legend

15 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Yeah I don’t mean you specifically. Just surprising that people are saying THIS is the moment. Like... wat.

Yeah I'm not convinced we've finally reached the long fabled "moment" (or if we ever will). I suspect people thinking that believe that while people defending Trump have long been doing mental gymnastics, that to continue it at this point would require Spiderman-like skill.

I really hope that's true, but I think it's very probably that Spiderman will leave impressed.

4 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

How is anyone surprised by any of this anymore, lol.

Oh, I'm not surprised at this point. But the state of affairs of the US from the perspective of just a few years ago is mind blowing.

Mind blowing.

8 hours ago, Jason said:

 

 

Of course he's bringing in the state media.

8 hours ago, Jose said:

Diversification is always key. Have you looked at whole life insurance policies? Guaranteed returns of 4% (actual returns have always been higher tho) with reputable companies. Money stays liquid, too. It's a great option over investing in bonds or letting the money collect dust in a savings account.

I haven't looked into that before. Sounds interesting! I will check it out.

23 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

I won't claim to be an expert here but what my father explained to me about regular 401ks vs Roth IRAs is that you're basically making a bet about what tax bracket you'll be in upon retirement. And that if you expect to be in a higher tax bracket, do a Roth, and if you expect to at most stay in the same tax bracket, do a 401k...tax free upon entry isn't great if you'll be in a higher bracket. 

 

 

Hence why I suggested those online savings accounts as a less-awful way of keeping a liquid emergency fund handy.

Looks like I should be able to do both. 401K has a much higher limit (18,000) versus ROTH IRA ($5500) from what I can tell.

11 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

Right now we just have our 401k’s maxed and are putting everything extra for the most part into my student loans. It really is criminal the rates and amount of money the government inflicts on young adults, and it makes me angry to think about. 

 

But we should have those paid off within a year, about 5-6 years ahead of schedule, then we will look into investing. 

I can't stress enough how great it felt to pay off the student loans. I totally endorse knocking it out!

13 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

The head of HR our "Chief People Officer" replied by saying that you never want to be the company paying the most for labor, nor the company paying the least.

Maybe I'm wrong. But at first glance this seems like bad application of the winner's curse.

For those unfamiliar, the winner's curse refers to a property of the bidder who wins an auction for which the item has a true value that is roughly equal to every bidder, but isn't known upfront and must be independently estimated by each bidder. In this case, if the average bid of bidders is an accurate representation of the true value of the item, then the winner was someone who incorrectly overestimated the value and is paying more than they should.

In that context, a rule of thumb for never being the top or bottom payer makes sense and the HR officer was correct.

Except there is a significant failure mode in that. The winner's curse only exists if the average estimate is an accurate reflection of the true value. For a huge number of reasons that are probably obvious to people here, for employee wages, it's entirely possible that the pay wage is a pessimistic reflection of the true value of the worker. And if all bidders are systemically bidding under the true value, the winner won't be cursed. They'll actually be doing the best, because they'll still be underpaying its true value: they'll have a positive net gain, while the competitors gain nothing. That is, the higher payer will get the best workers and still be paying less than their value.

What companies should be doing is not assuming the average wage is an accurate estimate. They should actually look at what production they expect to get from a worker and estimate what their value is from there.

Looking again, I think I must have made a mistake before. I think I was looking at the single income limit. Going by what I'm reading, I can contribute $5500 a year to one. So that at least seems like the obvious next thing to do.

I think I'll probably still want to do something more on top of that. Money sitting in a checking account beyond what you could reasonably need immediately just seems stupid  

12 hours ago, Jose said:

 

Regular IRA's arent that great. I think you are referring to a ROTH IRA, which has an inckme limit for a married couple filing jointly of $189,000 a year.

Thanks. Yes, you are correct. I meant ROTH. I'll have to double check. Last time I checked the limit seemed lower, because I bring in the sole income between my wife me, but I'm not making that much. So maybe I made a mistake when looking at it. I remember seeing that you would get diminishing amounts you could invest and while I could invest some, not much, and I'd have to do a bit more managing of it to make sure I did it right.

10 hours ago, Jose said:

@legend

 

Honestly 401k isnt that great without employee match. Deferring your taxes on your 401k isn't much of a help considering we are living in a time with very low income tax, historically speaking. In all probability, you will be in a higher tax bracket when you retire and the tax rate of that bracket will probably be higher as well.

Yeah, I know the 401K isn't great for that reason, but the tax free on entry on entry is better than nothing at all. I would prefer ROTH IRA if I can.

1 hour ago, Jose said:

 

Any reason why you are maxing out your 401k? Does your employer do employee match?

Unfortunately, they do not. But it at least has some tax benefit. IRA would be preferable, but I can't make as much use of that from my income limit is my understanding.

7 hours ago, Jason said:

 

 Even though I saw all 4 in the overview, cycling through them enlarged one by one is the funniest shit ever when you get to Trump. Wanker is such a good description.

I'll add one other thing bothers me. I don't think it's a spoiler and it starts pretty early on, but I'll mark it anyway.

11 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

Hopefully it’s like JJ S2 and just has a slow start.  

We shall see! I do plan to finish it.

12 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

How’s it compare to Season 1?

I remember liking Season 1 more. This one seems a bit too slowly paced. For example, too many "music video" moments where they are just doing a montage while they have some band in the club play.

I'm maxing out my 401k and killed all debt at the start of this year. I took a bit of a hit to do that, but now I'm reaching a point where I have enough in my checking account that I should start saving it better rather than letting it all sit there. I'm also weighing what to do against the fact that I'm probably going to have to get a new car this year or next, which means I need enough fluidity + buffer to be comfortable doing that.

Savings accounts seem like mostly garbage to me when I look at them. Getting a portfolio seems like a reasonable decision, but in these strange times, I'm a little hesitant about putting my money in stocks, even a well distributed portfolio. One option is to do a dividend based portfolio which is a little more stable, but maybe less chance for increased funds. Any thoughts on that?

Those of you may remember I've asked a similar question before. But since I'm now past the point of taking care of the obvious (maxing 401K and clearing all debt), and because the market may be behaving a bit differently now, I thought I'd ping people again. Especially since I can no longer revisit that earlier thread  

I remember people had mentioned IRAs, although I think I can't take full advantage of that because I'm pretty close to the income line for a two person household.

I also did buy the Random Walk Down Wall Street book on advice from this board before. I haven't read all of it, but it's been a good read. Still though, I'd benefit from other thoughts.

I'm through the first 4 episodes. It's okay, but isn't hitting strong for me.

8 minutes ago, Chris- said:

 

I mean, it's not even remotely surprising. He didn't do this in hiding. He outright requested it in front of everyone. But the public doesn't care.

3 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Credit card skimmers having a direct line to your bank account and your money (not the cc issuers money) if you use a debit card

I have considered this possibility, but like @mclumber1, my experience is that my bank is over cautious and pretty good. Might not hurt to have an extra layer, but I have to weigh that against making sure another bill is paid off on time  My impression is that card security in general is getting better too though. 

6 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

I'm pretty much in agreement.  I do have old credit card debt that we are paying off, and should be all done by next year.  We haven't used the actual card in a long time.  I should be in a position next year to never need to use credit again, aside from buying a house when we move. 

Nice. Although I didn't have any credit debt, my wife had some (about 5K) that was also just lingering from old stuff rather than current use as well. Once I moved out of working in academia it was one of the first things to go  Was so nice to get rid of it. I think you'll similarly feel great once it's gone.

The next thing to go was all my student loan debt, which was not as bad as some people, but absolutely a burden. Got rid of that the beginning of this year and we're completely 100% debt free now. Was such a huge relief. Now I just worry about making sure I'm saving enough for the future and how to catch up at those savings  

I don't use a credit card at all. I had one a long time ago and rarely used it. Other than missing out on "points" and carrying you if you don't have the cash for something immediately needed, what is the reason for using one?

On 7/11/2018 at 3:40 PM, RedSoxFan9 said:

Moderates Democrats take their base for granted.  They think Democratic voters are suckers who will show up and vote no matter what.

I don't know if that's thinking they're suckers, it might be overestimating them. Unless the democrat was in fact worse than the opposition in the eyes of a democrat, then democrats should vote no matter what for the democrat. Given the state of the GOP, it's hard to imagine that a democrat would find the opposition to a democratic candidate preferable.

Choosing to abstain from voting to make a "point" is very rarely an optimal long-term strategy, if ever.

1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

You're right, saying open source is a bit much heh.

 

That's true their similar, but at least coders in my life say to me they feel that despite the Unix similarity, they feel their hands are more tied by Mac. Like I said though, not hating on Macs, and you have more experience than me on this personally I think, so I default to you on the subject. I can see it going the other way and I'm mistaken. 

My anecdotal observation is that you will find many software engineers be windows users, because for their job, they kind of had to be and they became familiar with it. (There also legitimate reasons to prefer Windows too. I don't mean to portray that as the only reason).

Computer scientists (academia or industry research scientists) are heavily split between Mac and Linux, with Windows occupying a small fraction of what's left over. If someone only saw an AI conference they'd think Apple dominated the paid PC market with all the mac laptops you'll see  

Personally, if you asked me in 2010, my rankings would go

Mac > Linux >>> Windows

Today, because Mac has gotten worse, while Linux and Windows got better, it's

Linux > Mac > Windows