>Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto announced the budget deal late Monday. The deal calls for a $34.7 billion budget that includes more than $300 million in Democratic spending priorities and is part of an agreement to overhaul the state's largest health insurer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield.    So Christie got what he wanted by holding a national holiday hostage.  I thought that America doesn't negotiate with terrorists.


If I have $100 and put it under the bed it will return 0%.  Relatively good in a bear market and relatively bad in a bull market.


Instead of giving part of their profits back as dividends, management puts it back into the company so the company can grow and produce higher profits. When these companies do well, there is high demand for them as in the long term higher profits equates to a higher share price. So if a company invests in itself to grow its profits higher and higher, one of the main reasons investors will buy the shares, is in the expectation of future capital gains. In fact just because a company pays a dividend, would you still buy it if the share price kept decreasing year after year? Lets put it this way: Company A makes record profits year after year, continually keeps beating market expectations, its share price keeps going up, but it pays no dividend instead reinvests its profits to continually grow the business. Company B pays a dividend instead of reinvesting to grow the business, it has been surprising the market on the downside for a few years now, it has had some profit warnings lately and its share price has consistently been dropping for over a year. Which company would you be interested in buying out of the two? I know I would be interested in buying Company A, and I would definitely stay away from Company B. Company A may or may not pay dividends in the future, but if Company B continues on this path it will soon run out of money to pay dividends. Most market gains are made through capital gains rather than dividends, and most people invest in the hope the shares they buy go up in price over time. Dividends can be one attractant to investors but they are not the only one.


As others have said, it simply makes you a part owner. Even if you have ethical objections to a company's behavior, I'd argue that investing in it and using the proxy votes to influence the company's decisions might be even more ethical than not investing.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/trump-plans-to-dismantle-obama-era-startup-visa/) reduced by 79%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The Department of Homeland Security will file an official notice to delay the International Entrepreneur Rule for eight months.  > The International Entrepreneur Rule, signed by former President Obama days before he left office in January, doesn&#039;t offer a visa but rather a type of &quot;Parole&quot; that would allow immigrants to stay in the US temporarily as long as they meet certain requirements.  > DHS has estimated about 3,000 entrepreneurs would qualify under the rule.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6iy5bm/trump_plans_to_dismantle_obamaera_startup_visa/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~150458 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **Rule**^#1 **Entrepreneur**^#2 **Startup**^#3 **visa**^#4 **month**^#5"


What you want to do is figure out how much you're paying in interest, solely (ie, the interest part of each payment), add that up over 48 months, then figure out the net value of the cash inflow/outflow for the points over 48 months (ie, 3.5% annual return on the positive or negative value).  Sum those two.  Then you can see your P&L, and your total cash outflow (up to you if you add a % to your negative initial outflow, and how exactly you consider your $2k closing costs; I agree with JoeTaxpayer about adding at least closing costs to the loan amount.  If you have money to pay the points that would otherwise be earning money, you could alternately consider it a negative cash (ie, instead of accruing 3.5% it's a negative balance accruing that). In excel I'd do something like: Then track changes in H and I when you change columns B and C and G.


Do you want to use the helium balloons Brisbane in your party? Then, there are plenty of suppliers available in the market that caters these balloons. On the internet, you will find one of a well known supplier, i.e. “Balloons and Sparkle Australia”.


"You can charge a fee to accept checks, although I think the better solution might be to offer a small discount for early payment of your invoices.  As some people here have suggested, why not add a small bit to your fees to begin with to cover your inconvenience in the case they choose to pay by check?   I often will give clients a small discount of 1.5% for paying my invoices within 10 days, which does motivate some to pay sooner, depending on the client and the amount of the invoice.  If you've already added a small amount to your fees in the first place then providing the discount is good public relations that doesn't actually cost you anything. You can always add a ""convenience fee"" for accepting checks, but this is a more negative approach, as though you're penalizing the client for paying by check rather than electronically.  Some people do see it this way, despite any efforts you make to explain otherwise. As to your question about adding fees for accepting credit cards, be very careful!  There are sometimes state or local laws on this, and you could find yourself in trouble very quickly if you run afoul of one.  Here's a good article to read on the subject: Adding fees for accepting credit cards from CreditCards.com Site I hope this is helpful. Good luck!"


As far as ease of sale transaction goes you'll want to pay off the loan and have the title in your name and in your hand at the time of sale.  Selling a car private party is difficult enough, the last thing you want is some administrivia clouding your deal.  How you go about paying the remaining balance on the car is really up to you.  If you can make that happen on a CC without paying an additional fee, that sounds like a good option.


If you pay it off before the cycle closes it will look like you have 100% available credit.   So if you credit card statement closes on the 7th pay it off on the 6th in full don't pay it when its due 2/3 weeks later. Then after three months of doing that your credit score will go up based on the fact that your debt ratio is so low.  That ratio is 30% of your credit score.  It will help quite alot.


Agreed. A philosophy of isolationism and provoking trade-wars with former trade allies is the preferred approach for the Trump administration. However, closing borders to imports is likely to have a very high offsetting cost for US exports.   It all seems very shortsighted. Just based on what Canada and the UK are likely to do in response to just this decision alone, will certainly cost companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin a lot more in exports than they will ever gain through this maneuver.


"The gross liabilities (benefit obligation) will still be there, regardless. They are *future* benefits.  Sure, you can increase funding to the plan to eliminate the *net* pension liability, but why? The new assets would earn very little. The shortfall is not an excessively large risk. The only reason seems to be the ""all-consuming focus on immediate results"" which is more rhetoric than reality in this case."


It’s pretty damn good! You probably wouldn’t notice that you weren’t eating meat assuming it was prepared right. The one I ate had pretty thin patties that were nicely caramelized / crispy on the outside and edges. Tasted like a beef burger cooked smash style


>Why does minimum wage exist, if not to account for low skill jobs like those found in Walmart.  Minimum wage exists as a floor, the lowest possible amount someone can survive on. Paying anyone less would make survival impossible, in fact, many wal-mart employees are also on food stamps.


An ISA is a much simpler thing than I suspect you think it is. It is a wrapper or envelope, and the point of it is that HMRC does not care what happens inside the envelope, or even about extractions of funds from the envelope; they only care about insertions of funds into the envelope. It is these insertions that are limited to £15k in a tax year; what happens to the funds once they're inside the envelope is your own business.  Some diagrams: Initial investment of £10k. This is an insertion into the envelope and so counts against your £15k/tax year limit.                 +---------ISA-------+ ----- £10k --------->              |                +-------------------+  So now you have this:                 +---------ISA-------+                |  £10k of cash     |                +-------------------+  Buy fund:                 +---------ISA-------+                |    £10k of ABC    |                +-------------------+  Fund appreciates. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care:                 +---------ISA-------+                |    £12k of ABC    |                +-------------------+  Sell fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care:                 +---------ISA-------+                |    £12k of cash   |                +-------------------+  Buy another fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care:                 +---------ISA-----------------+                | £10k of JKL & £2k of cash   |                +-----------------------------+  Fund appreciates. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care:                 +---------ISA-----------------+                | £11k of JKL & £2k of cash   |                +-----------------------------+  Sell fund. This happens inside the envelope; HMRC don't care:                 +---------ISA-------+                |    £13k of cash   |                +-------------------+  Withdraw funds. This is an extraction from the envelope; HMRC don't care.                 +---------ISA-------+ <---- £13k ---------               |                +-------------------+  No capital gains liability, you don't even have to put this on your tax return (if applicable) - your £10k became £13k inside an ISA envelope, so HMRC don't care. Note however that for the rest of that tax year, the most you can insert into an ISA would now be £5k:                 +---------ISA-------+ ----- £5k --------->               |                +-------------------+  even though the ISA is empty. This is because the limit is to the total inserted during the year.


Not just America, and I assume not ALL companies, but heaps in Australia are doing the same thing. I work for one that does, I mean all of the Visa workers in here are wonderful people so it's not a big deal to me. I can definitely relate to people being annoyed about this though, especially as many foreigners send a lot of their money overseas instead of spending it here.


well, probably taxed a little. and taxed when they spend it, and taxed again when it is spent again. like fikirte said, this is foreign money. if the americans want access to it they have to make it easy. they've done it in the past http://law-journals-books.vlex.com/vid/the-portfolio-interest-exemption-53348889 sorry there is a lack of sources in real english.


"You might want to to a little research. They used to be fully self-sufficient before ideologues in Congress decided that they wanted to break the Post Office to destroy the postal union and I'm guessing also open up opportunities for campaign contributing private firms.      So they find ways to legislate crazy mandates that make the Post Office not-profitable. I guess it was bad PR for them when they say, ""government can't do anything right,"" to have people point to a Post Office that worked well and say, ""what about that?"""


There are two fundamental flaws to your plan: Supposing that you can get a loan with an interest rate that is less than the profit you are likely to get from an investment. Historically, the U.S. stock market goes up by 6 to 7% per year. I just did a quick check and found rates for unsecured loans of 10 to 15%. Of course interest rates vary depending on your credit rating and all sorts of other factors, but that's probably a reasonable ball park. Borrowing money at 15% so you can invest it at 6% is not a good plan. Of course you could invest in things that promise higher returns, but such investments have higher risks. If there was a super safe investment that was virtually guaranteed to give 20% profit, the bank wouldn't loan you money at 10 or 15%: they'd put their money in this 20% investment. I don't know what your income is, but unless it's substantial, no one is going to give you an unsecured loan for $250,000.  In your question you say you'll use $2,000 of your profits to make payments on the loan. That's less than 0.8% of the loan amount. If you really know a bank that will loan money at 0.8%, I'm sure we'd all like to hear about it. That would be an awesome rate for a fully secured loan, never mind for a signature loan. $250,000 for 10 years at 10% would mean payments of $3,300 per MONTH, and that's about the most optimistic terms I can imagine for a signature loan. You say you plan to lie to the bank. What are you going to tell them? A person doesn't get to be a bank loan officer with authority to make $250,000 loans if he's a complete idiot. They're going to want to know what you intend to do with the money and how you plan to pay it back. If you're making a million dollars a year, sure, they'll probably loan you that kind of money. But if you were making a million dollars a year I doubt you'd be considering this scheme. As TripeHound said in the comments, if it was really possible to get bigger returns on an investment than you would have to pay in interest on an unsecured loan, then everybody would be doing it all the time. Sorry, if you want to be rich, the realistic choices are, (a) arrange to be born to rich parents; (b) win the lottery; (c) get a good job and work hard.


"> I don't even have words for this.  I'm not surprised.  The ""you don't get to tell me what I can do with my money"" talking point has been hammered into American brains.  You would agree with most Americans that if the parents are in serious debt and pass away then the debt should not pass on to the child, yes?  It makes sense because why should the child have to pay for his parent's failures?  So why do you believe that debts shouldn't transfer but credits should?  If a child shouldn't get stuck with a parent's failures then shouldn't a child also not benefit from the parent's successes?"


Generally S&P 500 will be used as the benchmark for US investors because it represents how's the US market performs as a whole. If you've outperformed the S&P 500 during the last couple years, great. However, at the end of day, you would want to look at the total growth percent that your portfolio has achieved, as compared with that of S&P 500.  Anyway, your portfolio might actually ride along with the bull market during the 2009-2010 period (more-so for the small caps).


"You missed my point. The only thing stopping me from living my dream is your desire for taxes. I agree we are spending stolen money on many bad things with military being pretty damn close to the top. But it still doesn't change the situation for those of us who would rather be left alone. This doesn't mean that everyone who agrees with you can't donate to your cause. But those of us who don't agree should not be forced to go along with your schemes no matter what they are and how much you think it will be good for ""all"" of society. [But if we had reasonable expectations everyone could prosper.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKInjcrJc8E)"


Theta is a variable in options pricing. Theta aka time decay decreases over time. The reason of this is that you have to think of the option as insurance. It is a hedge against actual holdings in an asset. Would you pay more or less for insurance that covers you for a year's time, would you pay more or less for insurance that covers you for a week? The answer is that the market will pay less for insurance that covers them for a lower period of time. This is one of several ways of thinking about it. There is also the probability that the option will be profitable at all, the further out in the future, the more likely it will be profitable and people will pay a premium for it. There are other variables in the black-scholes formula and it is the most widely used options pricing formula. But keep in mind, the geniuses that made up the formula blew up their hedge fund thinking they could sell the options at an inflated premium from their own formula to everyone. Ironic really.


You seem to have not ever received a cease and desist letter and not sure if you know what you are talking about regarding the nature of this one.  - legal trouble is extremely disruptive to business (and this is a tiny side project) really not worth the hassle once they had proved the point. Being 90% certain you are in the right is not that reassuring if the downside is measured in 6 or 7 figures  - issue was use of McGregors name and likeness which are protectable. You can't just slap a famous persons name and image on your product (or anyone's for that matter) without their permission. Trademarks don't appear to come into it  - they could have continued without use of his name and probably would be fine - but by that point they have achiev d what they set out to, the profit is relatively small compared to the main business and they probably have some insight to how crucial the name was to the success (e.g. What if 90% of web searches that lead to a sale included his name? If CTR is much lower for non mcgregor ads?) etc.


>[**Как обменять и вывести деньги с Payeer кошелька с минимальной комиссией! Лучшие способы обмена 2017! [4:01]**](http://youtu.be/WMgGSRWPEoY)  >>¦ Ссылка на регистрацию в проектах:  > [*^Вектор ^Криптовалют*](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAOABF2yT1SjVqI7RK9aIUg) ^in ^People ^& ^Blogs  >*^2 ^views ^since ^Jul ^2017*  [^bot ^info](/r/youtubefactsbot/wiki/index)


"Such a flawed, grasping-at-straws article. Do both ivy league institutions and schools like Hartwick (example used in article) have students that transfer out of STEM programs? Absolutely. But I can say with absolute confidence that engineering programs (e.g.) are considerably more difficult at the former.  In reference to math SAT scores for Hartwick,  >""The top, middle, and bottom third of students averaged 569, 472, and 417, respectively.""  Sorry, but the bottom ivy students' scores are above your top performers by a substantial margin.  Are there kids at ivy schools that got the silver spoon treatment their whole lives and perform well because of this? Yup. Characters of all types at all learning institutions. But don't demean the achievement of those who worked their asses off to get somewhere.  Hi, I am bbqbot, and my jimmies are rustled."


ladies tennis coach Melbourne Contact Kelly Tennis today if you are looking for a ladies tennis coach in Melbourne. They offer a variety of tennis coaching classes for women, for all ages and abilities to help them improve their game or learn the basics and essentials.


There's a massive commitment involved, and lots of barriers to entry, sports is just about the perfect metaphor.  You have to be pretty smart and you have to commit yourself to acquiring a set of skills that will be mostly useless if you fail to land a programming job.  That and the fact that the market changes so quickly that skills you had five years ago may no longer be relevant, while skills that have been out of fashion for 20 years might suddenly be the most necessary.  The work is anything but glamorous, tedious, and incredibly difficult to do well.  And the skillset that you'd enter college with you could parlay into much more lucrative positions.  Microsoft is competing with Bank of America for it's talent, not General Electric, and their salaries should be commensurate with the going rate for that kind of talent.  If they don't want to pay, they should offshore, but good luck with that.   Microsoft of course knows all this.  Which is why they're trying to get away with paying 10k per H1B visa when they know that acquiring the talent that they want stateside would cost them 30x as much.


If your stock is rising and you want to buy on a dip, the best way to do this is by looking at the chart and incorporating simple Technical Analysis techniques. Firstly, an uptrend is defined as a price chart with higher highs and higher lowers. If you get a lower high or a lower low (or both), it could be the end of the uptrend - be cautious. This can be seen on the chart below with an uptrend line drawn.  If you draw a trend line you can wait for the price to approach the trend line, bounce off it and start moving up again to buy your stock on a dip. If instead the price closes below the trend line, be very cautious - this could be the end of the uptrend and the start of a downtrend - no telling how low the price will go. If this is the case you can then draw a downtrend line and wait for the price to close above the downtrend line before making your purchase.


Well - not true at all.  The border between Finland and Russia had until recently and probably still has one of the greatest differences in living standards of any border in the world, up there with USA/Mexico and Australia/Indonesia and Spain/Morocco.   There are a lot of Estonians migrant workers working in Finland.   Sweden takes per capita the most immigrants in the western world.   It's not about the availability of work force. I guess you have not heard about the influx of people from Africa, Near East and Afganistan to the EU. It has been one of the big stories if the decade. EU takes more immigrants both relatively and in absolute terms than the US.   I did not single out Scandinavia. I singled out the US. It's the only western country where the illegal unregulated largely immigrant service class does the dirty work for the whole economy.  There are small pockets of that in EU as well - the seasonal workers of Spain for instance, but the US is really unique as a developed country.


A business could buy the car outright for cash if it so chose, so no, there's no specific limit on the down payment.


"Because you have people reading the headline and then conflating gasoline for oil.  I know, I already saw the rage at the hannity forums about gasoline being so expensive when we have ""so much"" that we export it.    But they don't understand at first glance that we're still importing more oil than we export, in order to make that gasoline."


"This is ""incentive financing"". Simply put, the car company isn't in the business of making money by buying government bonds. They're in the business of making money by selling cars. If you are ""qualified"" from a credit standpoint, and want to buy a $20k car on any given Sunday, you'll typically be offered a loan of between 6% and 9%. Let's say this loan is for three years and you can offer $4000 down payment and/or trade. The required monthly payment on the remaining $16k at the high end of 9% is $508.80, which over 3 years means you'll pay $2,316.64 in interest. Now, that may sound like a good chunk of change, and for the ordinary individual, it is, possibly enough that you decide not to buy today. Now, let's say, all other things being equal, that the company is offering 0.9% incentive financing. Same price, same down payment, same loan term. Your payments over 3 years decrease to $450.64, and over the same loan term you would only pay $222.97 in interest. You save over $2,093.67 in interest over three years, which for you is again a decent chunk of change. Theoretically, the car company's losing that same $2,093.67 in interest by offering this deal, and depending on how it's getting the money it lends you (most financial companies are middlemen, getting money from bond-buying investors who expect a rate of return), that could be a real loss and not just opportunity cost. But, that incentive got you to walk in their door, and not their competitor's. It helped convince you to buy the $20,000 car. The gross margin on that car (price minus direct costs) is typically 20% for the dealer, plus another 20% for the manufacturer, so by giving up the $2,000 on the financing side, the dealer and manufacturer just earned themselves 4 times that much. On top of that, by buying that car, you're committing to buy the parts for the car, a side business with even higher margins, of which the car company gets a pretty big chunk. You may even be required to use dealer service while the car's under warranty in order to keep the warranty valid, another cha-ching. When you get right down to it, the loss from the incentive financing is drowned in the gross profits they make from selling the car to you. Now, in reality, it's a fine balance. The percentages I mentioned are gross margins (EBITDASG&A - Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortization, Sales, General and Administrative costs; basically, just revenue minus direct cost of goods sold). Add in all these side costs and you get a net margin of only about 3.5% of revenue, so your $20k car purchase may only make the car company's stakeholders $700 on the sale, plus slightly higher net margins on parts and service over the life of the car. Because incentive financing is typically only offered through the company's own financing subsidiary, the loss isn't in the form of a cost paid, but simply a revenue not realized, but it can still move a car company from net positive to net negative earnings if the program is too successful. This is why not everyone does it, and not all at the same time; if you're selling enough cars without it, why give away money?  Typically, these incentives are offered for two reasons; to clear out old cars or excess inventory, or to maintain ground against a competitor's stronger sales numbers. Keeping cars on a lot ready to sell is expensive, and so is not having your brand driving around on the street turning heads and imprinting their name on the minds of potential customers."


"Okay - but that's about gold as an investment in today's world, and during  an extremely unstable financial situation.  Many other types of investments could be used similarly. Those who advocate gold as a hedge don't advocate buying it during a crisis, they advocate keeping some as part of an investment strategy... but again, that's gold as gold, not gold as currency.  Leveraging your investments based on current financial situations is what investing is about.   Gold as a medium for currency is a totally different thing.   What you just described would be called ""arbitrage"" - in moving markets (or other situations I guess) looking for no-lose situations where you can trade things around and increase your net value doing it.    it helps stabilize markets - as people take advantage of this situation it counters the effect and self-corrects... think about it ;)"


Yea, they seem okay with price variance. Here, the price swings a buck depending on which side of the county line you're on.  It looks like they've made it as far north as MD with the full list of states being: GA, KY, MD, NC, SC, TN, VA. They are freaking moving fast.   It was only a couple of years ago that they moved beyond the NC borders but what's wild is all the restaurants outside of NC I've seen have dine-in seating. I still get tripped up in NC and start looking for the doors to go in while the people in the drive-through stare at me in confusion. I wonder if they'll ever change that.


A big part of why the insurers are pulling is is the uncertainty.  The ACA model worked in MA and is based on market forces. There is no reason it shouldn't succeed other that being actively sabotaged by the GOP. No legislation this big works out of the box yet this one has not been allowed to improve for 8 years and the GOP was rewarded for that sabotage.  If the insurance companies had clear understanding of the marketplace for the next few years you would not have this problem.  There are changes that are needed. IMO first thing is to get rid of the employee mandate. If it was up to me Id change it so no company would offer health insurance. I don't get my car insurance through work why do i get my health insurance from them. But that is long term and we need to ease into it.  There are other issues as well but they are all fixable.  The overall costs are an issue and that is not addressed in ACA at all. That I don't have an answer for but the ACA didn't make it worse.


"Just what exactly are you trying to do here?  Are you trying to defend Susan being the Chief Information Security because she could not learn Systems security?  > and a C-level position requires administrative and personnel management skills and understanding of security policy, not specialized technical engineering knowledge of protocols, cryptography, etc.  Are you assuming or biased that any real security expert cannot do administrative and personnel management?   Trust me that if you can master the latest security protocols, you can do mundane ""administrative"" and ""personnel"" things.  Further, you can have great human and presentation skills.  > (And not database lol.)  You also have no clue about security. FYI, all data is sitting in databases. And if you do not organize the databases correctly, you have no security. For example, social security numbers, masked, cannot be in the same database as personal information. Instead you have a pointer from the personal information the record of the socials security numbers in another database.  And just these two databases make life miserable for hackers because they have to steal data from two databases and correlate each one to the other.  So I know MUCH MUCH more than you about security. Don't challenge me in that respect.  >> she has no clue about security.  > When have I ever defended her actions?   Just above, and constantly since day one.  >> So give me a possible way how Susan got her job.  > Five years at HP, a year at Sun Trust Banks, four years at First Data Corporation  Do you realize that after she got her music degree, all those positions you listed she was ""Vice President""?  So again, how does Susan get all her jobs and titles? What could possibly be that she has such a meteoric rise in the corporate level? Pure talent and skills?  >> If contractors are more expensive than in-house employees, nobody will use contractors.  > omg where to start. I'll just chalk that comment up to inexperience and lack of understanding of total staff costs over time.... point out that employees cost more over time, demonstrating the benefit of using contractors...)  Exactly! Contractors are cheaper than in-house staff which is what I said. Thanks for confirming that.  And you said that Contractors get paid more. No they are not, except real experts and almost exclusively in IT field."


It's tempting to think of a corporation as a real thing, because in many respects it seems to be. But it isn't a corporeal thing (despite the root word of the name). It may own corporeal things, and employ corporeal people, but it is not itself a real thing. Borrowing heavily from Prof Joseph Heath: It might be better to think of a corporation as the nexus of four separate entities: investors who provide capital, employees who do the work, suppliers who provide raw material, etc., and customers who purchase the products or services the corporation buys. In different organizations the 'owners' are different: in co-ops it's the suppliers, mutual insurance companies the customers, in employee-owned companies the employees, but in 90% of cases (including Monsanto) it's the investors. The investors who provided capital by buying shares of stock are the owners, and will be compensated. This frequently happens indirectly: You may own Monsanto stock through a mutual fund or other such aggregate which means that your mutual fund will get the money. Whether that winds up being a profit or loss is more complicated.


Yes. I can by all means start my own company and name myself CEO. If Bill Gates wanted to hire me, I'll take the offer and still be CEO of my own company. Now, whether or not my company makes money and survives is another question.  This is the basis of self-employed individuals who contract out their services.


In [online scrapbook](http://scrapgirls.com/), ideas can be crucial factors on whether or not you are able to create that ideal scrapbooking. It is usually best for you come up with your own ideas when generating a scrapbooking. But we all need help sometimes and to provide you a bit of help there are locations where you may discover totally totally free scrapbooking ideas.


It depends on how complex your return is.  If the only reason you are not using the 1040EZ is because you are over the $ limits, you probably don't need the audit insurance.  Look at the sources of your income. A W-2 per person, some 1099's from your bank, and you take the standard deduction because you rent, you probably don't need it. If you are a day trader, and you claim to have a home office, and your return runs dozens of pages, it might not be a bad deal.


Good point. One of my former clients is an Indian immigrant who moved here to have the opportunity to create a better life. He was really passionate about affiliate marketing and created an empire here. Anyone who immigrates like that is dedicated and is more likely to succeed. I don't know nearly as many native born Indians as Koreans or Chinese come to think of it.


If you own 100% of the shares of a company, then you own those shares personally.  They are not owned by the company.  If you sell 50% of you shares to a third party, then you receive the proceeds of the sale, not the company.  In this case, the company's net equity is unchanged but you have exchanged 50% of your equity for cash. If you wish the company to receive the proceeds of the sale of shares, then you would have the company issue new shares in the company.  In this case, your company's net equity would increase by the cash amount received and your personal equity would change accordingly. EDIT In order to fairly sell 50% of equity by issuing new shares it would be necessary for the new investor to invest 50K.  This is because the new equity would be the original 50K of equity plus the cash received for new shares.  Thus : cost of 50% of equity = 50% of (50K + cash recieved) = cash received. Solving for cash received gives 50K, so that is the correct amount to charge the new investor.


Google to determine who in your field is advertising.  now follow every link and STUDY what they are doing on their websites (design for example, copy for another example).  if they have prices, make note and of what offers they serve up  after you know all that, you could come back here


We were booming for 5 years straight. We netted 2 million one year and the rest 1.5 million. I fired my office manager with a 2 week notice. Trying to be nice giving him a 2 week notice rather than throw him out. He went behind my back and ruined all my relationships with my customers and partnerships with other companies.  I had to start at square one. I went from making theses 7 figure incomes to scraping by. Most of my money is invested into real estate so I didn't wanna sell right away. It was a good move I contacted my old clients some understood some wanted nothing to do with me. I started taking the shitty jobs no one wanted. I was running around all over trying to get as much work as possible. Now I'm not back to 7 figures but I hit a comfortable 200k net-income. I'm slowly getting back up there it's been 3 years. You just have to keep pushing and keep an open mind. Don't make the same mistake twice.


"*""Amy has applied some deep rationale to her blog post because she felt robbed of her time…""*  No, dude, I've never worked at a startup - not unless you count Limewire. I've watched it all happen to lots of people I care about, though, and heard horror stories from all kinds of well-known founders who you wouldn't expect to be bitching about it out of the public spotlight, say ""I would never do that again,"" ""it's a mistake,"" etc. Because of my speaking career, I've also had the good fortune to hang out with famous folks who already had sold their companies. Believe you me, they are not the jolly happy rich people you would expect. They were sad, and wan.   But nobody will write about it.  I've never worked more than a 40-hour week for any length of time, and perhaps more importantly, at my first ""real"" job at a high tech contract firm at 21, I negotiated a 4-day work week of 8-hour days. Everybody told me I was crazy and would get fired, but obviously that didn't happen.  Meanwhile I spent the rest of *my* youth working at a party company (Limewire) then consulting for bigcos like Bear Stearns and Pepsi, then building my own products starting at 24. Now at 27 I've got a whole bunch of products and a verrrry nice income and a short work week, and over a half million dollars a year in revenue.  I'm not bitter. I'm passionate.   *""Sadly, her reputation with prospective employers might be influenced by her choice of words in the interest of ""fucking glory.""""*  If the worst happened, and somehow all my slow-growth, very profitable products disappeared overnight, I would find a job in a hot minute. Don't you worry about me. Real companies LOVE people who actually give a damn. And the fact is, I'm amazing. My husband & I clear over $250,000 years off the most boring software *ever* and spend barely a day a week on it.   But naw. I'm never going to take another job. With the exception of a special art project funded by Pepsi, I haven't done a single hour's worth of work for anyone else since January 2010.  In fact, this winter I'm taking 30 days off from my own biz -- limiting to 30 minutes a day doing email support -- and taking a road trip around New Zealand with my husband."


I'd still take the lower total pay with higher hourly pay, because I'm saving myself time. It ultimately represents an increase in efficiency for my time, or an increase in my ROI of time, which most business people would agree is a good thing. I can supplement my income with side jobs or a side business, with the extra time I have. What's really key is what happens to overall employment. If it gets low enough to where workers can find 2nd jobs, then it may truly leave some low wage workers worse off, and the entire demographic worse off as a whole.


Give this a try https://www.catalogchoice.org/ I started using it about 6 months ago and my junk mail intake has lowered dramatically! About the only thing I get regularly are stupid cash advance checks from companies I have credit cards with.


Need is a strong word. As far as merchants are concerned, if they accept, e.g., Visa credit, they will accept Visa Debit. The reverse is not necessarily true. Up until lately, Aldi would only accept debit cards (credit cards have higher merchant fees), and when I used to got to Sam's Club, they would accept Visa debit, but not credit (they had/have an exclusive deal with Discover for credit). So, yes, they can tell from the card number whether it's credit or debit. However, I've never heard of a case of the situation being biased against debit.*  That said there are some advantages to having a credit card: ETA: I don't know how credit history works in the EU, but in the US having open credit accounts definitely does affect your credit score which directly affects what rate you can get for a mortgage.  *ETA_2: As mentioned in the comments and another answer, car rentals will often require credit cards and not debit (Makes sense to me that they would want to make sure they can get their money if there is damage to the car). Many credit cards do include rental car insurance if you use it to pay for your rental, so that's another potential advantage for credit cards.


If the ruleset you've created turns out to have unintended consequences (and from the article, there is at least MP who thinks so), then creating more rules to clarify or modify existing rules to keep everything operating within the intent of the law isn't insanity, it's smart government.


If they short the contract, that means, in 5 months, they will owe if the price goes up (receive if the price goes down) the difference between the price they sold the future at, and the 3-month Eurodollar interbank rate, times the value of the contract, times 5. If they're long, they receive if the price goes up (owe if the price goes down), but otherwise unchanged. Cash settlement means they don't actually need to make/receive a three month loan to settle the future, if they held it to expiration - they just pay or receive the difference.  This way, there's no credit risk beyond the clearinghouse. The final settlement price of an expiring three-month Eurodollar futures (GE) contract is equal to 100 minus the three-month Eurodollar interbank time deposit rate.


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From my knowledge, credit card balance cannot be transfered like that. On the other hand, debit card balance can. All banks have an online portal where you can log in and see all of your accounts. (Another options is to call or go to the bank and go through the same process) To transfer to banks in other countries, you need both their account details (Person's Name, Account Number) and the bank's international identifiers (Exact Name, Swift Number). If you have that information, you can simply transfer the money and then your parents (or you) can use it to pay the debt. Another option would be to assign yourself as the Debt payer (if the bank allows it) and other options would be simple money lending services like, for example, Western Union. Also, be sure that your bank will know ALL the possible ways you could proceed. Hope this helps! Robert


There are a lot of reasons why this is a mediocre idea. The first of which is that he is using salary.com and glassdoor as his sources for his software's salary information.The second problem is that it makes it easier for other companies to poach people because they will know what those people are being paid before headhunting. Third, his model assumes that people have the same incentives. Many people often forgo salary bumps and other things for reasons that aren't clear on the surface. Maybe in lieu of a promotion someone got a raise? Maybe someone accepted a lower salary with an unwritten rule that they could work fewer hours in a week or have a more flexible schedule? This guys product looks like an untested idea that could create a lot of complications.


Why not just open multiple accounts at the same bank? That would make it harder to lose track of, and you could probably still get reports summarizing the balances across them. I do this and it works well, my credit union even lets me name each account so it is easy to keep them straight.


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> but their prices aren't that bad on many things  They're often somewhat more expensive in my experience, but they carry products you can't get anywhere else (sustainably harvested/produced meat/fish, products with no artificial color/flavor, niche organic products, quality hot/cold bar, etc.) while providing employees a living wage and customers a superior experience.  If you chose to shop there you know you're paying a premium for the later two.


For the sake of sanity, pay off your debt maybe not all but some part of it. You never know what the monster, the stock market may turn out to be. It may gobble up all your money without belching or it may gift you with a bounty. But if you pay off all your debt and the stock market monster is rewarding everybody else, you may rue your decision. So put some part of it the markets too, but a more safer one would be a good bet. The proportions of money for loan repayment and for investing in markets is your decision, after you evaluate all your future predictions.


"Or, given the political climate, just a fucking moron.  It's basically code for ""I'm a troll"" given a lot of the common use, but if you're announcing you're a troll, you're _being a shitty troll_. Now it's also got an air of ""...and I have no ability to tell when something has become old-hat and played out."""


You might want to see this question and its answers.  If it was me, I'd prefer to exchange the currency in Germany.  Why?  When you are in the US you will be on vacation.  It does not seem fun to spend vacation time in a bank.


"Hi all, confused about how employee option pools interact with pre-money and post-money VC valuations.  From what I understand, the pool essentially dilutes pre-money valuation. A quote from [FastIgnite](http://fastignite.com/startup-tools/calculating-true-pre-money-valuation):   > Say the VC wants 20%. If the company is valued at $10M then the VC would put in $2.5M for a post money of $12.5M ($2.5M / $12.5M = 20%). However, if a 30% option pool is added then the post money will be $20M (the pool will be $6M) and the VC will put in $4M ($1.5M or 60% more than before). The pre-money would have jumped to $16M.  I get that in both cases, the founder stays at a $10.0m ""true"" valuation, and a pool dilutes founder pre-money ownership from 100.0% to 62.5% in this case. But, it seems like the pool is adding value out of nowhere! The only additional money is coming from the VC, but somehow the pool is worth $6m?"


From personal experience, I can tell you that bank account numbers are not unique.  Someone from another branch of my bank was able to withdraw money from my account at my branch because they had the same account number.  You are supposed to enter your branch number on the withdrawal slip in front of your account number.  The person who got my money did not do this.  Because it was at my branch, the teller debited my account for the transaction.  I caught this on my monthly statement and immediately complained to my branch manager. He was able to retrieve the withdrawal slip and saw what had happened.  He credited my account and said he was going to talk to the teller who should have asked for the branch number and/or should have noticed that the name and address on the withdrawal slip did not match those on my account.  I would not have thought that the bank would allow this situation considering how many numbers are available to assign but they did.


It appears that they are dropping the 9-5 and 9-4x, focusing on the 9-3, partly because of GMs unwillingness to sell the rights to the 9-5 and 4x, and partly because they are quite heavy for an eletric.  Good night sweet prince ;(   I am however thrilled to see the 9-3 as an electric. It will be interesting to follow how this will unveil.


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It is considered a powerful antioxidant that prevents damage to the DNA of cells, always exposed to free radicals and solar radiation. Another function of vitamin c benefits against skin aging is the ability to increase the synthesis of collagen, a very abundant protein in the skin that decreases over the years. It is also non-irritating bleach that at the same time reduces fine lines and wrinkles, minimizes redness and restores flexibility.


">would there be enough buyers to sell them?  yes, but you wouldnt sell them because (hopefully) you have studied what bitcoin is (a network for payments/value rather than a ""coin"").  learn today, and maybe profit in future and change the world :)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkxdys-Ek9U"


Are there any laws against doing this?  so long as you are truthful in your application for the loan, none that I know of - technically you could use the loan to pay for school and the cash that you would have used instead to invest.   Are there other reasons why this is a very bad idea? I think you've already identified the biggest one, but here are my reasons: Will you go broke or go to jail? Likely not, but there is significant risk in investing with borrowed money. You might come out ahead, but you might also lose a bundle.  If you're willing to take that risk, that's your right, but I would not call it a good idea under any circumstances.


Not quite.  Every security issued by the company defines what it gets. If you want to go straight to common stock, the shareholders are in fact owners of the company: after everyone else gets paid, no matter what is left, it belongs to the common shareholders.


While it is true that homeowners insurance will cover emergencies, it is very important to check and make sure that your policy is covering everything that it needs to. A great example is what happened to all of those without flood insurance in Tennessee last year. You may opt not to get additional coverage, but then you should make sure that you are setting aside funds for such a catastrophe.


Surprised that no one has mentioned **Dun & Bradstreet** yet. A lot of small businesses require a D&B number for various reasons (getting an extended verification SSL cert, applying for government contracts, etc). D&B numbers are *free*, but the D&B sales guys will lie and threaten you about expensive up-sells over the course of many phone calls before you can actually get it. Then once you have the number, they send this bullshit spam saying that your credit report has changed, but you got to pay to know what they're saying about you. Sorry for the rant, just D&B is the scummiest company I've dealt with in a long time.


do I have to pay any tax? Technically this would be treated as Gift from non relatives and taxes as per gift tax rules. There is a limit of Rs 50,000 per year to receive funds from non-relatives. Note if the amount becomes Rs 50,001 then the entire Rs 50,001 is taxable.  If you are again giving this money to your friend, then your friend is also liable to pay Gift Tax on the money received. It is best recommended that you have your friend open an account.


I was listening to Marketplace this morning and this young social worker was talking about her life and how hard it is to start the family she wants since her student loans are $2100 a month. How the hell is that even possible? That's $25k a year with I'm assuming 10 years to pay it off. She borrowed nearly $200 grand to become a social worker?


"Being ""Long"" something means you own it.  Being ""Short"" something means you have created an obligation that you have sold to someone else.  If I am long 100 shares of MSFT, that means that I possess 100 shares of MSFT.  If I am short 100 shares of MSFT, that means that my broker let me borrow 100 shares of MSFT, and I chose to sell them.  While I am short 100 shares of MSFT, I owe 100 shares of MSFT to my broker whenever he demands them back.  Until he demands them back, I owe interest on the value of those 100 shares.  You short a stock when you feel it is about to drop in price.  The idea there is that if MSFT is at $50 and I short it, I borrow 100 shares from my broker and sell for $5000.  If MSFT falls to $48 the next day, I buy back the 100 shares and give them back to my broker.  I pocket the difference ($50 - $48 = $2/share x 100 shares = $200), minus interest owed.  Call and Put options.  People manage the risk of owning a stock or speculate on the future move of a stock by buying and selling calls and puts.  Call and Put options have 3 important components.  The stock symbol they are actionable against (MSFT in this case), the ""strike price"" - $52 in this case, and an expiration, June.  If you buy a MSFT June $52 Call, you are buying the right to purchase MSFT stock before June options expiration (3rd Saturday of the month).  They are priced per share (let's say this one cost $0.10/share), and sold in 100 share blocks called a ""contract"".  If you buy 1 MSFT June $52 call in this scenario, it would cost you 100 shares x $0.10/share = $10.  If you own this call and the stock spikes to $56 before June, you may exercise your right to purchase this stock (for $52), then immediately sell the stock (at the current price of $56) for a profit of $4 / share ($400 in this case), minus commissions.  This is an overly simplified view of this transaction, as this rarely happens, but I have explained it so you understand the value of the option.  Typically the exercise of the option is not used, but the option is sold to another party for an equivalent value.  You can also sell a Call.  Let's say you own 100 shares of MSFT and you would like to make an extra $0.10 a share because you DON'T think the stock price will be up to $52/share by the end of June.  So you go to your online brokerage and sell one contract, and receive the $0.10 premium per share, being $10.  If the end of June comes and nobody exercises the option you sold, you get to keep the $10 as pure profit (minus commission)!  If they do exercise their option, your broker makes you sell your 100 shares of MSFT to that party for the $52 price.  If the stock shot up to $56, you don't get to gain from that price move, as you have already committed to selling it to somebody at the $52 price.  Again, this exercise scenario is overly simplified, but you should understand the process.  A Put is the opposite of a Call.  If you own 100 shares of MSFT, and you fear a fall in price, you may buy a PUT with a strike price at your threshold of pain.  You might buy a $48 June MSFT Put because you fear the stock falling before June.  If the stock does fall below the $48, you are guaranteed that somebody will buy yours at $48, limiting your loss.  You will have paid a premium for this right (maybe $0.52/share for example).  If the stock never gets down to $48 at the end of June, your option to sell is then worthless, as who would sell their stock at $48 when the market will pay you more?  Owning a Put can be treated like owning insurance on the stock from a loss in stock price.  Alternatively, if you think there is no way possible it will get down to $48 before the end of June, you may SELL a $48 MSFT June Put.  HOWEVER, if the stock does dip down below $48, somebody will exercise their option and force you to buy their stock for $48.  Imagine a scenario that MSFT drops to $30 on some drastically terrible news.  While everybody else may buy the stock at $30, you are obligated to buy shares for $48.  Not good!  When you sold the option, somebody paid you a premium for buying that right from you.  Often times you will always keep this premium.  Sometimes though, you will have to buy a stock at a steep price compared to market.  Now options strategies are combinations of buying and selling calls and puts on the same stock.  Example -- I could buy a $52 MSFT June Call, and sell a $55 MSFT June Call.  I would pay money for the $52 Call that I am long, and receive money for the $55 Call that I am short.  The money I receive from the short $55 Call helps offset the cost of buying the $52 Call.  If the stock were to go up, I would enjoy the profit within in $52-$55 range, essentially, maxing out my profit at $3/share - what the long/short call spread cost me.  There are dozens of strategies of mixing and matching long and short calls and puts depending on what you expect the stock to do, and what you want to profit or protect yourself from.  A derivative is any financial device that is derived from some other factor.  Options are one of the most simple types of derivatives.  The value of the option is derived from the real stock price.  Bingo?  That's a derivative.  Lotto?  That is also a derivative.  Power companies buy weather derivatives to hedge their energy requirements.  There are people selling derivatives based on the number of sunny days in Omaha.  Remember those calls and puts on stock prices?  There are people that sell calls and puts based on the number of sunny days in Omaha.  Sounds kind of ridiculous -- but now imagine that you are a solar power company that gets ""free"" electricity from the sun and they sell that to their customers.  On cloudy days, the solar power company is still on the hook to provide energy to their customers, but they must buy it from a more expensive source.  If they own the ""Sunny Days in Omaha"" derivative, they can make money for every cloudy day over the annual average, thus, hedging their obligation for providing more expensive electricity on cloudy days.  For that derivative to work, somebody in the derivative market puts a price on what he believes the odds are of too many cloudy days happening, and somebody who wants to protect his interests from an over abundance of cloudy days purchases this derivative.  The energy company buying this derivative has a known cost for the cost of the derivative and works this into their business model.  Knowing that they will be compensated for any excessive cloudy days allows them to stabilize their pricing and reduce their risk.  The person selling the derivative profits if the number of sunny days is higher than average.  The people selling these types of derivatives study the weather in order to make their offers appropriately.  This particular example is a fictitious one (I don't believe there is a derivative called ""Sunny days in Omaha""), but the concept is real, and the derivatives are based on anything from sunny days, to BLS unemployment statistics, to the apartment vacancy rate of NYC, to the cost of a gallon of milk in Maine.  For every situation, somebody is looking to protect themselves from something, and somebody else believes they can profit from it.  Now these examples are highly simplified, many derivatives are highly technical, comprised of multiple indicators as a part of its risk profile, and extremely difficult to explain.  These things might sound ridiculous, but if you ran a lemonade stand in Omaha, that sunny days derivative just might be your best friend..."


>Suppose they had priced it at $25 and limited the number of shares they would have gotten less money but they'd also be looking at a massively successful pop on their share price.  ...which would've benefited them how, exactly? Sell a share for $38 and it drops to $25, the company gets $38. Sell a share for $25 and it goes to $150, the company gets $25.


Each of the Saudis don't have that much ownership because they technically own most of the stuff together and there are so many of them.  In reality, most of the wealth is actually controlled by a much smaller clique, each of which would probably rate pretty damn high in the Forbes list if their wealth was public.


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It was just for these two guys but we might be seeing a return to the finance hiring arms race for MBAs back in the 90's.  The number of MBAs every year has been dropping due to the recession but I think we're still a ways off from a hiring boom across the board.


I think I'm reading that you cosigned a loan with a friend, and they've stopped paying on their loan. Not a whole lot of options here. You'll have to pay the loan off by yourself or allow the loan to go into collections in hopes that you'll get more money later and pay it off then. Small claims court is definitely an option at that point. Next time, perhaps try not to cosign loans with friends unless you really trust them and are confident that you can pay the loan off if they cannot.


Melodrama much?   The only reason this hurts the franchise system is because it prevents the franchiser from profiting from labor violations at the franchise level.  So, sure some franchises might not be viable anymore, but that might not be so bad for society as a whole, those jobs will just transition to other food joints.  In terms of franchiser operational changes, its not going to change anything other than the cost of drafting up some company wide pay policies and reworking the franchise contracts to allow McDs  to revoke franchise licenses in the event that they violate labor laws.


"This is fraud, the related legal code is ""11 USC 548 - Fraudulent transfers and obligations""; also see the wiki page for Fraudulent Conveyance in the United States.  Highly suggest cutting off contact with this person, and speaking with a lawyer as soon as possible to make sure you have not already broken the law."


The limits for 2011 and 2012 are $5000 or $6000 if you are 50 or older. The 2011 income limit is $169K, but that's MAGI, not gross. With a $180K income, your MAGI is likely below $169, but you can only tell by looking at your return. If you are this close, you might have to convert to a non-deducted IRA, or withdraw the money. Else, you can fund the 2011 IRA when you file the return in 2012 to be sure.


">The other thing about coal is that unlike retail and other industries, coal is highly concentrated in certain regions. When coal mines shut down, towns go under.      So yes, looking at it from a national perspective, it ""only employs a trivial number of workers"" but from a local perspective the number of  employees is far from trivial."


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You know what I find truly interesting? People shying away from the term sexist. You have the view that women cause more drama than men in the office, right? And you'll stand by that statement, but don't agree with being called sexist for it? Why does the term sexist offend you, but making generalizations of people based on their gender doesn't?


There no legal framework that allows states like the US or countries in Europe to default on their debt.  Should congress pass a law to default the US supreme court is likely to nullify the law.


"The Solicitor involved up front should be able to place constrictions as your suggesting.  I think you should look carefully at the desired wording. You deserve a return on your £100k. Say, the day after you buy (this is hypothetical, please bear with me) a developer says he needs the property and will give you £460k. Your wording here says you get £100k, and then, after the mortgage split £230k, but it seems more reasonable that your deposit doubles to £200k, the remaining £260k pays the mortgage, and the £130k left is split, £65k each.  My method accounts for the value of your £100k. Some would ask, why not apply the mortgage rate to that deposit? Because the home value may grow at a different rate. In my opinion, it's fair to apply the home value growth to the £100k deposit.  ""Fair"" means different things to different people. This is my opinion, and a suggestion. Consider it, and do what you and your partner wish. Use a solicitor. Put it in writing."


THEY ARE NOT RUNNING AROUND KILLING PEOPLE. A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE OUT OF LITERALLY MILLIONS ARE. WHY DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND HOW NUMBERS WORK????  There is NO statistical evidence supporting any of the bullshit you're spouting. You are a racist, stupid fuck. Go away. I hope the evil Muslims get you first.


Yes, it is.  Got to start somewhere.  Typically directly through a company itself. Check out this site that lists a bunch of them and their minimum requirements.  Not many only accept $100 but there are a few. ie. ACTIVEnergy Income Fund, CIBC, COMPASS Income Fund, Suncor Energy Inc. and a few others.


"According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act: any consumer reporting agency may furnish a consumer report [...] to a person which it has reason to believe [...] intends to use the information in connection with a credit transaction involving the consumer on whom the information is to be furnished and   involving the extension of credit to, or review or collection of an account of, the consumer See p12 (section 604). The usual interpretation of this that I've heard is that a debt collection agency that owns or has been assigned a debt can make hard pulls on your credit report without your consent. This link seems to support that (and references the same part of the act, among others): According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, [...], any business can access your credit history without your permission provided the business has a valid ""permissible purpose."" The FCRA notes that one such permissible purpose is to review your credit information in connection with the collection of a debt. Thus, if you owe money to a debt collector, the debt collector has the legal right to pull and review your credit report. If they haven't been assigned the debt or own it outright, I believe you have a legal right to dispute it. Consult a lawyer if this is actually a situation you face.  Once use for this is if the debt collection agency has trouble locating you; since your credit report normally contains current and past addresses, this is one way to locate you."


Gout medicine (brought to the U.S. by Ben Franklin from France) Colchesin used to be $4 per bottle.. I went to refill my prescription and it was $980.00 for a bottle... They were now $4.00 per PILL. The FDA let one company have the monopoly.


*The Economist* is one of the most virulently Russophobic magazines in the world. Edward Lucas, who heads up their Eastern Europe dept, is pure flake.  Schulz spoke at a public conference in Europe. No doubt there is a transcript posted somewhere online. No doubt the Russians published this first because their interests are most directly affected. No doubt more will be written on it but I only saw once that the EU admitted they messed up on the Ukraine Association Agreement by not dealing with Russian business interests in the work. They have since set about remedying that fault with Russia and Ukraine.  It is no secret Europe is hurting from the Russia response to western sanctions and it is no secret that Russians are prepared to pay the price because they want it known that just like John J Mearsheimer writes, [**the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault.**](http://www.foreignaffairs.com/)


Microsoft is in far deeper trouble than most people realize, especially Wall Street.    * Windows Phone - nearly dead  * Windows 8 - fiasco  * Azure - the poor step child to AWS with beta functionality that lasts forrrrrrrrever  * Bing - they lose billions of dollars a year on this.  Time to sh*t or get off the pot.  * Office - a shiny new coat on the outside every few years but under the hood, it's the textbook definition of spaghetti code.    * Internet Explorer - when you try and take victory laps on reddit because your browser FINALLY complies with standards after all of these years, you should just shut up about it.  * They have poured billions into buying companies where the end result is basically wasted money.  They bought Skype a few years ago and they still have not built out a fully functional Windows 8 version of the app.  If you want to delete your Skype account, they literally tell you that it can't be deleted but instead to edit your profile to a bunch of gibberish and save it.  WTF is that?  Whomever is in charge should be fired.    As someone who has worked with MS for 2 decades, the past few years has just been an embarrassment.  Their employees act like fading movie stars who can only remember their glory from 20 years ago while the movies they make today are awful.  They need a substantial kick in the butt if they are to survive at anywhere near their present size.  Bill Gates has sold nearly all of his shares....take that as a hint.  Edit:  What was I thinking?  I forgot the Surface Pro 3!  Pro 1 caused them to write down nearly $1 billion in inventory it sold so poorly.  Pro 2 was short lived and I am not even sure what that was about.  Pro 3 gets reasonable reviews but it costs **more** than a comparable Mac Air, which is no small feat.  I didn't major in marketing in college but I'm pretty sure that when you're the underdog, you don't price your product higher than the market leader.


The SEC 30-Day Yield you're seeing is a standardized yield calculation set out by the Securities & Exchange Commission.  It can be useful for comparing bond funds, but it doesn't guarantee what you'll actually earn from a fund. IMPORTANT: The SEC 30-day yield represents a bond fund's returns from the previous 30 days expressed as an annual percentage of the current fund price — yes, an annual percentage. In other words, don't expect 1.81% return on your money every 30 days!  Such a return is too-good-to-be-true return in today's low rate environment.  1.81% per year?  More reasonable. Even then, the 1.81% you see is merely an estimate, one based on assumptions, of what you might expect to earn if you keep your money in place for the next year.  The estimate is based on the assumptions that: These aren't reliable assumptions.  BIV's price does fluctuate.  You are not promised to get your principal back with a bond fund.  Only an individual bond promises your principal back, and only at maturity. So, earning $181 on $10,000 invested for a full year while taking on interest-rate and other risks might not be worth the trouble of putting your money in a brokerage account. You'll need to transfer the money in and out, and there are potential trading fees to take into account.  (How much to buy/sell units?) An FDIC-insured high interest savings account makes more sense.


Once you turn 18 you should open an account in your own name and transfer the assets there. Currently your mom is the one responsible as far as the IRS cares with respect to taxes as it is her name on the account. The taxes due will be based on your mom's tax rate. As a good child you can reimburse your mom for the taxes that she has to on your behalf. Also legally that money currently belongs to her. Any legal judgement against your mom can claim that money and it is not available for using as an asset by you on credit applications and such. A better solution would have been for your mom to open a custodial account in your name. This way the money is still yours (you just don't have control of it until you turn 18). While probably not an issue here, the transferring of money between you and your mom (and then back) is considered a gift by the IRS. If the account was very well funded then you could run into having to deal with the annual gift limit and lifetime gift exclusion. Based on the clarification that the question is in reference to India: while I don't know the particulars of the law in India my advice of transferring the assets when you turn 18 still remains. The main difference that I would see been India and the US would be the gift tax / exclusions. Unless someone else knows otherwise I would still expect the law in India to see the current account as being the property of the mother.


FYI - I'm not a lawyer I would not try to reverse the transfer.  You need to create a paper trail as to what happened to this money and why.  Be sure to document whatever you do. Reach out again Reach out to the company again and see if you can transfer the money back to their account.  A wire transfer is $20 (usually), be sure to negotiate the company covering this, and every other fee. If you cannot reach them You could probably move the money to an escrow account at your new bank.  The new bank will likely be able to advise you on the best way do this.  You should probably also send a letter via certified mail (to ensure they received it) informing them you've done this and how to get in touch with you. By putting the money in an escrow account, you've proven that you haven't used it, and if the company wants it back its very obvious who's money it is.  Sending the certified mail (someone must sign for it), will also create a paper trail that will help you if things get ugly. Finally don't spend it


The are a couple of explanations that I can think of; though for determining exactly what is different you will want to print out both returns and compare them line by line to see how they differ. If the company grossed up your income to account for the taxes on housing (possibly by paying the additional withholding), you may be just benefiting from them estimating your tax rate. This can especially be the case if your only work was the three month internship. They would have to assume your salary was for the entire year. There is an earned income tax credit for low wage earners that you may have qualified for (it would depend your specific circumstances if you meet the criteria). But that credit for a range of income actually pays out more the more you earn (to encourage working that extra hour instead of reducing benefit because you had another hour of employment). As for the housing subsidy itself, while the value is quite high the IRS considers that to be a taxable benefit that the employer provided you and so it needs to be added to your W-2 wages. $8k a month seems quite high, but I don't know the quality of the apartment you were provided and what the going rates are in the area. Given that you said you worked for a major tech company, I can imagine that you might have been working in an area with high rents. If the employer did gross up your paycheck so as to cover your taxes, that $24k would also include that extra tax payment (e.g. if the employer paid $8k in additional taxes for you, then the housing cost that they directly paid were $16k).


If you're in the US, you have some no down payment options, but you still need some closing costs money, that can potentially be negotiated with the seller.  There are fha loans which have very low down payment options, 80/20 loans which are 100% coverage, hud assistance on fha to get a 100% loan.  Your 401k can be leveraged into the loan as 35% collateral paying 7% interest on a traditional no recourse loan. These options are available with a work history and if you're not taking on more debt than you can pay with 30% salary. Finding an angel investor will be harder than working with the bank, they have much less room for risk.  It's easier to find a current landlord and asking about a rent to own, though, this will be more expensive than a mortgage. To be honest though, most people are in a rush to be house poor, living on the edge of affordability.  I don't know your situation, but I do know that rushing into things can be very expensive in the long run.


"I have real, working insight on how some businesses look at IT as a third wheel.  We have 800 employees, with roughly 200 of them being computer users.  While some companies are debating on whether or not to name a CIO, we have no acting IT director, no one that is titled a manager, nothing.  We have two people dedicated to IT.  I have a bullshit title, answer to the IT ""manager"" who has another bullshit title who answers to the controller, who answers to the CFO, who answers to the CEO.  I have trained a PR person enough to handle website editing tasks so I don't have to get my hands dirty for little things and to handle social media.  I could go on for hours about how to properly structure your company for IT services by describing a terrible scenario but you already hit the nail on the head."


Once again. You're taking your finance experience and cross applying it. Very technical degrees like CS often require less gen Ed classes. UIC only allows for 50 gen Ed in their CS program compared to 60 in finance. Stop thinking the degree requirements and paths are the same. They're not.


In case you didn't read the article, they're capped at OVERTIME pay. In other words, they'll continue to get paid their normal salary, but won't get additional benefit over 40 hours worked.   Not sure what kind of work you're in, but overtime isn't typical in my part of the world.


**Slavery**  Slavery is, in the strictest sense of the term, any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalised, de jure slavery. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against their own will.  ***  ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/business/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot)   ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.27


"The buy-to-rent investment bubble created (in some markets) a large number of new housing starts often exceeding the available demand.  Since people were investing in the capital gain, they didn't mind whether a place was rented or not.  Many places stood empty at the prices investors wished to charge. In the UK where building restrictions are so dire that few new houses can be built, new house production is less than market demand which keeps up rental prices.  There just isn't any stock. In the US, where construction is more liberal, rental prices can fall as new stock enters the market.  A driver will be where the sales market dries up and owners must rent to cover at least some of their mortgage losses. Or, as Joel points out, if a major employer which dominates a small town, leaves.  Many old industrial towns feature both low rentals and plenty of empty, low-priced property.  Liverpool, in the UK, features entire empty neighbourhoods all boarded up. If you're looking to track metrics on this simply look at migration patterns.  Where large numbers of people are moving ""towards"" prices (and rentals) will rise.  Where people are moving ""away"" all prices fall."


The way I read the title, I thought the game was trading stocks in other Redditors. For example, you could invest a certain amount in other redditors, and depending on the net karma for the duration of the game you would make gains or losses. You could put all your money into someone with a two month old account and hope they hit the front page, or invest in  someone like Forthewolfx and have a safe bet that you'd have at least marginal increases. Studying trends on the redditors past posts would influence you to buy or sell. Then I realized this would pretty much be impossible to pull off, and that I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.


My opinion of Seeking Alpha is that they try to manipulate stock prices for personal gain.  However, Microsoft is to big to be manipulated by Seeking Alpha, so I'll go with your interpretation.  Edit: I'm no fan of Microsoft, but I think Ballmer is being unfairly blamed for the companies problems.


"No money is gone.  The movement of the existing currency has slowed down.  Currency moves through the economy through deposits or loans to banks, and withdrawal from banks as proceeds from loans or return of deposits.  When a bank makes a loan they provide a balance in a bank account, which isn't converted to hard currency until withdrawn.  So those bank loans essentially count as currency, and thus effectively multiply the stock of currency available.  Deposits into money market funds, and those funds loans into the commercial paper markets, have the same effect.  Banks and money funds are now making fewer loans.  In particular they are not funding ""companies"" that invested in securitizations of home mortgages and credit card receivables, but they are also lending less to businesses and consumers.  Because they are lending less they are ""effectively multiplying"" the currency less.   Think of deposited and lent currency as spare cycles on a desktop computer.  You let your computer help decipher the genome when you aren't using it yourself.  If you somehow feared that you would lose those cycles, slowing down your own computing, you would be less likely to lend those cycles out.  There would still be the same number of computing cycles in the world, but the stock of those available for actual computing would appear to be diminished.  The technical term for this concept is ""monetary velocity"" and it is a crucial factor in determing the level of overall economic activity, banking stability, and inflation."


"Depending on what you mean by ""High-quality health insurance,"" it is part of the problem.  If you don't care about price (because you are using your insurance pays for everything), providers will charge as much as your insurance will pay.  Health insurance in this country turned into a poorly built health service subscription business because the government made it cheaper for your employer to provide you wages in the form of health insurance than in money.  There are new health service business models popping up that are built as a health service subscription.  Providers charge a flat monthly rate and you get to use as much as you want.  The doctors and other service providers don't have to deal with insurance, and get to keep everything.  Unfortunately, they are illegal in some states.  Get the government out of the health services sector.  End the subsidy for health insurance paid by employers, or provide the same subsidy for health services purchased by individuals.  Allow any group to negotiate group coverage.  Why is your health insurance tied to your job?  Allow communities, extended families, or any organization to purchase group coverage.  Stop requiring purchasing insurance services you don't want and will never use, like a gay men being required to purchase maternity insurance."


"No, investing in gold is a bad idea. Gold at these prices is completely useless. There are many other precious metals that are far more useful.   It seems highly unlikely you will make a large return and the downside is huge. If the world economy is stabilised gold will halve very quickly, perhaps more.   A great piece of advice I have had while investing is ""if the shoe shine boy tells you to buy; sell"", i.e. when the general public think it is a good idea to invest in a certain product you have already missed the boat.  You have missed the gold boat.  Unfortunately most safe heavens are exhausted: chf, jpy, gold, etc. At the moment there aren't any safe places.  NOK is probably your best bet but beware of intervention (see EURCHF around sep last year)."


I don't know what you are asking. Can you give me an example of what fits the question?   That you use phrases like profit extraction make me think we have a different assumption base, so I think we have to find common syntactic ground before we can exchange ideas in a meaningful way. I would like to do so, though, so I hope you respond.


Florida has plenty of theme parks, entertainment centres, resorts, vacation destination and sport venues as compared to other states. Busch Gardens, Walt Disney, Gatorland, Sea World, and Universal Orlando, EPCOT and Discovery Cove are the most popular sites in Florida.


Whats hilarious is that Sears WAS amazon.  Sears started as a catalog service, basically an analog version of Amazon. Then they pivoted to department stores. Had they truly stuck with their why (big Simen Sinek fan here), they would have seen the internet as an awesome new tool to get them back to their roots. With better leadership they could have been Amazon. They ahould have been Amazon.  Lesson being, never let success prevent you from continuously reviewing the value you bring to your customers. And never forget your roots.


You need a proof of address and also they ask you for a letter from employer. But usually you dont need any of that... there are always correct answers to all the questions, but you still need an address where they will send you your papers along with debit card etc. So need to rent a place or have some mail forwarding service would help. Here is what people usually do in London: Go to a branch of lets say Lloyds TSB that is not in the center of London, use some far away branch, Like Morden or so. Say that you arrived a month/week ago and looking for a job.(not laborer) Say that need your account to send money from abroad to support your living during the Job search. hand in your passport and your account will be ready the same day, while you can wait for your card 1week. Your pin number for the card +2/3days Hope that helps.


"Arguably, ""because they can"".  Canada's banking industry is dominated by five chartered banks who by virtue of their size, pretty much determine how banking is done in Canada. Yes, they have to abide by government regulation, but they carry enough weight to influence government and to some extent shape the regulation they have to follow. While this situation makes Canada's financial system very stable and efficient, it also permits anti-competitive behavior.  There was a time (when U.S. banks were not permitted to operate across state lines) when the smallest of Canada's ""big 5"" was bigger than the biggest U.S. bank, despite our economy having always been about 1/10 the size of the U.S. That scale and their small number gives the ""big 5"" the ability to invest heavily in and collaborate on whatever they decide to be in their own interest. So, if they want to charge fees, they do."


"I'll assume United States as the country; the answer may (probably does) vary somewhat if this is not correct.  Also, I preface this with the caveat that I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant.  However, this is my understanding: You must recognize the revenue at the time the credits are purchased (when money changes hands), and charge sales tax on the full amount at that time.  This is because the customer has pre-paid and purchased a service (i.e. the ""credits"", which are units of time available in the application).  This is clearly a complete transaction.  The use of the credits is irrelevant.  This is equivalent to a customer purchasing a box of widgets for future delivery; the payment is made and the widgets are available but have simply not been shipped (and therefore used).  This mirrors many online service providers (say, NetFlix) in business model.   This is different from the case in which a customer purchases a ""gift card"" or ""reloadable debit card"".  In this case, sales tax is NOT collected (because this is technically not a purchase).  Revenue is also not booked at this time.  Instead, the revenue is booked when the gift card's balance is used to pay for a good or service, and at that time the tax is collected (usually from the funds on the card).  To do otherwise would greatly complicate the tax basis (suppose the gift card is used in a different state or county, where sales tax is charged differently?  Suppose the gift card is used to purchase a tax-exempt item?)  For justification, see bankruptcy consideration of the two cases.  In the former, the customer has ""ownership"" of an asset (the credits), which cannot be taken from him (although it might be unusable).  In the latter, the holder of the debit card is technically an unsecured creditor of the company - and is last in line if the company's assets are liquidated for repayment.   Consider also the case where the cost of the ""credits"" is increased part-way through the year (say, from $10 per credit to $20 per credit) or if a discount promotion is applied (buy 5 credits, get one free).  The customer has a ""tangible"" item (one credit) which gets the same functionality regardless of price.  This would be different if instead of ""credits"" you instead maintain an ""account"" where the user deposited $1000 and was billed for usage; in this case you fall back to the ""gift card"" scenario (but usage is charged at the current rate) and revenue is booked when the usage is purchased; similarly, tax is collected on the purchase of the service.  For this model to work, the ""credit"" would likely have to be refundable, and could not expire (see gift cards, above), and must be usable on a variety of ""services"".  You may have particular responsibility in the handling of this ""deposit"" as well."


"My experiment has concluded, with the same exact result that Aganju told me to expect. Just pulled Equifax report on CreditKarma, and confirmed that my bank reported the balance as $0. I expect that TransUnion will be the same; I'll update if it's different (evidently TU is still behind on the updates from my bank; I'll check again next week.) Regarding my score: I went from 1.333% card utilization to 0%, but my ""VantageScore 3.0"" did not change at all; not even by one point."


How do we define worth? To stock traders and some investors it has value either as a transaction or as a piece in an asset allocation strategy. Is is likely to generate long term revenues and profits that reflect the historical relationship between those factors and stock price performance? Unlikely.  It might be a good short term play for the nimble investor but the real test of 'worth' will be after the initial hype dies down. It is what happens to the stock 90 days after it goes public that matters for the long term. Forgetting contributions to society, knowledge and culture, the markets will at that point make their determination about value.


Venezuelan has lots to offer with there oil.  It is just a matter of getting it out of the ground.  But I don't think the government will last long enough to pay back the bonds.  However  Goldman Sacks might know something we don't.  The second this revolution goes hot investors will lose almost everything.


As Andy T says, it is very common for landlords to have a residential mortgage (typically capital + interest) on their own home, and a buy-to-let mortgage (typically interest-only) on each rental property that they own. However, before going down this route, you will need to do some homework. Buying and letting a property is covered by a fair amount of legislation and tax rules; and in the last couple of years, the amount of regulation has increased, as has the amount of tax you're likely to pay. Letting a property can be profitable, but you need to do the maths first, and make sure you do everything by the book. Using a reputable letting agent, at least for your first tenant, should help avoid common pitfalls. There are a number of good websites on this subject. Note that the rules in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are all different, so make sure that you get the right information!


I couldn't read all the instructions because of the image, but read them over and over and make sure you actually won. Then read all the fine print on the back of the ticket too.  Great news it sounds like so far.  Also, keep this info secret such that no one may try to steal the ticket before  you can claim it!


Manufacturer of Quartz Grit in India http://quartzpowdermanufacturers.com/supplier-of-quartz-grit-in-india.php Shri Vinayak Industries is the foremost supplier, exporter and manufacturer of Quartz grit, Quartz Powder, Ramming Mass, Talc Powder, Feldspar, calcite, calcium carbonate and silica sand in India. We do provide authentic quality of Quartz Grit. We are proving ourselves very promising and dedicated supplier and manufactures of Quartz Grit from many years. Our industry is growing day by day nationally as well as globally.


The first moment of trading usually occurs even later than that. It may take a few hours to balance the current buy/sell orders and open the stock. Watch CNBC when a hot IPO is about to open and you'll see the process in real time. If you miss it, look at a one day Yahoo chart to see when the open occurred.


"I reread your question. You are not asking about the validity of selling a particular stock after a bit of an increase but a group of stocks. We don't know how many.  This is the S&P for the past 12 months. Trading at 1025-1200 or so means that 80-100 points is an 8% move. I count 4 such moves during this time.  The philosophy of ""you can't go wrong taking a gain"" is tough for me to grasp as it offers no advice on when to get (back) in. Studies by firms such as Dalbar (you can google for some of their public material) show data that supports the fact that average investors lag the market by a huge amount. 20 years ending 12/31/08 the S&P returned 8.35%, investor equity returns showed 1.87%. I can only conclude that this is a result of buying high and selling low, not staying the course.  The data also leads me to believe the best advice one can give to people we meet in these circumstances is to invest in index funds, keeping your expenses low as you can. I've said this since read Jack Bogle decades ago, and this advice would have yielded about 8.25% over the 20 years, beating the average investor by far, by guaranteeing lagging the average by 10 basis points or so.  A summary of the more extensive report citing the numbers I referenced is available for down load - QAIB 2015 - Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior. It's quite an eye-opener and a worthy read. (The original report was dated 2009, but the link broke, so I've updated to the latest report, 2015)"


Can you tell I'm having fun with this question?  Here's another great list, from Finally Frugal, which includes the above items, but also these gems: Avoid idling. Now, this just annoys me. Walking past a line of idling cars at the transit center waiting for their human 'pickup', makes me crazy! It makes me want to knock on the window, shake my finger, and give 'em a piece of my mind. I don't do it, because I don't have a death wish. Turn the car off when you're not driving it. Combine trips. I used to be one of those people who would run to Target, go home, remember something I needed at the grocery store and go out for that, come home again, then run out to the library. All of these places are within a two mile radius of my house. Making lists before leaving the house has helped me to group my errands within one trip, meaning fewer back and forth trips. Slow down. Your parents were right. Slow is better. Not only is it safer to drive the speed limit, you'll be increasing your car's efficiency and reducing the amount of fuel your vehicle uses.


"The ""guaranteed minimum future value"" isn't really a guarantee so much as the amount they will charge you at the end of the agreement if you want to keep the car. In this sense it might better be considered a ""guaranteed maximum future cost"". If the car has fallen below that value at that point, then you can just hand back the car and you won't owe anything extra. If it turns out to be worth more, you end up in profit - though only if you either actually pay for the car, or if you roll over into a new PCP deal. So the finance company has an incentive to set it at a sensible value, otherwise they'll end up losing money. Most new cars lose a lot of value quickly initially, and then the rate of loss slows down. But given that it's lost £14k in 2 years, it seems pretty likely it'll lose much more than another £1k in the next 2 years. So it does sound like that in this case, they estimated the value badly at the start of the deal and will end up taking a loss on the deal when you hand it back at the end. It appears you also have the legal right to ""voluntary termination"" once you have paid off half the ""Total Amount Payable"". This should be documented in the PCP agreement and if you're half way into the deal then I'd expect you'll be about there. If that doesn't apply, you can try to negotiate to get out of the deal early anyway. If they look at it rationally, they should think about the value of your payments over the next two years minus the loss they will end up with at the end of those two years. But there's no guarantee they will. Disclaimer: Despite living in the UK, I hadn't heard of these contracts until I read this question, so my answer is based entirely on web searches and some inferences. The two most useful sources I found on the general subject were this one and this one."