In response to your points #1 and #2: In general, yes it is true that capital gains are only subject to half one's marginal rate of income tax.  That doesn't mean 50% of the gain is due as tax... rather, it means that if one's marginal tax rate (tax bracket) on the next $10K would have been, say, 32%, then one is taxed on the gain at 16%.  (The percentages are examples, not factual.) However, because these are employee stock options, the tax treatment is different than for a capital gain!    Details: On the Federal tax return are lines for reporting Security option benefits (Line 101) and Security options deductions (Line 249).  The distinction between a regular capital gain and an employee stock option benefits is important.  In many cases the net effect may be the same as a capital gain, but the income is characterized differently and there are cases where it matters.  Somebody who is about to or has realized employee stock option benefits should seek professional tax advice. In response to your next two points: No, one cannot transfer a capital gain or other investment income into a TFSA immediately after-the-fact in order to receive the tax-free benefits of the TFSA on that income.  Only income and gains earned within a TFSA are free from tax – i.e. The options would have to have been in the TFSA before being exercised.  Once a gain or other investment income has been realized in a non-sheltered account, it is considered taxable.  The horse has already left the barn, so to speak! However, despite the above, there is another strategy available:  One can create an offsetting deduction by contributing some of the realized gain into an RRSP.  The RRSP contribution, assuming room is available, would yield a tax deduction to offset some tax due on the gain.  However, the RRSP only defers income tax; upon withdrawal of funds, ordinary income tax is due (hopefully, at a lower marginal rate in retirement.) There is no minimum amount of time that money or assets have to be inside a TFSA to benefit from the tax-free nature of the account.  However, there are limits on how much money you can move into a TFSA in any given year, and many folks weren't aware of the rules. p.s. Let me add once more that this is a case where I suggest seeking professional tax advice.


"I think that the answer by @jkuz is good.  I'd add that the there's a mathematically precise difference:  Gambling games are typically ""zero-sum"" games, which means that every dollar won by one person is lost by another. (If there's a ""house"" taking a cut then it's worse than zero-sum, but let's ignore that for the moment.)   None of the markets that you mentioned are zero-sum because it's possible for both parties in the transaction to ""win"" since they typically have different objectives.  If I buy stock, I typically desire for it to go up to make money, but, if I sell stock, I typically sell it because I want the money to do something else completely.  The ""something else"" might be invest in another instrument if I think it's better or I'm rebalancing risk.  It might also be to buy a house, pay for college, or (if I'm in retirement living on my investments) to buy food.  If the stock goes up, the buyer won (increased investment) but the seller also won (got the ""other thing"" that they wanted/needed), which they would not have been able to get had there not been a buyer willing to pay cash for the stock. Of course it's possible that in some cases not everyone wins because there is risk, but risk should not be considered synonymous with gambling because there's varying degrees of risk in everything you do."


If you have a lump sum, you could put it into a low risk investment (which should also have low fluctuations) right away to avoid the risk of buying at a down point.  Then move it into a higher risk investment over a period of time.  That way you'll buy more units when the price is lower than when it's higher. Usually I hear dollar cost averaging applied to the practice of purchasing a fixed dollar amount of an investment every week or month right out of your salary.  The effect is pretty minimal though, except on the highest growth portfolios, and is generally just used as a sales tool by investment councilors (in my opinion).


What would you consider good/worthwhile, and why it would give you satisfaction to benefit society? I've done various things that can be considered good/worthwhile, but the more I'm around people, the less I want to contribute anything to their well-being and the more I want to lash out at them. Unfortunately, getting substantial money generally requires interacting with people and showing up.  I would enjoy such things as profiting off Target gift cards, if I knew about the promotion or if the idea occurred to me, because it's profit for relatively little effort. The money that I've worked hard for doesn't mean that much to me because the cost was too high.


I'm not asking for the world to owe a huge salary and benefits.  I am asking for jobs to pay a wage and provide benefits that allows the people they use to make money to live without worrying about getting sick or making rent.  I'm not saying everyone needs a salary that can play for a lexus and flat screen tv for being a cashier at walmart.  Just enough to pay rent, food, bills, healthcare.  Why in the world would you work at a place that doesn't pay you a living wage if you aren't getting something else out of it?


According to Moody's, based on Amazon's criteria:  https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/commentary/298321/Where-Amazons-Next-Headquarters-Should-Go/  Ranked in order:  1. Austin 2. Atlanta 3. Philly 4. Rochester, NY 5. Pittsburgh 6. NYC NJ metro 7. Miami 8. Portland/Vancouver 9. Boston 10. Salt Lake City


No, there is not a finite amount of work to be done, people have unlimited wants. Say we do fully automate all physical work, everyone could simply expand our human understanding, create art, play spectator sports, jobs that I can't even think of because there are not very important to us now but when more important concerns are met, these less important concerns, like art, become the most important.  Such as when you want food and water you don't care much for shelter, when you need shelter you don't care much about healthcare, when you need healthcare you don't worry about self actualization ect.  This reminds me of a story that france wanted to double the amount of jobs available so they made it illegal to work more then 20 hours a week. It failed because unemployment is not a result from insufficient work to be done. Not sure if true though.


Good luck if you signed up. I am taking it as well. I'm working full time also, studying is tough. I don't know why other guys said it would pigeon hole you or it was too narrow, the nature of the CFA is that its broad. I don't think these guys know much about the CFA....


>Thats fine and dandy, but it would never ever pass congress.  So the people should elect a congress that aren't such a bunch of blindly ideological fools. If they choose not to do this, then let them go down with the ship. The point is that cutting government employees in the middle of a period of low economic growth is not a way to fix anything.  Also I'll just add that Australia is no miracle economy, our government should be lauded for the way they handle the purse strings, but they simultaneously inflated a massive property bubble (currently deflating gently - for now) which still poses  large threat to our immediate future. That said our budget situation is in a good place, even if we have run a few deficits lately.


Or at least use the equity in the medallion to diversify. Borrow against the medallion to buy an income property, or put it into a balanced portfolio of financial securities. It looks like the same problem with real estate: people are spending their capital instead of putting it to work. Holding most of your wealth in a single asset and then borrowing against that asset to fund consumption is a recipe for bankruptcy.


"You are assuming 100% occupancy and 100% rent collection.  This is unrealistic.  You could get lucky and find that long term tenant with great credit that always pays their bills... but in reality that person usually buys a home they do not rent long term.  So you will need to be prepared for periods of no renters and periods of non payment.  The expenses here I would expect could wipe out more than you can make in ""profit"" based on your numbers. Have you checked to find out what the insurance on a rental property is?  I am guessing it will go up probably 200-500 a year possibly more depending on coverage.  You will need a different type of insurance for rental property. Have you checked with your mortgage provider to make sure that you can convert to a rental property?   Some mortgages (mine is one) restrict the use of the home from being a rental property.  You may be required to refinance your home which could cost you more, in addition if you are under water it will be hard to find a new financier willing to write that mortgage with anything like reasonable terms. You are correct you would be taking on a new expense in rental.  It is non deductible, and the IRS knows this well.   As Littleadv's answer stated you can deduct some expenses from your rental property. I am not sure that you will have a net wash or loss when you add those expenses.  If you do then you have a problem since you have a business losing money.  This does not even address the headaches that come with being a landlord. By my quick calculations if you want to break even your rental property should be about 2175/Month. This accounts for 80% occupancy and 80% rental payment.  If you get better than that you should make a bit of a profit... dont worry im sure the house will find a way to reclaim it."


Put in the maximum you can into the 401(k), the limit should be $16,500 so long as the highly compensated rules don't kick in. Since you cannot deduct the traditional IRA, it's a great option to deposit to a traditional IRA and immediately convert that balance to a Roth account. That puts you at $21,500/yr saved, nearly 18%.  There's nothing stopping you from investing outside these accounts. A nice ETF with low expenses, investing in a stock index (I am thinking SPY for the S&P 500) is great to accumulate long term.


Traditionally, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was only comprised of stocks that were traded on the New York Stock exchange.  Neither Apple (AAPL) nor Google (GOOG) are traded on the New York Stock Exchange but instead are traded on NASDAQ.  All NASDAQ tickers are four characters long and all NYSE tickers are only three or less characters long (e.g. IBM or T (AT&T)). However in 1999, MSFT became the first NASDAQ stock to be included in the DJIA.  Given that AAPL now has the largest market capitalization of any company in U.S. history, I think it is likely if they retain that position, that they would eventually be let into the DOW club too, perhaps, ironically, even supplanting Microsoft.


Reports -> Income & Expense -> Cash Flow Options -> Set Start Date/End Date to match billing cycle -> Accounts -> Clear All -> Select Credit Card only -> Money Out To adjust Refund and Chargeback, you need to cancel out with Money In items except Bank.


Here would be the big two you don't mention: Time - How much of your own time are you prepared to commit to this? Are you going to find tenants, handle calls if something breaks down, and other possible miscellaneous issues that may arise with the property? Are you prepared to spend money on possible renovations and other maintenance on the property that may occur from time to time? Financial costs - You don't mention anything about insurance or taxes, as in property taxes since most municipalities need funds that would come from the owner of the home, that would be a couple of other costs to note in having real estate holdings as if something big happens are you expecting a government bailout automatically? If you chose to use a property management company for dealing with most issues then be aware of how much cash flow could be impacted here. Are you prepared to have an account to properly do the books for your company that will hold the property or would you be doing this as an individual without any corporate structure? Do you have lease agreements printed up or would you need someone to provide these for you?


It seems like you are asking two different questions, one is, how do I know if I can afford a house? The other is, how do I know what type of mortage to get? The first question is fairly simple to answer, there's plenty of calculators out there that will tell you what you can afford, but rule of thumb is 30% of income can goto housing. Now what type of mortgage to get can be much more confusing, because the mortgage industry makes money off of these confusing products. The best thing to do in my opionion in situations like this is to keep it simple. You need to be careful buying a house. So much money is changing hands and there are so many parasites involved in the transaction I would be extremely wary of anybody who is going to tell you what mortgage to get. I've never heard of a fee only independent mortgage broker, and if I found one that claimed to be I wouldn't believe him. I would just ignore all the exotic non-conforming products and just answer one simple question. Are you the type of person that buys an insurance policy or that likes to self insure? If you like insurance, get a 30 year fixed mortgage. If you like to self insure, get a 7 year ARM. The average lenghth someone owns a house is 7 years, plus in 7 years time, it might not adjust up, and even if it does, you can just accelerate your payments and pay it off quickly (this is the self insurance part of it). If you're like me, I'm willing to pay an extra .5% for the 30 year so that my payment never changes and I'm never forced to move (which is admitedly extremely unlikely, but I like the safety). I don't like 15 year term loans because rates are so low, you can get way better returns in the stock market right now, so why pay off sooner then you need to. Heck, if I had a paid off house right now I'd refi into a 30 year and invest the money. In summary, pick 30 year or ARM, then just shop around to find the lowest rate (which is extremely easy).


That's some crazy shit right there...  I don't know... maybe it's because your crazy Keynesian economics quantitative easing only made the rich richer?  ...but sure the problem is with those unemployed high school educated low information voters you fucking despise so much that you stagnate their wages for two plus decades... and their corporate sponsored opioid addiction.


Supposedly people's birth certificates and SSNs are routing numbers and account numbers for federal reserve banks. Apparently this has been a thing since 1933 when Roosevelt did something. Anyway the story goes there is an entity called Strawman and it's a bank account with your name on it and it's been accruing monies since the day you were issued a birth certificate and SSN. Idr much sorry for being vague on the details


Starting up a company is fun, stressful, and exciting. It's also often a lot harder than you expect. Income, revenue, and cash flow are big concerns, and you need to be able to eat while you're hunting down your first paying customers. Don't pay off all the debt if that will leave you without any money for living expenses. Perhaps a compromise is in order? Pay off the high-interest loans first, and continue to make payments on the lower-interest loans while you start up. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.


Can someone please explain how this is not the definition of a Ponzi scheme? Bitcoin has a $100B market cap. This is a financial instrument with very little real value to either consumers or businesses. However, Bitcoin has experienced a meteoric rise in value as more and more people buy in. Is the bottom not going to fall out here?


So this method makes sense and is reasonable and possible.  The money multiplier effect ends up capped by the fact that the bank can only lend a percent of its 'cash'.    My issue understanding this is I've been told that banks actually don't hold 10% of the cash and lend the other 90% but instead hold the full 100% in cash and lend 900%.  Is this accurate?  The issue I see with it is that it becomes exponential growth that is uncapped.  If the bank lends 900%, it has created this money from nothing, which by itself isn't different that the bank loaning 90% and keeping 10%.  The issue comes because the next bank who gets that money deposited will treat that amount as cash as well, so they loan 900% of the 900%.  And so on and so forth.  How does the system prevent this from happening?


I have an example that may be interesting for your question. My grandfather had a tennis club around 35 years ago, and some other businesses. Some investments went bad and he was heading for bankruptcy due to the tennis club's expensive payments. So he asked to renegotiate a variable rate rather than a fixed rate, even though the interest rates were going up, not down. The idea was that if the current situation is going to bankrupt you, taking a chance might be better. As an analogy, if you can't swim and you'll drown in 6 feet of water, it doesn't matter that you're taking the risk to go deeper. You might have to take that chance to survive. He did keep the tennis club in the end but that's irrelevant here. For student loans, if I'm not mistaken, declaring bankruptcy doesn't free you of all their debt, so it may not be applicable.  And this situation is when renegotiating, not when negotiating the first time. because obviously if you're in trouble financially, taking a loan you know you can't repay is suicide.


Your question asked about a specific time the yield curve flattened or inverted.  There are other times when the yield curve inverted or flattened.  You also imply in your question that investors were flocking to long term bonds which lowered their yields.  I don't believe this is the case.  I believe investors were fleeing from short term bonds causing the yields on short term bonds to rise to meet those of long term bonds. The chart below shows the history of yields on US bonds over time.  The shaded areas are where the yield curve flattened or inverted.  Notice that after 1982 it is the short term yields that rise sharply to meet or cross the yields on longer term bonds.  The yields on longer term bonds move little compared to the movement in yields on the short term bonds.  Thus it is investors moving out of short term bonds that cause the yield curve to flatten or invert.  These investors are not moving into longer term bonds since the yields on the longer term bonds do not move much at all at these times.  In fact, in 2006 the longer term bond market was only 25% of the total US public debt while short term bonds made up 75%.  It would take less money to move the yields on longer term bonds than it would on short term bonds yet the longer term yields did not move near as much as short term yields.  So why are investors or banks moving out of short term bonds causing their yields to rise?  I believe this happens for one of two reasons:  they are moving into higher yielding investments or they need to raise cash to cover bad investments.  Charts and more information here.


"Your chance of even correctly recognizing the actual lowest point of a dip are essentially zero, so if you try to time the market, you'll most likely not get the ""buy cheap"" part perfectly right. And as you write yourself, while you wait for the dip, you have an ongoing opportunity cost. Cost averaging is by far the best strategy for non-professional and risk averse investors to deal with this. And yes, over the long run, it's far more important to invest at all than when you do it."


Lending isn't profitable when interest rates are this low.  Consider what's involved to offer a savings or checking account.  The bank must maintain branches with tellers.  The bank has to pay rent (or buy and pay property taxes and utilities).  The bank has to pay salaries.  The bank has to maintain cash so as to make change.  And pay for insurance against robbery.  All of that costs money.   At 6% interest, a bank can sort of make money.  Not great money, but it takes in more than it has to pay out.  At 4% interest, which is about where ten year mortgage rates are in Canada, the bank doesn't make enough margin.  They are better off selling the loan and closing their branches than offering free checking accounts.   An additional problem is that banks tend to make money from overdraft fees.  But there's been a move to limit overdraft fees, as they target the most economically vulnerable.  So Canadian banks tend to charge monthly fees instead.  UK banks may also start charging monthly fees if interest rates stay low and other fees get curtailed.


yes you are right as per my understanding while doing trade you must consider fol (specially for starters like me) The volume of the stock you are trading in should be high enough to keep you secure for quick in and out Whenever the bid volume is more than the ask volume the prices will move up and vice versa. to give an example if a stock is at 100 points and there are fol bids: The transaction will occur when either the bidder agrees to pay the ask price (case 1. he pays 101 . his bid offer will disappear and the next best ask will be 102. and the current price will be 101 which was the last transaction.) or when the person giving ask price agrees to deal at best bid which was 99 in which case the share will go down.


Debt = satan's work. Also the tax deductibility of interest = voodoo nonsense, so it should never be considered. If people actually understood this deduction they would probably be up in arms for evading taxes. Not to mention accretive pressures on management of a covenant burden. Clearly satan's work.


It's because we have refineries, (to make oil into gas) while other countries have the oil, but not as many refineries, if any.  This sounds crazy at first blush, but actually there is nothing weird about it.    Analogy: the US could import a lot of wool and export a lot of sweaters, but also import some sweaters too, for reasons outlined elsewhere ITT.  This would not imply either way whether we were wool-independent, it only necessarily means we have more sweater factories.


I've heard that Atlantic City was pretty drab these days from a friend who wandered through several years ago. At the same time, I feel like there's no reason it couldn't be rebuilt with the right vision and proper funding, and maybe some tax incentives. Fill in some of the archipelago to reclaim some land and revamp the whole area with hotels and convention centres, upscale bars and pubs and restaurants, and I'm sure people would line up again.   I suspect that's a big, big endeavour - but surely not impossible. It's a matter of reconstructing a pulse.


Read this-   [Out of Control: The Coast-to-Coast Failures of Outsourcing Public Services to For-Profit Corporations](http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/sites/default/files/1213%20Out_of_Control.pdf)  Free trade agreements mandate a one way street to privatization of almost all public jobs and publicly procured services because it puts those jobs into play, they can then become bargaining chips in the globalization trading game. For example, US teaching jobs could be traded for national treatment in trade deals like TiSA- They could become valuable in the context of the fact that countries like India have a rapidly growing market and a surplus of people with degrees who speak perfect English. the US pharmaceutical industry might be able to trade access to those contracts for something like the curtailment of Indias policy on making cheap generic drugs. That kind of thing makes the US pharmaceutical industry see red. There has been a longstanding dispute with Australia over Australia's public health care systems' buying of drugs at a discount. The US claims thats prohibited by an FTA.  I think its the US's position is that that is unfair discrimination against corporations. Only private for-profit companies are allowed to negotiate discounts. You can probably find more here: http://www.bilaterals.org/?-US-Australia- or here http://www.italaw.com  (plug in the word Australia)  Privatization is often mostly about looting public resources for some goal that is very much against the public interest!   For example, look at the National City Lines fiasco- the reason the US went from having one of the very best to one of the worst public transit systems in the developed world - in only 30 years- is now addicted to oil and gas.


1st question: If I bought 1 percent share of company X, but   unfortunately it closed down because of some reason as it was 1   million in debt. Since I had 1 percent of it shares, does it mean I   also have to pay the 1 percent of it's debt? Stock holders are not liable for anything more than their current holdings.  In cases of Ch11 bankruptcy stock holders usually get nothing.  In Ch7 the holdings will be severely hit but one may get 10% of pre-bk prices.  I would strongly recommend against investing in bankrupt companies.  A seasoned trader can make plenty off short term trades. The payoff structure is usually: 2nd question: Is there an age requirements to enter the stock market?   I am 15 years old this year. Yes it is generally 18, but some firms offer a joint option that your parents can open.


They are already indirectly paying these expenses.  They should be built into your rates. The amount per job or per hour needs to cover what would have been your salary, plus the what would have been sick, vacation, holidays, health insurance, life insurance, disability, education, overhead for office expenses, cost of accountants...and all taxes. In many companies the general rule of thumb is that they need to charge a customer 2x the employees salary to cover all this plus make a profit. If this is a side job some of these benefits will come from your main job. Some self employed get some of these benefits from their spouse.  The company has said we give you money for the work you perform, but you need to cover everything else including paying all taxes. Depending on where you live you might have to send money in more often then once a year. They are also telling you that they will be reporting the money they give you to the government so they can claim it as a business expense. So you better make sure you report it as income.


As someone who is changing careers to get out of TV, I can tell you that it's clear from the inside that TV is on it's way out. I know a lot of people who work in TV who are unemployed and have been for a long time. There just aren't as many shows being produced in a predictable frequency anymore. I know as a consumer that it is no longer a profitable model, but it's also clear that networks are running out of money.


Well i needed an english source and as i mentioned Migrant attacks on Germans is not that big of a topic it is the other way around. Think about 10 crimes a day.... how much attacks can you mention per day from migrants ??? And we are talking major crimes not illegal job activity.


Ok ok - that's a fair statement. I'm just comparing to the last two we've had - which were decent (previous finance internships, in finance related clubs at school, very good universities). In fact the one we had last year I actually didn't have to supervise by the end of the summer (gasp!).


I'm one that both pays the Obamacare tax and has two sisters that struggle through the costs of Obamacare, i would generally like to see it either changed or destroyed. However, I couldn't be more happy to see the Republican version fail. It was worse than Obamacare. At some point we either need to go to a compete single payer or have a total public insurance system, these mixed versions are a total disaster.


"Use VTIVX. The ""Target Retirement 2045"" and ""Target Retirement 2045 Trust Plus"" are the same underlying fund, but the latter is offered through employers.  The only differences I see are the expense ratio and the minimum investment dollars.  But for the purposes of comparing funds, it should be pretty close. Here is the list of all of Vanguard's target retirement funds. Also, note that the ""Trust Plus"" hasn't been around as long, so you don't see the returns beyond the last few years.  That's another reason to use plain VTIVX for comparison. See also: Why doesn't a mutual fund in my 401(k) have a ticker symbol?"


Last I checked, the furthest southwest they went was the Knoxville-Christiansburg-DC route. Crazy to see that in less than a year, they go into Mississippi and Orlando now. I'd be all for cheap bus rides from Virginia to south Florida if it meant free wi-fi.


Unfortunately, the tax system in the U.S. is probably more complicated than it looks to you right now. First, you need to understand that there will be taxes withheld from your paycheck, but the amount that they withhold is simply a guess.  You might pay too much or too little tax during the year.  After the year is over, you'll send in a tax return form that calculates the correct tax amount.  If you have paid too little over the year, you'll have to send in the rest, but if you've paid too much, you'll get a refund.  There are complicated formulas on how much tax the employer withholds from your paycheck, but in general, if you don't have extra income elsewhere that you need to pay tax on, you'll probably be close to breaking even at tax time. When you get your paycheck, the first thing that will be taken off is FICA, also called Social Security, Medicare, or the Payroll tax.  This is a fixed 7.65% that is taken off the gross salary.  It is not refundable and is not affected by any allowances or deductions, and does not come in to play at all on your tax return form. There are optional employee benefits that you might need to pay a portion of if you are going to take advantage of them, such as health insurance or retirement savings.  Some of these deductions are paid with before-tax money, and some are paid with after tax money. The employer will calculate how much money they are supposed to withhold for federal and state taxes (yes, California has an income tax), and the rest is yours. At tax time, the employer will give you a form W-2, which shows you the amount of your gross income after all the before-tax deductions are taken out (which is what you use to calculate your tax).  The form also shows you how much tax you have paid during the year. Form 1040 is the tax return that you use to calculate your correct tax for the year.  You start with the gross income amount from the W-2, and the first thing you do is add in any income that you didn't get a W-2 for (such as interest or investment income) and subtract any deductions that you might have that are not taxable, but were not paid through your paycheck (such as moving expenses, student loan interest, tuition, etc.)  The result is called your adjusted gross income. Next, you take off the deductions not covered in the above section (property tax, home mortgage interest, charitable giving, etc.).  You can either take the standard deduction ($6,300 if you are single), or if you have more deductions in this category than that, you can itemize your deductions and declare the correct amount. After that, you subtract more for exemptions.  You can claim yourself as an exemption unless you are considered a dependent of someone else and they are claiming you as a dependent.  If you claim yourself, you take off another $4,000 from your income. What you are left with is your taxable income for the year.  This is the amount you would use to calculate your tax based on the bracket table you found. California has an income tax, and just like the federal tax, some state taxes will be deducted from your paycheck, and you'll need to fill out a state tax return form after the year is over to calculate the correct state tax and either request a refund or pay the remainder of the tax.  I don't have any experience with the California income tax, but there are details on the rates on this page from the State of California.


I don't see a contrast. It's really hard to predict which mutual funds will do well in the future. Predicting that ones which have done well recently will continue to do well works slightly better than chance. The WSJ article and Morningstar agree on all the objective facts, they just spin them differently.


Capitalism is individualism. It wont change. Big Companies (Unilever is a good example) are making money for share holder's greed. CEOs of those companies earn a incredible pay. Disneyland's CEO earns 1.5 M a day (fairy tail). It IS a personal wealth accumulator.


"In a Roth IRA scenario, this $5,000 would be reduced to $3,750 if we assume a (nice and round) 25% tax rate. For the Traditional IRA, the full $5,000 would be invested. No, that's not how it works.  Taxes aren't removed from your Roth account.  You'll have $5,000 invested either way.  The difference is that you'll have a tax deduction if you invest in a traditional IRA, but not a Roth. So you'll ""save"" $1,250 in taxes up front if you invest in a traditional IRA versus a Roth. The flip side is when you withdraw the money.  Since you've already paid tax on the Roth investment, and it grows tax free, you'll pay no tax when you withdraw it.  But you'll pay tax on the investment and the gains when you withdraw from a traditional IRA.  Using your numbers, you'd pay tax on $2.2MM from the traditional IRA, but NO TAX on $2.2MM from the Roth. At that point, you've saved over $500,000 in taxes. Now if you invested the tax savings from the traditional IRA and it earned the same amount, then yes, you'd end up in the same place in the end, provided you have the same marginal tax rate.  But I suspect that most don't invest that savings, and if you withdraw significant amount, you'll likely move into higher tax brackets. In your example, suppose you only had $3,750 of ""discretionary"" income that you could put toward retirement.  You could put $5,000 in a traditional IRA (since you'll get a $1,250 tax deduction), or $3,750 in a Roth.  Then your math works out the same.  If you invest the same amount in either, though, the math on the Roth is a no-brainer."


Actually, you're missing the key feature of CDOs.  Most CDOs use (much to our economic misery, ultimately) a system call tranching.  To simplify this idea, I'll make a two tranch example.  Suppose I buy mortgages covering a face value of $120,000,000.  Because they are subprime, if I just put them in a pool and finance them with bonds, the rating will be lousy and most investors will shun them (at least investors who are safety oriented).  What I do is divide them into two tranches.  One bond issue is for $100,000,000 and another for $20,000,000.  The idea is that any defaulting mortgage comes out of the latter bond issue.  I'll probably keep these bonds (the lower tranch).  Thus buyers of the first issue are safe unless defaults exceed $20,000,000.  Then the rating agencies rate the first issue AAA and it gets snapped up by investors.  In a strict sense it is overcollateralized, basically the entire $120,000,000 backs up the first bond issue. In reality, many CDOs had multiple tranches, with the lowest tranch being retained by the underwriters and the other tranches sold as bonds of various ratings.


"> You don't have to decide if he's ""contributing to society"", you just decide if you want to buy his good at his price. If you think he's charging too much, then don't!  It's more complex than that.  You can't let businessmen engage in fraud and sell you a phony/defective product and argue that we should leave it up to the free market to eventually detect and punish him.  By the time the angry buying public is on to him and rejects his products, the damage has already been done, and he has already made out like a bandit and is probably in the process of closing shop and reopening under a different name to repeat the process all over again."


Banks can't simply make loans in the void. This is how the cash flow works, generally:  1. Depositers *add* cash into the bank. The Bank now has cash. 10% of that cash is held on *reserve* per law. This cash is held on the balance sheet as an *asset* (cash) *and a liability* (demand deposits).   2. Someone requests a loan. The loan is funded from the non-reserved cash of these deposits. This results in a lessening of an asset (cash), and the creation of a new asset (loan).  3. Traditionally, as the debtor pays back the loan, the interest is distributed in some sort of split between the bank and the depositors. This means cash in from the loan and interest, and a liability (deposits) also go up.  4. Alternatively, while the above still happens, the bank can *securitize* the loan and sell that to investors. Investors then get access to the loan and its income, and the bank collects a fee. However, this means more cash on hand for the bank to originate additional loans without going near the reserve requirement.   If a bank extends too many loans and its reserve is threatened, it must borrow either from the fed or from other banks. These loans must be paid back.


Of course they would have failed. Every big bank would have failed in 2008 if the Fed didn't step in. Jamie is good at spin and you're good at catching his talking points.  The 13 billion was only partially about Bear (a small part). If it was all Bear you can bet Dimon would have been telling that to anyone who would listen.


> So, your extreme cannot happen. Mine can.   My extreme cannot happen because you choose that it is not possible, not because it is impossible. The only reason that mine is possible is because I choose it to be a possibility... Isn't that one of the bedrocks of Libertarian policy - self sufficiency?


HARP is the Home Affordable Refinance Program. Announced in March 2009, HARP is a federally funded government program designed to help the 5 million homeowners who currently owe more on their mortgage then their home is currently worth, otherwise known as being underwater or near-underwater, refinance their mortgages into a fixed loan with a lower monthly payment. However, as of Aug. 31, only 894,000 borrowers have refinanced through HARP.


"Anybody who would put up their life savings and simply ""notice an odd clause"" and not have very large bells ringing with flashing signs saying ""NO!"" is not very financially savvy.  No wonder the banks considered her to be toxic."


"Great answer by @duffbeer. Only thing to add is that the option itself becomes a tradeable asset. Here's my go at filling out the answer from @duffbeer. ""Hey kid... So you have this brand-new video game Manic Mazes that you paid $50 for on Jan 1st that you want to sell two months from now"" ""Yes, Mr. Video Game Broker, but I want to lock in a price so I know how much to save for a new Tickle Me Elmo for my baby sister."" ""Ok, for $3, I'll sell you a 'Put' option so you can sell the game to me for $40 in two months."" Kid says ""Ok!"", sends $3 to Mr Game Broker who sends our kid a piece of paper saying: The holder of this piece of paper can sell the game Manic Mazes to Mr Game Broker for $40 on March 1st. .... One month later .... News comes out that Manic Mazes is full of bugs, and the price in the shops is heavily discounted to $30. Mr Options Trader realizes that our kid holds a contract written by Mr Game Broker which effectively allows our kid to sell the game at $10 over the price of the new game, so maybe about $15 over the price in the second-hand market (which he reckons might be about $25 on March 1st). He calls up our kid. ""Hey kid, you know that Put option that Mr Game Broker sold to you you a month ago, wanna sell it to me for $13?"" (He wants to get it a couple of bucks cheaper than his $15 fair valuation.) Kid thinks:  hmmm ... that would be a $10 net profit for me on that Put Option, but I wouldn't be able to sell the game for $40 next month, I'd likely only get something like $25 for it. So I would kind-of be getting $10 now rather than potentially getting $12 in a month. Note: The $12 is because there could be $15 from exercising the put option (selling for $40 a game worth only $25 in the second-hand market) minus the original cost of $3 for the Put option. Kid likes the idea and replies: ""Done!"". Next day kid sends the Put option contract to Mr Options Trader and receives $13 in return. Our kid bought the Put option and later sold it for a profit, and all of this happened before the option reached its expiry date."


"Checks (in the US, anyway) are only good for six months after they have been written. After that. under the US Uniform Commerical Code they are considered ""stale checks"" and banks need not accept them. My experience is that they generally won't -- but you probably shouldn't count on that, either when figuring out whether to try depositing an old check or figuring out how much cash you need to keep in your checking account to cover recent stale checks. The check you now hold is certainly a statement of intent to pay you and thus is a useful document to supplement other evidence that they still owe you the money -- but since checks can be cancelled and/or a replacement check may have been issued, its value for that purpose may be limited. You can try depositing it and see what happens. If that doesn't work (or you don't want to bother trying it) you can contact the retirement plan, point out that this check went uncashed, and ask them to send you a replacement. If they haven't already done so (you might want to check your own records for that), there shouldn't be any problem with this. (Note: Many business checks have a statement printed on them that they're only good for 90 days or so. If yours does, you can skip trying to cash it; just contact the retirement plan offices.)"


"Your ""average company and taxpayer"" generally wouldn't have significant off-shore/foreign income. In the U.S., for example, even if you have your employer deposit all of your salary to an account at a foreign bank, they would still report it to the IRS as income. Removing the money from your home country isn't what gets it out of being taxed, it's that the money was never in your home country."


So we stop developing new technologies? Stop learning things? Stop figuring out ways to do more with less?   The article provides no explanation for why growth is bad, and all indications of when growth has stopped it has been tremendously hard on the lower class.


Of course. The fact that it's such a generic concern should be taken for granted - that's why I think the article focuses on it too much. Everybody knows that losing a lot of executives is bad news, even if there was no line in the 10-K at all. So I'd have preferred to see less about that and more information on what it could mean for this company specifically.


Firstly if your Partnership makes less than $20,000 in revenue (before expenses are applied), then you cannot claim any net losses from the Partnership against your other income. However, you still need to include the Partnership details in your Tax Return showing your portion on the net loss, and you will also be required to submit a separate Tax Return for the Partnership showing the net losses. Any net losses from the Partnership will be carried forward to future tax years and can be used as a deduction against your Partnership Income when and if it does start to make a profit.


"Yeah the credit union near me sucks too. Short hours, long lines and impossible parking to go with the subpar online banking and lack of ATMs. Just because the sign reads ""credit union"" doesn't mean it's a good business. Not all credit unions are created equally."


You can create something like that by: You'll have to determine the PE ratio manually from the financial statements.  To get the PE ratio for each company, you can try the Edgar database, though I doubt it goes as far back as 1950. This blog has a graph of the DJIA PE ratio from 1929 - 2009.


Yes, you can depreciate gifts to your business subject to the special rules in § 1011 and Regulation § 1.1011–1 and 1.167(g)–1. It is dual basis property so when you sell the item your gain/loss basis will be different. Adjusted basis of the donor for gain, FMV on the date received for the loss. Minus any depreciation you add, of course, in both cases.


The HR Strategy consultants should ideally be before pack; a company that is not afraid of technology and that values innovation. This is to create sure you are getting an HR company that knows and uses the most advanced technology in the core areas and is constantly trying to find wiser and cost excellent ways to deliver results.


Some banks and credit unions have IRA accounts. They pay interest like a savings account or a CD but they are an IRA. After the 15th you can roll them over into a IRA at one of the big investment companies so you can get invest in an index or Target Retirement Fund. But it is not too late. Opening an account at one of the big companies takes ten minutes (you need to know your social security number and your bank account info) they can pull it out of your bank account. I helped my kid do the same thing this week. We went on-line Tuesday night, and they pulled the money from his account on Thursday morning. Also know which type you want (Roth or regular) before you start. Also make sure you specify that the money is for 2013 not 2014.


Assuming that what you want to do is to counter the capital gains tax on the short term and long term gains, and that doing so will avoid any underpayment penalties, it is relatively simple to do so. Figure out the tax on the capital gains by determining your tax bracket. Lets say 25% short term and 15% long term or (0.25x7K) + (0.15*8K) or $2950.  If you donate to charities an additional amount of items or money to cover that tax. So taking the numbers in step 1 divide by the marginal tax rate $2950/0.25 or $11,800.  Money is easier to donate because you will be contributing enough value that the IRS may ask for proof of the value, and that proof needs to be gathered either before the donation is given or at the time the donation is given. Also don't wait until December 31st, if you miss the deadline and the donation is counted for next year, the purpose will have been missed. Now if the goal is just to avoid the underpayment penalty, you have two other options.  The safe harbor is the easiest of the two to determine. Look at last years tax form. Look for the amount of tax you paid last year. Not what was withheld, but what you actually paid. If all your withholding this year, is greater than 110% of the total tax from last year, you have reached the safe harbor. There are a few more twists depending on AGI Special rules for farmers, fishermen, and higher income taxpayers.   If at least two-thirds of your gross income for tax year 2014 or 2015   is from farming or fishing, substitute 662/3% for 90% in (2a) under   the General rule, earlier. If your AGI for 2014 was more than $150,000   ($75,000 if your filing status for 2015 is married filing a separate   return), substitute 110% for 100% in (2b) under General rule ,   earlier. See Figure 4-A and Publication 505, chapter 2 for more   information.


Since there is no match on the 401k, it seems to me that your first priority should be your IRA (Roth or otherwise). I don't know what your salary is, but most 22 year-olds won't be maxing out both an IRA and 401k on only 10% of their incomes, so the rest of the list may be irrelevant.


>  Besides there are only so many marketable majors (basically STEM) and finance isn't really one of them unless you go to a target school  Sorry but this just isn't true. I work at one of the big banks and my analyst class has people from all types of colleges all around the country.


Assets held within an ISA or New ISA are completely free of CGT, so you won't have to pay either income tax or capital gains tax.


Until you use the supercharger stations too much and the car automatically starts limiting you to slower recharging speeds to prevent damage to the battery. It's an unfortunate side effect of quickly charging existing battery technologies, it should be alleviated once solid state batteries become widely available though.


Japan PRODUCES.  Key point.  The Japanese work hard, produce and have a skillset and manufacture base important to the world economy.  Greece has Olive Oil and a population that took to the streets at the news that tax evasion would be investigated.  Not exactly comparing Apples to Apples.


The stodgy old management woke up and realized that china is getting really good at producing their own industrial equipment now. They buy one used piece of equipment and knock it off, sell it for pennies on the dollar.  If they don’t compete on better quality for only a little more money they are finished.


"To understand the VXX ETF, you need to understand VIX futures, to understand VIX futures you need to understand VIX, to understand VIX you need to understand options pricing formulas such as the ""Black Scholes"" formula Those are your prerequisites. Learn at your own pace. Short Answer: When you buy VXX you are buying the underlying are front month VIX futures. Limited by the supply of the ETF's NAV (Net Asset Value) units. It is assumed that the ETF manager is actually buying and selling more VIX front month futures to back the underlying ETF. Long Answer: Assume nobody knows what an options contract should be worth. Therefore formulas have been devised to standardize how to price an options contract. The Black-Scholes formula is widely used, one of the variables in this formula is ""Implied Volatility"", which basically accounts for the mispricing of options when the other variables (Intrinsic Value, delta, gamma, theta...) don't completely explain how much the option is worth. People are willing to pay more for options when the perception is that they will be more profitable, ""implied volatility"" tracks these changes in an option's demand, where the rest of the black-scholes formula creates a price for an option that will always be the same. Each stock in the market that also trades standardized options will have implied volatility which can be computed from the price of those options. The ""Volatility Index"" (VIX), looks at the implied volatility of MANY STOCK's options contracts. Specifically the ""implied volatility of out the money puts on the S&P 500"". If you don't know what that quoted part of the sentence means, then you have at least five other individual questions to ask before you re-read this answer and understand the relevance of these followup questions: Why would people buy out-the-money puts on the S&P 500? Why would people pay more for out-the-money puts on the S&P 500 on some days and pay less for them on other days? This is really the key to the whole puzzle. Anyway, now that we have this data, people wanted to speculate on the future value of the VIX. So VIX futures contracts began trading and with it there came a liquid market. There doesn't need to be anything physical to back a financial product anymore. A lot of people don't trade futures, retail investors have practically only heard of ""the stock market"". So one investment bank decided to make a fund that only holds VIX futures that expire within a month. (front month futures). They split that fund up into shares and listed it on the stock market, like alchemy the VXX was formed. Volatility studies are fascinating, and get way more complex than this now that the VXX ETF also has liquid options contracts trading on it too, and there are leveraged VIX ETF funds that also trade options"


"Yeah, I don't think ""millennials"" are the ones to win over here. I had the opportunity to dinner at Applebee's twice, once in 1999, and then in 2013.  The Applebee's in Miami, Florida, was a cheerful place, the food was good and fresh, and the local chef had an exclusive hot wings recipe. We had a great time.  Now fast forward to Applebee's in NY, 2013. Weird place, awful attendance, tasteless food. Now, I don't know what happened there, but you can't usually justify your lack of managing and hard work on ""tendencies"".  Innovation and offering more than expected can do wonders for your business."


Most transactions that the bank performs for you are electronic ACH transactions, so the costs to them are minimal in the long run.  Most banks do it now to keep up with the competition.  Almost every bank does it now, so they have to do it to attract new business and keep existing customers. Also, the more you rely on the bank and use them to pay bills, the more they learn about you over time and can use that data in overall marketing plans.  It's easier for them to record it into their system if it is all electronic to begin with.


Physically or mentally unable to work because of a debilitating medical condition.   [How Americans Game the $200 Billion-a-Year 'Disability-Industrial Complex'](https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/04/08/how-americans-game-the-200-billion-a-year-disability-industrial-complex/#f0651be4b6d8)  America’s health-care entitlements—Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare—are the biggest drivers of our exploding federal debt. What you may not know is that there is a fourth program, that pays disability benefits through the Social Security Administration, that is also growing at an alarming pace. While part of that growth can be explained by the aging of the U.S. population, the largest factor in the proliferation of disability spending comes from the fact that Congress has dramatically expanded the definition of who gets called “disabled.” **As a result, many able-bodied Americans have been granted government paychecks for life, crowding out our ability to direct needed resources to the genuinely infirm.**  The story of the growth in federal disability spending has been percolating for years. The Great Recession of 2008 led to a spike in unemployment; many people who had difficulty finding work discovered that they might be eligible for Social Security disability benefits, benefits that would replace a significant portion of their previously earned wages, while also qualifying them for Medicare, our generous health-insurance program for the elderly. Today, the United States spends around $200 billion a year, literally paying Americans not to work.


Look for an accountant who brings not only expertise in number crunching, but consulting and business planning - a full package.


I'm the exact opposite! If it's anything I'll need to reference, I find the e-book version better for me since I can ctrl (or cmd) F the PDF itself or use the search function in iBooks. It makes my life so much easier when studying!


"just one of my personal examples:  in a national sales contest, me against every man/office coast to coast, I came in first.  not only first, but nearly 3x better than the second placer  I was fired at year's end  reason:  ""wannabe2good, you just don't fit in"""


Yes, you can have both.  You'll need business income to contribute to a SEP IRA though.


Let us consider the risks in the investment opportunities: Now, what are the returns in each of the investment: What are the alternatives to these investments, then?


Small companies are generally able to adapt quickly to take advantage of changing conditions to enter new markets when the economy is growing. This gives them a lot of growth potential under those circumstances. However, in times of crisis, there may not be a lot of new markets to enter, and financing to expand any operations may be impossible to get. Under these conditions, small-caps will suffer relative to large-caps.


The earlier answers answered the question on how a more practical trader can lose money. Here I'd like to mention some obtuse ways  Using debt to buy stocks. If one is borrowing at a higher rate than they are getting back, from an economics prospective their stocks are losing money even if the value of those stocks are going up. Using debt to buy stocks. I'll simplify the nightmare situation. I know someone who has Y dollars of cash. Their broker will loan them X. With their X+Y money, they purchase some equities through the broker. The agreement of the loan is that if the value of those equities drops below a certain percentage of the outstanding debt (ex 150%), the broker will automatically and without notification, sell some equities indiscriminately to reduce the outstanding debt. Being in high-interest debt but buying stocks. There are millions of people who are paying 15+% interest rates on consumer debt while investing and getting 5% returns or less on average. Similar to an earlier point, from an economics prospective the choice to buy equities is a profit losing choice.


Treasury bonds (of the same date and maturity) are completely fungible. One is exactly the same as the other. It doesn't matter who the Fed buys it from in the long term: there will be fewer outstanding Treasury bonds and more outstanding US dollars, and the price of a Treasury bond will be higher. If Goldman Sachs owns US treasury bonds, they will benefit from quantitative easing one way or another, simply because the value of those bonds goes up when the Fed is willing to buy them at a good price. In the short term, banks might do things with money (like make loans and perform other investment activity) a little faster than the Treasury. (The Treasury might skip or reduce the size of future bond sales.) There is also the opportunity for a tiny amount of arbitrage between the market price of a bond and the price the Fed is willing to pay, but everyone with a big chunk of bonds is able to compete for that little bit of profit (which is why these things are called open market operations) so it's not really all that hot. Really, people! There are far more legitimate criticisms of QE2 than Goldman Sachs participating in the treasury auction process! For starters, consider criticisms of the effects of the policy.


There are so many qualifiers in that story that you cannot take it seriously.   Solar will be the cheapest way to get some amount of daytime generation to supplement em field generation.   When you try to go 100% solar your costs skyrocket because if the storage requirements and supplemental generating capacity you need.


I'm in the same boat. I lost a great, functional app that was years deep in development, and instead got a beta-grade app that has wrong street names and a cartoonish look. People can downvote me all they want - I'm not sure why I'm supposed to find this change acceptable.


That's exactly what happened with the banking catastrophe this past decade.  The CEOs set up a culture that encouraged improper loaning while not actually telling people to do it.  So what ended up happening is that the only people that got penalized are low-level, poorly trained desk jockeys, because they're technically the only ones that did anything illegal.


The term business credit normally refers to one or more credit cards which can be used to make purchases on behalf of a business. A business credit card will usually have both the business name and the card holder's name printed or embossed on the card. In most cases the cardholder will have provided a personal guarantee when applying for the card. A personal guarantee ultimately makes the card holder liable for all charges made on the card.


1.  it's easy to make a 1000+ powerpoint when every other slide has just one word.    2.  the goal of powerpoint is to simplify -- not drag-out to 1000's of clicks.  still... props for selling his company -- that's quite an accomplishment in an of itself.


"People are arguing the irrelevant net income/sales debate. It's a moot point.   The papers are bringing to light 100% legal tax-avoidance schemes limiting tax liability. Ikea does it. Apple/Google does it. Everyone does it.  1. All Starbucks European sales are charged 6% of total sales in intellectual property royalties to a Swiss and Dutch subsidiary. Dutch sub is officially labeled as the HQ and has 73M euro revenue, but only has 97 employees and 500k euro profit. Moreover, those countries have only 2% corporate tax, and the EURO President is based in London.  2. Starbucks owns vertical supply chain subsidiaries that does the coffee buying, roasting, packaging and charges a premium called ""transfer prices"" to Euro Starbucks. Those subsidiaries are located in Switzerland (2% tax vs 24% tax in UK).  3. Starbucks UK is funded through debt as it takes out inter-company loans at 4%+Libor (McD pays at or below Libor).   [\[Source\]](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49417811/ns/business-world_business/#.UH2XNMXA--0)"


"From my recollection of Warren Buffett's book ""Warren Buffett and the Art of Arbitrage"", the following factors determine the difference between the market price of a stock and the future expected price of an acquisition or merger: Time: Assuming the deal will close, the market price should approach the offer price as the closing date approaches. The fact that there is a 14% spread partially reflects the time value of money. Probability: Things could happen between now and closing date which could derail the deal. The higher the spread the more likely the market thinks the deal will not occur. For example, LO shareholders could reject the offer saying it is too low, or anti-trust regulators could say the deal is anti-competitive. Part of this 14% spread indicates the probability of the deal completing."


>I'm supposed to work until December and I'm not getting paid (just compensated for lunch and transportation).  >I really wanted to quit, but the boss, who went to my school, keeps telling me that she'll be in a difficult position if I quit.  Of course she will be in a difficult position. She'll have to pay someone for their work.  Unless you're a [trainee](http://wdr.doleta.gov/directives/attach/TEGL/TEGL12-09acc.pdf)  [unpaid internships are illegal](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html?pagewanted=all).


A simple and low-interest loan is probably the least likely to cause acrimony, aside from a direct gift. You seem to be describing an equity stake in their house, where some portion of the appreciation in value accrues to you (relative to your initial investment).  An equity stake in their house probably doesn't make much sense.  You sound as though you're not going to do any of the work aside from the contribution of money.  Equity might make sense as a way to reward you for efforts, such as home design or renovation, that increase the value of the home.  You probably don't want to be in a position where you are together improving the property and your payback only comes when she sells for more money.  What if you have different ideas of how to do it?  She has to live there and may want improvements for her needs rather than for buyers.  What if she asks you to pay for a portion of the improvement costs or resents you not offering?  What if she doesn't want to sell for some reason, so your money is locked up with her family choices?  Renovations can often be stressful, so these decisions may be made at difficult times. Either a gift or a low-interest family loan may be simpler for your needs.  You can just set the loan terms you want, say payoff over 10 years or a deferred payment schedule.  If she gets in trouble, you could perhaps delay or forgive payments.  I don't know the UK tax consequences of a loan of this nature, if any. As a general proposition, it's best to set clear and simple expectations at the beginning, and avoid agreements that require multiple decisions to be made consensually in the future, possibly during a time of stress.


"You will invest 1000£ each month and the transaction fee is 10£ per trade, so buying a bunch of stocks each month would not be wise.  If you buy 5 stocks, then transaction costs will eat up 5% of your investment.  So if you insist on taking this approach, you should probably only buy one or two stocks a month. It sounds like you're interested in active investing & would like a diversified portfolio, so maybe the best approach for you is Core & Satellite Portfolio Management.  Start by creating a well diversified portfolio ""core"" with index funds.  Once you have a solid core, make some active investment decisions with the ""satellite"" portion of the portfolio.  You can dollar cost average into the core and make active bets when the opportunity arises, so you're not killed by transaction fees."


Vanguard has low cost ETFs that track the S&P 500. The ticker is VOO, its expense ratio is 0.05%, which is pretty low compared to others in the market. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you won't have to pay tax on the dividends if it's in a retirement account such as a Traditional(pay taxes when you withdraw) or Roth IRA(pay income/federal/fica etc, but no taxes on withdrawal)...


Because the population of NYC was shy of 7 million in the 1930s, now it's over 8.5.    If government weren't corrupt, they would have issued new medallions to meet the demands of a growing city.  But they were invariably entrenched with and thus beholden to the monopoly they created, so did nothing while medallion prices skyrocketed over a million dollars.    Remember that a medallion is an artificial shortage and a barrier to entry.


You are claiming that this 'idea' is liberal:  >...the National Government has a role in centrally planning restrictions on freedom...  Are you suggesting anarchy as s viable political-economic system? I doubt it. Given that, everyone except anarchists see a role for the national (and other levels of) government to pass various laws.   Secondly, how do you see the MIC having anything to do with the government restricting freedoms?


One issue is whether it is a scam or the collector has a right to collect. Another issue is the statute of limitations period on the debt.  If it has expired, the creditor cannot get a court judgement against the borrower (if the borrower contests it).  However, if the borrower makes a payment, or promises to pay, the time resets to zero, starting a new period subject to valid court action.  In the U.S. the length of this period varies by state.  (This period is different from the amount of time a debt can be listed on a credit report.)


Sometimes I think a question like this is one of moral versus legal.  The reality is that you know you owe the money because you received the services.  You're right that the bill should have been sent to you, and the natural urge for many people is to just count it in the win column when things like this happen and there's the chance to avoid paying. I suppose my question for you is, are you comfortable with the notion that you are not paying something that your heart of hearts tells you should be paid?  If roles were reversed and you, as a business owner, had forgotten to bill something for which you were rightfully due payment, wouldn't you hope they'd have the integrity to pay you anyway? The legal side of this can be a bit trickier, and much depends on the state you're in (assuming you're in the U.S.) because some have stiffer consumer collection and protection laws than others.  The rehab center could, when doing an audit of its accounts, discover that you didn't pay for these.  They could take the polite course of action and call you with a gentle reminder or send a bill, or they could be not so nice about it.  Either way, they can't send anything to collections for which you haven't been presented a bill and demonstrated an unwillingness to pay.  There's a process in place, regardless of the state, so they can't just automatically put it into collections. I will close with this question for you: did the rehab center help you with what you needed, and are you healthier and better because of their care?  If so, pay the bill.  That's my advice.  Keep in mind that unpaid medical costs just raise the prices for everyone else, because these providers will make up for the loss somewhere. I hope this helps. Good luck!


The Geloman's Indian Spares provide the best Indian motorcycle parts at an affordable price. You can get a better part from our spare parts store by also considering what you will get with it. If you are going to be using the Indian motorcycle spares for the actual engine, you really should go for the best spare parts workshop. This is because they are normally warranted and you are able to take it back to the store if it's not the right thing or the right size or if it doesn't work like it should.


This is what I, as a Canadian, keep saying.  What remains united about the USA? I see is divided ideas, diametrically opposed opinions, voting, spending habits, etc. The opposition to one side's ideas run so deep that families avoid talking about it with the other side, even though they're in the same family.  There are certainly differences of opinion in Canada as well, but it seems we still talk enough about most things that we can find some common ground to use moving forward.


Checks are awesome things in that, even if it gets lost the money doesn't change hands until the check is cashed. I would highly recommend NOT signing a check over and putting it in the mail though. Essentially putting your signature on it is saying yes, pay to whomever. Theoretically acceptable, rarely a good idea. Call the insurance company and have them cancel current check to reissue to the correct people. Don't forget to write VOID (in huge letters) on the check before throwing away and/or tearing it up.


Something to consider is how broad is Yahoo! Finance taking in their data for making some comparisons.  For example, did you look at the other companies in the same industry?  On the Industry page, the Top Life Insurance Companies by Market Cap are mostly British companies which could make things a bit different than you'd think. Another point is how this is just for one quarter which may be an anomaly as the data could get a bit awkward if some companies are just coming back to being profitable and could have what appears to be great growth but this is because their earnings grow from $.01/share to $1/share which is a growth of $10,000 percent as this is an increase of 100 times but really this may just be from various accounting charges the company had that hit its reserves and caused its earnings to dip temporarily.


Generically, like farnsy noted in the other answer, you will only come ahead in dollar terms when you are significantly riskier than the average insuree. Otherwise the insurance company would have higher rates to make a profit. In the case of Apple Care there can arguably be other factors involved. If you did not insure your $2000 laptop and it broke (unfixably) just after the warranty period, would you replace it with a new Apple product? Maybe not, so Apple could lose a customer. That means they have an incentive to keep you happy. If your product breaks but insurance replaces it, you are a happier customer and more likely to buy other Apple products. This is not an incentive for traditional insurance companies that only do business in insurance. Now, with the profit margins Apple likes in general, I don't know if they've underpriced their insurance. I sort of doubt it even. But their margins on it are probably not high, meaning it's a closer call even if you are only averagely risky.


">Actually the reason isn't because of the gold standard. The real reason is because we have seen a sharp increase in fruit imports over the past 5 decades.  Huh? Agriculture is down to single digits as part of the GDP. What does that have to do with a gold standard and monetary policy?  >Productivity is up rather dramatically as compared to 40 years ago. Maybe you mean manufacturing?  Productivity is up since say, the turn of the century but this is to be expected since we incorporated electricity, oil, automobiles and eventually computers.   But as soon as the USA left the gold exchange standard, total factor productivity began to dramatically stagnate.   That means the growth in productivity.   You can see this best here: http://azizonomics.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/tfp.jpeg  Think of productivity like GDP. It used to be 5 and was on its way to 6, but right as we went off the gold standard, productivity increases stagnated and by 2007 we're only at 5.5 instead of the expected 6. This uses a logarithmic function wherein 6 is 10x more than 5. So while productivity has not fallen in an absolute sense, growth in productivity which is more important than absolute GDP growth has fallen and is infact related to a decrease in productivity growth.  >The reason you're seeing the gains over the past several years shifting towards the rich is due to a combination of tax policy and a rise in cronyism caused by our campaign financing problems. Big businesses often have a lot of lobbying power to get laws passed that ultimately are felt by the rest of the economy.   The reason it has shifted to the rich is because as the currency has debased the gains have gone towards the biggest companies, wealthiest individuals, assisted by government which works like an auction house to those with connections which is why lobbying ROI is huge.  >Fiat currency is a good thing for countries like the United States. We can safely finance and pay our debts for a few more years while wracking up debt without fear of hyperinflation.   Because our massive debt is doing so well for us? In the beginning it looks nice because there is very little pain and is practically unnoticible, but as we see current events playing out in the US and to a greater extent Europe which isnt as tightly knit economically as the US, fiat currency has huge problems. Hyperinflation of commodities and deflation of assets are occuring before our eyes. House values are plummeting, medical/education/consumer goods are inflating. Not QUITE to the hyper part, but inflation is increasing and only when commodities such as oil see a deflation in demand as we see right now does inflation look under control. Shadow inflation is very much alive.  If you have dollars in savings, the rates do not even outpace inflation, you are forced into riskier and risker investments to make a return.  >Now, there may be a lot to gripe about how the United States is currently spending its money, but it's established ""practical"" fact that government investment can spur growth, level out recessions, help people, etc.  Established over what? the last 40 years? Thats hardly enough time to call practical fact when the gold standard existed for hundreds and thousands of years. Infact NO fiat currency that has ever existed has survived. That is the real fact, and the dollar and euro themselves are currently going through the end stages of this cancer.   >TL;DR The Gold Standard sucks, it has a lot of problems. Fiat Currency rocks for the USA because USA Fuck yeah! We are in a particular advantage where the real risks of fiat currency don't really apply to the USA  **55 Million on food stamps with 20-30 million more on other forms of government assistance such as unemployment and welfare, unemployment increasing, GDP growth decreasing, median income decreasing, total employment stagnant (Same number of full time wage earners exist today as in 2000, despite 30+ million more American citizens), decreased consumer confidence, Average age of cars on the road went from 5 years in the 1960s to 12 years today (people dont buy new cars as frequently meaning less disposable income), decreased home ownership, increased retirement age, decreased young american employment.**  **I am not sure why you think that the USA is in such a great position. The american dream is faultering if you're just starting out in life. Just ask any number of recent college grads who are increasingly living with parents, not getting married and can't find jobs.**"


In your case it's all going to come down to the rates and how long you expect to live in the new house: As for whether to pay down the student loans or the mortgage first, you'll need to compare the rates, and also adjust for the tax deduction you'll get on the mortgage interest. (You make too much money to deduct any of the student loan interest.) If the student loan and morgage rates are similar, then most likely you're going to be better off paying down the student loans first. As for 15 vs 30 year, typically the rates are better on the 15 year. If they were somehow the same, then you'd be better off with the 30 yr and making the equivalent payments to the 15 year simply so you have the choice of making a lower payment in the future if you ever want to. But generally, if you plan on always making the 15 year payment amount, then you would be better off going with the 15 year just to secure the lower rate. In your case though, sticking with the 30 year and throwing the difference at the student loan may actually benefit you even more, again due to the tax deduction of mortgage interest.


"JoeTaxpayer's answer mentions using a third ""house"" account. In my comment on his answer, I mentioned that you could simply use a bookkeeping account to track this instead of the overhead of an extra real bank account. Here's the detail of what I think will work for you. If you use a tool like gnucash (probably also possible in quicken, or if you use paper tracking, etc), create an account called ""Shared Expenses"". Create two sub accounts under that called ""his"" and ""hers"". (I'm assuming you'll have your other accounts tracked in the software as well.) I haven't fully tested this approach, so you may have to tweak it a little bit to get exactly what you want. When she pays the rent, record two transactions: When you pay the electric bill, record two transactions: Then you can see at a glance whether the balances on ""his"" and ""hers"" match."


">Provide better quality of life for its citizens. That's the whole point of the economy. Right now it's not doing that, it's broken. That's why we need to fix it.  That checks out.  >For 100-500 years, you're probably right. But I'm not talking about the last 100 years, I'm talking about the last 30-40 or so. Every statistic I've seen indicates that the middle class and poor's purchasing power has stagnated severely while the rich have continued to rise, and it's put enormous economic strain on the middle and lower classes.  Average hours per worker has increased versus 30-40 years ago. That and better technology means we are more productive than ever. Production is great. Maybe it's too great?   If you slowed production, maybe you could prevent wealth from collecting in a few hands so quickly?  Wouldn't that be a ""weaker economy"" rather than a ""stronger economy""?  How exactly would you implement that, short of a rebellion?  Here's the crux of your problem. America got incredibly wealthy from WW2. This is why 30-40 years ago, there was a rich middle class that was stronger than it is today. This was not ""the economy's"" success. This was luck (or strategy, depending upon how much government planned it out)."


According to my post:  > Even after this year's slump in the stock, Sears has been a profitable investment for Lampert. His hedge funds paid about $16 a share for the stake in the chain, based on regulatory filings and Bloomberg calculations.


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> Relative to Netflix, I don't feel like Prime holds up.  I mean, yeah.  Netflix also costs more than Prime every year, and doesn't come with all the real reasons I have prime :)    I feel you on the Tivo issue, I wish they were better about that.  I play it through the desktop PC hooked up to my living room TV, and I have a fire stick in my bedroom, so that experience is definitely different between us.    But yeah, you may just not be into their originals.   They'll keep trying though, haha, they got all sorts of money flooding into that.


As a solo-investor I'm not sure how I'd prove that.  Showing statements? Sorry, not out of privacy but out of embarrassment.  I've made quite a few mistake of investing in companies against market sentiment that proved to be god awful right, and god awful wrong for me.    I'm hoping for a helluva rebound in the 10's


(For people looking at this question many years later...) Schwab and Fidelity offer a wide selection of commission-free ETFs.  You need an initial purchase amount, though, of (when last I checked at Schwab) $1,000.


"I think it's because reputation is extremely important. Have you heard of Arthur Anderson? There were five large accounting firms, appropriately named the ""Big Five"". It is now the ""Big Four"". Arthur Anderson were the ones handling the Enron financials.  Anyway, what do they really have to gain from colluding with the firms they are auditing? Continued business is one possibility but in the grand scheme of things it's not going to be that much money, at least not enough to risk the damage to reputation. Even if the firm being audited threatens to take business elsewhere if they don't fudge the financial reports, it would only be a credible threat if the other firms were willing to collude with the firm."


"There are a great number of financial obligations that should be considered more urgent than student loan debt.  I'll go ahead and assume that the ones that can land people in jail aren't an issue (unpaid fines, back taxes, etc.). I cannot stress this enough, so I'll say it again: setting money aside for emergencies is so much more important than paying off student loans.  I've seen people refer to saving as ""paying yourself"" if that helps justify it in your mind.  My wife and I chose to aggressively pay down debt we had stupidly accrued during college, and I got completely blindsided by a layoff during the downturn.  Guess what happened to all those credit cards we'd paid off and almost paid off?  Guess what happened to my 401k? If all we had left were student loans, then I still wouldn't prioritize paying those off.  There are income limits to Roth IRAs, so if you're in a field where you'll eventually make too much to contribute, then you'll lose that opportunity forever.  If you're young and you don't feel like learning too much about investing, plop 100% of your contributions into the low-fee S&P 500 index fund and forget it until you get closer to retirement.  Don't get suckered into their high-fee ""Retirement 20XX"" managed funds. Anyway, sure, if you have at least three months of income replacement in savings, have maximized your employer 401k match, have maximized your Roth IRA contributions for the year, and have no other higher interest debt, then go ahead and knock out those student loans."


>One reason RIM is determined to stay the course (for now) is that it has >a hidden gem: Its private, global, more-or-less cryptographically secure ?>network.  Might be a stupid question, but what really is the big deal with their secure network. Doesn't something like Exchange ActiveSync have enough security (by using TLS)?


How is this Spam? If you look me up you'll see why I posted... I have been manufacturing for seven years and written several articles around helping businesses cut costs.   If you think it's spam, you haven't done any research.


Sure, they might. But they might just owe their overseas subsidiary so much that they never make money on paper in the US thus pay no tax at all. The funny thing is these tricks that make them not pay taxes here keep happening, if only congress would stop fellating the rich then you might be right.


CDs may be one good option if you have a sense of when you may need the money(-ish), especially with more generous early withdrawal penalties. You can also take a look at investing in a mix of stock and bond funds, which will lower you volatility compared to stocks, but increase your returns over bonds.


"Oowwww . . . .I am afraid I am going to have to disagree with you on that one and suggest you stop fiddling with your dick and blow some shit up or you will pay a high price, because the time is soon coming when America is going to have to attack some one because the idiot in the white house is going to think it makes him look presidential.  He is going to want a nice easy win, because he has looked like the biggest asshole that America has produced since Kennedy tried to catch one with his teeth and it isn't easy with all of Israel forever yammering about how every body wants to destroy them and nethanyahu digging a furrow in Trumps ass like a frenzied poodle,  because his wife is a little heavy on the government spending . .ya huh?  So when decision time comes and Mr. Brain wave in the White house asks him self  ""Should we attack the country with nuclear weapons or the one with out?""  You are going to wish you had spent less time fiddling with your dick and spent more time blowing shit up."


"Not ""these"" batteries, they will still be using a mixture of solar, wind, gas and oil, nuclear and coal. Maybe a generation or two, but definitely not these batteries.  I honestly don't care how cheap these things get, until we have an infrastructure to support it,  we will be struggling."


"Parts of what you want are possible, but taken as a whole, you're out of luck. First of all, there is no master database of every cardholder in the country.  The only way to check if information is correct is to ask the issuing bank.  The AVS system is a way to automate doing so, but it's possible to call the bank directly and verbally verify the address.   That means you're subject to the whims of what the issuing bank chooses to support.  Banks that are part of the Visa and MasterCard networks generally only verify the numeric parts (address, apartment number, zipcode).  AmEx can also verify the cardholder name.  But if the bank doesn't have support for validating something, you can't validate it. Separately, there is a ""verify-only"" transaction which some processors support, which will do exactly what you want:  Return AVS values without ever charging the card.  However, processors require you to have the ""approved merchant account"" you don't want to have to have.  Without being a merchant, you shouldn't have access to other people's credit cards anyway.  Would you really want anyone in the country to be able to verify anyone else's address whenever they want? In short, whatever purpose you have for wanting this probably falls into one of three categories:"


I work in a bank and see these people first hand. It’s kind of sad really. They come in to open a business account. Full of excitement for this new “business opportunity”.    After a month or two of holding wine parties with their friends and family and making some sales they realize they can’t be hounding their friends and family to buy from them.   Their excitement turns to tempered optimism as they try to come up with more ways to drum up business.   After failing to do so they come back to me, defeated and close their business account. They’ll never tell me exactly why they closed, it’s always “Oh, I just don’t have time” or “I’m working too much at my regular job” but I know.   It was a scam all along.


How is this not what everyone is taking about?? It's the first thought I had hearing this news. [Amazon Go](https://youtu.be/NrmMk1Myrxc) is such an obvious play here. It will take years but the Whole Foods customer base is an ideal market for it, no doubt that was the pitch from Bezos.


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I hate the USPS.  The vast majority of the mail I receive is worthless, literally the only things I get that are worthwhile are magazines and things people send specifically to me.  Their pricing structure for services is bizarre and confusing, and their employees are generally surly.  I ship by other means whenever possible and I think it's ridiculous to ask for more support to stop the gov't from pulling resources.  That said, it's also unreasonable for the gov't to forbid the USPS from closing branches.  If you aren't going to give enough funding, at least let them accomodate by cutting costs.


Expense accounts are closed into equity.  Same with revenue.   So an increase in an expense means lower equity (lower retained earnings since there is more expense). Ergo, decrease equity and increase a liability. Increase a liability since it was accrued, which is usually used specifically to refer to things that kind of just happen in the background. Aka the firm most likely didn't pay cash for that right then and there so increase a payable.


A pencil and a small notepad really work here, but if you have a smartphone then some way of using it makes sense as well. Try: Transcribe all of these onto a better record at the end of each day. Also record the amount of money in your wallet/purse/pocket every day, and check to see if the amounts you've recorded add up to the amount you've spent. It'll be easier to remember that newspaper you bought at the end of the day, rather than a week later. Or just record the difference as 'miscellaneous'.


"If you're not convinced it's ineptitude - willful or otherwise - then ask yourself how life, property & casualty insurers, endowments, foundations, etc (in addition to the bevy of DB plans that are adequately funded) have managed to survive as long as they have.  You should ask yourself:  Was this just ""bad luck,"" beyond the control of managers?  Or were these willful decisions by financial professionals, within the context of highly competitive industries, to divert resources elsewhere with the *hope* that taking a riskier path would ultimately pay off?"


First, assuming you are making payments for a savings deposit.  The present value of the deposit is the sum of the all the payments discounted to present value.  In this case they would be discounted by the rate of inflation: £100 deposited next year is worth less than £100 today because it will be eroded by inflation.  With a higher rate of inflation the payments are discounted more heavily, so the present value decreases.  A deposit, or annuity due (see Calculating the Present Value of an Annuity Due), can be expressed mathematically like so:-  ∴ by induction  So for example, the following annuity has a present value of £1,136.76 The total amount that will be paid for the annuity is 12 x £100 = £1,200.  With a higher rate of inflation, say 2% per month, and with the same 12 x £100 payments, the present value of the annuity decreases. In Excel (£1,078.68) A similar case is that for a loan, or ordinary annuity (see Calculating the Present Value of an Ordinary Annuity), except the discounting factor is the loan interest rate rather than inflation and repayments are made at the end of each period rather than at the start. The present value of a loan is the value of the all the future repayments discounted to present value.  With a higher interest rate the payments are discounted more heavily, so the present value decreases.  A loan can be expressed mathematically like so:-  ∴ by induction  So for example, the following values fulfill a loan worth £1,125.51 The total amount that will be paid for the loan is 12 x £100 = £1,200.  With a higher rate of interest, say 2% per month, and the same 12 x £100 repayments, the present value of the loan that can be obtained decreases. In Excel (£1,057.53)


These services are immensely popular in big cities where grocery shopping time is scarce and a lot of younger people are foregoing car ownership. The price is a little high (base package is $60/week for 3 meals for 2 people) but provides good value if you're willing to cook the food.  I think their biggest hurdle though is retention. These services are fun for the first few months until they start to feel like a chore. And if you don't end up cooking the food you throw out a ton compared getting takeout on your way home from work.


Imagine when 5G and 6G wireless allows for speed fast enough to where you don't need internet connection and you can even get enough bandwidth wirelessly for your whole house. You see the trends of Google and Apple trying to be connected to your home. I'm surprised microsoft and Sony haven't been making the same moves to make these consoles an entire home hub with the internet of things.


"You are correct. I should have said ""most nothing"" but the premise is the same. Cancer can grow exponentially and leads to death. The growth cycle in nature starts out fast and then trails off and steadies out. Exponential growth begins slow and becomes unmanagable at some point as it approaches infinite."


Yes, the stock price drops on official listing. But what gonna happen on first trade after the dividend date, is up to the market. The market is the market, the rules are the rules. I saw prices going up more than once just after the dividend date, exactly because people think will be cheaper. Market doesn't always follow rules.


> who owns walmart? shareholders - people. your neighbors. who benefits from their lower prices - same.   Great, same people that are doing well right now.  Nothing changes if they are less greedy and more helpful to their workers.  > im a libertarian.  Yeah yeah, everyone is 'free' to do whatever.  People can get jobs elsewhere.  Prices can still be low and people can still make tons of money, just slightly less money for those at the top and slightly more for those at the bottom rungs.  Like I said, it just boils down to treating your workers fairly.  > your arguments are the same as those who support trade barriers, tariffs, etc.   Not really, but I don't think those things are necessarily bad if they serve to stop abuse or cheating.


I'm not sure what Tim Cook being gay has to do with anything and considering the fact that he hosted a fundraiser for Paul Ryan it's kind of a moot point to make.  While he may not be a fan of all of President Trump's policies he is openly willing to work with the organization.  Zuckerberg, on the other hand, has personally and through his organization actively work against the president.  He also skipped an earlier tech meeting at the beginning of the year sending, if I remember correctly, an executive assistant instead.    So again, no surprise that he skipped this one as well.


"The T+3 ""rule"" relates only to accounting and not to trading.  It does not prevent you from day trading.  It simply means that the postings in you cash account will not appear until three business days after you have executed a trade.  When you execute a trade and the order has been filled, you have all of the information you need to know the cash amounts that will hit your account three business days later. In a cash account, cash postings that arise from trading are treated as unsettled (for three days), but this does not mean that these funds are available for further trading.  If you have $25,000 in your account on day 1, this does not mean that you will be able to trade more than $25,000 because your cash account has not yet been debited.  Most cash accounts will include an item detailing ""Cash available for trading"".  This will net out any unsettled business transacted. For example, if you have a cash account balance of $25,000 on day one, and on the same day you purchase $10,000 worth of shares, then pending settlement in your cash account you will only have $15,000 ""Cash available for trading"". Similarly, if you have a cash balance of $25,000 on day one, and on the same day you ""day trade"", purchasing $15,000 and selling $10,000 worth of shares, then you will have the net of $20,000 ""Cash available for trading"" ($20,000 = $25,000 - $15,000 + $10,000). If by ""prop account"" you mean an account where you give discretion to a broker to trade on your behalf, then I think the issues of accounting will be the least of your worries.  You will need to be worried about not being fleeced out of your hard earned savings by someone far more interested in lining their own pockets than making money for you."


"Personally, I would just dispute this one with your CC.  I had a situation where a subscription I had cancelled the prior year was billed to me.  I called up to have a refund issued, they couldn't find me in their system under three phone numbers and two addresses.  The solution they proposed was ""send us your credit card statement with the charge circled,"" to which I responded ""there's no way in hell I'm sending you my CC statement.""  Then I disputed the charge with the CC bank and it was gone about two days later.  I partially expect to have the same charge appear next year when they try to renew my non-existent subscription again. Now, whether or not this is a normal practice for the company, or just a call center person making a good-faith but insecure attempt to solve your problem is irrelevant.  Fact of the matter is, you tried to resolve this with the merchant and the merchant asked for something that's likely outside the bounds of your CC Terms and Conditions; sending your entire number via email.   Dispute it and move on.  The dispute process exists for a reason."


Approximately $6,000 a year on the healthcare marketplace (obamacare).   They can get away with a little cheaper for a plan with a huge deductible (ie $5,000), which could reduce their plan to $4k a year.       They also pay medicare tax of 2.9% of their income (1.45% from employee side, and 1.45% payroll taxes).  These pay for medical care for retirees.


It's not! With gambling, you're placing a bet on some team's performance but you don't own the team, or the field they play on, or the other team, or the ball!  Derivatives are just like that! Except with derivatives, the team can bet against themselves, and not tell you that they have!


In addition to the other answers, consultants and contractors face a real risk (though admittedly small) of not getting paid. The more short-term the gigs are, the higher the risk of not getting paid for a particular job. As an employee, there are laws to ensure that you get your paycheck. As a contractor, you're just another creditor. I know a couple of contractors (software engineers) who have had difficulty collecting after a job. (I'm not even sure one ever got paid the full amount.) I also personally witnessed a contractor show up for a job who was then told by the company that they unilaterally decided that they would pay half of their pre-arranged rate.