Okay, so?  You were arguing that I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end  making the sacrifice.  Clearly someone who is earning more money but paying a lower percentage is making much less of a sacrifice than someone earning less money but paying a higher percentage in tax.


Most US banks don't allow you the ability to draft a foreign currency check from USD. Though, I know Canadian banks are more workable. For instance, TD allows you to do this from CAD to many other currencies for a small fee. I believe even as a US Citizen you can quite easily open a TD Trust account and you'd be good to go. Also, at one time Zions bank was one of the few which lets US customers do this add-hoc. And there is a fee associated. Even as a business, you can't usually do this without jumping thru hoops and proving your business dealings in foreign countries. Most businesses who do this often will opt to using a payment processor service from a 3rd party which cuts checks in foreign currencies at a monthly and per check base. Your other option, which may be more feasible if you're planning on doing this often, would be to open a British bank account. But this can be difficult if not impossible due to the strict money laundering anti-fraud regulations. Many banks simply won't do it. But, you might try a few of the newer British banks like Tesco, Virgin and Metro.


"No one is quite sure what happened (yet).  Speculation includes: The interesting thing is that Procter & Gamble stock got hammered, as did Accenture.  Both of which are fairly stable companies, that didn't make any major announcements, and aren't really connected to the current financial instability in Greece.  So, there is no reason for there stock prices to have gone crazy like that.  This points to some kind of screw up, and not a regular market force. Apparently, the trades involved in this event are going to be canceled. Edit #1: One thing that can contribute to an event like this is automatic selling triggered by stop loss orders.  Say someone at Citi makes a mistake and sells too much of a stock.  That drives the stock price below a certain threshold.  Computers that were pre-programmed to sell at that point start doing their job.  Now the price goes even lower.  More stop-loss orders get triggered.  Things start to snowball.  Since it's all done by computer these days something like this can happen in seconds.  All the humans are left scratching their heads. (No idea if that's what actually happened.) Edit #2: IEEE Spectrum has a pretty concise article on the topic.  It also includes some links to follow. Edit #3 (05/14/2010): Reuters is now reporting that a trader at Waddell & Reed triggered all of this, but not through any wrongdoing. Edit #4 (05/18/2010): Waddell & Reed claims they didn't do it.  The House Financial Services Subcommittee investigated, but they couldn't find a ""smoking gun"".  I think at this point, people have pretty much given up trying to figure out what happened. Edit #5 (07/14/2010): The SEC still has no idea.  I'm giving up. :-)"


Are you one who cannot invest high efforts and time to enhance the profit in trading? However, you have strong desire to gain profits in trading binary options. Then, binary today is just for you. It encompasses the features, which is highly applicable for novice and experience person.


If you sell your shares for more than their value at the time you received them (i.e. you make a profit) then you will be liable for capital gains tax - but only if the profit exceeds your annual allowance (£11,100, in tax year 2015-16). This is unrelated to how you came by the shares in the first place. (Note that there are certain exemptions to this, which includes some employer share schemes.)


"I think you're on the right track. Your #2 journal entry is incorrect. It should be (I usually put the debit entry on top, but I followed your formatting) I'm assuming your employer uses an accountable reimbursement plan (reimbursing you when you turn in your payment bill/receipts). This is not salary. Reimbursements under the accountable plan in the US are not taxed as income. If you think about it though, ""phone expense"" isn't really your phone expense. So, instead of #1 entry, you could make an account receivable, or other current asset account, maybe call it Reimbursables - cellphone, and debit this account, and credit your cash account. When you receive the $30 back, you will reverse the entries on the day of payment. If you do it this way, you should be able to see a list of receivables outstanding (I'm not too familiar with GNUCash but I'm sure it has this type of report)."


Ok, but I wasn't trying to validate the Bible, merely pointing out OP's mischaracterization of Christian values in regards to what constitutes charity.   It's almost as if you have a bone to pick with religion in general. Talk about dogmatic responses!


You buy something on margin. It goes down. You get a margin call.  It's not more complex than that. The value of your account has to be X% of the asset you control. The fact that the ETF is bull, bear, triple long/short, doesn't really matter.


The different levels are somewhat related to levels of risk. Writing a covered call is pretty low risk, in the sense that if I buy the stock but sell a call, I now have a lower cost for the stock, and however low the stock drops, I'm still slightly better off than the regular stock buyer. Covered call writing is often used to generate premium income from a stock portfolio, and less as a tool for speculation. Buying a call or put is simpler in execution, but the risk of losing the entire amount spent (I actually avoid the word invested here) due to leverage involved isn't just a possibility — it can be pretty likely depending on the strike price. Put writing and uncovered (naked) call writing can entail even higher risk relative to the premium received — consider extreme moves in the underlying to understand the potential losses involved. The more sophisticated trades are presumed to take a bit more experience and tolerance for risk and each broker has its own set of criteria to allow the client to trade at each level.


Obviously, there will be individual differences.  However, the difference between groups is greater than the difference within groups.  Gender differences are real because biological, physical, chemical and social differences are real.  Men tend to be problem-solvers.  Most work is about solving problems.  Women tend to be more centered on emotion, and most work is not about emotion.  Most men are just better-suited for most work.  Maybe this is because men invented business and modern commerce.    From my experience and observation, men tend to enjoy work more.  We tend to take fewer sick days.  We tend to arrive earlier and stay later.  We make work a higher priority in our lives.  We take the success or failure of our projects and businesses more personally.  We complain less.    It's human nature to look at what someone else has and wish you had it, too.  But most people who engage in that tend not to want to do what those others did to get what they have.  I'm convinced that any woman of intelligence, ambition and diligence can get at least as far in the corporate world as any man, if she decided to put all her intelligence, ambition and diligence into that.  Most women tend to have other priorities, and those are valid choices on their part.


Are there specific questions that you have? You can explore subs on reddit, there are solid news sources like coindesk.com and specific people on twitter / medium you can follow to get deeper insight.  There are also entire avenues of theory such as cryptoeconomics - meaning how do you pay, incentivize, and secure miners.  The architecture layer is complicated - currency is the tip of the iceberg, there is inherent value in protocols built on top of a blockchain and blockchains themselves.


If the business is being investigated by your state's Attorney General's office, then your first call should be to that office.  They will be able to help you in a few ways, even if they can't explicitly resolve the situation, and they also would undoubtedly appreciate your information to add to their case as well. First, they may be able to tell you how other victims have had their cases resolved, particularly if any went to court on their own.  While they won't be able to provide you with personal information of the other victims unless it is public knowledge (via a court case), the information about how the other victims resolved the cases may be helpful - both to show what to do, and what not to do. Second, they may be able to put you in contact with an attorney who is handling other cases like yours. That may reduce the cost of the attorney (as they'll have already done some of the work), and may mean that the attorney is willing to work with no up front fee on the assumption of winning the case. Third, if there are options for getting your money back without a court case, the AG's office may be able to help provide those as well. If the Attorney General's office is unable to help you, then your best bet is to contact an attorney on your own - look for one who specializes in consumer protection and fraud.  This is the purpose attorneys exist for: pursuing your interests against another's.  Let them do their job.  Do make an effort to find a good, honest attorney; you may find some help on how to do this on law.se if you need it (not actual recommendations, mind you, just help with how you would go about finding one).  It sounds like your claim would be above and beyond the level of a small claims court lawsuit, but verify this in your jurisdiction; if small claims court goes up to $10,000, you may be able to pursue it there on your own - but I would still get some help from an attorney, at least finding out what you would need to win.


Since returning of capital is the most important, I would go to bankrate.com and find either an online bank savings account or MMA account.  By going to bankrate.com, you can find higher rates.  Sometimes you can find rates that are higher than a CD and are still FDIC insured.  I've found ally bank's raise your rate 2 year CD to always have the best rate.  In addition, if rates go up, you are able to raise the rate to the current rate.


Sign up for alerts.  Everytime you use your card, you'll get an alert.  That way if there is an unauthorized transaction, you'll know right away. The alerts can also tell you what amount was charged - since this happens right away, the last last cc transaction is fresh in your memory and any overcharges can be easily detected. Has saved me more times than I can remember!


when you are that big you typically run a hybrid environment with a mix of public and private cloud environments. At that scale it becomes more cost efficient to build and operate on your own hardware while bursting public cloud resources on demand


Well, it's a pain in the ass and industries vary...  At $15/hr in my industry in my state, take home can be as low as $12 and cost about $24...  This puts a huge strain on entry positions and wage growth...  Plus with payroll taxes, wages can almost never outpace Inflation...  If employers give a 10% raise to workers, it costs 15% and their take-home only increases 8% (random fictional numbers, but close)...  So what we've done is increased  cost of living by nearly twice every wage increased...  It's a dog chasing its tail...


If you prefer the stock rather than cash, you might find it easier to take the cash, report it, and then buy the same stock from within your own country.


I actually completely agree that global warming is increasing foliage, because plants thrive in a high CO2 environment. But I disagree that this is good for the environment as a whole.  I looked at your history and can see I probably wont be able to change your mind. But just imagine that you're wrong for a second and that you are supporting something that will be horrible for your grandchildren.


"once again: the problems you have commented about (i.e. decline of UK manufacturing and foreign policy) and your very crude version of historical causality, combined with the policy conclusions you have suggested (the need for common immigration and policy regime with the US) suggest to me that either you haven't quite grasped post-war euopean history, or you've ventured into the realm of conspiracy theory.   PS: ""when they're charismatically explained in such a systematic and specific way"" is not a phrase commonly used in english. explain what you mean by that, please."


"Not sure what your point is, but not all journalists are trying to predict the future. Some just report existing trends and let the readers make their own conclusions. The trend the article talked about was work, and therefore capital, flowing to cities. You said this trend would reverse over the next few years, because Trump. I'm not sure what you think that means. I would surmise that if America were to double down on ""Trump,"" we will lose the subsequent trade war, we will fail to invest in or heed science, we will fail to invest in national infrastructure (yes I know Trump promised this, but the Republicans only understand how to cut things,) and our healthcare system will be whittled away to something worse than it already is.   In that case, talented workers would not only stop going to cities, they would leave the country entirely."


"I'm sorry, I find it hard to believe that a prestigious firm would just ""give"" out work to some random person to do for free. The companies he's trying to get into aren't some mom and pop shops, and you don't ""infiltrate"" them by being friendly with janitors.  I'm not saying your advice is bad. I just don't think it applies to MBB."


You can find both here: http://www.bde.es/tipos/tipose.htm


As a former Target employee, the effort to find offending gift cards and deactivate them, as well as to get a list of all Amex/Visa cards already bought with the cards and report them to Amex/Visa for deactivation would be rather trivial for Target. I don't think they'd do it, but it's not that hard.


W9 is required for any payments. However, in your case - these are not payments, but refunds, i.e.: you're not receiving any income from the company that is subject to tax or withholding rules, you're receiving money that is yours already. I do not think they have a right to demand W9 as a condition of refund, and as Joe suggested - would dispute the charge as fraudulent.


"So, what's going to happen to those [400,000](https://electrek.co/2017/05/05/tesla-model-3-reservations-3/) 'deposits'?  Tesla's ""record-breaking"" 25K quarterly production figure means it'll take *four years* to build the 400,000 cars people have put down deposits on. How many tail-end Charlies are going to wait that out? The [current](http://insideevs.com/when-will-the-7500-us-credit-expire-for-the-tesla-model-3-and-everyone-else/) expiration schedule for the $7500 tax credit puts it to Mr. tail-end, *hard*. At the Model 3 price point, this is going to have a much larger effect on its buyers than on the $100K+ demographic."


It's admittedly a theory. I've not yet heard a good reason for skyrocketing opioid addiction unless you believe it's the fault of doctors or pharmaceutical companies which seems slightly more absurd. These drugs have always been highly controlled and regulated, that's not changed.


"Predictions, especially doomsday predictions, can go wrong quickly.  I would be careful of anyone calling an ""end"" to a country like the U.S., especially, if they have something to gain and a history of being wrong.  On the other hand, someone warning of something with a past of financial credibility can be quite useful.  For instance, compare Frank Stansberry to Jesse Colombo (@TheBubbleBubble on Twitter).  Jesse was one of the few who predicted the financial crisis in 2004 and is currently warning of new bubbles (ie: the higher education bubble) - even admitting to profiting off of some of them and encouraging others to do the same.  However, his assertions can be investigated to verify accuracy, but they are hardly the end of the end (in fact, Jesse likes to boast that he's an optimist and thinks eventually we'll usher in a Golden Age).  Frank Stansberry, on the other hand, doesn't seem to carry the credibility; a brief internet search generated some issues he's had with the SEC about misleading investors. (Completely forgot to add, Mike Shedlock - Mish - also has made some predictions that have come true and clashed with some other financial advisers over inflation vs. deflation.  While people were screaming ""HYPER-INFLATION"" back in 2008-2009, Mish constantly attacked them for being wrong, and has continued to be right.  Some of his political views, of course, aren't popular, but some of his financial predictions have been stellar.) Anyone who warns of anything should always be checked out for both what they've said, what they are currently saying, and what their agenda is.  As one of my mentors warned me, everyone has an agenda and that's not always bad - their agenda may align with yours, just make sure it does. [On a humorous side note, my father has predicted the end of the world every six months since 1994.]"


The other day I commented with another redditor in another post about how the farm workers in California should be happy with a minimum wage model that allows them to bust their ass and make up to $20/hour. So it depends on who/what we're talking about.


"There are many Bitcoin stores where items are bought and sold daily. Overstock.com is one of them. The value doesn't matter because Bitcoins are divisible down to 8 decimal points. I can send you a fraction of a penny easily, although currently the transaction fee to send it is likely to be several pennies. (One purpose of the fees are to discourage such pointlessly small transactions, referred to as ""dust"".)"


We spent 8 hours with you criticizing my post and feelings on a topic.  Are you really going to get sand in your panties because you finally gave an opinion on something and it was easy to pick apart?  You know that your opinion is based on a fairytale that has never successfully coalesced in over 10,000 years of human existence in any kind of size to be meaningful.  We have literally millennia of different forms of government that we can pick through and learn from. And yet anarchy hasn't made it through any timeframe in anything but statistically insignificant small and short lived societies.  You had to reach back to medieval times just to find one single relevant example.... But, yep,  taxes and government are bad...


Being lucky is definitely a part of it, but being smart on how to navigate each choice is NOT based on luck.   Think of a blackjack game. A game based on luck, but you can make logical moves that can help you win. Do you double-down on an 11 with 3 face cards on the table?, probably not. Do you split the tens with lots of low cards on the table?, yes.  So to think it's only luck that determines one success is naive.


$300k gross is lunch money, even for many small brick and mortar businesses. Add in taxes (federal, state, county, city, sales tax, property tax, parking, licenses/ permits), rent, cost of goods, hired labor and that $300k turns into $0, if you're lucky.


"It's not necessarily bad but it can cause the stock price to become a lot more volatile. Depends on which side of the bet you're on ;) Suppose a hedge fund manager thinks a company is poorly run. He may buy a ton of shares so that he can get rid of the current CEO and replace it with his/her own. For the hedge fund and others long on the stock, this is good. Those who are trading options or using some short-term strategies could get screwed because of the sudden volatility.  My next point is related to the above. What is the intrinsic value of a stock? The current price of a stock is the equilibrium of all investor's perception of the stock's value. Professionals make up a value for a stock using models such as DCF. Once they do so they trade based on what they believe the value of the stock is. You might calculate a stock is worth 70 and I believe it's 80 so the stock price is going to fluctuate a bit but it should keep within that range (assuming we're the only investors). Then comes a hedge fund manager, say Carl Icahn, and discloses a stake in our stock. ""Wow, the stock must be really valuable!"" Everyone starts buying this stock so up it goes to 90, simply because the guy who seems to know what he's doing bought it. The point here is that now it's not trading based on intrinsic value, now it's purely psychological. Ie. it's now a momentum stock, which you have no idea when it'll crash. Look at Tesla, Netflix, or just google momentum stocks. All the big crashes in stock prices happen when these big funds unload their stocks. A surge in supply will cut the price. The problem is you can't predict when some fund manager will decide to sell some stake of his.  Tying everything together is liquidity. The more liquid a stock is, the easier it is to obtain and the less volatile it is. The more people playing the game, with not too big shares of stock, the faster the price will converge to some equilibrium and with less volatility. Institutional investors take away liquidity."


Exact rules may be different depending on the size of the investor, the specific broker, and the country.  For both the US and Canada, short sales occur only through one's margin account.  And shares that are borrowed for shorting only come from a margin account. Shares held in a cash account are not available for shorting.  From Wikipedia Short (finance) - The speculator instructs the broker to sell the shares and the   proceeds are credited to his broker's account at the firm upon which   the firm can earn interest. Generally, the short seller does not earn   interest on the short proceeds and cannot use or encumber the proceeds   for another transaction. As with many questions, I'd suggest you contact your broker for the exact details governing your account.


the cost in general.   say it's the same 4mi drive (starting and finish)  Uber: $10  Lyft: $8 (before tip)  When you factor in tip, lyft is probably more   However, someone told me Uber just allowed tips recently so this is prob skewed now, but Uber still is a little more.   However, Uber has gotten more competitive lately (i feel) b/c Lyft is growing like crazy here (Dallas).


Source on GOV.UK You may be able to get tax back for some of the bills you have to pay because you have to work at home on a regular basis. You can only claim for things to do with your work, eg business telephone calls or the extra cost of gas and electricity for your work area. You can’t claim for things that you use for both private and business use, eg rent or broadband access. You don’t need to provide records for claims of up to £4 per week (£18 per month). For claims over £4 per week you’ll need to provide evidence of what you’ve spent. Claims up to £2,500   You must claim using a Self Assessment tax return if you already fill one in. If you don’t already fill in a Self Assessment tax return, and your allowable expenses are under £2,500 for the tax year, fill in form P87 and send it to the address on the form. If you’ve made a successful claim in a previous tax year and your expenses are less than £1,000 (or £2,500 for professional fees and subscriptions), you may be able to make your claim by phone. Claims over £2,500   You must claim using a Self Assessment tax return.


"i deleted my comment that this was a reply to so I'll repost it.  It was:   >I don't know the answer, but I'm pretty sure this is incorrect.  You have to take into account the correlations of the securities across the three different markets.  It's definitely not as simple as dividing by three.  The reason why I don't think this is correct is because you can imagine an exchange in which there is only one other security, and the asset in question is perfectly correlated and therefore has a beta of 1.  You could then have a different exchange with thousands of securities where the asset has a beta of 0.3.  The  simple average method would produce a beta of .65, when it's probably true that the correct answer is closer to 0.3.  The solution is not generalizable so I don't think it can be right. It neglects the relative sizes of the exchanges and the correlation of the underlying assets with each other.  Which leads me to consider, perhaps the right thing to do is to calculate the returns across all three exchanges and the returns of the asset on all three exchanges, do a weighted average and use that variance/covariance to calculate the beta across all three exchanges.  I'm not sure what purpose, practically, such a beta would serve.  I think the correct answer is to take the beta of the asset with respect to the largest (most diversified) exchange.  Ultimately, using a basket of securities like the S&P 500 is just a proxy for ""the market"", whatever that means.  It doesn't truly represent the realm of possibilities for the diversified investor, but it's close enough  tl,dr: I say pick one exchange and go with it"


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


You're losing money. And a lot of it. Consider this: the inflation is 2-4% a year (officially, depending on your spending pattern your own rate might be quite higher). You earn about 1/2%. I.e.: You're losing 3% a year. Guaranteed. You can do much better without any additional risk. 0.1% on savings account? Why not 0.9%? On-line savings account (Ally, CapitalOne-360, American Express, E*Trade, etc) give much higher rates than what you have. Current Ally rates are 0.9% on a regular savings account. 9 times more than what you have, with no additional risk: its a FDIC insured deposit. You can get a slightly higher rate with CDs (0.97% at the same bank for 12 months deposit). IRA - why is it in CD's? Its the longest term investment you have, that's where you can and should take risks, to maximize your compounding returns. Not doing that is actually more risky to you because you're guaranteeing compounding loss, of the said 3% a year. On average, more volatile stock investments have shown to be not losing money over periods of decades, even if they do lose money over shorter periods. Rental - if you can buy a property that you would pay the same amount of money for as for a comparable rental - you should definitely buy. Your debt will be secured by the property, and since you're paying the same amount or less - you're earning the equity. There's no risk here, just benefits, which again you chose to forgo. In the worst case if you default and walk away from the property you lost exactly (or less) what you would have paid for a rental anyway. 14 years old car may be cheaper than 4 years old to buy, but consider the maintenance, licensing and repairs - will it not some up to more than the difference? In my experience - it is likely to. Bottom line - you think you're risk averse, but you're exactly the opposite of that.


"Here is how the Visa network works: A Visa transaction is a carefully orchestrated process. When a Visa   account holder uses a Visa card to buy a pair of shoes, it’s actually   the acquirer — the merchant’s bank — that reimburses the merchant for   the shoes. Then, the issuer — the account holder’s bank — reimburses   the acquirer, usually within 24 to 48 hours. Lastly, the issuer   collects from the account holder by withdrawing funds from the account   holder’s bank account if a debit account is used, or through billing   if a credit account is used. I read this to mean the Merchant's Bank (the Acquirer Bank) gives the merchant the money within 2 days via the Card Issuer's Bank. The issuing bank is the one that provides the ""credit"" feature since that bank won't get reimbursed until the shopper's bill is paid (or perhaps even longer if the shopper carries a balance). You'll notice the Credit Card company (Visa/MC/etc) is only involved in the process as a way of passing messages. Of course they take a fee for this service so seller ultimately get's less than the buyer bought the shoes for."


"Your instructor's numbers do not seem to have any basis in current reality. At this page you can see a comparison of interest rates offered by banks and credit unions.  In the most recent table for June 2014, banks paid an average interest rate of 0.12 percent on savings accounts, while credit unions paid an average of 0.13 percent.   If you look back further, you will see that interest rates paid by banks and credit unions are generally comparable.  Credit union rates tend to be a little bit higher, but certainly not 7 times higher. The last time any financial institution paid as much as 15% on a savings account would probably be the early 1980s.  You can see here a historical chart of the ""prime rate"" for lending.  Savings account rates (at either banks or credit unions) would typically be lower. (This is based on the US, in accordance with your tag.  Interest rates in other places, especially developing countries with less stable currencies, can be dramatically different.)"


"For customer accounts that you have with a merchant, normally a positive balance in the account is what you owe the merchant. When you have a credit on the account or a negative balance, it usually means that it is an amount that the merchant owes you. This could be because you paid too much, or perhaps it is because the merchant is giving you a refund for some reason.  However, it is always a possibility that this particular merchant is not using the terminology in the conventional way. If you aren't sure, the best thing to do is to ask the merchant directly by contacting their customer service department.  Just judging from the screenshot you posted, it looks to me like they owe you some money. I suggest you click the ""Statement"" button; it looks like that will generate some type of statement that will instruct the merchant to send you a refund. But that is only a guess. Their customer service should be able to tell you what to do."


Your home (the one you live in) is not an investment. Its an expense/liability/asset, but its something you pay for to use, not invest to grow.


Surprisingly accurate. Are you in the industry? I usually see wildly incorrect info about processing online. (I work in processing.)  Only part not quite correct:   >At the end of the day, week, whatever, the processor collects money from the issuing financial institution and is responsible for giving the right amount -- less fees -- to the merchant.  The acquiring bank/processor actually fronts money to the merchant (typically within 1-2 days.) The issuing bank later reimburses the acquiring bank/processor, less interchange fees. The processor then deducts the interchange fee amount and their markup from the merchant's account, making themselves whole from the original money fronting and getting their profit.  That's why there's risk to processors when it comes to chargebacks. If a transaction is fraudulent, the issuing bank isn't going to give them money for it, but they've already given money to the merchant. So they need to be able to recoup it from the merchant or they'll be out that money.  But yeah, definitely a service, and it's odd that people often argue that it isn't.


"The raw question is as follows:  ""You will be recommending a purposed portfolio to an investment committee (my class). The committee runs a foundation that has an asset base of $4,000,000. The foundations' dual mandates are to (a) preserve capital and (b) to fund $200,000 worth of scholarships. The foundation has a third objective, which is to grow its asset base over time.""   The rest of the assignment lays out the format and headings for the sections of the presentation.  Thanks, by the way - it's an 8 week accelerated course and I've been out sick for two weeks. I've been trying to teach myself this stuff, including the excel calculations for the past few weeks."


"If a quantum computer could solve any cryptological problem instantly it would be very disruptive technology with no societal payoff. It seems pretty obvious to me that the only reason that is getting a lot of research money is very much like the race for nuclear war superiority – if ""they"" get it first  it could be disastrous. In any event, the article was pretty boring – quantum computers may work differently, if at all, from existing ones. I think I already knew that."


R with RStudio is pretty damn easy to install/run, especially on Linux/Unix (includes OSX).  The environment is great - it gives you package management, charts, documentation, a workspace browser, etc..., all in one.  RStudio Server is also ridiculous - you set up a server that allows you to connect remotely, and gives you a full IDE in your web browser, allowing you to run scripts on your home server, analyse datasets, etc..., all done remotely.    Not sure about Python, but I doubt it has all the packages that R has.  It also has a fragmentation problem (Python 2 vs. Python 3, Cython vs PyPy, etc...).    I like R's very data-oriented nature (all values are vectors), and R can be very quick if you use it idiomatically (as opposed to writing Python in R).  R also has libraries for machine learning, neural networks, clustering, etc..., anything you could want.  And if I were to use another language for algorithms, it would be C++ anyway.    But anyhow, as a basic tool for gathering info and creating charts, R is great.  A few very easy one-liners get you a lot of data very quickly.  I mean, you learn it in stats class in university, no programming skills required.  And if you do want to go deeper, learning it isn't that hard...


I'd put as much of it as possible into an ISA that pays a decent amount of interest so you get the benefit of the money accruing interest tax free. For the rest, I'd shop around for notice accounts, but would also keep an eye out for no-notice accounts. The latter might be beneficial if you expect interest rates to rise and are willing to shop around and move the money into accounts paying better interest every few months. Just make sure you're also factoring in the loss of interest when moving the money. You could look into fixed term savings bonds but I don't think they currently pay enough to make it worthwhile locking away your money.


Fortunately labour costs in China have been increasing at 15% per year for a lot of years now and it’s rare (ie: only the most extremely labour heavy industries) that can justify a new move / setup to China purely on the basis of lower labor costs (there is a lot of expertise and deep manufacturing chain advantages to contend with though).  The biggest threat in the decade ahead is automation - and it’s adoption is accelerating unbelievably fast.


"I wrote a spreadsheet (<< it may not be obvious - this is a link to pull down the spreadsheet) a while back that might help you. You can start by putting your current salary next to your age, adjust the percent of income saved (14% for you) and put in the current total.  The sheet basically shows that if one saves 15% from day one of working and averages an 8% return, they are on track to save over 20X their final income, and at the 4% withdrawal rate, will replace 80% of their income. (Remember, if they save 15% and at retirement the 7.65% FICA /medicare goes away, so it's 100% of what they had anyway.) For what it's worth, a 10% average return drops what you need to save down to 9%. I say to a young person - try to start at 15%. Better that when you're 40, you realize you're well ahead of schedule and can relax a bit, than to assume that 8-9% is enough to save and find you need a large increase to catch up.  To answer specifically here - there are those who concluded that 4% is a safe withdrawal rate, so by targeting 20X your final income as retirement savings, you'll be able to retire well.  Retirement spending needs are not the same for everyone. When I cite an 80% replacement rate, it's a guess, a rule of thumb that many point out is flawed. The 'real' number is your true spending need, which of course can be far higher or lower. The younger investor is going to have a far tougher time guessing this number than someone a decade away from retiring. The 80% is just a target to get started, it should shift to the real number in your 40s or 50s as that number becomes clear.  Next, I see my original answer didn't address Social Security benefits. The benefit isn't linear, a lower wage earner can see a benefit of as much as 50% of what they earned each year while a very high earner would see far less as the benefit has a maximum. A $90k earner will see 30% or less. The social security site does a great job of giving you your projected benefit, and you can adjust target savings accordingly.  2016 update - the prior 20 years returned 8.18% CAGR. Considering there were 2 crashes one of which was called a mini-depression, 8.18% is pretty remarkable. For what it's worth, my adult investing life started in 1984, and I've seen a CAGR of 10.90%. For forecasting purposes, I think 8% long term is a conservative number.  To answer member ""doobop"" comment - the 10 years from 2006-2015 had a CAGR of 7.29%. Time has a way of averaging that lost decade, the 00's, to a more reasonable number."


A consortium of investment banks go on a road show to their clients to see who's interested at which price in the IPO. The arrange this price through various financial models to determine the market value of the company.  The banks price the offering deliberately low to ensure a pop on the open of trading to send a positive signal to the market. This is their story at least, IPOs mispriced on the low side result in less money for the company making the offering.  I think a better way to perform an IPO is the way google did the theirs; a reverse auction. This is the same way the treasury sells bonds and definitely would put more money in the companies and less in the banks. Unfortunately the banks don't love the idea and you need a lot of clout to get them to change their minds.


You're exactly right and I agree with you completely.  Just to add, another important fact is that autos simply don't represent as large or sticky of an asset on peoples' personal balance sheets. A house often represents a significant leverage on income, but cars are a fraction of the price, significantly more liquid, and purchased with the expectation of depreciation so there's much less incentive to over leverage (as opposed to buying a house and reselling when the market rises). All of these aspects naturally limit the amount of damage that a broad auto loan default could have and limits the autocorrelation of the default of one loan to another.  I think people just liked the movie too much and are searching for the next *big short*.


"As Michael Pryor answered, a bond fund is a mutual fund that invests in bonds. I'd also consider an ETF based on bonds to be a bond fund, but I'm not sure that all investors would consider these as ""bond funds"". Not all bond funds are the same -- just like stock funds. You can classify bond funds based on the issuer of the bonds: You can also classify funds based on the time to maturity: In general, bond funds have lower risk and lower expected return than stock funds. Sometimes bond funds have price movements that are not tightly correlated to the price movements in the equity markets. This can make them a decent hedge against declines in your equity investments. See Michal Pryor's answer for some info on how you can get tax free treatment for your bond fund investments."


Credit cards have two revenue streams: So yes, the are making money from your daily use of the card.


"Construction loans are typically short term that then get rolled into conventional mortgages at the end of the construction period. Since the actual construction loan is short term, you cannot combine it with a long-term land loan as well. You could do the two separate loans up front to buy the land and finance the construction, then at the end roll both into a conventional mortgage to close out the land and construction loans. This option will only work if you do all three through the same lender. Trying to engage various lenders will require a whole new refinance process, which I very much doubt you would want to go through. These are sometimes called combo loans, since they aggregate several different loan products in one ""transaction."" Not a lot of places do land loans, so I would suggest first find a lender that will give you a land loan and set an appoint with a loan representative. Explain what you are trying to do and see what they can offer you. You might have better luck with credit unions as well instead of traditional banks."


Are you just turning in applications? Are you cold calling/emailing and trying to get a hold of managers and finding out about positions? Have you sent any cover letters to people?   Also, does your resume look aesthetically pleasing and is well organized? Are your skills highlighted well?  I feel like it can be pretty tough to get a job if you didn't get one right out of school.


"I have a friend who had went on a seminar with FortuneBuilders (the company that has Than Merrill as CEO). He told me that one of the things taught in that seminar was how to find funding for the property that you want to flip. One of the things he mentioned was that there are so-called ""hard money"" lenders who are willing to lend you the money for the property in exchange for getting their name on the property title. Last time I checked it looked like here in Florida we had at least Bridgewell Capital and Fairview Commercial Lending that were in that business. These hard money lenders get their investment back when the house is sold. So there is some underlying expectation that the house can be sold with some profit (to reimburse both the lender and you for your work). That friend of mine did tell me that he had flipped a house once but that he did not receive the funding to that from a lender but from an in-law, however it was through a similar arrangement."


I have done this for years and have been quite successful at it. Two reason I even need to do this - desire to pay for engagement ring and pay for 150 person wedding without using my nest-egg/savings.  You need to keep a document that details when the free APRs run out, and you need to setup automatic payments of the minimum balance from your checking account so you ensure you do not miss a payment.  You need to understand when you are going to need to make big purchases of homes/apartments/cars so that you can ensure you aren't doing this right before your credit score is being checked (Need to leave 12 months without opening new accounts before doing this).  I have been able to finance about $60,000 worth of unsecured debt paying between 3-5% interest per year. We have an unsecured credit line with Citibank that charges 14% and is capped at $10,000, and Discover Personal Loans charge around 14% as well (in pre-paid interest!).  I would say, all things considering, that this is a great deal if you don't have a secured line of credit with a low interest rate.  It is something, however, that if you aren't diligent can get away from you. From my experience I would rather pay a small amount of interest while allowing my savings and retirement to grow interest (hopefully greater than 3-5%) than pay the huge expense and start from zero. But if you miss a single payment on a 0 APR balance transfer they charge you all back interest concessions plus charge you a penalty rate.  Like many of the other posts, you need discipline to make this work.


"Presumably it means they're paying with normal money rather than paying with stock. Shareholders will receive money rather than any shares of AMZN when the deal goes through.   ""Cash"" doesn't necessarily mean ""currency"" a la bills and coins. When you have money in your brokerage that isn't tied up in a security, for example, you're holding ""cash"" even though you don't physically have ""currency""."


At 5%, this means you expect rents to double every 14 years. I bought a condo style apartment 28 years ago, (sold a while back, by the way) and recently saw the going rate for rents has moved up from $525 to $750, after all this time. The rent hasn't increased four fold.  If rents appear to be too low compared to the cost of buying the house, people tend to prefer to rent. On the flip side, if the rent can cover a mortgage and then some, there's strong motivation to buy, if not by the renters, then by investors who seek a high return from renting those houses, thereby pushing the price up.  The price to rent ratio isn't fixed, it depends in part on interest rates, consumer sentiment, and banks willingness to lend. Similar to stock's P/E, there can be quite a range, but too far in either direction is a sign a correction is due.


"I believe you have to file a tax return, because state tax refund is considered income effectively connected with US trade or business, and the 1040NR instructions section ""Who Must File"" includes people who were engaged in trade or business in the US and had a gross income. You won't end up having to pay any taxes as the income is less than your personal exemption of $4050."


There is no distribution limit.  Even if you distributed more than your medical expenses, the excess would be taxed and penalized, but it would still be distributed, and the penalty would be based on the amount that wasn't for medical expenses, regardless of the total amount.


"And? What's the big deal? For the people who are upset about Netflix not having the Star Wars content, those are more than likely big fans of Star Wars, and said fans, if they consider themselves to big a big Star Wars fan, already own the old and most recent Star Wars movies. Watch, people are going to down vote my post, and it will be from those will most likely are a fan but don't own a copy of the movies or will say, ""Why should I have to buy them in order to watch them? I should be able to stream them whenever I want."" Think of the price of buying the movie, let's say $20. You can watch it over and over again. With watching it via stream, you'll have to pay between $15-$20 a month in order to watch it."


IRA is an account. You can open as many as you want. What's limited is the contributions: you cannot deposit to the IRA (all of them combined) more than what you've earned during the year, or $5500 (for 2013), the lowest. There are also limits on how much you can deduct, depending on your income and availability of other retirement programs at your work. You can open as many IRAs as you want in your child's name, but if your child had only earned $500 this year - that's how much you can put in these accounts. Your wife and you share the earned income limit, so if your wife is not working, you can still contribute to the IRA in her name, based on your own earnings (i.e.: if you earned more than $11000 - you can contribute the maximum $5500 for each of you). The limits are for all the IRA combined, doesn't matter how many accounts you have, and how many of them are Roth.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://ftp.iza.org/dp10969.pdf) reduced by 99%. (I'm a bot) ***** > As Figure 2 shows, the illegitimacy ratio has varied substantially over the last 200 years in 6 Although illegitimacy is not the same as out-of-wedlock birth in all societies, we use these terms interchangeably, which is in line with the interpretation of illegitimacy in 19th century Austria.  > 4 Illegitimacy beyond animal husbandry: The origin of a cultural norm 4.1 Linking historical animal husbandry to illegitimacy today Our main hypothesis is that the historic agricultural structure has formed a cultural norm in relation to illegitimacy that persists until today.  > Workers Mean Illegitimacy Illegitimacy ratio in 1900 Illegitimacy ratio today Main variables Ratio: cattle to agri.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6zlwko/iza_economic_origins_of_cultural_norms_the_case/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~208370 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*: **illegitimacy**^#1 **ratio**^#2 **agricultural**^#3 **historical**^#4 **birth**^#5"


I've seen self-service turnstiles on a Lufthansa flight in Frankfurt. There were employees around though, even if everybody was scanning their own boarding pass (I remember because the machine printed a seat reassignment note for me after scanning the boarding pass and I was surprised by that).


Let's say I have two loans (say 2 car loans), and the high interest loan has a higher balance.  Both have a monthly payment of, say, $500. My income fluctuates a lot, so occasionally I only have $750.  I get hit with big fees those months, or maybe I just have to eat beans for those months.  I come on some extra money.  Maybe enough to get rid of the low interest small loan. Paying off the smaller loan frees up cash.  I don't have to eat beans on the bad months.


"As a woman who was once married to someone who worked offshore in the North Sea, in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Nova Scotia, in fact all over the world...and my husband's rig was contracted through Exxon (by the way, Exxon contracts rigs, but doesn't own any), this is most certainly a scam.  Even if you do not believe all the above information, I will tell you this.  Offshore oil companies will either have schedules consisting of two weeks on/two weeks off or one month on/one month off.  If he is in the Gulf of Mexico, it is almost certainly two weeks on/two off.  Which means this ""person"" who is your ""friend"" is lying to you, because contract or not, no employer holds any employee on the rig for an entire year.  In addition, he can leave the rig anytime he wants to, due to a personal emergency.  And no, once a paycheck is deposited in an employee's account, they cannot take it back.  LOL!! I would like to see them try!!  Don't do this.  It will only cause you heartbreak.  And since all of the posters recommending that you NOT fall for this POS line of bull have nothing to gain, guess who is telling the truth?  It's not your ""FRIEND""!"


"Yes, CDOs certainly allow the investor to choose the tranche they want to invest in. As you said, lower risk higher priority tranches get paid first but also have a lower coupon rate. The higher risk lower priority (""junior"" or ""mezzanine"") tranches pay last, if it all, but have higher coupons."


"I'm not sure what the situation is in Canada, but in the US, the IRS does not look kindly on people overvaluing donations of used goods. The rule is obviously abused quite a bit, but that doesn't mean it's legal! Different used books have different values, usually depending on supply and demand, and there are online databases that make it easy to check the value of a book using a barcode scanner. If you took a book to a used bookstore and they didn't want to buy it, that's because supply greatly exceeds demand... it might be last year's bestseller, for example. In this situation, donating the book to charity and claiming that the book is ""worth"" more than it's actually worth is really nothing more than cheating on your taxes. You may or may not get caught, but it's certainly not the intent of any tax code to give people a break on their taxes for donating worthless books to a charity which will inevitably just have to recycle or shred them."


One thing to look into is if there is an extra fee for covering a spouse under you plan, if she is covered under her own employer's plan.  I know that my wife's company charges around $100-$200 a year if I was to be covered under her plan, since I am eligible for the coverage where I work. As far as tax issues, there shouldn't be any.  I think the choice comes down to the coverage offered by both plans.


"I think JB King's answer is interesting from the point of view of ""is this good for me"" but the OP's question boils down to ""why would a company do this?"" The company buys back shares when it thinks it will better position the company financially. A Simple Scenario: If Company A wants to open a new store, for example, they need to buy the land, build the store, stock it, etc, etc and this all costs money.  The company can get a loan, use accrued capital, or raise new capital by issuing new stock.  Each method has benefits and drawbacks. One of the drawbacks of issuing new stock is that it dilutes the existing stock's value.  Previously, total company profits were split between x shares.  Now the profits are shared between x+y shares, where y is the number of new shares issued to raise the capital. This normally drives the price of the stock down, since the expected future dividends per stock have decreased. Now the company has a problem: the next time they go to raise money by issuing stock, they will have to issue MORE shares to get the same value - leading to more dilution.  To break out of this cycle, the company can buy back shares periodically.  When the company feels the the stock is sufficiently undervalued, it buys some back.  Now the profits are shared with a smaller pool, and the stock price goes up, and the next time Company A needs to raise capital, it can issue stock. So it probably has little to do with rewarding shareholders, and more to do with lowering the ""cost of capital"" for the company in the future."


"Although banks do not have to honor checks that are more than six months old, they often do. Limit Noted on Check. Many large corporations put the length of time that a check is valid on the face of their checks. For example, a check may state, Valid for 90 days from this date"" or ""Not valid after 180 days."""


"The whole process was so absurd though.   They asked me to scan and submit my ID (which I did). Then they told me they couldn't accept it because it wasn't real and was ""obviously downloaded from the internet."" (lolwut.) I've never been so casually accused of identity theft before- that was interesting. So I took a picture of me holding the ID and sent that instead. Susan (the woman I was speaking with (dunno why I still remember that name)) said for ""security reasons"" I would have to wait three months and try again.   Three months later they didn't even ask for ID."


You're acting like there are still considerably fewer people in the world, the globalist haven't forced us to compete with shitty employers round the world, and that the inefficiencies of your local producer has any hope of making quality items cheaply.


An animation video maker creates animation by using computer software. Animation firms use industry standard software that has supporting platforms Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. Ideally, the software must be intuitive providing a wide range of texturing and lighting. It must also have post processing functionality.


quantycuenta is right, if a halt is in place, then no trading will occur, simple as that. But in the practice of risk management it is a little different. Want to remind you that you are assuming that trading is halted immediately upon the drop in price. That doesn't always happen, so if there is any time between the actual price drop and halt of trading, then it is possible that your order will be filled, depending on how liquid your security is. Also not every security has circuit breakers in place and the exact requirements to trigger a breaker is not public information.  In some cases, trades are ordered to be rolled back (reversed) by the exchange but this is usually reserved for institutional traders who make some sort of mistake.  This article below mentions day traders who bought at or near the bottom of the May 6, 2010 flash crash. This was before circuit breakers but I think it's a good story for someone looking to understand the finer workings of the electronic market.  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/book-takes-a-look-inside-professional-day-traders-1339513989350


> Theoretically you'd expect the exchange rate to move against you enough to make this a bad investment.   Actually, the theoretical and intentional expectation is that the currency with the highest interest rate should appreciate even more.  Canada has traditionally offered an interest rate premium over the US specifically to help the strength of its currency and attract capital to stay there.  > In reality this doesn't happen  Because carry trades/fx have so little margin requirements, and so many speculators on one side of the trade, there is a significant short squeeze risk any time there is a de-risking shock to the economy.  Any unwinding impulse, scares other carry trade participants to unwind, and then forces many more to unwind.


That's not how dota works, though. People have been playing the same game (with regular major updates) for almost a decade now.    Many players retire to become commentators/coaches/streamers/other important parts of the scene and earn a living that way.  Sure, there are more lucrative jobs out there, but if he's passionate about it and can make a career out of it, what's the problem?


The problem is that these commercial GPS have cut corners to save $$ in each unit by not insulating the sensors correctly to filter out frequencies outside the allocated spectrum. As a result they are capable of receiving signals from other frequencies such as the one used by LightSquared.


The car has software that will automatically plot a route using chargers, manage charging times and notify you via a phone app when the car has charged enough to continue your route.  Also, most superchargers are located next to a restaurant or thing to do while the car charges. Most of the US is already covered by the by network this year, but next year the network will triple in charging stations.   It's really much better than it seems, unless you are constantly driving very long distances. In my five years of Tesla ownership I have never had a problem driving between California and Texas.


"Yes, your privacy is invaded, that's the law in many jurisdictions. The goal is to make money laundering and financing Evil Things harder. That's why banks are required to request proof for every money transfer larger than a specific sum. This is only a minor issue most of the time. You will have some kind of agreement with that Money Management company and this agreement (or a copy of it) will serve as a proof of your lawful reason to transfer money. It works just like that - you get to the bank and say you want to initiate a money transfer, the clerk asks you to show the ""proof"", you give them your agreement or a bill that requests you to pay or whatever else document you may have that proves that you're bound by some kind of contract with the recipient of money. The clerk then makes a copy of the ""proof"" and it stays in the bank to back the transfer until it is completed. The copy is then stored for some time and later destroyed - that's up to how the bank handles documents."


To get out of the shithole mess that republicans created.. i.e. Economic Depression .. 3 wars..  But I see Your Username checks out so I'm not surprised ..Stop living in the fantasy world comrade.  Being an ignorant confused putts is not a good look.  I welcome you to join us grow ups in reality


An old buddy of mine used to trade penny's and supposedly made a killing. Was taking trips all over the country, bought a place at the beach, always had NBA tickets to the best games. Later found out that he was actually selling drugs instead and was basically making nothing on the penny stock trading.


The answer depends on how much you spend every month. The DTI is calculated using the minimum payment on the balance owed on your card.  Credit card minimum payments are ridiculous, often being only $50 for balances of a couple thousand dollars. In any case, when you get preapproved, the lender will tell you (based on your DTI) the maximum amount they will approve you for. If your minimum payment is $50, that's another $50 that could go towards your mortgage, which could mean an additional $10,000 financed. It's up to you to decide if $10,000 will make enough of a difference in the houses you look at.


"As a buyer, one of the easiest ways to save on closing costs is to avoid title insurance.  This will only apply if you are a cash buyer, as a mortgage writer will typically require title insurance.   It is also one of the most ill-advised ways to save money.  You need title insurance.   For the most part, there is really no way to truly save on closing costs.  Wrapping costs into a loan, saving on interest or taxes through timing don't truly save money.  Sometimes you can obtain discounts on closing by using an targeted lender, but that may cost you in higher interest rates.   By paying points on your loan, you may increase your costs at closing in order to save money on interest paid.   Certainly you can't discount required, government imposed fees (like doc stamps).   You may be able to shop around and find a bit lower fees for appraisal, credit reports, title company fees, and title insurance.  However, that is a lot of work for not a lot of return.  Title companies seem to be pretty tight lipped about their fees.   The best yield of your time is to get the other party in the transaction to pay your costs.  The market or local tradition may not allow this.  An additional way to lower your costs is to ask the realtors involved to discount their commissions.  However, they could always say ""no"".   The bottom line is transacting real estate is very expensive."


"Welcome to Audating Sites. We are the best dating service provider company, which is located in Australia. We provide the best dating service in the Australia from previous many years. If you are looking for Escapade with men or women, then ""Audating Sites"" is the best platform for you. To get started and let's look at the best dating sites for men and women. The right online dating site for you as it is to choose the person you want to be known in the online world."


">these jobs aren't meant for adults with families.  Says who?  You?  Society?  Just because people _think_ that's how it should be doesn't make it correct.  A job is a job.  Yes, it's requires less skill to work at Subway than most jobs but that doesn't mean you should be be forced to live below poverty because you have that job.  They shouldn't be making surgeon wages, but no one is arguing for that.  People want to live like a human being.  They want to pay their heat bill so they're not freezing in the winter.  >They're part time, no-responsibility positions that pay beer money  Want to know why?  Because companies choose that.  They could easily cut their employees by a third, pay a livable wage and full time status to the remaining employees and STILL grow/expand and hire back the people they cut.    Aldi's isn't doing bad.  Costco is doing pretty well.  QuikTrip is growing like a weed.  All these places are ""beer money jobs for teens and students"" yet they've found success in paying actual, livable money to their employees.    People think that if companies raise their wages they'll go bankrupt and they've done a good job convincing everyone that.  It's been shown that [raising the minimum wage doesn't affect employment](http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf).  If anything it helps because less turnover = more efficiency = more money for the company.    TL:DR Ya'll motherfuckers need empathy."


It's not. If you look at the page you link to and change dates, it's clear the rate changes a bit. 120.15 120.1 per hundred. The Swiss can keep the 1.200 as a target and if it's higher, sell agingst the euro to bring it down, if lower, buy. If the swiss experienced a serious financial crisis and their currency fell, they may not have the power to control it, if the rest of the world said it was worth less, you can be sure it will fall.


> can't afford to put the devices through all the relevant testing to get it FDA approved.  That testing is there for a reason, you know.   > There are thousands of people who ave these implants without any issues, and similar chips have been injected into **millions of pets** all over the world.  Is this an ironic way to argue against this idea? Pet issues aside, do you really want your employer to move one step closer to treating you like an animal?


"Someone is certainly having a slow day at work. Let's read off some of Mr. Ben Cohen's fine points.  * Personal responsibility is a dog-whistle for hating the poor. * People paying for their own services is greedy. * People forcing others to pay for their own services is generous. * If the government doesn't do healthcare, literally nobody can. * Mike Pence doesn't like abortions.  And, let's end by using ""white man"" as an insult.  This is what passes for journalism?"


If it was me I would want to go with the state I am moving too. I'm not familiar with business law too much as I'm only a law student right now but I would guess it's a safer bet. There might be local state laws that could apply. If there are not any local regulations then they should still know all of the national regulations just the same.


Insinkerator 65 is the top model in our standard range of kitchen sink disposals, offering high performance continuous feed operation and able to handle large amounts of food waste. It is good for all households and comes with 4 year parts & labor guarantee.


"I will give it to you straight; in the end it's about the money. Tourists don't ride tuk tuk anymore because online they read that tuk tuk overcharge and it is better to take a taxi with meter.  So, if I was a tourist and you want me to use your service, what I would need from you is the understanding that I will not be paying more money than a taxi. You have a couple of ways of doing this: 1. Install a meter in your tuk tuk. Put a sign on the side of your tuk tuk saying ""This tuk tuk uses a taximeter"". 2. If you do not have the option for a taximeter you need to advertise your free prices. Put a sign on the side of your tuk tuk displaying your prices showing that you do not overcharge. 3. Advertise your services on TripAdvisor, different forums, etc.  Good luck!"


We have a lot of debt - at this point I don't even know how much This is your problem. Find out, and while you're at it find out how much income you have and also what your total expenditures are. You seem to be facing up to the problem, but not looking it in the eyes. You just need to take some time, and a little bravery, to get all your financial documentation together and lay it all out so you know what your situation actually is. Its not hard to do this, get a box and put all (old) bills and statements in that you can find, and at the end of a month, pick them out and write down the totals. Then work out your income and all that you've spent that month. This is known as a Statement of Affairs and there are calculators to help you. Then you can work out how much you need to pay off, and how much spare money you have to do this with. You can also start to cut down on all the really unnecessary stuff to increase your spare money that you can use to pay off the debts. Hopefully this won't take too long, and you can easily (if boringly) work the debt off over time. If it really is unsurmountable there are things you can do to help - firstly contacting your creditors and seeing what they can do to either part write off the debt, or freeze it as you pay it off (most creditors understand that if you're desperate enough to talk to them (!) then they may not see any of their debt back and are at least willing to help you pay them back). Generally though, it sounds like you are not in a total mess as you can pay it off. There are people in far worse states than you! But you really do need to be fully aware of your financial situation. Sit down and 'count your money' one lazy Sunday. There are links to help. Try the Motley Fool's guide, and its dealing with debt forum, both of which are very practical (if UK based, the Fool has a US site too, see for yourself if there's the same stuff on it, but this kind of thing tends to be fundamental to people of all nations).


This was absolutely true for me. I'm retired now. Until my last company I always got about 5% raise. When I skipped jobs the raise was usually enormous. I went:   19K 25K 30K 35K 50K 75K 85k 75K (last job sucked and this one was stupid simple at first) New company gave me steady raises to $125K and I got to do awesome work and was in complete control.   There is no way I would have gone from 19K to 125K at the same firm.


TV has always been innovative, it's just that new players have emerged (mainly in Hulu and Netflix) which arguable unjustifiably threatens their position.  Hulu and Netflix are trying to eat TV/Cable's lunch while they bring nothing new to the table, essentially they are getting a free lunch off the work of the TV industry.  I don't know how/why TV became the bad guys.   I think it's mainly because people are cheap and figure they will still get high-quality programming on the internet for free.  The problem is that if TV ever goes away, say goodbye to quality programming.  The only content available on the internet will be cheap reality shows, low-budget comedies, and the occasional hollywood movie which companies like Netflix and Hulu will try to kill.  This is a lose-lose situation.  We need TV, to underestimate the value of the TV industry is a serious oversight.


The buyer can get another cosigner or you can sell the car to pay off the loan. These are your only options if financing cannot be obtained independently.


My first computer was nearly 20 years ago. A computer tech I knew brought home dozens of boxes of computer parts from a hospital that was replacing and upgrading. Asked me to see how many computers I could build from the parts. Didn't have any sort of computer experience at the time but I built about 16 windows 3.11 boxes from those parts. I was given a very nice motherboard with a 200 MHz processor for it. That was my first computer. I mounted it on plywood.


Using your figures, a couple making $172,000 each earn enough to be in the 1%. So that is even less than I had originally stated.  I couldn't find any hard data about personal incomes in the USA since everything seems to be intertwined with household earnings, but I did for Canada. There, household income was around the same $350K mark to be in the top 1% and around the same $170,000 to be in the top 1% for personal incomes.  Given that, I think we can assume the wealth distribution is fairly close between countries, therefore I stand by my statement that a sub-$200,000 income will put in you the top 1% of earners, though you would need an equally successful partner to be in the top 1% of households.


Are you out of your mind?  Federal spending has doubled since *2000*.  WWII might be the only time our government was ever bigger (and incidentally, slashing that by 75% directly preceded one of the greatest growth periods in our history).  Seriously, can you name me three programs or departments that have smaller budgets, in real dollars, in 2012 than they did in 2008?


This is what happens when reform is done through the agencies rather than legislation, it can change with a new president.   Obama's legacy is going to be that almost everything he did was reverted in Trump's first year of office.  Really the only thing that might last is Obama care and they are pushing hard to get rid of it.


"You're asking explicitly about $250K+ wage earners. Well, believe it or not, but this is the most discriminated group of people in the US tax code. This is what is called ""the upper middle class"". People who still have to work for a living, but treated as if they're rich (I don't consider people who must work to keep up their life style as rich). Many of the deductions cannot be taken by them. Lets go over the list Keith made: You mentioned losses - you cannot deduct gambling losses (in excess of gambling income), and you cannot deduct passive (rental real estate, for example) losses. While for rental real estate there's a small amount of losses you could deduct, it phases out well below the $250K line (can be deducted against passive income, or when disposed of the property). 529 plans are not deductible (in fact, its a gift subject to the gift tax). Bottom line, being a high earner with wages only means you pay the most tax. You either find a way to become self employed and have a lot of business deductions on your schedule C/1120S, or switch to capital gains. You can marry an unemployed partner, it will make your life slightly easier."


"You should also examine gross costs. The US per capita is paying twice what Canada does, and is getting worse results (lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality). Not exactly a bargain.  A significant part of the rate of increase in costs is likely due to the shifting demographics bulge of baby boomers aging. If you look at (these charts)[http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/money_politics_law/boom_moves_along.htm] you'll see that there's a a lot more folks in their 50's than before. And [""Nearly one-third of lifetime expenditures is incurred during middle age, and nearly half during the senior years""](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361028/).  In the report you linked ""The medical trend reported includes the increases in both price inflation and utilization for 2009""... so it's impossible to say how much medical inflation there actual was (i.e. is the cost of a flu shot rising faster/slower than inflation). Which makes the report a bit slimy in that it compares directly against the rate of inflation."


You can transfer the money from your bank in Russia to Cyprus by sending a Wire Transfer. You provide your account number and SWIFT code for the Cyprus account to your Russian bank and pay the associated fees on both end for it and it will be done. No need to use Bitcoin or anything too complicated. I believe you are overthinking this.


I'm surprised by all the pro-credit answers here, debit has some definite advantages. Most importantly, when you pay with a credit card, the merchant pays around 3% of the transaction to the credit company. In many states, they are forced to charge you the same amount, and this is frequently toted as ''consumer protection''. But consider what this means for the business: they loose money for every credit transaction, and they're legally forbidden to do anything about it. So you're taking 3% from a business and handing it over to a massive cooperation.  To make matters worse, the buisness is inevitably going to have to raise their prices (albiet by a small amount), so in the end the average consumer has gained nothing. On the other hand, the credit card company wins big, and they use their profits to pay lobbyists and lawyers to keep these rules in place. To put in the worst possible light, it's essentially legal extortion, verging on corruption. As for the fraud protection offered, while it may be true that credit cards will offer a more hassle-free reimbursement (i.e. you just don't have to pay the bill) if your card is stolen, consumer protection laws also extend to debit: in many cases your bank is legally required to cut you a check for all the money you lost.


You're getting downvoted for telling the truth. Fuck that. Hillary lost. Trump did not bring millions of voters out of the woodwork. He won with only 2,000,000 more in the popular vote than Romney lost with.  The DNC missed a golden opportunity with Sanders, and it's as much their fault Trump is President as it is unthinking populist voters.   If the Dems had halfway supported Sanders and then pushed young voters to actually get out and vote for him, you'd have a different person in the Oval Office right now.  I'm no Democrat or socialist, but I'd much rather have Bernie than the Cheeto.


Yes, asset inflation is still inflation.   Economy = consumption + investment + government - net exports.   So you increase the money supply to the wealthy what happens? Not in increase in consumption, their basic needs are met so they invest it. Everyone invests their extra money, what happens? Price goes up for stock and real estate while the yield on those investments goes down. You have people buying really expensive assets with great leverage because their is no alternative. So inflation has increased, you are just to poor to notice it.   We also live on a deflationary world. Production increases while demand remains constant. So what happens? Price goes down and marginal companies go out of business. Leading to more consolidation, lower prices due to greater market share, more companies cannot compete and the cycle continues.   The only inflation comes from overseas, where you have growing economies. Here we have almost no population or wage growth, so that is deflationary .


CDS spreads represent the premium for insuring some specific bonds against a default (as defined by the ISDA). I'm not sure how you can arrive at the claim that they have little to do with the already issued debt itself, except if you were to assume that this debt is not quoted on any market. There is a direct relationship between the level of the CDS spreads and the price of debt.


"http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/jobs/12search.html  ""Where you live and the cost of living there has only a small influence on that number, he added. (That may be a revelation to some Manhattanites.)""  I can't find the source I was talking about, but that's close. There's also what kewidogg said, people gravitate to places that make them happy."


If you are looking for that place in UK, on which you can trust and that's largest pharmacy  in the world. Now, you can get a chlamydia test at the affordable price at your home. We offer in every test of the body. As you know, the chlamydia test uses a sample of body fluid or urine to see whether chlamydia bacteria, it is present and causing an infection in our body. If you have ever tested positive. We have a large collection of medicines. We prescribe that you select our full home STI screen with the goal that we can recognize the real cause and treat you in like manner.


No way, other genres have obsessive fans as adults - fantasy and sci-fi come to mind although I think things like t-shirts, mugs etc would do well for most popular films, people just don't wanna take the risk I guess.   In Japan for example the anime industry lives off of obsessive (male, usually young adult) fans.


prob not the one with 22 years on the job though. Ive seen this a million times.  There always seems to be a Fran in the multitude of articles over the years about min wage or fight for 15 or unionization.  Its always some mom with 2+ kids that has been doing the same job or type for 10+ years. How can you not even be a fucking shift supervisor after 2? Manager after 5?  Because.......  They dont want that. See if Im just a dumb line worker I dont have to be responsible for jack shit. I clock in, I clock out. Done.   They might have to relocate or gasp experience change!


a quick summary of the paper's purpose, for those interested:  ECB uses a macroeconomic model to project stimulus measures on 1) households 2) firms 3) fiscal authority and 4) a monetary authority over the next 25 quarters (6 years beginning 2012)  it begins with the dynamics of households and firms: mainly, upon their interactions as consumers and suppliers, as well as various frictions that arise between countries - namely, labor and consumption rates. the monetary authority deals with basic applications i.e., the cost of money (bond issuance)  the fiscal authority is introduced for the purpose of gauging the effects of government intervention, and the correlations between the rates of government consumption (OMT) and houshold consumption (with the aim of stimulating the economy)


A competent Indian VA cost about 4-6 an hour. Realistically speaking, with that budget, nobody is going to be on the phone 8 hours a day 5 days a week. But small tasks and data entry could work. Western VAs are a much pricer but they you can find some for 200 a month. I have a biz that offers similar services, but the price you are looking for is a bit low, but I can work something out if your interested. Otherwise, it would be best to search for NYC based VA companies that have a team of indians working. But what you get is a luck of the draw.


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


**Doping in Russia**  Doping in Russian sports is a significant issue. Russia has had the most (37) Olympic medals stripped for doping violations – four times the number of the second country. From 2011 to 2015, more than a thousand Russian competitors in various sports, including summer, winter, and Paralympic sports, benefited from a cover-up.  Media attention began growing in December 2014 when German broadcaster ARD reported on state-sponsored doping in Russia, comparing it to doping in East Germany.  ***  ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/economy/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot)   ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.24


Your plan won't work. Working 40 hours a week at federal minimum wage (currently $7.25 / hr) for 52 weeks is an annual income of just over $15,000. Even assuming you can reliably get a return of 15% (which you definitely can't), you'd need to start with $100,000 of assets to earn this poverty income. Assuming a more reasonable 7% bumps the required assets up to over $200,000, and even then you're dead the first time you need to make withdrawals after a mistake or after a major market downturn. As a fellow math Ph.D. student, I know your pain. I, too, struggled for a while with boredom in an earlier career, but it's possible to make it work. I think the secret is to find a job that's engaging enough that your mind can't wander too much at work, and set aside some hobby time to work on interesting projects. You likely have some marketable skills that can work for you outside of academia, if you look for them, to allow you to find an interesting job. I think there's not much you can do besides trying not to get fired from your next McJob until you can find something more interesting. There's no magic money-for-nothing in the stock market.


I can't speak for all business schools but only my personal experiences as a student and then working professional.   I graduated from a program ranked in the top 5 nationally and interviewed with several top companies (Intel, Ford, Sandisk, BP) right out of college before selecting the firm I began my career with.   As I've moved on to other jobs having this degree has definitely opened doors for me and landed me interviews I might not otherwise have gotten. Plus the program I was in was heavily focused on case studies which is far superior to just lectures and note taking.


Just look at what happened in California. They don't get tipped any less but the problem is that there then becomes this huge gap where people aren't incentivized to work any other mildly skilled to skilled job where tips are less often and/or not as high to non-existent such as becoming a nurse or a hairstylist or plumber or electrician.   So for instance where I live theres a huge shortage of people in a lot of jobs with low to mid skills and a gigantic surplus of waiters making minimum wage + tips (where CA forces restaurant minimum wage plus tips).  Not to mention CA has stepped process to make the minimum wage $15/hr and anything worked over 8 hours becomes OT. This makes working as a server lucrative as hell compared to many other positions.


There is no federal inheritance tax.  The federal estate tax, currently, exempts the first 5.49 million (US citizen spouses even avoid this).  Current law also does a stepped up basis on inherited assets which were bought with after tax money.  Example: Dad bought a house years ago for 100k.  He dies and leaves it to JJ along with other assets worth $100k (well below the federal estate tax level).  JJ sells the house for $400k which was its market value on the day dad died.  He gets to keep the entire $400k. Note: Current government wants to eliminate the estate tax AND the stepped up basis.  In above case, JJ will now have $300k gains on the house sale and will pay income tax on that!  He will end up with much less that $400k.


Should I use the profit to pay down student loans or just roll it into my next house in order to have a lower mortgage amount? Calculate the amount of interest in each scenario, where the two scenarios are: Use extra cash to pay down student loans, take out a full mortgage. Use extra cash to make a big down payment on the next house, keep paying down student loans at normal rate. In both scenarios the student loan rate will  stay the same. However in the second scenario you may get a lower interest rate from making a larger down payment. So then calculate the total interest resulting from each scenario: student loan rateXremaining student loan balance=student loan interest  new mortgage rateXnew mortgage balance=mortgage interest scenario 1 interest = student loan interest+mortgage interest student loan rateXstudent loan balance = student loan interest  new mortgage rate with large down paymentXnew mortgage balance after large down payment = mortgage interest scenario 2 interest = student loan interest+mortgage interest Whichever scenario's interest is lower will save money.


Most business credit cards do not report to the personal credit report unless the person pays the card late. Given that fact, any debt carried on these cards does not hurt the credit score if it is not reported. You can carry credit card debt on these cards without hurting your credit score. Just apply for business credit cards now to start building this segment of your credit.


Depending on the state this might not be possible. Loans are considered contracts, and various states regulate how minors may enter into them. For example, in the state of Oregon, a minor may NOT enter into a contract without their parent being on the contract as well. So you are forced to wait until you turn 18. At that time you won't have a credit history, and to lenders that often is worse than having bad credit. I can't help with the car (other than to recommend you buy a junker for $500-$1,000 and just live with it for now), but you could certainly get a secured credit card or line of credit from your local bank. The way they are arranged is, you make a deposit of an amount of your choosing (generally at least $200 for credit cards, and $1,000 for lines of credit), and receive a revolving line with a limit of that same amount. As you use and pay on this loan, it will be reported in your credit history. If you start that now, by the time you turn 18 you will have much better options for purchasing vehicles.


The conventional wisdom is that there has been little inflation which seems weird to me because it was only about ten years ago that a typical coke machine took coins and charged about 50 cents, a loaf of bread could be had for 35 cents at Aldi and gas was about $1.50 per gallon. I'm 43 and the cost for just about everything has about tripled since I was a kid. Minimum wage was $3.15 when I was a teenager. Now it's $7.25 The other day I got a bottle of Pepsi at Dunkin Donuts and the cashier didn't even blink when she told me it was $2.08


There is no universal answer here; it depends on how much risk each person is taking, how you want to define the value of the business now and in the future, how much each person's contribution is essential to creating and sustaining the business, how hard it would be to get those resources elsewhere and what they would cost... What is fair is whatever you folks agree is fair. Just make sure to get it nailed down in writing and signed by all the parties, so you don't risk someone changing their minds later.


Real Estate potentially has two components of profit, the increase in value, and the ongoing returns, similar to a stock appreciating and its dividends.   It's possible to buy both badly, and in the case of stocks, there are studies that show the typical investor lags the market by many percent.  Real estate is not a homogeneous asset class. A $200K house renting for $1,000 is a far different investment than a $100K 3 family renting for $2,000 total rents. Both exist depending on the part of the country you are in.  If you simply divide the price to the rent you get either 16.7X or 4.2X. This is an oversimplification, and of course, interest rates will push these numbers in one direction or another. It's safe to say that at any given time, the ratio can help determine if home prices are too high, a bargain, or somewhere in between.  As one article suggests, the median price tracks inflation pretty closely. And I'd add, that median home prices would track median income long term.  To circle back, yes, real estate can be a good investment if you buy right, find good tenants, and are willing to put in the time.  Note: Buying to rent and buying to live in are not always the same economic decision. The home buyer will very often buy a larger house than they should, and turn their own 'profit' into a loss. e.g. A buyer who would otherwise be advised to buy the $150K house instead of renting is talked into a bigger house by the real estate agent, the bank, the spouse. The extra cost of the $225K house is the 1/3 more cost of repair, utilities, interest, etc. It's identical to needing a 1000 sq ft apartment, but grabbing one that's 1500 sq ft for the view.


"This might sound harsh, but the first thing I would suggest is to stop making excuses.  I wasn't able to continue due to pressure from college and family The college I went to was horrible. Employers can very easily hire foreign work-force for   very cheap; for example as a citizen if I work $10 an hour, they can   get someone from outside to work for $5 per hour There's no guarantee that the project will succeed. I cannot really work and at the same time develop software on my free   time.  Despite my failures in the past, I was not the main person that's   responsible for those failures. Even if all of this is true, it's not helping you move forward and it seems to be getting in the way of creating a good action plan and motivating yourself to succeed. If you believe (based on past experiences) that you are doomed to fail, then you are indeed doomed to fail. You need to take a step back and re-evaluate your current circumstances and what you can do to reach your goals. You have a couple of things working in your favor here. It's great that you are debt free. That already puts you ahead of a lot of your peers.  You have the option of living with your parents. Presumably for no rent, or at least much lower rent than you would have to pay if you move out. This is worth literally thousands of $/£/€ for every year you stay. Now, onto your questions: 1) Should I quit regular programming for a normal job because I never monetized programming so I can move out of my parents' home? Are you being paid for this ""regular programming""? If so, are you being paid more than minimum wage? If not, it's perfectly acceptable to consider alternative ways to spend your time and generate income. However, this doesn't have to be at the expense of living with your parents. Have you thought about getting a new or second job while still living with them? If you absolutely must move out of your parent's home, consider renting a room in a house with other people to keep the rent costs to a minimum. That way, even if your main job is low paying, you should be able to put aside some money each month for future endeavors.  2) Should I monetize programming and gamble with the future? What does this mean? Are you thinking you'll write a mobile app and sell thousands of copies for 99¢ each? That would indeed be a big gamble, but maybe that's not what you meant, so you'll need to clarify. 3) Would it be wise to essentially quit programming for the sake of a minimum wage job? I'm not sure how this is different from question 1. So I'll reiterate what I said there - moving out is going to be expensive. You can still do it, but you're asking on a Personal Finance site where the focus is usually how to minimize living costs and maximize income. Without knowing more about where you live (employment opportunities, cost of living) the default recommendation is usually to save money by staying in your parents house. TLDR: Don't focus on anyone else. They are not preventing you from getting the job you want. Look at your own skills and qualifications (not just programming, consider all of your abilities). What are you good at? Who might need those skills? What is the cost of reaching those people (commute time, moving nearer)? What is the reward? If the reward exceeds the cost, start approaching those people. Show them what you can do."


Most penny stocks go to zero because most businesses fail.  You stated in your original post that you were wondering specifically about companies with no assets. These are exactly the kind that fail and go to zero.  There are many holes within the regulatory structure that allow for many accounting tricks in penny stock land. And even in areas that are adequately regulated, there will be few to no remedies for the optimistic penny stock shareholder speculator.


"I like it... maybe a little fixed gambling via those new ""slot"" machines that are a cross between video games and just-keep-pumpin'-those-quarters.  Mandatory line dance on the bar every hour by the comely servers.  Hot but not so hot you can't park grandma for the evening.    I'm all for a true celebration of Americana and local roots and the whole idea in the abstract is not bad at all... but I will be surprised if they can pull together the right talent while sidestepping politics at the same time.  More than likely it will end up as Applebees the Hotel."


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-opec-oil-shale-analysis-idUSKBN18M1Q4) reduced by 87%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The history of the relationship between OPEC and the U.S. shale oil industry has evolved a great deal since the cartel discovered it had a surprise rival emerging in a core market for its oil around five years ago.  > WARNING FOR SHALE. By the same token, some U.S. shale leaders may also want a better insight into OPEC thinking and help OPEC understand that shale is not a flash in the pan.  > &quot;OPEC looks at shale and it scoffs,&quot; said Dave Purcell of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co, a U.S. shale investment bank that attended the OPEC meeting for the first time.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6el278/opec_continues_to_underestimate_the_invisible_hand/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~133771 tl;drs so far."") | [Theory](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31bfht/theory_autotldr_concept/) | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **OPEC**^#1 **shale**^#2 **oil**^#3 **U.S.**^#4 **minister**^#5"


There are lots of things that can be graphed apart from financial data. Like flight data, for example. With the level of detail visible in the pics on that site, what reason is there to conclude that's market data? Interesting theory tho.


My question is what is the average income of those people who are driving into the core of the city for work. I am assuming that they probably make a much larger salary than $1.1k, though they are still getting screwed on transportation.


With reference to the UK: Structured deposits should not be confused with structured products.  Structured deposits are often, quite simple deposit accounts. You place your money into what is essentially a deposit account, and are therefore guaranteed not to lose your capital as with any other deposit account. The attraction is that you could earn more than you would in a normal deposit account, often around double, due to indirect exposure to the markets. Another benefit is that structured deposits can form part of your annual cash ISA allowance, so the returns can be tax free. These products are popular with those who have savings which they are happy to deposit away for between 3 and 6 years, and are looking for better rates of return than standard cash ISAs or savings accounts. The main drawback is that you may not receive anything other than your original deposit. That poses a minimal risk if your savings are earning less than 1% currently.  See my article at financialandrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/fed-up-with-low-returns-from-cash-isas.html for a more rounded overview of the structured deposits.


"I simply wrote my bank an email and said, ""I want to handle my own escrow"".  They said, ""fine"" and even let me set up a third account called ""escrow"" (savings and checking being the other two)  that I just transfer money into whenever I want.  But, I don't actually know what their requirements are for doing that. I have a ton of equity in the house, and I never missed a payment, AND I have direct deposit at that institution.  So, it can be done."


The minimum wage in Portugal is around 550€. A one-bedroom apartment anywhere close to the center of Lisbon should be on average 600€. Most people on minimum wage have to go to the outskirts of Lisbon or close cities. Although the prices on the houses have gone a lot these past 10 years.