"Mortgage is a (secured) debt, a combination of a promissory note, and a security interest providing the mortage holder a secured interest in the property. Yes, you are ""in debt"". But that depends upon whether you define the term ""in debt"" as a debt appearing on the balance sheet, or the net of assets - liabilities is less than zero, whether you have a ""debt"" expense on the income statement (budget), or whether the net of income - expenses is less than zero. One person might look at their budget, find the (monthly) mortgage payment listed, and judge that they have a debt payment, and thus are ""in debt"". Or they might look at their expenses, find they exceed their income, and judge that they are ""in debt"". Another person might look at their balance sheet, compare assets to liabilities, and only say they were ""in debt"" when their liabilities exceeded their assets. Some people view mortgage debt as ""good debt"", as they view certain debts as ""good"" and others as ""bad"". Trust me, having a high mortgage payment (higher 30% of your net income) is hard, and over 40% is bad. Consider you balance sheet and your income statement.  On your balance sheet, the house appears on the ""asset"" side with an (estimated) value, while the ""mortgage"" (really, the promissory note part of the mortgage) appears on the ""liability"" side. On your income statement, your house does not appear on the income side, but the mortgage (promissory note) payment appears on the expense side. So, you clearly have both a ""liability"" with a clearly-defined value and an ""expense"" with a clearly-defined payment. But do you have an ""asset""? According to an accountant, you have an ""asset"" and a ""liability"". But you do not have a business asset that is producing revenue (income), nor do you have a business asset that can be amortized and expensed to reduce taxable income. When we think about an asset, does the word have the connotation of some thing with value, something that produces income?  Well, by that measure, a house only provides income when we rent it out, and only has value when we consider selling it. As millions of families discovered during the housing (price) collapse, when the market price of your ""asset"" falls substantially, your personal financial status can fall negative and you can be ""broke""."


I think the OP took responsibility for their mistakes by walking away from their mortgage and living life with in their means. If it screws the bank, so be it, because the bank failed in its responsibility to do due diligence, whether that means figuring out if their mortgagee can pay over the life of the loan and/or if the housing market is a bubble.   And the houses were paid for by the banks. The house is the collateral for the loan the bank made. The banks distorted the market with their easy money, and now they have to pay the consequences.


">Hulu has obviously made great progress but still has to obey the rules.  They're an exception to all of this because they're owned by ""a joint venture of NBCUniversal (Comcast/General Electric), Fox Entertainment Group (News Corp) and Disney-ABC Television Group (The Walt Disney Company), with funding by Providence Equity Partners, the owner of Newport Television...""  Even with the full support of three major conglomerates, the service is still gimped (delays in broadcasting new episodes, limited availability of past episodes/seasons) by their fear of change."


TL;DR: No, it doesn't count against the Roth IRA basis. You can find out by looking at Form 8606 Part III, which is the part for distributions from Roth IRA. Line 19 is the sum of nonqualified distributions, plus qualified first-time homebuyer distributions. You would put $10000 here. Then you would subtract $10000 on line 20 (qualified first-time homebuyer expenses) to get $0 on line 21. You enter your basis on line 22, but since line 21 was 0, you stop. You do not subtract anything from your basis. If you take out more than $10000, then it's only the part over $10000 that is subtracted from your basis.


"This falls under value investing, and value investing has only recently picked up study by academia, say, at the turn of the millennium; therefore, there isn't much rigorous on value investing in academia, but it has started. However, we can describe valuations: In short, valuations are randomly distributed in a log-Variance Gamma fashion with some reason & nonsense mixed in. You can check for yourself on finviz.  You can basically download the entire US market and then some, with many financial and technical characteristics all in one spreadsheet. Re Fisher: He was tied for the best monetary economist of the 20th century and created the best price index, but as for stocks, he said this famous quote 12 days before the 1929 crash: ""Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months.""   - Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in economics, Oct. 17, 1929 EDIT Value investing has almost always been ignored by academia.  Irving Fisher and other proponents of it before it was codified by Graham in the mid 20th century certainly didn't help with comments like the above.  It was almost always believed that it was a sucker's game, ""the bigger sucker"" game to be more precise because value investors get destroyed during recession/collapses.  So even though a recessionless economy would allow value investors and everyone never to suffer spontaneous collapses, value investors are looked down upon by academia because of the inevitable yet nearly always transitory collapse.  This expresses that sentiment perfectly. It didn't help that Benjamin Graham didn't care about money so never reached the heights of Buffett who frequently alternates with Bill Gates as the richest person on the planet.  Buffett has given much credibility, and academia finally caught on around in 2000 or so after he was proven right about a pending tech collapse that nearly no one believed would happen; at least, that's where I begin seeing papers being published delving into value concepts.  If one looks harder, academia's even taken the torch and discovered some very useful tools. Yes, investment firms and fellow value investors kept up the information publishing, but they are not academics. The days of professors throwing darts at the stock listings and beating active managers despite most active managers losing to the market anyways really held back this side of academia until Buffett entered the fray and embarrassed them all with his club's performance, culminating in the Superinvestors article which is still relatively ignored.  Before that, it was the obsession with beta, the ratio of a security's variance to its covariance to the market, a now abandoned theory because it has been utterly discredited; the popularizers of beta have humorously embraced the P/B, not giving the satisfaction to Buffet by spurning the P/E.   Tiny technology firms receive ridiculous valuations because a long-surviving tiny tech firm usually doesn't stay small for long thus will grow at huge rates.  This is why any solvent and many insolvent tech firms receive large valuations: risk-adjusted, they should pay out huge on average.  Still, most fall by the wayside dead, and those 100 P/S valuations quickly crumble. Valuations are influenced by growth.  One can see this expressed more easily with a growing perpetuity: Where P is price, i is income, r is the rate of return, and g is the growth rate of i.  Rearranging, r looks like: Here, one can see that a higher P relative to i will dull the expected rate of return while a higher g will boost it. It's fun for us value investor/traders to say that the market is totally inefficient.  That's a stretch.  It's not perfectly inefficient, but it's efficient.  Valuations are clustered very tightly around the median, but there are mistakes that even us little guys can exploit and teach the smart money a lesson or two. If one were to look at a distribution of rs, one'd see that they're even more tightly packed.  So while it looks like P/Es are all over the place industry to industry, rs are much more well clustered. Tech, finance, and discretionaries frequently have higher growth rates so higher P/Es yet average rs.  Utilities and non-discretionaries have lower growth rates so lower P/Es yet average rs."


Sit down with professional with knowledge about eldercare issues. Know how your options regarding the property ownership can impact the services they qualify for. Even making a change in ownership can impact their eligibility for certain programs. Some of which can reach back to events in the recent past. Also if you own it but she will get some of the profits when you sell, she could still be considered an owner, which can impact eligibility for programs. This is in addition to the issues with the lender, the IRS, and your estate.


But they beat most revenue estimates... should be a heavy down day tomorrow, even though the stock is already massively oversold, especially when compared to industry peers and average P/E ratios of tech companies.  Last 12 months of earnings: $44.16


Whoa nobody is championing for *free* internet services. People don't want data caps and throttling. It's obvious that it's completely feasible and profitable to offer services like that without a monopolized control.   But your argument hurts my brain. You say the government is the reason these monopolies exist. So your train of thought is to let it continue uncorrected? I'm as capitalist as they come but monopolies help nobody and only hurt the consumer.


>Man is a social animal.  He generally is; but he doesn't *have* to be.  Not in anything like way that the aforementioned bees are.  >The survival of our species has been only made possible by our acceptance of our co-dependency.   Au contraire. The social co-dependency (within limits) has served to both allow the species to thrive, AND at the same time, has often severely limited and constrained us.  The vast majority of human history has essentially been one of cyclical feudal-fascistic/crony-capitalistic -- monarchical governments in collusion with an elite of rentier-landowners who together control commerce -- growth during the early post anarchy stages, and then followed by later implosion as the system ossifies (with socialistic aspects implemented in an attempt to maintain power in the face of a growing mob).


According the FSCS: If the bank fails FSCS would refund the maximum under our rules (currently £75,000 per person).  Any credit balance over and above this would be offset against the mortgage by the insolvency practitioner responsible for the winding up of the bank. FSCS would play no part in that process. (Unless the savings were larger than the debts, but then it wouldn't make sense to have them in a zero interest offset account!) So the money would not be completely lost as such. Whether that would count as an overpayment is an open question, but perhaps a moot point anyway if the bank went under. (Finally, arguably, a pension or other investment might also be better for such amounts.)


I completely agree with requirements, like GPA.  I think that weeds some bad loans out, and is a much better version of tough love than non-dischargable debt once you are out of school.    The non-discharged debt problem is tough, and I think this aspect ties into the college cost inflation:  If you, as a lender, basically have a perpetual lien on someone because they can't discharge the debt, then you (lender) can  issue riskier loans, and more of them.  I haven't heard the term 'subprime loans' used to describe student debt, but I think the term is just as applicable to bad student creditors as it was to bad home creditors in the housing bubble.  There seems to be moral hazard involved for lenders that have non-discharge covenants, and so they lend, even after government lenders tell people 'no more.'


Top recruitment firms in India fills up the gap between the job seeker and the Company. Other than its own data source it brings together with several job sites such as Naukri, time jobs, jobs ahead and monster India and sources applicants from them for choosing professionals. This way, they support both the job hunter and the company. The reach of these professional search firms is far and wide so the information is rich and very valuable for the company.


1040ES uses the smaller number because that's what triggers the penalties.  (That is, you are penalized if what you prepay is less than your total 2013 liability and less than 90% of your 2014 liability.)  However, estimated taxes are just estimates.  If you pay too little, you could face a penalty, but there's no penalty for paying too much -- you'll just get a refund as usual. It seems that your concern stems from the fact that this is the first year you're in this tax situation and so you're unsure if your estimates are accurate.  In your comment to Pete Belford's answer, you also indicated you aren't worried about being unable to pay, but only about accidentally underpaying. In this case, you could just err on the side of caution and pay more than 1040ES says you owe.  (You don't actually file the 1040ES, the calculations are just for your own use.)  For instance, you could prepay based on the higher of your two estimates, if you can afford it; or, if you can't afford that much, hedge the estimate payments up a bit to an amount you can afford that is closer to the higher estimate.  At the end of the year if you paid too much you can get a refund as usual.  After this year, you will presumably have a better sense of your income and your tax liability, and can make more accurate estimates for next year.


Investors hungry for returns are piling back into securities once tarnished by the financial crisis.  Complex structured investments developed a bad reputation during the credit crunch. Ten years later, investors seeking yield are overcoming their skepticism and buying into securities that rely on financial engineering to juice returns.   Volumes of CLOs, or collateralized loan obligations, hit a record $247 billion in the first nine months of the year, according to data from J.P. Morgan Chase  JPM 1.59%▲  & Co. Fueled by a wave of refinancings and nearly $100 billion in new deals, that far outpaces their recent full-year high of $151 billion in 2014 and the precrisis peak of $136 billion in 2006.  The CLO boom is the latest sign of the ferocious hunt for yield permeating markets. Stellar performance over the past year has made CLOs increasingly hard to ignore for investors like insurance companies and pension funds.  CLOs carve up a portfolio of bank loans to highly indebted companies into slices of securities with different levels of risk. The securities at the bottom of the CLO stack offer the highest potential source of returns, but they are also the first to absorb losses if there are defaults in the underlying loan portfolio. The more senior slices offer lower returns but are more insulated from losses.  CLOs are often lumped together with other alphabet-soup acronyms of the financial crisis, such as more toxic CDOs, or collateralized debt obligations. But CLOs actually weathered the financial crisis well: Investors who bought at the top of the market in 2007 suffered paper losses, but there were no defaults at all for the highest-rated securities.  That track record has helped boost CLOs’ appeal for investors with lingering concerns over scooping up more complex investments.    .   Taking off / Global CLO volumes   “The demand for things like CLOs….is extraordinary,” said Rick Rieder, chief investment officer for global fixed income at BlackRock  Inc.   CLOs are one of the largest demand sources for the leveraged loan market, which has also been booming this year. Volumes of leveraged loans, often used by private-equity firms to fund buyouts, are on track to surpass their 2007 record, according to LCD, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence. At the same time, investors have voiced concerns about companies’ rising leverage level, and weaker creditor protections.  Within a CLO are different risk profiles: Investors in the most senior, AAA-rated piece of debt get paid first and are the most insulated from losses if defaults rise in the underlying loan portfolio. They also receive the skinniest returns. Slices of debt further down receive higher returns, but will suffer losses if defaults spike. At the bottom sits the equity tranche, the first loss-absorber and last to get paid, but the highest potential source of returns.  A 2014 report from Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services stated that AAA-rated and AA-rated CLO tranches incurred no losses at all between 1994 and 2013. Loss rates for lower-rated tranches, meanwhile, were low—just 1.1% for B-rated securities over that period.    .   Flying High / Market returns since J.P. Morgan recommended buying CLOs last July   That doesn’t prevent some conservative investors from conflating the CLOs with the now-infamous CDOs, many of which were linked to subprime mortgages and spread and amplified losses in the U.S. housing market. One breed of CDOs are on a comeback path of their own, with more investors returning to them during an aging bull market.  Many people were “burnt by these acronyms from the crisis,” said Zak Summerscale, head of credit fund management for Europe and Asia Pacific at Intermediate Capital Group . He is currently recommending that clients buy senior CLO tranches over investment-grade bonds.  CLOs, like other types of securitizations, have been subject to greater regulation since the financial crisis. That includes forcing funds that manage a CLO to retain 5% of the securities, in an effort to align incentives with investors.  That has “attracted additional capital into the market,” said Mike Rosenberg, a principal at alternative investment manager Tetragon.  Assets under management in the “loan participation” sector—a proxy for funds that invest in CLOs—have grown 21% this year to $206 billion, according to Thomson Reuters Lipper.  The pickup in CLOs has been a boon to banks weathering declines in trading revenues in the current low-volatility environment. Revenue from CLO-related activity at the top 12 global investment banks more than doubled over the first half of 2017 from a year earlier to almost $1 billion, according to financial consultancy Coalition.  CLO investors have been handsomely rewarded in recent months. J.P. Morgan strategist Rishad Ahluwalia recommended clients buy CLOs last July as he thought they looked too cheap. Between then and the end of September, BB-rated CLO tranches returned 25.4%, compared with a 25.2% return for the technology-oriented Nasdaq stock index, according to his calculations.  “CLOs have been an absolute home run,” said Mr. Ahluwalia, though he added such chunky returns aren’t repeatable.  Analysts say CLOs got beaten down last year following a series of troubles in the underlying loan market, including distress in the energy sector. Some analysts think the strong rally in CLO tranches since then should give investors pause; others think the market has further to run.  Renaud Champion, head of credit strategies at Paris-based hedge fund La Française Investment Solutions, likes AAA-rated CLO tranches but with a twist: leverage.  Mr. Champion says he buys senior European CLO tranches and borrows money against them to increase the size of his position between five and 10 times. That can amplify gains—and losses—significantly.  “The difference between now and a year ago is the availability of leverage,” he said.  Bankers say only a small proportion of CLO buyers use leverage and emphasize that trades are subject to daily margin calls. That means investors have to post cash to cover mark-to-market losses on a position, which in turn limits how much they are willing to borrow.  “The leverage in the system today is a fraction compared to precrisis,” said J.P. Morgan’s Mr. Ahluwalia.  Write to Christopher Whittall at christopher.whittall@wsj.com   Appeared in the October 23, 2017, print edition as 'Crisis-Era Securities Regain Investors’ Favor.'


Try and save up for another month's expenses in your emergency fund, but while you are doing so begin building what is called a ladder of CDs.  Tomorrow is April 1, so open a three-month CD (yes, the rates are abysmal but better than money-market fund rates) with one month's emergency fund. Repeat the process on May 1. So now you have two CDs maturing on July 1 and August 1. On June 1, take whatever of that extra month's expense you have saved up and open yet another three-month CD.  On July 1, re-invest the proceeds of the first CD into a new three-month CD. Ditto on August 1. On September 1, add the additional savings towards the additional month that you managed to make to the smaller CD to bring it closer to one month's expenses. Lather, rinse, repeat. You will, I hope, soon be in a state where you will have four months of expenses in your emergency fund: one month on hand for immediate use if needed right away, and three months of additional expenses becoming available in 30 days or less, between 30 and 60 days, and between 60 and 90 days.


"I think you're really underestimating the degree of ageism that occurs in hiring and just how much youth is favoured in the job markets. Experience costs more and it depreciates quickly. In most case employers  will prefer someone less experienced who comes across as mature and less expensive than someone who is more experienced but has been our of the industry for a year or more. The attitude of ""you can't teach an old job new tricks"" rules. Your 30s represent the ideal sweet spot: you are still young and you have some experience. If you're not in full preparing for retirement mode by 40 or 45, you're going to have a bad time. GenXers have lost most of their sweet spot and if the recovery doesn't happen, they will have lost all of it.   Yes, Millenials have it pretty bad too -- no one is disputing that -- but GenX was screwed from the start. We have larger generations on either side of us. We are a transitional generation that started out before computers went mainstream but ended after, so we have a hard time competing with Millenials who have lived with technology all their life. The whole structure of the world changed right under us, i.e., the end of the cold war. And this change significantly increased available labour. Even before 2008 the talk was all about how screwed the GenXers where because of the power of Boomers and the dominance of the Millenials. We already had our backs up against the wall then 2008 struck.  Also, I'd much rather be 28 and looking for a job than 40+ and looking for one. It's so much easier to jump industries or cites or countries when younger and you don't have children to look after. The 28 year old is not locked a career path and has lost a ton of political capital and credibility for having lost their job. The 40+ year old will always have to face questions: why wasn't he/she one of the one the company kept during the layoffs? will he/she be able to learn and adapt to the new job? will he/she be comfortable reporting to someone younger? will he/she be will to sacrifice time away from kids to work longer hours to compete with younger employees?"


What are you trying to buy that's not on Prime? I find that almost everything (something like 99%) of what I want to but on Amazon has a Prime option.   Free shipping alone makes it worth it and it is soo nice getting things in 2 days.  Then you get Prime video and some music (niceties that I would never buy alone but nice perks on top of the shipping)


It is a good events here to get the full entertainment with our team building who gives you a target such as solving  puzzles inside the escape rooms . There are more activity here for your special fun. The Escape Rooms Palm Beach is so amazing place  in USA, Florida.  It is so excellent place for the couple and many individuals comes here to get real entertainment that would help the teammates. We corporate events west palm beach with a team building.


I personally like Schwab. Great service, low fees, wide variety of fund are available at no fee. TD Ameritrade is good too.


I read online that most portable AC units last 18-24 months before crapping out. My previous one lasted only a summer. Hence I went hunting for a replacement and paid a decent premium for the 5y warranty.  I grew up in a country with great consumer protection, still naive when it comes to American norms.


What is the point of this? Can't I achieve the exact same effect and   outcome by exchanging currency now and put that amount of USD in a   bank account to gain some interest, then make the payment from one   year from now? This is for companies, not individuals. Companies usually take loans, because they think they can make more money (e.g. 10%*) than the interest on the loan (e.g. 5%*). Putting money on a bank account to earn interest there would give them even less (e.g. 1%*). So with your option, instead of earning 10%* interest, they'd earn 1%* interest. If the cost of the currency forward is less than these 9%* difference, the forward saves them money. If they have excess cash and they don't know how to invest that money, your option may be preferable *Simple numbers chosen for simplicity, not accuracy.


How to 'use' your shares: If you own common shares in a company (as opposed to a fund) then you have the right (but not the obligation) to excersize one vote per share on questions put before the shareholders. Usually, this occurs once a year. Usually these questions regard approval of auditors. Sometimes they involve officers such as directors on the board. You will be mailed a form to fill out and mail back in.  Preferred shares usually are not voting shares,but common shares always are.  By the way, I do not recommend owning shares in companies. I recommend funds instead,either ETFs or mutual funds. Owning shares in companies puts you at risk of a failure of that company. Owning funds spreads that risk around,thus reducing your exposure.  There are, really, two purposes for owning shares 1) Owning shares gives you the right to declared dividends 2) Owning shares allows you to sell those shares at some time in the future. (Hopefully at a profit)  One obscure thing you can do with owned shares is to 'write' (sell) covered put options. But options are not something that you need to concern yourself with at this point.  You may find it useful to sign up for a free daily email from www.investorwords.com.


No that will not count as a short sale although it may still affect your chances of getting a loan because some lenders wont want to see it on your credit if you are pursuing a new FHA loan. In the best case scenario you will need an explanation letter of why you did this. In the worst case scenario the lender will want you to wait to get financing.  Try and find a lender with NO FHA overages which means they don't put additional restrictions on giving you an FHA insured loan. That type of lender will be your best choice because they just follow FHA rules and don't add any additional requirements.


Militaries members are duties in the rural area and they can offer to live the rural area in the off-base houses. They are so expensive. But all the Military Housing Rental charges are not equal. In the rural area, there is a lot of peace and prosperity or financial battles.


For those that are on the forefront of innovation and are passionate about their work, sure. But I'd guess that demographic only makes up about 10 percent of the workforce. For the rest of us, you have to ask yourself the question: is it worth it?  The rest of us are mostly maintaining society and providing services. What if 2 people worked the same job that 1 person works, each putting in 3 days a week instead of 5. Unemployment would go down.   Maybe people only work these long weeks because they've been told it's their only option. Also, we don't really have the choice. If I apply for a job and tell them I'd like to only work 3 days a week, they'd laugh me out.


"I (and probably most considering trading) had a similar thought as you.  I thought if I just skimmed the peaks and sold before the troughs, perhaps aided by computer, I'd be able to make a 2% here, 2% there, and that would add up quickly to a nice amount of money.  It almost did seem ""foolproof"". Then I realized that sometimes a stock just slides...down...and there is no peak higher than what I bought it for.  ""That's OK,"" I'd think, ""I'm sure it will recover and surpass the price I bought it for...so now I play the waiting game.""  But then it continues sliding, and my $10k is now worth $7k.  Do I sell?  Did I build a stop loss point into my computer program?  If so, what is the right place to put that stop?  What if there is a freak dip down and it triggers the stop loss but THEN my stock recovers?  I just lost $14,000 like this last week--luckily, only virtually! The point is, your idea only has half a chance to work when there is a mildly volatile stock that stays around some stable baseline, and even then it is not easy.  And then you factor in fees as others mentioned... People do make money doing this (day traders), and some claim you can use technical analysis to time orders well, so if you want to try that, read about technical analysis on this site or elsewhere."


No, it's a $10k withdrawal. You net what you net after federal and state taxes.  IRA? It has a similar penalty free $10k withdrawal option for home purchase,  so this might give faster access once you decide.  Given the choice between a withdrawal and a loan, I'd take the loan. As soon as you are with the new employer, ask HR about the rules for participating in their 401(k) and rules for their loans. If, for whatever reason it won't work for you, take $10K and transfer to the IRA, and the rest into the 401(k), if the 401(k) has good investments and low cost..  My answer focuses on the desire to withdraw the money. A loan is better than a withdrawal. Better than both is a delay and saving all you can for the downpayment. After the closing, I'd be mindful of spending, save all you can to retirement accounts and pay this loan off over the time good for you.


I think George's answer explains fairly well why the brokerages don't allow this - it's not an exchange rule, it's just that the brokerage has to have the shares to lend, and normally those shares come from people's margin, which is impossible on a non-marginable stock. To address the question of what the alternatives are, on popular stocks like SIRI, a deep In-The-Money put is a fairly accurate emulation of an actual short interest.  If you look at the options on SIRI you will see that a $3 (or higher) put has a delta of -$1, which is the same delta as an actual short share. You also don't have to worry about problems like margin calls when buying options.  The only thing you have to worry about is the expiration date, which isn't generally a major issue if you're buying in-the-money options... unless you're very wrong about the direction of the stock, in which case you could lose everything, but that's always a risk with penny stocks no matter how you trade them. At least with a put option, the maximum amount you can lose is whatever you spent on the contract.  With a short sale, a bull rush on the stock could potentially wipe out your entire margin.  That's why, when betting on downward motion in a microcap or penny stock, I actually prefer to use options.  Just be aware that option contracts can generally only move in increments of $0.05, and that your brokerage will probably impose a bid-ask spread of up to $0.10, so the share price has to move down at least 10 cents (or 10% on a roughly $1 stock like SIRI) for you to just break even; definitely don't attempt to use this as a day-trading tool and go for longer expirations if you can.


I see, thanks for the link. My initial impression is that there are probably more considerations than the theoretically optimal way to lever the company. The two tech companies I named have a fear of insolvency baked into their DNA. I would imagine their CFO's are aware of this theory and have either decided protecting against insolvency is more important -- or they've been unable to persuade the CEO/board to do the theoretically optimal thing and distribute that cash to shareholders and put the company into debt.  It's an appeal to authority but I'm still going to assume that if all the tech giants are doing it this way, it's probably the right decision for them. Even if it does conflict with this theory.


"> When did we switch the word ""image"" with ""optics""?  Back in 2010, the NYT wrote that ""[although the metaphorical expansion of 'optics' into the political arena feels novel, it has actually been brewing for a few decades.](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07FOB-onlanguage-t.html)"" They identify usages going back to 1978 at least.  It's not a direct synonym for ""image"", because it's often used to refer to a specific incident or transaction, where ""image"" wouldn't fit as well."


"Ultimately, money derives its value from being spend on a good or service. Investing it is an act of denying your present-self a good or service so that your future-self can obtain (hopefully more) goods or services. Investing is a sensible and responsible default position, but you clearly have passed the point at which the opportunity cost of the dollar not spent today is greater than its benefit in the future. Not all dollars are the same. Remember that money is a temporary store of value but you have to spend it to realize that value. In your search, learn about the ""psychology of money."" What are you saving it for? How much do you want left over when you die? If you die tomorrow, will you regret not having spend a little more? I'm sorry to get morbid on you, but saving for the future requires answering the question ""How long?"" and it's never forever. This may be tangential but it shaped my behaviour towards money nonetheless: Frank Zimbardo on The Psychology of Time. I would hazard a guess and say that you land in the future-oriented camp."


I went to one of those seminars, some huge HUGE bullshit scheme. I like what RDPD does with inspiring you, but they were riding on his name to make you increase your credit limit, put things on the card, take a trip to some other country to learn more about real estate, all the while giving them thousands of dollars. Total bullshit.  I now have more rental properties, doing it my way, and I made money with each purchase.  Was the one you went to from the Tigris company or something like that?


"Actually, you have it backwards, reasearch shows that a great deal of privatization is unsuccessful, also its often found to be a form of looting of society. You should read he following paper:  [Out of Control: The Coast-to-Coast Failures of Outsourcing Public Services to For-Profit Corporations](http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/sites/default/files/1213%20Out_of_Control.pdf)  The pending free trade agreements like the [super secretive TiSA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_pPqnbXpA4) that mandate vastly expanded privatizations and ""liberalisation"" (globalization) of  service sectors around the world, are not going to be beneficial, IMO. I feel strongly that they are going to be hugely disruptive."


The equity you have is an asset. Locked away until you sell, and sometimes pledged as a loan if you wish. The idea that it's dead money is nonsense, it's a pretty illiquid asset that has the potential for growth (at the rate of inflation or slightly higher, long term) and provides you an annual dividend in the form of free rent.  In this country, most people who own homes have a disproportionate amount of their wealth in their house. This is more a testament to the poor saving rate than anything else. For me, a high equity position means that I can sell my home and buy a lesser sized house for cash. I am older and my own goal (with the mrs) is to have the house paid and college for the kid fully funded before we think of retiring. For others, it's cash they can use to rent after they retire. I hope that helped, there's nothing magic about this, just a lot of opinions.


>Automatization is ideal for major firms and big players who can cut costs and make more profit.  Well, that's the question. How are we going to deal with the situation in a scenario where humans become unemployable?


"There are three (or four) ways that a company can grow: (Crowdfunding is a relatively new (in mainstream businesses) alternative financing method where people will finance a company with the expectation that they will benefit from the product or service that they provide.) Obviously a startup has no prior income to use, so it must either raise money through equity or debt. People say that one must borrow contingent on their salary. Banks lend money based on the ability to pay the loan back plus interest.  For individuals, their income is their primary source of cash flow, so, yes, it is usually the determining factor in getting a loan.  For a business the key factor is future cash flows.  So a business will borrow money, say, to buy a new asset (like a factory) that will be used to generate cash flows in the future so that they can pay down the debt.  If the bank believes that the use of the money is going to be profitable enough that they will get their money back with interest, they'll loan the money. Equity investors are essentially the same, but since they don't get a guaranteed payback (they only get paid through non-guaranteed dividends or liquidation), their risk is higher and they are looking for higher expected returns. So the question I'd have as a bank or equity investor is ""what are you going to do with the money?""  What is your business strategy? What are you going to do that will make profits in the future?  Do you have a special idea or skill that you can turn into a profitable business?  (Crowdfunding would be similar - people are willing to give you money based on either the social or personal benefit of some product or service.) So any business either starts small and grows over time (which is how the vast majority of businesses grow), or has some special idea, asset, skill, or something that would make a bank willing to take a risk on a huge loan. I know, again, that people here tend to turn blind eyes on unfortunate realities, but people do make giant businesses without having giant incomes. The ""unfortunate reality"" is that most startups fail.  Which may sound bad, but also keep in mind that most startups are created by people that are OK with failing.  They are people that are willing to fail 9 times with the thought that the 10th one will take off and make up for the losses of the first 9.   So I would say - if you have some great idea or skill and a viable strategy and plan to take it to market, then GO FOR IT. You don't need a huge salary to start off.  You need something that you can take to market and make money.  Most people (myself included) either do not have that idea or skill to go out on their own, or don't have the courage to take that kind of risk.  But don't go in assuming all you need is a loan and you'll be an instant millionaire.  You might, but the odds are very long."


The 1 month and 1 year columns show the percentage change over that period. Coupon (coupon rate) is the amount of interest paid on the bond each period (as specified on the coupon itself. Price is the normalised price of the bond; the price of taking a position of $100 worth of the principal in the bond. Yield is the interest rate that you would receive by buying at that price (this is the inverse of the price). The time is the time of the quote presented.


"Same here.  I usually buy store brand or really weird healthy ""crunchy vegan"" type shit, so unfortunately (for advertisers), I'm not the target demographic for like 99% of food advertising.   I see Applebees and Taco Bell commercials and kinda just shrug because that stuff is not appealing to me at all.   However, you show me some fresh kale and smoked almonds and homemade hummus and tabbouleh, and baby you got a stew goin' on...."


Historically when short term treasuries (maturity less than 5 years) have a higher yield than long term treasuries (10+ years) a recession has followed within a year or so.  Don't quote me on the bond maturities and how quickly a recession occurs but it's basically accurate.    Edit: we are not there right now but that seems to be the trending direction.


In the scenario you describe, the first thing I would look at would be liquidity.  In other words, how easy is it to buy and sell shares.  If the average daily volume of one share is low compared to the average daily volume of the other, then the more actively traded share would be the more attractive.  Low volume shares will have larger bid-offer spreads than high volume shares, so if you need to get out of position quickly you will be at risk of being forced to take a lowball offer. Having said that, it is important to understand that high yielding shares have high yields for a reason.  Namely, the market does not think much of the company's prospects and that it is likely that a cut in the dividend is coming in the near future. In general, the nominal price of a share is not important.  If two companies have equal prospect, then the percentage movement in their share price will be about the same, so the net profit or loss you realise will be about the same.


When Obama took office, the yearly deficit was $1.16 trillion, when he left office it was only $600 billion.  Yes, the total debt continued to increase because he didn't manage to get us to a surplus like Clinton did, but he made a lot of progress.  Compare this to the last three Republican presidents, W. Bush, Bush, and Regan, each of which increased the yearly deficit when they were in office.  Trump seems poised to continue the GOP's record of fiscal irresponsibility.


"> No, what he's talking about are forums and other social sites that are too small to police all of the content their users post. He's saying that they are as guilty as the criminals you're speaking of.  Still no. You start off with ""no"" and then admit he was not talking about all small businesses. Now you claim that all small tech businesses are going to get involved in sex trafficking.  >I, however, am an expert on the subjec  So are they publishers or common carriers?  >He's saying that Google and Facebook and similar large corporations are legitimate, and all ""independent"" or small business competitors to them are criminals.  You don't even seem to be competent in English no less a subject domain expert."


I think it's fairly obvious that I'm talking about people that have recently graduated college that are 21-25 years old. If you need me to spell it out, plenty of people make 100k out of college after having graduated at the age of <25.


Lmfao. You seriously believe one of the biggest companies in the world is making this deal in order to get into a niche area within the grocery store market...    Amazon is competing with Walmart, not Trader Joe's. One of the biggest setbacks with online retail is the cost of heavy items. This will give them the brick and mortar front in order to cut costs and compete effectively across a plethora of items.


If you are looking for an index index fund, I know vanguard offers their Star fund which invests in 11 other funds of theirs and is diversified across stocks, bonds, and short term investments.


No, there's nothing special in mutual funds or ETFs. Wash sale rules apply to any asset.


If you can use and pay off your credit card in full every month, there are plenty of benefits including improved credit, reward points and more. Many fall into the trap of just making the minimum payments and facing high interest charges or missing payments and getting a hit on their credit reports.  To start off, put something small that you know you can pay off every month. It could be your Netflix or your gas. Make sure you pay it off before any interest is accrued. Over time, you can ask for higher limits to boost your utilization rate.


Your urge to invest is a good one. If you don’t invest your money, you're probably leaving about two thirds of it on the table. By the time you need the money (without knowing your exact future withdrawals, and taking national averages into consideration), investing would have grown it by three times.  As far as how much money you should invest...I invest everything I'm not going to use in the next month or two. My advisor is able to monitor my bank accounts and sweep any unused cash into investment accounts. Using AI, they're able to figure out exactly which days I'll be needing cash then put it back in my accounts before I need it. 1% of my portfolio is always kept in cash, for emergencies. With investing, there are lots of things to consider. You need to decide what to invest in - spread your money over many different asset classes - monitor market trends - have a plan for market ups and downs - regularly rebalance - maneuver the fun world of taxes.  Basically - asset management.  Vanguard mutual funds are an easy, affordable way to spread your money over many different assets, but they don't offer much when it comes to asset management. I'd suggest you find a flat fee advisor (no more than 1% of your managed assets) who listens to you, determines your goals, creates a plan based on upon, then executes it with no commission or execution costs. In this particular vein, robo advisors are the best bet. I don't want to come across like I'm selling something, however, I have had much satisfaction with online digital advisors. Hope this helps.


Yes, this is definitely possible. You can optimize your credit worthiness within 18 months, you would first start with a secured credit card just to establish a little bit of credit history and then use that as a jumping point 6 months later to do several unsecured credit card applications. As a student, your primary limiting factor will be your truthful income when you apply for the cards, resulting in low limits, where using less than 30% of those limits is not a useful amount of money. Your credit scores can be looked at as a spendable balance. New inquiries spend some of that balance, low utilization earns you more of the balance. They will trend upwards with the right approach, and you can use the balance at their highs to time more inquiries. Note: My answers typically differ in that I narrowly tailor my answers to the question asked, and don't masquerade or acknowledge the idea of advice. Impulsive spenders with credit have bad credit, I can live with that.


A tax of 0.01 cents on a transaction though would mean you'd wait until the spread was at least 0.02 cents before making the trade. But I particularly think the offender is not even day traders, it's the completely ridiculous fact that a person will offer to buy stock at a certain price, or lower,  another person will offer to sell the stock at a lower price, and before the transaction is completed another broker buys the stock and resells it, because his computer is located closer to the data center than either of the other two persons.  That guy is making money and wasting electricity and real estate to get it, and the ultimate purchaser is getting a worse deal.  We still have that problem, but the margins have been squeezed on the HTF guy a bit, so maybe it isn't an issue.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-consumers-loans/u-s-cracks-down-on-debt-collection-of-private-student-loans-idUSKCN1BT26G) reduced by 73%. (I'm a bot) ***** > WASHINGTON - The U.S. consumer financial watchdog on Monday ordered National College Student Loan Trusts and its debt collector, Transworld Systems Inc, to pay at least $26.1 million for attempting to collect on possibly non-existent or out-of-date loans.  > According to the CFPB, the collection of 15 trusts purchased and securitized more than 800,000 private student loans, and then sold notes to investors.  > Last summer the CFPB, charged with guarding individuals against predatory lending, proposed toughening regulation of debt collection industry after fielding thousands of complaints from people contacted about debts they did not owe or illegally harassed by collection agencies.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/70z1th/us_cracks_down_on_debt_collection_of_private/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~212498 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*: **debt**^#1 **Loan**^#2 **CFPB**^#3 **Trusts**^#4 **collection**^#5"


Find 1 BHK Flats in NH 24 Ghaziabad Crossing Republik at the best affordable prices with great amenities. ASG Group is offering 1 BHK, 2 BHK, 3 BHK flats in the prime location in Crossing Republik. There are many amazing features of ASG Apple7 which includes the fact that these homes provide an opportunity of living in natural surroundings. The compound of Apple7 ensures unison with nature so as to elevate the living experience for occupants. The township is beautifully landscaped so as to provide breathtaking views from all levels. The surroundings of ASG Apple7 are also enriched with natural environment.


Theoretically, when a company issues more shares, it does not affect the value of your shares.  The reason is that when a company issues and sells more shares, the proceeds from the sale of those shares goes back into the company. Using your example, you have 10 out of 100 shares of the company, for a 10% stake.  Let's say that the shares are valued at $1,000 each, meaning that the market value of the company is $100,000, and your stake is worth $10,000. Now the company issues 100 more shares at $1,000 each.  The company receives $100,000 from new investors, and now the company is worth $200,000.  Your stake is now only 5% of the company, but it is still worth $10,000. The authorized share capital is the amount of shares that a company has already planned on selling.  When you buy stock in a company, you can look up how many shares exist, so you know what your percent stake in the company is.  When a company wants to sell more shares, this is called an increase of authorized share capital.  In order to do this, the company generally needs the approval of a majority of the existing shareholders.


> Companies shouldn't be weasling ways to skirt the spirit of the law.  Hahah ahahahahah hahaha. Ha. That's good.   You're 100% right, but manipulating a system and screwing others for personal gain is innate in humans. There are plenty that are good and won't step on others to get ahead, but a lot out there won't.


And rich person is more likely not to choose subpar government services when they can choose something else. Meaning if the were allowed to opt out of this monopoly service provider they would. Meaning the only ones who want government services is those who want someone else to pay for it for them.


"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?"


"I agree it seems insulting to pay the credit reporting agencies, but I have no choice at this point. I'd rather pay the small fee per each of them, to freeze accounts, then have thousands stolen. My husband has excellent credit and also we have a rather substantial savings account, that his info could give ""would be"" identity thieves access too.  This whole situation is messed up, and unacceptable! For one, no one EVER gave these credit reporting agencies access to their info, it's just a ""give in"" being born here. And for two, no one asked for their information to be kept in insecure databases. Higher standards need to be implemented.  My poor 72 year old father is outraged when I tell him his info is online. He says, ""I don't use the Internet!!! How can it be there?!?!"" (Poor old soul lol)  I just said, ""well dad, it is, whether you use it, or like it or not. It's there""  I just need to make sure we are taking the correct steps to protect ourselves. Honestly, I am not finance savvy. This is why I'm asking here in this sub. Thank you for responding, and thanks to anyone else who may offer any advice.  I'm not terrified, but I'm definitely miffed..."


"Not to state the obvious, but whenever an investment is being made, the ""nuts and bolts"" is your return on investment.  Analyzing the rate of return on an investment is the primary factor in any decision.  Ideally, once the actual mechanics of investment and side ""benefits"" are factored out, the goal is to be able to analyze the pure financial return. Usually the biggest problem faced in analyzing various investments is comparing the Present Value of an investment to a series of payments that may be made or received in the future.  When considering the purchase of a large equity, for example, you might be looking at what series of payments are required to purchase the asset.  You can also reverse this and ask, ""What amount of money is equivalent to this series of payments?"" Ultimately, the Present Value of an Annuity is the way to make these comparisons equal.   Fundamentally, the Present Value of an annuity is an amount of money that should, in theory, be equivalent to a series of payments.  There is, for example, technically no difference between $1064.94 today and $100 a month for a year, at an interest rate of 1% per month.  Grant you, most people would be happier with the money now, but that is what interest does - it compensates you for waiting on your money.   You can fire up a spreadsheet and calculate the Present Value as long as you have the monthly payment, interest rate, and number of periods.  Alternatively, you can calculate any one of those missing four variables - and the key is usually to understand what that rate would be in order to compare the investments. Finally, the taxable implication is really just an adjustment to the rate of return. Imagine the following three scenarios: (Obviously the rates are fictional - the goal is to show they are the same). Scenarios 1 & 2 are really just two sides of the same coin.  Using the Future Value formula in Excel = FV(0.5%, 12, -100), you get $1233.56.  In scenario 1, you would have $1233.56 in your bank account.  In scenario 2, your bank would have $1233.56 from you, and you would have $100 less debt per month.  They are equivalent transactions.   Scenario 3 is really just a variation on scenario 2, localized to the United States.  Because the interest is tax deductible, however, the rate of 6% isn't really accurate.  Assuming you had a 25% tax bracket, you'd actually be getting back one quarter of your interest.  Put another way, 7.5% mortgage interest costs you as much as 6% credit card debt. This is how you compare apples and organges - just turn everything into an annuity or a lump sum, using Present Value calculations.   Finally, quick rule of thumb - if you owe taxes in both Canada and the US, your Canadian taxes are probably higher than your American ones.  As such, any tax incentives will be concomitantly higher.  If you only can only use Canadian tax incentives, then look to those incentives, other things being equal."


Regarding the mortgage company, they will want to know where the down payment came from, and as long as you are honest about it, there is no fraud. It's possible that the mortgage company may have some reservations about the deal now that they know where the down payment came from, but that will depend on the size of the deal and other factors. If everyone involved has decent credit, and this is a fairly standard mortgage, it will probably have no impact at all.


I think Amazon over paid a bit. Whole foods was closing stores and on their way to massive losses due to their insanely high price points on goods being non competitive vs trader joe's, walmart and the like. I guess this bid was like a god send for them and whole foods was definitely a motivated seller by this point.


>but in the real world it takes no real skill to work at Walmart.  Neither does your garbage man, but you still need someone to actually pick up your garbage. You don't pay people enough to do an otherwise lack luster job they aren't going to do it and then where will you be?


I would probably try to find a job back home or around school in a company doing wealth management or something financial. After your second year, leverage your first summer and aim for smaller groups in big cities that might not recruit heavily and aren't bulge or a high name boutique but still do serious finance and learn a lot. Third year, shoot for the big names and talk about your experience, that will set you a part from everyone else who likely has little finance experience.


"Yes, you are absolutely correct. I do understand the concept of ""intrinsic value"" with regards to bonds and options and other marketing and finance terms, but I think people have tried also to apply this term to economics and politics, and it's very difficult to do so in a manner that doesn't really bring out the fact that these are *social sciences*."


Neither I nor the greater study of Economics disputes the emotions of the individual in making their decisions.  Short term, non-cooperative decision making is a classic, very common example of where people make decisions in the short run that do not benefit them in the long run based on their emotional reaction to the situation at hand. Thats why we compensate people for the value of their labor and not our moralistic interpretation of their needs.  I also have disputed the generosity of individuals in making their decisions, which you have failed again and again and again to rebut.  I have also disputed the use of false morality in state level judgements of what people should do.


I think the point is that m2 is 13.7 trillion usd, the Swiss investment is not even *half* a percent.  The us equities marker valuation is larger at 22.5 trillion USD. Dumping an extra 100 bil usd is too little to do anything. Even dumping a trillion USD  is a relatively small number.


Any time a large order it placed for Buy, the sell side starts increasing as the demand of Buy has gone up. [Vice Versa is also true]. Once this orders gets fulfilled, the demand drops and hence the Sell price should also lower. Depending on how much was the demand / supply without your order, the price fluctuation would vary. For examply if before your order, for this particular share the normal volume is around 100's of shares then you order would spike things up quite a bit. However if for other share the normal volume is around 100000's then your order would not have much impact.


Well, if they were lemons, the value is significantly less than what GS sold them to the government for. What is more sad is that Fannie and Freddie are going to get made whole and we are going to pretend like their incompetence and lack of due diligence never happened.   Back to business as usual, until the next time the hacks at these government agencies get burned.


This doesn't sound very legal to me. Real estate losses cannot generally be deducted unless you have other real estate income. So the only case when this would work is when that person has bunch of other buildings that do produce income, and he reduces that income, for tax purposes, by deducting the expenses/depreciation/taxes for the buildings that do not. However, depreciation doesn't really reduce taxes, only defers them to the sale. As mhoran_psprep said - all the rest of the expenses will be minimal.


I looked around and I don't think there's any way to do what you want completely in Quicken.  This should get you the graph, though: Here's what mine looked like (I whited out the numbers on the vertical axis):  Once this is done, it's faster in the future to add data to this chart.


Hopefully it gets past the fcc review I'm sure VZW and AT&T will lobby hard against this.  Also I hope they don't add bandwidth caps.  I'm grandfathered in with VZW and their new pricing model looks terrible to me.


Let's talk about the Constitution. The Constitution has two purposes: To list *a portion of* person's (*not just Americans, but all persons*) inalienable rights, and to list *the only things* that the government is *allowed* to do. So I have no fucking *clue* where you got the idea that states have *rights*. Only *persons* have rights. States are *allowed*, by persons, to do certain things, but *cannot* have *rights*. **Rights** are exclusive to **persons**.


The few short years of economic pain from the devaluation will produce a better and growing economy over the long run.   My thought with their devaluing of the currency is that more foreign capital would flow in and be used for investment which would lead to economic growth.


TL; DR version:  What you propose to do might not save you taxes, and may well be illegal. Since you mention your wife, I assume that the Inherited IRA has been inherited from someone other than your spouse; your mother, maybe, who passed away in Fall 2015 as mentioned in your other question (cf. the comment by Ben Miller above)? If so, you must take (at least) the Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from the Inherited IRA each year and pay  taxes on the distribution. What the RMD is depends on how old the Owner of the IRA was when the Owner passed away, but in most cases, it works out to be the RMD for you, the Beneficiary, considered  to be a Single Person (see Publication 590b, available on the IRS web site for details). So, Have you taken the (at least) the RMD amount for 2016 from this Inherited IRA? If not, you will owe a 50% penalty of the difference   between the amount withdrawn and the RMD amount. No, it is not a typo;   the penalty (it is called an excise tax) is indeed 50%. Assuming that the total amount that you have taken as  a Distribution from the Inherited IRA during 2016 is the  RMD for 2016 plus possibly some extra amount $X, then that amount is included in your taxable income for that year.  You cannot rollover any part of the total amount distributed into  your own IRA and thereby avoid taxation on the money. Note that it does not matter whether you will be rolling over the money into an existing IRA in your name or will be establishing a new rollover IRA account in your name with the money: the prohibition applies to both ways of handling the matter. If you wish, you can roll over up to $X (the amount over and above the RMD) into a new Inherited IRA account titled exactly the same as the existing Inherited IRA account with a different custodian. If you choose to do so, then the amount that you roll over into the new Inherited IRA account will not included in your taxable income for 2016. To my mind, there is no point to doing such a rollover unless you are unhappy with the current custodian of your Inherited IRA, but the option is included for completeness. Note that the RMD amount cannot be rolled over in this fashion; only the excess over the RMD. If you don't really need to spend the money distributed from your Inherited IRA for your household expenses (your opening statement that your income for 2016 is low might make this unlikely), and (i) you and/or your spouse received compensation (earned income such as wages, salary, self-employment income, commissions for sales, nontaxable combat pay for US Military Personnel, etc) in 2016, and (ii) you were not 70.5 years of age by December 2016,  then you and your wife can make  contributions to existing IRAs in your names  or establish new IRAs in your names.  The amount that can be contributed for each IRA is limited to the smaller of $5500 ($6500 for people over 50) and that person's compensation for 2016, but if a joint tax return is filed for 2016, then both can make contributions to their IRAs as long as the sum of the amounts contributed to the IRAs does not exceed  the total compensation reported on the joint return.  The deadline for making such IRA contributions is the due date for your 2016 Federal income tax return. Since your income for 2016 is less than $98K, you can deduct the entire IRA contribution even if you or your wife are covered by an employer plan such as a 401(k) plan.  Thus, your taxable income will be reduced by the IRA contributions (up to a maximum of $11K (or $12 K or $13K depending on ages)) and this can offset the increase in taxable income due to the  distribution from the Inherited IRA.      Since money is fungible, isn't this last bullet point achieving the same result as rolling over the entire $9.6K (including the RMD) into an IRA in your name, the very thing that the first bullet point above says cannot be done? The answer is that it really isn't the same result and differs from what you wanted to do in several different ways. First, the $9.6K is being put into IRAs for two different people  (you and your wife) and not just you alone. Should there, God forbid, be an end to the marriage, that part of your inheritance is gone. Second, you might not even be entitled to make contributions to IRAs (no compensation, or over 70.5 years old in 2016) which would make the whole thing moot. Third, the amount that can be contributed to an IRA is limited to $5500/$6500 for each person. While this does not affect the present case, if the distribution had been $15K instead of $9.6K,  not all of that money could be contributed to IRAs for you and your wife. Finally, the contribution to a Traditional IRA might be non-deductible for income tax purposes because the Adjusted Gross Income is too high;  once again, not an issue for you for 2016 but something to keep in mind for future years. In contrast, rollovers from one IRA into another IRA (both titled the same) can be in any amount, and they can be done at any time regardless of whether there is compensation for that year or not or what the Adjusted Gross Income is or whether there is coverage by a 401(k) plan. There are no  tax consequences to rollovers unless the rollover is from a Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA in which case, the distribution is included in taxable  income for that year.  What is prohibited is taking the entire amount of the $9.6K distribution from an Inherited IRA and rolling it over  into your existing IRA (or establishing a Rollover IRA in your name with that $9.6K); ditto for some money going into your IRA and some into your wife's IRA. I expect that any IRA custodian will  likely refuse to allow you to carry out such a rollover transaction but will be glad to accept 2016 contributions (in amounts of up to $5500/$6500) from you into existing IRAs or open a new IRA for you. The custodian will not ask whether you have compensation for 2016 or not (but will check your age!); it is your responsibility to ensure that you do not contribute more than the compensation etc. Incidentally, subject to the $5500/6500 maximum limit, you can (if you choose to do so) contribute the entire amount of your compensation to an IRA, not just the take-home pay amount (which will be smaller than your compensation because of withholding for Social Security and Medicare tax, State and Federal income tax, etc).


In the US, money talks and bullshit walks. You can skip any credit history requirement if you demonstrate your ability to pay in a very obvious way. Credit history is just a standardized way of weeding out people that cannot reliably pay, instead of having to listen to an individual's excuses about how the bank overdrafted their account five times while they were waiting for their friend to pay them back for bubble gum. If you can show up with a wad of cash, you can get the car, or the apartment, or the bank account without the troubles of everyone else.  But you can begin building credit with a secured credit card pretty easily. This will be useful for things like utilities and sometimes jobs. Also, banks won't be opposed to giving you credit if you have a lot of money in an account with them. You should be able to maintain an exemption from all socioeconomic problems in the United States, solely due to your experience with money and assets.


I don't understand how this gets propped up on reddit all the time. Before a candidate works at a job, he and his employer reach an agreement on what the pay will be. If the candidate doesn't agree, he doesn't work there.   If the minimum wage was $0, and an employer advertised a wage of a penny an hour, no one would take that job which forces the employer to go without an employee, or the employer increases the compensation to entice candidates to apply.  If a candidate agrees to work for whatever pay is mutually agreed upon, where is the harm?


Also lawyer, but I don't do any employment law. Common law concepts like unconscionability and negligence can still be actionable, even if expressly waived, right? I've seen cases where a person signed a liability waiver but was still able to pursue a suit against the other side under a theory of negligence. The case I read stated that a liability waiver didn't absolve the defendant from his duty to take reasonable precautions.


Seeing a lot of comments about differing prices on the best buy website and in-store. The store has to match the price. They don't have a choice.   And I don't know if its just my store or if its company wide but we match Amazon and other websites now.


While the rest of the answers seem to be focusing on the parenting strategies around giving children an allowance, I'd like to address how to accomplish that.   I think the best most reasonable way to just to supply him with a checking and savings account at whichever bank you use.  Most reasonable banks will have some form of no-fee account for minors/young people; others will waive fees if you have it paired with your account.  Whatever way to can swing it, get the kid an account he can deposit/withdraw from and that is free of any additional services.  He doesn't need to learn the pain of overdrafts or random fees yet.  Then, just set up a recurring weekly/monthly transfer to the account, and let him determine his own allocation to savings and spending.  If he can manage it online, even better, that's a far more useful skill than knowing how to fill out a deposit slip at the bank.


The reason it is coming out now is because Tesla's workforce relations are deteriorating and they want to do some damage control. The assembly workers are getting hurt all the time and are so pissed off they actually want to unionize. I don't even blame them because it must suck to be getting factory wages at a tech company.


"One of the things that make internet companies so profitable is that there is no additional costs to ""sell another widget"".  With something like EBay, there is no additional cost to add another auction/sale.  While this is true for a single auction, it eventually becomes untrue.  If you add one million auctions, the company may pay additional bandwidth, storage fees, system engineering fees, and even development fees to make the site able to handle that much volume. Sorry that I am unfamiliar with GoodGuide but I am sure you can extrapolate."


Advertising has programmed us to not trust it buy constantly exaggerating or straight up lying about its products. When you assume that the ad is going to be BS fluff anyway every ad is annoying because it isn't communicating any useful information, and therefore a waste of time.


This just proves when you're able to offer a physical product or service it is always a good investment. Especially because they own so much land. It's nice to see a company IPO that isn't an investment group, or an online business, but an actual producer of physical goods. And also the fact that it has a market cap of $3.3 bln, a number that looks like it can easily grow over time (citing Facebook's ~$100 bln entry point).


Overpaying a credit card to create a large positive balance may cause a bank to red flag your account.  This is a technique used in fraud for check kiting (write or deposit a fraudulent check to overpay your credit card, then demand a refund on the balance overpaid before the check bounces.) Every bank is different: Talk to your bank first before you try this.  For a small balance ($5-20) overpayment isn't a big deal, it happens regularly... just spend down the balance.  Past that, you might be harming your credit record or risk closing the account if the bank disagrees with how you are using an overpaid balance for a larger purchase, or you risk unwanted law enforcement attention aimed at your finances. If you are trying to do this to build your creditworthiness, a secured card is better for this purpose.  Disagree with your credit limit? Deposit more in the holding account.


">If Nike went bankrupt, should Lebron James NBA salary be taken from him?  Well no, because Nike doesn't own the NBA (that I am aware of anyway),but LeBron might lose his endorsement income via Nike.  The point I am trying to make is bankruptcy law (both corporate and personal) were put into place for individual protection.  It affords us all a kind of ""do over"".  To make it a regular business practice, and in some cases it's your ENTIRE business plan is (in my opinion) unethical and a manipulation of the laws."


A flat tax rate is terrible; economically but also morally. On the one hand, it seems morally right to me that the rich should contribute to a larger share of government spending.   But that aside, economically it makes sense for wealthier people to be taxed more as they are far likelier to save any spare money at the end of the month (which, by definition, if they are rich, should be plenty with a flat rate). Poorer people, meanwhile, are far likelier to spend any extra income; either out of necessity and deprivation or perhaps as investments that they have been putting off. Even small luxuries can now be fitted into the budget, like meals in a restaurant or strong, comfortable shoes.      My point is that this very consumption creates a demand* becomes vital to maintaining more demand. And have you heard how demand that needs supply creates it's own demand? I know, it's crazy but it's an actual eonomic concept called [Say's law](https://www.economist.com/news/economics-brief/21726050-third-brief-our-series-looks-reasoning-made-jean-baptiste-say)


High taxes and tax breaks have done. Tax breaks can only be accessed if you can essentially afford a descent accountant. For that to makes sense you need to earn a large amount of money. So proportionally the middle classes end up paying the most tax and gets the least for it.


Put Options. They're less risky than shorting, and have similar upsides. The major difference is that if the price goes up, you're just out the underwriting price. You'll also need to know when the event will happen, or you risk being outwaited.  More traditionally, an investor would pull their money out of the market and move into Treasury bonds. Recall that when the market tanked in 2008, the price of treasuries jumped. Problem is, you can only do that trade once, and it hasn't really unwound yet. And the effect is most pronounced on short term treasuries, so you have to babysit the investment. Because of this, I think some people have moved into commodities like gold, but there's a lot of risk there. Worst case scenario you have a lot of shiny metal you can't eat or use.


It depends. An ADR might be exposed to a larger market (let's say American) with more volume and thus lower spreads, and thus cheaper. But it can also be the other way around, that the ADR serves a smaller market than the home market. I would go for the largest market, with the most volume so it's quicker and cheaper to buy/sell. Often ADR has less shares, meaning that the availability is lower and the prices higher (more expensive). This is often the case with Asian stocks where governments try to limit their company's exposure to foreigners. As a general rule I would buy the 'home' stock instead of ADR. From a tax standpoint it's also easier to comply with local laws. Your local accountant will be more familiar dealing with local stocks.


I think you have just explained why it impossible for me to find a job. I have the skill set that matches the job description and hardly ever get asked for an interview. Do you have any further information about how widespread this practice may be. What size organizations does it affect?


Good point.  Maybe someone should invent a 'trust system' similar to the one that many new companies in the 'shared economy' sector use (like Airbnb, Uber etc.) where users rate the state of the vehicle when it arrives.  Those users that leave it in a bad condition will get bad ratings and will quickly find that either they have to pay a cleaning penalty, and/or the cost of the next vehicle hire increases, and/or they are declined from using the service in the future.  Whereas those that consistently look after the vehicle will be incentivized with bonuses and/or discounts.  If a user does find the vehicle to be uninhabitable then they would record this fact on their smart device and be offered a replacement vehicle and/or discounts etc.


The $10,000 is only for international travel, that you have to declare it I mean, you can still carry more.  Interstate travel you should be able to carry as much as you'd like.  The deal with banks is that any deposits over $10,000 have to be reported to the IRS.  If he has a bill of sale or some other such device there should be no issues with the banks.  Now if he doesn't claim the income on his taxes, he could have issues with the IRS though.  A quick search would give you all that information and more...


I don't recommend Roth for those in the 25% bracket. If you are in the 25% bracket now, I'd suggest you go pretax and as you are planning to be in a lower bracket in a few years, use that bracket to convert. Depositing today at 25% to convert at 15% in a few years puts you that much ahead.  I understand the allure of a Roth heavy strategy. And the fuzzy crystal ball for what the tax code will look like doesn't help. That said, a retiree today who is a few years too young for Social Security will see an Exemption + STD deduction of $10,000, and a 15% bracket ending at $36,250, so $46,250 total with a total tax bill of $4991. A retiree should target $250K-$500K pretax to stay flexible and not miss these low brackets in the future.


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


You can open an account in US without having SSN. You need to be physically present to open the account.


A Home Equity Line Of Credit (HELOC) is simply a special type of secured credit. Secured credit is credit provided to you, where the lender has some rights to an associated asset in the event that you default. In the case of a HELOC, much like a mortgage, if you default on the payment terms, the bank may be legally able to foreclose on your house, sell the foreclosed property, and take the money owed to it from the proceeds, leaving you with any net remainder. Whether your friend will be able to have a bank offer her credit secured against her business assets would depend on a variety of factors. She should talk to her bank to see whether it would be possible in her case.


This situation sounds better than most, the company it seems likely to be profitable in the future.  As such it is a good candidate to have a successful IPO.   With that your stock options are likely to be worth something.  How much of that is your share is likely to be very small.  The workers that have been their since the beginning, the venture capitalist, and the founders will make the majority of profits from an IPO or sale.  Since you and others hired at a similar time as you are assuming almost no risk it is fair that your share of the take is small.   Despite being 1/130 employees expect your share of the profits to be much smaller than .77%.  How about we go with .01%?   Lets also assume that they go public in 2.5 years and that revenues during that time continue to increase by about 25M/year.  Profit margins remains the same.  So revenues to 112M, profits to 22.5M. Typically the goal for business is to pay no more than 5 times profits, that could be supplanted by other factors, but let's assume that figure.  So about 112M from the IPO.  So .01% of that is about 11K.  That feels about right. Keep in mind there would be underwriting fees, and also I would discount that figure for things that could go wrong.  I'd be at about 5K. That would be my expected value figure, 5K.  I'd also understand that there is a very small likelihood that I receive that amount.  The value received is more likely to be zero, or enough to buy a Ferarri. There might also be some value in getting to know these people.  If this fails will their next venture be a success. In my own life, I went to work for a company that looked great on paper that just turned out to be a bust.  Great concept, horrible management, and within a couple of years of being hired, the company went bust.  I worked like a dog for nothing.


"(Real) interest rates are so low because governments want people to use their money to improve the economy by spending or investing rather than saving. Their idea is that by consuming or investing you will help to create jobs that will employ people who will spend or invest their pay, and so on. If you want to keep this money for the future you don't want to spend it and interest rates make saving unrewarding therefore you ought to invest. That was the why, now the how. Inflation protected securities, mentioned in another answer, are the least risk way to do this. These are government guaranteed and very unlikely to default. On the other hand deflation will cause bigger problems for you and the returns will be pitiful compared with historical interest rates. So what else can be done? Investing in companies is one way of improving returns but risk starts to increase so you need to decide what risk profile is right for you.  Investing in companies does not mean having to put money into the stock market either directly or indirectly (through funds) although index tracker funds have good returns and low risk. The corporate bond market is lower risk for a lesser reward than the stock market but with better returns than current interest rates. Investment grade bonds are very low risk, especially in the current economic climate and there are exchange traded funds (ETFs) to diversify more risk away. Since you don't mention willingness to take risk or the kind of amounts that you have to save I've tried to give some low risk options beyond ""buy something inflation linked"" but you need to take care to understand the risks  of any product you buy or use, be they a bank account, TIPS, bond investments or whatever. Avoid anything that you don't fully understand."


Do you think Buffet's track record is a result of luck?   Also it is tough to compare Singer and Buffet because their strategies are so different. Paul Singer's investing focuses on activism & distress, whereas Buffet is a value investor.


"I think it's apt to remind that there's no shortcuts, if someone thinks about doing FX  fx: - negative sum game (big spread or commissions) - chaos theory description is apt - hard to understand costs (options are insurance and for every trade there is equivalent option position - so unless you understand how those are priced, there's a good chance you're getting a ""sh1tty deal"" as that Goldman guy famously said) - averaging can help if timing is bad but you could be just getting deeper into the ""deal"" I just mentioned and giving a smarter counterparty your money could backfire as it's the ""ammo"" they can use to defend their position.  This doesn't apply to your small hedge/trade? Well that's what I thought not long ago too! That's why I mentioned chaos theory. If you can find a party to hedge with that is not hedging with someone who eventually ends up hedging with JPM/Goldman/name any ""0 losing days a year"" ""bank"".. Then you may have a point. And contrary to what many may still think, all of the above applies to everything you can think of that has to do with money. All the billions with 0-losing days need to come from somewhere and it's definitely not coming just from couple FX punters."


Balanced out might be a better way to put it.  Imports become cheaper, driving down inflation, which should permit companies to operate at a lower cost, which should eventually work to limit or eliminate the impact of the shift.  These balancing factors generally occur in the long term and specific sectors of the economy will be impacted to different degrees.


Just want to point out the Wells scandal happened right under the CFPB's nose - which this bill is trying to get rid of. They are too busy trying to entrap the mortgage brokers from The Big Short that they have become a bloated and useless mess.


"There are some useful answers here, but I don't think any of them are quite sufficient.  Yes, there are some risks involved in CFD trading, but I will try and give you information so you can make your own decision. Firstly, Cyprus is part of the EU, which gives it a level of credibility.  I'm not saying it's the safest or most well regulated market in the world, but that in itself would not particularly scare me away.  The far more important issue here is the risk of using CFDs and of eToro themselves. A Contract for Difference is really just a specialization of an Equity Swap.  It is in no way like owning a real stock.  When you purchase shares of a company you own a real Asset and are usually entitled to dividends and voting rights.  With a CFD, what you own is one side of a Swap contract.  You have a legal agreement between yourself and eToro to ""swap"" the return earned on the underlying stock for whatever fees eToro decide to charge.  As already mentioned, CFDs are not available to US citizens. Equity swaps have many benefits in financial markets.  They can allow access to restricted markets by entering into swaps with banks that have the necessary licenses to trade in places like China.  Many ""synthetic"" ETFs use them in Europe as a way to minimize tracking error as the return is guaranteed by the swap counterparty (for a charge). They also come with one signficant risk: counterparty credit risk.  When trading with eToro, for as long as your position is open, you are at risk of eToro going bankrupt.  If eToro failed, you do not actually own any stocks, you only own swap contracts which are going to be worthless if eToro ceased to exist. CFDs also have an ongoing cost to maintain the open position.  This makes them less suitable for buy and hold strategies as those ongoing costs will eat into your returns.  It's also not clear whether you would receive any dividends paid by the stock, which make up a significant proportion of returns for buy and hold investors.  eToro's website is fairly non-committal: eToro intends to offer a financial compensation representing the dividends which will be allocated on stocks, to the extent such dividends shall be available to eToro. All of these points expose what CFDs are really for - speculating on the stock market, or as I like to call it: gambling.  If you want to invest in stocks for the long term, CFDs are a bad idea - they have high ongoing costs and the counterparty risk becomes significant.  Wait until you have enough money and then buy the real thing.  Alternatively, consider mutual funds which will allow you to purchase partial shares and will ensure your investment is better diversified across a large number of stocks.  If however, you want to gamble and only keep your position open for a short time, these issues may not be of concern to you. There's nothing wrong with gambling, it can be fun, many people gamble in casinos or on football matches - but bear in mind that's what CFDs are for.  CFDs were in fact originally created for the UK market as a way to avoid paying capital gains tax when making short term speculative trades.  However, if you are going to gamble, make sure you're not putting any more than 1% of your net worth at risk (0.1% may be a better target). There are a few other ways to take a position on stocks using less money than the share price: Fortunately, eToro do not allow leveraged purchase of stocks so you're reasonably safe on this point.  They claim this is because of their 'responsible trading policy', although I find that somewhat questionable coming from a broker that offers 400:1 leverage on FX pairs. One final word on eToro's ""social trading"" feature.  A few years ago I was in a casino playing Blackjack.  I know nothing about Blackjack, but through sheer luck of the draw I managed to treble my money in a very small amount of time.  Seeing this, a person behind me started ""following"" me by putting his chips down on my seat.  Needless to say, I lost everything, but amazingly the person behind me got quite annoyed and started criticizing my strategy.  The idea of following other people's trades just because they've been lucky in the past sounds entirely foolish to me.  Remember the warning on every mutual fund: Past performance does not guarantee future returns"


Contraceptives aren't being taken away in most instances (exception of abortion). If you got the money you can buy condoms, spermicide, vasectomies, plan B, etc. I think people are arguing that society shouldn't have to pay for that for the individual.


It's better to use the accounting equation concept: Asset + Expenses = Capital + Liabilities + Income If you purchase an asset: Suppose you purchased a laptop of $ 500, then its journal will be: If you sell the same Laptop for $ 500, then its entry will be:


> Now, I'm all for legalizing marijuana but not if people don't accept the fact that it is a drug and you should not be driving after smoking. Too many people refuse to accept that fact and it results in people dying.  How does keeping it illegal solve any of that?


">> You have the same problem with soybeans (Geraldes Castanheira, 2013), it's a problem with production that affects all agriculture.  > You aren't getting it. Animals don't grow out the ground like plants do. You need to grow plants and then feed them to the animals to grow. The very first sentence in the soy article you sent me is ""The increase in soybean production as a source of protein and oil is being stimulated by the growing demand for livestock feed..."". You cannot win an efficiency fight in this, in the same way you cannot win an argument saying it is more efficient to create wine than it is to create grapes.   I think you didn't understand what I was pointing out. Burning down rain forest to clear land for livestock or burning down rain forest to grow soybeans for human consumption cause the same problems.   The problem is with burning down rain forest, not what you use the land for.  As I pointed out earlier we don't have an efficiency problem for food, we're not going to tell people to stop drinking wine as it's more efficient to just eat the grapes. We could also use the land to grow food for people but I've seen very few people passionately argue that people should stop drinking wine.  >> The point is that we can double the earth population without running out of food, and then we can add another 40% in the US by simply not throwing away the food, then we can optimize land use, and not all land is suitable for growing crops so we get more food by using it for meat.  > Arguing to continue proven damaging behaviours because we can ""afford it"" is trying to rationalize illogical behaviour, its like saying I can smoke because I'm still young and then when I'm older I can increase my healthy food intake and exercise to offset it.   But eating meat isn't the problem, as I've illustrated above. The problem is fossil fuels and unsustainable agricultural practices, which are the same even if people go vegan.  >> An optimized scenario includes meat as not all land is suitable to farming, and you have seafood and wildlife.  > An optimized scenario is purely plant based. That land you speak of that is not suitable for farming - it may provide physical space to house the animals, but where is the food the animals need to grow coming from? Don't even get started into ocean depletion and what we've done to that resource. And why move on to wildlife if we have no requirements for meat in the first place?  An optimized scenario is definitely not purely plant based. Would you just ignore the truly vast resources of the oceans? We can use those in a sustainable way and they provide huge amounts of food. Should we ignore huge tracts of pasture/rangeland unsuitable for farming like mountainous terrain, hills, plains with thin soil, heath, etc.? Of course we shouldn't.  This is getting a bit circular, I don't think we'll get much further in trying to debate this. I thank you for a good exchange."


I agree.  I prefer to speak about topics, not each other.  However, when people like CuilRunnings break from topics and start getting personal, I sometimes assume that is the road they wish to travel, and I go along for a short stroll.  In this case, the path is predictable and I've already decided to get back on topic.    The truth is often simple.  Getting the truth to conform to what we want it to be is what makes it complex.


Another good economic comment blog is Naked Capitalism.


"So, you only want people who are ""perfectly prepared"" to fit into your unique job opening...  Oh, and you want them to have a very specific set of ""Pre-Approved Stamps""; and for them to have been trained through their ""apprentice/journeyman"" years by *someone else*.  And, of course, you would like to hire these ""perfect candidates"" at entry-level wages.  **Good luck with that.** (Even if you do manage to GET such an employee, I can predict that you will generally NOT be keeping them long.)"


"Do you know anyone in the US, still?  If so, ask them to close it for you.  $2.38 is well within the ""if anybody I knew asked me to I would"" range, and probably is for anyone you know well.  Offer to send them money via a wire transfer (or Western Union or whatever), but odds are if it's a friend or coworker they won't care about $2."


First, the basis is what was paid for the house along with any documented upgrades, any improvements not consider maintenance. Any gain from that point is taxable. This is the issue with gifting a house before one passes. It's an awful mistake. The fact that there was a mortgage doesn't come into play here nor does the $15K given away. Your question is great, and the only missing piece is what the house cost. Keep in mind, depending on the state, you MIL may have gotten a step-up on the passing of her husband.  On a very personal note - my grandparents bough a family house. 4 apartments. 1938 at a cost of $4000. My grandmother transferred 1/2 share to my father well before she died. And before my father's death it was put into my mother's name. Now that she's in her last years, I explained that since moved it to my sister's name already, there's no step up in basis. This share is now worth over $600,000, and after 4 deaths, no step up. When my sister sells, she will have a gain on nearly 100% of the sale price. In my opinion, there's a special place in hell for lawyers that quit claim property like this. For a bit of paperwork, the house could have been put into a trust to avoid probate, avoid being an asset for medicaid, and still get the step up. Even a $2000 cost for a good lawyer to set up a trust would yield a return of nearly $100,000 in taxes avoided. (And as my sister's keeper, I'd have paid the $2,000 myself, no issue that she gets the house. She needs it, I don't. And when the money's gone, I'm all she has anyway.)