last year, you have reached the safe harbor. There are a few more twists depending on AGI Special rules for farmers, fishermen, and higher income taxpayers.   If at least two-thirds of your gross income for tax year 2014 or 2015   is from farming or fishing, substitute 662/3% for 90% in (2a) under   the General rule, earlier. If your AGI for 2014 was more than $150,000   ($75,000 if your filing status for 2015 is married filing a separate   return), substitute 110% for 100% in (2b) under General rule ,   earlier. See Figure 4-A and Publication 505, chapter 2 for more   information.

Generally, the paperwork realtors use is pre-written and pre-approved by the relevant State and real-estate organizations. The offers, contracts, etc etc a pretty straightforward and standard. You can ask a realtor for a small fee to arrange the documents for you (smaller than the usual 5% sellers' fee they charge, I would say 0.5% or a couple of hundreds of dollars flat fee would be enough for the work). You can try and get these forms yourself, sometimes you can buy them in the neighborhood Staples, or from various law firms and legal plans that sell standard docs. You can get a lawyer to go over it with you for almost nothing: I used the LegalZoom plan for documentation review, and it cost me $30 (business plan, individual is cheaper) to go over several purchase contracts ($30 is a monthly subscription, but you don't have to pay it for more than one month). But these are standard, so you do it once and you know how to read them all. If you have a legal plan from work, this may cover document review and preparation. Preparing a contract that is not a standard template can otherwise cost you hundreds of dollars. Title company will not do any paperwork for you except for the deed itself. They can arrange the deed and the recording, escrow and title insurance, but they will not write a contract for the parties to use. You have to come with the contract already in place, and with escrow instructions already agreed upon. Some jurisdictions require using a lawyer in a real-estate transaction. If you're in a jurisdiction (usually on a county level) that requires the transaction to go through a lawyer - then the costs will be higher.

"Many people assume that if the price of something is $10 and they have 1,000 of that thing, they should expect to be able to sell them for something around $10,000.  Such an assumption may hold much of the time, but it doesn't always.  Worse, the cases where it fails to hold are often those where it would be relied upon most heavily.  Such an assumption should thus be considered dangerous. In a liquid market, the quantity of a something that people would be willing to buy at something close to the market price will be large relative to the quantity that people would seek to sell in the short term.  If at some moment in time one person in the market was willing to immediately buy 500 shares at $9.98 and another was willing to immediately buy 750 at $9.97, someone seeking to sell 1,000 shares could immediately receive $997.50 for them (selling 500 to the first person and 500 to the second, who would then be ready to buy 250 more from the first person who was willing to sell for $9.97).  Such behavior would be in line with what many people's assumptions. In an illiquid market, however, the quantity of something that people would be willing to buy near market price could be surprisingly low.  This is more often a problem in the marketplace of things like collectibles than of stocks, but the same thing can happen in the stock market.  If there's one potential buyer for a stock who thinks it's overpriced but has potential and would be worth $9.50, but that person only has $950 to spend, and nobody else thinks the stock would be worth more than $0.02/share, then until people sold a total of 100 shares the price would be $9.50, but after that the price would drop instantly to $0.02.  There would be no ""cushioning"" of the fall.  If the person with 1,000 shares was first in line, he'd get to sell 100 shares for $950 to the aforementioned seller, but would be unable to get more than $18 for the remaining 900. A major danger with markets is that markets which are perceived as liquid attract people to the buying side, while those which are seen as illiquid repel people.  The danger in the latter is obvious (having people flee a seemingly-illiquid market will reduce its liquidity further) but the former is just as bad.  Having people flock to a market because of its perceived liquidity will increase its liquidity, but can also create a ""false price floor"", causing demand to appear much stronger than it actually is.  Unless real demand increases to match the false price floor, the people who buy at the higher price will never be able to recoup their investment."

"I remember when they started the policy of ""will not accept ANY lifetime warranty claims for rust"". A reasonable enough claim, because there's no such thing as 100% stainless.  However, they started this stupid game where *any* tool with *any* amount of rust on it was automatically a ""rust claim"".  For example, if a socket for a ratchet was stripped, worn, or chipped to the point of being unusable, and also had a small rust spot, they wouldn't replace it.  Spend a dollar and piss off your customers to save a nickel... go figure."

Expansion of federal influence in education  Expansion of DHS Expansion of military Expansion of domestic surveillance (that's liberal now)  He blew the government up to a size not seen since FDR.  Liberal. He just doesn't line up on all of the social issues that are ultimately wedge issues.

"Geez man you're cutting it close to the end of the semester to be at the research stage of your project.  I normally frown on posts that say ""LOL DO MY PROJECT FOR ME"" but i know a bit about this subject and want to share.  I'm going to focus mostly on the B2B segment here because that's what I know. Many companies aren't spending as much as they used to on IT products or the staff to support them. They're also looking for ways to be more productive with their budgets. The consumer market is spending a lot less and is demanding products that Dell can't make as much money on.  The big things right now are The cloud, virtualization and miniaturization.  So, right now ""The Cloud"" is the buzzword. Lots of companies are moving their stuff offsite, letting someone else worry about major IT infrastructure. This typically costs the company less in both hardware and personnel costs. Companies still need a onsite presence for critical applications, data and backup but they need a lot less than what was necessary 5 years ago.  Network backbones have grown in scale and many metropolitan areas can now support this type of computing.  You also have virtualization which means you can run multiple ""servers"" on one physical server. What used to take up an entire rack years ago can now be run on a few servers.  This means companies need less of the IT equipment Dell makes in order to grow and expand.  All that means less of a demand for traditional IT equipment (computers and servers) and more of a demand for the proper software.   I see Dell moving more towards personal devices and larger enterprise equipment & servers. Personal devices include tablets, laptops/netbooks, phones, compact PCs. The business side includes high density servers, storage, software and services. The miniaturization of computer hardware along with the cloud will allow users to access their ""desktop"" and programs from anywhere and Dell will be providing products to access the cloud. Servers will have terabytes of memory and a large number of cores. (systems with terabytes of memory already exist but the cost is prohibitive for most companies). These systems will be used to support a business' needs through virtualization or provide users with the cloud. Dell has acquired a few software companies over the years and will most likely acquire more & may offer software for cloud computing, IT management and possibly (probably not) virtualization.  Over the past few years the desktop PC market has been shrinking as netbooks and new devices have been released.  They still have a long way to go but someday they will largely replace the PC in homes and businesses; especially as costs come down.   Also, Dell may see lots more money from government and healthcare in the next few years.  The government may choose to spend even more money than they do now on infrastructure and projects to help get us out of the recession. Those projects will need IT resources.  Same goes for healthcare, as the new healthcare laws go into effect they will need more IT resources to get the job done.  source: me, I've worked in the IT industry for the past 9 years. The majority of our business is with Dell products. If you need more details about me send me message.  Also please don't just copy paste my information.  I'm giving you some ideas. Go look them up, learn about them, research them.  College is about learning and one of the points of this project is to expand your knowledge about a subject.  tl;dr due to new technology, people and companies will be buying less, margins will be thinner, Dell will probably focus on new markets.  edit: after going through some of your posts it seems like you are in the IT industry as well so I'm confused and you may already know most of this information."

Recovering after a card number has been stolen is a nuisance; you need to wade through determining which charges are and aren't legit, update the records of anyone who legitimately has your card on file, not have the card available until the replacement reaches you,  etc. And you may be on the hook for the first $50 of the loss, if I remember correctly, unless (as mentioned) the bank waives that. Plus the risk that the card could be the first step in a larger identity theft attempt. And not everyone is so blase' about the bank losing money. Those costs get passed on to us, remember. And some of us actually respect our banks or credit unions. Certainly cards come with some consumer protection, otherwise nobody who thought about this would want to use them. But it's still worth exercising reasonable care to keep the problem from arising.

What kind of bullshit is this?  >Between October 2008 and July 2014 the working age population grew by 13.4 million persons, but the US labor force grew by only 1.1 million. In other words, the unemployment rate among the increase in the working age population during the past six years is 91.8%.  I can't even...  >The 6.2% US unemployment rate is misleading as it excludes discouraged workers who have given up and left the labor force because there are no jobs to be found.  Uh...that's not how statistics work.  >John Williams of Shadowstats.com calculates the true US unemployment rate to be 23.2%, a number consistent with the collapse of the US labor force participation rate.  Ok, he got this number from the infamous shadowstats. Why is this crap getting upvoted?


Question: Selling on eBay without PayPal?

I've definitely seen a similar conversation about this, I personally don't buy from eBay (Amazon for me). So I turned to the internet to see what I could find to offer you any additional information (albeit not my personal experience).  I first read this article: CodeNerdz Article and was pretty horrified by the scamming that can happen by buyers. Then, this article by another regular user of eBay, Selling on eBay without PayPal : eBay Guides confirmed the trouble people have with PayPal & eBay. Payment Services permitted on eBay: Allpay.net, Canadian Tire Money, cash2india, CertaPay, Checkfree.com, hyperwallet.com, Moneybookers.com, Nochex.com, Ozpay.biz, Paymate.com.au, Propay.com, XOOM Have you looked into any or all of these?

First--congratulations!  I certainly wish I could create something worth buying for $1.4 million.  In addition to what @duffbeer703 recommended, consider putting some of the money in Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS).  I second the advice on staying away from annuities as well.  @littleadv is right about certified financial planners.  A good one will put those funds in a mix of investments that minimize your potential tax exposure.  They will also look at whether you're properly insured.    Research what is FDIC-insured (and what isn't) here. Since you're still making a six-figure income in your salaried job, be sure not to neglect things like contributing to your 401(k)--especially if it's a matching one.  At your salary level, I think you're still eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA (taxable income goes in, so withdrawals are tax-free).  A good adviser will know which options are best.

"Rolling an old 401k into a new 401k is generally only for ease of management. For example, how many bank accounts do you really want? As long as the funds are reasonably allocated I've found it can be a useful ""mind game"" to leave it separate. Sometimes it's desirable to ignore an account and let it grow, and it is a nice surprise when finally adding all the account balances together. In other words, I keep thinking I've got X (the amount of my biggest or current 401k), which affects/helps my habits and desire to save. When I add them all together I'm shocked to find out I've got Y (the total of all accounts). Personally, I've had big paperwork problems transferring an old 403b (same type process as 401k) even when I had an adviser helping me move it. In the end it was worth moving it, because I'm having the adviser manage it. I'm actually writing this answer specifically because I recently moved a big 401k into a Traditional IRA. A rep from the brokerage, representing my previous employer, kept calling me to find out how they could help (I didn't brush him off). I found that using an IRA provided me with the opportunity to do self-guided investments in funds or even individual stocks, well beyond the limited selection of the old company's 401k. It was useful/interesting to me to invest in low-fee vehicles such as index funds (ie: the Buffett recommendation), and I'll find some stocks as well. Oh and when the old company 401k has certain funds being discontinued, I didn't want to notice the mandated changes years later. So, I'd suggest you consider management and flexibility of the 401k or equivalent, and any of your special personal circumstances/goals. If you end up with a few retirement accounts, I suggest you use an account aggregating website to see or follow your net worth. I know many who, based on various concerns and their portfolio, find an acceptable website to use."

There may be specific answers that can be determined based on the interest rates, amounts, tax provisions, etc. But I'm here to tell you... It is much easier (i.e., less stressful) to own a home when you have less debt. Pay off any and every debt you can before purchasing a home because there will always be something requiring you to spend money once you own one.

You've thought it through and you know the risks, so more power to you. I'd only add that recovering from big downdrafts gets harder as you age, and you're also depending on the S&P 500's pretty impressive history to repeat. To me the 6%-9% long-run historical range of S&P 500 returns doesn't match up well with the new era of weaker, 2%-ish economic growth since the early 2000s. Insofar as growth is driven by secular trends such as worsening demographics and fewer productivity advances, you're depending on other factors (globalization driving earnings power, central banks continuing to distort asset prices indefinitely, etc.) to get to that long-run 6%-9%. If the S&P enters a leaner couple of decades, it will be much harder to recover from losses.

They used to. People got hired at entry level jobs and were trained on the job. They learned from the person above them and moved up the ladder. Then they taught the person below them while learning from the person above them. This continued for a whole career. Trades still work this way.  Now we've traded on the job training for minimum hiring requirements. We've traded moving up for having to move to another company. And we've traded proper raises for standard 3% increases until you quit and move to another company to do a job for which you have the minimum hiring requirements.

"Step 1: Require all Uber drivers to report to central facilities because ""you can't succeed without face to face interaction"" or whatever.  Step 2:  Purchase random companies somewhat related to, I guess, cars?  Maybe some random custom rim manufacturers, or the companies that make those shitty aftermarket petals and knobs you see at Autozone?  Instantly shut them down.  Step 3:  Find a way to make the Uber app so completely insecure that Putin gets instant updates every time you hail a ride.  Step 4: New LOGO!!  Step 5: Uber fails, and to celebrate her success, she walks away with 50 million dollar performance bonus, does more sexy photoshoots while bitching about how she is objectified as a woman, and looks forward to being CEO of Snapchat."

In many cases yes.  In the case of an employer handing employees a credit card to use, that is clearly income if the card is used for something other than a business expense. Generally speaking, if you're receiving something with a significant value without strings attached, it is likely taxable. Google no doubt has an army of tax attorneys, so perhaps they are able to exploit loopholes of some sort.


Question: How to tell if you can trust a loan company?

Look for people who have done business with them. If you don't know anyone who has used their services, look for a company that at least has a brick and mortar branch in your area. Being able to deal with them face to face is a must. Have you checked with your local bank?

In Maryland, a landlord must hold your security deposit in an escrow account and pay you interest when returning the deposit.  The interest is simple interest; it does not compound. The interest rate that they must pay has changed over the last 43 years.  Before October 1, 2004, the rate was 4%.  Until January 1, 2015, the rate was 3%.  Currently, the rate is 1.5% OR the simple interest rate accrued at the daily U.S. Treasury yield curve rate for one year, as of the first business day of each year, whichever is greater.  (This year, the rate is 1.5%.)  Maryland's Department of Housing and Community Development has a Security Deposit Calculator for easy calculation of this interest; however, it only works for deposits since January 1, 2015. It is unclear to me whether the interest rate in effect is the one that was in place when the security deposit was made, or if the rate changes over the years.   At most, if you get 4% interest every year, I would expect you to receive $429.76, which is $158 + ($158 * 4% * 43).  The interest is accrued every 6 months, so you would not get any interest for the 3 months that you rented in your 44th year. (With the new law that took effect this year, interest is accrued monthly.) At least, if the interest rate changes with the new laws, I would expect you to receive $413.18, which is $158 + ($158 * 4% * 32.5) + ($158 * 3% * 10.25) + ($158 * 1.5% * 0.5). Some text on the Security Deposit Calculator suggests that the laws for Prince George's County are different than the rest of the state.  If you are in that county, you'll need to check the local ordinances to see what security deposit policies apply.

In my opinion, since she will live in one apartment, as will you and your husband, the simplest method is to divide the ratio exactly the same as the area for your living space. If it's 40/60, she puts 40% down, you put 60%. And you split expenses the same.  The tenant income can be applied to the house expenses, as it's no different than giving her 40% and you keep 60%.  No matter how well you get along, it's easy for someone to feel a split of expenses isn't fair unless it's discussed and agreed up front.

QE was started by Ben Bernanke's FED who was appointed by GWB. The FED is a separate entity from politics regardless of all the attempts to gain control. No politician came up with QE and most didn't support it.   Why would Dems or the GOP run on a program that an independent and privately run central bank created? Do you even understand what the FED is or how monetary policy is set?

I asked this question in this weeks question thread.  But I'll ask it here too.    If the buy side here is an etf and has an expense ratio of x, does the rebate offset the expense or is accounted some other way? Another way, Is the rebate profit for the fund manager or the fund? Does it get disclosed somehow?

"Call me crazy, but doesn't this take us from the realm of *civil* damages, into seeing execs frog-marched into police cars?  Obama may not have gotten his 30-day requirement into law, but [most states follow](http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/security-breach-notification-laws.aspx) California's data breach standard; sorry, residents of Alabama and South Dakota, you'll have to take comfort from the shadows when the latest NY AG moves to make a name for himself.  / Hmm, ""Eric Schneiderman""... Nope, I don't see any penis jokes there, he's safe."

"Signing bonuses are probably the most variable of all, as there is a general understanding that more personal factors are taken into account. As a result, HR isn't under a huge obligation to explain away the differences. In comparison, for salary there's the wide expectation that same job = same pay. Since there's so variable, but also fairly rare, ""budget"" isn't a main concern for many HR departments. And they certainly won't have a finely grained budget breakdown. ""This year we'll pay $250.000 for headhunters, $50000 for relocation payments, $100,000 for pension transfers, $150.000 for stock option losses..."". It's generally tossed on one big heap, ""cost of hiring"". So, what can you ask for? That's really a market question. What's your value to the company? How much of that is already reflected in salary and other benefits? The main downside to signing bonuses is that a company won't know how long you'd stay. Your value to the company is probably your monthly work. Therefore they cannot amortize that bonus over a fixed amount of months. What if you leave after 3 months? For that reason, a ""conditional"" signing bonus is a reasonable offer from your side. E.g. ask for one month salary, conditional on you staying for 24 months, and otherwise you'll repay them from your last salary."

While JB King says some useful things, I think there is another fundamental reason why stock markets go down after disasters, either natural or man-made.  There is a real impact on the markets - in the case of something like 9/11 due to closed airport, higher security costs, closer inspections on trade goods, tighter restrictions on visas, real payments for the rebuilding of destroyed buildings and insurance payouts for killed people, and eventually the cost of a war. But almost as important is the uncertainty and risk. Nobody knew what was going to happen in the days and weeks after an attack like that. Is there going to be another one a week later, or every week for the next year? Will air travel become essentially impractical? Will international trade be severely restricted? All those would have a huge, massive effect on the economy. You may argue that those things are very unlikely, even after something like 9/11. But even a small increase in the likelihood of a catastrophic economic crash is enough to start people selling. There is another thing that drives the market down. Even if most people are sure that there won't be a catastrophic economic crash, they know that other people think there might be and so will sell. That will drive the market down. If they know the market is going down, then sensible traders will start to sell, even if they think there is zero risk of a crash. This makes the effect worse. Eventually prices will drop so far that the people who don't think there is a crash will start to buy, so they can make a profit on the recovery. But that usually doesn't happen until there has been a substantial drop.


Question: 401k with paltry match or SPY ETF?

"Answers: 1. Is this a good idea? Is it really risky? What are the pros and cons? Yes, it is a bad idea. I think, with all the talk about employer matches and tax rates at retirement vs. now, that you miss the forest for the trees. It's the taxes on those retirement investments over the course of 40 years that really matter. Example: Imagine $833 per month ($10k per year) invested in XYZ fund, for 40 years (when you retire). The fund happens to make 10% per year over that time, and you're taxed at 28%. How much would you have at retirement? 2. Is it a bad idea to hold both long term savings and retirement in     the same investment vehicle, especially one pegged to the US stock     market? Yes. Keep your retirement separate, and untouchable. It's supposed to be there for when you're old and unable to work. Co-mingling it with other funds will induce you to spend it (""I really need it for that house! I can always pay more into it later!""). It also can create a false sense of security (""look at how much I've got! I got that new car covered...""). So, send 10% into whatever retirement account you've got, and forget about it. Save for other goals separately.  3. Is buying SPY a ""set it and forget it"" sort of deal, or would I need     to rebalance, selling some of SPY and reinvesting in a safer vehicle     like bonds over time? For a retirement account, yes, you would. That's the advantage of target date retirement funds like the one in your 401k. They handle that, and you don't have to worry about it. Think about it: do you know how to ""age"" your account, and what to age it into, and by how much every year? No offense, but your next question is what an ETF is! 4. I don't know ANYTHING about ETFs. Things to consider/know/read? Start here: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/etf.asp 5. My company plan is ""retirement goal"" focused, which, according to     Fidelity, means that the asset allocation becomes more conservative     over time and switches to an ""income fund"" after the retirement     target date (2050). Would I need to rebalance over time if holding     SPY? Answered in #3. 6. I'm pretty sure that contributing pretax to 401k is a good idea     because I won't be in the 28% tax bracket when I retire. How are the     benefits of investing in SPY outweigh paying taxes up front, or do     they not? Partially answered in #1. Note that it's that 4 decades of tax-free growth that's the big dog for winning your retirement. Company matches (if you get one) are just a bonus, and the fact that contributions are tax free is a cherry on top. 7. Please comment on anything else you think I am missing I think what you're missing is that winning at personal finance is easy, and winning at personal finance is hard"

Ad-based business model is the hands down best way to go. Imagine an internet where you had to make micropayments to every website you visited. It is just not viable.  The thing is, there are proper and improper ways to do ads. A banner ad? A text ad? Fine. Whatever.  An noisy, seizure inducing ad? Gross. A 30-second video ad to watch a Youtube video? Disgusting. A website that is 90% advertising and 10% content? Worthless.

"Instead of getting into complex economic theories, here are the few places I can tell you where the cash has disappeared to:  1. Apple - holding over 100b cash in their vault more than any banks have in their reserves in the world and more than enough to pay off all of the debts of the U.S.  2. Real Estates.........in developing countries, that is :p. You may keep hearing how real estates are de-valuing in the U.S., but in developing countries like the BRICs, they are going higher. Think Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, etc. Yes, it's a proven bubble there. If you have access to their regional news, just listen to how many people in Asia have to borrow from loan sharks to keep their finances afloat.  3. Gold - go see for yourself on goldprice.org, that's where the wealthy individuals put their cash in the so-called ""safe haven"" next to shotguns. Yes, it's ridiculous and is totally out of anyone's league beyond basic things like air, water, and food.  4. Commodities (gas, food, basic materials) - enough said, check out your local gas pumps and grocery stores."

This is really what excites me, how about we pick some one out of the rest of the 99% of America. . .we have had such a long line of 1% . . of course AIPAC will not be happy and your Master Nathanyahoo will be most disappointed.

She walks backwards, making sure that the ground is clear. She tenses, bounces up and down to warm up and then, slowly at first, gathering steam, she begins to sprint. She's right on target, her leg goes back and now it's swinging forward, forward and *BOOM* it connects and the can goes flying down the road.  The world markets go wild for another 72 hours before pessimism returns!

If your gut told you to buy during the depths of '09, your gut might be well-calibrated. The problem is stock market declines during recessions are frequently not that large relative to the average long run return of 9%:  A better strategy might be hold a percentage in equities based upon a probability distribution of historical returns.  This becomes problematic because of changes in the definition of earnings and the recent inflation stability which has encouraged high valuations:  Cash flow has not been as corrupted as earnings now, and might be a better indicator:  This obviously isn't perfect either, but returns can be improved. Since there is no formulaic way yet conventionally available, the optimal primary strategy is still buy & hold which has made the most successful investor frequently one of the richest people on the planet for decades, but this could still be used as an auxiliary for cash management reserves during recessions once retired.

Let's be real, at this point in time it was pretty well known that these 3 banks weren't going to be allowed to fail no matter what (Goldman Sachs failing lol) . And Buffet is privy to a lot more information than your average investor. Let's not act like he was some heroic figure. Good investment, sure.

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Question: Can the U.S. government retroactively tax gains made earlier in the fiscal year?

"You're certainly referring to ""Ex Post Facto"" laws, and while the US is constitutionally prohibited from passing criminal laws that are retroactive, the US Supreme Court has upheld many tax laws that apply tax code changes retroactively. You might ask a similar question on Law.SE for a more thorough treatment of the legalities of congress passing those laws, but I will stick to the personal finance portion of the question. What this means is that you can't expect that the current tax laws will be in force in the future, and your investment/retirement plans should be as flexible as possible. You may wish to have some money in both Roth and traditional 401(k) accounts. You might not want to have millions of dollars in Roth accounts, because if congress does act to limit the tax benefits of those accounts, it will probably be targeting the larger balances. If you are valuing tax deductions, you should put slightly more weight on deductions that you can take today than deductions that would apply in the future. If you do find yourself in trouble because of a retroactive change, be sure to consult a tax lawyer that specializes in dealing with the IRS to possibly negotiate a settlement for a lower amount than the full tax bill that results from the changes."

It sounds like your looking for something like an offshore bank (e.g. an anonymous Swiss bank account).  These don't really exist anymore. I think you should just open a small bank account in your home country (preferably one the reimburses your ATM fees, like Charles Schwab in the US).  If it's a small amount of money, the authorities probably won't care and they won't be able to give you large penalties anyways.

"In that case, would it then be assured that the entire classes scores are high if they are based on the weakest student as the bar?  *some of the implementations of ""No Child Left Behind"" encourage pacing to the slowest student rather than challenging all of them at the level they can be challenged. It's pretty broken.*"

So, what is the argument to be bullish on Roku? I absolutely love the interface, so much so that all 4 of the TVs in my house are on a Roku device - or are Roku TV's.  The simplicity and speed destroy most smart TV set-ups, especially Samsung.  I understand that they can be easily copied by the big guys with deep pockets, but is there a scenario where Roku emerges as the primary interface for streaming on TV's?

I'm in connecticut and I have met with RobertHalf and another recruiting firm. They both said they would be in constant contact with me yet I haven't heard from either so far. I have emailed and called and haven't gotten much.  I try to apply to at least 4 or 5 new positions a day but never hear anything back.  [This](http://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.asp) is what I have been trying to familiarize myself with just to get the gist of SQL.

"You might try just asking him, in private. Don't accuse him of misbehaving, just ask how you can improve, which he'll probably tell you if there is some real reason.  ""Hey boss, I just wanted to take a minute to check in. I'm trying hard to do a great job. Do you have any suggestions on how I can be a better team member?"""

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When you say consumer, my understanding of GE is that it is an industrial company -- very little of what they do now is consumer facing.   My experience is a few years old - I did work with GE Water, which is now GE Power and Water.  If you want my take, it is Immelt leaving and Flannery putting up a low water mark so he can 'paint the tape' in future years.  IMO Immelt wasn't a bad CEO, but he had decades of Welsh balance sheet to clean up


Question: Can I use a different HSA than PayFlex that came with aetna?

You can ask your employer for anything that you want. However, most employers, if they are contributing their own money into your HSA, or you are contributing to your own HSA through payroll deduction, only work with one HSA, which is much easier for them to manage. You are free to decline their HSA if you want.  However, if they are kicking in free money into your HSA, I don't recommend that you decline it.  Just pick the best option you have for investing. As for the money that you are contributing, if you don't want to put your own money into your employer's Aetna HSA, you can open up an HSA with any institution you like.  You can even do this and still keep Aetna HSA to take advantage of the employer's contributions.  However, your annual limit is still the total of all contributions to all HSA's in your name, whether you make them or your employer makes them. When deciding whether or not to use payroll deduction into the Aetna HSA or to go your own way, keep in mind that payroll deduction skips some payroll taxes.

How the ruddy hell can a business keep on reporting increase in profits year over year, especially an entity like mcdonalds in a field like fast food. Deeply entrenched in a fast paced competition, and yet stable with its universal brand recognition. Unless you expand into fringe markets like infant fast food or some bizarre explored stuff like that.

I see you've marked an answer as accepted but I MUST tell you that STOPPING your 401k contribution all together is a bad idea. Your company match is 100% rate of return(or 50% depending on structure).  I don't care what market you look at, or how bad a loan you take out, you will not receive 100% rate of return, or be charged 100% interest. Further, taking out a loan against your 401k effectively does two things: It is a loan that must be repaid according to the terms of your 401k  AND in every 401k I've ever encountered, you cannot make contributions to the 401k until the loan is repaid. This in effect stops your contributions, and will almost certainly save you very little on your interest rates on your current loans. I have 4 potential solutions that may help achieve your goal without sacrificing your 401k match and transferring the debt from one lender to another, but they are conditional. Is your company match 100% up to 4% of your salary, or 50% of your contribution (up to a limit you have not yet reached)? This is important.  If it is 100% up to 4%, stop committing the additional 4% and use that to pay down your debt...and after ward set up that 4% as auto pay into an IRA, not into the 401k.  An IRA will make you more money because YOU have control over its management, not your employer. If it is 50% match, contribute until the match is met because you cannot get 50% rate of return anywhere, then take your additional monies and get an IRA.  As far as your debt, in this scenario simply suck it up and pay it as is.  You will lose far more than you gain by stopping your contributions. If you simply must reduce your expenses by 150$ month try refinancing the mortgage and rolling the 6500$ into it.  If you get a big enough drop in the interest rate you could still end up paying less. OR If you cannot make the gain there, try snowballing the three payments.  You do this by calling your student loan vendor and telling them you need to make much smaller payments, like even zero depending on the type of loan.  Then take ALL of the money you are currently spending on the 3 loans and put into the car payment.  When it's gone, roll the whole thing into the higher interest student loan, then finally roll it all into the last student loan.  You'll pay it off faster, and student loans have lots of laws and regulations regarding working with payers to keep them paying something without breaking them. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT STOP YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS.  50% OR 100%, THAT MONEY IS GUARANTEED AT A HIGHER RATE OF RETURN THAN YOU CAN GET ANYWHERE, ESPECIALLY GUARANTEED.

Google's management is already acutely aware of hese forces and likely has better intel than any material publicly available. Apple is not in the ISP business and while people having faster internet would possibly benefit Apple to a mild extent this isn't a pressing issue for them.   Unfortunately the dominance of the cable oligopoly is upheld by political forces outside the influence of much of the private sector. I'm not too familiar with the American regulatory system but my guess is the DoJ wouldn't even look twice at this, let alone have any jurisdiction on the matter.   Sorry :(

The buying service your credit union uses is similar to the one my credit union uses. I have used their service several times. There is no direct cost to use the service, though the credit union as a whole might have a fee to join the service. I have used it 4 times over the decades. If you know what make and model you want to purchase, or at least have it narrowed down to just a few choices, you can get an exact price for that make, model, and options. You do this before negotiating a price. You are then issued a certificate. You have to go to a specific salesman at a specific dealership, but near a large city there will be several dealers to pick from.  There is no negotiating at the dealership. You still have to deal with a trade in, and the financing option: dealer, credit union, or cash. But it is nice to not have to negotiate on the price. Of course there is nobody to stop you from using the price from the buying service as a goal when visiting a more conveniently located dealership, that is what I did last time. The first couple of times I used the standard credit union financing, and the last time I didn't need a loan. Even if you don't use the buying service, one way to pay for the car is to get the loan from the credit union, but get the rebate from the dealer. Many times if you get the low dealer financing you can't get the rebate. Doing it this way actually saves money. Speaking of rebates see how the buying service addresses them. The big national rebates  were still honored during at least one of my purchases. So it turned out to be the buying service price minus $1,000. If your service worked like my experience, the cost to you was a little time to get the price, and a little time in a different dealer to verify that the price was good.

Hollywood doesn't care about the message that the films produce, they don't care about the social change. All they care about is the money that they will lose if the industry system falls apart. They are worried that what happened/is happening to the RIAA will happen to the MPAA, and that is what they are trying to protect against.   Why would James Cameron go to Fox to distribute his movie, if he could just distribute it himself and keep more of the profits. That's their biggest fear. If they can't control the distribution methods on the internet, then they can't control their inevitable deterioration into obsoleteness.

Funny, you picked just about the one business that I'm expecting to fall *because* it runs on weak market sentiment.   The moment Uber stops subsidizing their rides it will become far more viable for   localized ridesharing networks to undercut them  and ride the wave of litigation/etc their efforts passed. Not to mention their competition which have much less to pay back to their investors.   Uber users are mostly bellweather fans happy to hop to a new service that undercuts them with no love lost between them and Uber (once they use up any credits/etc they had saved up). Without autonomous, Uber's dead in the water.

"Yes sir, I'm working on compiling your ""precise evidence,"" and I'll have it printed and bound for you on the double.  In the meantime, you can look here as a starting point and try to find the part where the Fed has allowed interest rates to adjust freely, and maybe you can learn why rates are artificial:    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_responses_to_the_subprime_crisis  As for ""cahoots"" and independent banks and whatever other off-topic nonsense you're babbling about, there was nothing said about cahoots or independent banks.  The interest rates paid for and to US banks are affected by the monetary policy of the Fed.  There is no collusion, or ""cahoots,"" required for them to follow a common policy of artificially-low interest rates, which was the point of the earlier post."