Question: How does remittance work? How does it differ from direct money transfer?

"The Option 2 in your answer is how most of the money is moved cross border. It is called International Transfer, most of it carried out using the SWIFT network. This is expensive, at a minimum it costs in the range of USD 30 to USD 50. This becomes a expensive mechanism to transfer small sums of money that individuals are typically looking at.   Over a period of years, the low value payments by individuals between certain pair of countries is quite high, example US-India, US-China, Middle-East-India, US-Mexico etc ... With the intention to reduce cost, Banks have built a different work-flow, this is the Option 1. This essentially works on getting money from multiple individuals in EUR. The aggregated sum is converted into INR, then transferred to partner Bank in India via Single SWIFT. Alongside the partner bank is also sent a file of instructions having the credit account. The Partner Bank in India will use the local clearing network [these days NEFT] to credit the funds to the Indian account.   Option 3: Other methods include you writing a check in EUR and sending it over to a friend/relative in India to deposit this into Indian Account. Typically very nominal costs. Typically one month of timelines. Option 4: Another method would be to visit an Indian Bank and ask them to issue a ""Rupee Draft/Bankers Check"" payable in India. The charges for this would be higher than Option 3, less than Option 1. Mail this to friend/relative in India to deposit this into Indian Account. Typically couple of days timelines for transfer to happen."

"This is a legal business concept, as long as you don't misrepresent the source material.  If you want to rebrand the items, you'll  need a contract with the manufacturer.  I would contact the sales dept at the manufacturer, and see if you can become a reseller/partner (many companies have ""certification"" programs, where you will gain cheaper prices for  products if you undergo training on them) or even sign a rebranding deal.  Ask for a reselling discount on the trains/accessories (20% isn't unreasonable in software- I'm not sure about the model industry), then buy from the manufacturer instead of the store.  Hope it works out for you!"

Freehold is simple - it's when you own the building and the land it's on.  There's no rent to pay (but you will still have to pay taxes!). Leasehold is when the property is leased - rented out for a fixed period that could be anything from 6 months to 199 years.  There will be a rent to pay.  The person who owns the property is still the freeholder. There may be some confusion caused by what is being sold.  You can buy out a lease from the current leaseholder.  It's also possible to buy the freehold of a property that is currently leased to someone else. It is also possible to have a freehold building on leasehold land.

in 20 yrs your generation will vote itself into office and be in control. like gay rights....climate change...healthcare...abortion etc are promises now. so will be your  school debts and kids education. You will  vote and argue for or against forgiving your own debts and make higher education a right. You will  just keep digging the hole you complain other people made for you like the generations before you. problem will be solved. have a beer and relax..

You should talk to a lawyer who's familiar with the matter. I'm not such a lawyer. For the best of my understanding, at least with regards to the US, the answer to all three of your questions is no. Legally, a US company cannot employ Iranian residents and transfer money to Iran. However, I know of Iranians working in the US. So if you manage to secure a H1b visa and move to the US - you can work and earn money here. What you do with it after you earned it - is your business.

">Make sense, those willing to pay a large price premium on a lap top would probably be willing to spend more on a hotel.  And just as likely they would not be WANTING to reserve a room at the Motel 6, much less Ma & Pa Kettle's ""rooms 4 rent"" fleabag motel.  If you're a ""brand name & image"" consumer when it comes to consumers (the days when the Mac OS/GUI was pragmatically/functionally ""better"" than other products is long past), then you are probably into buying brand names and ""image"" in other products/services as well."

Ultimately the bank will have first call on the house and you will be the only one on the hook directly to the bank if you don't make the mortgage payments. There's nothing you can do to avoid that if you can't get a joint mortgage. What you could do is make a side agreement that your girlfriend would be entitled to half the equity in the house, and would be required to make half the payments (via you). You could perhaps also add that she would be part responsible for helping you clear any arrears. But in the end it'd just be a deal between you and her. She wouldn't have any direct rights over the house and she wouldn't be at risk of the bank pursuing her if you don't pay the mortgage. You'd probably also need legal advice to make it watertight, but you could also not worry about that too much and just write it all down as formally as possible. It really depends if you're just trying to improve your feelings about the process or whether you really want something that you could both rely on in the event of a later split. I don't think getting married would make any make any real difference day-to-day. In law, with rare exceptions, the finances of spouses are independent from each other. However in the longer term, being married would mean your now-wife would have a stronger legal claim on half the equity in the house in the event of you splitting up.

Not being able to keep up with demand--for at least a foreseeable 5 years, as you just said--is a pretty huge failure in itself, and I don't see them being able to last. They underestimated the market and I expect some of the big established automakers like Toyota, Ford, and Nissan to swoop down and meet the demand with their own offerings as well as with new models. Tesla, as you just noted, still has yet to be PROFITABLE, whereas Amazon has been around for some 20 years now, and HAS actually turned a profit, and they've had the huge ups and downs of just about any 20-year-old business, so your comparison of Amazon's last-quarter losses to Tesla's last-quarter losses is pretty absurd.


Question: How do rich people guarantee the safety of their money, when savings exceed the FDIC limit?

They might not have to open accounts at 12 bank because the coverage does allow multiple accounts at one institution if the accounts are joint accounts. It also treats retirement accounts a separate account. The bigger issue is that most millionaires don't have all their money siting in the bank. They invest in stocks, bonds, government bonds, international funds, and their own companies. Most of these carry risk, but they are diversified. They also can afford advisers to help them manage and protect their assets.

You could also look at your growth in online subscribers as a metric for valuing your company. A progressive increase in subscribers is one of the signs of a healthy online business, and vice versa. Your subscriber growth, site visitations, returning customer percentages and other subscriber based metrics should not be ignored when valuing your company.

"You aren't playing devils advocate, you aren't thinking at all.  If it's skilled or not is not isn't relevant to the discussion at all.  Walmart makes more than enough money to pay their employees a living wage.   The fact is that every single walmart exists today beause their employees can be subsidized by the state and federal government which means your tax dollars that you work for every single day literally is being used to pad the profit margins of walmart executives and their shareholders.  Do you understand that?  Your tax dollars are paying for the benefits of Walmarts workers, Walmart is NOT paying the benefits of their employees out of the profit they make.    What's the argument here, that because it's ""unskilled labor"" these people don't deserve to be paid enough to not be on state aid?  is that really the argument here?  If ""unskilled labor"" is so worthless how is Walmart generating some of the largest profits of any company around when most of their work force is ""unskilled labor?"""

There's no limitation on what you can invest in, including trading stocks (as long as trading is not a business activity, like day-trading or investing for others). You just need to make sure you have a tax ID (either ITIN or SSN) and pay taxes on all the gains and dividends. Also, consider your home country tax laws, since you're still tax resident in your home country (most likely).

At my farm our turkeys live their entire lives outdoors on pasture (except for the first three weeks when they need artificial heat to survive); they don't receive any medications or antibiotics; and we slaughter them ourselves without pumping their carcasses full of... whatever butterball pumps into their turkeys.  We charge $3.75 a pound, so our birds range from about $45 to $75.  What ends up being really expensive are heritage turkeys.  These are old-fashioned breeds that gain weight very slowly and have a huge feed-to-weight ratio.  They take much more feed and labor for the same amount of weight, and so are often upwards of $6.00 a pound.  We don't raise them because one of our goals is raising good food that normal folks can afford.  Also they can fly, which throws our whole raise-them-outdoors system into logistical chaos.  Naturally raised turkeys are there to be had, but you have to look for them.  Check out [Eat Wild](http://eatwild.com/) to find a pasture-based farm in your area that raises turkeys.  Good luck!

$10k isn't really enough to make enough money to offset the extremely high risks in investing in options in this area. Taking risks is great, but a sure losing proposition isn't a risk -- it's a gamble. You're likely to get wiped out with leveraged options, since you don't have enough money to hedge your bets. Timing is critical... look at the swings in valuation in the stock market between the Bear Sterns and Lehman collapses in 2009. If you were highly leveraged in QQQQ that you bought in June 2009, you would have $0 in November. With $10k, I'd diversify into a mixture of foreign cash (maybe ETFs like FXF, FXC, FXY), emerging markets equities and commodities. Your goal should be to preserve investment value until buying opportunities for depressed assets come around.  Higher interest rates that come with inflation will be devastating to the US economy, so if I'm betting on high inflation, I want to wait for a 2009-like buying opportunity. Then you buy depressed non-cyclical equities with easy to predict cash flows like utilities (ConEd), food manufacturers (General Mills), consumer non-durables (P&G) and alcohol/tobacco. If they look solvent, buying commodity ETFs like the new Copper ETFs or interests in physical commodities like copper, timber, oil or other raw materials with intrinsic value are good too.  I personally don't like gold for this purpose because it doesn't have alot of industrial utility. Silver is a little better, but copper and oil are things with high intrinsic value that are always needed. As far as leverage goes, proceed with caution. What happens when you get high inflation? High cost of capital.

The market is not stupid. It realises that a company is worth less after paying out dividends than before paying them. (It's obvious, since that company has just given out part of its earnings.) So after a company pays out dividends, its stock price normally drops approximately by the amount paid. Therefore if you buy, get the dividend, and immediately sell, under normal conditions you won't make any profit.

"TARP was ~$475 billion of loans to institutions.  Loans that are to be paid back, with interest (albeit very low interest).  A significant percentage of the TARP loans have been (or will be) paid back.  So, the final price tag of the TARP was only a few $billion (pretty low considering the scale of the program). There is ~$10 trillion in mortgage debt outstanding.  That's a much higher price tag than TARP.  Secondly, paying off the mortgages = no repayment to the government as there was with TARP.  The initial price tag of your plan would be ~$10 trillion, instead of a few $billion. Furthermore how does a government with >$15 trillion in debt already come up with an extra ~$10 trillion to pay off people's mortgages?  Should the government go deeper into debt?  Print more money and trigger inflation? (Note:  Some people like to talk about a ""secret bailout"" by the Fed, implying that the true cost of TARP was much higher than claimed by the government.  The ""secret bailout"" was a series of short-term low/no interest loans to banks.  Because they were loans, which were paid back, my point still stands.)  Some other issues to consider: Remember that the principal balance of your mortgage is only a small portion of your payments to the bank.  Over 30 years, you pay a lot of $$$ in interest to the bank (that's how banks make a profit).  Banks are expecting that revenue, and it is factored into their financial projections.  If those revenue streams suddenly disappeared, I expect it would majorly screw the up the financial industry. Many people bought houses during the real estate boom, when housing prices were inflated far beyond the ""real"" value of the house.  Is it right to overpay for these houses?  This rewards the banks for accepting the inflated value during the appraisal process.  (Loan modification forces banks to accept the ""real"" value of the house.) The financial crisis was triggered by people buying houses they could not afford.  Should they be rewarded with a free house for making poor financial decisions?"


Question: Who Can I Hire To Calculate the Value of An Estate?

"Generally, it would be an accountant. Specifically in the case of very ""private"" (or unorganized, which is even worse) person - forensic accountant. Since there's no will - it will probably require a lawyer as well to gain access to all the accounts the accountant discovers. I would start with a good estate attorney, who in turn will hire a forensic accountant to trace the accounts."

Aside from the market implications Victor and JB King mention, another possible reason is the dividends they pay. Usually, the dividends a company pays are dependent on the profit the company made. if a company makes less profit, the dividends turn out smaller. This might incite unrest among the shareholders, because this means that they get paid less dividends, which makes that share more likely to be sold, and thus for the price to fall.

"When I first started working in finance I was given a rule of thumb to decide which price you will get in the market: ""You will always get the worst price for your deal, so when buying you get the higher ask price and when selling you get the lower bid price."" I like to think of it in terms of the market as a participant who always buys at the lowest price they can (i.e. buys from you) and sells at the highest price they can. If that weren't true there would be an arbitrage opportunity and free money never exists for long."

I've had a BofA ATM screw up a deposit too. They will get it right. Call BofA or go to the same branch in the morning, explain the problem and submit a dispute. In my case, they credited my account immediately for the disputed amount.  They'll get the cash from the ATM and reconcile the amounts in the machine with your claim. It'll take a few days to sort out. It all worked out fine for me, try not to stress. They'll make it right and you should be able to get the immediate credit.

Ignore sunk costs and look to future returns.  Although it feels like a loss to exit an investment from a loss position, from a financial standpoint you should ignore the purchase price.  If your money could be better invested somewhere else, then move it there. You shouldn't look at it as though you'll be more financially secure because you waited longer for the stock to reach the purchase price.  That's psychological, not financial. Some portion of your invested wealth is stuck in this particular stock.  If it would take three months for the stock to get back to purchase price but only two months for an alternate investment to reach that same level, then obviously faster growth is better.  Your goal is greater wealth, not arbitrarily returning certain investments to their purchase price. Investments are just instrumental.  You want more wealth.  If an investment is not performing, then ignore purchase price and sunken costs.  Look at the reasonable expectations about an investment going forward.

"> I knew exactly what I wanted to do going into college. Now, I also did not end up doing what my first major was, but that was because an opportunity in finance presented itself surreptitiously.  Phrased alternatively, ""I knew *exactly* what I wanted to do, and I was *exactly* wrong about it.  Essentially, a post in support of the /u/wolfmans-brother."

no u dont need to go to a top college and there's always hope. hell you'll even be able to break in even if your grades suck. find an area of finance that you're interested in, become as specific as possible, and get really, really good in that area. it isn't enough to say you're into finance. won't even be sufficient to say you're interested in trading. be as specific as possible - macro currency trading, emerging market rates volatility arbitrage, european credit - and then be the best young guy around in that area. then its just a matter of getting in front of people and getting noticed by the right people. good luck.

I second all of this. It’s worth noting that not all estates require wealth advice. Unless it’s in the millions of dollars and you have no prior experience, I wouldn’t waste time with wealth advisors.   ML is a broker dealer, not a fiduciary.


Question: Why not just invest in the market?

"Let me start by giving you a snippet of a report that will floor you. Beat the market? Investors lag the market by so much that many call the industry a scam.   This is the 2015 year end data from a report titled Quantitive Analysis of Investor Behavior by a firm, Dalbar. It boggles the mind that the disparity could be this bad. A mix of stocks and bonds over 30 years should average 8.5% or so. Take out fees, and even 7.5% would be the result I expect. The average investor return was less than half of this. Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, and considered the father of the index fund, was ridiculed. A pamphlet I got from Vanguard decades ago quoted fund managers as saying that ""indexing is a path to mediocrity."" Fortunately, I was a numbers guy, read all I could that Jack wrote and got most of that 10.35%, less .05, down to .02% over the years. To answer the question: psychology. People are easily scammed as they want to believe they can beat the market. Or that they'll somehow find a fund that does it for them. I'm tempted to say ignorance or some other hint at lack of intelligence, but that would be unfair to the professionals, all of which were scammed by Madoff. Individual funds may not be scams, but investors are partly to blame, buy high, sell low, and you get the results above, I dare say, an investor claiming to use index funds might not fare much better than the 3.66% 30 year return above, if they follow that path, buying high, selling low. Edit - I am adding this line to be clear - My conclusion, if any, is that the huge disparity cannot be attributed to management, a 6.7% lag from the S&P return to what the average investor sees likely comes from bad trading. To the comments by Dave, we have a manager that consistently beats the market over any 2-3 year period. You have been with him 30 years and are clearly smiling about your relationship and investing decision. Yet, he still has flows in and out. People buy at the top when reading how good he is, and selling right after a 30% drop even when he actually beat by dropping just 22%. By getting in and out, he has a set of clients with a 30 year record of 6% returns, while you have just over 11%. This paragraph speaks to the behavior of the investor, not managed vs indexed."

> pay in your own country is probably better  Totally untrue. Depends on your country, obviously, but I personally know several dozen H1Bs who wanted to stay here because they can make way, way more.  Agreed that the system is busted and needs significant reform to bring in a lot more qualified workers. But our situation is very, very different from that of any European country, so you can't make a direct comparison.

What's with the price confusion in BB store and website.  Bought an $80 heart rate monitor and at checkout went on BB website.  It was $40.  Tell cashier and they change an $80 item to $40.  Told another person I saw in that area to check online.  They saved also. The next visit was to look at a turntable around $400.  They push so hard and bring this sales pitchy vibe to a $2000 turntable.  I've had numerous negative experiences.  Wish them well since competition is good but stop with the games.

This may not be entirely scientific, but as a landlord my usual approach is just to do a search for rental properties on Craigslist for comparable homes in the neighborhood. There are all kinds of formulas professional property managers use, but in the end these listings are the ones you are going to be competing with for tenants. Also, it isn't super accurate, but online services like Zillow.com can give you some numbers for rental houses that include those that aren't currently advertising.

You put your Michigan address. The incorporation address is of no concern for the IRS, they couldn't care less where you're incorporated - it has no effect on your tax liability. The address is used when audited, and the IRS expects you to give the address where the records are (i.e.: where the business, aka you, is physically located).

In other words, price increases in the US are exceeding wage increases while overseas in BRIC - wage increases are exceeding price increases.   Hmm, I can't possibly figure out which one creates a more sustainable and growing economy /sarcasm. When price increases exceed wage increases, you're going to have stagnant economy.

He's seriously blaming a memo for Nokia's problems? As if Symbian would still be selling if Elop hadn't admitted it was pathetically out of date.  Want to guess what else was going on while Nokia's market share collapsed? Android. This was the period Android went mass-market with a slew of 2.1 and 2.2 handset releases. That market share came almost exclusively at the expense of Nokia and RIM.

20k a year for in-state university is a lot more believable (and let's leave out 'good' because then we would have to account for USNWR rankings and tuitions would definitely be higher). I'm pretty sure the private college tuition average is closer to 40k/yr, maybe even over it.


Question: Is it a good idea to get a mortgage when buying a house, for credit reasons?

It may or may not be a good idea to borrow money from your family; there are many factors to consider here, not the least of which is what you would do if you got in serious financial trouble and couldn't make your scheduled payments on the loan. Would you arrange with them to sell the property ASAP? Or could they easily manage for a few months without your scheduled payments if it were necessary? A good rule of thumb that some people follow when lending to family is this: don't do it unless you're 100% OK with the possibility that they might not pay you back at all. That said, your question was about credit scores specifically. Having a mortgage and making on-time payments would factor into your score, but not significantly more heavily than having revolving credit (eg a credit card) and making on time payments, or having a car loan or installment loan and making on time payments. I bought my house in 2011, and after years of paying the mortgage on time my credit score hasn't changed at all. MyFico has a breakdown of factors affecting your credit score here: http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/whatsinyourscore.aspx. The most significant are a history of on-time payments, low revolving credit utilization (carrying a $4900 balance on a card with a $5000 limit is bad, carrying a $10 balance on the same card is good), and overall length of your credit history. As to credit mix, they have this to say: Types of credit in use Credit mix determines 10% of my FICO Score The FICO® Score will consider your mix of credit cards, retail accounts, installment loans, finance company accounts and mortgage loans. It's not necessary to have one of each, and it's not a good idea to open credit accounts you don’t intend to use. The credit mix usually won’t be a key factor in determining your FICO Score—but it will be more important if your credit report does not have a lot of other information on which to base a score. Have credit cards – but manage them responsibly Having credit cards and installment loans with a good payment history will raise your FICO Score. People with no credit cards tend to be viewed as a higher risk than people who have managed credit cards responsibly.

The era ended a long time ago.  Sears effectively carried less and less quality merchandise and consistently more garbage year over year for nearly 15 years.  The local Sears here was a constant clearance sale of lousy brand clothing and a hodge lodge of things typically done far better elsewhere.  Their television department had a selection of 6 TVs to Best Buy's 80; their lingerie department was a few random shelves mixed into heaps of their low quality house brand Jessica products and a bizarre amount of real estate committed to Vanity Fair nylon briefs that haven't been in style since '53; their tools were a random mix of shop, yard and household standards available in more orderly arrangement from any genuine home or hardware outlet; and their men's suits were 8 racks with one brand name offering and a sprinkling of hideously ugly, ill-conceived, and off-trend coloured garbage in fabrics akin to cardboard.  In short, Sears had turned into a dump.

Absolutely, I agree with Musk that anyone should be allowed to email anyone else in their company with the goal of fixing a problem and improving the business.   That doesn't mean anyone can issue an order or decision to anyone else.  That would be complete chaos.

"Economic hardship is just as misleading as ""economic slavery"".  If you are working two jobs and can't afford rent... How can you better yourself?  Sure, if you are exceptionally intelligent and/or charismatic and/or exceptionally great in some other way, you could find a way out of the hole.  But if you are working two full-time jobs and are trying your best - that should be enough.  I personally am against a $15 minimum wage - even on a local level, much less a state or federal level, but I very much support legislation that ensures someone who works 85 (or 60) hours a week (that's 12 hours a day for 85 hours per week) can get by.  By ""getting by"" I mean can rent modest housing, can afford nutritious food, can afford decent health insurance, can buy clothes (maybe second-hand), can put a bit into savings, etc.  Minimum wage jobs are done by young people just entering the job market and older people with few skills.  Better to have legislation that takes that into account.  High school and college kids won't be working 60-85+ hours a week.  Save the subsidies for the people that really need them."

"Most electric vehicles effectively run on coal.  When I make my fortune and get my *LUDICROUS MODE* Tesla, my plate will be ""BRN COAL"".  Saw an article on this site recently that claimed the production of Tesla's batteries far exceeded the emissions of a regular car."

">> Did President Trump...then come out saying he now opposed Medicare doing so?  > Yes. So he said that.  Great, I wasn't sure we could find agreement there.  > Did he ACT to make it so? Maybe, as usual, he's playing business chess...  That argument cuts both ways.  Maybe this is part of his master plan to get Medicare Part-D to negotiate drug prices, but maybe this is part of his master plan to maximize pharmaceutical company profit.  At the end of the day you have to judge a person on what he says and what he appears to do.  >> Has President Trump...prepare for the upcoming problems caused by global warming?  > Absolutely not! Absolutely not!  I agree.  > President Trump is not against any method or measure to reduce pollution or emission.  [Global warming is a serious risk to this country](https://www.americansecurityproject.org/climate-security/).  Given that it is President Trump's job to protect the country, a position of bring ""not against emission reductions"" doesn't cut it.   Thanks for answering my questions.  From your earlier replies I wasn't sure you understood how someone might see my issues as reflective of a president who is not working in the best interests of his people.  Of course you can disagree but you're not going to change my mind by dismissing what I see as tests of character and asking me to provide another.  > I am not happy with everything he said or do before and after the elections.  That's great.  Like and dislike him for your own reasons and challenge both perspectives."

It's good, it's more important that you are at a top school.   The industry is pretty competitive, but I go to a very much non - target school,and I landed a killer internship in sales and trading due to networking my balls off and failing a bunch of times.  My major is Finance, with a Stats minor that I'll be dropping.

I'd prefer having it (more or less) fluent at any time, if possible... And the Swiss National Bank (SNB) will do their darndest to make this a costly option. That's exactly the point of negative interest rates. They don't want to help you saving money. So you will have to choose what to give up: liquidity, or profitability.  But for now, you still have alternatives. The way you described it one could think that all banks will soon start to charge all their clients. That's just a distortion of facts.  If you are happy with a (close to) 0 income, you might consider opening multiple bank accounts. Many banks charge the negative interest only from certain thresholds (i.e. CHF 100k). Since you're clearly a Swiss resident, that's easy to do for you.  If you don't want to give up making an income, then you have to sacrifice liquidity. There simply aren't any short term (less than 2-3 years) instruments in Swiss Franc that are both safe and yielding a positive income. Which means that you will have to take much more risk then you had with a savings account. Ask your advisor for an investment proposal, but also consider bank independent advisors.


Question: Do bond interest rate risk premiums only compensate for the amount investors might lose?

In answer to your last formulation, no. In a perfectly efficient market, different investors still have different risk tolerances (or utility functions). They're maximizing expected utility, not expected value.  The portfolios that maximize expected utility for different risk preferences are different, and thus generally have different expected values. (Look up mean-variance utility for a simple-ish example.)  Suppose you have log utility for money, u(x) = log(x), and your choice is to invest all of your money in either the risk-free bond or in the risky bond. In the risky bond, you have a positive probability of losing everything, achieving utility u(0) = -\infty. Your expected utility after purchase of the risky bond is:  Pr(default)*u(default) + (1-Pr(default))*u(nominalValue).  Since u(default)= -\infty, your expected utility is also negative infinity, and you would never make this investment. Instead you would purchase the risk-free bond.  But another person might have linear utility, u(x) = x, and he would be indifferent between the risk-free and risky bonds at the prices you mention above and might therefore purchase some. (In fact you probably would have bid up the price of the risk-free bond, so that the other investor strictly prefers the risky one.) So two different investors' portfolios will have different expected returns, in general, because of their different risk preferences. Risk-averse investors get lower expected value. This should be very intuitive from portfolio theory in general: stocks have higher expected returns, but more variance. Risk-tolerant people can accept more stocks and more variance, risk-averse people purchase less stocks and more bonds. The more general question about risk premia requires an equilibrium price analysis, which requires assumptions about the distribution of risk preferences among other things. Maybe John Cochrane's book would help with that---I don't know anything about financial economics. I would think that in the setup above, if you have positive quantities of these two investor types, the risk-free bond will become more expensive, so that the risky one offers a higher expected return. This is the general thing that happens in portfolio theory. Anyway. I'm not a financial economist or anything.  Here's a standard introduction to expected utility theory: http://web.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Econ%20202/Uncertainty.pdf

> ive read that consumer spending stimulates an economy more than investment somewhere  Investment is necessary for an economy to grow, as is consumer spending. Neither is more important. If you lack one of those, stimulating it will do more than stimulating the other.  It's like a racing team saying the driver is more important than the car. In situations where everyone's cars are as good as they'll get, improving the driver is more important. In situations where the quality of cars differs, improving the car becomes more important.  >Also, youhave the theory that decreasing the income gap helps society in many other ways  There is strong speculation that that is the case. However, it's _100% fact_ that increasing everyone's wealth helps society much more. It's why you'd rather live today than in any more egalitarian point in our past. If tinkering with income inequality gets in the way of overall wealth creation, it will do more harm than good.

You can defer RRSP deductions to future years. So, if you purchase $20,000 in RRSPs this year but had no income, you could use this to offset your income next year when you are making, say, $100,000. For more details, see Deferring claim of significant purchase of RRSPs Note that I strongly advise you ensure you have sufficient emergency funds prior to purchasing RRSPs.

"They're certainly a factor.  Am I misunderstanding your comment?  The only way it seems to parse is if you're saying that a person who is ""earning 15K a year, no healthcare, little education, and living in poor neighborhoods ridden with theft and violence "" is not overweight, presumably for reasons at least related to the factors you gave as reasons.  But I don't see any obvious negative correlation between those things and obesity, which you appeared to be trying to claim."

No, there is no special leniency given to first time tax payers. In general, this shouldn't be an issue. The IRS collects your taxes out of every one of your paychecks throughout the entire year in what is called a Withholding Tax. The amount that the IRS withholds is calculated on your W-4 Form that you file with your employer whenever you take a new job. The form helps you calculate the right number of allowances to claim (usually this is the number of personal exemptions, but depending upon if you work a second job, are married and your spouse works, or if you itemize, the number of allowances can be increased. WITHHOLDING TAX Withholding tax (also known as “payroll withholding”) is essentially income tax that is withheld from your wages and sent directly to the IRS by your employer. In other words, it’s like a credit against the income taxes that you must pay for the year. By subtracting this money from each paycheck that you receive, the IRS is basically withholding your anticipated tax payment as you earn it. In general, most people overestimate their tax liability. This is bad for them, because they have essentially given the IRS an interest free loan (and weren't able to use the money to earn interest themselves.) I haven't heard of any program targeted at first time tax payers to tell them to file a return, but considering that most tax payers overpay they should or they are giving the government a free grant.

"Last week I dropped and shattered the screen on my Nexus 4. For a quick replacement I bought a brand new unlocked Moto E from amazon for $129. I forgot that Google bought Motorola, until my new phone came and had a screen protector that had ""Motorola, a Google company"" printed on it. The phone is damn nice for a budget model, as it's unlocked, doesn't have any carrier crapware preinstalled, and is running android 4.4 vanilla. It even has gorilla glass. What it's missing is a front facing camera, or a flash for the rear one. But one thing I like better than my nexus is that it has a micro SD card slot so I was able to add 32gb to the built in 4gb. Overall it's a really nice phone, and for only $129 compares to the $400 I paid for the nexus 4 a year and a half ago, I'm quite pleased with it."

Okays, so the prices we pay for goods and services aren't set by our income levels. Why should taxes be any different?  Surely they should be set by the benefits we receive from the community as measured by the market? That's what LVT is and does.

yea, and the other half is owned by Berkshire, didn't see op mention that at all.  Also, There is something to be said about zero based budgeting, if the military used it, they wouldn't be buying $30k toilets before their fiscal year ends.  Although, Kraft was spending hundreds of millions with my company when they were bought, and I was working on the Kraft team.  Pretty much anybody over the age of 40 was let go and replaced by the next in line.  I was actually the lowest ranking member on the team and at one point I was put in a meeting to explain 100k worth of spend to the new honcho... that was pretty scary.


Question: Why can't poor countries just print more money?

Printing money doesn't mean that their wealth increases. It just devalues the money they already have. So it will just take more money to buy goods from another country. Printing money will also lead to over inflation which has its own set of problems such as:

If you believe it yourself, you could start with the fact that you look forward to only having to wait on one person instead of the dozen or so you normally wait on. It'll make him feel important and make him feel like you have your shit together.

"You want to be an analyst? Do you mean.. Equity research analyst? Investment banking analyst? Financial analyst? Etc...  The CFA alone isn't going to help you. I don't know why people on this board are obsessed with it. It's something you do while you are in school or once you get a job and looking to move to VP/MD level, not while you're job searching. Relevant experience > CFA, all day every day  There's always some guy who says ""*BECAUSE* of my CFA candidacy...."", well you're in the minority."

All Bank fees were included in the service tax ambit [For example Check bounce, issue of duplicate statement, fees charged for remittance etc]. However as quite a few Banks structured the Remittance Business to show less charges and cover the difference in the Fx rate involved, the Govt has redone the service tax and one needs to pay Rs 120 for an amount of Rs 100,000.  There is no way to avoid service tax on remittance if you are using a remittance service.

Harvesting fresh produce is labor intensive and that costs money. As it is fresh produce is harvested using quasi-slave labor in North America, China and other parts of the world to keep prices down. Wanna know why a watermelon costs $40 in Japan and $3 in the USA? Guess which country pays legal citizens living wages to harvest produce...

"Can a company say ""StackExchange"" donate to a non-profit company say $5,000 in agreement that they will spend that on paying a designer for a new website? And most importantly is this donation still tax deductible? A non-profit would have to typically create a bucket for IT Services or Website design. As long as ""StackExchange"" specify they employ a profession service to get it done, there would be no issue. If ""StackExchange"" were to specify an individula/company it would be an issue."

"It's somewhat addicting - their ""Picture Yourself In This Job"" feature that shows your picture as it would appear at the top of your profile, yet with a different company/title. Always makes you wonder, and has had me look into the advertised position a few times."

You're basically correct, but this may help:


Question: How can someone with a new job but no credit history get a loan to settle another debt?

"The more I think about this the more I think you are actually better off letting it go to collections. At least then you would be able to agree an affordable repayment schedule based on your real budget, and having a big dent in your credit score because it's gone to collections doesn't actually put you in any worse position (in terms of acquiring credit in the future) than you are now.  Whoever is the creditor on your original loan is (IMO) quite unreasonable demanding a payment in full on a given date, especially given that you say you've only been made aware of this debt recently. The courts are usually much more reasonable about this sort of thing and recognise that a payment plan over several years with an affordable monthly payment is MUCH more likely to actually get the creditor their money back than any other strategy. They will also recognise and appreciate that you have made significant efforts to obtain the money. I'm also worried about your statement about how panicked and ""ready to give up"" you are. Is there someone you can talk to? Around here (UK) we have debt counselling bureaus - they can't help with money for the actual debt itself, but they can help you with strategies for dealing with debt and will explain all parts of the process to you, what your rights and responsibilities are if it does go to court, etc. If you have something similar I suggest you contact them, even just to speak to someone and find out that this isn't the end of the world. It's a sucky situation but in a few years you'll be able to look back and at least laugh wryly at it."

Personally, I keep two regular checking accounts at different banks.  One gets a direct deposit totaling the sum of my regular monthly bills and a prorated provision for longer term regular bills like semi-annual car insurance premiums.  I leave a buffer in the account to account for the odd expensive electrical bill or rate increase or whatever.  One gets a direct deposit of the rest which I then allocate to savings and spending. It makes sense to me to separate off regular planned expenses (rent/mortgage, utility bills, insurance premiums) from spending money because it lets me put the basics of my life on autopilot.  An added benefit is I have a failover checking account in the event something happens to one of them.  I don't keep significant amounts of money in either account and don't give transfer access to the savings accounts that store the bulk of my money.  I wear a tinfoil hat when it comes to automatic bank transfers and account access... It doesn't make sense to me to keep deposits separate from spending, it makes less sense to me to spend off of a savings account.

I took the BAT after my first semester of my freshman year. At the time I was winding up my microeconomics class. While I lacked the classical schooling, I've been investing for the past 3 years, so I'm pretty familiar with stocks, bonds, derivatives, and the like. I ended up scoring in the 50th percentile, which I was pleasantly surprised by.  The test is a mile wide and an inch deep. The math is incredibly easy, and it's all very straight forward. What got me was the accounting. I had no accounting experience beyond just examining a very basic balance sheet from time to time.

US government bonds and bonds issued by companies with a safe track record and consistently high ratings, for the past years, by credit agencies. But the time line of your investment, which is quite short, maybe a factor of choosing the right bonds. If you are not going to touch the money then CD maybe an option or an interest bearing savings account.

I've heard higher end jobs suck too.  It's the polar opposite of what a lot of silicon valley strives for: you get no stake in anything, you are only as good as your last project, and you have hella rough deadlines.  A lot of young devs go in with a romanticized view of Bezos and what he's done.

Electrical engineer here, of my friends and colleagues their success in business has been directly correlated with the work they put into becomming skilled at what they do.  I will admit the super-success of becomming a billionaire depends on a great deal of luck in addition to all that hard work, but even the unlucky, hard working ones are living comfortable lives.

"It's impossibly difficult to time the market. Generally speaking, you should buy low and sell high. Picking 25% as an arbitrary ceiling on your gains seems incorrect to me because sometimes you'll want to hold a stock for longer or sell it sooner, and those decisions should be based on your research (or if you need the money), not an arbitrary number. To answer your questions: If the reasons you still bought a stock in the first place are still valid, then you should hold and/or buy more. If something has changed and you can't find a reason to buy more, then consider selling. Keep in mind you'll pay capital gains taxes on anything you sell that is not in a tax-deferred (e.g. retirement) account. No, it does not make sense to do a wash sale where you sell and buy the same stock. Capital gains taxes are one reason. I'm not sure why you would ever want to do this -- what reasons were you considering? You can always sell just some of the shares. See above (and link) regarding wash sales. Buying more of a stock you already own is called ""dollar cost averaging"". It's an effective method when the reasons are right. DCA minimizes variance due to buying or selling a large amount of shares at an arbitrary single-day price and instead spreads the cost or sale basis out over time. All that said, there's nothing wrong with locking in a gain by selling all or some shares of a winner. Buy low, sell high!"

This isn't an article discussing the business aspects of bitcoin.  It's a comment on the price movement of bitcoin.  Do we regularly comment about the gyrations of commodities and currencies on this thread?  I tend to find talk of those things on subs like /r/finance and /r/investing.


Question: Where to find detailed information about stock?

"1. Most of the information you want can be found in the annual report of the company. Go to their official website, look for shareholders information and then download the annual report. This will answer: ""number of issued stock, voting rights, if there is more than one kind of stock, etc. In summary all the legal and formal details of a given stock. 2. After reading the annual report, check on investors websites to see if you can find analyst reports written on this company. You can sometimes find them in some free newsletters. These reports will complete the information you have found in the annual report like ""if the dividends are always paid, etc."""

And that's fine, it's THEIR network that may or may not provide Internet access, they can do what they want with your data (redirect requests or block certain access) while you're using it just as landowners can tell you where you can go and what you can do on their land. Sure, it's shitty, but it's their right to be shitty about it.  If you don't want to be subject to that, don't connect to their WiFi network.

"I use online banking as much as possible and I think it may help you get closer to your goal.  I see you want to know where the money goes and save time so it should work for you like it did for me. I used to charge everything or write checks and then pay a big visa bill.  My problem was I never knew exactly how much I spent because neither Visa or check writing are record systems. They just generate transactions records.  I made it a goal use online banking to match my spending to the available cash and ended up ok usually 9-10 months out of the year. I started with direct deposit of my paycheck.  Each Saturday, I sit down and within a half hour, I've paid the bills for the week and know where I stand for the following week.  Any new bill that comes in, I add it to online banking even if it's not a recurring expense.  I also pull down cash from the ATM but just enough to allow me to do what I have to do.  If it's more than $30 or $40 bucks, I use the debit card so that expense goes right to the online bank statement. My monthly bank statement gives me a single report with everything listed.  Mortgage, utilities, car payment, cable bill, phone bill, insurance, newspaper, etc...  It does not record these transactions in generic categories; they actually say Verizon or Comcast or Shop Rite.  I found this serves as the only report I need to see what's happening with my budget.   It may take a while to change to a plan like this one. but you'll now have a system that shows you in a single place where the money goes.  Move all bills that are ""auto-pay"" to the online system and watch your Visa bill go down.  The invested time is likely what you're doing now writing checks.  Hope this helps."

Outsourcing/offshoring.  The idea is that you give away all work that is not core to cheaper staff who do not work for you. Sure, they are cheaper but it means that the basic knowhow is sitting outside your company making it much more difficult to build up the expertise and management background for tomorrow.  I work as an independent consultant in trading systems. Companies use me because they do not want to build and retain in-house knowhow. Some of the bigger consultancies will be pleased to take the juniors that you trained and to sell them back to you at 5x the price when they become senior.

"You have 60 days from the time it came out to deposit the money into an IRA. Tell the IRA custodian it's not a 2012 deposit, but a rollover from a 401(k).  Last - it's practice for these withdrawals to have 20% withheld. Be sure to deposit the full amount (i.e. add back in the 20% withheld) and also be sure it's all reconciled on your 2012 tax return.  Edit - to answer your comment/question. ""Most"" likely, if the account was worth, say $10,000, you would have only received $8000, as 20% is withheld for taxes. So, you have $8000 in your hands, but to roll over the full amount, you come up with an extra $2000, and give the new IRA custodian $10000. Now, in April, 2013, you need to remember the old 401(k) custodian sent the IRS that $2000. It's tax you paid, and all other things being equal, you'll get it back then."

So, if we can't trust people to know what they want, who makes the decisions about what they should have, and what gives them that right?  I'm not suggesting environments don't play a role in human development, I'm suggesting that people need to learn to deal with the realities of their environments as part of their character growth. When you say that not being able to resist buying skittles is a serious problem, while there are still people living on the streets, I think you need some perspective.  I'd wager that what you're seeing as you get older is the poverty trap, which is a real problem, but which is caused by barriers to expanding earnings much more than by irrational spending (though it is a factor).  As for the insult, that's the impression your arguments gave, and I'd still like to know whether you believe you yourself need to be protected from these marketing practices, or you only feel that this is only necessary for others (implying they are somehow your inferiors in their ability to self-manage).

In the United States taxes on the sale of a principal residence are based on the difference between the sale price and the cost of the home. Assuming you meet the requirements you can shelter 250,000 or 500,000 of gains from the sale of your principal residence.  This calculation is not related to the loan balance. The basic equation is sales price minus purchase price. It get a little more complex because some costs to purchase and sell the home are included in the calculation, or if you made renovations to the house that will increase your costs and decrease your gains. Trying to decrease the loan balance just before selling the house would just be paying yourself that money at the settlement table. It could save you some money on interest between now and settlement but emptying your bank account to save a few bucks doesn't seem worth it. I would also prefer to have the money in the bank to pay for some expenses that will popup getting the house sold, you moving, and the settlement date.

">From what I've read, all the testimony has been roundly discredited.  Then you read wrong. It hasn't been discredited. The evidence is right fucking there. Read the 200 page report, read even a part of it. [Here is the evidence, maybe this will finally shut you up?](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444799904578048673157864186.html)  >I'm just looking for actual evidence while you keep saying he needs to prove himself innocent instead of the accusers proving him guilty.  ITS RIGHT FUCKING THERE!!!  Do you not see why it's so frustrating to argue with people like you? You're basically a creationist saying ""Where is the evidence for evolution?"" Again, you don't have to look very fucking far to find it. Instead you're burying your head in the sand and saying ""Where is the evidence?"""


Question: Wash Sales and Day Trading

Great question! It can be a confusing for sure -- but here's a great example I've adapted to your scenario: As a Day Trader, you buy 100 shares of LMNO at $100, then after a large drop the same day, you sell all 10 shares at $90 for a loss of $1,000. Later in the afternoon, you bought another 100 shares at $92 and resold them an hour later at $97 (a $500 profit), closing out your position for the day. The second trade had a profit of $500, so you had a net loss of $500 (the $1,000 loss plus the $500 profit).  Here’s how this works out tax-wise: The IRS first disallows the $1,000 loss and lets you show only a profit of $500 for the first trade (since it was a wash). But it lets you add the $1,000 loss to the basis of your replacement shares. So instead of spending $9,200 (100 shares times $92), for tax purposes, you spent $10,200 ($9,200 plus $1,000), which means that the second trade is what caused you to lose the $500 that you added back (100 x $97 = $9,700 minus the 100 x $102 = $10,200, netting $500 loss). On a net basis, you get to record your loss, it just gets recorded on the second trade. The basis addition lets you work off your wash-sale losses eventually, and in your case, on Day 3 you would recognize a $500 final net loss for tax purposes since you EXITED your position. Caveat: UNLESS you re-enter LMNO within 30 days later (at which point it would be another wash and the basis would shift again). Source: http://www.dummies.com/personal-finance/investing/day-trading/understand-the-irs-wash-sale-rule-when-day-trading/

"I was a school board member and district negotiator for the teacher contract.  I came off the board in the last couple years.  In this case, it doesn't seem like tenure is the issue.  This is a seniority issue.  Teacher unions, like most unions are strict seniority shops.  That is basically the only thing that matters.  Tenured teachers can be let go without cause essentially only for budget reasons.  Districts/schools will identify which grade level (for elementary) or what program/subject the reduction in staffing will occur.  The lowest senior person is let go first regardless of skill or past performance.  Interestingly, if a teacher is certified to teach in more than 1 subject area, this can also cause chaos.  If that same teacher is the one who is reduced from a given department and they have higher seniority than the department where they also have certification, they will bump that other teacher thus taking their job.  Let's say you have a teacher who is certified in science and math in the high school setting.  They are number 90 out of 200 on the seniority list.  This teacher may have been teaching science for 10 years, but the other teachers in that department are all higher on the seniority list.  The lowest senior teacher in the math department is number 100 out of 200.  If the district identifies that a reduction of 1 science teacher is necessary, that teacher gets to bump the math teacher out of the job (thus getting laid off) so that they can fill the math slot even though they haven't taught math in over 10 years.    While not in all cases, often the teachers union negotiators set the stage for these type of layoffs.  Usually districts have only so many resources to go around.  Their funding is set for them by the state and any local operating levy needs to be voted into place - which can be difficult.  Also recognize that the teachers at the table in the negotiating session are the more senior teachers in the district (since they have been around longer) and are much less likely to lose their jobs due to staff reductions.  If the teachers union negotiates a raise that is higher than the district can support with the same number of teachers, the number of teachers must be reduced.  If you think the negotiators are there for all the teachers you are wrong.  One of the teachers I negotiated with once said the following, ""We would rather a higher compensation package at the expense of teacher reductions.""  The system is designed to defend teacher compensation and provide job security as the first priority...not to provide the best education for our kids.  As with this teacher, they are losing a great asset because an outdated and terrible system was being upheld."

From personal experience: Loan Impact It does impact your ability to take out other loans (to an extent) Your first investment property is going to go against your debt to income levels, so if you take out a loan, you've essentially decreased the amount you can borrow before you hit a lender's debt to income ceiling.   Two things about that: 1) I'm assuming you have a primary mortgage - if that's the case they will factor what you are already paying for your primary house + any car loans + any student loans, etc.  Once you've successfully taken out a mortgage for your investment property, you're probably close to your debt to income ceiling for any other loans.  2) There is usually a 2 year time period where this will matter the most.  Once you've rented out this property for 2 years, most financial institutions will consider a percentage of the rent as income.  At this point you can then take on more debt if you choose. Other (Possibly Negative) Impacts and Considerations Maintenance Costs Renovations Turnovers Taxes and Insurance Downpayments and interest Income tax Advertising costs Property Management costs Closing costs and Legal fees Vacancies HOA fees Other (Possibly Positive) Impacts and Considerations Passive Income as long as the numbers are right and you have a good property manager Tax deductions (And depreciation) Rent has low correlation to the market Other investment alternatives: Stocks Reits (not directly comparable to investment properties) Long story short- can be a hassle but if the numbers are right, it can be a good investment. There's a series of articles further explaining these above listed components in detail.

"The other answers demonstrate that you'll receive a paltry amount of money in two days, by comparing to things like wages, the cost of electricity, etc. But the real point is you're incurring risk by paying late, in particular, the realistic risk of the post office messing up. That's not worth it, and it's this kind of overhead that people usually mess up when trying to optimize their finances. (More commonly, it's ""I can save 5 cents by doing this, but there's about a 400% chance I'm going to mess everything else up since I don't have infinite mental bandwidth). You asked a good and important question, but for your actual situation I must emphasize it's terrible personal finance to risk dropping your books for a superficial optimization."

"All very good answers for the most part, but I have a definition for Good and Bad debt which is a little bit different from those mentioned here so far. The definitions come from Robert Kiyosaki in his book ""Rich Dad Poor Dad"", which I have applied to all my debts. Good Debt - Good Debt is debt used to fund a money making asset, an asset which puts money into your pockets (or bank account) each month. In other words the income produced by that asset is more than all the expenses (including the interest repayments on the debt) associated with the asset. Bad Debt - Bad Debt is debt used to fund both money losing assets and non-assets, where the interest repayments on the debt are more than any income (if any at all) produced by the goods or services the debt was used to purchase, so that you need to take money out of your pockets (or bank account) each month to sustain the debt. Based on this definition a mortgage used to purchase the house you live in would be classed as bad debt. Why? Because you are making interest repayments on the mortgage and you have other expenses related to the house like rates and maintenance, but you have no income being produced by the house. Even a mortgage on an investment (or rental) property where the rent is not enough to cover all the expenses is considered to be bad debt. For the debt on an investment property to be considered as good debt, the rent would have to cover the full interest payments and all other expenses. In other words it would need to be a positively geared (or a cashflow positive) asset. Why is this definition important in distinguishing between good and bad debt? Because it looks at the cashflow associated with the debt and not the profit. The main reason why most investors and businesses end up selling up or closing down is due to insufficient cashflow. It may be a profitable business, or the value of the property may have increased since you bought it, but if you don't have enough cash every month to pay the bills associated with the asset you will need to sell it. If the asset produces enough cashflow to pay for all the expenses associated with the asset, then you don't have to fund the asset through other sources of income or savings. This is important in two ways. Firstly, if you are working and suddenly lose your job you don't have to worry about paying for the asset as it is more than paying for itself. Secondly, if you don't have to dig into your other source/s of income or savings to sustain the asset, then theoretically you can buy an unlimited number of similar type assets. Just a note regarding the mortgage to buy a house you live in being classed as bad debt. Even though in this definition it is considered as bad debt, there are usually other factors which still can make this kind of debt worthwhile. Firstly, you have to live somehere, and the fact that you have to live somwhere means that if you did not buy the house you would probably be renting instead, and still be stuck with a similar monthly payment. Secondly, the house will still appreciate over the long term so in the end you will end up with an asset compared to nothing if you were renting. Just another note to mention the definition provided by John Stern ""...debt is a technology that allows borrower to bring forward their spending; it's a financial time machine..."", that's a clever way to think of it, especially when it comes to good debt."

I wrote about this a while back: http://blog.investraction.com/2006/10/mutual-funds-dividend-option-or-growth.html In short: Growth options of a mutual fund scheme don't pay out any money, they reinvest the dividend they receive. Dividend options pay out some money, at different intervals, based on the surplus they accumulate. In India, the options have very similar underlying portfolios, so HDFC Equity Fund (Growth) and HDFC Equity Fund (dividend) will have the same percentage allocation to each stock. Update: I also have a video you might want to see on the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx8QtnccfZk

1.) The majority of credit and loans do not go to publicly traded companies.   2.) Companies can and do trade commodities with paper.   3.) Can't keep up with all the crazy you are spouting.   Smart people lose their shirt in commodities all the time, it's not a fun place to play. If you really believe the majority of publicly traded companies are going to lose their value, then invest in them when they do. Money always has to go somewhere. Insurance, pensions, governments, businesses, don't like to just have cash sit there because nothing happens (you can point to Apple, etc but they're making acquisitions) anyways, they need to buy and sell and will always have to do it.   My last piece of advice, look up the Hunt brothers.

I'm a libertarian and I just want him to present a coherent message occasionally so I know what we are in for. He can't!   The buck used to stop at the President of the United States. This ADHD afflicted child will not own anything but his own fake news. Sad!


Question: How to shop for mortgage rates ?

I asked my realtor, but she recommends to go with just one banker   (her friend), and not to do any rate shopping. You need a new realtor. Anyone who would offer such advice is explicitly stating they are not advocating on your behalf.  I'd do the rate shopping first. When you make an offer, once it's accepted, time becomes critical. The seller expects you to go to closing in so many days after signing the P&S. The realtor is specifically prohibited from pushing a particular lender on you. She should know better.  In response to comment - Rate Shopping can be as simple as making a phone call, and having a detailed conversation. Jasper's list can be conveyed verbally. Prequalification is the next step, where a bank actually writes a letter indicating they have a high confidence you will qualify for the loan.

The companies which define the major indexes do not derive profit directly from the indexes. They are typically brokerages, which use the indexes as a tool for discussing investment options with their clients and as a publicity tool to remind the public that they are long-standing, respected firms whom we might want to consider working with. Can't mention the Dow without being reminded of Dow Jones, for example. Likewise the Standard & Poor's 500 reminds us that S&P is still going strong. There may also be some slight market manipulation opportunities in choosing which specific stocks are included in each index, but since investors rarely follow an index exactly as originally defined I'm not convinced that's significant. And the mix included in each index changes relatively rarely and has to be justified by what the index claims to be representing.

Amazon uses their AWS profits to subsidize all their other businesses. They can afford to sell groceries at a loss until most of the competition goes out of business. It's good for consumers in the short term, but I wouldn't say it's capitalism working as intended. Unprofitable businesses are supposed to fold, not be propped up indefinitely by deep pocketed investors. It's monopolistic behavior without the monopoly, which I don't think we've ever seen on this scale before, so we aren't sure what, if anything, to do about it.

The main reason I'm aware of that very few individuals do this sort of trading is that you're not taking into account the transaction costs, which can and will be considerable for a small-time investor. Say your transaction costs you $12, that means in order to come out ahead you'll have to have a fairly large position in a given instrument to make that fee back and some money. Most smaller investors wouldn't really want to tie up 5-6 figures for a day on the chance that you'll get $100 back. The economics change for investment firms, especially market makers that get special low fees for being a market maker (ie, offering liquidity by quoting all the time).

This is something you are going to have to work out with the leasing company because your goal is to get them to make an exception to their normal rules. I'm a little surprised they wouldn't take 6 months pre-payment, plus documentation of your savings. One option might be to cash in the bonds (since you said they are mature), deposit them in a savings account, and show them your account balance. That documentation of enough to pay for the year, plus an offer to pay 6 months in advance would be pretty compelling. Ask the property manage if that's sufficient. And if the lease is for one year and you're willing to pay the entire year in advance, I can't see how they would possibly object. If your employment prospects are good (show them your resume and explain why you are moving and what jobs you are seeking) a smart property manager would realize you'll be an excellent, low-risk tenant and will make an effort to convince the parent company that you should live there.

"Fundamentals:  Then remember that you want to put 20% or more down in cash, to avoid PMI, and recalculate with thatmajor chunk taken out of your savings.  Many banks offer calculators on their websites that can help you run these numbers and figure out how much house a given mortgage can pay for. Remember that the old advice that you should buy the largest house you can afford, or the newer advice about ""starter homes"", are both questionable in the current market. =========================== Added:  If you're willing to settle for a rule-of-thumb first-approximation ballpark estimate: Maximum mortgage payment: Rule of 28. Your monthly mortgage payment should not exceed 28 percent of your gross monthly income (your income before taxes are taken out).  Maximum housing cost: Rule of 32. Your total housing payments (including the mortgage, homeowner’s insurance, and private mortgage insurance [PMI], association fees, and property taxes) should not exceed 32 percent of your gross monthly income. Maximum Total Debt Service: Rule of 40. Your total debt payments, including your housing payment, your auto loan or student loan payments, and minimum credit card payments should not exceed 40 percent of your gross monthly income. As I said, many banks offer web-based tools that will run these numbers for you. These are rules that the lending industy uses for a quick initial screen of an application. They do not guarantee that you in particular can afford that large a loan, just that it isn't so bad that they won't even look at it. Note that this is all in terms of mortgage paymennts, which means it's also affected by what interest rate you can get, how long a mortgage you're willing to take, and how much you can afford to pull out of your savings. Also, as noted, if you can't put 20% down from savings the bank will hit you for PMI. Standard reminder: Unless you explect to live in the same place for five years or more, buying a house is questionable financially. There is nothing wrong with renting; depending on local housing stock it may be cheaper. Houses come with ongoung costs and hassles rental -- even renting a house -- doesn't. Buy a house only when it makes sense both financially and in terms of what you actually need to make your life pleasant. Do not buy a house only because you think it's an investment; real estate can be a profitable business, but thinking of a house as simultaneously both your home and an investment is a good way to get yourself into trouble."

"> ""With a well-established brand, differentiated from other casual dining restaurants by its Garden Bar, we see significant opportunities to drive value for Ruby Tuesday,"" Aziz Hashim, the founder of NRD, said in a statement.  This gives me hope that they aren't going to get rid of the salad bar (even if he did call it the wrong name...). That was the best part about Ruby Tuesdays. The burgers and other food may have been mediocre, but there was always something enjoyable about having a beer with a great salad bar."

"Wrong. Business lending has boomed under QE.. does the term ""cov-lite"" sound familiar? That's because there's so much liquidity, that they're willing to lend to companies with little to no restrictions. There is so much credit to go around, that a ""High Yield Bond"" can price at L+800 bps.   When you're taking all the risk of a HY issuer, and maxing your return at 8.5%-9%, it's not too appealing. Instead, you could take a bit more risk, but also get all of the potential upside of equities.   1.  Fed buys assets, injects money into banks.   2.  Banks, flush with liquidity, need to put their balance sheet to use and begin lending to everyone.   2.  Bond market flooded with supply, causes bond yields to drop to historic lows.     3.  Investors don't enjoy limiting upside for incredibly low returns, and begin flooding equity markets to get some sort of yield.    Business lending is booming, making equities the only place to get larger returns."


Question: Equity As Part of Compensation

With LLCs, the operation agreement can define different shares for different kinds of income or equity, and different partners may be treated differently. In essence, you can end up with a different stock class for each partner/member. So you need to read the grant document and the OA really carefully to know what you're getting. You may want to have a lawyer read through it for you. This may be way more complicated than classes of shares in a corporation.

Mr. Raphael Lilla is a business enthusiast, a philanthropist and an honoured member of the International Society of Business Leaders. He comes with over 20 years of experience working in the Swiss and International financial markets and is currently operating as the Executive Director of SBC Group AG, Switzerland, and as Managing Director of Swiss Bullion Company International LLC, Dubai.

"I worked on a competing app a few yeas back. The primary use case isn't high-rollers wanting to save some money by selling off unused seats, it's the charter company wanting to recoup costs on completely empty planes. If they fly someone from NYC to Seattle and that person isn't returning to NYC for a week, they aren't just going to leave the plane there for the duration. So they need to reroute the plane to the next pickup point—and usually, they're doing that with no one on the plane, which is a ""dead leg"" in industry parlance.   The selection is pretty limited (compared to commercial airlines), and due to FAA regulations, they have limits on how far in advance they can advertise, so it's limited to basically 24 hours notice. You'll almost never be able to use any of these services to fly both ways on a trip. All the existing services I'm aware of also require chartering the entire plane, not just getting a seat, which leaves you to try to find a large group of people to share the cost."

"Like most other things, this is ""sometimes,"" but not always true. Sometimes banks will be willing to sell at a discount, sometimes they will hold out for ""full price."" But if you want a discount, this is a good place to ""look."""

Jew sponsorship is the way forward in politics, show business, and the media, why would mercantile operations be any different .. high profile acts Andy Warhol, Martin Luther King, and William F Buckley, were hands on in the 1963 killing, in Dallas Tx. of President John F Kennedy! [JFK Assassination Nutshell](http://www.dockersunion.net/vb/showthread.php?632-JFK-Assassination-Nutshell)  Branson's silence on the same issues, indicates his operations are similarly at the discretion of Jews .. he operates airlines, whence the entire world's airport security infrastructure, is in the hands of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service!   The TSA screenings in the US, with groping, X Rays and full body scanners, came into being after a series of transparent hoaxes, involving an underwear bomb in one instance, and an alleged shoe bomb in another, and it don't need a loser to explain, that can not be good for business!  If ppl are driven away from air transport, because of the same invasive airport security measures, and because it is by now common knowledge, the entire world's air fleets civil and military,  are compromised by computer software, that enables planes to be taken over in flight,   And to be flown by ground operators .. witness numerous otherwise unexplained air crashes, and the hijacking and rerouting of planes, September 11, 2001, by Zionist terrorists, aided and abetted by American traitors in politics and the media!

There's a few options you may want to look into. First, I'm writing from an US point of view, I do not know if these are available in Russia.  First look into DRIPS (Dividend Reinvestment Plans). These seem tailor made for your request. They are plans set up by companies that pay dividends. If you own at least one share (costing no more than say $100 often less), then these companies will take the dividends paid on these shares and automatically buy more shares as the income from the dividends pile up. This is a low cost of entry way of getting in on many high quality stocks. Stalwart stocks such as GE and many utility and real estate stocks (REITs) offer this.  Check out these links: Secondly you can look at brokerages that specialize in buying smaller amount of stocks on a regular basis to simulate a DRIP, ShareBuilder will allow you to invest say $50 or $100 a month into one or more stocks. However, at smaller amounts, their commission fees can eat in to your returns.  Folio investing does the same thing as Sharebuilder. It's worth looking at them both and comparing their commissions and other features

In the case of HP, in the early to mid 1990's they had done really well, but by the late 90's the board and shareholders wanted to see even more profits thanks to the internet boom. They ousted their CEO Platt, who rose through the HP ranks, brought in Fiorina who was from AT&T (old Long Distance AT&T not the SBC/Cingular one we have now), who over-promised and never delivered and basically forced HP in buying Compaq which nearly destroyed HP.  The only reason why HP is still around today is thanks to its business line of workstations and printers. The company made many bad decisions during Fiorini tenure which was amazing that anyone trusted her, but I'm guessing she was great at hissy fits. Somehow she has made a name for herself and is now trying politics and her type of leadership fits perfectly with the current republican party.

A lot of these schemes fail to take into account the time/effort you have to spend in order to extract the small amount of profit you would get.  If there were easy money to be made, people would start making it and the company that was allowing themselves to be swindled would put an end to that deal.  So these things usually don't last. You used to be able to order dollar coins from the mint via credit card, with no shipping.  This was risk free and allowed you to earn credit card points.  But the mint has effectively plugged this hole.


Question: Is it possible to borrow money to accrue interest, and then use that interest to pay back the borrower + fees?

No.  The WSJ prime rate is 4.25%, even the Fed prime rate is 1.75%, way above the 1.20% you'll be making from your savings account. If you are high worth individual with great credit history, the bank might give you a personal loan at 4.25%. They won't care what you do with it as long as they get their payments. If you are not that creditworthy, they'll ask for a collateral, you can mortgage your house for example. It ends up being the sames thing, you get your money and do what you want with it. If you can make more than the interest rate the bank gave you, great, you made profit. The bank however won't agree to lend you money at 0.6% (1/2 of the 1.2% APY your savings account will bring). Why would they when they can loan that at prime rate of 4.25%?? The closest you can get to something like this is if you are a hot-shot wall street money manager with track record of making big profits. In that case the bank might put some money in your fund for you to manage, but that's not something a regular person can do.

I have never seen any of my mobile phone providers report any data to any credit agency. They tend to only do that if you don't pay on time. Maybe sometimes it helps, but from my experience over the last decade - it must be some very rare times.

"All things being equal, a defined benefit pension is far better than an IRA or a 401(k).  Think about it this way - let's say you can have a guaranteed $100 a month*, or the chance at $100 a month.  Which is better?   Now, obviously, your tolerance for risk is the difference - but this is the beauty of a defined benefit plan. Your employer is picking up the risk.  Assuming that the pool of investments is about the same (which unless if their funds are tremendously under performing they are), the question is, who takes the risk - you or them? Especially if you are moving into a new position, having a defined benefit plan is like having a risk-free asset in your portfolio.  It increases your safety.  The only reason to roll this over into a 401(k) or IRA is if your expected value (risk * payout) is better.  A worked example. If half the time you would earn more than $100 and half the time less, then you could imagine the two as being equally good. Only if you really love risk would you take that chance.  In reality, only half the investments out there will ""beat"" the average, and as such, you actually have less than a 50/50 shot of beating a DB - unless if there are really low returns to it.  More likely, I suspect you are over-estimating your ability to get a higher return."

In the case of HP, in the early to mid 1990's they had done really well, but by the late 90's the board and shareholders wanted to see even more profits thanks to the internet boom. They ousted their CEO Platt, who rose through the HP ranks, brought in Fiorina who was from AT&T (old Long Distance AT&T not the SBC/Cingular one we have now), who over-promised and never delivered and basically forced HP in buying Compaq which nearly destroyed HP.  The only reason why HP is still around today is thanks to its business line of workstations and printers. The company made many bad decisions during Fiorini tenure which was amazing that anyone trusted her, but I'm guessing she was great at hissy fits. Somehow she has made a name for herself and is now trying politics and her type of leadership fits perfectly with the current republican party.

US Bank just introduced this feature, but they want $.50 per deposit!  No way man. Schwab has an Android App I have used a dozen times.   Very easy and pretty consistent.  It worked on folded checks, pictures on a reflective background (kitchen table top), big company issued checks and of course personal checks. Very positive feeling from this app and the ability to deposit.

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

It's definitely broken window fallacy. The entire premise is that vehicle accidents cost money and productivity. If they can be avoided, we will be more productive. If we had technology that made car insurance obsolete, everyone in that industry could do another productive activity.  Textbook broken window fallacy.

Stop government subsidies of student loans which leads to artificially inflated college prices.  Encourage colleges to be more upfront about employment prospects and ROI for specific degrees.  Or just eliminate 4 year degrees all together and go with nano-degrees.  Let the market decide whats in demand and valuable.  Next question.


Question: Rental Application Fees

Slightly abbreviated version of the guidance from NOLO.com California state law limits credit check or application screening fees landlords  can charge prospective tenants and specifies what landlords must do when accepting these types of fees. (Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.6.)  Here are key provisions: I am not a lawyer, but it would seem you have two options if you catch a landlord violating these rules. An idea to avoid the whole problem in the first place: Get a copy of your credit report yourself and take a copy with you to meet the landlord. If they want an application fee, ask why they need it making it clear you know the above law. If they say for a credit report offer to give them a copy in lieu of the fee.

"Have the stock certificate in with a letter from the previous owner of the company from what I can tell in the letter these stocks were distributed from the owner himself stating ""after evaluation we have determined that your investment in this company is worth 10,000 shares at $1.00 a piece"" as well as I believe these shares were also acquired when the company was going through name changes or their company was bought"

A CFD is like a bet. Bookies don't own horses or racetracks but you still pay them and they pay you if the horses win. If you buy a CFD the money goes to the firm you bought it from and if the stock price changes in your favour, they will pay you. However, if it goes against you they may ask you for more money than you originally invested to cover your losses. Constacts for difference are derivatives, i.e. you gain on the change in the price or delta of something rather than on its absolute value. Someone bets one way and is matched with someone (or perhaps more than one) betting the other way. Both parties are bound by the contract to pay or be payed on the outcome. One will win and the other will necessarily lose.  It's similar in concept to a spread bet, although spread bets often have a fixed timescale whereas CFDs do not and CFDs generally operate via the payment of a commission rather than via charges included in the spread. There's more information on both CFDs and spread betting here If somone has a lot of CFDs that might affect the stock price if it's known about as others may buy/sell real stock to either make the CFD pay or may it not pay depending on whether they think they can make money on it. Otherwise CFDs don't have much of an effect on stock prices.

I have a few recommendations/comments: The trick here is to make it clear to the dealer that you will not be getting a new car from them and their only hope of making some money is to sell you your own car. You need to be prepared to walk away and follow through. DON'T buy a new car from them even if you end up turning it in! They could still come back a day later and offer a deal. Leasing a new car every 3 years is not the best use of money. You have to really, really like that new car feeling every three years and be willing to pay a premium for it. If you're a car nut (like me) and want to spend money on a luxury car, it's far wiser to purchase a slightly used luxury vehicle, keep it for 8+ years, and that way you won't have a car payment half the time!

Emergency Data Recovery by a SSAE 16 / Class 10 ISO 4 Cleanroom Certified Company in Indianapolis. Secure Data Recovery Services was the first data recovery company to earn an SSAE 16 certification and one of the only firms with an SAS 70 Type II certification. We use third-party consultants to audit and test our facilities several times per year in order to meet the requirements of these certifications.

Look at [Nike's 10K Annual Report From 2016](http://s1.q4cdn.com/806093406/files/doc_financials/2016/ar/docs/nike-2016-form-10K.pdf).  It is bull.  About 50% of their main business comes from North America.    Big businesses suck for this reason.  Small business owners get taxed more than you.  (Their effective tax rate in 2016 was 18.7%)

Stay out of the big four banks and pick an online bank.  Most online banks don't have fees for incoming wire.  Ally and Capital One 360 to name a few. You can also try credit unions.  DCU doesn't charge any fees for incoming wire.  Alliant Credit Union doesn't charge fees for incoming wires. USAA too doesn't charge a fee.

Can someone please explain the following in more detail please. I'm not exactly sure how and why synthetics work. > Instead of having credit default swap reference a single company like Exxon, J.P Morgan bundled together a large, diversified basket of credit derivatives that referenced hundreds of corporate credits... those who invested in J.P Morgan's invention didn't own a piece of the actual corporate loan. Instead, they owned credit default swaps - the performance of which was determined by the performance of the underlying corporate credits.  This is from *All the Devils are Here* by Bethany Mclean and Joe Nocera


Question: Why do I see multiple trades of very small quantities?

"Or it could be a Robinhood user just messing around with their free commissions. I've seen ""people that work for organizations"" and other analysts go crazy over some completely benign activity. It is like playing poker with a newbie, unpredictable."

>You know how your cell phone battery gets shittier and shittier over time until you either get a new phone or buy a new battery? Well the same thing will happen to your car.  Uh, a lot has changed since the 90s, buddy. Batteries last many times longer than they used to.   >And what will we do with the old one that's full of toxic chemicals?  Like we do with all batteries? Recycle? Since they're something like +90% recyclable?

Wow 35% I never realized that the American corporate tax rate was so high.  In my province in Saskatchewan Canada I pay 13%(as the owner of a small corporate business).  It's no wonder American corporations want to move.   Does it not make more sense to lower the corporate tax rate while reducing loop holes etc... to make the American corporation more competitive.  Just my 2c

There is nothing wrong with self directed IRA's the problem is that most of the assets they specialize in are better done in other ways. Real estate is already extremely tax advantaged in the US. Buying inside a Traditional IRA would turn longterm capital gains (currently 15%) into ordinary income taxed at your tax rate when you withdraw this may be a plus or minus, but it is more likely than not that your ordinary income tax rate is higher. You also can't do the live in each house for 2 years before selling plan to eliminate capital gains taxes (250k individual 500k married couple). The final problem is that you are going to have problems getting a mortgage (it won't be a conforming loan) and will likely have to pay cash for any real estate purchased inside your IRA. Foreign real estate is similar to above except you have additional tax complexities. The key to the ownership in a business is that there are limits on who can control the business (you and maybe your family can't control the business). If you are experienced doing angel investing this might be a viable option (assuming you have a really big IRA you want to gamble with). If you want to speculate on precious metals you will probably be better offer using ETF's in a more traditional brokerage account (lower transactions costs more liquidity).

FedEx, at least, makes it a viable profit center.  We ship a lot, so we get around a 50% discount on freight.  Coupled with using our own freight insurance, we can charge a customer $100 to ship something that would cost them $300 if they used their own account, and still make money.

Supplier of talc powder in India http://quartzpowdermanufacturers.com/supplier-of-talc-powder-in-india.php Shri Vinayak Industries-Though we manufacture our talc product and other mineral products in India, we supply and export our Talc products chiefly to Vietnam, South Korea, UAE, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia. We Inquire and place order immediately hence always complete delivery on time. We have well packaged Talcum Powder ready stock for sale.

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/25/politics/north-korea-fm-us-bombers/index.html) reduced by 70%. (I'm a bot) ***** > &quot;Last weekend Trump claimed that our leadership wouldn&#039;t be around much longer and declared a war on our country,&quot; Ri said, according to an official translation of his remarks to reporters in New York.  > Speaking at the UN on Saturday, Ri said that Trump had made a missile attack on the US mainland inevitable by insulting the dignity of North Korea.  > &quot;Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at UN If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won&#039;t be around much longer!&quot; Trump wrote.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/72dj3v/north_korea_accuses_trump_of_declaring_war/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~216271 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*: **Trump**^#1 **right**^#2 **bombers**^#3 **country**^#4 **war**^#5"

Yeah, after watching his stream it did change my opinion of him. Went from hating him like most people in this thread to liking him. He's a very reasonable person just likes to troll lol.    You can watch one of his presentations where he makes a valid argument when confronted by a Harvard professor:  https://youtu.be/NE9PEpy-JI4