There are some economic signs as there are in all economic and business cycles, such as interest rates rising. However, a more effective way is to actually look at price action itself. The definition of an uptrend is higher highs followed by higher lows. The definition of a downtrend is lower lows followed by lower highs. So if you are looking to invest for the long term you can look at the weekly or even the monthly chart of the market say over the past 10, 15 or 20 years. Using these definitions on say the S&P500 if the price continues to make higher highs and higher lows then stay in the market. If the price makes a lower high than the previous high, then this is a warning sign that the trend may be about to end. The trend has not broken yet but it is a warning sign that it could be ending soon. If the price makes a higher low next followed by a higher high, then the trend continues and you just need to keep an eye on things. If, however, the price makes a lower low after the lower high this is a signal that the uptrend is over and you should get out of the market. If the price makes a lower low directly after a higher high, then be cautious and wait for confirmation that the uptrend is over. If you then get a lower high this is confirmation that the uptrend is over, you would then sell if prices drop below the previous low. If you invest in individual shares then you should keep an eye on the charts for the index and individual shares as well. The index chart will give you an indication if the uptrend is over for the whole market, then you can be more cautious in regards to the individual shares. You can then plan exit points on each individual share if their trends are broken too. If you have stop losses employed and the trend reverses on the index, this would be a good time to tighten your stop losses on individual shares. You can then buy back into the market when you determine that the downtrend is broken and prices start to show higher highs and higher lows again. Will there be occasions when the uptrend reverses and then after a short period starts trending up again, yes there might be, but the worse that will happen is that you pay a bit of extra brokerage to get out and then back into the market, and you might have to pay some capital gains tax on any profits made. But remember no one ever went broke making a profit. The most important thing to remember when investing is to conserve and protect your capital. I would rather pay some extra brokerage and some capital gains tax than see my portfolio drop by 50% or more, then take 5 years or more to recover. And remember, paying tax is a good thing, it means you made money. If you don't want to pay any tax it means you will never make any profits, because if you make profits you will have to pay tax one day.


If the money comes to you, then it's income.  If the money goes out from you, it's an expense.  You get to handle the appropriate tax documentation for those business transactions. You may also have the pleasure of filing 1099-MISC forms for all of your blogging buddies if you've paid them more than $600.  (Not 100% sure on this one.) I was in a blog network that had some advertising deals, and we tried to keep the payments separate because it was cleaner that way. If I were you, I'd always charge a finder's fee because it is extra work for you to do what you're doing.


I don't think you should have to cancel your card.  Call your customer service line and just indicate to them what has happened.  You aren't getting service for what they are charging you and they are refusing to remove it themselves.


"Does your current 401(k) have low fees and good investment choices? If so you might be able to ""roll-in"" your rollover IRA to your 401(k), then do a backdoor Roth IRA contribution. A Roth IRA would be far more useful than a non-deductible traditional IRA."


Unfortunately not. Even if the credit card balance is positive (i.e. customer has overpaid the credit card account), you cannot withdraw cash (for free) - as any cash withdrawal is subject to 12.9% interest - even if repaid in full at the end of the month! The clarity credit card is one of the best cards for overseas spending, as its load free (no fees for purchases abroad) and it gives near perfect exchange rates. If your balance is positive, you start at £0, then fund that credit card account from your bank account £500. You can then spend on your credit card, and when your next bill is due at the end of the month - they will use that extra £500 sitting in your account first, and ask for the remainder from you. i.e.  scenario1:  scenario 2: It is better in my opinion, to set up a direct debit to always clear out the full amount on your credit card. That way, you have cash in your bank account for emergencies (getting £500 back from a credit card will take a few days to process as opposed to having the ability to withdraw cash from the cashpoint 24/7). And once the direct debit is paid automatically at the end of the month, there are no fees - voila your credit card is almost like a debit card, spend on it when you like, it gets paid automatically, no hassle, no worries. This approach does take a careful mindset though, as you need to know your credit limits and also you need to ensure your bank account has enough to pay off the direct debit at the end of the month. Otherwise those darn fees will get you (and hurt your credit rating). For cash spending, you will want to either take cash with you (check online here for best rates & get the money well in advance to avoid fees). Also in some countries the exchange rate is better there, than in the UK, google will help you here. If you dont like the idea of carrying large sums of cash with you can use a prepaid card like CaxtonFX, which is one of the better ones out there. The other well known ones are FairFX and Travelex Cash Passport.


"That's a very clear explanation, thanks! So a few additional things if anyone will humor my curiosity...  1. By ""one-time"" tax, does that mean a company that has, say, $5B overseas could bring that back into the US and just be taxed $500M, then keep the remaining $4.5B?  2. Could a company choose a percentage of their overseas money to transfer into the US? Like, only bring in 8% of that $5B ($400M) and be taxed $40M, while keeping all the rest outside the US? Or would it be mandatory to bring it all over?  3. Would most companies just start that same practice of routing to tax havens again after this tax is implented?"


"I heard it was illegal to begin a new business while still owing the   IRS. No such thing. ""Renovating business"" may require certain State licenses that may in turn require you to show that you've not violated any laws (including tax laws), so you may want to check that. But as a general rule - you can ""start"" a business any time you want."


There's two big problems here and they are both related to the same thing: The last line says it all: you live in California. CA is a terrible state to do business in. the taxes on this money alone are crushing. Also, while I think you need to re-visit your budget and lifestyle, the cost of living is very, very high in CA and affecting your decisions.  Of course, all of this raises the question - if you can afford 12K in expenses each month, and I'm assuming you're the only source of income, then you should be able to afford funding your own game :D


Your film degree isn't going to help you do this at all.  You know what will?  [Learn HTML5, Cloud Services, and Mobile software development.](http://mobile.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/HTML5-Cloud-and-Mobile-Create-Perfect-Storm-for-Major-App-Dev-Shift-235285/).  You don't need fancy training or a degree in CS, start with the w3c [HTML5 tutorial](http://www.w3schools.com/html5/default.asp), and then explore from there.  Read everything you can about these things, then start building something.   Get an app or two you've built deployed to your own phone, re-tool your resume, and then start looking for a job as an entry level software engineer.  You'll be a much more attractive hire to some employers than a Java developer with 10 years of experience who has no interest in evolving their own skill set and insists on a super high salary.


I do understand what you are saying. I see it. I live in a fairly low income area and it is the custom to include candy in every kid function. The kids are, as you might guess, on the average, kinda fat.  I feel this will only change with public education, and currently we do have a state budget item to address this and we are seeing positive results. I also think that getting most of these kids a physical once a year where someone in authority points out to parents (or grandparents) raising these kids that being so indulgent is not really what is best for the kids does change behavior. Poor parents are mostly trying to do whatever they can to sweeten a pretty difficult life. Learning cheap crafts or attention or whatever is  a better option really does change the behavior.   These small changes are not so much just throwing money at an issue so much as including ALL the population in a shared health care system.


Yikes man. I got really lucky with the job I have now. They'll let you work 60 hours a week if the works there.  Her mom qualifies for OHP so my GF can't get help from her. She also doesn't qualify for Medicaid or graduated subsidies either. We're talking about a weekend job for us both right now. (It's amazing that it comes down to that in this country).  The situation truly is screwy. She works for a a hospital who has satellite doctor offices (she's actually in a doctor office) and the best plan she offered was nearly $200 a month.


I'm aware that banks have foreclosed properties as assets on their balance sheets -- those that they haven't been able to sell yet.  But, housing prices nationally are down 50% from their peak. How can you seriously make price-fixing allegations against the banks when prices are about half of what they were at the peak of the bubble, when - I think we can all agree on this point - real estate was pretty decentralized?


Before answering specific question, you are liable to pay tax as per your bracket on the income generated. I work with my partner and currently we transfer all earning on my personal bank account. Can this create any issue for me? If you are paying your partner from your account, you would need to maintain proper paperwork to show the portion of money transferred is not income to you. Alternatively create a join Current Account. Move funds there and then move it to your respective accounts. Which sort off account should be talk and by whose name? Can be any account [Savings/Current]. If you are doing more withdrawls open Current else open Savings. It does not matter on whos name the account is. Paperwork to show income matters from tax point of view. What should we take care while transfering money from freelance site to bank? Nothing specific Is there any other alternative to bank? There is paypal etc. However ultimately it flows into a Bank Account. What are other things to be kept in mind? Keep proper record of actual income of each of you, along with expenses. There are certain expenses you can claim from income, for example laptop, internet, mobile phone etc. Consult a CA he will be able to guide and it does not cost much.


"You're forgetting the fundamental issue, that you never have to actually exercise the options you buy.  You can either sell them to someone else or, if they're out of the money, let them expire and take the loss. It isn't uncommon at all for people to buy both a put and call option (this is a ""straddle"" when the strike price of both the put and call are the same). From Investopedia.com: A straddle is an options strategy in which the investor holds a position in both a call and put with the same strike price and expiration date, paying both premiums. This strategy allows the investor to make a profit regardless of whether the price of the security goes up or down, assuming the stock price changes somewhat significantly.   Read more: Straddle http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/straddle.asp#ixzz4ZYytV0pT"


yes, i am incorporating monte carlo return scenarios for both equity and real estate.  yeah there is a lot to consider in the case of the property being a condo where you have to account for property taxes as well as condo fees.   the two projects have entirely different considerations and it's not like the money that is injected to one is similar to the other (very different) which is why i figured there should be differing discount rates.  in any case, thanks for the discussion and suggestions.


I am a freelancer based in Europe and I want to tell you: - if you are a freelancer, then you INVOICE your Swizzerland based client The word salary is improper. - So your client will DEDUCE the invoice from its taxes, and NOT pay income tax on top of that invoice. Because invoice = expense.  So, ONLY YOU pay income tax in India. Your client pays no tax at all, not in India, not in Swizzerland. As you are a freelancer and not employee, the company has no obligation to pay employer taxes for you. A company  has financial benefits from working with a freelancer.


This definitely helps me clear my head when I think about my future, I am fully aware that most lower level internships don't amount to employment (especially after Freshman year).  I totally understand what you are saying, it is more so that I'd rather be learning something and working hard hours than working hard hours in retail or a restaurant. I worked in the service industry and I felt frustrated because I was surrounded by idiots (drug addicts, alcoholics, drop outs) and sometimes being surrounded by a lack of ambition can just get to you.


You should be saving as much money as you can afford in your 401k up to the maximum allowed. If you don't contribute at least 6%, then you are essentially throwing away the match money that your employer is offering. Start out with the target date fund. You can always change your investment option later once you learn more about investing, but get started saving right away and get that match!


> will end up over taking instagram AND facebook in the next 5-10 years.   holy shit LMAO I wish there was some way I could bet everything I own against this statement. Facebook will not be overtaken by ANY other social media company for the next 10+ years, and will NEVER be overtaken by snap inc. Facebook is actually the smartest long term investment out of everything you mentioned (and amazon as well). Snapchat and gopro are horrible long term holdings. Gopro will be worth half of what it is worth now in the next 5 years. The money you are bragging about is peanuts, and irrelevant. Because you were talking about long term holdings in your first reply, and now you are bringing up day trading which is a completely different story. Yes snap is probably good for some short term gains, but I dont see how you are parlaying that into thinking that is good for long term retirement funds.  FWIW making money in this climate is easy as fuck, it wont be like this forever. And when the markets begin to crash, companies like twitter and snap inc who have no revenue will be the first ones to freefall to nothing. I have a 37% annual return since 2009 (entered the market a great time) and I have no background in investing before that. So dont get a big head about making correct choices in the short term.


Let's hope some of it is good. It feels like the more they produce, the worse the quality gets.  Netflix can hide behind that when they only made Orange is the New Black and House of Cards. When you only put out a few shows the strike rate is probably higher in terms of quality because they aren't actually doing that much of their own stuff. So they spend more time and more money on higher value products.  But now with them producing *so much* content the quality has plummeted downwards.   It feels like every second 'Netflix Original' title is godawful and headed for cancellation.


"That's OK, there are new ""fronts"" in the war ... not just ""Print On Demand"" (aka POD) and Independent *publishing*, but the soon to be here *local* (in store) print on demand.  And of course e-books (especially independently published e-books) are s-l-o-w-l-y (but *steadily*) picking up steam as well."


"An option without the vesting period and the price at which one can exercise the option is of not much value. If vesting is determined by board, then at any given point in time they can change the vesting period to say 3, 5, 10 years any number. The other aspect is at what price you are allowed to exercise the option, ie if the stock is of value 10, you may be given an option to buy this at 10, 20 or 100. This has to be stated upfront for you to know the real value. On listing if the value is say 80, then if you have the option to exercise at 10, or 20 you would make money, else at 100 you loose money and hence choose not to exercise the option. However your having stuck around the company for ""x"" years in anticipation of making money would go waste. Without a vesting period or the price to exercise the option, they are pretty much meaningless and would depend on the goodwill of the founders"


"The boss of the engineering software company I used work for had a different attitude. His standard response to a tech-support escalation which required his intervention was to pick up the phone to accounts and ask if the customer had already paid for the software, and if they had, he'd tell us ""fuck 'em, tell them to read the licence conditions..."" - which basically said, if there is anything wrong in the code, tough luck, you bought it."


> I like how they ignore the fact that Texas has like 20 times more oil than Arkansas, as if the current energy boom has nothing to do with growth in Texas apart from tax policy.  Many companies from all sorts of sectors have moved away from high taxing and regulating states to Texas. If the business climate gets worse the next step is to move operations and jobs abroad.


There are federal regulations that state that: As a result it can be assumed that when a loan is paid off, notification should be given to the borrower. There is not a penalty since schools are pretty good about recovering their money. It could be due to a simple human error or glitch in the system. I would email them again confirming that your Perkins Loan had been paid in full, just so you have documentation of it.


As a lefty --- get a life and your own opinion, or let other people backed by corporations that you oppose tell you what to think.   This guy is the guy that stole $500 and we let him until we needed him to get caught. And the people that bought CDs from a bank on a shady fucking island, yeah, they were stupid. Caveat emptor.


It's really a calculated risk. The most you gain is for the growth to be tax free, the downside (for the excess funds)is the growth is taxed plus the 10% penalty. I'd suggest a simple strategy. Deposit as much as you can, early on, until the balance approaches the current 4 yr college cost. Then, just add enough to match the current cost, i.e. If college costs grow more than the account, just make up that difference.


> the amount of energy that goes into minimum-wage arguments vastly outstrips its importance as a policy matter. Issues like the design of health insurance, tax policy, and entitlement reform are more important policy issues ... less than 2% of American workers received wages at or below the federal minimum in 2016.


"I'm certain if the amount was large enough they'd be happy to find a few people to turn into ""examples"".  There are enough idiots out there that think, ""Wow, I just won the lotto! I'm going to go rub my brilliance in their face and spend this in a stupid way so as to prove to them how I'm smarter then they are.""  Next thing they know is that they're getting busted.  It's not the original act that gets most criminals busted, it's the stupidity that follows the original act."


It would be very unusual (and very erroneous) to have a company's stock be included in the Long Term Investments on the balance sheet.  It would cause divergent feedback loops which would create unrepresentative financial documents and stock prices.  That's how your question would be interpreted if true.  This is not the case. Stock prices are never mentioned on the financial documents.  The stock price you hear being reported is information provided by parties who are not reporting as part of the company.  The financial documents are provided by the company.  They will be audited internally and externally to make sure that they can be presented to the market. Stock prices are quoted and arbitrated by brokers at the stock exchange or equivalent service.  They are negotiated and the latest sale tells you what it has sold for.  What price this has been reported never works its way onto the financial document. So what use are stock prices are for those within the company?  The stock price is very useful for guessing how much money they can raise by issuing stock or buying back stock.  Raising money is important for expansion of the company or to procure money for when avenues of debt are not optimal; buying back stock is important if major shareholders want more control of the company.


About the inflation or low interest rates in both the countries is out of the equation especially since rupee is always a low currency compared to Euro. You cannot make profit in Euros using rupee or vice-versa. It all depends on where you want to use the money, in India or Europe? If you want use the money from fixed deposit in Europe, then buy fixed deposit in euros from Europe. If you want to use the money in India, then convert the euros and buy FD in India.


You're missing the strategy for the tactics. The *whole point* of capitalism is the improved efficiency possible through the price system of value. The price system of value only delivers this efficiency when free markets exist. When markets are *not* free, then capitalism becomes very inefficient, and you get unemployment, inequality and other poor outcomes. In response to this, people demand socialist policies, and if they don't get them, eventually you get proletarian uprisings against the rich, communism, etc.  As far as your attempts to defend David Siegel's ethics, I just don't see where you're coming from. What if he doesn't feel inclined to take my offer? Is he also responsible for my death? But more importantly, *why* are you defending bottom-feeding pond scum like Siegel?


Thanks! Your earlier comment had me panicked there!  I have worked about 1700 question over the last week from the Qbank, and was hoping that it would with a couple mock exams, would be sufficient for level 1.


I mean, it doesn't really apply to a lease/buy decision in a home.  The variability due to the variables I discussed makes it not worth the analysis when you're talking about return differences of maybe 1-2%.  Even if your house costs $1 million, that's only a difference of $10,000... MAYBE if there's no difference in the other variables, but there will be.  My point is that it's not worth doing.  DCF models are used for valuation of large projects, not simple home buying problems.  There are way better ways to evaluate such a simple problem.


Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't make sense at all.  Why take out money at 3.25% (the Heloc) to reduce the balance on a 3% loan (the refi)?  It would be better to move as much from the Heloc to the refi as possible to get the best rate.  If this results in a lower monthly payment, keep paying the higher payment and you'll be better off.


"It sounds like ""gross receipt tax"" is essentially the same thing most states call ""sales tax"", which is always handled this way -- prices displayed are pre-tax, tax is added when the final price is calculated.  One reason for doing it that way is that most prices result in taxes that involve fractions of pennies, and calculating from the total produces a more accurate result than calculating tax on each item individually. It is theoretically possible to set prices so the numbers come out evenly when tax is added. But that requires that the prices be in fractional cents,  potentially to many decimal places. And in fact in some places it is illegal to display (only) the with-tax price. Otherwise I'm sure some stores and restaurants would be willing to deal with the mils and micros, purely on principle or as a marketing gimmick. Since customers have learned to expect sales tax, it really isn't worth the effort to fight it. The closest I've seen has been occasional ""we'll pay your sales tax"" offers, or statewide sales-tax holidays once a year."


As said by others, buying shares of a company will not support it directly. But let's think about two example companies: Company A, which has 90 % stocks owned by supporters, and Company B, which has only 1 % of stocks owned by supporters. Both companies release bad news, for example profits have decreased. In Company B, most investors might want to sell their stock quickly and the price will plummet. In Company A, the supporters continue believing in the company and will not want to sell it. The price will drop less (usually, but it can drop even more if the sellers of Company A are very desperate to get rid of the stock). So, why is it important for the company to have a high stock price? In the short-term, it's not important. One example is that the company can release more stocks and receive more financing by doing that. Other reasons are listed here: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/020703.asp


I think people are glossing over the type of experience you get working at a startup.  Having worked at a huge multi-national corp, and now working in a basement, I would say this:   Multinational corp - everything is a process.  They have a documented process for damn near everything, including taking a shit.  If you don't know how to do something, you have internal support or somebody around you that knows how to do it.  You don't learn anything in this type of environment.  You get hired for one specific job on the assembly line, and you consistently perform a set of pretty specific job functions every day.  The upside is full benefits, job security, and stability.  Startup - Absolute chaos.  Your responsible for sales, design, implementation, production support, and late-night troubleshooting.  You could be out of a job tomorrow if a single customer pulls out.  But the upside is the wealth of experience you get on all aspects of business and you have to see a design from spec to production.  As a young professional, I much prefer the latter.  If I lose my job - so what?  I'll find another one.  The experience i've gotten from the startup in just under a year far exceeds the experience I got in three years at the corporation.


I've had 50% raise offers before. Start ups might pay more to attract talent but you look at what they are doing and realize they will probably be out of cash flow once the venture capitalist money dries up. If you like changing jobs sure. I've been at the same company for 12 years. My salary has gone up 4x since I started so whatever. It's just easier. I know one of my offers went out of business in less then 8 months...


"If I really understood it, you bet that a quote/currency/stock market/anything will rise or fall within a period of time.    So, what is the relationship with trading ? I see no trading at all since I don't buy or sell quotes. You are not betting as in ""betting on the outcome of an horse race"" where the money of the participants is redistributed to the winners of the bet. You are betting on the price movement of a security. To do that you have to buy/sell the option that will give you the profit or the loss. In your case, you would be buying or selling an option, which is a financial contract. That's trading. Then, since anyone should have the same technic (call when a currency rises and put when it falls)[...] How can you know what will be the future rate of exchange of currencies? It's not because the price went up for the last minutes/hours/days/months/years that it will continue like that. Because of that everyone won't have the same strategy. Also, not everyone is using currencies to speculate, there are firms with real needs that affect the market too, like importers and exporters, they will use financial products to protect themselves from Forex rates, not to make profits from them. [...] how the brokers (websites) can make money ? The broker (or bank) will either: I'm really afraid to bet because I think that they can bankrupt at any time! Are my fears correct ? There is always a probability that a company can go bankrupt. But that's can be very low probability. Brokers are usually not taking risks and are just being intermediaries in financial transactions (but sometime their computer systems have troubles.....), thanks to that, they are not likely to go bankrupt you after you buy your option. Also, they are regulated to insure that they are solid. Last thing, if you fear losing money, don't trade. If you do trade, only play with money you can afford to lose as you are likely to lose some (maybe all) money in the process."


Marketplace was my jams. Listened every day for years.. until the whole hating on Trump thing began to consume Kai Ryssdal and the whole APM Marketplace team. Even Molly Wood!   It became hard to trust a team so heavily biased and distracted so I unsubscribed and am hoping for a return when they're back to doing what they used to.


"Generally, a polite decline. However, I have dealt with sales people who take first refusal as a ""test"" response, and decide to go into the details anyway. The longer they talk the more robust my responses. See this Telegraph article that discusses why their experts think it's a ripoff, and why you should check your credit cards and home insurance policies as they may already have you covered (possibly UK/Europe only). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/2820644/Extended-warranties-In-our-view-its-a-rip-off.html On a different note, see this list of questions to ask if you are considering going with the extended warranty. The source doesn't rule for or against the idea, leaving it at caveat emptor: http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/technology/home-entertainment/accessories/extended-warranties/page/questions%20to%20ask.aspx"


The math is wrong. $16m grows to $72b over 44 years at 21% return (exact return is (72000/16)^(1/44) - 1 = 0.21067). At one percentage point lower return, i.e. 20%, $16m grows to $50b (16m x 1.21^44 = 49.985b). In that case you would have paid about 30 percent of your gain in fees. Still a lot,  but not severe.  Even the calculation of percent fees is wrong in the article!


You have to consider a case where you just cannot sell it. Think of it as a bad piece of real estate in Detroit. If there are absolutely no buyers, you cannot sell it (until a buyer shows up)


As observed above, 1.5% for 3 years is not attractive, and since due to the risk profile the stock market also needs to be excluded, there seems about 2 primary ways, viz: fixed income bonds and commodity(e,g, gold). However, since local bonds (gilt or corporate) are sensitive and follow the central bank interest rates, you could look out investing in overseas bonds (usually through a overseas gilt based mutual fund). I am specifically mentioning gilt here as they are government backed (of the overseas location) and have very low risk. Best would be to scout out for strong fund houses that have mutual funds that invest in overseas gilts, preferably of the emerging markets (as the interest is higher). The good fund houses manage the currency volatility and can generate decent returns at fairly low risk.


>it does nothing to challenge hanauers argument, as hanauer acknowledges this tenet  No, you are wrong. the link directly contradicts you: >On Wall Street and corporate boards, buybacks are often lauded as a way to “return capital” to shareholders. That, according to Hanauer, is one big lie.  >That the whole thing was just a lie; it's a story that rich people told poor people so that they could steal from them. It's just terrible.  >Stock buybacks are very nefarious things. They are a practice that creates no social or economic utility, other than enriching the super rich.  >In a more sensibly organized economy, it would be illegal to do it  So yeah, you don't know what you're talking about, as usual.


> This is kind of a silly article and it mostly misses the point.  That's because it's an advertorial, as pointed out right at the start.  > Editor’s note: Jacob Mullins is the CEO of Exitround, a software-powered M&A marketplace for buyers and sellers of companies.


Remember, carrying debt on a credit card and waiting to pay it is increased risk in the event something happens and you can't pay it off. I have 1 CC and I have it set to auto-pay on the day it's due (paid in full each month as I don't carry debt anymore - learned that lesson a hard way :) ). So the day it's due it auto-drafts out of my checking. No worries of late payments, missed payments, etc. If you feel that having any balance is bad then by all means pay it off the minute you get your statement. It should come at the same time each month (or close to the same time) and you should be able to setup an auto-payment to pay it off in full as soon as the new statement goes live. To be honest, those extra few days of supposed interest saved by keeping the money in your checking account is so minimal that's it's probably not worth it. Most checking is horrible in interest (all my 'high interest' checking accounts are now less than 1% APR. boo.) and if you're late 1 day then bam! All that earned interest is gone in 1 late fee...


"If one would think that, they would be wrong. He's been in office 150+ days and neither introduced nor signed any kind of large legislation that would improve ""every business.""    He has not done anything yet but enjoy the continued recovery that began under the Obama administration."


">Why do so many ventures fail? They are allegedly started by smart, capable people and funded by people with ""experience.""  Marketing. It sucks but it is true. You can start a company as an engineer and make the greatest piece of software since sliced bread, but unless you can sell it you're fucked. This is why I avoid investing in startups. Some of the greatest startups fail and some of the horrendous ones succeed; life is unfair."


ISIS wouldn't exist if not for the US invasion of Iraq.    Afghanistan is going to be garrisoned by US troops indefinitely because it suits the whims of the ruling class and their US Empire.    They don't want to win, just to occupy and control.  Fairly classic for an empire really.  Poor people die, our tax money is lit on fire, and some folks in the Military Industrial Complex laugh all the way to the bank while the Pentagon has a huge force it can just set in Central Asia apparently permanently...


I'd say the job category in question is key - fruit picking, unlikely to be rapidly taken over by Americans. Construction, though, lots of people out of work or left business because they can't compete with the costs of illegal labor.


I agree that best is subjective and will not give investment advice. However, the tax deductible part can be dealt with quite swiftly. If you need tax deductibility right now, at the expense of later, put it into an RSP account. If you don't need tax deductibility right now, put it into a TFSA. Assuming you have room in either of these vehicles, I would suggest using just an RSP or TFSA cash savings account for now at ING Direct. Three reasons: You get the immediate benefit of having put it somewhere, and in the case of the RSP, an immediate tax deductibility. You don't have to worry about rushing into a specific investment and can give yourself time to figure out your goals and portfolio composition. (Read about the Couch Potato portfolio for a starting point.) You can transfer your money from them for free and still keep it registered in whichever plan it is in. The last point is the most important for my suggestion. The ability to quickly park the cash in a registered account and to move it for free using the appropriate form at a later date. Most places have a sneaky transfer-out fee. ING may not be the only place that doesn't, but I haven't looked into many other places about this. You might find something else that works the same way. And please, don't ever use GIC and high return in the same sentence.


"You don't consider a situation where people give to ""charity"" that they're heading themselves. But generally speaking you're correct, the idea is that charity is tax deductible, and people prefer to give their money to their local church where they get the direct benefit of it, rather than to Uncle Sam."


An increased pool of workers demanding the same quality of life we have, fair labor and wage laws throughout the world (which is how they'd get that), would result in a global middle class, with countries like China, India, etc. no longer desperately outcompeting US workers for cost of production, which means it will be commercially viable to have production occurring in the US again on a large scale. Plus, more people with more money means greater demand for goods. What needs to happen is reigning in the artificial deflation of the value of labor...whether that will happen or not, I'm not particularly optimistic.


Another option to a human advisor is FutureAdvisor, a web service that (if it supports your 401k plan) gives personalized algorithmic advice on what you should hold in your 401(k) and other retirement accounts.  If it doesn't support your 401(k) plan just yet you can sign up to be emailed when your plan is added.  [Disclosure: I work here, but I believe in the product and it's designed to solve this exact problem so I'm mentioning it here]  Note from JoeTaxpayer - bolu's disclosure is much appreciated. The fee is $39/yr, with a free trial. Consider that a commissions based advisor won't even take on a $10K level account, and at $100K, you'd be hard pressed to gain by more than his 1% fee. So while I've not dug deeper into this site, a rules-based methodology is likely to be worth the cost if over time it gains you even a fraction of a percent compared to what you'd have done blindly.


can you give us some more information?  consumer based product? b2b type product?  does it have an end user (ie dropbox) or does it somehow integrate two things (ie you found a way for a photocopier to email someone when a printing job's done)?  saas? web based? phone based? desktop based?  who would be purchasing it? it departments? end users? parents?  who would the end user be? executives? customer service people? teenagers?  is it something that needs critical mass (reddit, facebook) to really take off?  do you have any people that can be beta / test clients?   not asking for specific details of where the treehouse is located, but would help to broadly know the type of forest it's in :)


"Page 62, https://assets.pershingsquareholdings.com/media/2017/01/26223015/2016-PSH-Annual-Update-Presentation-FOR-DISTRIBUTION.pdf  Looking at Pershing Square's 13-F, Bill Ackman is gonna see his money soon  Recently I posted a friend's resume on craigslist and some brainwashed herbalife chick was spamming e-mail responses to all the people who had posted their resume, regardless of whether the position the candidate was seeking or qualifications the candidate had was relevant or not.   I told her it's a bad idea to spam using her real name and that MLMs are trash. Also, the person whose resume I posted was looking for a job in finance and that she clearly didn't read the ad. Her responses:  ""Thanks for your opinion. We are all entitled to them. Finance to me means money! I teach people how to make money! Putting their skills to work for themselves. Good luck to you in your search! You sound like you got a shining personality.""  ""PS, if you are in finance you probably know your stuff! Go ahead and check out what Carl Icahn thinks about network marketing. He's undeniably the wealthiest man in the United States of America. He knows a thing or two about Finance. He backs are company amazing. Maybe I'll be close-minded. I don't want to work with you, but you don't really know what you're talking about.""  made me lol and facepalm"


> For example, if you're one of the growing AI companies of the world who sees a unique trained-up xNN as core IP or trade secret, I would be hesitant deploying such a thing to Aliyun.  I'd be hesitant to deploy trade secrets to any machines not directly owned and managed.


I feel like that any full answer has multiple facets:  **Free for 7 years:** I'm currently in KC, and most of the people in my area are opting in for the free service. So if I were able to get fibre (my neighborhood didn't get enough votes), it would cut my $40/mo bill from Time Warner and my service would increase if anything. That's a huge cut, and it pays for itself ($300 set up fee) in the first year. Then over the next 7 years it saves me over $3000 in bills. For some company like Time Warner to offer this, they'd lose a large amount of service. Free mediocre internet is a huge threat to companies whose top sellers are expensive mediocre internet.  **Lawsuits:** Like other people have stated, it's pretty impossible to become an actual competitor to these companies. The other ISPs (namely TWC and Comcast) fight anybody who pops up. There are minor providers in some of the outer suburbs, but they can't offer near the speed that a fibre solution provides.  **City Approval:** Even Google ran into issues with this. Cities have to approve things like new fibre lines, and if they don't you're pretty much stuck. Overland Park, a wealthier suburb of Kansas City, were really dragging their feet on getting Google approved. Google just decided to take the deal off the table. Google is such a big name, however, that people in Overland Park freaked out at their city council and I don't know what they did, but Google has opened up signups for them now. If this was a no-name company, though, they would have been out of luck and just been barred from entry altogether. City council problems are actually pretty interesting.  **Cost Effectiveness and Overhead:** Building a fibre network in KC is a pretty big cost. There are others around, but really only in the commercial areas. So whatever company wants to compete with Google has to go without making a profit for several, several years. In order to speed up that time (and save the company) they'd have to raise prices, and less people would be interested in their product.  Google really pulled off something huge, here. I'm pretty excited for what their doing (even if my stupid neighbors didn't sign up and I don't get to reap the benefits). I'm interested to see what effects this has on a larger scale when they start moving to other cities.


To me, the simple answer might be to tap the equity in the $400k home you owe $77k on and use the proceeds to purchase the new retirement home. Even if you were to do that, you'd still have almost $100k in untapped equity in the existing home, no mortgage on the retirement home, nothing out of pocket (other than refi fees), and probably no more of a mortgage payment than you already have on the house with equity.  I don't see any reason why the bank wouldn't go for that, especially if you've got a good payment history on your existing mortgage. I hope this helps. Good luck!


No? Is that a joke? You learn things in Law School that you have to go to Law School to learn. You learn math when you get an MS in Math that you have to go to Grad School to learn. BSchool is a joke and there is little if any meaningful knowledge being gained during your 2 years of partying and networking...


It would be the sales revenue less everything else. When he says reinvest, that is to say they keep all of the post-tax earnings and place it in retained earnings. This means that it is still the companies money to invest and use to fulfill their goals. If they didn't have any worthy investing opportunities, they could issue dividends. So say your cost of capital is, eeeeeh, 15%. And the best investment you can make will earn you 12%. That's a loss of value. So the company, acting in the investors best interests, will give those funds back so that the investors can allocate that money to more efficient areas. Dividends are one mechanism a company has to control their rate of growth.


You can receive money directly into your savings bank account. It is perfectly legal. FYI the Bank as part of regulation would report this to RBI. As the funds are received for the services you have rendered, You are liable to pay tax on the income. The income is taxed as professional income similar to the income of Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants etc. If you are paying your colleagues, it would be treated as expense. Not only this, you can also treat any phone calls you make, or equipment your purchase [laptop, desk etc] as expense. The difference become your actual income and you would be taxed as per the rate for individuals. It's advisable you contact an accountant who would advise you better for a nominal fee [few thousand rupees] and help you pay the tax and file the returns. With or without accountant It is very important for you to record all payments and expenses in a book of accounts.


Amazon announced this last month. Only at Kohls and Whole Foods. They are the ones who needed this service not Walmart.  http://mashable.com/2017/09/20/amazon-returns-kohls/  Walmart returns are pretty easy. Bought some bike tires and rim that were too small, but I tried putting them on anyway. The tire ripped and tubes popped. They asked nothing just took it back I was so glad I didn't have to explain that.


Took out a small loan to buy a brooks brothers suit and Allen Edmonds shoes after I graduated college (stupid? Maybe) but I wore it to my first and only interview & got compliments on how I looked. Ended up getting the job (large finance firm).  I say if you can swing it, go for it. If not, any conservative suit that actually fits you will work. What you'll notice is that a cheaper suit that fits well is a lot better than an expensive one that doesn't.  Good luck!  Additionally, I just bought my second suit. Also at brooks brothers. I don't really have many clothes and I'm still building a wardrobe for myself. I know that most of my clothes will be bought at brooks though. Snobby? Maybe. I don't give a fuck though.


I would personally suggest owning Mutual Funds or ETF's in a tax sheltered account, such as a 401k or an IRA, especially Roth options if available.  This lets you participate in the stock market while ensuring that you have diversified portfolio, and the money is managed by an expert.  The tax sheltered accounts (or tax free in the case of Roth accounts) increase your savings, and simplify your life as you don't need to worry about taxes on earnings within those accounts, as long as you leave the money in. For a great beginner's guide see Clark's Investment Guide (Easy).


"Having thought about it, I decided to start with another book by the same author : ""The Interpretation of Financial Statements"". I do not have a sufficiently strong basis to know what either ""The Intelligent Investor"" or ""Security Analysis"" are even about. Yeah, I might understand things, but I wouldn't grasp the essence, as I would be too busy figuring out what I didn't understand and miss the forest for the trees."


"Now asking if college is worth it?  That's not the question that should be asked.  Higher education and extended training are always a benefit at any point in life when it's of high quality.  The question that should be asked is, ""why is the cost of college as high as it is?""  When I went to college to get my Bachelors, a semester at my state university cost $940 bucks US (this was in the early to mid 90s).  Twenty years later, that same education cost $6,500 per semester.  The main difference between these periods is that borrowing for school is now standard practice (much less so in the 90s).  Any time you need to borrow to pay for something, you're going to overpay just because you have access to credit and can keep borrowing when someone hands you a bill.  Today, kids borrow for college because they don't have much choice if their parents didn't save enough or stopped supporting them right out of high school.  And if you have this level of debt right out of college, your hands will be tied for decades - it affects things like first home buying and disposable income spending.  The only way to drive the cost of college down is to plan ahead and pay with cash - and to do that, you need to have enough luck to be born to parents who care enough to help with your future.  If schools know you can't or won't borrow to pay for an education, they adjust."


> The process initially looked straightforward - a bank had already pre-approved her mortgage, which would require a down payment that was the exact sum of her life savings. She did notice one odd clause in the contract: if no bank would approve her loan, she would lose her down payment entirely.  Am I the only one confused by this paragraph? If a bank had already pre-approved her mortgage and took her down payment, why did she need to find another bank?


Not sure why you are getting downvotes. Managing to the next quarters numbers at the expense of the future is rampant in big companies these days. I work at a big bank and it’s really becoming a large problem. Individual contributors can only do so much to hide the fact that management is sacrificing the future for their quarterly bonus. In any one quarter it’s no big deal but when it’s done for years as is likely the case with GE it does cause huge problems.


"They're not at all the same. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment method that pays off early investors with deposits from later ones. Fractional reserve banking is the practice of keeping only a fraction of a bank's demand deposits on reserve, while lending out the rest.  The reserve requirement is how central banks limit the amount of money that can float around in commercial banks. In the latter case, there is no ""later investor"" somewhere down near the bottom of a money food chain.  Every dollar, regardless of whether it was created fresh from one of the federal reserve banks or created via several chained loans, is worth the same.  If the dollars depreciate for whatever reason, they do so for everyone. Now, if you want a good example of a Ponzi scheme that is actually legal, look at Social Security. Edit: A ""debt-based society"" is separate from fractional-reserve banking.  If the Fed creates $1,000,000, the total amount of money that can float around is still capped based on whatever the reserve requirement is.  (For a 10% reserve requirement, it's something like $10,000,000.)  We have unsustainable debt increases because of lack of self-control on the part of our leaders.  The fractional-reserve process helps it along, but it's not the culprit.  It's an enabler."


So no single bank is willing to underwrite the whole issuance, and the amount each wants is only roughly a sixth of the total each? Or did Greece limit the amount of the issuance that could be underwritten by one bidder? Just trying to understand.


And, you know, I got lots of respect for anybody who goes around doing magic tricks and claiming to be more of a son of god than you and I.  Why sidestep? Case the place and come back a couple of nights later and rip off their computers and whatever else you can snag. Fuck working for the worthless bastard. His paychecks probably bounce anyway.


That this comment got voted up proves to me that r/econ is filled with a bunch of idiots.  Technological advances (productivity) means we should all have more than we did 30 years ago.  People SHOULD be able to make the EXACT same amount of money (adjusted for inflation) and have the exact same lifetyle AND have  acomputer vs having an Atari in the 70s.  Our society can produce a computer easier than we could make an Atari back then.    But that isn't what happened.  People barely have the same conveniences (just more advanced versions) and cannot afford MUCH more expensive things that people took for granted in the 70s.  My factory worker father, on one income, bought a $1000 stereo.  new clothes for 2 kids every year for school.  Plenty of food.  A car.  A house.  A Beta VCR that cost $400 in *1980*.  Today people buy a dvd player for $80 and you say we are doing just as well?  We had health insurance and never even thought about it.  Now people cant afford homes or health insurance, but the problem si that we have ... yearly vacations to europe.    You obviously have no idea how the middle class lives in the US, do you?


Well anyone who spends 95% of their money isn't very wise. There's really no quantifiable way to determine exactly what percentage they spend, but I seriously doubt it's a tiny fraction   Edit: I'm not saying wealthy individuals spend more than half their money or even a quarter of it, but they definitely play a crucial role in the economy. Particularly, in the credit and lending markets which drives investment


Personally, it is the tenant's stupidity to leave cash and not get a receipt. If it were me, I would demand payment. But then $750 to me is a lot more than it may be to others. This is entirely a personal decision, legally I don't think the tenant has a leg to stand on because they have no proof they actually paid you, regardless of how or where they 'left it'.


"This may seem overly simple, but the most important thing to know is ""live beneath your means"". If your income is, for example, $2000 per month, spending $2001 or more per month is a sure path to ruin. Spending $1999 or less is the secret to success.  Everything else on this forum is mere commentary on the above."


"Am I getting it right that in India in terms of short selling in F&O market its what in the rest of the world is called naked short and you actually make promise to depositary that you will deliver that security you sold on settlement without actually owning the security or going through SLB mechanism? In Future and Options; there is no concept of short selling. You buy a future for a security / index. On the settlement day; the exchange determines the settlement price. The trade is closed in cash. i.e. Based on the settlement price, you [and the other party] will either get money [other party looses money] or you loose money [other party gets the money]. Similarly for Options; on expiry, the all ""In Money"" [or At Money] Options are settled in cash and you are credit with funds [the option writer is debited with funds]. If the option is ""out of money"" it expires and you loose the premium you paid to exercise the option."


I think the issue is that he didn't make a good product. They are bow ties, c'mon. The Shark Tank producers saw this and knew it was a good marketing ploy. If he came in here and had invented the zipper tie that would have been praise worthy.  I'm almost certain that him being black is the ONLY reason we even know his name. That pisses people off because nobody likes seeing people get things they don't deserve.   I'd go on a rant about affirmative action but this isn't /r/politics....although now that I think about it if it was I'd still get -100,000 case that place is cray left.  edit: not that there is anything wrong with being left, but being cray left is.


How long you need to keep tax records will depend on jurisdiction. In general, if you discard records in a period of time less than your tax authority recommends, it may create audit problems down the road. ie: if you make a deduction supported by business expense receipts, and you discard those receipts next year, then you won't be able to defend the deduction if your tax authority audits you in 3 years. Generally, how long you keep records would depend on: (a) how much time your tax authority has to audit you; and (b) how long after you file your return you are allowed to make your own amendments. In your case (US-based), the IRS has straight-forward documentation about how long it expects you to keep records: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/how-long-should-i-keep-records Period of Limitations that apply to income tax returns Keep records for 3 years if situations (4), (5), and (6) below do not apply to you. Keep records for 3 years from the date you filed your original return or 2 years from the date you paid the tax, whichever is later, if you file a claim for credit or refund after you file your return. Keep records for 7 years if you file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction. Keep records for 6 years if you do not report income that you should report, and it is more than 25% of the gross income shown on your return. Keep records indefinitely if you do not file a return. Keep records indefinitely if you file a fraudulent return. Keep employment tax records for at least 4 years after the date that the tax becomes due or is paid, whichever is later. Note that the above are the minimum periods to keep records; for your own purposes you may want to keep them for longer periods than that. For example, you may be in a position to discover that you would like to refile a prior tax return, because you forgot to claim a tax credit that was available to you. If you would have been eligible to refile in that period but no longer have documentation, you are out of luck.


First, I suggest that the route gives you the discount. You work the block with goldman and they say that if you work 20 blocks with them you get 50bps back, regardless of the issue.  Also, as a hedge fund you have a very different model than an ETF or MF.  That said, how exactly would that this be disclosed to the investor? Is there a standard in place for that?


I'm sorry I guess what i meant to say was, what's the downside here? Why isn't everyone doing this, what am i missing? Someone clarified that i'm completely exposed to FX risk if I bring it back.   What if I am IN australia, how would I do this, short USD's?


Thanks for your comment! I don't understand what you mean by 'thinking their funny... in the graph...?' I also didn't set out to influence you, it is statistics from sproutsocial with I elaborated on.   I understand your cynicism of bad products, but how will people find out about your good product? It's about marketing, not sales.   I 100% agree with your grandfatherThe whole point of the article is to encourage businesses and brands to storytell instead of sell.   Thanks again for your time


We need to be careful what we are talking about here. Inflation on a economy-level scale at an expected rate will not change consumer habits because the price increase is manageable. You have to realize that prices are not increasing in isolation: wages will have to rise along too.  High inflation that is expected will increase consumption of durable goods, as people attempt to 'get rid of their money' before the price changes on them. A good example of this was post-WWI germany, where hyperinflation was so bad that offices began to pay their employees twice daily, so they could adjust their wages, and so that their employees could go out during lunch and after work to buy something with the money before the price changed on them. Unexpected inflation may cause a temporary dip in spending until wages adjust, however consumers still need to buy, so they will likely push for higher wages, leading to consumption to stay about level. There is another effect to inflation as well: People who have savings will have their savings eroded over time if the economy is inflationary. To preserve their wealth, they will invest it. In a deflationary environment, money will increase in value simply by being hoarded, so they will be less willing to invest it. Deflation also increases the cost of interest on a loan, while inflation decreases it. So the overall effect is for an increase in spending under inflation, and a decrease under deflation. The person you have quoted is quite wrong. Price increases in a particular sector will cause consumer spending to decrease but this is a bad example, as it is not inflation, but rather a supply/demand problem of a particular consumer good. They are applying a micro-economic model (price increases of a single good) to a macroeconomic problem (price increases in the entire economy) when price increases at a global scale have the opposite effects. A good theoretical test of this is: what would happen if everyone in the US suddenly had twice as much money? (Ignoring international trade, of course). The answer: prices will double, and nothing else will change. The reason is, people will have more money to spend, but will require more money for their services, so in the end it all cancels out.


Historical volatility of a stock is going to be based on past performance, basically its current trend.  That can be useful, but really is no indication of how it will perform in the future.  Especially with a big swing in the market. Now if you're talking about implied volatility (IV) of an options contract, that's a little different.  IV is derived from an option’s price and shows what the market “implies” about the stock’s volatility in the future. Thus it is based on the actions of active traders and market makers.  So, it gives you a bit more insight into what's going on, but at times has less to do with fundamentals. I guess a good way to think of IV based on options contracts is as an educated opinion, of the market as a whole, with regards to how much that stock could likely move over a period of time (options expiration). Also note that IV represents the potential for a stock to move, but it does not forecast direction. I don't know of any studies off the top of my head, but I'm sure there have been plenty.


Audible has it.    http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/How-to-Win-Friends-Influence-People-Audiobook/B002V5BV96/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1409496635&sr=1-1  No clue on torrents.    If I had to pick three for someone just starting, grab the above and One up on Wall Street and Getting to Yes.    That would put you on a great path.  There is a lot of garbage in the category, but On Up was my beginning investment bible in high school and Getting to Yes is something anyone should read/listen to get a better understanding of basic negotiation.


Bloomberg terminal is a pretty standard way nowadays to get this information (and a lot more) pretty much in real time.


"Ok, I actually went and looked at the income statements for GE. They did not get a refund. They did not get a check from the government for the refund. This all took place between the balance sheet and the income statement. It goes down like this:  GE has on their books ""Deferred Tax Asset"" for XX billion dollars. This came from a year when they had an operating loss. They are carrying this loss forward as a deduction on their taxes (that's what makes it an asset, it's an asset to the company as it decreases their taxes).  For years, they've been reducing that Deferred Tax Asset account, and adding that amount to their ""Income After Tax"" amount. At the end of 2009, the amount they reduced that Deferred Tax Asset account by just so happened to be larger than the amount they decreased their income by due to taxable income that year.  For reference, their end of fiscal year 2009 pre-tax income is $9.864B, and their post tax income is $11.006B.  No one wrote them a check for the difference. It all comes from their own books.  If anyone else wants to look at the actual data and draw their own conclusions: https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AGE&fstype=ii&ei=QSxpUNi4Kc3LiQKOZw On that page, click ""Annual Data""."


http://www.euroinvestor.com/exchanges/nasdaq/macromedia-inc/41408/history will work as DumbCoder states, but didn't contain LEHMQ (Lehman Brother's holding company). You can use Yahoo for companies that have declared bankruptcy, such as Lehman Brothers: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=LEHMQ&a=08&b=01&c=2008&d=08&e=30&f=2008&g=d but you have to know the symbol of the holding company.


"I agree with you the practical knowledge and experience is way more important than a piece of paper.  Bill Gates did not need to finish college to do what he did. Check many many extremely successful people and how much college they had.  But ""faking"" that you have a degree is not a good idea.  Confronting HR that you deserve the position and promotion despite lack of diplomas is a better way."


unregister for child benefit but apparently If I do that then my wife will stop getting the automatic national insurance stamp each year and will lose years of state pension You probably got this wrong according to Citizen's Advice. You can choose not to receive any Child Benefit, if you don't want to pay the extra tax. However, HMRC is encouraging you to still fill out a Child Benefit claim form even if you choose not to actually receive any Child Benefit payments from them. This is because filling your claim form for Child Benefit can help you build up national insurance credits which can help protect your future state pension. This is particularly important if you've stopped work to look after children full time. It can also help protect your entitlement to other benefits such as Guardian's Allowance, and ensure your child is automatically issued with a National Insurance number before their 16th birthday. Completing a Child Benefit claim form will make it easier for payments to start again if your circumstances change and your income falls below the £50,000 limit. As for Self Assessment If you decide to continue getting Child Benefit, you'll have to fill in a self-assessment tax return. This is when you'll have to declare you were getting Child Benefit and pay the extra tax, known as the High Income Child Benefit Charge. You'll have to register for self-assessment if you are not already registered. You can choose to pay the tax charge either: The following is important though:-   It is your responsibility to pay the extra tax, even if you don't hear from HMRC. SOURCE


> The most important pieces of any corporate structure are (1) clarity of roles, (2) accountability, and (3) ease of communication.  I have to agree and second this wholeheartedly. Every place I have seen failures occur were almost completely because of at least 1 of these things being absent. To clarify, every one of those failures could have been avoided if the focus had been shifted onto fixing these 3 items inside operations.   &nbsp;   The largest ones were due mostly to accountability and communications issues. The clarity of roles can be overcome in dynamic environments with absolute focus on the other two. Accountability is a two-way street though. This is especially true in any environment that is measured on metrics. One example is below:   &nbsp;   Operations environment for any type of ticketing > resolution work. This could be anything IT, service or delivery related that has any form of SLA. A common occurrence that is overlooked in metrics environments is whether or not an issue being forwarded, escalated or otherwise dumped onto any other entity, including initial submission, has all the needed information to complete or resolve the task at hand. In this example metrics are usually tracked with timers ticking once the task has been assigned to the next entity. If the task requires certain information or details before it can be acted upon or completed, then the receiving entity can't proceed. This specific instance, there was no communication channel back to the submitting internal entity to obtain the info, leaving the only option to reject the task. Instead of addressing the root problem of communication, mgmt cranked down on accountability towards the team that rejected the task. This started causing all sorts of issues with SLAs going way outside of acceptable metrics and no one with authority to fix it could figure out why. So, *logically* a more in-depth approach was taken to intensify the unidirectional accountability that caused the problem. This did not fix the issue and led to too many good people being fired for failing to meet SLAs. They brought in a consultant to fix the problem, who took the same approach as before. Meanwhile, people on the team being held accountable for completing these tasks that were poorly communicated had been trying to explain why this wasn't working. Mgmt wouldn't listen to a single sentence from these people. Things went very bad. in this case everything could have been completely avoided; or at least fixed if communication was allowed in both directions in order to understand that accountability also needed to be implemented in the other direction so that the team assigned the initial task actually received all the information required to complete said task.   &nbsp;   They sacked 1/2 the team before any improvement occurred. What they did in the long run to fix it was move the entire task role to the costly initial internal submitting entity, and downsized the role and scope of the less costly team that only needed information. They effectively cost the company millions in lost productivity.      I watched this occur with my own 2 eyes from an internal perspective the entire time trying to get them to avoid such a pitfall. A one-way / top-down only perspective on communication and accountability only hurts everyone involved. Just my $0.02. Cheers :)


This podcast really opened my eye to Netflix's toxic culture.  Netflix can still continue to get away with this short term thinking culture because it's still growing. Once growth stopped, I don't think current culture is sustainable.  They'll have to reinvent themselves again or die.    It made me question the value of unlimited vacation and one year maternity Netflix so proudly advertised. I suspect any Netflix employee  who plan to take those benefits will find themselves unemployed very quickly.


Your goals are mutually exclusive.  You cannot both earn a return that will outpace inflation while simultaneously having zero-risk of losing money, at least not in the 2011 market. In 2008, a 5+% CD would have been a good choice. Here's a potential compromise... sacrifice some immediate liquidity for more earnings. Say you had $10,000 saved: In this scheme, you've diversified a little bit, have access to 50% of your money immediately (either through online transfer or bringing your bonds to a teller), have an implicit US government guarantee for 50% of your money and low risk for the rest, and get inflation protection for 75% of your money.


If you give money to a person or entity, and they don't have the ability to pay you back, it doesn't matter if they are legally required to pay you.


So many of our generation worked at these chain restaurants in the 2000s that it's no secret most of the food is frozen and microwaved.  We can microwave food ourselves at home with no markup, and seek out real restaurants that actually traditionally cook food.


">**Paulson explained that under this scenario, the common stock of the two government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, would be effectively wiped out.** So too would the various classes of preferred stock, he said.  > >The fund manager says he was shocked that Paulson would furnish such specific information  Despite what is claimed by the ""law professors"", what could possibly be considered any COMPELLING reason for him to share that VERY specific level of detail?  I think the ""law professors"" are full of *shill* on this one.  ---  And Black makes that exact point:  >William Black, associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, can’t understand why Paulson felt impelled to share the Treasury Department’s plan with the fund managers. > >“You just never ever do that as a government regulator -- transmit nonpublic market information to market participants,” says Black, who’s a former general counsel at the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. “There were no legitimate reasons for those disclosures.”   And apparently, one fund manager was of the same opinion:  >The fund manager who described the meeting left after coffee and called his lawyer. The attorney’s quick conclusion: Paulson’s talk was material nonpublic information, **and his client should immediately stop trading the shares** of Washington- based Fannie and McLean, Virginia-based Freddie.   **I don't buy into ANY of the rationalizations around this, Paulson was no neophyte, no kid straight off some Iowa farm, who was naive to the ways of finance.**"


"There are many different types of drugs. Some last longer in the system than others. The one Armstrong used doesn't last very long. Some idiots use drugs that last in the system longer and/or weren't smart enough to delay the tester.  Tests are also different. Tests can catch some drugs in the system, but not others as. They develop new tests to catch the newer drugs, or to just be more effective at testing existing drugs.  Armstrong used a combination of these techniques, he used a drug that doesn't last very long in the system, and delayed testers through various means so that they never ended up testing him in the period in which the drug was detectable.  Is that too hard for you to understand?  Also  >Drug testing catches other dopers  No Not always.. There are undoubtably other dopers who weren't caught yet, and probably used the same system as Armstrong. They just weren't caught because there is much greater scrutiny on Armstrong as he's usually regarded as the best.  If you think physical evidence is an absolute requirement, well, you're an idiot. If I kidnapped a person in broad day light yet there was no video recording of it and the only thing to go by was the testimonies of 26 witnesses, you think I should be let go just because they haven't found the kidnapped person yet and there was no ""physical"" evidence left behind?  Anyway I'm done arguing with you because you genuinely are a fucking idiot."


>Sherlock Holmes?!? Shit has to go public domain sometime.  It is, the case was that the Doyle estate was trying to extort licensing fees from publishers with the hope that no one would challenge them because the fee was less than the cost to litigate.


How about starving children all over the world.  That could be fed by these turkeys.  Or maybe the coming elections for the United States.  Or maybe SOPA.  There are numerous things that require more of my attention than an animal I am going to eat, not being treated so nice.


No.    Net profit is calculated after taxes. Loan interest is an expense, so it will result in the company paying less taxes (it acts as a tax shield), so net profit should still be positive. How much will depend on tax and interest rate.    Only the portion of the $1.000.000 that correspond to interest is an expense. Principal payments are not.


First, we need to be clear about what the allowances on your W-4 mean. The more allowances you claim, the lower tax liability it is assumed that you have, and they will take less tax out of your check. So claiming 2 allowances will result in a bigger paycheck and less tax withholding than claiming 0 allowances would.  If you claim 0 allowances, you are in no danger of having too little tax withheld; instead, that would result in the maximum tax withheld. So 0 allowances is certainly an option, if you want to play it safe.  This being your first year with these jobs, it's hard to know what to claim on your W-4. When you do your taxes next year, you can see if the withholding was too much or just right; if your refund is too big, you can increase your allowances for next year.  That having been said, I don't like getting big refunds; I'd rather have a bigger paycheck all year. If I were you, I'd probably claim 1 or 2 allowances at the new job, and adjust it next year if needed. At your income level, you aren't really in any danger of getting in trouble for having too little withheld.  Good luck with the new job. Game testing has always seemed like a dream job to me. :)


As Sean pointed out they usually mean LIBOR or the FFR (or for other countries the equivalent risk free rate of interest). I will just like to add on to what everyone has said here and will like to explain how various interest rates you mentioned work out when the risk free rate moves: For brevity, let's denote the risk free rate by Rf, the savings account interest rate as Rs, a mortgage interest rate as Rmort, and a term deposit rate with the bank as Rterm. Savings account interest rate: When a central bank revises the overnight lending rate (or the prime rate, repo rate etc.), in some countries banks are not obliged to increase the savings account interest rate. Usually a downward revision will force them to lower it (because they net they will be paying out = Rf - Rs). On the other hand, if Rf goes up and if one of the banks increases the Rs then other banks may be forced to do so too under competitive pressure. In some countries the central bank has the authority to revise Rs without revising the overnight lending rate. Term deposits with the bank (or certificates of deposit): Usually movements in these rates are more in sync with Rf than Rs is. The chief difference is that savings account offer more liquidity than term deposits and hence banks can offer lower rates and still get deposits under them --consider the higher interest rate offered by the term deposit as a liquidity risk premium. Generally, interest rates paid by instruments of similar risk profile that offer similar liquidity will move in parallel (otherwise there can be arbitrage). Sometimes these rates can move to anticipate a future change in Rf. Mortgage loan rates or other interests that you pay to the bank: If the risk free rate goes up, banks will increase these rates to keep the net interest they earn over risk free (= Δr = Rmort - Rf) the same. If Rf drops and if banks are not obliged to decrease loan rates then they will only do so if one of the banks does it first. P.S:- Wherever I have said they will do so when one of the banks does it first, I am not referring to a recursion but merely to the competitive market theory. Under such a theory, the first one to cut down the profit margin usually has a strong business incentive to do so (e.g., gain market share, or eliminate competition by lowering profit margins etc.). Others are forced to follow the trend.


First off, congratulations on taking care of your finances and paying off your cards!  Takes a lot of discipline.   If your next oldest card is just a year apart, you can safely close this card.


And a large part of these kind of phenomenon that we see between the US and Europe just emerge from little initial differences which then carry out and compound themselves over time.   For example, in the US, most people get their health insurance from the company they work for, because during WWII, the government obviously instituted a draft. But what is not as obvious, is that to keep wages low to keep the price of goods low, they insituted a wage freeze. The only way companies could compete and incentivize workers was through ancillary benefits. Health insurance being the most appealing.


As with most things accounting/tax related it depends. In general though yes. As an example, if the client were to buy equipment on credit before fiscal year end, in lets say December, but did not pay until the next year started in January, then under cash basis they would not have the purchase accounted for until they made payment. That means they could not claim any deductions from the purchase. Under accrual, the purchase would have been put on the books in December, when the equipment was installed, and they would have been able to claim any deductions.


And what about all of the people who DON'T respond.  Heck, what is the ratio of responses to graduates?  Are you 100% certain that ALL of the responses (even really NEGATIVE ones) are being made available to you?  And how in the world would you know?  Selection bias is virtually ALWAYS towards the positive in regards to shit like this.  That's not even taking into account that surveying only GRADUATES is in and of itself a bias (survivorship).  *I have no doubt that you have HEARD of the terms, but it is fairly obvious that you really don't COMPREHEND the effects of those biases.*  Have fun with that.


It is also much easier for a country to spend money on infrastructure when its citizens barely have any recourse to contest public projects. Could you imagine the headlines, protests, and etc. if the US government decided to displace 1.3 million people and submerge many historic/cultural sites to build a new power plant?


Have you ever thought that how we get protected from small ailments like cold, or any other infections? Then it is the Antibodies are those things that protect us from various Infections. These are large Protein molecules white cells. Custom Antibody produced by the immune system in the response to the presence of antigens in the human body.


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Maybe you should consider setting up a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) for your business dealings as a landlord and consider providing that instead of your SSN for this type of thing. I am assuming (if this is legitimate) they want it so they can send you a 1099 as they might be obligated to do if they are claiming the rent as a business expense. Also, I'd suggest having the tenant tell their employer to contact you directly. There is no need for the tenant in this situation to also get your SSN/TIN.


"Holy fuck, what the fuck are you talking about?   > Walmart operates on a ""just in time"" basis that they operate themselves, with as many walmarts that exist around the country, you can go witness this by yourself, every day of the week 364 days a year.  What does this sentence mean? Is this even English?   If you're saying Wal-Mart is the only company that uses just-in-time logistics, you're cluelessly wrong. It's been pretty standard across many companies for decades.  Amazon, however, has taken logistics to another level of innovation. For example, Amazon's Vendor Flex program takes advantage of its suppliers' warehouses instead of its own.   A supplier like Proctor & Gamble fences off a section of its warehouse for Amazon orders, and Amazon employees fulfill orders straight from that location. This saves time and money for both. P&G doesn't need to ship to an Amazon warehouse, and Amazon doesn't need to store inventory for even a second.  Amazon is the leader in innovations like this, and its willingness to share data and create partnerships with its suppliers has helped its partners find and create efficiencies to pass on to Amazon's customers. For example, suppliers receive real-time data to predict demand, rather than guessing how much product to make for the next bulk order.  Meanwhile, Wal-Mart is doing stuff the old-fashioned way: ordering products from suppliers, moving them to distribution centres and then to stores.  And while Wal-Mart is good at getting stuff into stores, it's hopelessly lost trying figure out [last mile](https://www.datexcorp.com/last-mile-delivery-part-1-omni-channel-retail-affecting-transportation-logistics/) delivery — the final delivery to people's homes.   Wal-Mart's method is to get customers to drive to them, or even to get their [employees to drop off orders on their commutes home](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/02/walmart-asking-staff-to-deliver-online-orders-on-their-way-home).  Amazon has that stuff mastered and is getting better all the time.  ----------------  >The only thing Amazon can bring to the equation is a system in which WF suddenly can operate at a loss and Amazon share holders simply don't care, like they haven't cared for the last 20 years amazon has made ""no money"".  Whole Foods has been horribly inefficient, especially with regards to how it works with smaller, local suppliers in many different locations.  Amazon has long figured out how to efficiently get products from many thousands of small suppliers.   ---------  Edit: Get a clue, learn English, and learn how to spell ""blatantly"" before you start criticizing others."


"Of course Goldman Sacs sells the bonds to the fed without charging a commission. They are  well known for their compassionate altruism. Just kidding! Of course they charge. The Federal Reserve Act specifies that the Federal Reserve buy and sell Treasury securities only in the ""open market."" The Federal Reserve conducts its purchases through ""Primary Dealers"" - usually Goldman Sacs-these btw are older securities. The new ones such as the fed has been gobbling up lately are sold at auction.  This supposedly supports the central banks independence in conducting monetary policy but still doesn't seem right. But then the fact that we have a central bank at all instead of the U.S. Treasury printing the money, doesn't seem quite right either now does it?"


Also with HTTP2 it's the default protocol.  Also in Sepetember Let's Encrypt will be able to generate ECDSA root and intermediates which can be used to sign end-entity certificates.  ECDSA is alot less expensive to terminate than normal RSA based certificates so the age old concern that SSL is heavy on your infrastructure is going as well.


>What does Trump has to do with OBAMA(!!!!)care?  Constantly ranting on twitter destabilized the individual insurance market. Trump is a shit negotiator, he can't get anything done other than signing useless executive actions.  Insurance industry doesn't want to take any chance so they take cut their losses and leave.   Don't worry, Trump is creating a lot of jobs in criminal defense legal service. Make Attorneys Get Attorneys!


"I'll use similar logic to Dave Ramsey to answer this question because this is a popular question when we're talking about paying off any debt early.  Also, consider this tweet and what it means for student loans - to you, they're debt, to the government, they're assets. If you had no debt at all and enough financial assets to cover the cost, would you borrow money at [interest rate] to obtain a degree?  Put it in the housing way, if you paid off your home, would you pull out an equity loan/line for a purchase when you have enough money in savings?  I can't answer the question for you or anyone else, as you can probably find many people who will see benefits to either. I can tell you two observations I've made about this question (it comes a lot with housing) over time.  First, it tends to come up a lot when stocks are in a bubble to the point where people begin to consider borrowing from 0% interest rate credit cards to buy stocks (or float bills for a while).  How quickly people forget what it feels (and looks like) when you see your financial assets drop 50-60%!  It's not Wall Street that's greedy, it's most average investors.  Second, people asking this question generally overlook the behavior behind the action; as Carnegie said, ""Concentration is the key to wealth"" and concentrating your financial energy on something, instead of throwing it all over the place, can simplify your life.  This is one reason why lottery winners don't keep their winnings: their financial behavior was rotten before winning, and simply getting a lot of money seldom changes behavior.  Even if you get paid a lot or little, that's irrelevant to success because success requires behavior and when you master the behavior everything else (like money, happiness, peace of mind, etc) follows."


"Yes and no. Any great idea, excluding new technologies/discoveries, usually involves a trade-off. Good ideas taken to their extremes usually are pathological.  I've generally worked in the open communication environment Musk describes for most of my career for 25 years and I've seen where it works and where it doesn't, and what Musk's email misses is where it doesn't work. It is a good *starting point*.  For one thing, there need to be filters. A VP, Director, Senior Manager, CEO, or other higher up cannot deal with 1000 emails per day for ideas, criticisms, etc. He does mention avoiding ""chit chat"", but employees with ""good ideas"" for technology or business do not see their suggestions as ""chit chat"". Most actual *good* ideas from juniors are too low level for senior management, such as different platforms, coding methods, etc. Most ideas that senior management are needed, like company direction, organization, etc., require a sophisticated knowledge and experience of business, contracts, etc. Most of the junior ideas I've seen, including my own, were bad ideas that came from lack of experience in business.  Or take some new HR policy. Imagine the thousands of direct responses of people straight to HR on the policy. That would grind things to a halt. The whole purpose of direct managers and supervisors is to filter information down, up, and sideways so that other people can do their jobs.  You don't want to have high-value people (knowledge, experience, specialties) spending their day dealing with emails and other people's ideas. You want them providing that value to the business. So you need filters -- people who can recognize the good from the bad and pass on the bad. That could be direct managers at the employee's side, or it could be administrative help at the department's side. Either way, it's necessary to be efficient.  Then there's the problem of including all stakeholders. If you are junior and work out a solution to a problem with a junior in another problem, but in implementing it you break a whole system (which I've seen happen), you've just caused a lot of harm to the organization. Neither of you may fully understand the implications of your solution on other things. People with responsibility for those things need to be included in the discussion and take responsibility for any implementation.  I hate bureaucracy and sometimes it can be a major inefficiency and roadblock for getting simple and obvious things done. But bureaucracy can also improve efficiency and value and a lack of it can be pathological. I've seen marketing and sales people continually take engineers off of important development work in order to build demos for potential new clients, all of which failed to materialize. Why? Because the marketing and sales people were chasing *leads* for contracts without any review of the technical solution, the ideal one, what the solution to the customer needs *really* involves. What was needed to improve efficiency was a ""bureaucratic"" process that reviewed the market opportunities with the technical offerings of the company and either reject opportunities early on or plan and schedule how best to chase the leads.  In my experience, what works best in most cases is open communication but clear guidelines (a) on what is appropriate or not to go direct, (b) that the communications are about ideas only and coming up with solutions, and (c) that actions or implementations require bringing the ""chain of command"" into the loop for comment or objection before doing anything.  Complaining to management isn't usually of much value and doesn't change much. But, identifying the problem (that is part of the complaint), identifying a workable solution with stakeholders, and asking for permission via the chain of command is usually a good way to get things done without creating the problems of a free-for-all."


*1. Apple - holding over 100b cash in their vault more than any banks have in their reserves in the world and more than enough to pay off all of the debts of the U.S.*  There is $14 trillion in US government debt. You're off by a couple of orders of magnitude.


"They're poor because that is the default position. We don't come into this world with property to our name. It is given to us over the course of our life for a multitude of reasons: maybe we found it, won it, inherited it, earned it, stole it, and so on. It's just like being single - there isn't a reason to be in a ""default"" position, but rather a lack of reason to have moved from it."


Most places have property taxes so I'd be shocked if the UK didn't.  If people didn't have to pay income/VAT/sales taxes then they would be able to afford the higher property taxes.  It is probably true enough though that the government is likely to not raise as much revenue (though that isn't guaranteed: more efficient taxation collection combined with more objective/simple rules for business is likely to increase real economic growth).  As a person who thinks government has expanded well beyond what is good for society however, I see the shrinking of government as a good thing.


This is a question of how does someone value a business.   Typically, it is some function of how much the company owns, how much the company owes, how risky is the company's business, and how much the company makes in profit. For example if a company (or investment) make $100/year, every year no matter what, how much would you pay for that?   If you pay $1,000 you'll make 10% each year on your investment.  Is that a good enough return?   If you think the risk of the company requires a 20% payoff, you shouldn't pay more than $500 for the company.


Ha! I'm not calling you out here, apologies if it seemed that way. Disagreements over the Internet tend to feel like attacks.  My experiences with mental health have shown me that the path toward success is far less linear than for healthy people. And because everyone is brought up so linear, many end up lost. But that's what makes mental health sufferers all the more interesting.  18 months ago I was bussing tables and thought life was over. Alongside my partner, we now employ 3 doctors and 7 other staff, treat mental health issues, and we have 2 clinics with an aim for 5 by year end. I'm in my mid twenties- life finds a way. And you're right to avoid excuses at all costs.


That's not how business works. Have you ever owned a business? Economics doesn't work that way. The market doesn't work that way. You're saying pretty words that are idealistic but those things would never work practically. You know where has laws like that? Cuba. You should see how they're doing. The reason America is America is because of the system. The most innovation comes from here. You're basically trying to neuter business. No one starts a company to with the intention of making jobs you're doing it do make money and work for yourself, and it grows. And you can't just make rules for public companies to not pay attention to profits, the entire wall street system would crash. And if you think that's fine, you don't seem to know what it is to the economy.


I'm simply pointing out that most automakers (successful and not) have primarily focused on how to build their companies, gain market share, and try to anticipate consumer wants and trends.   You are correct in saying, by definition the successful ones have done better.  As well, yes, Tesla is not catering to the minivan users of the world at the moment (although it's expanding into SUVs). But it has no reason to, that's not it's market at the moment.   I'm saying that it's impressive that the company knows it's market and is willing to sacrifice profits to a degree to make it more attractive to its market. Ironically, what it's doing is actually using something that is generally appreciated by the majority of consumers.


Well said, but I disagree with this:  >All natural means having no teeth and dying in your 20s-30s.  That depends entirely upon the era and civilization.   Also, many of the chemical 'enhancements' you mention are really just to allow you to function given an unhealthy diet. They're just bringing you to a level of function that's less below what it would have been had you lived a healthy lifestyle (and not been unlucky to get some horrible disease).


"Wow, that's expensive.  Here's a list of the channels you get for the 30€ plan:  http://media.abonnez-vous.orange.fr/medias/pdf/divers/chaines-TV.pdf  ( You have to pay extra for the ones in gray and the first 19 channels are free even without a subscription )  There are probably much less channels than in the US but you probably only watch 1% of the available channels.  Since I just checked, extra channels (like Canal+ which you could say is the french equivalent of HBO) are pretty expensive (40€/month). But I only watch American shows ""on the internet"" so I wouldn't know ;)"