"Oddly enough, I started to research the ""Bank on Yourself"" strategy today as well (even before I'd ran across this question!). I'd heard an ad on the radio for it the other day, and it caught my attention because they claimed that the strategy isn't prone to market fluctuations like the stock market. It seemed in their radio ad that their target market was people who had lost serious money in their 401k's. So I set about doing some research of my own. It seems to me that the website bankonyourself.com gives a very superficial overview of the strategy without truly ever getting to the meat of it. I begin having a few misgivings at the point that I realized I'd read through a decent chunk of their website and yet I still didn't have a clear idea of the mechanism behind it all. I become leery any time I have to commit myself to something before I can be given a full understanding of how it works. It's shady and reeks of someone trying to back you into a corner so they can bludgeon you with their sales pitch until you cry ""Mercy!"" and agree to their terms just to stop the pain (which I suspect is what happens when they send an agent out to talk to you). There were other red flags that stood out to me, but I don't feel like getting into them. Anyway, through the use of google I was able to find a thread on another forum that was a veritable wealth of knowledge with regard to the mechanism of ""Bank on Yourself"" how it works.  Here is the link: Bank on Yourself/Infinite Banking... There are quite a few users in the thread who have excellent insights into how all of it works. After reading through a large portion of the thread, I came away realizing that this strategy isn't for me. However, it does appear to be a potential choice for certain people depending upon their situation."


Well in 2006 they tested the1999 samples for EPO. There wasn't a test in 1999 so cyclist could take it with impunity if they wanted to. Of the 20 samples that came back positive, 11,were from Armstrong.  This is the point - while others were cheating , Armstrong was cheating on an industrial scale. Other riders had to look elsewhere for doctors who would help them dope. Armstrong had the team doctor to do that.


Actually nearly the entire western world is following in Japan's footsteps. A decade from now debts of 200%+ / GDP will be common place, why because populations are ageing & older people tend to spend less & western economies are consumer driven.  Meanwhile, as happened in Japan, people don't want to pay more tax or lose entitlements & politicians don't want to take them away for fear of losing votes. However, in the new normal of constant volatility and low interest rates and few growth opportunities western countries with their own currencies will probably get away with it for quite a long time. But watch Japan, because they're a decade ahead and if they collapse or even somehow solve the problem then the West is probably not far behind


Pulling out of your way to get to the gas station does not take 0 seconds, and playing on your phone is likely not what you were going to do anyway.  When you're on your way to work and you need to get there in a certain amount of time and decide you need gas, you need to leave earlier to get there on time.  Or when you're on your way home and all you want to do is get home after a long day, you're sitting in your car at a gross gas station instead of being at home.  You know this is the case, but you're trying to make up glib rationalizations for your complacency.  And you're speaking out of ignorance since you haven't experienced both ownership cases, whereas those who have experienced both ownership cases will say that EV charging is by large margin a more pleasurable experience.  But by all means, keep cutting off your nose to spite your face.  Spend more time filling up, more money, send that money to terrorists, give yourself poorer health, do all of those things, just so you don't have to admit to someone on the internet that maybe they've exposed you to a new way of thinking about transportation.  That'll teach 'em.


"The term ""stock"" here refers to a static number as contrasted to flows, e.g. population vs. population growth. Stock, in this context, is not at all related to an equity instrument.  Yes, annual refinance costs, interest rate payments etc. are what we should be looking at when assessing debt burden. Those are flows. That was my point when cautioning against naive debt GDP comparisons.  Also, keep in mind that by borrowing in it's sovereign currency, the US has an enormous amount of monetary tools to handle the debt if it ever became a problem. Greece, by comparison, is at the mercy of the ECB, so they only have fiscal levers to pull. The interest expense does not strike me as especially concerning, but I'd be happy to verify BIS or IMF reports if you would like."


> Can you name a product that 100% of consumers are forced to buy?  No, including education.  I don't see how that matters.  > Education is not a consumable good like any you are trying to compare it to  Doesn't have to be consumable.  How about a marketing consultant who claims his customer didn't actually want better sales?  How about an interior designer who claims his customer has horrible taste?  How about a president who claims a gold star widow didn't want to be consoled?


Well, to be fair, the guy responding to me also seems to believe that there is a massive government coverup of an advanced civilization on Mars.   At least I bothered to look up the source given to me and make my own opinion.


"Oh how I detest ""Good to Great"". Worst management book ever. Incredibly poor analysis method and useless results. They even asked the inverse of the question you actually would want to know.   They asked ""Given companies that went from Good to Great, what strategies did they use in common."" That's worthless. It's like analyzing lottery winners and finding out they all used the strategy of buying lottery tickets, and they concluding that you should also buy lottery tickets.  The question should be, ""How many companies using Strategy X went from Good to Great compared to using Strategy Y."" Even if GtG found some coherently useful strategies (they didn't), it might be that most Bad to Worse companies also used the same strategies. What you want are strategies that are statistically likely to improve your odds of success, not what the successful are statistically likely to have had."


This sounds like it makes no difference if you behave in the same manner (i.e. take the same vacation time). For example, say you work 1 hour and take 1 hour of vacation and the current hourly rate is $1/hour.  You would make $2. Using your formula, new rate = 1* (1+1)/1 = 1*2 = $2.  So they would pay you $2 for the hour you worked and then you would take the 1 hour of vacation with no pay. If you plan on taking LESS vacation than used in the formula, you make more money.  If you plan on taking MORE vacation, you make less money.


>In short, pay banks not to lend money, not to invest the reserves.  This is just like Federal programs that paid farmers not to farm...IOER (interest on excess reserves) pays big bankers not to bank  That's paying fucking interest. Why are you making this sound like a conspiracy theory?   And your article is poorly written and nobody takes a title with three question marks seriously. Stop.


"Did someone hijack your account OP?   In your post you take the time to point out the part of the article that says Trump has done nothing so him taking credit for this decline makes his statement ""mostly false."" And now you're defending Trump?  Which is it, are you defending Trump or slamming him?"


"This equation fails to account for a society's willingness to create value.  If you steal from those who create value and give to those who do not, you destroy the engine that creates value in the economy.  This redistribution idea is not a new concept, and it has already massively failed.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1921%E2%80%9322  > The Bolshevik government had requisitioned supplies from the peasantry for little or nothing in exchange. This led peasants to drastically reduce their crop production. According to the official Bolshevik position, which is still maintained by some modern Marxists, the rich peasants (kulaks) withheld their surplus grain to preserve their lives;[6] statistics indicate that most of the grain and the other food supplies passed through the black market.[7][8][9] The Bolsheviks believed peasants were actively trying to undermine the war effort. The Black Book of Communism asserts that Lenin ordered the seizure of the food peasants had grown for their own subsistence and their seed grain in retaliation for this ""sabotage"", leading to widespread peasant revolts.  --  > In July 1929 it remained official Soviet policy that the kulak should not be terrorised and should be enlisted into the collective farms. Joseph Stalin disagreed with this, saying, ""Now we have the opportunity to carry out a resolute offensive against the kulaks, break their resistance, eliminate them as a class and replace their production with the production of kolkhozes and sovkhozes.""[13]  > On 30 January 1930 the Politburo approved the dissolving of kulaks as a class. Three separate categories for the kulaks were designated: The first consisted of kulaks to be sent to the Gulags, the second was for kulaks to be relocated to distant parts of the USSR (such as the north Urals and Kazakhstan), and the third to other parts of their province.[14]  > As part of being forced onto collective farms, the peasantry were required to relinquish their farm animals to government authorities. Many peasants chose to slaughter their livestock rather than give them to collective farms. In the first two months of 1930, peasants killed millions of cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, and goats, with the meat and hides being consumed and bartered. For instance, the Soviet Party Congress reported in 1934 that 26.6 million head of cattle had been lost, and 63.4 million sheep.[15] In response to the widespread slaughter, the Sovnarkom issued decrees to prosecute ""the malicious slaughtering of livestock"" (хищнический убой скота).[16]  > Stalin requested severe measures to put an end to the kulak resistance. In 1930, Stalin declared:  > In order to oust the 'kulaks' as a class, the resistance of this class must be smashed in open battle and it must be deprived of the productive sources of its existence and development. ... That is a turn towards the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class."


"Hope springs eternal in the human breast. No actively managed fund has beaten the indices over a long period of time, but over shorter periods, actively managed funds have beaten the indices quite often, sometimes quite spectacularly, and sometimes even for many years in a row. Examples from the past include Fidelity Magellan and Legg Mason Value Trust. So people buy actively managed funds hoping to cash in on such  good performance. The difficulty is, of course, that many people don't even think about investing in a fund until it is listed in some ""Top Forty Funds of last year"" compilation, and for many funds, they have already peaked, and new buyers are often disappointed.  Some  people who invested earlier plan on getting out of the fund before  the fund falls flat on its face, and fewer even succeed in doing so. As to why 401k plans often have high-cost actively managed funds, there are several reasons. A most important one is that there are numerous companies that act as administrators of 401k programs and these companies put together package deals of 401k programs (funds, administrative costs etc), and small employers perforce have to choose from one of these packages.  Second, there are various rules that have come into existence since the first days of 401k (and 403b) programs such as the investment choices must include funds of different types, and actively managed funds (large cap, small cap etc) are one of the choices that must be offered. Gone are the days when the only choice was a variable annuity offered by the insurance company administering the 401k program. Finally, program participants also have hopes (cf. opening sentence) and used to demand that the 401k program offer a few actively managed funds, not just index funds."


Oh my, i remember going through the Series 66... when i was at Morgan Stanley they provided learning material from Securities Training Corporation, or STC. I personally thought the STC material was okay in terms of preparing me for the Series 66...However, i heard a lot of good reviews/feedback around the office for Pass Perfect. https://www.passperfect.com/Series/66/Product/38  Hope this helps and good luck on the 66!! ;)


Take a look at apple.  It has no debt.  So the ev is basically mkt cap - cash.  Also remember market cap is the float * share price nothing else.  Obviously share price takes into account the assets of the firm into perpituituy but the way you phrased it, adding debt , didnt sound quite right to me.  We remove cash since someone buying a company isn't going to pay for your cash.  In the transaction cash is distributed to share holders then the company is sold.


> It's like they only care about personal short term gain and care little about being in the game for the long term.  That's pretty much it. If they can't be lending (and making interest), they aren't winning.  It's funny that the banks know as well as anyone that the worst place to leave money is in a bank.


"If you look at the definition of time value on Wikipedia, you may notice this line: Time value ""can be thought of as the price an investor is willing to pay for potential upside.""  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_time_value You are right to think that the time value is increasing as the moneyness increases from deeply OTM to ATM. Once the moneyness crosses the strike price threshold, per wiki's interpretation, the upside potential decreases as the underlying price moves away from the strike price. Think it as if an option is already deep in the money, the chance of it getting further ITM is slim. Hence the willingness to pay for that chance (aka. the upside potential) decreases."


Do they even know how to find these people, short of using facial recognition or somesuch wizardry?  I mean I'm assuming they paid for the gift cards with cash.  Do you have to provide identifying information to activate them?


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-26/the-market-will-kill-oil-before-the-government-does) reduced by 84%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Europe&#039;s car market is set to undergo unprecedented changes over the next two decades, driven as much by economics as government policy.  > In France too, more than 70 percent of new cars sold will come with a plug even without Macron&#039;s new targets, the researcher said.  > &quot;Given the rate of improvement in battery and electric-vehicle technology over the last 10 years, by 2040 small-combustion engines in private cars could well have disappeared without any government intervention,&quot; Alastair Lewis, a professor at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of York, said in an email.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6pz2dv/the_market_will_kill_oil_before_the_government/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~177227 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **Car**^#1 **oil**^#2 **new**^#3 **percent**^#4 **company**^#5"


"You got out in time, great, but how did you know when to get back in? The internet is littered with threads by people who got out (in advance, or during), then didn't get back in in time, because the recoveries didn't 'feel real'. Some people are still sitting out, just hoping against hope the market crashes - but it probably won't to those 2009 levels.  I recommend looking at [Trinity Study](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Safe_withdrawal_rates) results as a place to start getting a sense of portfolio longevity when totally out of the market. The reality is that all cash (which is basically a zero-duration bond) is a dangerous position, as is all stocks. A balanced portfolio gives you diversification, the only ""free lunch"" in investing.  Better to not try and time your way in and out of the market, but rather glide within a range (Benjamin Graham recommends no more/less than 75/25, 25/75). If you want to skip the research headaches, stick with a 'total bond' or 'intermediate-term bond' fund (or Google around for 'lazy portfolios').  The real key is not to let emotions drive your decisions - it always 'feels different this time' until it isn't. Much better to set a target portfolio of stocks/bonds (rule of thumb: imagine you might lose half the stock portion in a downturn) then ride it out. That way you don't have to worry about being at one extreme or the other."


Where I work they hire unskilled to learn machining.  Except they don't want to learn and are not good with computers and have no idea, or care, what 'making rate' means. The few skilled people they have left don't have any intention of training anyone, there is no money in it for us, only makes the owner richer.  None of us have had a raise in years and we already know how to get by on less.  We don't care if the owner has to turn away work for his machines.   The super rich wanted a drugged up, dumbed down, and pacified population.  Now they have it and that will cost the rich man money, just as the super rich want.    I can help fix that problem at the place where I work, but not for free.  A fat 2 digit raise or do it yourself.


If you are a citizen of India and working in Germany, then you are most likely an NRI (NonResident Indian). If so, you are not entitled to hold an ordinary Indian bank account, and all such existing accounts must be converted to NRO (NonResident Ordinary) accounts. If your Indian bank knows about NRO accounts, then  it will be eager to assist you in the process of converting your existing accounts to NRO accounts most likely it also offers a money remittance scheme (names like Remit2India or Money2India) which will take Euros from your EU bank account and deposit INR into your NRO account.  Or, you can create an NRE (NonResident External) account to receive remittances from outside India.  The difference is that interest earned in an NRO account is taxable income to you in India (and subject to TDS, tax deduction at source) while interest earned in an NRE account is not taxable in India.  The remittance process takes a while to set up, but once in place, most remittances take 5 to 6 business days to complete.


The problem you're talking about can be handled the same way now until better alternatives appear. I'm simply talking about improving the existing infrastructure to carry out these trades. Instead of holding a number on charles schwab account, you hold a token which is the same as a stock certificate of ownership.


The same as you would for an individual stock. A stock starts the year at $100, and has $4 in dividends over the year, why would the fact the the stock ends the year at say $90, confuse you?  You pay tax on the dividend at the favored rate, if held in a taxable account, obviously, and that's about it.


"The carry forward refers to the ""annual allowance"", which is a limit on the total pension contributions you can make and still get any tax relief at all.  However, the tax relief itself only applies to the year you make the contribution, and you can't carry the contribution itself back or forward to get relief at a higher marginal rate. So, in scenario (1) you get £2K relief and your provider gets £2K relief. But the actual contribution you should make to your provider is £8K. They'll add in the £2K to make a £10K gross contribution, and then you'll claim back the £2K leaving you having contributed £6K net for the £10K gross contribution. The mechanism whereby the pension provider claims back the £2K is called ""relief at source"". For scenario (2) you'll only get basic rate tax relief on the second £10K, because you'll have already reduced your gross income for the year below the higher-rate threshold with the first £10K. If you managed to make pension contributions in excess of the annual allowance even considering carry-forward, then you'd get no tax relief at all on those contributions. Given that the pension would also get taxed when paid, this is not a good deal and people generally avoid exceeding that limit. For (3) I'm not entirely certain, but I think you can carry forward in the circumstances you describe. I think the principle is simply that you could have paid into a pension scheme. In practice I also don't think HMRC will be worrying too much about this precise detail even if they have the opposite interpretation - it'd be a lot of work to check for not much gain."


The headline mentions Harbinger Capital because they were making news this weekend because of an on-going SEC investigation. [Harbinger Capital Partners has been put on notice by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it could face a lawsuit for securities-fraud violations, according to published media reports.] (http://www.thestreet.com/story/11340855/1/harbinger-capital-gets-wells-notices.html)


Thank you ElPsyCongrou for voting on I\_am\_a\_haiku\_bot.    This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. [You can view results here](https://goodbot-badbot.herokuapp.com/).     ***    ^^Even ^^if ^^I ^^don't ^^reply ^^to ^^your ^^comment, ^^I'm ^^still ^^listening ^^for ^^votes. ^^Check ^^the ^^webpage ^^to ^^see ^^if ^^your ^^vote ^^registered!


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.businessinsider.com/debt-ceiling-trump-mint-coin-2017-5) reduced by 95%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The Treasury has used &quot;Extraordinary measures&quot; to extend the timeframe on the debt ceiling by suspending some investments in federal retirement funds and slowing the pace of debt issuance.  > The debt ceiling, on the other hand, allowed Congress to exert some influence over spending and debt issuance while making it easier for the Treasury to effectively finance operations.  > The Freedom Caucus, which continually pushes for debt reduction and curtailed spending, even went as far as taking an official position in May that it would not support any debt ceiling bill without concessions on spending cuts.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6gqjwi/trump_is_starting_to_draw_battle_lines_with/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~142029 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **debt**^#1 **ceiling**^#2 **limit**^#3 **Treasury**^#4 **Trump**^#5"


It's the truth. It's not dodging if it's legal. Shitty? No doubt. But, the main problem with that is that smaller companies and individuals aren't able to do the same thing.   That's why it's wrong; it's only legal because big companies can lobby representatives to make it happen. Small guys have no love.   The 35% corporate tax rate argument is mostly bullshit because most large corporations don't pay anywhere near that. It's only those without the tax shelters that have to worry about it.


Western Union is one way to send emergency cash to a family member. It seems suspicious as a method of goods payment because many frauds have used it as a means of collecting irreversible payments. EBay and Paypal would be a better more trustworthy way to sell to usa customers.   Most USA banks need a USA address for the account owner..... But you may not need a USA bank account as PayPal can store and exchange funds to other currencies.


We asked the same question earlier this year as my wife is a SAHM with 2 young boys (5 and under). If something happened to her I'd have to quit work or change careers to stay home to raise them or something. We ended up getting a decent 20 year level TERM policy that will cover the care of both boys for many of their younger years. The cost is negligible but the piece of mind is priceless.


Journalist here, i work for a small town newspaper, there's still integrity, nothing about journalism has changed, its the perception of the consumers that has and for reasons that do confuse me a little.   As far as filtering out sources based on illegitimacy then go to the financial source of the organization, is it funded through donations, advertising revenue, subscriptions, or state funded? These details can often tell you a lot about the biases of the organization.


It's doable, but there's a fair amount of risk involved. The biggest issue is that your roommates could move out. It's possible that they could have a falling out, get a job in a different city, or just move on. How difficult would it be to find another roommate? How many roommates can you lose and still afford to pay the mortgage, insurance, taxes, and all the rest of your living expenses? Even if you you retain all of your roommates until the mortgage is paid off, there's still some risk involved. If you were to lose your job, could you continue to make mortgage payments? Worst case scenario is that you could become unemployed for a time while home values in your State/City/neighborhood are crashing. Last, the position on landlord has the potential to be lucrative, but also comes with a fair amount of responsibility. It will be a drain on your time to maintain the house and to make sure you always have tenants. I know you said that your roommates are good about paying on time, but are you willing to evict a friend because they won't/can't pay rent? It's easier to ask the landlord for an extension on rent when you're friends. All that being said, I think that this idea is worth considering. My recommendation is that you consider every aspect of it, and proceed cautiously if you choose to do so.


">Of course, this is true as long as you ignore issues like New York policeman spiking their overtime by working as flagmen on construction projects.  A POLICEMAN.. dont you know if one person gets welfare that doesnt deserve it, we should throw out the entire system.. right?  >The unions have done a great job focusing anger on the banks,  yeah cuase it was unions that crashed the worlds economy. IT was unions that created derivatives, it was unions that created sub prime lending, it was unions that created ""liar loans"" right?    >but the states and cities are going to keep going bankrupt.   Ok big quiz here, please turn down fox news for this one.  WHAT HAPPENS TO STATE FINANCE'S IN A RECESSION?  what happens to tax receipts? and what happens to spending on things that help the poor?  I'll wait on you to think about it, I will not wait on you while you wait  for fox to tell you the answer  Bonus question since you are not going to bother the answer the one above.  What is the program called ""[starve the beast](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast)"", who started it, what is its purpose, and what it it;s methodology?"


But is the money saved taxable? Not sure I understand the Question. If say you have salary of Rs 5 Lacs, after paying taxes and expenses, lets say you save Rs 1 lacs. If you keep this 1 lacs in savings account. You will get interest. If this interest is less than Rs 10,000/- it is not taxable. If it is more that Rs 10,000 then the additional amount is taxable. i.e. if you get a savings bank interest of Rs 15,000/- the difference Rs 15,000 minus Rs 10,000; i.e. Rs 5000 is taxable. Note if you keep the 1 lacs in Fixed Deposits, then all interest even if you get Rs 1 is taxable. Edit: If you invest the Rs 1 lacs in Tax Saving FD [lock-in period of 6 years], then Yes. You can claim deduction under section 80C.


"Company in crisis. CEO bails. That's some bold leadership right there.  There's nothing unprecedented about Samsung executives facing prison time. They have a long history of this  ""I've thought about this a long time and I can no longer get away with it so I am jumping ship before I get caught. It's time to let a new generation inherit the problems we have been sweeping under the carpet because I no longer want to deal with them and already have so much money I can't possibly spend it all. Later, suckers!"""


Brains use about 20W. For 7 billion people, that's 140 GW.  According to [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption), world energy consumption is about 15 TW.  Of course, you would have to budget for inter-consciousness communications, but this might be more approachable than it seems.


My Google Home does a good job of recognizing my voice and using guest mode for other people using it but you made a fair point about controlling connected home devices - I wouldn't use a voice authenticated door lock.  But I don't see any evidence that my data over at Google or Amazon is vulnerable. Sure, there's some exposure and risk I have to accept but to argue that it's unsecured and that someone could get unauthorized access to it is extremely presumptuous.


Please use the sharing tools found via the email icon at the top of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour.  https://www.ft.com/content/23ab8a02-5787-11e7-80b6-9bfa4c1f83d2?mhq5j=e1   By continuing to use this site you consent to the use of cookies on your device as described in our cookie policy unless you have disabled them. You can change your cookie settings at any time but parts of our site will not function correctly without them. Dismiss cookie message Accessibility helpSkip to navigationSkip to contentSkip to footer    Financial Times MYFT HOME WORLD UK COMPANIES MARKETS OPINION WORK & CAREERS LIFE & ARTS Portfolio My Account    HOME WORLD UK COMPANIES MARKETS OPINION WORK & CAREERS LIFE & ARTS MYFT Bank stress tests  Add to myFT US banks pass first round of annual stress tests  Clean bill of health from Federal Reserve opens door to increased shareholder payouts Read next Week in Review Week in Review, July 1   © AFP Share on Twitter (opens new window) Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on LinkedIn (opens new window) Email4 Save JUNE 22, 2017 by: Alistair Gray and Ben McLannahan in New York and Barney Jopson in Washington US banks have big enough capital buffers to keep trading through an economic meltdown, regulators said on Thursday, in a finding that improves their chances of boosting payouts to shareholders.  In the first round of this year’s stress tests, the Federal Reserve probed how 34 banks would fare in a financial and economic slump in which the unemployment rate doubles and the stock market loses half its value. The central bank calculated that the banking sector would endure $493bn in losses in the simulated downturn.  Yet officials concluded that the banks would emerge from the crash “well capitalised”, with cushions of shareholder funding still above the Fed’s minimum required levels.  The largely upbeat results augur well for US banks as the Fed prepares to unveil the results of the tests’ second round next week, when investors will learn how much capital they can return through dividends and share buybacks.  However, the figures released on Thursday do not foretell what the Fed will say about payouts, not least because regulators can approve or block US banks’ capital plans on qualitative as well as quantitative grounds.  Lex Bank stress tests: chilled The once-vital check on the industry’s health is outliving its usefulness   UBS analysts estimate that the four biggest by assets — JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo — will be able to return a net $59.8bn this year, rising to $72.3bn in 2018.  Citi and Morgan Stanley could be among about a dozen banks that will make requests to return more than 100 per cent of their annual earnings to shareholders, according to Goldman Sachs analysts.  Despite the positive stress test results, not all investors would be comfortable with such a bonanza. Bill Hines, a fixed-income investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management in Philadelphia, said the prospect of payouts in excess of profits “does scare us a little bit”.  “If the safety blanket is pulled away . . . that may come to the detriment of capital and safety.”  Across-the-board passes for the stress-test are “a good thing,” he said, as it shows that banks have rebuilt capital levels substantially since the crisis. “But from a creditor’s standpoint you don’t want to see all the profits go out the door.”   While banks have already told the Fed what they propose to do on dividends and buybacks, they are now able to make more conservative payout plans if, based on the first-round results, they think it will reject them in the second round.  Related article Regulators back Trump on looser financial rules Officials endorse Volcker rule revamp and bank relief from burden of ‘stress tests’   The regulator’s simulated downturn lasts for nine quarters. Banks’ overall loan losses and declines in capital under the worst crisis scenario were smaller than in last year’s stress tests, Fed officials said.  Still, the test found that some banks would come close to breaching regulatory minimums during the meltdown on some metrics. For instance, Morgan Stanley’s “supplementary leverage ratio” — a new measure of financial strength that takes effect in 2018 — would drop as low as 3.8 per cent compared with a required level of 3 per cent.  The results also drew attention to banks’ exposure to credit card lending. The Fed found banks would suffer the biggest losses in their card portfolios in the hypothetical crisis.  Fed officials said that partly reflected a rapid expansion in the size of banks’ credit card assets and rising delinquency rates in the real world.  Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017. All rights reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't copy articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. Share on Twitter (opens new window) Share on Facebook (opens new window) Share on LinkedIn (opens new window) Email4 Save Latest on Bank stress tests Week in Review Week in Review, July 1 Fed stress tests give $1.6bn boost to Buffett Fed gives nod to ‘payout party time’ for banks Lex US banks: feeling special Premium Stress tests clear big US banks for $100bn payout Read latest Week in Review Week in Review, July 1 Latest on Bank stress tests Add to myFT Week in Review Week in Review, July 1 US banks pass test; Google, Takata, Fox and M&A also in the news   Banks Fed stress tests give $1.6bn boost to Buffett Investor is one of the largest holders of US bank stocks and will reap big dividends Analysis Bank stress tests Fed gives nod to ‘payout party time’ for banks Buybacks and dividends set to soar after industry passes latest stress test Latest in Banks Add to myFT Central Banks BoE successfully tests new payment method ‘Interledger’ programme synchronises transactions between two central banks 3 HOURS AGO   US banks US consumers set to be given power to sue banks Financial institutions express fury at CFPB proposal that could spur class actions UK banks BoE warns UK banks on accounting practices PRA chief Sam Woods says lenders should ‘expect questions’ on balance sheet trickery Follow the topics mentioned in this article JPMorgan Chase & Co. Add to myFT Companies Add to myFT Banks Add to myFT Wells Fargo Add to myFT Citigroup, Inc. Add to myFT Follow the authors of this article Barney Jopson Add to myFT Alistair Gray Add to myFT Take a tour of myFT Support View Site Tips Feedback Help Centre About Us Accessibility Legal & Privacy Terms & Conditions Privacy Cookies Copyright Slavery Statement Services FT Live Share News Tips Securely Individual Subscriptions Group Subscriptions Republishing Contracts & Tenders Analysts Research Executive Job Search Advertise with the FT Follow the FT on Twitter Ebooks UK Secondary Schools Tools Portfolio Today's Newspaper (ePaper) Alerts Hub Lexicon MBA Rankings Economic Calendar News feed Newsletters Currency Converter More from the FT Group Markets data delayed by at least 15 minutes. © THE FINANCIAL TIMES LTD 2017. FT and ‘Financial Times’ are trademarks of The Financial Times Ltd. The Financial Times and its journalism are subject to a self-regulation regime under the FT Editorial Code of Practice. CloseFinancial Times UK Edition Switch to International Edition Top sections Home World  Show more World links UK  Show more UK links Companies  Show more Companies links Markets  Show more Markets links Opinion  Show more Opinion links Work & Careers  Show more Work & Careers links Life & Arts  Show more Life & Arts links Personal Finance  Show more Personal Finance links Science Special Reports FT recommends Lex Alphaville EM Squared Lunch with the FT Video Podcasts Blogs News feed Newsletters myFT Portfolio Today's Newspaper (ePaper) Crossword Help Centre My Account Sign Out


At lesskart.com, grab exciting best loot deals today on more than 9000+ products of top brands and save huge amount of money. We are perfect platform to get astounding coupon and promotional codes on your favorite brands. Visit website!


*Volatility and the VIX can be very tricky to trade.  In particular, going out longer than a month can result in highly surprising outcomes because the VIX is basically always a one month snapshot, even when the month is out in the future.


For an app that's distributed on the internet at large (which pretty much rules out mobile for a general audience, but setting that aside...) your only protection is either a) trust the company, or b) trust the community to have audited the source code. A new startup shouldn't be trusted enough for (a). For (b) it's not every individual user that needs to understand all the implications, but an app that becomes semi-popular would likely attract enough geeks who have audited the source code or tested the app in a sandbox to raise red flags if anything is awry. Hopefully anything truly nefarious would lead to an outcry the would scare away even a non-technical user (it's certainly debatable whether this is realistic but it's not far-fetched).  To be even remotely popular with a general audience though, an app like this would need to be distributed through the walled-garden app stores from Apple/Google/Microsoft. In that case users are trusting the gatekeeper to exclude an app that was discovered to be doing something malicious. This provides some protection even if the source code is hidden.


"The short answer: zero. dg99's answer gives some good reasons why.  You will basically never be able to achieve diversification with individual stocks that is anywhere close to what you can get with mutual funds.  Owning individual stocks exposes you to much greater risk in that random one-off events that happen to affect one of the companies you own can have a disproportionate effect on your assets.  (For instance, some sort of scandal involving a particular company can cause its stock to tank.) There are only two reasons I can see to invest in individual stocks: a. You have some unique opportunity to acquire stock that other people might not be able to get (or get at that price).  This can be the case if you work for a privately-held company that allows you to buy stock (or options), or allows you to participate in its IPO.  Even then, you should not go too crazy, since having too much stock in the company you work for can double your pain if the company falls on hard times (you may lose your job and your investment). b. For fun.  If you like tracking stocks and trying to beat the market, you may want to test your skills at this by using a small proportion of your investable cash (no more than 10%).  In this case you're not so much hoping to increase your returns as to just enjoy investing more.  This can also have a psychological benefit in that it allows you to ""blow off steam"" and indulge your desire to make decisions, while allowing your passive investments (index funds) to shoulder the load of actually gaining value."


'In credit' means you have money in your account. It would say 'overdrawn' or something similar if you went into overdraft.


Not sure either :( I see you're a student too, do you know of any other subreddit or forum where I could ask for advice?  Tbf right now I'm just compiling a list of papers about valuation of loss firms or intangibles and I'll read them tomorrow. I'd like to find a model to test too.  Here's what I got (I'm still only just scratching the surface): https://we.tl/UaXmvSdwiF  I'm trying to get some stuff on loss firms valuation, intangibles impact, and discrepancies between market expectations and traditional models valuation.


"In short Yes, your father needs to pay tax. Please consult a CA so that he can advice you better.  In your father's case at the time of purchase it was agricultural land. However at the time of sale, it seems it was Urban, N.A. Land. A C.A. would advice you the exact exemptions and gains. If it was agricultural land at the time of selling, the Section 54B: ""Exemption from Capital Gains on transfer of Agricultural Lands in certain cases"" would be applicable if your Dad was doing agricultural activity on this land, and after selling has purchased a similar land."


It could be that your friend is being scammed into recruiting you as another victim. So it is vaguely possible that this isn't malicious on their part. However, it is a scam if they are asking for your credit card info without a completely clear and good reason it's necessary. Which they have failed to do. That is reason enough to assume it's a scam, illegal, or both. Run. And seriously consider whether these are really people you can trust on anything, never mind money. At best they're gullible.


My bank charges me on my statement for debit transactions, but rewards me with bogo points when I run transactions as credit. AFAIK, retailers are prevented by contract with VISA et all from recouping the merchant fee from you (instead they can mark up all prices and offer a 'cash discount'), not that you'll be able to convince your vietnamese grocer of this. The difference between debit and credit fees is large enough that even these small tricks by the bank can mean a lot of money for them. Since most retailers accept either, they recruit me into their profit game with carrots and sticks.  I've since moved to an actual cash back credit card and haven't regretted it yet.


In the US, and I suspect in most of the developed world, one major point of a corporation is limited liability.  The stockholders are not on the hook for liabilities beyond their investment.  If the company does something terrible, or fails economically, it goes bankrupt.  Usually the stockholders have their investment wiped out, but they are guaranteed that they do not have to pay more in to any settlement.


Here's my take on it (and quite a few people might disagree) - student loans aren't bankruptable, so they'll stay with you forever. So if you want to reduce your risk over time and have a funded emergency fund and some cash put aside for, say, a car or another major expense, then I'd try to throw money at the student loan to get rid of it quickly.


In India the only way to short a stock is using F&O which I personally find to be sufficient for any shorting needs. However, Futures can be generally sold for upto 3 months but options have more choices which are even upto 5 years you can buy a put of a longer duration and when you want to do buy-back, you can directly sell the same option by squaring-off the trade before expiry date. You generally get approximately the same profit as shorting but you get to limit your risk.


Because we all want big screen tvs. You can work 10 hours week in this  day of age and have a better life than our ancestors. But not materialisticly satisfying.    It takes 3 hours to set up a garden to feed your family and you have to work it less than an hour a week. But no one does it.


gnasher729, was able to see my problem here. It was a silly oversight. It's not 50p a share, its 0.5p a share. @Bezzzo: The dividend is not 50p per share, it is 0.50p per share -   half a penny per share. Thanks!


Then at the end, if you decide to cash in your house, you can roll the   proceeds into a fancier house to avoid paying taxes on your profit. The problem is that the book was written in 1989. That comment is no longer true; that part of the tax law changed in the 1990's. Also in 1989 the maximum amount that person could put in an IRA was $2,000 and hadn't been raised for almost a decade and wouldn't be raised for another decade. Roth accounts didn't exist; nor did HSA's or 529's. Most people didn't have a 401K. You are asking to compare what options we have today compared to what was available in the late 1980's.  For me except, for the years 2001-2005 and 2010-2015, the period from 1988 until now has had flat real estate values. Still the current values haven't returned to the peak in 2005. The score is 11 great years, 17 flat or negative. I know many people who during the 1990's had a zero return on their real estate.


The paper check method also allows the bank to use your money while the check is in the mail.   My bank debits my account immediately, so while my $100 utility bill is traveling the U.S. Postal System for two days, they can make use of my $100 in whatever slush fund they like.


If he actually just learned this today, there's a very good chance he is exactly a first year business student in his first/fall semester.  Edit: Since this topic is pretty much a nerdy business meme that everyone knows at this point, he may actually classify as one of today's 10,000.


http://www.pacificrubiales.com/investor-relations/reports.html does have financial reports on their website for the example you list.  There is the potential for some data to not be easily imported into a format that Yahoo! Finance uses would be my guess for why some data may be missing though an alternative explanation for some companies would be that they may not have been around for a long enough time period to report this information,e.g. if the company is a spin-off of an existing company.


Yeah, me too, as I said. Actually what I'd really prefer is single payer, but failing that, getting health insurance separated from employment would be a big step forward. If people really knew how much they are paying for health insurance, things would change.  I've never worked for an employer that didn't renegotiate health insurance every year, often changing insurance providers every year. To the extent that HR departments are competent in finding the best value, the current environment is pretty dynamic and competitive. Are individuals going to be as competent and well informed as HR departments? I don't know, but I do know that simply making a market free doesn't guarantee lower prices if consumers are ill-informed and bad at making decisions.  As for wages, currently companies are not required to carry health insurance, and many have dropped it already without increasing wages, so I don't see an upward pressure on wages from greater employee mobility.  But it's true that if there were a single large pool for insurance to be based off of, large businesses would no longer get the pool advantage of health insurance over small businesses. Hence my preference for single-payer, or single-group/multi-payer.


If you are a subprime borrower, that may not be an unreasonable rate given the risk they are accepting. In any case, it's what you agreed to. As others have said, you could/should have shopped elsewhere for the loan. In fact, you can still shop elsewhere for a loan to refinance that vehicle and thus lower the rate, unless the existing loan has equally obnoxious rules about that.


"Frequent flyer here...generally, I've found airline staff to be pleasant and professional.  There have been some exceptions, but they probably contend with more high stress situations (including asshole customers) than many professions.   Now, as a 6'5"" guy, if they can stop making the seats/knee room smaller every year, I'd be a LOT happier."


I just called options express, and apparently you need a margin account for futures and options, but you don't NEED margin to trade futures. I will have to debate the merits, but I think I may try playing with it once I build up my regular stock account.


The reason is the same as with cell phones payment plans. As competition grows cell phone companies offer better payment plans for the same price or the same plans for lower price or both so that you stay with that cell operator. Banks also make better offers if the financial situation allows. Suppose several banks offer refinancing with better terms but prohibit refinancing loans from the same bank. Okay, you refinance from another bank and them maybe refinance the new loan again from the original bank - it's a new loan after the first refinance and prohibition no longer works. They just make you jump through more loops and it doesn't make sense neither for them nor for you


Did you read Soichiro Honda's biography? He is the founder of Honda Motor. His plant was destroyed by an earthquake, and then he proceeded to build another factory which, as World War II broke out, was lost again with his money, and many of his friends', but he started again.


It is not your brokerage's responsibility to tell you **what** to buy, whether explicitly, or implicitly through their fee structure.  This is **not** an article about Robin Hood.  It's an argument condemning all active investing with repeated mostly-irrelevant mentions of Robin Hood as one of the hundreds of entities that makes that possible.


As a computer security enthusiast who is still a bit of a noob... how do I know these sha1 generators don't store my password as well? Granted, I guess they couldn't associate it with my account but if I were an unethical person I would put one of these up and use it to collect things that people queried to add them to a database of pw/hash combos to check.


"> but in the end these are the same people that sabotage infrastructure improvments and who hold their girls from bring educated becsuse some book tells them feudal way of life is more godly.  Not sure what infrastructure you're talking about as it's never really existed in the region. Also South Sudan is heavily NON-Muslim (part of the main reason why they became South Sudan - the religious conflict between them and what is now just ""Sudan""). Neither the boys or girls are educated past a certain age in South Sudan. A lot of it is tribal, and they defer to their tribal responsibilities."


The kraemerlaw is a business, tax, and immigration law company in United States. which provides Real Estate Donation empty land, house, mechanical, private, business property and gives  the way to appreciate what might be a generous assessment reasoning all at the cost of helping other people. a magnanimous land gift remains as a sensible move for people and corporate benefactors alike. The value from your land gift helps Giving Center proceed with its main goal and bolster numerous noble motivations that need our assistance.


You do realize that compulsive charity isn't charity at all, right? If you take the moral agency out of the equation, it's simply wealth redistribution plain and simple.   John 12:8 seems to take the wind out of your sails on your search for the only real deadly sin in the age moral relativiam: hypocrisy.


If you have enough medical expenses to empty your HSA tax free, that is certainly an option. However, you have another option. You could roll your HSA funds over to a different HSA that has better investment options. Doing this has a huge advantage over any other taxable account or retirement account: it will grow tax free, and you will be able to withdraw tax free at anytime, as long as you accumulate enough medical expenses to cover your gains.  If you don't have a lot of money in your HSA now, it might not be worth the effort to maintain an HSA and continue to track your medical expenses. But if you have enough in there to invest, moving it to an investable HSA is probably a better option than simply moving it to a taxable account.


Day traders see a dip, buy stocks, then sell them 4 mins later when the value climbed to a small peak. What value is created? Is the company better off from that trade? The stocks were already outside of company hands, so the trade doesn't affect them at all. You've just received money from others for no contribution to society. A common scenario is a younger business having a great idea but not enough capital funds to actually get the business going. So, investors buy shares which they can sell later on at a higher value. The investor gets value from the shares increasing over time, but the business also gets value of receiving money to build the business.


"Assuming the numbers in your comments are accurate, you have $2400/month ""extra"" after paying your expenses.  I assume this includes loan payments. You said you have $3k in savings and a $2900 ""monthly nut"", so only one month of living expenses in savings. In my opinion, your first goal should be to put 100% of your extra money towards savings each month, until you have six months of living expenses saved.  That's $2,900 * 6 or $17,400.  Since you have $3K already that means you need $14,400 more, which is exactly six months @ $2,400/month. Next I would pay off your $4K for the bedroom furniture.  I don't know the terms you got, but usually if you are not completely paid off when it comes time to pay interest, the rate is very high and you have to pay interest not just going forward, but from the inception of the loan (YMMV--check your loan terms). You may want to look into consolidating your high interest loans into a single loan at a lower rate.  Barring that, I would put 100% of my extra monthly income toward your 10% loan until its paid off, and then your 9.25% loan until that's paid off.  I would not consider investing in any non-tax-advantaged vehicle until those two loans (at minimum) were paid off.  9.25% is a very good guaranteed return on your money. After that I would continue the strategy of aggressively paying the maximum per month toward your highest interest loans until they are all paid off (with the possible exception of the very low rate Sallie Mae loans).  However, I'm probably more conservative than your average investor, and I have a major aversion to paying interest.  :)"


I haven't looked at that warranty in detail, but generally speaking this should help. What is GAP insurance? In the case of a total loss/write off gap insurance covers the outstanding finance after your regular insurance pay out. The two won't match up usually because of the depreciation right after you buy the car. For example, if you take out $20,000 finance and buy a car, then write it off after six months, your insurance company may only value it at $16,000 but it's unlikely you will have cleared $4,000 from your finance. Gap insurance will pay out the difference and settle the debt. Will Chrysler change the engine, if it comes to bhore? Yes, unless they identify misuse or deliberate damage. For instance, if you do 1000 miles and the engine explodes, it's a mechanical fault that the warranty would cover. If they open up the engine/look at diagnostics and find it's been thrashed to within an inch of it's life, they may claim it was your driving which has destroyed the engine and you would have to prove it was an underlying fault and would have blown either way. Will car dents be covered with this bumper to bumper insurance? Not likely, as I mentioned in the last point, if it's your fault it wouldn't be covered. I think you may be confusing the terms insurance and warranty at this point. Insurance would cover your dents but a warranty only covers the manufacturer's faults, even in the case of extended warranties. What does basic mean in terms of warranty? Sounds obvious, but whatever Chrysler want it to mean! There's no legal definition of 'basic' so you would need to check the documents thoroughly or ask them to explain exactly what is and isn't covered. If they're reluctant, it's probably because 'basic' covers very little...


This company is doesn't actually sell tangible goods.  Just a process.  And apparently fails at succeeding?  Sheesh.   I bet the owner dropped out of college, is constantly seeking initial investors for random ideas to come to life, gets money, buys more coke.


I think the biggest reason is price; it's a lot cheaper now than it was to offer these.  That's because for the most part, when you get a credit score for free, you're not getting a true FICO score.  You're getting instead a VantageScore. VantageScore was created by the three credit bureaus, and as such they can offer it without paying Fair Isaac a licensing fee.  That makes it a lot cheaper to offer, and while it's not absolutely identical to FICO (or more accurately to any of the FICO provided scores) it's close enough for most peoples' purpose. And of course undoubtedly Fair Isaac has some price pressure on their side now that Vantage is big enough that many people see them as fungible.  As such they've had to make it easier, or they'd lose business - no longer being a monopolist. The other relevant piece here is that probably in many of these cases they're really just offering you what Experian would give you directly - so it's just a cross-marketing thing (where Experian, or perhaps another bureau, gets access to you as a customer so they can up-sell you ID theft insurance and whatnot, while the bank gets to offer the free score).


I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:  - [/r/talkbusiness] [What sank Sears Canada? The inside story of its downfall: It was once Canada's largest and most successful department store chain. Now, it's in liquidation. Customers are angry. Pensioners are worried. And 16,000 are out of work with no severance pay](https://np.reddit.com/r/talkbusiness/comments/783dbi/what_sank_sears_canada_the_inside_story_of_its/)  [](#footer)*^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*  [](#bot)


It will depend on how much you expect to earn this way, and whether you expect the company to become profitable soon. Has the company just not made a profit yet, or has it actually made a significant loss that your invoices would just be offsetting? If you're earning over £10,000 per year then invoicing through the company is preferable. Above that level, you'd be taking money from the company as dividends after paying 20% corporation tax with no other tax to pay on your personal tax return. As a sole trader you'd be paying 20% income tax and 9% NI. (Note however that the company can only pay dividends from profits, which is a problem if there are significant losses to offset.) Below £10,000, there's little difference. Through the company, you can take a salary of £7956 per year without paying any income tax or NI. With the new £2000 discount on employers' NI you could then take salary up to £10,000 and just pay 12% employee's NI. As a sole trader, you pay 9% Class 4 NI over £7956 and a fixed £143 per year for Class 2 NI. Paying 9% rather than 12% saves you £60, but then you add the £143. In practice the company would work out more expensive at this level because you'll probably want to pay an accountant to deal with the payroll for you. Having the company repay your £2000 from the invoices doesn't really save any tax if the company will become profitable in the future. You don't pay any tax now since the money you receive isn't income, and the company doesn't pay any tax if the extra £2000 of revenue doesn't put it back in profit. However, if the company is profitable next year then it will have an extra £2000 of profit that would otherwise have been offset against this year's loss, and you do end up paying 20% corporation tax on the £2000. You could still have the company repay the loan in order to delay the tax liability, but it's not really tax free money. Loaning additional money to the company has no tax benefit, you just give the company £1000 and get your original £1000 back later. You pay no tax and neither does the company, but it was your money in the first place.


My reading list for someone just getting into personal finance would include the following I know it's a bunch but I'm trying to cover a few specific things. Yeah it's a bit of reading, but lets face it, nobody is going to care as much about your money as YOU do, and at the very least this kind of knowledge can help fend off a 'shark attack' by someone trying to sell you something not because it's best for you, but because it earns them a fat commission check. Once you've covered those, you have a good foundation, and oh lord there's so many other good books that you could read to help understand more about money, markets etc..  Personally I'd say hit this list, and just about anything on it, is worth your time to read. I've used publishers websites where I could find them, and Amazon otherwise.


"Computer advances increasingly let manufacturers customize orders and ship goods faster. In the new world, making products in faraway low-wage countries like China can be a disadvantage: It can take too long - weeks, months - to ship finished products to the United States.  ""This is about customer proximity,"" said Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute. ""You develop a sustainable and durable advantage against overseas competition.""  Mandel said the growing trend would have emerged regardless of who occupied the White House. Still, President Donald Trump took the opportunity to take some credit Wednesday for the Foxconn announcement, saying it ""definitely"" happened because of his election and his pursuit of tax and regulatory cuts.   [source] (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BC_US_AMAZON_AND_FOXCONN_SPEED_TO_CUSTOMERS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-07-27-03-16-36)"


Next year, the Fed plans on unwinding the Bonds and MBS.  They'll ramp up to $50 billion a month.  At the same time we'll be selling Bonds on the market to finance the debt at a rate of $70 billion a month.  I wonder who's going to have the cash to buy the Toxic MBS and the low yield Bonds they'll be unloading on top of the usual Bonds for future debt.  Those Bonds will have to pay double digit rates before anyone will buy them.  Future generations will just get even more screwed the way the Fed has it planned.


"You can file an LLC yourself in most states, although it might be helpful to use a service if you're not sure what to do to ensure it is correct.  I filed my LLC here in Colorado online with the Secretary of State's office, which provided the fill-in-the-blank forms and made it easy. In the U.S., taxation of an LLC is ""pass-through"", meaning the LLC itself does not have any tax liability.  Taxes are based on what you take out of the LLC as distributions to yourself, so you pay personal income tax on that. There are many good books on how to form and then operate an LLC, and I personally like NoLo (link to their web site) because they cater to novices. As for hiring people in India, I can't speak to that, so hopefully someone else can answer that specific topic. As for what you need to know about how to run it, I'll refer back to the NoLo books and web site."


It's likely that your bill always shows the 24th as the due date. Their system is programmed to maintain that consistency regardless of the day of the week that falls on. When the 24th isn't a business day it is good to error on the side of caution and use the business day prior.  It would have accepted using their system with a CC payment on the 24th because that goes through their automated system. I would hazard a guess that because your payment was submitted through your bank and arrived on the 23rd it wasn't credited because a live person would have needed to be there to do it and their live people probably don't work weekends. I do much of my bill paying online and have found it easiest to just build a couple days of fluff into the schedule to avoid problems like this. That said, if you call them and explain the situation it is likely that they will credit the late charge back to you.


Possibly you could use it as a hedging instrument if it's correlated in some way with another asset you're holding.  Even though it seems you're losing money with such a bond, that loss might be less than the hedging costs associated with other instruments.


"No country or place will be heaven. No matter how good a place is, heaven is partially defined as what is unattainable. This is also why ""the golden age is never the current age.""  Part of what makes this country good is the free market and its capitalistic greed. If workers don't like what they're offered at Walmart, they are free to leave to a better paying competitor such as Costco.  I do agree with some of your statements about tax reform and political financing. However, people lose sight of what this country offers and bashing the US is a popular pastime on Reddit. If any of these people actually lived in some of the countries they often idolize (China), they would gain a newfound appreciation of the US.  As for the insults, they don't particularly help your case."


the article mentions that the US uses internet espionage against foreign military threats instead of economic ones. is this true? if it is false can someone point me in the direction of an instance where it was found responsible for the the theft of some IP?


I wonder that if one of us were going to start the next SoundCloud (even though many great independent artist streaming sites already exist), how would we succeed where they failed? was it an issue of not monetizing early? Charging for memberships? Getting in bed with the record companies from the jump? Buying hot startups in music like Genius? Expanding into video content game like Buzzfeed, or physical products like Majestic Casual? This would be a great case study. What would you guys think?


In the case of an investment strategy, if you don't retain custodianship over your funds, or at least determine who is the custodian, then walk away.  You should be able to get accurate account statements from a trustworthy third party at all times.


It is not a dump question because it concerns your most important invisible financial partner:the taxman. The answer depends of the legal status of this account. If your account is 401(k) in USA or RRSP in Canada, the answer is no. No capital gain taxes if your money is registered for retirement. You'll pay later on, as taxes are like death, unavoidable. Yes capital gain if your money is not in an retirement account. As soon as you realize a capital gain, it becomes taxable in that fiscal year.


"If the cheque is not crossed, then your friend can write ""payable to [your name]"" above his signature when he endorses it. If it is crossed, you'll have to deposit it into his account. Given that one can deposit cheques at ATMs, this shouldn't require his presence. Just make sure he endorses it before you leave! It also might take a few more days to clear."


I think a greater problem would be the protection of your property right.  China hasn't shown much respect for the property rights of its own citizens - moving people off subsistence farms in order to build high-rise apartments - so I'm not certain that a foreigner could expect much protection.  A first consideration in any asset purchase should always be consideration of the strength of local property law.  By all accounts, China fails.


Bahamas receives almost all of their income from producing nations that have strong tax policy.  Without that incline what do they have?   And Saudi and Qatar are both nations with some of the largest income inequality problems, and staggering problems with education, poverty, and care for the average worker.  Both countries also greatly supplement their labor with very cheap immigrant labor that are there almost on slave contracts. [I lived in the Middle East for almost 3 years] Not exactly good examples of the benefits of the free market...


I just finished working for a major retailer this past summer, and most retailers are freaking out because Amazon has a diversified enough portfolio that they can undercut everyone else's prices while maintaining revenue, but one day they will have to actually make a profit. Unfortunately, that's probably gonna happen after they've screwed everyone else out of the market and they can charge reasonable prices.   Retail is about to get a lot crazier folks. Grab your popcorn.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-economy/uk-stuck-in-slow-growth-gear-boe-on-course-to-raise-rates-idUSKBN1CF1F1) reduced by 86%. (I'm a bot) ***** > LONDON - Britain&#039;s Brexit-bound economy remains stuck in a low gear but is probably not weak enough to dissuade the Bank of England from raising interest rates next month, economic data showed.  > The BoE said last month that most of its policymakers thought it was likely that they would need to raise rates for the first time in a decade in the coming months.  > The BoE believes last year&#039;s Brexit vote will create more inflation pressure by dampening business investment and slowing migration to Britain.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/75iaad/uk_stuck_in_slow_growth_gear_boe_on_course_to/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~225637 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **Britain**^#1 **month**^#2 **economy**^#3 **data**^#4 **year**^#5"


The point of short-selling as a separate instrument is that you can you do it when you can't sell the underlying asset... usually because you don't actually own any of it and in fact believe that it will go down. Shorting allows you to profit from a falling price. Another (non-speculative) possibility is that you don't have the underlying asset right now (and thus can't sell it) but will get it at a certain point in the future, e.g. because it's bonds that you've used to guarantee a loan... or grain that's still growing on your fields.


"All I know about the show is what the OP said about it, and the trailer showing a briefcase of pristine mint-wrapped hundreds... So, just taking it from there.  If you have cash you need to launder, ""investing"" is not the *answer*, it's the **why** you want to launder it in the first place: So your money can keep up with inflation rather than growing mold under the bed."


"You can speed up the process. Tell the person sending you the money, to log in in to their Paypal account and to click ""confirm receipt"" next to transactions related to their sending to you. After this, the money will be relased immedidiately."


Go to a good bookstore and find a book about saving on income tax. Unlike other countries, where filling in your tax returns usually means you have to pay extra money, in Germany filling in your tax return usually means that you will be paid money, and the more tax deductible items you can fill in, the more money you will get back.  At the very least, ask some German colleagues about the most typical tax deductible items. They love getting taxes back.


I would lean towards making a smaller down payment and hanging onto savings for flexibility. Questions to think about: If you have enough cash that you can make a huge down payment and still have all the other bases covered, then it comes down to your risk tolerance and personal style.  You can almost definitely build a portfolio that will beat your mortgage rate on average over the long term, but with more risk and volatility.  Heck, you could make a 20% down payment on another house and rent it out.


Your NRI friend can use normal Banks or specialized remittance services. There are questions on this website that give pro's and con's. From Indian tax point of you, you have received a gift from friend and as such it falls under Gift Tax act. Any amount upto Rs 50,000 is tax free. Anything above it is taxable as per tax bracket.


Increase your sales by advertising to any company of Canada and USA This is the most cost-effective way to promote your business.  The Ultimate Business Lists  Choose your list by industry, city, province, state, postal code, zip code  Each Listing Includes:  Company name and address, Contact person and title, Phone, fax, SIC code, etc  ANY industry, city, province, state, postal code, zip code


"From the details you have given it looks like you have ""Unit Linked"" insurance policy. In such policies a part of the premium goes towards the ""Insurance"", the balance is invested into ""Mutual Funds / stock Market"". It is generally not advisable to have ""Unit Linked"" policy compared to pure ""Term"" policy. Generally the amount of fees charged for ""Unit Linked"" policy is high and hence the returns to the end user are low. i.e. if you buy a ""Term"" insurance for the same sum insured and invest on your own the balance in any ""Mutual Fund"" you will end up making more that what you are getting now. Typically these policies have 3 years lock-in period. As you have purchased this in 2008, you can cancel the policy without any penalties. This will save you future premium and you can buy a term insurance and invest the difference yourself. Note the unit linked policy is useful for people who do not invest on their own and this is a good way to be forced into saving than nothing else."


"> So you don't think two ""lost"" decades going on three  I do think that's a problem for them. It's been a horrendous waste of potential. However I believe it to be policy mistakes - eg, why raise taxes if your problem is not enough spending? That's what the Japanese-government-owing-too-much-yen crowd will tell you to do, but the [consequences](http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/08/13/japans-gdp-falls-by-6-8-in-the-second-quarter-on-sales-tax-rise/) of doing so should have been obvious to anyone.  If Japan had simply understood that they're not revenue constrained in terms of yen, they could have run sufficient deficits to keep growth high. Instead they chose not to, forever trying to cut their deficits to something more ""sustainable"". Cue 2-3 lost decades.  >a debt of over 200%  The market doesn't believe it to be a problem, and anyone that's ever bet against the Japanese government has lost their money. Why do you believe it to be any different? What do you know that the market doesn't, and are you willing to put [your money where your mouth is](http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2011/06/06/japans-widow-maker-bond-trade-still-looks-lethal/)?"


Well, I'm not an expert on business history, but isn't that what they said about a number of companies that were once competing vigorously in the marketplace?  But then once they achieved dominance in their chosen industry, that's when questions started to arise about competence, creativity, etc., for those very same companies... especially when the original founder(s) relinquished their role to new leadership chosen by the board...


But what this doesn't show is his physical bullion allocation, which is no doubt substantial. And that could literally be in a basket.  Whereas mfglobal has shown us that what we think is our basket might actually be someone elses basket.


Politicians are for sale and regulations are useless when they are not enforced.  Community banks and credit unions have to comply or get hammered by the state and federal governments.  The mega banks soldier on under an utterly feckless and corrupt congress.  People should never pay fees or credit card interest, pay off their loans, and get out from under banker's thumbs.  They are giant impoverishing machines.


Of course they make money. They double dip in a lot of instances they make 2 - 3% plus $0.30 per transaction from the merchant and then whatever interest you pay on your card. So let's just say in one day you make stops at Starbucks for a $4 Latte, then at Wendy's for lunch for about $8, then you put about $20 worth of gas in your tank, then you stop at Kroger for some $40 groceries and may you pick up some dinner for about $15.  That's 5 transactions at $0.30 which is a $1.50 then at 3%  starbucks is $0.12, Wendy's $0.24, gas is $0.60 then kroger $1.20 then dinner $0.45 so the total that they get is $4.11 multiply this by about  a million people per day that is about $4.1 million per day that they get. That is a nice penny! just from the merchant so you are making them a lot of money by just using it.


I shopped in both in Germany... with the slightly different logos at the time (colors differed).  I would think the two cooperate very strongly together with logistics and specials, but I may be wrong.  It just seemed they were very similiar and iirc had the same specials at the same times.


wtf, man?  >...redefining “high-speed” broadband at a lower speed — 10Mbps, to be specific, down from the 25Mbps it’s currently at.  >Pai has filled the 30-person Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) with 28 reps from telecoms companies, and just two from local cities.  how stupid do you think we are?  do you feel the same about the EPA under Scott Pruitt?


"You cannot dump $450K of cash into any type of retirement account. Retirement accounts have maximum annual contribution limits and earned income requirements.  If the $450K is already in a retirement account you may be able to ""rollover"" these funds into a different type of account. I personally invest in dividend paying stocks and recommend the strategy for just about everyone. $450K earning 4% in dividends would generate ~$18K in annual dividends the first year and, compounded, would generate ~$220K in dividends over a 10-year period. All this being said, I am not a registered professional of any kind and you should consult a professional before making any decisions. And yes, I know this question is from 2012 :)"


Yeah, I mean the real issue is that for probably 30% of users (conservatively) it's and IM system and how they get market data.  Anyone that uses BDHs or backtesting does not have a reliable alternative. The analytical tools FS offers for those functions cost almost as much. Also, index level data is very expensive, separated and priced by the index managers themselves.  The degree to which this 'debate' has been dumbed down is remarkable.


"I have been considering a similar situation for a while now, and the advice i have been given is to use a concept called ""dollar cost averaging"", which basically amounts to investing say 10% a month over 10 months, resulting in your investment getting the average price over that period. So basically, option 3."


It's safe in the sense that there is no counter party risk involved when holding bitcoins but it is still too early to call it a safe haven. However it could become very useful if strict capital controls are enforced around Europe.


"Since most of the answers are flawed in their logic, I decided to respond here. 1) ""What if you lose your job, you can't pay back the loan"" The point of the question was to reduce the amount paid per month. So obviously it would be easier to pay off the 401k loan rather than the 3 separate loans that are in place now. Also it's stated in the question that there's a mortgage, a child with medical costs, a car loan, student loans, other debt. On the list of priorities the 401k loan does not make the top 10 concerns if they lost their job. 2) ""Consider stopping the 401k contribution"" This is such a terrible idea. If you make the full contribution to the 401k and then just withdraw from the 401k rather than getting a loan you only pay a 10% penalty tax. You still get 90% of the company match. 3) ""You lose compound interest"" While currently the interest you get on a 401k (depending on how that money is invested) is higher than the interest you pay on your loans (which means it would be advantageous to keep the loans and keep contributing to the 401k), it's very unreliable and might even go down. I think you actually have a good case for getting a loan against the 401k if a) You have your spending and budget under control b) Your income is consistent c) You are certain that the loan will be paid back. My suggestion would be to take a loan against the 401k, but keep the current spending on the loans consistent. If you don't need the extra $150 per month, you really should try to pay off the loans as fast as you can. If you do need the $150 extra, you are lowering the mental threshold for getting more loans in the future."


Business is likewise crucial to have a corporation identification variety which could be essential for doing business inside the US primarily based businesses and it is crucial to have an agency so that the commercial enterprise can able to run very easily. With Free company formation, people can capable of starting their business very easily and they could capable of delivering all of the services in order that the business can capable of run a protracted. Forming a enterprise, in particular, include all of the conventional form that's fully separate and the from the ownership which in particular did now not have any necessary factor.


Dollars are bits you don't control. The banking system has your bits and they can charge you more bits to move your bits around. At any point, they could freeze your accounts and suddenly you have no bits. It's all designed to make it so you can't function in society without them controlling your bits.


Is it what I want to eat when I want to eat good food? No, absolutely not. Do I occasionally eat it? Yes. It's a matter of price/time/convenience, which is basically the entire fast food industry. I absolutely believe pizza that isn't artisanal level can be automated and the product can still be damn good. The chief problem with frozen pizza isn't that it's made by a robot, it's that it is frozen.


I used to work for blackrock, although not in the finance side of the house. Which coast are you on? There's still a big difference in culture - west coast used to be BGI and was acquired in 2009, doubling the size of the company.


Bringing your spouse on board a financial plan is key to success.  The biggest part is to have a shared dream.  Having retirement saving doesn't mean that you can't work. It does mean that you both will have some level of security as you age.   Does your husband really want you to be impoverished when he dies?  I doubt it, he probably just hasn't given it much thought.  A strong nest-egg can help you after his is gone even if you are still working. My wife and I follow Dave Ramsey's baby steps.  It has worked like a champ for us and can help you as well.  You can look up his plan, most of the materials are free.  A few highlights: So in short, don't worry about retirement until you two are out of debt.  Once you two are out of debt then save for your retirement, kids college and pay off your home early. Building a shared dream with your husband is the best way to get him onboard.  Talk about helping the kids, freedom to vacation, your parents struggle, whatever gets him to see the importance of having some savings.


"The answer to your question is ""no"". Unless you specifically ask to receive paper share certificates, then brokers will hold your shares with a custodian company in the broker's own nominee account.  If you are able to receive paper certificates, then the registrar of the company whose shares you own will have a record of your name, however this is exceptionally rare these days.  Using a stockbroker means that your shares will be held in the broker's nominee account. A nominee company is a custodian charged with the safekeeping of investors’ securities. It should be a separate entity from the broker itself. In essence, the nominee is the legal owner of the securities, while you retain actual ownership as the beneficiary. Your broker can move and sell the securities on your behalf – and gets to handle all the lovely paperwork – but the assets still belong to you. They can’t be claimed by the broker’s creditors if things get messy. The main reason for this kind of set-up is cost, and this is why brokers are able to offer relatively low dealing costs to their clients. You can, if you wish, ask your broker for an account that deals with paper share certificates. However, few brokers will offer such an account and it will mean that you incur much higher dealing costs and may mean that you cannot sell you shares without first submitting the paper certificates back to your stock broker.   Note that the stock exchange plays no role in recording ownership.  Nor does your broker's account with the clearing house."


"Yes, you can. You could either go through brokerages like Ameritrade or fund companies like Fidelity or Vanguard. Yes there are minimums depending on the fund where some retail funds may waive a minimum if you sign up for an ""Automatic Investment Plan"" and some of the lower cost funds may have higher initial investment as Vanguard's Admiral share class is different from Investor for example."


Your hypothetical money market account parallel basically nails it.  You understand exactly how the math works.  IRR computes a rate at which your money market account would have to pay interest in order to match whatever investment you are comparing to. That said, there are two major complicating factors to consider: Your hypothetical account would have to not only pay interest, but also lend money, at exactly the IRR rate.  In reality of course, it never happens this way.  You may be able to lend (invest) at x, but to borrow you're going to have to pay y.  IRR simplifies away that issue in order to give us a single number.  That number can be very handy for comparison to other competing hypothetical investments, but it does not capture that fundamental issue of lending rate vs. borrowing rate. An IRR calculation assumes implicitly that all cash flows, outgoing and incoming, are known and fixed; that is, risk-free.  It makes no allowance whatever for risk, and all investments have some level of risk.  Two investments that compute to the same IRR might have hugely different risk around their cashflows, and so not be a close decision at all.  To compare those investments, you might go to a measure like RAROC-- risk-adjusted return on capital.  But that's much harder, and more subjective, because it requires some numerical measurement of risk.


Level 2, Phoenix Arizona  So glad that it's over... I spent Sunday **sitting around.** I made a pizza, sat on my couch, and watched TV shows. I can't even describe how long it's been since I did this. I moved into a new place in March and realized that I hadn't ever laid down on my couch out of laziness to walk to my bedroom... well, don't be alarmed, but I actually did. It was amazing.  That said, I have no idea if I'll pass or not, and so I may have to redo it, but I have 2 months before they'll even tell me how I did, and I'm very thankful for that at the moment :D


Yes.  If you're still 20 years off from retirement, it wouldn't make sense to liquidate everything; it'd be an attempt to time the market. If you're *very* worried and retirement is soon, then it'd be something to consider (albeit bonds would make more sense at that point).


Is he really? I mean, those Forbes lists members are either required to report their income or disclose it, right? Or it is made of stakes in company's and stuff. Aren't there these oil rich Saudis who are not a CEO of a public traded company. They just have billions and billions in their private bank account,  and or own entire country's...  Or am I totally wrong here? I mean, isn't the Saudi Airport private property of the King? Including planes and stuff?


Revolutionary business development tools and templates. Use them to build excellent plans creatively and collaboratively. They are 100% tested and proven and cover   most key functions like sales, marketing, strategic planning,business planning, merger, acquisition, joint venture, change management, financial projections, and more.


Pretty difficult to determine. There's some evidence to suggest that [there hasn't been much change](https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/01/07/seattle-restaurant-jobs-keep-growing-with-higher-minimum-wages-after-a-year/#421700f03579), because, as was one of the primary arguments in the $15 wage debate, more people have more money in their pockets to spend on things like going out to eat.


>I want to start a company but it looks like the the market is way over crowded with useless products or could I still make it work if the product is actually useful?  The market for a product or service does not depend on the number of existing products or services currently being sold. There are over a billion cars in the world today. Should that have deterred Tesla from introducing a novel type of car?   >I really I don't want to rely on on marketing and advertising? Just product value and usefulness  The most useful product in the world will sell zero units if no one knows about it.


I think you are right. I hear people all the time with horror stories about futures and trading horror stories in general. I want to learn about this market, but I don't want to go in without some education on the matter. I watched their video on options on futures, but the valuation method needs a bit more explaining to be (beta, gamma, etc.). I get the basic idea of options on futures, but I need to formulate a strategy, and that is where study would come in.   I have wanted to play around with a few strategies I had in my head for regular options, and by the time I get the grasp of it, I might be able to trade options on futures. I guess my biggest thing with options on futures is not to be sophisticated, but more so I can have access to new markets. On the topic of options though, I do think there is some strategies that could boost my returns a bit on my existing strategies. I think selling various options (selling call options on weak dividend stocks stuck as bulk shipper or mortgage reits and as of late oil trusts or selling put options on some stronger oil reits or other stronger dividend stocks). The only problem is I don't know if the premium would be enough to make it worth while with the weak dividend stocks. So either way, even if you are only earning a conservative 9% on dividends, if you add in another 4% for premium, you could be making 13% off of one trade, and could repeat the process (assuming the target stayed weak or strong).


Maybe, maybe not. There are probably a lot of esoteric things that put a hard upper limit on human watch spring and watch movement kit production,* at a given price point*. Which is why they said the $750-2500 price range is going to go away according quoted experts in the article.


"Several people here have highlighted the incentive/agency problems that tend to naturally arise when securitizing mortgages. However, the market for mortgage-backed securities has existed for decades, and during most of that time these agency problems were held in check. Moreover, academics knew about this problem even before the credit crisis and actually *recommended* the use of trenching in order to avoid the moral hazard problems associated with securitization (see DeMarzo 2005).  So, to give a compelling historical explanation for why the crisis happened *when* it did, you need to explain what changed in the mortgage securitization market to enable these previously unproblematic agency relationships to breakdown.  So what changed? In short, the growth of the market for CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) composed of mortgage-backed securities), and not the MBS market itself. This market grew so rapidly in the mid-2000s because the ratings agencies created an opportunity for banks to take low-rated MBS debt and give it a higher rating by merely repackaging it into a CDO. It was ratings arbitrage, through and through. Explanations that place the brunt of the blame on the GSAs (i.e. Fannie and Freddie) cannot adequately explain why the majority of mortgage-related losses during the credit crisis were concentrated in CDOs of MBSs, and not in the vanilla MBS market.  Here's what happened. Back in the day -- say, pre-early 2000s -- the agency/incentive problems that naturally arise in mortgage securitization were held in check by careful institutional investors who would rigorously assess the default risk of the higher-risk MBS tranches. They had a deep knowledge of the mortgage business. Sometimes they would even go so far as manually examining the loan documentation, the profile of the borrowers, the quality of the collateral, and so on. There were a lot of indiscriminating buyers who were happy to purchase the AAA and AA tranches, but they could afford to be indiscriminating because the banks who were securitizing MBSs knew that without selling to the discriminating buyers of higher-risk debt, they wouldn't be able to break even.   It worked a bit like a market for fine wines. I don't know much about wine, but when I walk into a shop that sells fine wines, I can be reasonably certain that there will be a reasonably strong relationship between price and the quality of the wine. Basically, I get to free-ride off the superior discrimination of the wine connoisseurs who regularly visit the shop.  Once the ratings agencies created the now infamous ""ratings arbitrage"" between the MBS and CDO markets, the market for CDOs on MBSs expanded. As this market grew, these ""discriminating"" buyers became a proportionally smaller part of the MBS market. The folks building CDOs of MBSs didn't know very much about the mortgage business itself; instead, they tended to rely on statistical default models provided by the ratings agencies that predicted the probability of mortgage default based on quantitative variables such as borrowers' credit scores, loan-to-value ratios, etc.   The problem is that these models used historical data that was collected back when the ""discriminating"" institutional investors kept the agency problems in the MBS market in check. The growth of the CDO market spurred even more mortgage securitization, which led lending standards to deteriorate because firms like Countrywide knew that the CDO buyers only cared about credit scores, LTV ratios, etc. However, undiscriminating buyers of MBS were unable to detect these changes in default risk because the models they were using to ""see"" those changes were becoming invalidated by the growth of the CDO market itself  If you want to read more about this, I'd highly recommend MacKenzie's 2011 paper in the American Journal of Sociology [see here]( http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/36082/CrisisRevised.pdf). It's a detailed historical account of the changes in valuation practices/models used within the MBS and CDO markets, and how these practices became invalidated as the CDO market grew in size.  **TL;DR: the credit ratings created a ""ratings arbitrage"" that the banks took advantage of. They are as much, if not more, at fault as the GSAs.**  For more info on the deterioration in mortgage quality in the mid-2000s, check out:   Keys, Benjamin, Tanmoy Mukherjee, Amit Seru, and Vikrant Vig. 2008. Did Securitization Lead to Lax Screening? Evidence from Subprime Loans.  Rajan, Uday, Amit Seru, and Vikrant Vig. 2008. “The Failure of Models That Predict Failure: Distance, Incentives and Defaults.” SSRN eLibrary (December). http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1296982.  Also, the citation I mentioned above:  DeMarzo, P. (2005) ""The pooling and tranching of securities: a model of informed intermediation"" Review of Economic Studies, 18(1):1-35, 2005"


"In this scenario the date of income is the date on which the contract has been signed, even if you received the actual money (settlement) later. Regardless of the NY special law for residency termination - that is the standard rule for recognition of income during a cash (not installments) sale. The fact that you got the actual money later doesn't matter, which is similar to selling stocks on a public exchange. When you sell stocks through your broker on a public exchange - you still recognize the income on the day of the sale, not on the day of the settlement. This is called ""the Constructive Receipt doctrine"". The IRS publication 538 has this to say about the constructive receipt: Constructive receipt.   Income is constructively received when an   amount is credited to your account or made available to you without   restriction. You need not have possession of it. If you authorize   someone to be your agent and receive income for you, you are   considered to have received it when your agent receives it. Income is   not constructively received if your control of its receipt is subject   to substantial restrictions or limitations. Once you signed the contract, the money has essentially been credited to your account with the counter-party, and unless they're bankrupt or otherwise insolvent - you have no restrictions over it. And also (more specifically for your case): You cannot hold checks or postpone taking possession of similar   property from one tax year to another to postpone paying tax on the   income. You must report the income in the year the property is   received or made available to you without restriction. Timing wire transfer is akin to holding and not depositing a check, from this perspective. So unless there was a restriction that was lifted after you moved out of New York, I doubt you can claim that you couldn't have received it before moving out, i.e.: you have, in fact, constructively received it."


Are there any known laws explicitly allowing or preventing this   behavior? It's not the laws, it's what's in the note - the mortgage contract. I read my mortgage contracts very carefully to ensure that there's no prepayment penalty and that extra funds are applied to the principal. However, it doesn't have to be like that, and in older mortgages - many times it's not like that. Banks don't have to allow things that are not explicitly agreed upon in the contract. To the best of my knowledge there's no law requiring banks to allow what your friend wants.