| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 12/24 |
| 2007/4/17-19 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate] UID:46348 Activity:nil 92%like:46343 |
4/17 Foreclosures up 800% in California from a year ago
http://urltea.com/dxp (latimes.com)
\_ link:www.mercurynews.com/help/ci_5684801
"On a loan-by-loan basis, mortgages statewide were least likely to
go into default in Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara
counties"
\_ Defaults are also up in these counties.
\_ agreed, and at a significant rate from the previous quarter,
but my point is it might not be enough |
| 2007/4/17-19 [Finance/Banking] UID:46341 Activity:low |
4/17 Dear home loan experts. I'm thinking of doing a traditional 30 year
6.250% loan. However the loan officer is also suggesting a
non-traditional fixed 30 year INTEREST ONLY loan for only ~5.85%
with the option of paying more a month which will count towards
the principle. Suppose I pay a constant amount of money per month
REGARDLESS of the first or the second type of loan. Wouldn't the
second type of loan be better because it has a lower interest rate,
meaning that more of my payment will go towards paying the principle?
Please help, thanks.
\_ I think your analysis is right on. I don't see any benefit
to taking the traditional loan, *IF* you actually plug more
than the payment in every month.
\_ Well, sure, all else being equal. However, is the interest-only
loan adjustable? Also check the "points", and fees. Never trust
anyone trying to sell you something.
\_ Ding ding! What are the closing costs? If there's no prepayment
penalty, and the closing costs (including points, origination
fee, etc.) are the same, pick the lowest interest rate.
\_ The guy already said "fixed 30 year INTEREST ONLY", so it's
not an ARM.
\_ Ah, right you are. I missed the 'fixed.'
\_ So you're saying that, if you elect to pay interest-only for the
whole 30 years, then 100% of the principal is due at 30 years in
a balloon payment, OR you refinance?
But regardless it's 5.85% on (remaining) principal for the entire
30 years?
\_ you sure the 5.85% is for fixed and not for an ARM? Your loan
officer may not have been clear about that. If fixed is 6.250%,
I believe fixed interest-only should be ~ 6.375% or more.
\_ Why do you believe that? Interest only loans can have lower
interest rates. The reason is the amount of money at the
backend. I am guessing that the total costs of the two loans
are not the same. Is this guy quoting the APR or the nominal
rate?
\_ http://tinyurl.com/2gsavl (azcentral.com)
"fixed-rate interest-only mortgages typically carry a rate
that is one-eighth to three-eighths of a percentage point
higher than the rate on a traditional 30-year fixed-rate
mortgage"
once again, I think the most likely explanation is op /
op's loan officer is confusing fixed rates with APR rates
\_ Key word: typically.
\_ okay, I provided evidence for my side.
your evidence is, "well, i think this could be an
exception!"
\_ Please provide URL showing that "Interest only loans can
have lower interest rates" - without a catch like a
prepayment clause and obvious ones like paying points |
| 2007/4/13-15 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:46293 Activity:nil |
4/13 John Walker Lindh picture
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070412/ap_on_re_us/american_taliban
That picture looks like a cool cover for a CD album. |
| 2007/4/2-3 [Finance/Banking, Politics/Domestic/California] UID:46180 Activity:kinda low |
4/2 New Century files for bankruptcy
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0242080520070402
\_ Any idea how many defaults are occuring in the Bay area?
\_ http://tinyurl.com/ysnblw (sfgate.com)
It really depends on the county. SF/Santa Clara/Marin remain
strong. Concentration of rich bastards and plentiful $80-150K
jobs do that to an area. Look at Manhattan.
\_ Um...but you can't afford an SF house on a 150K income...
\_ dual-income via marriage/SO/friend + family help +
several years of saving for a deposit assumed
\_ Sure you can. There are plenty of starter homes for
$700k in The City. And a person who makes 150k can
afford the $3k/mo (after tax break) that this costs.
\_ Actually there aren't plenty of $700K starter homes
any more. The price is still going up.
\_ Going to http://sfarmls.com putting in price from 650-700
and including only districts 1-9 (excluding 10)
gives me 25 homes. If I include 10, which is the
roughest part of town, I get 65. Granted, most of
the 25 are pretty small, but that is what $700k
gets you these days.
\_ And in 6 unit ellis acted tics. Or maybe in
the farthest reaches of visitation valley.
Any place remotely buyable is snapped up ASAP.
The SF markey is still insane.
\_ You may want to visit http://patrick.net to
commiserate with others in your same
situation.
\_ How sad that $700k is considered a starter
home and you get the benefits of slum life
to go with it. |
| 2007/3/27-31 [Finance/Banking] UID:46116 Activity:nil |
3/27 http://tinyurl.com/2wbv5j (voiceofsandiego.org) San Diego default notices, foreclosures from Jan 91 - Feb 07. graph1 - absolute number ; graph2 - as percentage of population \_ The second one appears to be off by an order of magnitude. \_ No facts on MOTD please. :-) \_ please note graph2 uses % of pop, not % of mortgages \_ Right, and 1200/1.2M != 1.0% \_ sorry. i wrote an e-mail to the guy. he wrote back and will fix the mistake.. |
| 12/24 |
| 2007/3/17-20 [Finance/Banking] UID:46005 Activity:nil |
3/16 Google does wildcards now.
Results 1 - 10 of about 919,000 for i'm in ur * *ing ur *.
\_ This doesn't quite work for me -- you can use * to match a word,
but *ing seems to only match * and ing as separate words. |
| 2007/3/14-17 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate] UID:45968 Activity:nil |
3/14 NEW delisted so fast it doesn't show up on Yahoo! Finance anymore
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=new
\_ Holy cow. I didn't know Google was doing a finance interface. That
is about the coolest thing I've ever seen.
So what happened Feb 8? (Oh wait, they had to restate earnings) |
| 2007/1/22-28 [Finance/Banking] UID:45565 Activity:nil |
1/22 When I first stared using ING Direct it took 2-3 days to transfer
money. Then later on3-4 days. Now they're saying "it is
usually 3-4 days but YMMV." In practice, it is now taking 7
days to transfer to/from bank accounts. I'm one of the first customers
on ING Direct and I'm really disappointed at their increasingly
suckiness. Has anyone experienced the same thing? |
| 2006/12/15-17 [Finance/Banking] UID:45455 Activity:kinda low |
12/15 So, why no investigations into Goldman Sachs for huge profits? Take a
guess who they gave the most money to?
\_ What the hell are you talking about?
\_ Remember when everyone was villifying oil companies for "excess"
profits? Goldman Sachs just reported massive bonuses, etc. I see
no congresscritters grandstanding about profits and bonuses. And
they gave their biggest political donation to Sen. Clinton. |
| 2006/10/26-29 [Finance/Banking, Finance] UID:44991 Activity:low |
10/26 College degree inflation, and a BA/BS degree is worth ~$20K/year.
Also Bush loving rednecks in West Virginia have the lowest
proportion of college graduates.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/10/26/degree.value.ap
\_ I'm not saying their conclusions are wrong, but anyone who talks
about mean income without talking about median income is such
a moron that they should be ignored just on principle.
Fucking dumbass journalists.
\_ What's the difference? -- dumbass journalist
\_ The median income is the income such that exactly half the
population has a higher income and half has a lower income.
The mean is found by adding everyone's income and dividing
by the number of people in the sample set. For certain
distributions they are the same, but not typically for
income. If you live in a town with 99 poor people plus
Bill Gates, than the mean income is roughly bill gates's
income divided by 100, which is not a useful number by
itself if you want to know about the whole population.
Whereas the median will actually give you information
about the other 99 people.
\_ i guess the median is lower
\_ Because off-springs of siblings tend to be retarded.
\_ ah yes welcome to the motd where racism is not only ok but
encouraged as long as its white people we hate.
\_ It's a culture thing, not a color thing.
\_ as yes more racism, why are most liberals inveterate
racists?
\_ Bzzzt! Redneck = white. There are no 'rednecks' of any
other race/color. If you're going to use hateful terms it
helps to know what they mean so you offend the right people,
ok?
\_ What about that Hmong dude on King of The Hill? Isn't
he a redneck?
\_ way no. he's a different case, a caricature of
arrogant, overachieving asians. |
| 2006/10/9-10 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate] UID:44739 Activity:nil |
10/9 Swami says if you have ARM, you're FUCKED!
http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/09/real_estate/arms_nightmare
\_ The Great Swami does not use coarse language -TGS |
| 2006/10/7-10 [Finance/Banking] UID:44714 Activity:low |
10/7 Wells Fargo online banking really sucks. You can only go back 60
days and if you want to see statements before that you have to pay.
Fuck Wells Fargo. Even Bank of America and Wash Mutual are better.
\_ I guess maybe those other banks are better in that one respect,
but I can tell you that I'd never bank with BofA unless I
traveled/moved to different states a lot. Talk about backward.
\_ I solved this problem (and others) by building a little web thing
that keeps trac of when you paid your bills and how much it was.
That way you can do simple forecasting and have all your own records.
That way you can do simple forecasting and have all your own
records.
Then I made a GreaseMonkey script that automatically posts all the
data I put into WellsFargo into my app when I'm done giving it to
Wells. Works pretty well. I'm ironing out a few details, but if
you're interested, email me and I'll send you a URL when it's ready
for public consumption. (If there's interest, it shouldn't be hard
to write GreaseMonkey scripts for other banks, too) --dbushong
\_ There's another way to solve this problem. Print out your online
statements once a month. And then save them. Try it. That thing
called paper really works.
\_ I use Wells Fargo and I can look at statements back to 2000 online.
You click on "prior statements", and when they say "fees may apply",
I believe they only mean if you choose "US Mail" instead of "Online"
for the delivery method. PDFs aren't as cool as their basic online
interface, but they're better than nothing. (Granted, I might be
getting charged and not realizing it; I'll check.) -niloc |
| 2006/10/6-7 [Finance/Banking, Reference/Tax] UID:44705 Activity:low |
10/5 Are recreational vehicles tax deductible?
\_ http://csua.org/u/h4p (detnews.com)
\_ if you live in it as your primary residence, like a house |
| 2006/8/12-15 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43982 Activity:nil |
8/11 Aside from physically breaking a CD, what's the easiest way to make
it permanently unreadable?
\_ If you have a secure shredder service, they usually handle CDs as
well.
\_ Get a screwdriver, scratch the top of the CD. It's not that much
more work than writing with a pen. Remember, data on CD is near
the top, highly unprotected. DVDs are different.
\_ I've heard a microwave oven works pretty well, though I'm not sure
if it is damages the microwave oven..
\_ As with metal in the microwave, the main problem is microwave
energy getting reflected back into the magnetron, damaging it.
You could probably mitigate this by putting a big cup of water
next to the CD(s) in the microwave.
\_ Pee on it. -guy who drank a lot of water today
\_ They sell machines that punches holes on CD. Look on CDW.
\_ I was thinking more of the type of solution like "bake it in
the sun", or "write on it with a permanent marker" or
something very simple and easy like that.
\_ How is breaking it not simple and easy? -tom
\_ I know of organizations who use a lot of CDs for
mid-term (5-10 years) data storage. After a certain
number of these things, it may be economical to have a
fast way of nuking them. On the other hand, you could
just hire a student, I guess. -John
\_ Sounds like a job for an intern with a solid knee.
\_ Or a hammer. They also have shredders that can
do CDs. -tom
\_ You'd trust an intern with a hammer? Will no one
think of the children?
\_ BTW don't pollute the paper in the paper shredder. |
| 2006/6/12-13 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:43352 Activity:nil |
6/11 Do mp3s encoded with Christian conservative compression rates have
noticeably lower sound quality compared to normal CDs when played in
the modern car CD players.
\_ Why don't you try it and see? Only you can tell whether it's
noticable to you. -tom |
| 2006/5/26-28 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate] UID:43195 Activity:nil |
5/25 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12975777/from/RS.3 More signs of a housing bubble. If you still have variable rate mortgage, you're fucked. \_ I thought more people bought houses, and GDP increased 5.3% during the first quarter \_ I've heard this statistic before (foreclosures up 72% over same time last year) but I also know that foreclosures have been very low for the last 5 years. So is the current rate higher than average? \_ Having an ARM and being fucked has *nothing* to do with any housing bubble, real or not. It has to do with rising interest rates which have been pushed up each time the Fed has met over the last 2-3 years. If housing prices dropped 90%, an ARM buyer would be in the same position as 30 year standard loan buyers so long as rates didn't rise. This is pretty basic stuff. \_ Not quite. The ARM buyer will want to get into a fixed loan and can't, because he'll get really shitty rates b/c he has no equity \_ Why would the ARM buyer want to get into a fixed loan if the rates weren't going up? \_ The hypothetical given didn't exclude rates going up. \_ Did it include rates going up? Since it was my hypothetical I'm pretty sure I know what I meant since I said "so long as rates didn't rise". |
| 2006/5/8-10 [Finance/Banking] UID:42986 Activity:nil |
5/8 People talk about controlling inflation but accept it as the norm,
that as long as it's below a certain percentage (5%) then we're ok.
Are there countries with DEFLATION, and what bearing does it have
on the economy?
\_ Okay, let's say you have controlled inflation ... rising wages,
cheap imported good, rising real estate values which you can
take equity loans on, everyone with all this money buying stuff,
Now take deflation ... prices falling, people not wanting to buy
because they expect prices to be lower, wages stagnating, real
estate dropping, loans coming due for companies but not being
able to pay them because no one's buying, etc ...
Japan.
business raking in all the dough and hiring more people.
Now take deflation ... wages stagnating, prices falling, people
buying less because they have no extra money, real estate values
dropping, loans coming due for companies but not being able to
make payments because no one's buying, banks eating it because
of all the defaulted loans and reluctant to make more loans,
the company's that are left not hiring much, etc. ... Japan.
\- i deleted my more extended comments but i dont think many
economists would say inflation is ok up to 5%, althought
like with say body fat, it's not really a case of lower is
better all the waay down to 0. something closer to 1-2%
miight be ideal. as with something like weight gain,
deflation can have different causes. prices can fall
because of productivity gains in a flat money supply
[say if specie backed] and example being the industrial
revolution. a massive demand shock accompanied by
scarcity [like say the BLACK DEATH] can also cause
pretty interesting economic turbulence. BTW, the current
fed head BERNANKE has a lot on the record about the BoJ's
policies. |
| 2006/5/8-12 [Finance/Banking] UID:42982 Activity:nil |
5/8 PayPal is offering 4.58%, which is higher than ING Direct.
What are some risks of putting $90K (all your lifetime
savings) into PayPal instead of ING Direct?
\_ When they tank you'll have to wait through FDICage to get your
money back?
\_ they are owned by ebay.
\_ It is a money market, not FDIC insured, and the return varies.
ING is FDIC insured. So... putting your life savings into a
money market account seems kind of dumb and not particularly
lucrative.
http://csua.org/u/frk (paypal.com)
\_ ING 1 yr CD is offering 5.25%
\_ PayPal pretends it isn't a bank so it doesn't have to play by the
rules. Which means if they decide you are doing something shady
(which they seem to decide semi-randomly) and freeze you account
well, good luck getting your money back.
\_ If you ever tried to recover fraudulent funds from PayPal before
you'll never want to give PayPal any significant money again.
\_ have you looked into emigrant direct? fdic insured, higher
than ing.
\_ 28-day T-Bills are around 4.7% equivalent APY now. That's what these
mm funds buy anyway. Can anyone recommend a brokerage that lets you
trade these in a cheap and fast way and/or has a good "sweep" fund
for cash balances? I have TD Ameritrade but they seem to suck in
this regard. Guess I should ask them myself. |
| 2006/4/7 [Finance/Banking] UID:42721 Activity:high |
4/7 I want to take this time and say, FUCK Wells Fargo. I didn't receive
my home equity loan pay stub this month and didn't pay for 6 weeks.
They charged me a shitload of late fee. On top of that, I didn't
get one for this month either, even though they claimed to have
sent both months already. I didn't do constant bill pay because
the payment changes every month depending on interest rate. Like I
said, FUCK Wellso Fargo.
\_ Ultimately, the onus lies with you to manage your finances. Blaming
the bank for your own mismanagement is misguided, though perhaps
understandable. My suggestion to you is to either switch to
autopay or use a fixed payment schedule (which you manage on a
spreadsheet or pda or calender, etc) on your own and trust that
above any correspondance from the bank. The bank isn't your friend,
and if you're not proactive in dealing with this stuff, you're very
likely to get the short end. Any large institution is going to
make mistakes, but you are the only person you can really trust
to find and deal with them.
\_ Yes, they suck. Nonethless it's your responsibility to make sure
the bill gets paid whether or not they send you anything. And
something collateralized against your home should be at the top of
your reminder list.
\_ If you dont like them, move the loan elsewhere. Theres plenty
of other competitors eager for yoru business. I still get regular
calls from loan refi companies in spite of being on the federal Do
Not Call list. -ERic
\_ Dude, auto-billpay. It solves all these problems.
\_ I have been a Wells Fargo customer (not for mortgage, though)
for more than a decade. I have heard lots of people complain to me
about them. Personally, I really like them. My mortgage lender
doesn't send me any statements at all. I just login to their
web site and pay there. I'm sure WFB has the same features,
as they are usually one of the more technologically-advanced
banks. I agree with the person who blames you for not realizing
your payment was due. This isn't AAA dues. This is your home
at stake. |
| 2006/2/21-23 [Finance/Banking] UID:41943 Activity:nil |
2/21 If I sign up for e-statements, how far back do statements go
back for the following companies? I'll start:
\_ Etrade: seems to go back forever (when I started in 2003)
Verizon: go back only 6 months. Piece of shit
Bank of America: ???
Wells Fargo: about 6 months as well. pretty crappy.
ING Direct: ???
\_ My Wells Fargo goes back to 11/15/00, although I've had the
same account since '96. After logging in, click the Account
Services tab, then click View Checking/Savings Statements on the
right side, then View Prior Statements.
\_ None go back far enough. Print to PDF and save them. |
| 2006/2/14-15 [Finance/Banking] UID:41837 Activity:low |
2/14 I tried to get my free credit report from link:annualcreditreport.com After being transferred to a credit bureau and told that they found my file, the site tried to authenticate my identity by saying that I "may have opened a mortage loan" around a particular year and month and asked me to identify the lender and the terms of the credit. I never had that so I thought it was a trick question and selected none of the above. Then after asking me if I want to pay for credit score + extra stuff, it told me I cannot get my report online. It is not possible for me to request by mail right now. So does the question I was asked already indicate a problem? \_ Multiple people with the same name? \_ I got reports from all 3 credit agency. The question they ask varies. Have you tried the other ones? If you suspect there are problems, it may be worth the $ to get a full report. In my experience, I find Transunion's report most professional and complete. \_ http://myfico.com . I think it's 15 bucks but they jump through all the hoops for you. Worth it. |
| 2006/2/3-7 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:41688 Activity:nil |
2/3 US wage growth not keeping pace with inflation
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060203/ts_csm/apocket
\_ CEOs wages are, everyone else doesn't deserve it. Work harder,
peons! |
| 2006/1/26-29 [Finance/Banking] UID:41546 Activity:nil |
1/26 Online Savings update:
http://ingdirect.com: 3.80%
emigrantdirect: 4.25%
hsbcdirect: 4.25%
28-day t-bill: 4.216% (free from state/local taxes)
capital one: 4.00%
\_ If you don't mind living on the wild side, there's
http://www.fordcredit.com/interestadvantage/index.jhtml , with
an interest of 4.86% for a "checking" account.
\_ 4.75% for money you put into INGDirect until 4/15 (even with
existing accounts)
\_ then it goes down.
\_ It also goes down if you take any money out, so you might as
well treat it as an X month CD. Investing in t-bills gives
a better rate.
Patelco 1-yr CD rate: 5 |
| 2006/1/17-18 [Finance/Banking] UID:41400 Activity:nil |
1/17 Someone sent me this asking to see if it was a scam or not:
http://www.payformyhome.com
Should websites like these be sent to the BBB or FTC or where?
\_ BBB or FL Attorney General.
\_ http://csua.org/u/enw
\_ the menu on the left makes me think of a pre-canned website
builder. |
| 2006/1/10-12 [Finance/Banking] UID:41326 Activity:nil |
1/10 bloggers waiting for > $1 trillion in ARMs to adjust in 2007
http://csua.org/u/ekr
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/16/realestate/16arm.html
2005 $ 80 billion
2006 $ 335 billion
2007 $1,200 billion
\_ Yes but if deficit and inflation go up by 100X, then none
of it will matter. Oh, nevermind.
\_ Just refi after your house goes up 40% after a year! That's gonna
keep happening forever! |
| 2005/12/27-30 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:41145 Activity:nil |
12/27 I recieved a music CD for a Christmas present, and though it did not
trojan my box, it would not play normally in the CD drive. I was able
to do DAE on it, but is there any way to find what sort of protection
is being used?
\_ Usually googling for the exact title in quotes + "copy protection"
will find you a lot of web boards with good info. Alcohol120% and
Daemontools should be good enough to deal with whatever
it turns out to be. -John
\_ Well like I said, I was able to do DAE on it in spite of the
protection. Google fails me because it's an uncommon CD with a
fairly common name.
\_ have you tried to play it on a different OS, such as Linux/BSD?
\_ No, I got DAE working and was satisfied. Does Linux have a
machanism for identifying CD corruption mechanisms? |
| 2005/12/12-14 [Finance/Banking, Recreation/Dating] UID:40982 Activity:kinda low |
12/12 Do you have friends you don't like lending books, DVDs etc to?
Typically because they don't return them in a reasonable amount of
time or if you hint you would like something back they don't pick it
up? I personally feel if I borrow a book from somebody and they want
it back I should at soonest reasonable opportunity deliver it to them
rather than say "oh you can come and get it." How do you handle
turning down future requests?
\_ Just go pick it up that one time, and never lend to them again.
Simply tell them they don't return your stuff on time.
\_ I am having the hardest time get my friend return my books...
\_ I've had to discipline myself to not borrow things from people;
excactly for the reason that sometimes I forget, or it can get
damaged. But yeah, one should return things fast. -John
\_ My problem is that I lend things to people and then forget and never
get them back ever.
\_ My dad used to tell me an old (Arabic?) saying:
If you lend a book to someone, they should chop off an arm.
If you return a lent book, they should chop off both arms.
I guess the point is that people are generally irresponsible
and if you want them to read a book, just buy it for them...
or don't expect it back.
\_ I own a lot of books so people are often interested in borrow
\_ I own a lot of books so people are often interested in borrowing
books from me and it is an asymmetric thing. Normally it would
be a pretty efficient area for inter-friend loans ... books
dont really get worn out, cheap to move, the loan terms are
usually longer than from library, books are often things you
want to use rather than own, you usually can spare the book
for a couple of months. So it kind sad I am thinking about
cracking down on this. It says something about how flakey
most people are ... people who arent willing to promptly
return stuff when you issue a recall, people who forget
the have your books and your are forced to do the recall etc.
(There have been a couple of cases where I have borrowed a book
and the other person moved away and I felt really bad. I think
the other person has forgotten i had the book.)
they have your books and wont ever return them unless you
remember and initiate a recall. (There have been a couple of
cases where I have borrowed a book and the other person moved
away and I felt really bad. I think the other person has
forgotten i had the book.) These days if a flakey friend asks
to borrow something, I just pretend not to hear. On the other
hand I have good friends I have loaned very expensive electronic
and such to.
\_ I have had similar problems, and I'd add that there is another
problem with books and flaky people, which is getting them to
read the damn book. I often loan someone a book that they say
they want to read, and six months later they still haven't
finished it. Well, I actually would like to see them read the
book, but then it turns into another six months...people need
to read more.
book, but then it turns into another six months...the bottom
line is that most people are lazy, flaky, and watch about
24 hours of tv for every hour they spend reading. And that's
just the intelligensia. |
| 2005/11/1-3 [Finance/Banking, Consumer/Camera] UID:40388 Activity:moderate |
11/1 A friend has his film X-rays on loan from the lab but needs to
transfer them to digital format so's he can take them for a second
opinion. What's a reliable method of doing this without sacrificing
image quality (and thereby rendering the exercise worthless)? Would
the old lamp and scanner trick work here, or would there be too many
flaws to make it worthwhile? Since this is to document the progress
of arthritis in his back, the level of detail must remain high.
TIA. --erikred
\_ Kodak PHOTO CD. you need to find who does it though. This would
cost you $75 per scan. it is probably your best option besides
real drum scan. I would not trust regular flat-bed scan due to
lack of dynamic range for most of CCD scan. do *NOT* mistaken
"PHOTO CD" service with "Picture CD" service. kngharv
\_ What's the difference between the two?
\_ *HUGE* difference. PHOTO CD is designed for art works and
professionals who requires very deep (wide dynamic range)
scanning. picture CD is a nice version of negative
scan which is relatively consistant, to JPEG files.
Given the fact that you are scanning a B/W X-rate
positive film, I would not trust regular CCD scanning
as your life is probably depend upon how well these various
degree of shades are represented.
\_ He can just have copies made/sent to the other doctor. Why
bother with digitizing unless this is somehow just fun for him?
\_ His films are stored at various and sundry labs. It would be
more time-consuming to coordinate the copy/send than to
digitize. --erikred
\_ He already went to the trouble to get the x-rays on loan.
He could've just asked for his own copy at that time.
\_ Thank you. I'll pass that on. Now, do you have any
suggestions pertaining to the original request? --erikred
\_ Have him ask for his x-rays in DICOM format. There are
free DICOM viewers. Typically film like this (if
scanned) uses a proprietary scanner (cost is thousands
of dollars) to scan to a standard image format (BMP or
JPEG2K, etc.). -emarkp
\_ What ever happened to JPEG2K? It was the next big
thing, woo! woo!.. then silence. Not being built
into Mozilla, that I can see, which pretty much
implies it's dead... unless I'm missing something.
\_ I guess this answers my question: legal crap:
<DEAD>bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36351<DEAD>
-pp
\_ Just out of stupid curiosity, can't you just scan them? -John |
| 2005/11/1-4 [Finance/Banking] UID:40377 Activity:nil 66%like:40373 |
11/1 This daylight savings time sucks. Has anyone tried boycotting it by
If so, how did it work out?
\_ Some Asian countries don't have it. Many Asians are smart. Many
Asian girls are smart and pretty. Therefore it is smart to not
have daylight savings. -asian fetish guy
\_ Having an entire country that covers the same amount of
longitude as the U.S. be on the same time zone is the opposite
of smart. Wouldn't it be great if the whole U.S. were forced to
be on the same time zone as Washington, DC?
\_ By "dalight savings time sucks", do you man that ending daylight
saving time sucks, and that you want it all year, or do you actually
hate daylight saving time and want to be on the winter schedule
all year?
\_ Not the OP, but I prefer PDT all year.
\_ I guess I should have been more clear, I like PDT too. -OP
\_ Well, I realize that I'm being a pedantic assmonkey about
this, but technically you want *more* daylight saving time,
not less. Also, it's daylight "saving" time, not "savings".
Anyway, I agree with both you and pp that it should be all
year round.
\_ You could always move to Arizona.
\_ Or Hawaii
\_ You probably have more success bribing Ah-nold to change the daylight savings
for California.
\_ Except Phoenix.
\_ You probably have more success bribing Ah-nold to change the
daylight savings for California.
\_ (Pls don't shoot the messenger) - the daylight savings time is
switching to an earlier time (methinks early March?) and will go
all the way through mid November - beginning 2007. Part of the energy
bill recently signed by Dubya. On another note, while Europe and Aus-
tralia observe Daylight Savings Time, their switch date actually
differ than the U.S. I believe right now the rest of Europe does not
switch to DST until a week after we do. STFG for details.
\_ Supposedly this will save the US 100k barrels of oil a day during
that period.
\_ NO PDT FOR BIG OIL! HALLIBURTON! |
| 2005/11/1 [Finance/Banking] UID:40373 Activity:high 66%like:40377 |
11/1 This daylight savings time sucks. Has anyone tried boycotting it by
just moving your schedule an hour "earlier": same astronomical time?
If so, how did it work out?
\_ By "dalight savings time sucks", do you man that ending daylight
saving time sucks, and that you want it all year, or do you actually
hate daylight saving time and want to be on the winter schedule
all year?
\_ Not the OP, but I prefer PDT all year.
\_ You could always move to Arizona.
\_ Or Hawaii
\_ You probably have more success bribing Ah-nold to change the daylight savings
for California. |
| 2005/10/28 [Finance/Banking, Finance] UID:40309 Activity:nil |
10/17 Do poor blacks need to hear 'millions more' excuses? -jblack
http://tinyurl.com/7w2tr |
| 2005/10/21-22 [Finance/Banking] UID:40206 Activity:nil |
10/20 It used to take ING Direct 3-4 business days for a transaction
to go through (from bank to ING and the other way around). I just
transfered and the ETA is now 5 business days (a whole week). Has
anyone noticed this? I'm thinking about transfering everything to
PayPal since their turnaround is still 3-4 business days and their
interest rate is 3.76% instead of ING's 3.40%.
\_ http://EmigrantDirect.com: 4.00%. But it does take about the same
time as ING. |
| 2005/10/19-21 [Finance/Banking, Reference/Tax] UID:40180 Activity:nil |
10/19 http://www.ginniemae.gov/rent_vs_buy/rent_vs_buy_calc.asp?Section=YPTH Rent or buy? \_ "Please use Netscape4.7 and below to see your result or, please use IE. Thank you" Wow. |
| 2005/10/10-11 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate] UID:40034 Activity:moderate |
10/10 Has anyone bought or know someone who has bought a condo in a
high-rise building in a super busy city for primary residence?
I'm talking about any mega high-rise condo, like the ones in Houston,
NYC, Vancouver, etc? Single family homes are either unaffordable,
or are simply too far so I'm thinking about alternatives. I do
have enough cash for 20-25% down and it's silly to keep
in my savings account. What is the condo experience like and
is it worth paying the exorbitant HOA fee which is usually 2-3X
of single family homes for the same value?
\_ houston? aren't single family houses in houston like $150K? |
| 2005/10/4-6 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39971 Activity:nil |
10/4 Can anyone recommend a "nature sounds" cd? I'm particularly interested
in water sounds (rivers or oceans) with no instrumentals or vocals.
Just background noise. Thanks!
\_ Check Living On Earth, the NPR program
http://www.loe.org
\_ Fry's used to sell nature sounds cds for around $3/ea. I have
the ocean sounds, lake sounds and jungle sounds cds. They are
not bad.
\_ Can you please convert it to MP3 and put it in /csua/tmp?
\_ Can you do my laundry for me? Thx!
\_ Have you heard of the copyright act? |
| 2005/9/26-28 [Finance/Banking] UID:39875 Activity:low |
9/26 ING Direct is offering 3.4% while PayPal is offering 3.5%. Any reason
why I should keep money in ING Direct?
\_ Emigrant Direct is offering 4.00%: http://www.emigrantdirect.com
\_ What's your experience with this bank? Drawbacks?
\_ good rate, bad user interface, be patient with
the opening process/links to your account, okay
once you get used to it.
\_ Does that 0.1% really matter to you?! At that point I'd be
looking at level of service and convenience over an extra 0.1%.
I am not saying ING offers more, but that I would focus on that
versus the rate.
\_ how much money are you guys talking about?
I look at these rates and I thought they aren't bad, but when
I calculate how much I would earn in a year with a $10000, it's
like really anti-climactic.
I calculate how much I would earn in a year with $10000, it's
like ... not very exciting.
\_ I suggest you go into the loan shark business.
\_ Only if you care about other stuff that ING offers, i.e. CDs,
investment accounts, etc. If you care and plan to use those
services you might as well stick with one banker. If paypal offers
better rates and same services go with Paypal.
\_ what about the part where paypal is a buncha mofos?
\_ Well, I've done quite a bit of paypal stuff (I run
an online store with a buddy for fun and profit) and
they are mofos. However, they've never held on to our
funds for long, so I would assume the same goes for
their savings/checking account. So if you do have
trouble with it you can just cancel it and go with
someone else without too much hassle. They are owned
by ebay, so it is relatively solid. I personally do
ING for my savings, but I purchased CDs at 4%, and
I also have an IRA with them for retirement derivatives,
so that's the only real reason why I would recommend ING
over paypal. If it's a principal thing and if you feel
a bit squeemish about paypal then definitely go with ING.
It's not worth fucking around with 0.1% if you have grave
doubts (and some of them are justified) about Paypal. |
| 2005/9/13-14 [Finance/Banking] UID:39648 Activity:low |
9/12 I want to tell my bank/online billpay/paypal/whomever to
cut a PAPER check to person X at Y address. I don't want
that person have to fill out some form first, I just want
them to send a check. I don't care if it has my name as
the "from". What is the easiest/cheapest way to do this?
\- get a bank/cashiers check and mail it to them?
\_ Depends on your bank. Mine can do this through Bill Pay.
Yours probably can, too. Maybe you should start calling
banks instead of asking the MOTD.
\_ wow, so unhelpful on the MOTD today. to the 1st
person above, I am trying to make things EASIER.
I'm looking for a solution that lets me sit on my ass
and avoid going to the friggin' MAILBOX, i'm sure as
hell not willing to go to a BANK to get a cashiers
check. To the second person. *MY* bank does NOT
allow me to do it. If it did I wouldn't be asking.
I was hoping you (or someone like you) would be
willing to spend 30 seconds to type the name of their
bank (or other institution) and thus avoid my
spending god knows how many hours on hold looking for
someone at a bank that will even understand the Q.
and not just say "oh, yeah, our online bill pay doeS
that", only to find out that it does NOT. Instead
you were only willing to spend your 30 seconds being
an ass. thanks. -top
\- Boy now I am glad my answer was unhelpful.
\_ You're supposed to tell me what my bank is capable of
doing. If my bank is not able to optimally serve me,
you are supposed to get a cashier's check out of your
own funds and mail the check to my designated recipient,
and I will reimburse you later once I determine that I
can do so without undue effort on my part.
\- did someone stuff a burr in your arse?
\- kids these days ... the only thing the world
owes you is a good old fashioned arse rape.
\_ Opening an account at a new bank is going to be more
trouble than writing a check and mailing it. If your bank has
Bill Pay then how do they pay bills if not with a check? Not
everyone has ACH. Ask them how they pay bills to vendors
who do not have ACH. |
| 2005/9/9-13 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:39597 Activity:nil |
9/10 What do I need in order to read a mini-CD in a regular CD drive?
\_ many CD players have a special groove for smaller CDs.
If not, you can buy an adaptor which makes it fit into CD drives.
\_ Where can I buy this?
\_ I spent too much time researching the web. This is now
very hard to find. Some hints:
Call up companies like Maxell or Memorex
call up companies that produce mini-DVD camcorders |
| 2005/9/7-9 [Finance/Banking] UID:39550 Activity:nil |
9/7 Savings/money market account motd service:
INGDirect = 3.30%
CapitalOne = 3.45%
EmigrantDirect = 3.50%
\_ HSBC = 3.75%
\_ good one. But HSBC is not advertising that much.
\_ However, not all of them link easily to an existing account
at another bank.
\_ which ones? |
| 2005/8/30-31 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking] UID:39348 Activity:low |
8/30 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050830/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/census_poverty Poverty level in the US rises to 12.7 percent. Luckily, the wealthiest people in the US are also one of the most generous in the world. I'm sure they'll start building more art museums and donating expensive softwares to enrich everyone's lives. \_ It is important that someone uses all those old copies of Office. \_ Microsoft is the leader in this regard -- donating its own software to settle the antitrust lawsuit. software to settle the antitrust lawsuit. I wonder if it doesn't even bother burning CDs and just offer free downloads which costs it next to nothing. software to settle the antitrust lawsuit. I wonder if they don't even bother to burn CDs and just offer free downloads which costs them next to nothing. \_ And yet the news of the jobless claims going down doesn't get reported. \_ Eliminate unemployment compensation entirely and the jobless claims will drop to zero! How could such such an awesome idea to fix the economy have escaped the republicans thus far? \_ I see reports of it all the time. What are you reading that you don't see it? It is in the business section, granted.... \_ Wal-Mart Stores said it would donate $1 million to the Salvation Army for relief assistance such as meals for victims and emergency and rescue personnel. See? They're generous. \_ *pshaw* Only to people that don't work for them. \_ Someone clue me in on what I'm missing: "The number of people without health insurance coverage grew from 45 million to 45.8 million last year, but the number of people with health insurance grew by 2 million." Is it that there are 2.8 million births? -mrauser \_ Dependants relying on parents'/spouses' coverage, maybe? \_ Immigrants. |
| 2005/8/29 [Finance/Banking, Politics/Domestic/California] UID:39327 Activity:low |
8/28 Any tips on saving money? What do you do?
\_ My strategy was to be really cheap and worry about every dollar
spent. I bought a cheap but decent car with a bunch of rebates out
of college and haven't spent money on that in 5 years. I lived in a
cheap place. These things aren't good for getting women BTW.
I lived much the same way and had no problem _/
on this front. Bitter much?
I think depending on your income though these things probably end
up being kind of a sucker's way to save money. Given a certain level
of saving the best defense is a good offense... try to build your
income through good investments. That will pay off more than
cheaping on misc. consumerism although that comes down to the level
compared to your income. Stupid = buying $ cars and HDTVs with no
savings left. Oh and yeah I never carried a credit card debt.
\_ Have your income exceed your expendetures.
\_ This is pretty much what I do. Do what businesses and
(responsible) governments do: only borrow money to buy things
that will help you make more money. (e.g. car, house) Otherwise,
wait to buy it until you've saved the money to "pay cash". And
that's beyond 6 months+ expenses saved so that next time you lose
your job you don't have to live off credit cards.
\_ It's a pretty goddamn simple concept, but it's worked for me
well enough. I've gotten a lot of long-winded lectures on
complicated savings plans from people who are always living
month to month, while I've been able to save enough to pay off
my college loans on my grad student stipend without really
doing anything that complicated.
\_ Get a copy of Quicken. Go through your old bank and cc statements
(you should be able to get the last few months online) and put
them in, making sure you actually catagorize everything. You will
have to guess on cash transactions, but you should have some idea.
Make a budget with the budget tools in Quicken. Keep it for a
month or two, see how you do. Revist the budget with a better idea
of how well you can stick to it. Then stick to it.
\_ This is a good way to find out what you spend money on and how
much to budget, but not a really good way to ensure you save
the difference. As below, make sure you don't mingle your
'savings' with your 'checking'.
\_ A good way is to automatically deduct money from your paychecks
and send it to a brokerage or even a savings account. Start
small. Send $50 or $100 week off that way and you probably
won't even miss it. When you get used to that increase it.
\_ Vote for less tax! Less tax, more personal income, more savings.
You can start by registering as a Republican, and vote for the
Republican who cuts the most tax. Don't get brainwashed by
left-wing socialists and Democrats alike. You worked hard to
earn your money, you should keep it all. -jblack #1 fan
\_ What's your restaurant and entertainment budget? Cut that.
Travel? Cut that too. Toys and other discretionary? Ditto.
New cars? Forget about it. Clothing and other personal grooming?
Trim those to the bone.
\_ earn more, spend less! Simplicity!
\_ Stop buying lattes. Eat in. Make your own breakfast instead of
buying a pastry. Limit how often you drink in bars. These four
things saved me hundreds of dollars a month.
\_ I bet it lost you about 5lbs/month too, if you were overweight.
\_ Actually, I'm towards the bottom of the BMI for my height, but
that's probably more due to the 5 miles of running every other
day than anything else. But thanks for asking. By the way,
the "get rid of your car" advice is also really good, but
only operable if you work in certain areas. -pp
\_ Get rid of your car. The average car costs $400/mo. -ausman
\_ So if you work for 30 years with no car, that gives you
144,000 dollars more to spend on a place closer to work.
Not to mention the commuting time that you either get for
yourself or use to make more money. I'm pretty sure most of the
whinners who blather about not having the money to live closer
to work could do it with the money saved from not driving.
\_ People get work done with laptops on BART or on buses. Some
read novels. For me, I just nap all the way on the bus. You
can't do these while driving. At least you're not supposed
to.
\_ $400/month really doesn't make the difference between
"able-to-afford housing" and "not" for most people in the
Bay Area. Particularly since if you don't have a car,
getting around (usually) isn't free. Most people will need
to take public transportation, which can easily be ~
$100/month.
\_ don't forget about insurance. But this will only work in
selected areas like NY City.
\_ "AAA Says Average Driving Cost Is 56.2 Cents Per Mile For 2004"
http://csua.org/u/d6l
And that's 2004, when gas prices were lower.
\_ whatever John does, do the opposite. John has expensive tastes.
\_ Oh man, nice rep. :) -John
\_ what's with those expensive pens, restaurants, etc., etc.? :) |
| 2005/8/8 [Finance/Banking] UID:39037 Activity:nil |
8/8 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html "This is the way the bubble ends: not with a pop, but with a hiss." \_ I agree there's a certain amount of "irrational exuberance" in the housing market, but this opinion piece is nearly devoid of facts to back up the claim. He barely mentions the slow down in purchases in San Diego and claims the savings rate has dropped to "zero" which is flat out impossible, meaning he's just being sloppy and alarmist. With the thousands of people on the net writing about housing, why choose this fluff piece written 10 minutes before deadline? \_ Are you sure it's flat out impossible that the savings rate has dropped to "zero"? What quantifies as "nearly devoid of facts" to you? Do you know what a "fluff piece" is? Are you an undergrad? http://csua.org/u/cym (L.A. Times) \_ Why is a savings rate of less than zero impossible? It just means you are growing your debts more rapidly than your assets, correct? Can someone provide the definition and explain why it is impossible ... \_ If even 1 person has savings, the rate can't be zero. He doesn't provide a single reference for anything. Nearly devoid of facts isn't quite right. Completely devoid of any references for the 1 or 2 fact-like statements would be more correct but also pedantic and anal. Are you pedantic and anal? Thanks. \_ I've always thought pedantic and anal was slightly more desirable than obtuse and uninformed http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0803/p01s02-usec.html?s=yahw \_ Thanks for the link. That's better than the NYT opinion piece could offer. How sad that the motd can provide better researched information than the NYT. This demonstrates my original complaint which is the article is fluff written 10 minutes before deadline. Why couldn't Mr. Krugman have provided similar references? \_ Um, because he assumes the reader does their research as well? Accusing Krugman of not doing his homework won't get you very far. \_ Are you an undergrad? \_ Uhhh ... There's a difference between saying the average savings rate is less than zero and everyone's saving rate is less than zero. I would assume that most readers would know that saying the savings rate is less than zero means the average savings rate, just like when you say Palestine, you probably don't mean Palestine, Texas. |
| 2005/7/19-20 [Finance/Banking] UID:38709 Activity:low |
7/19 I just applied to Citibank and got a card last week. Today someone
from Citibank called and asked to verify some information, like
my address, then the SSN. I didn't feel comfortable giving out
my SSN esp. when I wasn't sure who was calling, so I asked her to
give me Citibank's number. I called Citibank back, and they said
they NEVER call you unless something's wrong with the card, and
in fact they checked their call log and they didn't call this
morning. What is going on?
\_ The fact that they're (assuming it's them) asking for your SSN
is fucking stupid. I don't believe it's legal to require it for
any services, I could be mistaken. -John
\_ Citibanks calls me all the bloody time for satisfaction surveys
and for new product sales. When I'd call, I get different answers
to questions all the time.
\_ You were smart not giving out the SSN when the other party
initiated the call. But were you calling the number she gave you
thinking that it was a legitimate Citibank number?
\_ The caller this morning gave me a legit Citibank number when
I requested for it but when I called the legit number they
said they NEVER call me to get these information. If it's
fake, then I don't understand how these people know I just
got a Citibank card.
\_ They dived into your mailbox? Or, the called didn't actually
know, and she was just calling random numbers in the
phonebook. If you didn't happen to have a Citibank card, she
would just say it was a computer glitch. Anyway, if she was
fake, she was stupid to give you a legit number.
\_ I once had the following conversation:
"Hi, I'm calling from [company], we just want to confirm
your address."
"Ok"
[pause] "Um, I'm ready when you are Sir."
"No no, you tell me what my address is, I'll tell you if you're
right."
"... I uh... don't have your address."
"That's right. You don't." [click]
So yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if someone was trying to
scam you. Good call in not giving out the info. -bz |
| 2005/7/17-19 [Finance/Banking] UID:38665 Activity:moderate |
7/16 Why is it that everytime I call Citibank I get this guy with a
heavy Indian accent that I can barely understand? I'm fed up with
having to call 3-4 times before I get someone who can speak
decent English. In fact I've been getting used to hanging up
immediately when I hear someone with a heavy accent. It's totally
annoying. The other thing is they're really persistent, like
"Would you like to transfer balance from another account? Are you
SURE? How about our other offers? But they're great, are you SURE?
Ok, wait, before you go, we have another offer..." JESUS FUCKING
CHRIST. I hate Citibank.
\_ You fucking guy, your sister kick my dog. -John
\_ I dunno. But has anyone noticed getting less telemarketing calls
in general these days? Maybe that do not call list actually worked.
Now I just wish there was a "do not mail" list. I feel bad dumping
large piles of neighborhood junk mail in the trash every week.
And taxpayers subsidize that crap.
\_ No, it's not as good (evironmentally, etc.) as not having these
junk snail mails, coupons, mailed to us, but there's something
called recycling. I hope you are at least doing that.
\_ There is indeed a do-not-mail list, although it is not enforced
by law. It doesn't stop coupons from neighborhood grocery
stores, but it reduced my other junk mail by a lot. See
http://www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglist
\_ I've decided to cancel my CitiBank (former CalFed of 9 years)
account and AmEx (also of about 9 years) precisely for this reasons.
I am now banking with WellsFargo. Thus far, I've not encountered
this problem. If I do, I'll just take my business else where.
\_ Wells Fargo sucks too. Once upon a time, they created conditions
that led to a bench warrant for my arrest. Having to yell at
them for 4 hours to get this fixed was a high point of my young
life. Speaking English doesn't predicate competence. --scotsman
\_ I agree, especially when you [scotman] are an all white
American and your grammar sucks more so than FOBs. Ha ha ha
\_ Are you retarded?
\_ Hooray for you--don't forget to write them an email/letter
saying "I'm leaving because of xyz." The worst that can happen
is that they don't respond, and you may get some apologetic
goodies form them. -John
goodies from them. -John
\_ Because God hates you and ONLY you.
\_ I am fairly sure God also hates geordan and I. -- ilyas
\_ "and me"
\_ Pfffft, I will not bow to the articial rules of your
capitalist pig-dog language. -- ilyas
\_ And that is why God hates you. |
| 2005/7/12-14 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:38569 Activity:nil |
7/12 I ran out of money market checks from Etrade and reordered them
online. I was surprised that it's free, but they only gave me 5 at
a time. Anyways, the new checks do NOT come in checkbooks, but in
a long piece of paper. Is that normal?
\_ I got the same treatment. In fact, I didn't even realize that
was the checks I ordered, so I told them I didn't receive the
checks and they sent me one book worth for free. Oh well. I
only need one per month, and it's easy to reorder on-line, so
it's not that big of an issue. |
| 2005/7/12-14 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:38558 Activity:nil |
7/12 Is it just me or it seems the quality of entries in CDDB sucks lately?
For example, I stick in a CD and the name of the song and artist
would reverse, pop/classical/blues would get falsely categorized,
and other things?
\_ On a related note, is there a place I can look up ISRC album
codes? All my Chinese p1r8 CDs from the Burmese flea market have
them, but none of the "legit" gwailo ones do... -John
them, but none of the "legit" gwailo ones do... -Joh |
| 2005/6/28-29 [Finance/Banking, Finance] UID:38334 Activity:nil |
6/29 How about a bubble that never pops?
http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/28/news/economy/consumer_confidence
\- the masquerade's forever
\_ http://condoflip.com |
| 2005/4/28 [Finance/Banking, Finance] UID:37401 Activity:high |
4/28 http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html Look at the purple "National Debt Corrected for Inflation", and look at how it skyrocketted after mid 80s. What happened? \_ Reagan. \_ But he's such a charming and honest looking guy! \_ But he won the Cold War (by outspending the Soviets)! \_ But he won the Cold War! In a race with the Soviets on "who could spend the most on the biggest nuclear stockpile / conventional arms", the U.S. won! \_ And because of that there's little threat of MAD. But do you care? No. Because it did not happen. \_ Reagan did not end the cold war. The Russian people ended the cold war. They got sick of it and their lameass government before we did, that is all. \_ The Red Sox didn't win the World Series. The Cardinals just didn't feel like scoring enough runs, that is all. \_ If the Cardinals had risen up, overthrown their coach and owner and declared a forfeit, your analogy might hold. But they did not. \_ Yet another data that proves that Ronald Reagan is one of the most charming criminals in the world. DEATH TO RONALD REAGAN!!! |
| 2005/4/20-22 [Finance/Banking] UID:37286 Activity:nil |
4/20 If you have cash and already have a lot in ING, and if you're
considering foreign CD, is this a good choice?
http://www.cathaybank.com/WhatNewDetail.asp?ImgFile=116.jpg
\_ Yeah I'm sure Japanese or Chinese investments are a really
solid idea right now :-) -John |
| 2005/4/13-14 [Finance/Banking, Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity] UID:37162 Activity:very high |
4/13 Stop the Presses - (John Corzine(D) says print more paper money to
fix Soc. Sec. problem!)
This is same dipshit whose idea to stimulate the economy in 2002 was
a 300$ one time refund to tax payers. More incredible is this
guy is from Goldman Sachs. Wait, Robert Rubin of LTCM and
Mexico bailout fame is also from Goldman Sachs...
http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200504120929.asp
\_ Just because you don't understand the concepts behind it doesn't
mean he is a dipshit. Also, that you don't realize you're reading
an article that oversimplifies the point to make political hay makes
YOU the dipshit.
One more thing:
"The idea that the pay-as-you-go concept is a sound
savings and retirement system is a fraud."
This should have been a tipoff. SS is NOT a "savings and retirement
system."
\_ you know more than Milton Friedman, interesting.
\_ you think Milton Friedman's word is gospel, interesting.
\_ no, just disagree.
\_ No shit sherlock, it's a big ass government funded pension
system that relies upon current taxpayers to fund past
generations, which is a problem because life expectancy
has drastically increased in general resulting in that
system being potentially insolvent within our collective
lifetimes. This is why it's an issue, this is why
it probably needs to turn into a "savings and retirement"
system in the long run. Are the Pubs right in saying it will
become insolvent in XYZ year? Perhaps. But if the Dems want
to appear semi-coherent about the issue they need to do their
homework and show how the system will NOT become insolvent
based on any given set of projections vs. what the Pubs are
saying. Are personal accounts the answer if there is a problem?
Maybe, but the flip side to that coin is that you are leaving
the decision making process for retirement up to individuals,
and the majority of individuals couldn't financially plan
their way out of a paper bag. Perhaps this may change if we
gave them the responsbility, who knows. Anyway, the issue
has been broached, and it needs to be addressed one way or the
other.
\_ It isn't a "pension system" either. It's societal insurance.
It's us as a society saying "if you contribute to this society
we will guarantee you a baseline level of support when you
are elderly or can't work anymore." It's insurance. If it
turned into a "savings and retirement" system, it would no
longer be a guarantee. The Dems are coherent on it. The
administration itself has stated that private accounts do
absolutely NOTHING to affect solvency. The Reps are
purposefully incoherent because they're doing marketing. And
you're just an idiot.
\_ Question 1: What was life expectancy when SS was enacted?
Question 2: At what age were you allowed to collect SS
income?
\_ Increases in life expectency were predicted pretty damn
reliably by the actuaries. The discrepancies have been
taken care of by tweaks in the system and increases in
productivity. This is a red herring, and does nothing
to support switching to privatization even if it weren't.
Privatizing puts us trillions more into debt and moves
those insolvency projections UP.
\_ Why have you not answered the question?
\_ Because the answer would be irrelevent. The
system has evolved for 70 years.
\_ Then let's evolve it again.
\_ By removing the guarantee and adding $2+T
to our debt. Great.
\_ Yep, and it'd get rid of the IOUs, which
aren't a guarantee anyway. Congress can
just change the retirement age whenever
they like. Some guarantee.
\_ yes they ARE a guarantee. And if you
think they're not then sell me any
treasury bonds you hold. I'll give
you a nickel on the dollar if you
think they're worthless. As long
as this country has its constitution,
those bonds are an absolute guarantee.
\_ If the market collapses and the
economy tanks, it's not a
guarantee. Just like private
retirement.
\_ Even then you're wrong. Those
bonds go away when this country
goes away.
Check amendment 14, paragraph 4
\_ 65 and 63. Insert argument about avg. life
expectency vs. expectency after adulthood here.
we've rehashed this dozens of times.
\_ Then what are *those* numbers? What was life
expectancy after adulthood then vs. now?
\_ It really doesn't matter because comparing
SS structure now to then is apples to
oranges.
\_ You could make SS instantly solvent by raising
the retirement age up to 80.
\_ You could make SS instantly solvent by
raising the retirement age up to 80.
\_ As we have told you dozens of times before,
the original SS actuaries accurately
predicted that lifespans would increase.
They even guessed what the lifespan increase
was going to be pretty accurately. The
fact that you cannot comprehend this fact
and insist on hammering at a Red Herring
just indicates that you are not too well
informed yourself. The real problem is
demographic and is caused by the baby
boom generation retiring. No one could
have predicted that. This problem will
fix itself, btw, in about 70 years.
\_ Oh no, nobody could have predicted that
the baby boomers would retire!
\_ Not in 1933, they couldn't.
\_ Hey, this scheme did help a capitalist democracy get out of debt
once before...
\_ You mean WWII?
\_ The post-WWI German government decided to just go nuts
printing more Deutsch marks. Surprise-surprise they got
insane inflation.
\_ And people mock those who point to this kind of thinking as the
reason it was bad to leave the gold standard.
\_ But what Corzine is saying is what is happening. The current solution
to our massive deficit and liabilities is a printing press. I mean
it's not like we are actually going to raise taxes to pay for it.
\_ But what Corzine is saying is what is happening. The current
solution to our massive deficit and liabilities is a printing press.
I mean it's not like we are actually going to raise taxes to pay for
it.
it, or cut spending. |
| 2005/3/29-30 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:36934 Activity:nil |
3/28 Has anyone tried http://everbank.com for world currency/foreign-CD? Any pros/cons to say? What are some hidden fees that's not on the web site? I don't plan to touch my money for a long time, should I do Multi-Currency Index CDs, WorldCurrency Certificates of Deposit (CDs), or WorldCurrency Deposit Accounts (what's the interest?) Do I HAVE to open up a checking or MM along with these accounts? |
| 2005/3/26-28 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking] UID:36896 Activity:nil |
3/26 Interesting thoughts on the future direction of interest rates,
inflation, the murkiness of macroeconomonic policy, etc.
http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20050325-fri.html#anchor0
\_ Dense reading, difficult to understand for those who didn't major
in world economics or business (I'm just a dumb EECS major, I know
a lot about circuits but nothing else). Can you PLEASE summarize?
\_ Inflation is going up, interest rates are going up. This is
happening in Europe too. Japan is still having a deflation
problem, but it might start to go away. |
| 2005/3/20-22 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:36783 Activity:high |
3/20 I'm an ignorant engineer and I never took an econ/business/political
class. Having that said, if both US and Europe have big
deficits who loans the money and who's gaining? Switzerland?
Japan? In another word, who's the big banker?
\_ Mostly Asian countries, in particuar Japan and China. As I
understand it, China's overall share is growing rapidly. Check out
\- As I understand it, there is a bit of a difference
between what is going on in Japan and China. You can
accumulate dollars because you are selling a lot
of stuff to americans who are paying you in dollars
and that is a different matter from taking "your
own money which is not in dollars" and turning it
into dollars. China is both selling a lot of stuff
to america and gas a pretty narrow exchange rate
snake against the USD, so they need to hold fx
reserve to defend rates, sterilize flows etc.
And in china, i suppose the private/public
distinction is a little more gray ... like
where do the dollar profits of wholly/partially
state owned businesses wind up. india recently
cut the USD %age of its FX reserve by something
like 25%, if memory serves.
\_ For a bunch of commies, China seems to have
a pretty good understanding of economics.
\_ China isn't really communist any more. It's
behavior borders on aggressively capitalist.
The catch is that there's a pretty constant
back and forth between the more modern factions
in the government who talk like communists but
make policy like capitalists and the hardliners
who manage to crack down on the capitalist
advances every couple of years. If this is of
interest to you and you're still a student, I'd
highly recommend taking a class taught by
Carolyn Wakeman, a professor in the Journalism
school who focuses on Media Studies and China.
I forget the title of the class I took from her
(China and the Media?), but it was really
interesting, I learned a great deal, and it
significantly altered my perception and
understanding of modern China. -dans
\_ dict irony
Paul Krugman's editorial column in the New York Times, he talks
about this frequently. -dans
\_ URL please?
\_ http://csua.org/u/bgj
\_ The largest debtholder is Japan. Next is China. Third is Great
Britain. I think that Britain is being largely ignored, but
their economy is doing great and they have shunned the Euro.
I'd almost rather buy Pounds Sterling than Euros as a hedge.
\-If you really want a framework to think about this stuff,
first you should learn a little about the domestic case
[closed economy] and then a toy version of the open economy
[incorporating more nuanced theories of international finance
and trade gets pretty complicated since there are a lot of
not agreed up assumptions and causal relations and equillib
conditions] ... if you are an engineer, you should be able
to follow say the first 5 chapters of something like dornbusch&
fischer. It really is important to have this framework rather
than a random assortment of factoids. An important identity
in the domain of your question is:
Private Sector Public Sector
Saving - Investment = [(GovtSpend + Xfers) - Taxes] - NetExports
This tells us Net Domestic Private Sector Savings is equal to
the Budget Deficit + Trade Surplus.
So this tells us a few things: 1. budget deficits complete
with the private investment sector for savings dollars. 2. you
should not look at bilateral deficits but aggregate flows.
The Aggregate Demand for dollars, which in turn defines the
exchange rate (an exchange rate is a price ... and as we
know price is a function of supply and demand), has a number
of components and is beyond the motd.
of components and is beyond the motd. 3. the us public and private
debt competes with others to suck up international saving ...
i believe the us's demand on world saving is around $4T now.
finally, the motivation for the asian banks [i am not sure
about GB vs SKorean and Taiwan] to keep buying us dollars
is partly self-serving ... to keep the dollar from weakening
more and from interest rate going up and choking off some
consumer borrowing ... but yeah, this cant go on forever.
"who is gaining" is a toughie ... if you work for ibm and you
hold 100 shares of ibm, you arent going to be laughing at
a "chump" with 10,000shares of ibm if the stock tanks. --psb
\- if you want a very detailed breakdown of these various
categories, google("federal reserve", "flow of funds") for
the "Z.1" document. --psb
\_ The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has been lending the US Treasury
$100s of B of dollars over the last few years. I know the
official reasoning is that they are doing this to keep the
Yen down, but since Japan already runs huge budget deficits,
there is more going on here than meets the eye.
\_ Er, You dont understand what is going on.
\_ Please enlighten me.
\_ I am pretty cool Bevis, but that is beyond my power.
\_ In other words, you have no idea what you are talking
about. Why not just say that?
\_ I have no idea what I'm talking about.
\_ Too bad, I had hoped that you knew the answer to
something that has been puzzling The Economist
for a long time. |
| 2005/3/19-21 [Finance/Banking] UID:36769 Activity:low |
3/19 http://emigrant-direct.com now at 3.25%. competition is good. \_ WOW this IS pretty good. Has anyone actually tried it? I do have a problem with its name though. It has the connotation of moving your money overseas or something. And there is the phrase that if it's too good to be true, it probably is... \_ I signed up for one. I doubt it's a scam. The bank itself looks legit. And 3.25% is not really "too good to be true". Interest rates at the online money markets have risen 0.5% in the last 6 months or so, but there were only two major ones (ING and virtualbank). They were pretty much going tit for tat. A new challenger needs to up the ante a little more than normal to get attention. \_ I researched ED vs. ING and decided that ED looked a little rinky (have to do snail-mail confirmation, weird clauses on how and when you can get money out, crappy web interface for pulling up historical data on your account, and they don't own their own SSL server, AFAICT) For only 0.65% less, I'm going with ING for now. In a year either the competition from ED will have driven up ING's rates or the increased volume to ED will have caused them to fix their issues. Either way's a win. |
| 2005/3/18-21 [Finance/Banking, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:36760 Activity:moderate |
3/18 Hello, I've contacted my friend in UK who says an interest rate of 4%
is not uncommon. He suggests that I look into the following big bank in
UK: NatWest, LloydsTSB, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Abbey Bank.
Indeed, they all have much higher interest rates than in the US. Here
is the problem. They all have a requirement that you be a "Resident of
UK." What kind of proof do they want as a resident of UK? I'm thinking
that if I do e-banking, they shouldn't have to mail me anything...
\_ You can get a CD at Wells for 3.75 over 22 months. Minimal
deposit of 10K. Auto-rollover with higher yield at maturity. So why
even fucking bother...
\_ that's not so great. http://virtualbank.com has 3.75% for 18 months,
or 3.95% for 24.
\_ ING Direct in US is 3.6%, you put in/take out any time you want.
\_ Try 2.6% I wish it was 3.6% Still damn good for short-term.
\_ http://emigrant-direct.com now at 3.25%. competition is good.
ING Direct in UK is 5%. With devaluating dollars and the deficit,
relative to the US it is more like 20%. Why even fucking bother?
You do the long term math.
And by the way my mom (over 60) has annuities, and gets over
5% for a 5 year plan, so I did in fact have her open up an acct
in her name for me.
\_ Now what guarantee do you have that this trend will hold over
the long term? Then factor in the price of currency
exchange, and the fact that you probably don't have nearly
as ready access to your money.
\_ Ok, ideally I'd like to access the money within 1 month.
Overseas transaction falls within that timeline. Why
1 month? So that if I decide to use it to buy something
big like a down payment for a house or a condo investment
in Shang-hai, I can do so within 1 month. I know that
someone will ask me why not just buy a house.
I already have 2 houses, 1 rental. I don't want to
buy a 3rd house (not now). I have been thinking about
investing in Shang-hai as my friend's dad bought a
hi-rise floor that doubled in price in the last 1.5
year. But until I've made up my mind, I just want
to keep my money in a nice place. By the way, if you have
ANY idea what people in HK and Taiwan are doing with
their investments, you'll also have little faith in
crappy US currency as well. I don't want to know the
financial impact of a swarm of people (esp. Asians)
moving their assets outside of US as is happening now.
\_ Well, good luck to you. Just be aware that the dollar
has always rebounded in the past, and very strongly
against any Euro currency. If you really want to be
this anal about your investments you can go ahead and
dump it into gold. Also, be aware that the europeans
are running pretty large defecits themselves. Plus,
the europeans are much less dynamic in terms of
adjusting to global changes in the economy. You sound
like the geeks who kept on buying yens during the
late 80s, then the big miracle of Japan ended and
you were stuck with 120+ for years.
\_ actually the dollar has been falling over the
past 40 years. OTOH, buying property in
Shanghai is highly risky. Many think it's
at a local maxima. As for a swarm of asians
moving their assets out of US, I think it is
exaggerated. Asian central banks diversifying
is the big worry. -yap
\_ Bank of Japan is pretty much propping up the
dollar all by themselves at this point. I think
they have 1T in dollar denominated bonds
right now.
\_ probably valid ID.
\_ If you can't open a UK bank account, how about buying 'blue chip'
Pound-denominated corporate bonds? |
| 2005/1/28-29 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:35954 Activity:moderate |
1/28 Anyone have any creative ideas for things to do with old CDs?
Does campus recycle them?
\_ create art. Make CD mail armor.
\_ This is the most brilliant goddamn thing I've
seen all week. You just defined my purpose in
life.
\_ Use a lot of duct tape on the backside so the
splinters from the cracked CDs don't get
jammed into your skin.
\_ true, good for reflecting lasers, at least... |
| 2005/1/26 [Finance/Banking] UID:35923 Activity:high |
1/26 Oh, bummer, Mr. "It's Already Been Spent" deleted our argument.
I wanted to ask him if the excuse "It's Already Been Spent"
was valid to use when asked to repay any debt. I have some
T-Bills that are due in 2012. Should the US government just
shrug its shoulders and say "Sorry buddy, it's already been
spent"?
\_ you seem to misunderstand the distinction between making
the loan to yourself and to someone else. Money does not
just magically appear. Either you raise taxes or your
create inflation.
\_ So it is not possible for one division of Ford Motor
Company to lend money to another?
\_ What you are talking about is similar to what
Tyco, Enron, etc. did during the late '90s.
One division of Ford makes another a loan who
spends that money. Ford Motor now reports this
internal loan on its balance sheet as interest
generating asset. Do you see the problem?
Only in the lala land of the Democrats and
RINOs can you loan yourself money, spend it,
pay yourself interest on the loan, and not
only have incurred a net loss but gained!!
One more time, the notes owned by SS are
effectively one of two things, higher taxes
or inflation. |
| 2005/1/25-26 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:35892 Activity:very high |
1/25 Let me ask a stupid question, how will the deficit be paid? How
will the huge deficit really impact our lives in the future?
Where is the money coming from currently? Are we borrowing
from foreign governments? Are we printing money like crazy?
How does it work?
\_ um.. *deficits* dont get paid. *debt* does. deficit is the rate
at which you accumulate debt. Petty semantics.
\_ http://news.ft.com/cms/s/bd52ee06-6dad-11d9-ae0d-00000e2511c8.html
In 2003, the most recent year with full international
statistics, central banks financed 83 per cent of the
US current account deficit, with Asian central banks
accounting for 86 per cent of flows.
\_ The dollar right now is a lot like .com stocks in 1999 ... As long
as there is a consensus that the dollar holds true value, it will
remain more or less propped up. If enough central banks decide to
get out of the dollar, it will collapse, taking the world economy
with it. The universal desire to not have that happen is colliding
with our desire to borrow indefinitely.
\_ Son, that's been the case since we left the gold standard.
\_ This is true for any floating currency. However, in the
past there were structural reasons for the value of the
dollar ... Now it's mainly our military keeping it afloat.
\_ let me ask another stupid question, from which countries do we
borrow money from?
\_ Mostly Japan, Europe, China & Middle East (Saudi Arabia)
That's one reason why freepers are funny ... They preach
"fuck the rest of the world" yet don't realize how their
lifestyles are being subsidies by the entire planet.
lifestyles are being subsidized by the entire planet.
\_ haha silly liberal you are. freepers believe that by
bombing the rest of the world into oblivion all debts
will be gone.
\_ I read that most of it is held by Americans, but the
largest amount of debt held by foreigners is held by
England. Maybe we'll become a colony again.
\_ I just checked and most of it is owned by Japan
and China. England is third. Japan owns FAR more
of it than anyone else. -pp
\_ Um, I thought the debt was financed by treasury bonds.
That is, people buy the bonds and collect interest--we
don't go out and borrow from other countries.
\_ Foreign entities also buy those securities.
Roughly half of the $7 trillion debt is owned by the
Fed and federal trust funds. Of the other half
that is privately held, foreigners own about half
of that. More disconcerting is that almost all of
the recent debt was purchased by foreigners and
so the ratio is getting worse.
\_ But we buy the products from foreign countries and
give them dollars for it. Since there is a $60
billion a month trade deficit and dollars are
basically IOUs, how is that not borrowing from
foreign countries?
\_ The day is coming when we will be called and at that
point this country will be in a world of hurt. If we
manage to survive this, the result will be spectacular.
The nature and scope of central gov in this country
will be severely curtailed for decades and we will
finally get Jefferson's "wise and frugal gov" that
would provide a common judiciary and military but
little else.
\_ What's the easiest way to diversify one's cash savings denomination?
\_ Buy gold. Dig hole. Insert gold. Cover up.
\_ Buy metal detector. Buy shovel. Head over to your house.
\_ Buy metal detector. Buy shovel. Head over to
your house.
\_ The "don't tell anyone you've buried gold at spot
X" was implied.
\_ 2nd the motion... check out "GLD" gold ETF
this will protect against a deep drop in the dollar..
\_ http://everbank.com
\_ Oh, and one possible answer to "how will the deficit be paid"
might be "the conservative Christians running the country believe
the Rapture will arrive before that day comes".
\_ Up until now, we have been able to roll it over each year,
but soon it will start to become a drag on our economy. If
the Bush deficits continue at 4-6% of GDP for another 4 years,
the cost of financing the deficit will put a drag of -1%/yr
to GDP growth. At some point, we go the way of England.
Check out The Economist article at /tmp/ausman/dollar
\_ That was a good article, thx. |
| 2005/1/18-19 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:35762 Activity:moderate |
1/18 A bunch of CD-ROMS I have are corrupted. They're in a nice
CaseLogic case, closed, stored in a temperate (70-85F), dry
location. I have no idea why they're corrupted, but I know
one thing-- they've been sitting close my Sharper Image Ionizer
[plus UV mode turned on], for maybe 6 months. I'm suspecting
that either the ions or the UV killed them, but is it actually
possible with the CD case closed? How about ions, are they
bad for electronics, etc? ok thx.
\_ Nah, most likely you got a bad batch of CD-Rs. Some CD-Rs
were just badly manufactured and the dye just broke down.
I'm assuming these are CD-Rs and not regular CDs. If they
are regular CDs then there's something wrong with your drive,
assuming that the CDs aren't melted or something. Otherwise,
pressed CDs are very sturdy.
\_ I thought about that, but both of my Memorex and
Maxell batch are dead. And the weird thing is that
initially the disk read were alright till maybe the
last 10% of the files, which end up to be corrupted. So
I think maybe one side of the CD got exposed to
something harmful, but I don't know...
\_ How old are they? CDs are known to "go bad" after 7-10 years.
\_ I made them since 2000-2001. Never really subjected them to
sunlight or extreme heat. Must be the UV+ionizer -op
\_ the data is written from the middle outward, so your experience
of the "last 10%" failing first indicates that the seal on
the outer rim failed and the dye layer degraded from the outside
towards the middle. do you see any funny patterns on the data
side, e.g. corrosion or weird non-concentric variations? i too
would blame the ionizer. |
| 2005/1/16-17 [Finance/Banking, Consumer/Shipping] UID:35738 Activity:nil |
1/16 How does banks' e-billpay work? My bank asks for the payee's name,
(USPS) address, phone #, and account number. Is it going to send a
check by snaiil mail to the address?
\_ They look at the address first. If it's someone they know (say,
PG+E), they send the payment electronically; if not, they mail a
check. |
| 2004/12/29 [Finance/Banking] UID:35489 Activity:nil |
12/29 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/opinion/30thu2.html?hp "Are We Stingy? Yes" |
| 2004/11/19 [Finance/Banking, Computer/SW/Security] UID:34977 Activity:high |
11/18 Should cows be tipped?
\_ of course. though I (and I think most people) usually just
round up to the next dollar, and if that is less than 10%,
add a dollar.
\_ Why tip them? They are being paid for the services. Who started
this kind of tipping system. It so ridiculous.
\_ shut up, overpaid software engineer - danh
\_ also taxi drivers make like $2.00 an hour. I know
it's not your job to make their careers viable
but it's something to keep in mind. - danh
\_ If your're going to tip taxi drivers, barbers, waiters, etc,
you might as well tip other people providing services to
you such as garbage collector, postman, cashiers, etc.
\_ Well, if all those other jobs had their wages lowered to
reflect expected tipping, then sure. Now if you want to
question which, if any jobs should be largely paid in
tips, that's another matter.
\_ Don't forget to tip your local software engineer.
\_ Most civilized people give their garbage collector,
postal delivery guy, etc a Christmas gift of some kind.
\_ You can lament the tipping system all you want, but the fact is
that, particularly in the U.S., we've adjusted salaries based on
the expectation of tipping, so in a real sense you are only paying
for the service if you tip the expected amount. -tom
\_ Well I was really asking what's "THE STANDARD". -op
\_ http://www.tipping.org/tips/TipsPageTipsUS.html. -tom
\_ You need to tip furniture delivery person??? I tip
people all the time but never to a delivery person.
\_ http://csua.com/?entry=11672
\_ Please tell me you tip your pizza delivery guy at least
\_ Oddly topical article from last Friday:
http://www.kcrg.com/article.aspx?art_id=92666&cat_id=123
Gist being that driving a cab even in Cedar Rapids is dangerous.
\-so is it ok to not tip if the service is seriously bad ... and
i mean stuff under the service employee's control. --psb
\_ No; you should tip the expected about even if the service is
^ should be a comma.
\_ No. It should be a period.
\_ A semicolon is perfectly correct, if a little odd,
as it is. The sentiment, however, is wrong -phuqm
seriously bad, according to Miss Manners. -tom
\_ Miss Manners can suck a dick. The whole point of tipping
vs. salary is that with tipping the customer can punish the
employee for doing a bad job or reward them for a good job.
It's basically an economic system of performance evaluation.
\_ Wrong. 15% tip for the waiter is part of his salary.
You can give more for good service. -tom
\_ It's part of their earnings, but not part of their
salary. If it was, it wouldn't be a tip. They're
not entitled to a tip if they do a terrible job, and
that's borne out both in custom and law. I always tip
but if someone was really rude or incompetant I would
not feel obligated.
\_ Yes, of course. The understanding implicit in tips is that
your pay is performance-based. Bad performance = less or no
tip. --erikred
\_ Sure, but some people feel it's OK to withold a tip for things
out of a server's control, like bad food or a slow kitchen.
\-yeah i dont mean for a minor slight like "my water glass
was empty for 5min. i mean something like a seriously
fucked up haircut. or a taxi driver who gets lost after
you specifically asked do you know where X is. --psb
\_ If I ask for more water twice and it doesn't come, that's
bad service.
\- if the wait person is stupid vs. surley vs. the
restaurant is understaffed, those are all different
scenarios in my book. there is bad service and then
there is stuff that actually will cost you money ...
waiter spills liquid on your clothes. it's the latter
cases where i think it is not unreasonable to imply
"this is coming out of your tip". --psb
\_ and of course, you think it's fine for people to
withhold your salary based on their own criteria,
and never tell you why. -tom
\_ I have a legally binding contract governing my
salary. I may also receive an additional bonus
as an incentive to perform; said bonus may be
allotted on purely subjective criteria, so
essentially, yes. Service industry employees
hold jobs which involve providing service. I
pay for this service already. If they are not
being paid enough, it is a contractual issue
between themselves and their employers. It is
not my problem. I am already compromising far
more than I feel obliged to by adhering to
cultural norms suggesting I pay the service
staff extra for making an effort to provide
particularly good service. -John
\-holube: do you think it is "better" that
to you tip a waiter than drops soup on you
and then write a letter to management
suggesting he/she is a lamer? the analogy
to "me and my employer" doesnt work because
one relationship is between 2 parties and the
other is between 3 parties ... and norms
that are sustainable in long term relationship
may not work in one-shot cases. it is not
feasible for me to tip 15% and then go to the
employer and ask for a partial refund because
of some problem. again i am talking about
cases where something fairly dramatic has
gone wrong. also the restaurant case is
likely different from others because tip
pooling is likely. there are certanly micro-
differences in service and tipping is one
place to allow for some flexibility [are you
a regular who is seated before other people
who got there before you? are you seated next
to the bathroom etc]. so why arent flight
attendants tipped? --psb
\_ I can't believe you guys had a whole tipping
conversation without once mentioning Mr.
White. Philistines!
\_ Do you know what this is? It's the world
smallest violin, playing just for the
waitresses.
\_ Yeah! FUCK POOR PEOPLE!!
\_ I always forget to leave a tip for the room service people
in hotels. Those people make atrocious wages too. |
| 2004/11/18-19 [Computer/SW/Security, Finance/Banking] UID:34956 Activity:very high |
11/18 Should taxi drivers be tipped?
\_ of course. though I (and I think most people) usually just
round up to the next dollar, and if that is less than 10%,
add a dollar.
\_ Why tip them? They are being paid for the services. Who started
this kind of tipping system. It so ridiculous.
\_ shut up, overpaid software engineer - danh
\_ also taxi drivers make like $2.00 an hour. I know
it's not your job to make their careers viable
but it's something to keep in mind. - danh
\_ If your're going to tip taxi drivers, barbers, waiters, etc,
you might as well tip other people providing services to
you such as garbage collector, postman, cashiers, etc.
\_ Well, if all those other jobs had their wages lowered to
reflect expected tipping, then sure. Now if you want to
question which, if any jobs should be largely paid in
tips, that's another matter.
\_ Don't forget to tip your local software engineer.
\_ Most civilized people give their garbage collector,
postal delivery guy, etc a Christmas gift of some kind.
\_ You can lament the tipping system all you want, but the fact is
that, particularly in the U.S., we've adjusted salaries based on
the expectation of tipping, so in a real sense you are only paying
for the service if you tip the expected amount. -tom
\_ Well I was really asking what's "THE STANDARD". -op
\_ http://www.tipping.org/tips/TipsPageTipsUS.html. -tom
\_ You need to tip furniture delivery person??? I tip
people all the time but never to a delivery person.
\_ http://csua.com/?entry=11672
\_ Please tell me you tip your pizza delivery guy at least
\_ Oddly topical article from last Friday:
http://www.kcrg.com/article.aspx?art_id=92666&cat_id=123
Gist being that driving a cab even in Cedar Rapids is dangerous.
\-so is it ok to not tip if the service is seriously bad ... and
i mean stuff under the service employee's control. --psb
\_ No; you should tip the expected about even if the service is
^ should be a comma.
\_ No. It should be a period.
\_ A semicolon is perfectly correct, if a little odd,
as it is. The sentiment, however, is wrong -phuqm
seriously bad, according to Miss Manners. -tom
\_ Miss Manners can suck a dick. The whole point of tipping
vs. salary is that with tipping the customer can punish the
employee for doing a bad job or reward them for a good job.
It's basically an economic system of performance evaluation.
\_ Wrong. 15% tip for the waiter is part of his salary.
You can give more for good service. -tom
\_ It's part of their earnings, but not part of their
salary. If it was, it wouldn't be a tip. They're
not entitled to a tip if they do a terrible job, and
that's borne out both in custom and law. I always tip
but if someone was really rude or incompetant I would
not feel obligated.
\_ Yes, of course. The understanding implicit in tips is that
your pay is performance-based. Bad performance = less or no
tip. --erikred
\_ Sure, but some people feel it's OK to withold a tip for things
out of a server's control, like bad food or a slow kitchen.
\-yeah i dont mean for a minor slight like "my water glass
was empty for 5min. i mean something like a seriously
fucked up haircut. or a taxi driver who gets lost after
you specifically asked do you know where X is. --psb
\_ If I ask for more water twice and it doesn't come, that's
bad service.
\- if the wait person is stupid vs. surley vs. the
restaurant is understaffed, those are all different
scenarios in my book. there is bad service and then
there is stuff that actually will cost you money ...
waiter spills liquid on your clothes. it's the latter
cases where i think it is not unreasonable to imply
"this is coming out of your tip". --psb
\_ and of course, you think it's fine for people to
withhold your salary based on their own criteria,
and never tell you why. -tom
\_ I have a legally binding contract governing my
salary. I may also receive an additional bonus
as an incentive to perform; said bonus may be
allotted on purely subjective criteria, so
essentially, yes. Service industry employees
hold jobs which involve providing service. I
pay for this service already. If they are not
being paid enough, it is a contractual issue
between themselves and their employers. It is
not my problem. I am already compromising far
more than I feel obliged to by adhering to
cultural norms suggesting I pay the service
staff extra for making an effort to provide
particularly good service. -John
\-holube: do you think it is "better" that
to you tip a waiter than drops soup on you
and then write a letter to management
suggesting he/she is a lamer? the analogy
to "me and my employer" doesnt work because
one relationship is between 2 parties and the
other is between 3 parties ... and norms
that are sustainable in long term relationship
may not work in one-shot cases. it is not
feasible for me to tip 15% and then go to the
employer and ask for a partial refund because
of some problem. again i am talking about
cases where something fairly dramatic has
gone wrong. also the restaurant case is
likely different from others because tip
pooling is likely. there are certanly micro-
differences in service and tipping is one
place to allow for some flexibility [are you
a regular who is seated before other people
who got there before you? are you seated next
to the bathroom etc]. so why arent flight
attendants tipped? --psb |
| 2004/10/13 [Finance/Banking] UID:34088 Activity:high |
10/13 Ok, this Bush's tax free Health Savings Account coupled with a
high deductible health insurance is actually not a bad idea.
My company already has good insurance, but I don't mind if my
company switches to this new plan, and pass the savings to me.
My company pays about $350 per month for the current plan.
link:tinyurl.com/6pdk2
\_ this plan is bad for individuals with chronic health problems.
\_ The cruel truth is that every plan is bad for someone. The
question is whether it's better to be a little bad for the
generally healthy or particularly bad for the mostly unhealthy.
\_ We're not a nation of eugenecists, and we don't leave our
unhealthy children to die of exposure. The question is whether
the HSA idea makes sense and contributes something that the
current system does not. Move forward, not backward.
\_ Do you get a discount when you buy the strawmen in bulk?
\_ Actually, it's an argument ad nauseum. Straw man would
be if I said, The Holocaust was wrong, and anyone who
agrees should also agree with socialist medicare.
\_ The math is driving me nuts because I can't seem to lock down
any numbers. How much of an annual deductible are we talking about?
Would this include meds? |
| 2004/10/7-8 [Finance/Banking, Reference/Tax] UID:33974 Activity:very high |
10/7 So I read in The Economist last week that Americans now save
1% of their income. That astonished me. Time for a motd poll:
I save 30% or more of my income: .
I save 1% or more of my income: .......
I save less than 1% of my income:
I save NaN of my income: .
\_ I think these things are bogus. They usually say "disposable
income" but what exactly is that? 401k counts?
\_ Any income that goes above the standard costs of living,
basically any money left over after you pay rent/mortgage,
food, utilities, transportation, debts and insurance.
A lot of people are living month-to-month because they
have zero disposable income (they buy too much house,
they have kids, they buy too much car, they have high cc debt,
etc.) The only real way to get out of this trap is to
own some assets which generate you money, which is why
it's technically a lot less riskier to start your own
venture than it is to just keep living from paycheck to
paycheck. (Optimally you do both). In contrast, my
disposable income approaches 50-60% of my total income, but
that's because I have both assets (in terms of rentable,
paid-off real-estate and running small business ventures
on the side and playing the market) and a steady income
from a "day-to-day" job. Plus, I have no capital intensive
dependents (read kids).
\_ That's very nice for you, but doesn't really do much for all
the Americans who can't save. I find your explanation for
why people are living paycheck to paycheck to be somewhat
glib. What about skyrocketing health care costs? What about
skyrocketing housing costs (a tiny single family home is only
"too much house" because it is overpriced)? What about
stagnation in middle class income?
\_ I make about 23k/year and save about 10% of my income.
not driving is probably the single biggest factor.
\_ What about them? As I said before, the only way to
get out of the trap is to own money-generating assets.
Sure, a 10-25% increase in healthcare/fuel costs is going
to cost the average American about 3-4K more per annum,
but 3-4K is like peanuts compared to the money you
can generate by doing things beyond a monthly paycheck.
Is it easy to do? No. Does it take a toll on your social
life? Absolutely. Working weekends/nights on your own
stuff is only for those who want to do it, but the
rewards are there if you stick to it.
Plus, buying a house in an overpriced market is just
dumb. Even if interest rates are low the savings in
monthly payments are offset by the longer term of the
loan and the higher property tax you pay. Think about it,
a 15 year loan is finished in 15 years, but property taxes
are there ALWAYS until you sell the property. A lot
of people get suckered into thinking that buying a home
is good because it's an asset. It isn't. Buying a home
that is overpriced with long-term mortgaging is just plain
stupid because it's a big LIABILITY. So, people should
take the emotion out of buying real-estate and pay for
what the property is worth, NOT what the monthly
mortgage payments are. After all, if you are making a
decent living the extra couple of points on the mortgage
are tax deductible anyway.
\_ My mortgage + property tax is not that bad once I
deduct the interest and the tax. If the house falls
in value the property tax goes *DOWN*. Be careful
that you don't fall off your high horse, because
many people in this country cannot afford a house
at any price and $3K/year is a lot of money to
someone who clears $450/week (which is what you get
if you make $30K). It's easy for us six figure
college boys to scoff, huh?
\_ I've met a number (not many, but a fair number)
of people who have never even set foot on a
University campus who slowly but surely became
millionaires. They did it by owning small businesses.
They did it by being frugal. They did it because
they knew how to save. A large paycheck doesn't
equate to knowing how to save that money
because Uncle Sam whacks off 33-40% off of
that paycheck thanks to our progressive tax
system. The key is to think about doing
things OUTSIDE your daily routine that will
generate money.
\_ This is not everyone. The number one thing
you need to have in order to save is money.
Discipline and motivation are second. My dad
saves a lot of money (as a %) but he could
save that % for the rest of his life and
it wouldn't do much good. Your audience is
wasteful professionals, not the working man.
Yes, you can turn from burger flipper into
burger chain owner like the Wendy's guy, but
not everyone is capable and quite frankly
there's a lot of luck to it.
\_ I dunno about that. My wife worked as a
waitress for seven years and managed to
put away $50k, which she had turned into
$100k by investing. Now she has a Master's
from UCB and is making high five figures,
but even as a waitress, plus working odd
jobs, ske was able to pull in about $40k/yr
and save 1/4 of that. And this is in the
Bay Area. I, on the other hand, was $30k
in credit card debt before a dotcom cashout
saved me. Needless to say, she manages
the finances.
\_ She saved $10K per year on a $40K
salary? That's definitely unusual, but
even so what can she do with $50K?
She's going to start her own business
with that?! In 20 years she would have
$200K and will have lived like a
college student for her entire life.
That is not exactly appealing to most.
Most people take $50K and buy a house
with it, which is probably not a bad idea.
\_ That is what we did with it: we
bought a duplex, which we live in
and provides a good revenue stream.
That is how you do it: save $50k,
turn it into $100k and leverage that
into bigger gains. It is not easy
and it takes some luck, but unless
someone hands it to you, that is
all you can do. At this point I
would like her to start her own
business, but she likes where she
is at too much to switch.
\_ I see. I spend like $1900 per month. If I make $5000
(should it be before or after tax?), does that mean I have
a savings rate of 62% ? I have trouble believing
the 1% figure. Many people I know don't save enough, but
1% sounds too low. Does, say, home improvements that
increase the value of your house count as savings?
\_If you make $5000 per month your take home pay is about
$3700-$3900 after taxes, SSI, etc. depending on how you
do your taxes. If you spend $1900 per month you'll be
left with around $2000 of disposable income. Obviously
you're not going to save $2000 (you probably spend some
on stuff like movies, games, gifts, computer junk, etc).
so you probably save around $1200-$1500, which is a good
number compared to most Americans. The U.S. could encourage
even more savings if they would give people who saved their
money tax breaks, i.e. they would knock off a buck off
your taxes for every 10-20 bucks you save.
If you want to save on taxes you should start a business
and expense a bunch of stuff, like your vehicle, equipment,
etc. That way you expense some of your consumables and
you can deduct that from your taxes. In addition, you
should really use some of the money you save for business
ventures because if you lose the money it's tax deductible.
So hey, why not risk it? And contrary to popular belief,
you have about a 50% chance (if you do your homework)
of having a business succeed. (the 1-10 number is
not an accurate statistic).
\_ I thought that the 1 in 10 number was just for VC funded
high-tech startups.
\_ Why save when the government is there to take of you
cradle to grave.
\_ The gov't wasn't there to help you write a coherent sentence,
apparently.
\_ The couple who live below me are probably 38-44ish,
have no kids and are renters. The complain about
chipping in an extra $7/mo for garbage but they own
1 brand new 5series BMW, a corvette, and another car,
a +$25k harley and another motorcycle. One is some kind
of office manager type and the other is a personal
trainer. I fully believe the have a ~1% savings rate
or one of them is a successful drug dealer. |
| 2004/6/23 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:30970 Activity:nil |
6/23 Does the post office generally sell CD mailers (something sturdy to
ship a CD in) or do I need to stop at Office Depot on the way to
the post office?
\_ Depends on the PO. Better to stop at OD or Staples and get
one since the PO generally overcharges for stuff like that. |
| 2004/6/4-5 [Finance/Banking] UID:30619 Activity:high |
6/4 Loan experts. What are the difference between the two scenarios?
1. borrow 100k at 6% for 30 years, pay off 50k immediately
2. borrow 50k at 6% for 30 years.
According to my loan program, I pay quite bit more in 1. but
shouldn't the two be the same? ie, in 1, the interest also
starts pretty much with 50k principle.. what causes the
difference? Thanks.
\_ Your 50k must be 50k of the principle--that is 50k + 1st month
interest + same principle as loan 2.
\_ As above says, but also make sure your loan doesn't have any
pre-payment penalties and as they say make sure your 50k is going
to principle, not interest. Then it becomes the same. Almost.
You'll end up paying a few days interest on that 50k.
\_ If this is a mortgage - like loan, some have origination
"points" or fee structures based on the principal amount.
nitpick: principal not principle. |
| 2004/6/4 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:30604 Activity:very high |
6/4 I'm not sure I can handle 4 more years of this sort of mishandling
of the economy:
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=71000001&refer=home&sid=a_I6S1CQ9YE8
http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/44113|top|06-04-2004::08:45|reuters.html
\_ Does anyone know if they succeeded in recategorizing burger flipping
jobs as manufacturing?
\_ Do you have anything that says these aren't real jobs? No, you
don't. You're just a hater and wish the whole country would
take a huge dive solely for the purpose of getting your guy in
office. You put your party above the country and you suck.
\_ Wow. Would you compare a $5.50/hr job at McDs favorably with
a $35k/yr+benefits manufacturing job? If you can honestly
say yes, you're an idiot. Also, reread what I asked. This
was an actual proposal from BLS. I asked if it had gone
through. Cut it with the knee-jerking.
\_ Do you have a single thing that says the new jobs are
$5.5/hr jobs? The rest is a red herring.
\_ Did I say I did? I asked a question which was directly
related, and you proceeded to spew. One of the main
points in the report were that manufacturing gains were
strong. If that proposal became policy, this could
have a direct impact to the discussion, but as you don't
have an answer to my question, stick a cork in it.
\_ More McJobs! Greater rich-poor gap! Quick, pretend Iraq didn't
happen!
\_ McJobs? You have something that says these aren't real jobs or
you're just mouthing off like the partisan hack that you are?
\_ Yeah, let's get those jobs based on nothing that we had 5 years
ago.
\_ We need a strong president who will keep the economy and
job market from changing!
\_ More stable unjobs!
\_ Economic policies take years to have any effect. The economy for the
past few years has been fueled by debt, especially with mortgage refinancing
being a major factor in freeing up money. I personally don't blame
Bush for the crummy economy and I think it's disingenous to do so.
But I think it's naive to assume it was his handling that
helped or that his current policy won't be destabilizing in the future.
Also note that the government has expanded since 9/11 and government
expansion tends to help the economy.
--jeffwong
\_ Economic policies take years to have any effect. The economy for
the past few years has been fueled by debt, especially with
mortgage refinancing being a major factor in freeing up money. I
personally don't blame Bush for the crummy economy and I think it's
disingenous to do so. But I think it's naive to assume it was his
handling that helped or that his current policy won't be
destabilizing in the future. Also note that the government has
expanded since 9/11 and government expansion tends to help the
economy. --jeffwong [formatd]
\_ Oh, come on! Don't bring reality into this. We all know that
President have little to do with the economic ups and downs of
their term in office but we need this so we can say how Clinton
was great and Bush sucks. |
| 2004/5/16-17 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:30248 Activity:very high |
5/16 poll time: comments also appreciated:
Conectiva:
SUSE:
\_ It is really annoying that SUSE doesn't make ISO images available.
\_ Maybe someone has .torrents of them?
\_ yeah, i'm downloading a torrent now, but it is very slow
going, and there are 5 (!!!) CDs. How does a linux distro
need 5 CDs??
\_ Latest versions of a lot of programs. How many thousands
of open-source programs exist and are legacy or at least
semi-commonly used? I agree that if they only included
'the basics' they could fit it on 1 CD easily.
Turbolinux:
Whitebox:
\_ check out <DEAD>centos.org<DEAD> as a whitebox alternative
\_ poll about what? what's the question? what's good? what sucks?
\_jeesus christ are you daft man?
yeah, favorite, best, most likely to be around in 10 years if
that's what you want to vote for but basically i am looking for
people's favorite.
\_ favorite what?
\_ favorite linux distro. Are you trolling me? |
| 2004/4/4-5 [Finance/Banking] UID:13006 Activity:low 60%like:13003 |
4/3 Set your clocks back 1 hour tonight.
\_ Funny thing. My work's buggy software saved me from missing my
church job this morning. I have a nagios monitor on a service
that checks for a random bug in our software, but only have it
notify me after 7 am. One machine tripped the bug last night.
I got the page at... 6am? OH SHIT! THAT'S RIGHT! Thank god for
buggy code. --scotsman
\_ Ahead. Spring forward!
\_ maybe someday this will stop pissing me off, but damn i fucking
hate daiylight savings. it's like stamp prices. i don't give a
shit whether stamps cost 0.59$ or 0.33$ i just don't want to have
to go to the fucking post office all the time to upgrade to the next
generation of stamps that's two pennies more expensive. i don't
give a shit whether the sun goes down at what the government says
is 3 pm or what the government says is 9 pm, i just don't want the
fucking hassle of dealing with this shit twice a year. I wish
stamps cost a dollar exactly and that the whole U.S. was on a single
time zone all the time. i'm ready to stick it to
the man over this one. who's with me?
\_ Suck it up, punk. If changing a clock or the changing price of
stamps gets you this riled you must be living easy.
\_ Sounds like you would like China. All one time zone. No
Daylight Saving (not savings) time. Western China is the
same time zone as Beijing. It's like San Francisco being on
the same time zone as Maine. So in the middle of winter the
sun doesn't come up till like 11am. And when you cross the
border with Afghanstan, it's a 3.5 hour time change.
\_ Daylight Savings is a valid synonym.
\_ Somebody missed their nappy nap time....
\_ uh yeah dst sucks. the stamp thing doesn't bother me as much as
the fact that they allow bulk junkmail spammers at what must be
a very cheap rate. at my apartment building there's a huge mass
of junkmail that gets thrown away every week in a big bin. Spam
sent directly to me is one thing, but the "bomb the neighborhood"
mailings piss me off. you know what else pisses me off? i could
rant about the tax system now but i should have been asleep 4
hours ago.
\_ Yeah, that pisses me off too about the bulk snail-mail.
\_ Why? Isn't that what xntpd is for?
\_ there are many non internet enabled clocks out there.
\_ What??? What the hell are you talking about??
\_ It was a joke.
\_ I actually HATE *STANDARD* time. I much prefer to see one extra
hour of daylight in the evening since I almost never wake early
enough to catch up the sun rise.
\_ I hate when people use PDT during standard time or PST during
daylight time, as if it makes no difference. These people
should just use PT. It may be ambiguous, but at least it won't
be wrong. I mean in places like Indiana (where part of the state
uses daylight time and part doesn't), it would seem very important
to specify D or S correctly. I wonder if the people there are as
careless about the distinction as the people everywhere else.
\_ Would you actually get confused when someone misuses this? That
seems rather silly. Have you ever seen someone use S during
the D period and actually mean it? Indiana, Arizona, or China? |
| 2004/3/11-12 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:12622 Activity:moderate |
3/11 Is CD1 all I need for general install of Debian 3.0r2?
Or do I need to get all 7 CD? Thx.
\_ I usually just get the netinstall cd image and install everything
over the net, but I believe CD 1 has all of the core stuff.
\_ CD1 works great either way, but if you have ethernet internet
access, use http as your apt source rather than the cd. |
| 2004/2/19 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:29825 Activity:kinda low |
2/19 So I invested my life savings and took out a second mortgage
on my house to buy EMRG, just like the motd told me to. Now
my broker says he is doing something called a "margin
call" and my wife wants a divorce. What should I do?
\_ When there's something strange
In your neighborhood
Who ya gunna call?
\_ that post for EMRG was when it was at $1.60, now it's
at $2.80? learn to take profits.. or never get in after the
runs
\_ You, sir, are an asshat. |
| 2004/2/10 [Finance/Banking] UID:12193 Activity:nil |
2/10 Someone told me that Perkins Loan doesn't have any interest rate
while you're in school. So it's a good insurance to have even if
you don't need the money right away. At any rate, to apply for
Perkins Loan, do you simply fill out FAFSA which then calculates
the EFC which then determines how much money you receive? |
| 2004/2/8-9 [Finance/Banking] UID:12165 Activity:nil |
2/8 I'm a second year PhD students. I get funding as an RA ($1000 a month)
but my living expense is much greater. My rent is $800/month, plus
\_ "PhD student". Also, "books" below?
What subject area? Where are you living?
A change in living arrangement could do it
for you. Get a roommate? Those might be
able to solve your problem without a loan
and without taking more work on.
utility, book, transportation, FOOD, etc etc. Everything just adds up.
I'm starting to run low on my savings account and I'm wondering what
other options I have. I missed the NSF deadline and I can't really
count on scholarships. Can I take a low or no interest rate
educational loan somewhere? Like Fannie Mae or Perkins or whatever?
I've never taken a loan in my life and I don't know anything about it.
Any pointer you can give me would be great. Thanks!
\_ join the Cal Band and move into the band house. that will save
rent money and food money.
\_ wanna see him stick his flute in his pussy?
\_ As you can see by the responses, you've come to the wrong place.
Even UC Berkeley has counselors for its students. They are not great
but they will be more helpful than asking on the Soda motd. Go get
help. -- ulysses
\_ TA'ing isn't *that* bad. Ask around and find out which TA jobs
have the best pay/work ratio. Look into tutoring positions also.
I knew a guy who was making 30k/year as a grad student from his
TAing and tutoring plus his research stipend by the time he
graduated. Of course, he wasn't getting jack shit done for
research, but he had a family to support, and he finished his
PhD and got a good job anyway.
\_ Plus, if you like the material and know it well, TAing can be a
lot of fun. Best job I ever had (aside from the pay).
\_ It probably depends a lot on what kind of school you're at.
Most TA jobs I know of are mostly grading, which is not
particularly hard, but not exactly that exciting either.
\_ OP is talking about being able to *EAT*, not exciting
money making opportunities.
\_ If you're getting a graduate degree in a technical
field from an American university and you're seriously
too dumb to figure out how to feed yourself, why
not let evolution take its course? Does the world
really need another PhD with no common sense?
\_ dude chill out. Everyone knows that PhDs are
really good at theoretical shit that no one really
cares about and they really suck at coding/sys
adm/installation/managing money and other things
in life. Show some pity for them, sheesh
\_ I *am* a PhD student. I'm making enough
money from TAing to pay off my undergrad loans,
and have a very comfortable lifestyle. It's
just not that hard.
\_ Heh. -- PhD student
\_ I agree with you in general but I'm just trying to
help OP since he's already breeding anyway.
\_ talk to someone at your financial aid office. you may qualify
for govt loans, private loans, or a combination.
\_ Check out the sperm bank, easy couple hundred a month for not a
lot of effort.
\_ They'll just nail you later with paternity suits.
\_ Don't do it. You don't want to be screwing your own hot babe
daughters when you're about to die very rich.
\_ if you're about to die, what does rich and poor have to do
with anything?
\_ If you're about to die poor, you think you'll find hot
babes jumping onto your bed?
\_ For the record, you want a Sallie Mae loan. Fannie Mae is for
buying houses. |
| 2004/2/3-4 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:12083 Activity:nil |
2/2 Can you guys see a problem with this? An online company sells CDs, and
they offer to give you a download of the CDs you bought in say 65kbit
mp3, 128kbit mp3, 256kbit mp3 and FLAC. That way you are saved the
trouble of ripping the CD and getting the right ID3 tags, you also get
to listen to the music immediately. As a further extension, you could
have them hold onto your physical CD for a while and only ship you discs
every few months to save on shipping. The 2 caveats I see are they have
to only let the person who ordered download, and they can't sell CDs
they don't physically have. Would this avoid the RIAA/MP3.com fiasco?
\_ Looks like you've been reading Robert X. Cringely's column. -williamc
\_ If you're referring to that "collective ownership" idea, that's
not what I had in mind. I'm looking for a way to have a normal
pay-to-download music scheme with multiple encodings/qualities and
no DRM.
\_ Any scheme that doesn't have DRM will instantly turn into
song-swapping.
\_ Bzzt. Not everyone sucks. Check http://magnatune.com.
\_ Thanks. neat site. -!op
\_ How does http://magnatune.com stop song-swapping?
\_ It doesn't. It accepts it into its business
model. If the riaa companies had done this back
when cassettes were their big issue, they wouldn't
be so far behind.
\_ All downloads would happen from a central server, and only
at the time of purchase, so there should be little risk of
password sharing or the like.
\_ that still doesn't stop me from sharing it on say, kazaa,
or whatever favorite p2p scheme i might have.
\_ There's nothing stopping you from doing it with CDs
you already own. It's also legal for a company to
rip and encode CDs you own. This combines the two.
\_ the law is a tricky thing. is it legal for them
to store copies of mp3s they rip and send them to
you? it would seem there could be a catch if they
didn't rip it from the cd you own. but it wouldn't
be a practical business if they had to hire someone
to open your cd and rip all the tracks off your cd.
then, there's the cost of warehousing a huge backlog
of unsent cd's.
\_ The company would have to retain, store, and be able to prove that
each person's physical CD collection existed in a warehouse some
place. Forever. That alone is going to cost way too much to make
it worth the effort. I recall reading about someone with a similar
idea a few years ago but I guess nothing came of it. Is your
startup prepared to be RIAA audited once a month? Probably not.
\_ If it kept immaculate records, then after the 3rd audit or so it
could either sue or get a harassment reatraining order, or else
refuse the audit, get sued, win because everything is well
documented, then file a SLAPP suit or invoke the Sherman
antitrust act. I do agree it will be harassed and must keep
excellent documentation.
\_ Assuming the RIAA just didn't get a law passed against this,
you still have *huge* storage and IT costs. Music just isn't
that expensive. You have a one time sale but repeat costs on
each one time sale. It is guaranteed to lose money in the
long term. If your plan is to get a million users, own 10%
of your $6b space, IPO and walk away then oh wait, we don't
do that anymore, this isn't 1998. Forget about it. Come up
with a service people would be willing to pay for that you
could actually make a profit running.
\_ Here's a business model that might work: write good,
music, play it in a public concert hall and charge people
money to listen.
\_ that business model works for Dave Matthews, but not
for the vast majority of good bands. -tom
\_ Little guys can't make money that way. How does a big
guy get to be a big guy without a music publishing and
distribution system? No one is going to put me in a
20,000 person stadium because I rock at the kazoo with
out at least 20,000 rabid *local* kazoo fans around.
\_ Your army awaits you, Captain Kazoo. |
| 2004/1/16 [Finance/Banking, Finance] UID:11806 Activity:nil |
1/15 Any tips on not getting your financial aid reduced (FAFSA app) due
to your parents owning a home?
\_ have yourself declared a ward of the state, join the military
or go to jail. Otherwise you are out of luck. My wife, age 25,
was still considered "dependent" on her parents when she went
to medical school. And their home ownership did get her dinged
for less financial aid.
\_ She was considered dependent because she never supported
herself (> 50%) not because her parents owned a house.
That's her fault.
\_ So you want to cheat the system and screw poor student out of their
money while you rich fucks steal it from them? Well, aint that just
the same god damned story throughout the ages! Fuck you white boy!
\_ I am !=op but all I see are unclaimed $ for "disadvantaged"
people and not enough for middle-class people just because
they own a home it is automatically assumed they can pay for it
or carry the debt-load for the next 5-10 years.
\_ Take out a second mortgage! That's what you're supposed to be
doing! Not soaking the poor! I put myself through school
with no loans. I have no sympathy.
\_ not many people sleep around for tuition money
\_ I'm not pretty enough to get paid to fuck strangers. I
worked my way through school and it wasn't that workfare
crap where students get overpaid for doing nothing on
campus. |
| 2003/12/17 [Finance/Banking, Reference/Tax] UID:11502 Activity:nil |
12/17 http://www.fuh2.com |
| 2003/12/16-17 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:29721 Activity:very high |
12/16 Pusan Market on telegraph no longer sells K-pop CDs. Any other place
around Berkeley that sells K-pop CDs?
\_ No, but do you know where I can get chacharoni noodles?
\_ Doesn't Pusan Market have them? Also, try the real thing at
the noodle house next to Koryo Sushi on Telegraph.
\_ I don't know. I'm just a lazy white boy looking for instant
chacharoni.
\_ What the hell are you TV magic queers talking about?
\_ What the hell is a "TV magic queer?"
\_ http://www.snpp.com/episodes/CABF14
\_ I missed that line in the episode. Thanks. Now I have
a new phrase of the day.
\_ Best. Motd. Post. Ever.
\_ Much obliged. But I still want to know what the hell they're
talking about.
\_ K-pop is Korean music. There's a Korean grocery store on
telegraph that used to sell them, but they don't sell 'em
anymore. |
| 2003/12/14-15 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:11453 Activity:low |
12/14 What's the general uptake on the economy in California right now?
Central/Western Europe was complete shit (nothing at all going on),
and increasingly so until about this summer, then sometime in
September/October things just started picking up (projects, jobs,
etc.) It was far more so than the usual fall/spring budgeting cycle,
but rather, as if people just sort of collectively decided to be
sick and tired of doom and gloom--how about the US? -John
\_ Nothing like it here. I still have a number of friends either
out of work or temp'ing it. There's a few more job notices, but
employers seem to be enjoying their scarcity.
\_ seconded.
\_ I know people hiring. Give me their names. -ausman
\_ How bout other areas in the US? It still seems that MS is hiring
quite a bit.
\_ Things are much better than 18 months ago. It will never be like
1999 again.
\_ never? that's bullshit. the boomtime mentality is hardcoded
into the human brain. once people decide it's boomtime, all
history is forgotten and everyone thinks they're going to get
rich. you think the late '90s were the first boom or the
first bubble economy? do you really think it'll be the last?
\_ So my pedantic friend: when do you think the tech economy
is going to "recover" to its 1999 state? That is what the
original question was about.
\_ Fine. I am sure there will be another Tulip Mania or
Internet Bubble again in human history. We will not
be around though.
\_ You're an idiot.
\_ Nice comeback. Did you take rhetoric?
\_ We'll be around, except the next boom will be something
else, either quantum, biotech, nanotech, or something
totally different. don't forget all the nontech booms that
we'll also see.
\_ biotech has already gone through several boom-bust
cycles. regions that depend on natural resources
like mining go thruogh boom bust cycles all the time.
I think my "you're an idiot" comment pretty much
sums up the above post. it's just another one of those
fucking idiots who thinks the entire world starts
and stops with the software industry in the Bay area.
a bumper sticker from my home state (alaska) states
"please god, give us another boom, and this time we
promise not to piss it away."
\_ Sure there are little boomlets all over the world
all the time, but they are not the same as an
economic wide bubble, the way the US stock market
in 1929 or 1999 was. If you think the Dot Com boom
was something that was confined to the Bay Area,
then you are the provinicial fool, my friend.
\_ Japan in the late 80s is at least as big as
the recent US bubble.
\_ i have a quantum pc i can sell you. it's in this
little box, but if you open the box, it breaks.
\_ I recommend John K. Galbraith's A Short History of
Financial Euphoria. Though not his best book, it's a
short, thoroughly entertaining read.
\_ Galbraith is the best author I've never read.
\_ Yea, some would argue there is a big housing bubble right now,
so I guess there is a big boom in housing related jobs. Lots
of people I know recently went into real estate, housing
appraisal, mortgage, etc. There is also a big boom in China,
and some say a big gold and commodity boom coming up soon.
\_ Some would argue therefore it is true? Nonsense.
\_ You are right, a bubble is never a bubble until it bursts.
\_ You revealed the code! Howard Dean is posting on the motd!
\_ http://realtytimes.com/rtcpages/20031208_homevalues.htm
The housing market is doing what it should be doing. It is
cool in the recently hot areas, including SF Bay Area. |
| 2003/12/5 [Finance/Banking, Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:11327 Activity:nil 50%like:11332 |
12/5 What is the point of the african banking spam? It doesn't seem to
be selling a product, it's not a chain letter, and it doesn't ask
directly for money. I don't get it. I just got two more of these
things this week.
\_ They get you all excited about making big money, and then use that
to entice you to either travel somewhere unsafe, or else front
them money for a 'transfer fee' or 'investment tax'. There have
been cases where someone goes to Africa with a suitcase full of cash
and a couple Rolexes and gets held for more ransom.
\_ if i forward the letter to the FBI, will they do anything?
\_ I think the FTC handles this, but they won't do anything
other than log it, unless you find out the scammer is in USA.
\_ Pretty much what has been posted before, but from the Secret Serv.
http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml
\_ spanish prisoner? |
| 2003/10/7-8 [Finance/Banking] UID:10506 Activity:moderate |
10/7 Can I use Bill Pay (Yahoo, Etrade, BofA, WellsFargo, etc) to make
payments to say, my landlord? Would they just mail a check? Or
is it not possible?
\_ yes. i've used bill pay to write a check to a friend, so should be
entirely possible to write one to a landlord
\_ sheesh why would you ask here instead of getting the real answer
straight from these services' sites? gah.
\_ the motd is the fount of advice. esp. political.
\_ you confuse advice with editorial.
\_ I pay my rent via BofA billpay. No problems. If a check gets
lost they track it down, reissue, etc. Good success so far.
The only caveat is that BofA takes the money out of your acct
_when the check is issued_ not when it is cashed. This annoys me,
but not so much I'd give it up. The whole service is pretty darn
good.
\_ banks earns interest, LOTS OF INTEREST in this manner. wonder if
this is legal. |
| 2003/9/30 [Finance/Banking, Computer/SW] UID:10383 Activity:nil |
9/29 "The most difficult adjustment is for capital expenditures, which
reflect spending to maintain and build property, plant and equipment.
(For some companies, other items such as "Software development costs"
or "Purchase of software licenses" would also be included in cap ex).
These expenses are depreciated over many years, but since depreciation
reflects cap ex in the past, it's not a cash cost today. Thus, it is
added back on the cash flow statement under "Depreciation and
amortization." (Depreciation is for tangible assets; amortization
is for intangible assets such as goodwill.) But to balance adding
back the non-cash cost of depreciation, you must subtract the real
cash cost of cap ex, which appears under Investing Activities in the
cash flow statement."
(From: http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2000/foth001212.htm
Can someone help me with the above? Why is depreciation "added back"
(positively) on to the cash flow? I don't get the reasoning behind
that. Is it just a way to smooth out capital expenditures so that
it doesn't go up and down too much from quarter to quarter?
\_ Cash flow is real money out and in per quarter. The depreciation
comes off the bottom line, because presumably depreciation reflects
the fact that your once new equipment is now worth less used, but
then you need to add it back to reflect actual money spent.
Depreciation is the cost for goods already paid for. When you buy,
say an apartment building, you don't have to write the total cost
off against profits right away: you get to depreciate it over
27.5 years. But the hit to cash flow occurs immediately, depending
on financing of course, which also goes to cash flow. I hope this
explanation makes sense. -ausman
\_ Jim! I didn't know you were such the capitalist! I'm very
impressed!
\_ Nah, it's just that liberals tend to be smarter than
conservatives.
\_ It's still counterintuitive to me, but thanks for the clari-
fication. Depreciation is not "real money in" but I guess
that's why the article said one should take it out of the
cash flow calculation.
\_ It will become clearer as you work with some real figures.
Profit should reflect increase in business value, not just
the ability to shuffle some money around. Imagine you borrow
$1M at 0% interest in Q1. Your cash flow for that quarter
is +$1M. Next quarter you buy a building worth $1M. Your
cash flow is -$1M. But still no profit. Now you just let
it sit there empty and fall apart. That is your depreciation,
which by IRS rules would be $1M/27.5 a year. Your cash flow
is not changing, but there has to be some way to reflect the
fact that you are really losing money, because someday that
bank loan will have to be repaid and you will have only
a falling apart building to show for it. Of course, real life
is much more complicated, with interest, maintenance, rental
income, appreciation, etc. Email me if you want to look
at a more complicated example. -ausman
\_ This is how the accountants and MBAs stay in business. |
| 2003/9/20-21 [Finance/Banking] UID:10267 Activity:nil |
9/20 How's it work in the US with life insurance--do you have separate
work and private insurances like here (assuming you're employed)
and count the private one as more of a savings plan? Curious
because of all the insurance-related stuff on the net wealth thread
below. -John
\_ Using life insurance as a savings plan is a *really* bad way to
'invest'. You can *always* do better by just getting long term
CD's and similar low yield but safe investments.
\_ Sure, no argument there. My point was just that here
(Switzerland) the whole 'savings' thing is sold as a major
side effect of having, well, life insurance. Which is a
bit lame, seeing as how most plans run about 20-30 years,
and for the first 5-10, if you withdraw, you actually
end up paying penalties instead of getting anything back.
\_ It's sold the same way here but it's an equally bad
idea no matter what country you're in.
\- if you have no dependents, why do you have
life insurance?
\_ The way it works is you get a certain amount
(CHF 5k/year) that goes off your taxes, towards
your insurance for a certain amount (say 200k.)
For the first x years, you have a deficit, but
then you start to accrue principal and interest.
If you croak before the end of the time the
insurance runs, you get the full amount paid.
After you're done, you can withdraw the principal
plus interest. It has a lot of disadvantages,
such as being very inflexible. Basically, it's
considered as an add-on to your pension. -John
\_ some policies are written in such a way that you
can withdraw money from them, in effect they become
an investment vehicle, although a very poor one.
\_ Is that the same as an annuity? Isn't that the
thing where they give a good return but are
betting that you die before getting the $?
\_ An annuity is just any annual income derived
from investment. The insurance above is
called 'whole' life, as opposed to 'term'
life (which is simply a monthly fee for
insurance.) [formatd]
called 'whole' life, as opposed to 'term' life
(which is simply a monthly fee for insurance.) |
| 2003/9/17 [Recreation/Shopping, Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:10221 Activity:nil |
9/16 What's the deal with http://amazon.com? These days, half of any given order arrives damaged (scuffs/black marks on the book, bent covers, mashed corners, etc.) If I'd wanted my books pre-damaged, I'd have gone shopping at Barnes & Noble! \_ I've orders books and other stuff from them recently, never a problem. They will accept returns and satisfy the customer. \_ I had an excellent experience regarding this. My book cover was bent, and they replaced it and paid for the shipping. \_ yeah, amazon is much better customer service wise than say, http://half.com (where the 'half' stands for half-witted customer service, half-witted buyers, and half-witted sellers; on the other hand, ebayers seem much more responsible on the whole.) \_ oh yeah, i forgot, amazon did ship me a 10,000 Maniacs CD with a damaged case(CD was fine), but they included a new CD-case and a note saying "we noticed damage and have included a new case". The "damage" was a scratch on the CD-case. \_ I've seen a version of their shrink-wrap packaging that bends up the corners of soft-covered books. A supid design. They gave me a $5 discount on a slightly damaged order. |
| 2003/9/5 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:10085 Activity:high |
9/5 http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2041155 America's inequality is due to its rich people doing especially well compared to other countries' rich people. It poor people is doing about the same as other countries' poor people. \_ You mean all those countries that don't even have a middle class, and where the poor have absolutely no mobility? \_ So to make this fair we should provide welfare for foreign rich people. \_ Bottom 80% of Americans only own 17% of the country's wealth. Hahaha! Poor bastards! \_ The rich are already doing so well, and we are still cutting \_ The rich are already doing so well, and they are still cutting their income tax and inheritance tax. \_ Leaving them more capital to create more jobs. \_ As Warren Buffett noted, giving more money to rich people doesn't create more jobs--because rich people don't spend as much of their money. If you give money to people who actually *need* it and will spend it, *that* will create jobs. And more fundamentally, the fact that our rich are doing better than other countries, but our poor aren't, is *exactly the problem*. -tom \_ Buffett is a moron, and apparently you are too. If rich people don't spend the money on consumer goods, they'll use the money in a different way--investing it, etc. Even putting it in a bank account allows more loans to people who \_ Leaving them more capital to create more jobs. don't have the capital to make large purchases out of pocket. \_ Nope, ultimately you need people to spend money. Now ordinary Americans have too much debt already and the interest rate is already very low. You want your average American to have even heavier debts? \_ You miss the part about loans to people who then start small businesses which are the backbone of the American economy? Quoting Warren Buffet on anything is akin to calling someone a Nazi in an online debate. It's pointless and demonstrates lack of ability to think. "He's rich so he must know lots about macro economics! Let's do whatever this rich dude days because he's one of us!" Uh huh. \_ Quoting Warren Buffet is actually poignant in this case. Even Alan Greenspan acknowledges the pure and simple fact that if you give the money back to the consumer class, that it will have more of an effect in the short term. Giving money to the investor class does nothing for the short term, only potentially for the long term. The investor class does nothing with the money but hoard it and reinvest, that does not create their income tax and inheritance tax. \_ Leaving them more capital to create more jobs. other than "it makes me feel better to hurt someone else"? jobs, that only creates wealth (which may create jobs a ways down the road). -mlee \_ Okay, by that argument if the government gave me a billion dollars, I would automatically use it to hire a bunch of Americans instead of blowing it on hookers, eightballs, and multiple NASA space-tourism jaunts. I say you give me the money, and let's see what happens. \_ Which would create more jobs for hookers, NASA workers, etc. The money wouldn't simply disappear. It gets put back into the economy. \_ Great, so pony up the cash, Daddy Warbucks. Giving me the money the rich would save in these tax cuts would benefit the economy just as much as giving it to them. \_ Although it would create jobs for hookers, there are more efficient ways of creating jobs. You are not a prime job creation engine for the economy. Maybe in another life you'll be Warren Buffet and people will blindly quote you simply because you're rich. \_ And any rich schmoe is a prime job creation engine? Horsehockey. Saying that we should give tax breaks to the rich because they'll spend the money and therefore employ people is not only naive, it's perverse. \_ There are "more efficient ways"?!?! Yes, there are, but going through gov't is guaranteed to not be more efficient. \_ Dummy, by definition "the rich" are *always* doing well. Is this so hard to comprehend? The important part is *who* is rich, how did they get there, what are they doing to stay there, and how hard is it for someone else to get there? Does raising taxes on "the rich" help the middle class or poor in any way other than "it makes me feel better to hurt someone else"? \_ The rich gain more from the promotion of a strong US military, civil order, and national infrastructure than do the poor, hence the rich should pay proportionately more in taxes. In addition, if the rich pay more in taxes, the poor and middle class need not pay as much in taxes; if this does not constitute help, I would like to know what does. \_ That's totally false. The rich actually use less gov't resources than the poor, by far. If you are rich, you can support yourself and don't require gov't intervention in things like healthcare, housing, employment, childcare, schooling, and sustenance. In contrast the poor drain gov't resources like crazy. The poor also have bigger families, and those families are gov't subsidized. \_ You're missing the point: the rich have more to lose in the case of a weak military, civil disorder, and a crumbling infrastructure (as business relies on the infrastructure to make things run smoothly and the rich depend on business). They have more at stake and therefore should pay more. \_ Yeah why should I spend all that money on the military to protect my total asset of $200 in the bank? Since the top 1% has 50% of the country's wealth, they should pay 50% of its taxes. \_ 1) they don't. 2) they already pay more than their percent income. 3) if you've got $200 to your name and minimal or no income you're a deficit, not a plus for the economy. you're taking out waaaay more in infrastructure costs than you'll ever put back in. how does water get to your tap? who paves your roads? who pays the cop that stands on the corner? puts out your fires? brings food to your local market? runs wires to your hovel? you can't even begin to pay for what you're sucking from the tax payers in this country past, present, and future. you're a net loss. \_ Where did you get the idea about "minimal or no income"? I am in the top 19% who thinks they are in the top 1%. In anycase, it's just to illustrate a point. \_ Check the tax tables: you're paying a max of 38%, and if you're that rich and can't afford a tax-deductible accountant to steer you through the loopholes, I have a bridge in New York I think you might be interested in buying. \_ Why yes, it does. Raising taxes on the rich allows more spending on things like education, child care, and health care that increase the standard of living of the middle class and increase productivity for the entire economy. Why do you think that European productivity has been growing faster than American for over a generation? If you look at stats for the middle 50%, you can see that wages in America have stagnated for the average worker, while they have gone up almost everywhere else. Americans are working longer hours and seeing less for it, while the opposite is true in the other industrialized nations. \_ Ask the typical out of work German or Frenchman how much they enjoy the 2:1 taxpayer/leech ratio in their countries. In a generation, it'll be 1:1 in several EU nations. It isn't sustainable. The EU nations have sold their future to their past. |
| 2003/9/4 [Finance/Banking] UID:10073 Activity:kinda low |
9/4 i heard something i think is false, but i wonder if someone here can
confirm or deny it. someone claimed that if you call the agency that
services your student loan and offer to pay off the whole thing in
one shot they'll make a deal with you to decrease the amount by more
than just the interest. has anyone seen this happen? i'm guessing
whoever thought they were getting a discount just failed to understand
the concept of interest, since this seems like very very odd behavior
for a loan agency. what's the deal here? I'm about to pay off my loans
and i want to get the best deal possible.
\_ I've a possible explanation. Perhaps they realize that they
can loan your returned money out to someone else for more than
enough to make up for your discount. Perhaps some hapless fool
with an 18% credit card debt. And perhaps they have already
received the federal subsidy for giving you your loan. Therefore,
it's an unadulterated win for them to have your money back. --PM
\_ ok, i hadn't thought of it that way. i'll call them up and
try to bargain. thanks.
\_ If you have one of those 5% loans, they are loaning you money
way below market rates, so they would want to have it back.
If it is a 8 or 10% loan you are probably sol.
\_ I just looked into this. If you have a Direct Loan
(800.848.0979) forget it, they said because it's federal money
they don't do "settlement offers". Most likely your friend had
a loan with a private company or he defaulted. The only thing
you can do with a Direct Loan is if you pay it off within the
first 103 days they will waive the interest and origination fees. |
| 2003/7/16-17 [Finance/Banking, Reference/Tax] UID:29052 Activity:high |
7/15 Is there a reason to keep pay stubs?
\_ Double-check your deductions. I've been shafted a few times when
the company has either 1) deducted the monthly medical payment on
both bi-weekly paychecks, and 2) failed to deduct the payment at all.
\_ if your company goes under and you dont get a W2 at the end of the
year for taxes, you'll need the pay stubs for proof of income and
withholding...
\_ You need pay stubs when you apply for a mortgage loan. --- yuen
\_ You just need the most recent one. I never save them. I just
verify that the latest matches the previous and toss the
previous one.
\_ I just applied for a loan last month and my agent asked for
three months' worth of pay stubs among other things. --- yuen
\_ I guess YMMV. I didn't even have to supply a single one.
They just called my employer.
\_ 3 month's worth is standard. they called your employer
because you didn't have 3 mothn's worth. get it? |
| 2003/6/18-19 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:28761 Activity:insanely high |
6/18 three years ago it was a stock bubble. now it's a property value
bubble. the day of reckoning will come.
\_ Bubble does not mean what you think it means.
\_ Bubble Bobble rocks!
\_ But Bubble Sort sucks.
\_ It's as simple as something that nobody knows.
\_ I don't think the phrase "does not mean what you think
it means" means what you think it means.
\_ Bubble does not mean "slightly inflated." Do you think
that housing prices are going to drop 90%? You are
a moron if you do.
\_ japan... late 80's... mumble mumble...
\_ yes, that was a bubble. Tokyo land prices fell by
80-90%. Do you think that is going to happen to
land prices in the US? In California? In San
Francisco? I do not.
\_ It doesn't have to pop that much. A drop of 20%
would be pretty catastrophic.
\_ Yeah that would suck. I'd be back to only about
$20k above what I paid 3 years ago....
\_ As an economy it's disasterous. What happens
you personally is less important.
\_ To *me* there's nothing more important. the
same is true of every other individual. it
is nice that there's at least one person out
there who cares more about this ephemeral
thing known as "the economy" more than his
own situation. I'm glad to know you.
\_ I'd rather have an okay job in a good
economy than slightly better one in a
poor economy. Less chance of my job being
cut, better chance of upgrading it.
\_ Okay, I'll bite. Why would it be catastrophic?
This happened in 1991 in California and it
wasn't exactly the end of the world.
\_ It just would be. It's the motd. You expect
him to back up his statements?
\_ The state is $38B in debt. Your city is cutting
services. Another 20% drop in prop taxes, more
services get cut. More fees go up, more taxes,
jobs leave overtaxed CA, you're stuck with a
suddenly overpriced house with no job.
\_ bubble is as bubble does.
\_ keep dreaming, renter.
\_ If it pops I'll still own a house and you will still be
renting.
\_ No, you'd be paying for a house that's worth less than your
loan. Negative equity. A Bad Thing.
\_ Short term effect. God is making more people. He isn't
making more land. In the long term no one has ever lost
money on real estate. In the mean time you're paying a
land lord and owning nothing. Even if the home price drops
a few percent below the buying price it is still financially
more sound than paying rent.
\_ Is God making more high paying jobs too? If you lose
your job at the same time your house drops a few percent,
you may end up in a bad spot. That said, I'm all for
buying a house if you can afford it. Just know the risks.
As in most things in life, it is not a sure deal.
\_ Anytime you lose your job you'll be in a bad spot. Will
your landlord stop asking for rent? At least with a
house there is a chance that you'll have equity and
maybe even own the place outright.
\_ Since my mortgage money has been going into a loan and
unlike a renter I actually *own* some part of the place
I live I have the option of drawing down against the
house so I won't be on the streets when times get hard.
As a renter with no job, I've got a pillow, an old
blanket and some rent receipts to get me through the
tough times. How does being a jobless and homeless
ex-renter sound compared to jobless home owner?
\_ More money saved up and able to move someplace where
there are more jobs without worrying about selling
my house. Portability is part of the appeal. |
| 2003/6/13 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:28723 Activity:nil |
6/12 Extreme CDs: http://www.powerlabs.org/cdexplode.htm |
| 2003/6/8-9 [Finance/Banking, Consumer/Audio, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:28670 Activity:kinda low |
6/8 recommendations for settings to use for cdrecord
in unix/linux to make cds that will play in one of those
cheap mp3/cd players? I tried burning at 4x and
getting rid of spaces and joliet extensions.
\_ 4x? If you were serious you'd burn at 1x.
\_ many of those cheap mp3/cd won't do above 128k bps, or VBR |
| 2003/5/30-31 [Finance/Banking] UID:28579 Activity:low |
5/30 I can't find home equity line papers, but normally, what happens to the
loan if I sell my house? Is the full balance due immediately? I have
the loan with CalFed, which is Citibanks now, for about 1 year. I
don't want to talk to the bank's loan officer without being slightly
armed with knowledge about the subject.
\_ Call your real estate agent.
\_ Generally, yes, it is due. They should have a copy of your loan
papers. Call and ask them to send them to you. |
| 2003/5/5-6 [Finance/Banking] UID:28336 Activity:high |
5/5 Anyone here gotten a loan through E*Trade Bank or similar? Would you
recommend it? --dim
\_ No but my loan officier has been able to always offer me a rate
lower than both what E*Trade and Eloan offer.
\_ Which bank or mortgage company? Mine can't beat it. I asked.
\_ ComUnity Lending then it was resold to countrywide.
\_ I did Eloan. They were extremely unprofessional and tried to
screw me in small ways. The rate was good though.
\_ screw you how? just by being incompetent and slow or by really
trying to screw you in a malicious way?
\_ the most galling: eloan wanted me to pay my property tax
monthly into an escrow account at some pathetic interest
rate. this requirement was not disclosed to me at all. i
only found out by reading the loan papers on the day i was
supposed to sign. another example. eloan advertises no
fees on the loans, but they force you to use their absurdly
expensive appraisal service. |
| 2003/5/3 [Finance/Banking, Recreation/Dating] UID:28318 Activity:high |
5/3 http://csua.org/u/e38 Cute chubby filipino girl. \_ 32 years old = cute filipina woman. Interesting NYT article, too. |
| 2003/4/21 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:28177 Activity:high |
4/20 I just got a "buy 4 CDs or else we bill you" notice from
Columbia House. (I signed up in '96). I'm tempted to respond
saying they'd never expressed a time limit anywhere in the
membership agreement (moreover, the ad I used to sign up
mentions a "No-Time-Limit Membership"), but I have this
paranoid suspicion that these letters are some columbia house
manager's clever scheme to grift some immediate cash, and
might save both me and customer support time if I continue to
ignore their mailings. Can they really cash me in now?
I imagine almost everyone has had some experience w/
shady CD club.
\_ Yes, as part of the the Patriot Act. Regime Change at Home,
End Racism.
\_ Hey that was a useful reply. Not only did you complete ignore
a decent question and turn it into some idiotic political screed
but your rant was poorly executed and mindless.
\_ Are you saying you expect better in the motd?
\_ Are you saying only white people can ride fast
motorcycles? |
| 2003/3/3 [Finance/Banking, Politics/Domestic, Finance/Investment] UID:27585 Activity:kinda low |
3/2 Anybody here buy/sell US treasury bills, notes, etc? I'm wondering
whether I should buy the auctions from etrade or directly through
the US treasury. Treasury direct has a website and online management.
Any positive/negative experiences with either etrade or treasury
direct? Thanks.
\_ What's the advantage of buying treasury bills as opposed to just
savings bonds?
\_ Treasury bills are federal saving bonds, actually. The advantage
is that T-bills have a much larger market (international,
especially places like Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong). So the
prices are almost impossible to manipulate. Thus you don't have
to pay state tax.
\_ the biggest difference between bills, notes, and bonds vs
savings bonds is that it's marketable. You can easily buy/sell
them before maturity in an open market. Can't do that with
savings bonds. |
| 2003/2/9-10 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:27353 Activity:insanely high |
2/8 Poll: How old are you and what kind of music do you listen to
nowadays?
\_ 22. You guys bitching
\_ 26, '80s punk and metal
\_ 29. SHAKIRA.
\_ 29 - Back street boys
\_ 22 Nirvana (RIP), Nas, Neil Young, Weezer
\_ 32. Conservative talk radio because I don't have time to worry
about music anymore. I see 2 of you are *soooo* close to joining
me.
\_ the next guy on a skateboard to spit on your windshield
could well be me.
\_ Unlikely. I don't drive in the slums.
\_ Slums, you mean the Berkeley Hills?
\_ who, the Shakira and BSB boys?
\_ No, the ones listening to 80s music.
\_ 24. Gypsy Gings, Alabina, Classic Rock, Latin Rock.
\_ 31. Rush, Van Halen, Tool, various 80's bands
\_ 33. NPR, TripleJ (Aussie radio), 80s and 90s punk. 32, you'll
probably be joining me in a little while.
\_ 35. Most recently purchased CDs: Alice charity CD,
last two Hives albums, Strokes CD album and EP,
and a couple Ventures CDs. Might get weezer and/or sum41 next,
but I'm looking to convert my LPs and cassettes to MP3 on
and a couple Ventures CDs. Might get weezer eminem and/or sum41
60s/70s/80s albums that I need to listen to.
next, but I'm looking to convert my LPs and cassettes to MP3 on
this PowerBook G4. Got lots of Fleetwood Mac/Bob Dylan and other
60s/70s/80s albums that I need to convert and listen to.
I still listen to Bad Religion and old MoTown hits.
\_ 30. Jazz and Rock (mostly older stuff) |
| 2003/1/31 [Finance/Banking] UID:27259 Activity:nil |
1/31 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/business/31SAVE.html \_ [summary of deleted dicussion: this is bad...so what...you're stupid ...you're stupider...strawman [repeatx3]...bicker, bicker, whine] |
| 2003/1/31 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate] UID:27258 Activity:insanely high 50%like:26400 |
1/31 motd poll: when i consider all of my debts, including student
loan, credit card, and mortgage, and all of my assets, i am
in the black: .....
in the red: ...
debt? What's debt?: ...
living with my parents: ..
living with yermom: .
my parents/in-laws living with me:
\_ For those with a house, being in the red is normal for the
first decade or so.
\_ Don't forget, the house is an asset.
\_ but all that intrest isn't
\_ (Value of house - mortgage) is usually a positive number.
The quickest way to get in the black is to buy a house.
It is not normal at all to be in the red for a decade
after buying a house. --dim
\_ Neither is rent. Shelter isn't free.
\_ Folks, you don't count a mortgage or student loans as the same kind
of debt as your CCs. CC's and other crap are 'consumer debt' which
is money you wasted on junk to live the american lifestyle. Debt
from a mortgage or student loans is a valuable investment in your
future. I have zero student debt, zero consumer debt and over $300k
of mortgage debt. I am way in the black. If I had no mortgage but
$20k of CC debt I'd be fucked. |
| 2003/1/28-29 [Finance/Banking, Reference/BayArea] UID:27226 Activity:high |
1/28 Recommendations for credit unions for a Berkeley resident or
someone who works in SF? Patelco is almost worse than a commercial
bank.
\_ I comparison shopped CalState9 and USE and chose CalState9. I
would recommend them based on my experience but YMMV.
\_ Try BofA, and you'll gladly switch to Patelco. No complaints
after being with Patelco since '88 for basic services.
\_ I get charged for using COOP ATMs so I can only use Patelco ATMs.
ATM use at the store with cashback also incurs a $0.90 charge.
Also, I can't use the ATM at CalState9 at Shattuck Square.
\_ BTW, what are the advantages of using credit unions? I was using
the one that has an office on lower Sproul when I was a student.
I always hated that they had nearly no ATMs.
\_ I have CCFCU. I haven't been charged a single fee since 1998.
Also, the deal with ATMs is that you use ATMs of the credit
union network, in addition to the ones provided by your
own credit union. They even reversed some finance charges
on my credit card for me. I used to have BofA but then I
got sick of them charging monthly fees, selling my name to
telemarketers, and generally looking for ways to make money
off of me. I can at least trust that my credit union is
looking out for my interests and not some random shareholders.
-jeffwong
\_ I agree. I hate BofA, Bank One, etc. They may be
ok if you are rich and likes to put big chucks of
dough in your checking account, but they are
definitely not for people like me.
\_ I get better CD rates at Patelco than anywhere else.
\_ Banks are evil under any name. Use pillow.
\_ Thanks for the sarcasm but why should I keep my money with
someone who wants to take as much of it as possible?
On top of that their rates suck and my fees will be used by
them to build more branches and buy ad space.
I've banked with a bank before and I got tired of having to
watch my back all time. |
| 2003/1/16 [Finance/Banking, Finance/CC] UID:27118 Activity:kinda low |
1/15 What rates are you getting on credit cards? Student loans?
\_ student loan 0% interest. -gradstudent
\_ Rates? I only use no fee cards and pay off every month. No idea
what my rates are. Total consumer debt? Zippo.
\_ at some point, mom is going to kick you out of the house.
\_ I haven't taken any money from my parents in 15 years, but
I'm glad to see you're so concerned about my housing
situation. Consumer debt is completely optional, kiddo.
You don't *need* a new DVD player. There's absolutely no
reason to carry consumer debt from one month to the next. |
| 2003/1/10-11 [Finance/Banking, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Israel] UID:27057 Activity:insanely high 50%like:27058 |
1/10 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/08/60II/main535732.shtml Bush economy hits home \_ Wow. You frickin' win! Congratulation for the most effective troll I've seen in months. I want to say there was some luck involved but that would deny your skill in saying so little. Again, bravo! \_ Especially with the real link above which actually talks about the economy for real but isn't full of the typical invented "I had a deadline" pseudo-journalism sob story fluff pieces. But I guess reading about the real economy is hard. \_ One wonders why someone with a hourly income of $7.50 needs four kids. Most of the other sob stories chronicled in this article are equally lame. What these people need is a lesson in simple financial planning rather than a handout. \_ You are a moron. The kids came before the layoffs and the rotten economy. Savings last only so long. This is a bind that you could find yourself in.... Or have you got enough money to keep you fed, clothed, and housed for the rest of your life? Even if your stocks go fubar? If you do, then you're rich compared to the rest of us poor shmucks, and you should shut the fuck up, life's always easy for the rich. \_ I assume you're not rich so how the hell would you know? \_ So these people never though about how they are going care for four kids if they lose their jobs? They just assumed that they will be working for life? That is just plain stupid. As far as I'm concerned, I've planned for the case in which I am no longer employeed. For this reason, not all of my assets are tied up in stockes. I also lead a very limited life such that I can survive for years without income. \_ Unless you lose your job and and someone you loves gets sick and you can't pay. \_ And if that happens to me you'll take care of me? That's *really* nice of you! Thanks! \_ Yes I would. \_ Then come up with some way to fund this kind of education. Not everyone had parents who would pay for college. \_ My parents paid nothing but their income and home counted so I got zero financial aid of *any* sort but I still made it through Cal and I'm now one of those evil top 2%'ers. I have no sympathy for the intentionally stupid slackers. \_ what's the requirement to be a top 2%er? \_ $350k+/year. \_ A basic hs edu. should cover this. If it doesn't then my money is being misspent. My parents didn't pay for my college edu. They couldn't afford it. I paid my own way by working summer internships and getting scholarships. \_ What is all this bullshit? I see lots of college grads going bankrupt, lots of companies run by MBAs going bankrupt, people of all levels of education taking on too much debt, etc. Government bailing out rich people by bailing out corporations. \_ One wonders why we send money to israel too. At least those min wage earners earn money in our economy. - Altho i'm in favour of manditory norplant for welfare recipients \_ dude, really, you're just over smashing the hot buttons. if you teased it out a bit more and were a bit more subtle you'd get the fevered response you're looking for. \_ You know we spend more money protecting South Korea but I don't see any of you Jew haters ever mentioning that fact. \_ In SK we are protecting a vital national interest (h07 4zn ch1x!) from the commies. \_ And they can't be hot if they come from a commie country? I've met plenty of hotties from Red China. \_ Have you meet NK ch1x? They have bad teeth. Same with most of the Mainland ch1x. SK, HK and Japanese ch1x don't suffer from this. \_ NK ch1x are too skinny also. Deathly thin. \_ Yeah no shit. Because it's a socialist country. Just find and feed one. \_ I hate this shit, someone deleted my message cuz he doesn't agree with me. Fuck you, whoever did that \_ Did you use motdedit? \_ yup, I did, that is why I was pissed. \_ Why don't you stupid Ruskies, Chinks, Yankees and Japs just leave us alone. We could care less about your stupid fights for world domination. Just go home. We don't want any of you. \_ The Jewish lobby. \_ troll, go away. \_ What does this have to do with Israel? If you are implying that we should take the money spent on Israel and give it to the poor, you are extremely naive. This money would not solve the poor problem (as demonstrated the new deal and the war on poverty). In fact it would probably make things even worse for the poor people since the fall of Israel into Arab hands would have huge economic repercussions. \_ disagree. Israel is defiant to its stands mainly because we dump 3 billions per year to them. If we stop funding them, then, they would for the first time realize the true cost of sucide bombing. By realize the actual cost of the war, there is a much better chance for Israels to withdraw from the west-bank and other occupied territory. \_ Idiot. You can't negotiate with people who want you dead. There isn't always a diplomatic solution. The Arab version of peace doesn't include an Israel. How incredibly naive but nicely utopian your universe is. \_ There was a time when Arab nations were democratic and reasonable, but we all (Americans and Europeans) betrayed them and choose the Zionist whose tatic were not much different from what PLO today. Remember, THEY are the one who lived there for the past 2000 years, not Jews. and talking about visions, The land which God promise the Jews were a lot bigger than what Israel is today. Jewish's version of peace is essentially whipe Jordan and Syria, and good part of Egypt off the map. Is that sound any more reasonable? \_ Come back when you stop rewriting history. There have been Jews there for more than 2000 years. And no, blowing up some British military HQ and similar structures is not at all the same as sending your own children into pizza parlors and malls to blow themselves and numerous civilians to bits. Not at all the same. You are completely wrong about the Israeli idea of peace. If they really wanted to wipe out Jordan, Syria and Egypt, they could have and would have before now. In fact, (sorry I know facts bother you and get in your way but here another) the only reason Jordan still *exists* is because Israel told Syria that Israel would invade Syria if Syria carried out their plans to invade Jordan. You're either a liar or an idiot or both. I don't care which but I won't let your ignorance and racist spread unchecked. \_ Israel's GDP is around $100bln/year. I am sure they would tinghten their belts and make it even if the US stopped the economic and military aid, IMHO. \_ are you sure? Israel's economy seems pretty fucked right now, and the fact that the entire Palestinian economy is crippled beyond belief and they have no hope isn't making them very happy. \_ Without Israel what little stability there is in the middle east would disappear. Most of these arabs hate each other almost as much as they hate Israel. One conflict is easier to deal with than the dozen or so that would be present without Israel. These little conflicts would cause extensive damage to the entire petrochemical industry (if you think that gas is expensive now, think about when gas is 10x the cost it is today and the cost of plastics skyrockets.) \_ One wonders why anyone with more money NEEDS four kids either. To help them spend it? \_ I'm not sure why anyone needs four kids, but if someone wants that many they should be prepared to take care of them without resorting to gov. help (why should I be financially responsibly for someone else's kids?) \_ Like the Monty Python boys said, "every sperm is sacred!" And I agree with MP these people should just sell them off to science. Seriously, if they can't afford to take care of their own kids, the local child welfare social worker types will put them in foster care and that'll be that. "I have too many kids to feed!" is not a good reason to give the parent handouts. \_ I bet you who complain about taxes being high too. Do you see any sort of cause-effect here? Who pays the extra money to the foster family and for the paperwork to track the child? D'oh! \_ Of course my taxes are too high. I have no problem with government run orphanages or foster care and the paperwork involved. I have a problem with the government creating multi generational dependency and breaking the family structure. And it's twice as fucked up that they use my money to do it. \_ And separating kids from parents is family values? \_ You know what I hate? Whiny rich people who complain about their taxes and corporations who don't pay their share. Because they show no compassion, the government has to step in and do the right thing (which may or may not be the correct thing). That's why small government never works. The smallest you can get is a monarchy and an army/police force to control the masses. \_ The government doesn't tax to "do the right thing". You're being ridiculous and conspiratorial. Grow up and stop reading Catcher in the Rye. \_ Democracies do. Whether or not you agree that it's the "right thing" does depend. \_ There's nothing magical about a Democracy that makes it morally better than any other form of government. It's nothing but mob rule. And this nor any other country on the planet is a democracy anyway. \_ Yes, we've all had HS Gov. It's a repulbic. Don't you feel much better now? \_ I like the idea of competition. I like the results of healthy market competition. That having been said, why can we not agree to guarantee basic food, shelter, and (mostly preventitive) medicine to all Americans and then require said Americans to work hard if they want more? \_ So you want to destroy the food, housing, and medical segments of the economy? How about the "tech gap"? Shouldn't we provide a basic palm-like device and a home computer and at least 256k DSL to everyone, too? How about transport? Don't you know the poorest of the poor can't even afford the city bus? Let's make sure everyone has at least a low end basic car. Where does it stop? \_ Because it would cost money. Which means taxes. Which means more whiny rich people and corporations pleading poverty and how life is "soooooo unfair?" See the above reply? Typical crap from someone who thinks not being hungry will lead to society collaspe. \_ Thanks for mis-stating everything I said and ignoring every single thing I had to say and simply repeating your agenda driven mantra about "whiny rich people". You've really added a whole lot to this thread with all the cut n paste replies. \_ So having families stand in line for food is really the American dream? Wow. Who'd have thunk? My problem is that you've jumped from the idea of feeding and providing basic healthcare to the poor to slacker heaven. Sheesh. Whiner. \_ Wow! I can have the necesseties of life without working! You guys can foot the bill, losers! I'm kicking back. \_ Hmm, actually this sounds really good when you put it that way and all these years I've been voting I never considered I could just vote myself a life free of all real concerns. I'm going to start voting Democrat. It works like that, right? \_ Oops you guys missed the word "work" there. \_ Nope. It only says if I want more. Since so few people will be working I won't have to work very hard if I want more. You do realise that most people work very hard and only get basic food, shelter, and medical care? So making those free (from other people's money) means the vast majority of Americans could live the exact same life they have now (under this 'plan') and not work at all. In fact, since it is now a magical guarantee, their lives would actually be much better. Oh! To live in Utopia! \_ Actually it's called France, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Denmark, Canada... \_ *laugh* Maybe you missed the links the other day (for Germany) or several of these others in the past on how their economies are so fucked they make ours look 1999 vibrant? \_ Are they starving their working poor too? Ah. Doesn't this count as one of those human rights violations the US keeps harping about? |
| 2002/12/23-24 [Finance/Banking, Transportation/Car, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:26893 Activity:insanely high |
12/23 What's the best way to destroy CDRs? The best practical way?
\_ Sissors.
\_ Toss it out the window while driving along on the freeway.
There's no way any one will look there.
\_ The feds can and will stop traffic to recover
the cds. Best way is the next post if you are
currently being watched. If not go for either
the commerical grinders or scissors. BTW, the
best soln. to the problem of destroying cdrs
is to encrypt the cdrs and keep the private
key on easy to destroy magnetic media (or
equivalent). If the feds come for you just
trash the private key (make sure its suitably
long that they can't brute force it within
what most judges would consider required for
\_ Depends on how small the pieces are and whether
all of the pieces that contain the info you want
are available. A good practice is to cut the cds
into several (8 or so) pieces and to stick some
a "speedy trial"). This way, they will never
be able to recover the data, and without the
data there can be no conviction.
\_ Steel trash can, well-ventilated area, lighter fluid.
\_ the coating with the data is some kind of polymer. find the
right solvent, and dissolve it.
\_ HCl ought to do the trick
\_ these two solutions almsot certainly have environmental
and health consequences. -tom
\_ kill the elves! - sarumon
\_ bah! environment, health... you liberal treehugger!
\_ Last time I checked, the polymer contains Cyanide, not something
you really want to dissolve and allow the fluid go anywhere, no
do you really want to burn it and inhale the gas.
\_ Scissors. [spelling corrected --motd spelling nazi]
\_ you can still extract data from cut CDs right?
\_ Depends on how small the pieces are and the number
of the pieces that are required to reassemble
incriminating info. A good practice is to cut the
cds into several (8 or so) pieces and to stick some
of the pieces in the trash, then in recycle and
then ditch some at work and others at the mall.
This makes it really hard for anyone to get at
the data while making it pretty easy for you to
dispose of it. Note that this strategy isn't
going to work against the feds.
\_ why? because they search all those places
or something?
\_ the OP could be under suveillance *right*
*now* with the feds pouncing on every ounce
of waste he produces, whether at work, at
home, mid-car drive, or anywhere else.
\_ Sander.
\_ Microwave.
\_ Note this can option can have adverse health
consequences.
\_ place upside down on parking lot, pirouette.
\_ paint the cover with AOL logo.
\_ There are commercial grinders available that will batch-destroy
a large set of CDs reliably.
\- is this is same person involved in the post-browse cleanup?
are you involved in child p0rn or something? --psb
\_ completely new OP |
| 2002/11/28 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:26661 Activity:nil |
11/28 Does anyone use http://BMGMusicService.com for music? I've noticed more than once that they advertise a deal (e.g., "Buy 1, Get 3 free") but when I actually put the 3rd free CD in my cart it comes up as a charged item. Is this simple incompetence or something more devious? \_ Because the RIAA is so techie smart this must be a devious plot! |
| 2002/11/24 [Finance/Banking, Recreation/Dating] UID:26615 Activity:moderate |
11/23 Given that the world is going to end in 2012, do you think it best
that I refinance my home loan for the short term and pay it off
before or go 30 years and pull out cash?
\_ I think it best that you give me your money and I get laid.
\_ If you're really sure, you ought to be giving away all your money
to the poor and doing good works, so you can be caught up in the
Rapture. Not to mention seriously studying the Bible. Good works
alone without faith won't get you into heaven.
\_ Rapture? No, it's a Mayan prediction based on their calendar
and understanding of the 5 cycles of the universe. What the
hell does the rapture have to do with anything? The bible never
predicts a date for it. RTFB.
\_ no, it's April 21, 2041.
\_ says who?
\_ says whoever posted that. duh. |
| 2002/10/3-4 [Finance/Banking] UID:26092 Activity:high |
10/3 Do B of A mortgages have prepayment penalty? I can't find that info
on the web site. The phone says estimate hold time is >30min. Their
rates seems much lower than E-LOAN. Thanks.
\_ Probably not. I don't think anyone in CA has a pre-payment penalty
loan anymore. They *might* but that's the sort of thing you'd see
in the loan paperwork.
\_ Oh yes they do. It's usually in the form of a clause which
says that the loan may not be paid off within x years (2, 3, 5)
of origination. This is mostly to prevent refinancing. According
to my lender, it's more commonly seen for variable interest
rate loans. I had this clause in my loan paperwork (fixed APR)
and requested it be removed. They did, since it was a "mistake". |
| 2002/10/1-2 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate] UID:26068 Activity:high |
10/1 Does B of A offer competitive mortgage loans? The rates and points
quoted on their web sites seem pretty low, but I can't find any quote
on the final closing costs. I tried to ask over the phone, but I hung
up after listening to the music for half an hour. Thanks.
\_ Don't pay points. It's a loss if you refi.
\_ It *may* be a loss if you sell or refinance, but it may not
be. It will depend on when you do so. Do the math. --dim
\_ How exactly is it a win to spend money on points and then refi
and lose the money? What math? Only if there's *many* years
between the first loan and the refi such that your points had
enough time to pay for themselves. With rates as low as they
are now it would be utterly stupid to pay points with the
belief that rates will be this low again in the X-many years
required for the points to pay for themselves. Once you pay
points, you can forget refis for a long time without taking
a loss on it. Math? Not too much math to figure this one
out.
\_ I don't understand. Since you think rates are low now and
it will not be this low again in X-many years, you think
you won't refinance again in X-many years, right? Then
wouldn't it be smart instead of stupid to pay point that
requires X-many years to pay for themselves?
\_ I have had a mortgage through BofA -- did it through a BofA
loan agent who walked me through some hoops and got me a great
interest rate with no points. My current mortgage was obtained
through a mortgage broker, much better deal this time around. BofA
is not too bad, but a mortgage broker did much better for me.
\_ Try Fremont Bank. They specialize in "no point no fee"
refinancing. |
| 2002/9/25-26 [Finance/Banking] UID:26008 Activity:nil |
9/25 Are E-LOAN's rates competitive compared to what loan agents offer?
\_ If you get a good loan agent they can kick eloan's rates ass by
thousands. Eloan is nothing special. My agent rocks. |
| 2002/9/21 [Finance/Banking] UID:25966 Activity:kinda low |
9/19 Got a situation in closing escrow. We had an inspection with builder
and found problems. They have 5 days to fix them. Our final
walkthrough is next Wed 3pm. But then we also have to fund and sign
the loan documents on Wed noon, (before the final walk through). If
we don't sign the loan documents on Wednesday, closing moves into
October. If there are problems that the builder hasn't resolved, we
don't sign off on them then closing moves into October. Is there a
problem with signing the loan documents before finding out if there
are any problems the builder hasn't fixed even though we have the
right to not sign off on the itemized list of problems?
\_ yes. once you move in, you can't use the threat of cancelling
as leverage. Their hurry tends to go away.
\_ Shouldn't your real estate agent be taking care of these things?
\_ New homes don't have agents. Just you and the builder. Hey
who is the builder? Which company?
\_ Tell the builder if you don't get final walkthrough before signing
docs, you'll walk away from the deal. Consider suing them for any
monetary losses in the escrow (up front payments, etc.). Once you're
legally bound, you're screwed.
A little more leverage would be to find if the loan has a 3-day
recision (back-out) clause. That would allow you to sign the papers,
but cancel them after the walkthrough. |
| 2002/6/29-30 [Finance/Banking] UID:25244 Activity:nil |
6/28 Anyone have any experiences worth mentioning, positive or negative,
dealing with INGDirect (or other units of ING)?
\_ Electronic transfer takes about 5-7 working days before the fund
is available (to and from savings acct.) Had to call service
once, about 30 seconds wait before getting a real person.
Overall, the experience has been good. |
| 2002/6/24-25 [Finance/Banking] UID:25182 Activity:low |
6/24 What are some rule of the thumb in buying a house? Some say you can
live comfortably if you buy a house that is 3-4X your salary, and if
you have 20% down for it. What about other rules? Are there good
books to get on this?
\_ I heard that loan companies usually approve a loan whose monthly
payment is up to 1/3 of your pre-tax monthly salary.
\_ In the Bay Area, you have to throw those rules out the window.
You can get a mortgage for up to 50% of your gross income, if
you have good credit. What kind of payment you think you can
afford is up to you. -ausman
\_ As the above says, this is the BA so it's all different. I know
more than 1 person who have 105% loans (negative 5% down). All
sorts of whacky stuff goes on here. Since there are numerous
evil loan agents and especially real estate agents who will try
to oversell you a home, keep in mind the following: You *must*
actually *READ* every single tiny bit of paper someone puts in
front of you *BEFORE* you sign it. *ASK* what something means if
you don't *FULLY* understand it. Do *not* get yourself into some
whacky loan situation where you're going way outside the historical
norm of 20% and 1/3rd max income. You *can* get all sorts of weird
things but there's a reason for the 20% down & 1/3rd income figures.
These are numbers calculated to make sure you can make your payment
and still have money for food, etc, for the average person. One
whacky thing you *DO* want in the BA is a split loan. Instead of
getting a jumbo loan (over $300k or so these days), get yourself
a lower interest standard loan on the first $300k and a higher rate
loan on the rest and then *PAY OFF THE HIGHER RATE LOAN FAST*!
Your monthly out-go with a split will be about the same but all
money you put into early payments on that higher loan will *really*
benefit your future bottom line. Do the math. It's amazing how
much you save over the life of your loan(s) doing this stuff.
\_ If you make more money, you can probably afford a higher
percent of your income toward your mortgage, but that depends
on your spending habits. Think about it, if you make 30k/yr and
33% is house payment, you are left with 20k/yr to live on, but
if you make 90k/yr and 50% is house payment, you still have
45k/yr to live on. This is simplified, but the truth is, you
can probably afford more than the 28-31% usually suggested,
but you will have to forgo the nice car and the vacations
overseas. It is all a matter of what is important to you.
\_ Yes, this is all true and I agree 100%. What I left out of
my long thing about split loans, etc, was the shakey job
market and economy in general. As a matter of pure personal
preference and choice I like being able to go on those nice
vacations. I also like knowing I can afford to be out of a
job for 18 months without worrying about my mortgage or
dramatically changing my lifestyle. With BA salaries, you
can go *much* higher than the 1/3rd rule and _probably_ be
ok. But bad things happen. Enjoy the best but be prepared
for the worst. Balance in everything. IMHO a house is only
just so nice and can add only just so much to your life to
increase your happiness. Nice vacations, better cars, and a
growing bank account improve mine with a nice but not super
duper fantastic house. I suggest not being a slave to one's
mortgage. Being happy is more important than being miserable
in a bigger house. This is all very personal and will vary
greatly by individuals. Others might be much happier with a
nicer house and lower-quality vacations, cars, cash, etc. |
| 2002/6/5 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:24985 Activity:kinda low |
6/3 anyone know where to get a CD of old radio shows - like The Saint
Sgt. Preston, Dragnet, George && Gracie, that show where you hear a
gunshot and the narrator says, "That was the shot that killed <forgor
name>'s life, How do i know? because I'm ... <forgot name>"
\_ The last show you mentioned is "The Lives of Harry Lime,"
a radio follow-up to the movie "The Third Man" --- do a
Google search for CDs or MP3s. |
| 2002/1/24 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:23656 Activity:high |
1/24 What's the typical annual return for bonds these days? I just noticed
that the annual return for my money market fund fell from 4.41% in
last April to 1.57% in last December. Thanks.
\_ http://www.bankrate.com
\_ I can't find bonds on that site, only money markets, CDs,
savings, etc.
\_ No such thing as "typical" bond return. There are so many
different type of bonds. You can check the Lehman Brothers
Aggregate Bond's index for return on ALL bonds.
\_ Also, bond funds go up and down like stocks right?
\_ A bond fund isn't very much like a bond.
\_ Isn't it kind of cumbersome for individual investors
to buy bonds directly (except for those EE, I
government savings bonds? When most people talk
about buying bonds, they are talking about bond
funds right?
\_ bond. james bond.
\_ shaken, not stirred. |
| 2001/12/27 [Finance/Banking, Politics/Domestic/California] UID:23375 Activity:nil |
12/26 Which bank (other than Washington Mutual) is offer basic checking
account with no or low balance requirement in CA? ($500 is all
I have left.) |
| 2001/12/6-7 [Finance/Banking, Academia/GradSchool] UID:23163 Activity:low |
12/5 Regarding grad school TAship/RAship applications: it asks you how
much $ you anticipate to make, how much financial aide you expect
to get and the amount in your checking/savings account. What number
are they looking for so that I can be eligible? Thanks.
\_ In my experience, it depends on the cost of living where your
school of choice is located. It also depends a bit on the
school how much buy-in (as it were) they require. |
| 2001/10/2 [Finance/Banking] UID:22617 Activity:nil |
10/2 Can anyone recommend a good bank or credit union around here or
downtown SF? I can't qualify for CUBS.
\_ Patelco
\_ Do you consider Schwab a regular bank? There's a branch near
the Montgomery BART station. I just sent them some e-mail with
questions regarding my account, and I got a reply in less than
an hour. Pretty cool.
\_ I'd recommend BofA. I've been a BofA customer for close to 10
years and I find them to be a great bank. Some people on the motd
don't like BofA though.
\_ 12 years of BofA for me and no problem either.
\_ Is an internet bank out of the question? They generally reimburse
ATM fees and mine gives me postage-paid envelopes as well as at least
double my brick-and-mortar bank's interest rate. |
| 2001/9/24 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:22612 Activity:kinda low |
9/24 as far as "financial institutions" rank, how does MBNA rate?
anyone have any opinions of citicorp/b of a? I'm looking to open a
roth IRA and do some bonds investment.
\ BofA ? you mean bunch of fucking assholes?
\_ that's good. i like that one. Sorry, i've not heard that one
before, but i guess it's really obvious at this point.
They are dicks tho. I unfortunately have an account with them
can you suggest an alternative? (altho i'd rather have the
response to the original post).
\_ I used to be a GW customer and got shafted after the WM
merger. I switched to BofA and haven't had any problems
yet. What sort of problems have you had with BofA?
\_ I have both checking and MasterCard accounts with BofA for 12
years. Never had any problem. |
| 2001/8/14 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate] UID:22115 Activity:nil |
8/14 How do I retrieve an article that appeared under the "Today on MSN"
section in http://www.msn.com just half an hour ago but is now gone? Thx.
\_ what link are you looking for? ford recall, pcs passe, 6 new car
reviews, gap school uniforms, etc. -uctt
\_ The one about home prices and refinancing and growing equity
loans.
\_ http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/invest/extra/7686.asp
-uctt
\_ Thanks a lot! I read it half way thru and then
accidentally closed my browser. How did you find it? |
| 2001/7/27 [Finance/Banking] UID:21966 Activity:nil |
7/26 Why are date of birth and mother's maiden name used for identity
verification purpose? All your relatives and close friends attend
your birthday parties and they know who your mother is. And for
celebrities even the public knows these info.
\_ because those companies don't really give a fuck about
your financial securety.
\_ you give them the real maiden name? sheez... you deserve to
have your savings swiped.
\_ I guess I was too naive when I opened my accounts 12 years
ago.
\_ Exactly. It is just a "security" code. And if someone steals
from you, you say there was fradulent activity and you don't
worry about it.
\_ Look if you think your family is going to steal from you, you
should use numbered accounts with otp for all your financial
transactions.
\_ Are birth certificates public record? |
| 2001/7/20 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:21889 Activity:nil |
7/20 Recent headline O'Neill Predicts Strong U.S. Surpluses
The article put such a good spin on the notion or paying down the
debt.
Well there is a huge huge huge huge devastatingly huge potential
problem which has been written about in the heavy econ papers
Our entire economy is based what is called the "riskless asset."
All prices of investments, be it stock, bonds, capital spending,
buying houses etc. all rely on what is called the CAP-M ( capital
asset pricing model ). This states basically that the more risk
an asset has the high its expected rate of return must be. The
expected return in the "interest rate." The problem arises in
that the CAP-M ( my nomencalture - standard is CAPM no "dash")
uses as a requirement in its calculation the rate of return of
the riskless asset. The foundation which people previously used
in this model was the 30yr US Bond.
So where is problem? The government started buying back 30yr
bonds thus reducing demand and causing a demand shock which
altered the normal curve and skewing its price. Everyone realized
this and quickly renormalized all asset prices to the 10yr bond
as it was still in high supply. However as the govenment
continues to run high surpluses the demand will continue to
shrink for the 10yr and it will no longer be effective as a basis
for the pricing assets.
Repurcussions to this are obvious. Without a standard government
based riskless asset pricing, financial institutions will no
longer be able to commonly price assets. This will cause an
increase in the volatility of equities.
Solutions- Right now that is of a big debate in the economic
field- right now the biggest option looks like fannie ma. Ya
those are the guys who own all the home loans. That is turning
into the biggest source of bonds and thus providing a basis for
stable pricing- Whenever you have bigger supply- the stability of
a price goes up. That is why when the government had 3Trillion in
bonds out the prices were fairly stable. Only recently has
volatility started to be seen. But the problem with using home
loans is obvious as well- equity bubble.
Net result. The Government is going to NEED to step up spending
to maintain a budget deficit. Maybe not now but the seeds are
being planted. Look at the signs, Cal government going into debt
over energy. This is chump change but just a sign that
governments are taking up the slack of the consumer.
Required Actions: Align yourself with an industry which will
benefit from governemt spending. Boeing, LM, EDS, Dyncorp, HAL.
Look for massive US bases setup in foreign countries. Look for
massive emigration to foreign bases. Look for a reimergance of
colonialism. The plans are in the works - and coming this fall I
am hoping I can get involved with them - as I am starting to
believe this is coming sooner rather than later.
Just commentary and by no means correct- and may not even reflect
my true views
\_ Hi kinney! |
| 2001/7/17-18 [Finance, Finance/Banking] UID:21829 Activity:high |
7/17 economy derives benefit from dad smokers: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1442000/1442555.stm \_ Economics is sometimes a cruel filter to apply to your vision of the world. \_ Only sometimes? |
| 2001/5/25 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate] UID:21359 Activity:insanely high |
5/25 Hey, is it worth wasting an extra $25/month in mortgage interest
to have an extra $200/month in pocket money? (comparing 15 to 30) -nick
\_ _In general_ if you can afford the 15 year, you're better off in
the long run. Talk to a loan person at a bank to go over specifics
for your loan.
\_ Most 30 year loans have pre-pay penalties. Banks prefer to have a
\_ Not from what I've seen. Certainly my 30 year loadn has no
prepayment penalty.
long income stream on paper, that they don't have to modify with
prepayments. If you are able to pay it off in 15 years easily,
go for it!
\_ Some idiots posted below.
\_ YMMV. Lots of people buy houses so that they have LESS spending
money, because when you have lots of extra spending money, you
can easily "blow" a lot of it... either the $500/mo Fry's habit,
nice restaurants, nice whores, clothes, or whatever. If you can
afford a house, you probably are doing somewhat ok, and can live
without the extra $200. On the flipside, money is meant to be spent
so what is the point in saving it all? Find your own balance.
What's your lifestyle? What do you want it to be?
\_ You mean 15 vs. 30 year mortgage? You do realize how much more you'd
pay on the 30 year, right? If you can affort it, you'll accrue
equity much faster with the 15 (because of compound interest, equtity
growth is _not_ linear).
\_ Non-sense. You don't know any better. The fastest way
to build equity is to have a 30-year-loan (hence lower
monthly payment) but pay the same amount each month
month as you would with a 15-year-loan (hence you pay down
more principle each month).
\_ How is this different from getting a real 15-year loan with
the same interest rate? (Not to mention that 15-year loans
usually have lower interest rates than 30-year ones.) -- yuen
\_ Exactly. All that matters is the interest rate.
\_ IANAFA (I am not a financial advisor). Depends on what you want
to do with it. Can you live without it? If not, then go for 30,
of course. If you can, then perhaps putting the $200 in something
that will earn more than your mortgage interest rate will be a
good investment. I would highly advise against just blowing the
$200, but I'm very conservative financially.
\_ In comparing interest, do remember that debt paid is debt
paid whereas investment earnings still has to be taxed. |
| 2001/2/13-14 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:20584 Activity:high |
2/13 Is it theoretically possible at all to achieve zero inflation and zero
unemployment at the same time in a non-communist economy?
\_ why don't you go stand in that circle in sproul with a friend and
you can start a company together trading goods back and forth
using a curency that you set that never changes. you are both
employed, and there is no inflation. don't be communist
and you're all set. moron.
\_ You call that an economy, moron? I'm just asking a question on
theory of economics stemmed from fading memory from ECON 100B.
I'm not trying to promote communism or anything.
\_ why not? I was trying to make the point that dealing with
totally hypothetical and abstract ideas in economics is
pointless. I realize lot's of shucksters and math grad
school dropouts make a living off of this, but its still
a fucking waste of time.
\_ Uh no. Unemployment reflects some of those who are of working
age who do not want to or are not capable of working. It will
never be 0 unless you force all the housewifes, househusbands,
and cripples to work.
\_ Nah, unemployment only includes those who want to find work,
but is so far unable to find one which he or she is willing
to take.
\_ who wants zero unemployment? isn't the goal zero forced employment?
most of us have to work, but don't want to. there are also non-
competitive currency models to consider. read http://transaction.net.
\_ uhh, you do know that generally unemployment numbers do not count
people who are not interested in working. They are supposed to
reflect the percentage of people who are looking for jobs but
don't have one. Otherwise the numbers would be a hell of a lot i
higher.
\_ really? I did not know that. So in most european countries
~ 10 - 12% of the people who want to find work can't?
Damn. It must suck to live there.
\_ yeah but they get generous welfare so they probably don't
\_ not in human economy. but probably true in the animal world.
\_ nice try, but I would say that > 99.9% of animals (humans
excluded) are unemployed.
look that hard.
\_ Unemployment is calculated differently in
some european countries -- they consider part-time
workers as un-employed.
\_ agreed; unemployment numbers count only those interested
in working. but the motivation behind the question is that
most people are interested in working. this isn't true;
most people don't want to do the work they're doing.
\_ The statistics that I don't understand is "personal savings
rate". It is defined as the percentage of "disposable income"
saved, but what exactly is "disposable income"? Does that
include 401k, etc.? I was wondering because the country has
been having a negative personal savings rate recently.
\_ disposable income = income minus primary needs (food,
shelter) |
| 2001/2/12-13 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:20567 Activity:high |
2/12 I am broke. I am looking for an ass-kicking spreadsheet to start
keeping track my expenses.
\_ Quicken and Microsoft Money are better at this than any spreadsheet.
\_ Its called a ledger. You can make using a $0.10 notebook from
longs or payless. You have one column where you write in the date
of a transaction, another where you write in a description and
a last one where you record if it was + (deposit) or - (expense).
Add it up at the bottom of a page and transfer to the next.
\_ I just use a plain text file to do this.
\_ If you are broke, a text file costs too much money.
\_ Perl!
\_ $0.10 notebook? What decade are you living in?
\_ Hey, I thought we went throught this! Use automatically deposit
to put a portion of your paycheck into a savings account and DO NOT
ever withdraw from that account. I'm able to saving 20K a year
that way. And I'm not making 6 figures. -frugal guy
\_ Only 20K. How much do you make? ~ 45K? I'm saving ~ 40K a
year by direct deposit into my money market account and
I'm making not making 6 figures either.
to my parents (non-tax-deductible) and contributing 11% to my
401(k), and I'm not making 6 figures either. Although it's
sad that we need to compete on how little we spend instead of
how much we make.
\_ I'm making $2600 mortgage payment a month and sending $1K/mo
to my parents (non-tax-deductible since they're not listed as
my dependents) and contributing 11% to my 401(k), and I'm not
making 6 figures either. Although it's sad that we need to
compete on how little we spend instead of how much we make.
\_ I'm 15% to 401(k), 10% to ESPP, the rest directly
into my money market accoount. I live at home with
my parents, so I cut back on costs there. The only
recurring costs I have are DSL ($69/mo) and my car
($50 gas/mo, $50 insurance/mo, $20 maintenance/mo).
Occasionally I buy clothes or computer equipment,
but my yearly expenditure is covered by dividends
earn more via investments and such)
on a single mutal fund I own, all the other dividends
are reinvested. - soon to be member of the idle
rich.
(BTW, I don't consider non-salary income toward
that 6 figure thing. My salary is less, but I
earn much more via investments and such)
\_ what good is being idle and rich if you live at
home with your parents? The values of sodans need
some serious whacking. -tom
\_ With the money I am saving, I can easily
move into my own house in Saratoga or
Woodside. I can do whatever I want
whenever I want. I don't have to go to
work do what my boss or some stupid
customer wants. I can just sit around
and make money and enjoy myself.
That's what idle rich means.
And what's wrong with living with your
parents? My parents are extremely nice.
I'd have to be pretty damn stupid to
move out and spend money.
\_ I envy you having nice parents. My mom is
a dictator comparing to other moms (she
even forced me to dump my gf,
successfully, who was "just a little dis-
respectful occasionally. Just a little,
really. Other than that she's a very nice
girl."), yet she has the gut to tell
people that she's one of the most liberal
parents in the world. Geez.
\_ let's see...you don't have a girlfriend,
or any activities you spend money on.
exactly what are you going to do to
"enjoy yourself" when you have "enough"
money? Get a life; money is a means, not
a goal. -tom
\_ Spoken like a true poor peon.
You don't really understand
what it means to be rich do
you? Too bad.
\_ Sigh... not only is the sky falling
but there must be solar flares too.
Rich is nice but if being rich means
this guy spends the rest of his
life in his parents basement
waiting for the magic day that he
has "enough" money then the guy is
totally lost. I'd rather be middle
class and have a life than rich in
my parent's basement. "Mikey!
Dinner is ready! And don't forget
to clean your room before your
little friends come over!"
\_ I absolutely understand what it
means to be rich, and it has
practically nothing to do with
numbers on pieces of paper. -tom
\_ The sky is falling! This must be the
Twilight Zone or Outer Limits. I find
myself in total agreement with tom!
\_ for a "ride bike, save the whales" guy,
you're pretty short-sighted. be
realistic. sometimes you need to
accumulate wealth to do what you want.
\_ uh, to save toward the future for when they
eventually move out? what good is being idle
and poor if you're living by yourself in an
an apartment? I mean, come on, it's not like
most Sodans need the privacy for a love-life or
anything.
\_ A love-life costs $s. And if you get
married, in CA she gets 1/2 of your
stuff. No woman is worth 1/2 of my
portfolio. Better to be single, rich
and free.
\_ Happy Valentines Day, tool
\_ My mortgage is higher, my parents are multi-multi-multi-
millionaires, I'm making comfortable 6 figures, putting
in 10% and I still have time to edit the motd. Oh yeah,
redecorating the house next month, too. The maid will
like the new arrangement as it leaves her less to clean.
\_ In other words, yer mom is kicking your lazy, fat,
arrogant ass out of the house because your life is as
pointless and contrived as your motd posts.
\_ No. Why is it so hard to comprehend that others on
the motd live the good life? I *know* there are
others here who have and continue to do even better
than me. I don't get grumpy about it. I applaud
and cheer their success.
\_ sign yer posts so i can track your ass down.
\_ YWTFMITA?
\_ Yeah and then what? You wanted to meet the maid?
She's kinda cute.
\_ Any pics?
\_ No, but I could setup a webcam if you were
dying to see her.
\_ That'd be great. Thanks. URL?
\_ Well, my parents aren't that poor either. They eat out,
pay hundreds of dollars per month on international phone
calls, renovate their home, trade stocks, had an apt.
unit to collect rent, own a car in a country where a
parking space costs $400/mo and public transportation
can take you to places faster than driving. Recently
they even almost bought a brandnew Mercedes even though
sales tax on cars is 100%. But they still want me to
send them $1K/mo even thought I can't even afford
eating out. Sucks.
\_ Get new parents.
\_ Could it be Tokyo?
\_ Isn't sales tax on cars much lower than 100%
in Japan?
\_ the place ur parents live, could it be HK?
\_ Good guess. Yes it is HK.
\_ then ur parents' reason for collecting
money from you would be helping u save
money for marriage...
\_ My parents demand tribute as well, but
at least it's not as fucked up as that.
My parents are upper middle class Chinese. |
| 2001/2/7 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:20523 Activity:nil |
2/6 A while back someone asked about directory-specific aliases.
Couldn't you accomplish that with aliases?
alias cd 'source ./unaliasrc; cd !*; source ./aliasrc'
\-i was talking about directory-specific history stack. are you
misremembering or is this a different discussion? either way, this
is too klugy. you could probably build something liek this by extending
the tcsh completion mechanism. --psb |
| 2001/2/1-2 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:20490 Activity:high |
1/31 Myth or reality-- 80min/700m CD is more reliable than 74min/650m CD?
\_ Diablo was better than Myth.
\_ Myth Rocked. Diablo is mindless dribble.
\_ Reliable? Are you eating them or playing them in a sand storm or
what? These aren't floppies.
\_ With some lubrication, a 50-CD spool can be put to good use.
\_ wow, i never thought of sticking my weasel in there.
\_ pencil dick. |
| 2001/1/4-5 [Finance/Banking] UID:20232 Activity:high |
1/3 PayPal yield is 5.2% which is better than my saving and checking.
Is there any reason why I should not put some of my money in it?
\_ Yeah, when they go out of business like every other <DEAD>dot.com<DEAD> your
money will be locked up and you may never get it back!
\_ or when someone gets your account info and steals all your
money and paypal tells you tough luck.
\_ My credit union pays 5.5% now
\_ for what? the only things my credit union pays that much for
are CDs over 12 months and such.
\_ for mm checking? the only things my credit union pays that
much for are CDs over 12 months and such. mm checking is
only at 3.1... what's your credit union?
\_ <DEAD>broccoli.caltech.edu/~cefcu<DEAD> --not original poster
\_ What's "mm"? Mine has no penalty for w/draws. no ATM.
No minimum. Just a simple CU savings account. --orig responder
\_ mm stands for money market.
\_ My Wells Fargo MMA, which I can xfer money into and out of w/out
penalty and use at an ATM pays 5.86%
\_ Wells started charging like $15/month on this account
though
\_ Only if you keep less than $5k in it.
\_ It's $10K now. But, yeah, the rate is like
5.8% with check writing privs.
\_ Oh. Didn't know they changed it. Wasn't paying
anything. Anyway, you need to compute the cost
of the mothly charge for being under the min.
vs. rates available elsewhere.
\_ I just saw an ETrade ATM machine at an arcade near me.
\_ Since playing the market is little different than space
invaders. No matter how good you are they'll get you
eventually.
\_ http://virtualbank.com has 6.25% on checking + free online bill pay +
ATM reimbursements. |
| 2000/10/30 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking] UID:19600 Activity:nil |
10/30? was there a time change today or something. ? i only have one
clock and it's anaolog and i dont wind it all the time, and it
said thtat the time was over an hour from what it really was, but
i really thougnt i wound it last night. did that happen to anyone
else? is it daylight savings or somthieng.?
\_ moron
\_ If you forgot to wind the clock, it would be behind, not ahead of,
correct time. Next time think of something more realistic when
you write a troll. |
| 2000/10/17-19 [Finance/Banking] UID:19507 Activity:high |
10/17 What does that Washingtom Mutual ATM policy mean? Does it mean
that you can have a BofA ATM card and use a WM ATM free of charge
or does it mean that WM customers can use other bank's ATMs free
of charge?
\_ It means that if you have a BofA ATM card, you can use a WM ATM
without being charged by WM. That said, I believe that BofA may
hit you with a $1.50 charge for using a non-BofA ATM, but I'm
not certain of this.
\_ I thought I heard on the radio ad. at the end that if you
are not a WM customer, you may be charged a fee.
\_ Yes, by your *own* bank or credit union. --dim
\_ Nothing. It means Nothing. Washington Mutual is a POS company
that has no respect for its customers or its employees. It took
a decent local bank like Great Western (I was a customer of thiers
for 12 yrs) and turned it into one of the worst banks in the
world. - now with bofa
\_ HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA!!!! So, yes, you have proven you have great
'taste' in banks by moving to BofA, so well known for their
top notch customer dis-service.
\_ washington mutual is still a piece o shit though...
i mean, there will be a big ass line and only
one teller up processing it. what's up with that?!
\_ Gosh, and all these people are *forced* to _choose_
WM and _can't_ go anywhere else? Maybe it's worth
it to wait in line to get real service?
\_ because they actually offer low-cost checking
and dont force everyone to the ATM. ANd that
they actually offer "service". WAMU is NOT THAT
BAD compared to someplace like BofA, my god!
WHen i'm there they have almost all teller
windows open, plus two in the express line.
\_ BofA is much better in terms of teller
access, longer hours, more locations,
no ATM fees, friendlier customer services,
better online banking, integrated credit
card and checking account information and
quicker error correction. WM took months to
sort out errors, along with being unfriendly
to customers and employees. I banked at the
same branch (GW) for 8 years, and most of the
my companies credit union for ATM/cash/car loan. Satisfied
tellers loved GW and left within 6 mo. of the
buyout because WM treated them like shit. I
went to BofA because most of the people I
knew at my GW branch went to the local BofA
branch.
\_ in the two years that I've had my mortgage with WM, I've had to
call them three times in regards to various accounting errors.
I've done my banking (checking/savings) with Wells Fargo for
the past 7 years and never had a problem. My coworker formerly
with Home Savings Bank which was bought out by WM walked into
WM one day and was told she did not have an account with them.
She had to wait around for over an hour before they found her
account. I have zero trust in WM. Unfortunately, I also have
a 30 year mortgage with them.
\_ I used to. I then changed it to wells fargo mortgage when the
rates were lower.
\_ These days I use Net@Bank for most of my banking needs, and
my company's credit union for ATM/cash/car loan. Satisfied
with the arrangement so far. BofA sucks from what I remember.
I retain a low limit BofA credit card for shady online
purchases. |
| 2000/9/25-26 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:19320 Activity:low |
9/24 is it just me, or do new techno cds make older cd players skip?
\_ How can you tell? |
| 2000/9/6-7 [Finance/Banking, Finance/CC] UID:19188 Activity:insanely high |
9/6 motd poll: Would you continue a relationship with a SO after you
find out that he/she has a lot of debt? This is assuming that you
have no debt. Love might conquer all, but I'm curious how many people
go for the more pragmatic approach to a relationship.
\_ A pragmatic relationship isn't a relationship. I think you're
looking for a business partner or vc funding. I suggest removing
yourself from the race so you stop ruining perfectly good people
the rest of us might find attractive before you leave them bitter
and angry and hating everyone.
Debt is not a permanent condition, unlike your shallowness and
\_ how much debt?
\- it depends what tthe debt says about the person.
\- it depends what the debt says about the person.
student debt != crack ho. --psb
\_ I was ~$30k in debt when I graduated (stupid out of state tuition)
and now have paid off & $30k in savings after 2 years of working.
debt is not a permanent condition, unlike your shallowness and
ignorance.
\_ once in debt, always in debt. Economic awareness != shallowness.
People come and go $'s are forever.
\_ I would pay for her/him if s/he is really a SO of mine.
\_ Never sleep with anyone with more problems than you. - tpc
\_ and that's why you haven't been getting any, eh?
\_ All debt is bad. Ditch them and find someone who is economically
sound immediately. (There are some undergrads and grad students
that actually make money while going to cal. I doubled my net worth
from ~ 30K to ~ 65K in the four years I was at cal. I paid my own
tuition & expenses).
\_ we can't all run meth labs, sky
\_ I earned my money via investing and working (during
breaks and part-time). I was also lucky to have been
in school during the bull 90's and to have worked for
a company that let me do ESPP as an intern. - ! sky
\_ sky didn't come out much ahead while at school. i
remember being drunk and broke a lot going to those
clubs with sky. -uctt
\- i dont see what these personal anecdotes mean.
debt is the wrong target. it isnt good or bad. if a
particular case of debt means "this person has little
self control and cannot live within his/her means"
it's hard to claim that is a positive. if the debt
means this person is self sufficient but not rich,
it means something totally different. if you reaction
to this is "i respect that" that is one thing, if your
reaction is "they wont bring much to the relationship
in a material sense" that is something else. --psb
\_ If they are in debt then it places a financial
burden on them as well as you when you are in a
relationship. No debt is good. Look for people who
know how to avoid debt (its not that hard and the
people who know how to do that are better for you
in the long run).
\_ DEBT is BAD! Any kind of long term DEBT! (A few
hundred (or thousand depending on your incoming)
per month on a credit card is okay provided you
pay it off at the end of the month and never carry
a balance.) |
| 2000/8/31 [Finance/Banking, Academia/GradSchool] UID:19139 Activity:very high |
8/31 Are there student loans for grad school students? If so, where
can I get them, and what are the rates and terms?
\_yes.
\_ that answers the first question. Now go to the second one
in the series.
\_ Dumbshit, go talk to FA or a bank. You have no right to
the motd or answers expect get on. one here No 'owes' you
anything.
\_ tone may not have been correct. It was a simple
request, no expectations. However, there might
be good people with good information out there.
\_ in many fields, grad dstudents do not have to pay
tuition, and get a stipend to live on, and since
we dont have to pay back undergrad loans while in grad
school, the only motivation to get loans is to
live extravigantly or invest illegaly. hence the
ingnorance of many grad students about this subject.
-grad student
\_ Or to pay for spelling and typing lessons. |
| 2000/8/27-28 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking] UID:19103 Activity:high |
8/26 So what's the best vehicle to keep my money in
that I am not ready to invest for the long term?
money market? brokerage account? CD? savings account?
thanks!
\_ http://www.fool.com
To spare you the trouble of reading, put it into an
index fund (one based on the S&P 500). But I would
read it in its entirety if I were you.
\_ you are kidding right? S&P 500 index fund is a stock fund
and is not appropriate for short term investing.
\_ i keep it in the glove compartment of my ford tempo.
\_ the one that offers the best liquidity for the amount of
C. Brokerage money account -- pretty good option. The Rates
return you desire with the level of risk you can stomach.
\_ I agree. Other choices:
A. CD, can have better return than money market. However,
this is not liquid. If you need the money in a month,
and you can get a one year Cd, you are in trouble.
Rates are fixed for the term.
B. Savings accounts -- no way. They are FDIC insured,
but the yield is way too low.
C. Brokerage money market acct -- pretty good option. The Rates
are around 5.5%-6.5% these days. They are not
FDIC insured, but some may be insured by the SIPC and other
independent companies. Some have limits too, like $100,000
protection. Read your prospectus carefully.
Rates fluctuate.
D. Bonds and Treasury's -- good option. Better than CD's
because you can sell them before maturity. However, this
requires more knowledge than CD's, and if you don't
have a lot of money, this can be a problem. Watch
commission costs in buying bonds through a broker, too.
If held through maturity, you can are guaranteed (Treasury)
getting back what you put in. For corporate bonds,
you may not get back what you put in if it defaults.
Bonds are not recommended for beginners.
E. Bond mutual funds -- like bonds but you don't get your full
money back at the end of the term. (there is no term
for a bond mutual fund). Offers diversification of
bonds, so called expert management, and you can have lower
initial investment. Some have no fee and no load.
They do have a yearly expense fee hidden in the return
of the bond fund. Like bonds (if not held to maturity),
you can lose some money due to normal market conditions.
\_ leave it to the motd to give wishy washy answers. Here's where
you should put your money: the Strong Advantage bond fund.
about 1-year maturity, slightly lower quality than your typical
ultra-short term bond fund, but yielding 7.3%. BEAT THAT!!
\_ Look at REIT's; slightly riskier, but fairly safe as
stocks go. ENN, for example, is yielding over 15%.
There are lots of REIT's with various dividend levels
and risk levels (directly proportional). -tom
\_ I made $50 in Vegas last weekend _after_ paying all my
costs! BEAT THAT!!
\_ done with ultra high risk.
\_ both of those have much more share price volatility than
Strong Advantage (check out its chart, the price volatility
has been virtually nil), though it does have pretty high
yield volatility, but most bond funds do.
\_ http://virtualbank.com offers rates up to 6.5% APY for FDIC insured,
fully liquid accounts. Their website doesn't look good
in Netscape under Unix, though. |
| 2000/8/14-15 [Finance/Banking, Politics/Domestic] UID:18988 Activity:high |
8/14 Are "Bank of America" and "Banc of America" the same thing? I see
a lot of "banc"s in financial news articles.
\_ something to do with a law that dates back to the post-depression
days when they out-lawed any single bank from doing both
commericial banking and regular banking (or something like that).
The Ban{c|k} of America, I think, is their little loophole
to get around this.
\_ el blanco banco!
\_ http://www.hoovers.com/co/capsule/1/0,2163,47381,00.html |
| 2000/8/14-15 [Finance/Banking] UID:18975 Activity:very high |
8/12 What are credit unions? Someone said it's easier to obtain a credit
card through CU's. From what I've gathered, it just seems like
another word for bank.
\_ They're co-op banks (i.e. the customers are "members" who are the
owners, therefore they care more about the individual customer
than the big banks who care mostly about the big customers).
\_ Most CU's offer CC's to anyone who is a member. And as a member
you get to vote on how you want your CU run. --that someone
\_ They're banks that are much more liberal on lending. I went to
CCFCU for a car loan at 2pts better than what BofA would do. And
my visa card with them has been at 11.88% fixed for 5 years. While
that looked a tad high early in 1999, it's quite low the rest of
the time. CUs also have much lower balance requirements, and junk
fees are minimal. What they don't have are a lot of atms, branches
or well established online banking. -jor
\_ CC's: most CU's offer CC's to anyone who is a member. And
as a member you get to vote on how you want your CU run.
However, they may not give you the super-low CC interest-rates
that some big banks give their "best" customers. But if
you are starting out (no credit) it is great. (you shouldnt
be carrying a CC balance anyways so nevermind interest-rate)
Savings/Checking: note that CU's sometimes have limits on
the number of withdrawals or checks you can make per quarter
in order to get your higher-than-bank savings-interest-rate
and they do not have as many ATMs as some evil, slow, incompetent
banks like WF or BofA, but CU's are MUCH MORE responsive
to you. And they also have Holiday specials, car loan
specials and lower-interest-personal loans available:
you keep your savings account filled but take a CU loan and
pay yourself the interest -- this is cheaper, builds credit,
keeps you under your per-quarter-withdraw-limit --someone
patience." -- kahogan
\_ Credit unions? MUCH MORE responsive? Obviously you've never
tried to use my credit union's online banking service. Their
3-ring binder for dealing with customer complaints contains
exactly two answers: "Please upgrade to the latest version
of Internet Explorer", or "I've reset your password. Please
try logging in again." Sometimes when they want me to feel
like they care, they'll throw in "We appreciate your
patience." (What was the problem? Logging in to online
banking and getting nothing but a page declaring "SQL ERROR"
for multiple days in a row.) AEA Credit Union. -- kahogan
\_ the 2 i had were responsive but not online. Very low
tech, old-style. I called the lady to make withdrawals,
and she sent me check. thanks 4 warning, --someone
\_ They're banks that are much more liberal on lending. I went to
CCFCU for a car loan at 2pts better than what BofA would do. And
my visa card with them has been at 11.88% fixed for 5 years. While
that looked a tad high early in 1999, it's quite low the rest of
the time. CUs also have much lower balance requirements, and junk
fees are minimal. What they don't have are a lot of atms, branches
or well established online banking. -jor
\_ Well, as far as ATMs are concerned, you can usually find an ATM
that's part of the Co-op Network and you don't get charged any
fees usually. Another way to get cash without surcharges is to
pay for groceries via ATM card and ask for cash back.
\_ credit unions have a few nifty features, they offer a reasonable
interested rate on your checking account (slightly less than a
brokerage money market account but better than 1 or 2% at a bank),
fairly flexible credit cards with low interest rates, and shopper
services for things like cars. The shopper services are probably
worth it, since you can usually get a car for invoice via a credit
union. I got a mostly loaded corolla for $15k ($100 over invoice).
I could have got a civic or a low-end corolla (1.6 l) for $11k.
\_ All new Corollas have 1.8L engines.
\_ Actually, they've all got 1.6L engines. You only get the extra
.2L worth of power if you have the "NEUSPEED" or "Toyota
Racing Development" stickers on the outside of the vehicle.
\_ I got mine in 96. The only reason I got the 1.8 l is that the
gas mileage was 3 miles more according to the window sticker,
and they had it with green exterior tan interior, while the 1.6
l ones had bad interior colors.
\_ Mmm. American consumers.
\_ I forgot to add that the 1.6 l drove very badly and
could barely handle merging on the highway.
\_ YEAH D00D!!1! He should've taken the car with the
smaller engine, poorer gas mileage, and colors he didn't
like -- because then he could be a HIP, IRONIC, OUT-OF-
THE-MAINSTREAM ANTI-CONSUMERIST EURO SOPHISTICATE like
yourself!!1!!!!1!! Maybe you should give classes or
something so the rest of us don't make the same
horrible mistake. |
| 2000/8/13-14 [Finance/Banking] UID:18971 Activity:moderate |
8/12 I am looking for a good home loan; so far the lowest I've found is
8.25%; are there better ones out there? Any pointers appreciated
\_ yeah, mine's 6.625%. Of course I got it a year and a half
ago. Why the fuck would you ask the MOTD? Go to a loan
officer. -tom
\_ Tried. She feigned activity, and then proudly presented an 8.5%
one; a couple of hours of research on my own afterward yielded
the 8.25, which she stared at and shrugged. Turned me off toward
the whole idea. Asking the motd is (as most other things here)
mostly as a large audience a fraction of which may have
first-hand experience
\_ Rates change daily. There is not a large audience
of people who have gotten a rate in the past week. -tom
\_ hey let people ask what they want on the motd
\_ don't talk back at tom, he is god -tom #1 fan
\_ Keep looking. Check more banks/CUs/mortgage, perhaps even
online. Variable or fixed? 30 or 10 year? Check the bizness
section of the newspaper? Used to know a sneaky slimy loan
officer who could work the numbers to squeeze out a good rate
so referral can help. Dunno what's current now. --someone |
| 2000/7/20-21 [Finance/Banking] UID:18738 Activity:nil |
7/20 Seen on a "student loan trust foundation" site:
"Due to an enormous amount of uncollectable debts by
Psychology/Therapy/Counseling/Social Welfare students, we no
longer provide loans for these majors."
[http://www.mewtrust.com/qualify.htm] |
| 2000/6/11-12 [Finance/Banking, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:18440 Activity:nil |
6/9 What's the difference between GMT and UTC? What is UTC anyway?
\_ Universal
\_ "coordinated universal time" Google:
http://sts.sunyit.edu/timetech/gmt-utc.html (You may also find
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil helpful.) GMT is sort of an older
standard. Somewhere it says that GMT doesn't account for earth's
rotational drift with leap seconds but UTC does. In practice they
are used to mean the same thing, although some people seem to use
GMT if they want to emphasize Britain's local time zone. It is
probably better to call it UTC. --Galen
\_ As an aside, I believe leap seconds are being eliminated. --dim
\_ What could replace them? There must be some way of reconciling
the definition of the second with the earth's motion. --Galen
\_ As an aside, I believe the rotation of the earth is being
eliminated.
\_ As an aside, I believe Galen is being eliminated.
\_ As an aside, I believe the earth is being eliminated.
\_ As an aside, I believe this thread is
eliminated.
\_ http://answerpointe.cctec.com/maillists/ietf/msg11662.html --dim
\_ Is there some coordinated international coalition of people
of Greek decent trying to do away with leap seconds!?
\_ True GMT gets adjusted for "Summer Time" (the brit equiv of
daylight savings) - UTC does not. Most of the time people refer
to GMT they mean UTC. |
| 2000/4/16 [Science/GlobalWarming, Finance/Banking] UID:18024 Activity:high 70%like:18032 |
4/16 I keep seeing people protesting the IMF and the World Bank on
the news. Their main complaint seems to be that these organizations
are charging interest on loans they made to third world countries.
This seems like a lame argument because the IMF and World Bank
are making LOANS not DONATIONS. Are the protestors all stupid
or are there logical reasons why the IMF and World Bank are bad?
The news doesn't seem to present both sides of the story and I
would like to hear a rational argument from the protestors point
of view before forming an opinion. Thanks. -emin
\_ many people are protesting because the money goes to corporations
and adds to environmental problems and does not help the poor and
leaves the countries at the beck and call of the IMF/World Bank
until the loans are repaid, which in the case of very poor nations
is basically forever.
\_ How many of those 'loans' do you see being paid back? Many of
the developign countries are defaulting or threatening to default
on their loans. Hence the desire to lower interest rates. And,
of course, a loan at below-market interest rates is essentially
a form of foreign aid.
\_ I love shotgun compassion. "Give us your money or we will put
you to jail, so we can give it to random corrupt governments
elsewhere as foreign aid."
\_ Three words: Impossible Mission Force
__
\__/ .\/ tweet tweet
/ /\
\____/
| |
^ ^ |
| 2000/2/3-4 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking, Finance/Shopping] UID:17416 Activity:high |
2/2 According to McCain, he's for Social Security and "paying down
the debt." When we pay down the debt, who benefits the most?
IN other words, who holds certificates to our nation's debt?
\_ The CHILDREN. Won't somebody *please* think of the CHILDREN!
\- er, i think you are misunderstanding what this means. the
alternative to paying down the debt isnt defaulting. paying down the
debt really means you will slow down the rate of issuing new debt.
you have to finance deficit spending either by borrowing [in which
case the govt competes with private industry for savings, raising the
cost of money, i.e. the itnerest rate] or the govt can print money, an
option not open to a private individual/firm, but not totally free
for the govt either, since paying back with inflated dollars is kind
of a partial defualt. quite a bit of US treasure instruments are
held by foreigners, btw. --psb
\_ I think you are misunderstanding the question. The person asked
who will benefit by the paying off of the National debt, not
what effect it would have upon any (hypothetical) future deficit
spending.
\_ #1 holder of US Treasury products is Americans. Japanese #2.
I think Chinese have recently started buying huge
amounts.
\_ Why do you think that the Gov't's lenders want to be paid
back instead of continuing to be paid interest? And remember,
this is money they already gave the Gov't. Right now I think
$200G goes to paying iterest on our debt. How much does our
military cost? --PeterM
\_ My point (admittedly unclear) about the military
is that the interest on our debt could go a long
way to paying the military budget. --PeterM
\- if you look at debt/GDP for the us, the number isnt too bad.
the problem here isnt high debt, but extrmemely low private
savings rate. --psb
\_ You want to dump the military? Which foreign language
would you prefer to learn to talk to your new leaders?
\_ Japanese! :-)
\_ right. in japan, you'd be lucky to find people to
openly express themselves in public conversation like
this.
\_ thats why I like it. And no more stupid
"gay marriages" either.
\_ If you want to live in a cultural clam shell, go
there. No reason to destroy this country when
Japan is only a plane flight away. To each his
own.
\_ No tipping! Schoolgirl panties in vending
machines! It's a utopia!
\_ And blue dots on all the pr0n.
\_ Blue Dots are Artistic, or something. --oj
\_ Pubic hair is banned. Rape is ok.
with nukes at our disposal? The age of true tactical warfare
on a large, sustained scale are long gone. Red Storm Rising
will never occur in an age of easy and cheap nuclear armament.
\_Screw the military, we have nukes, who's gonna invade us
with nukes at our disposal? The age of true tactical
warfare on a large, sustained scale are long gone. Red
Storm Rising will never occur in an age of easy and cheap
nuclear armament.
\_ You're neither funny, nor clever, nor a good troll.
\_ You're an idiot. Or this is a weak troll. Or both.
Either way, there's no point in providing a serious
reply. No military = pick your new foreign leadership.
\_ We should take all the welfare cases, issue them with
little mind control helmets, and give them all backpack
nukes. That would rewl. Also, we should get rid of all
our tanks and buy a few hundred thousand Daihatsu Grand
Moves (the really narrow minibuses that always tip over)
and put Davy Crockett XM-28 recoilless atomic cannon on
the top of them and fill them with TNT and have these
massive swarms of little stupid-looking minibuses
with bigfoot tires chewing up the countryside lobbing
rapid-fire atomic munitions at the enemy before ramming
them in a blaze of glory. We'll get rid of INS and
customs/border patrol too, and replace them with massive
300-deep belts of of B-54 SADM nuclear land mines. We
will take care of our strategic interests by building
a titanic post-hole digger and dropping massive amounts
of nuke silos in the entire midwest, side-by-side.
Problems with Iraq? Send 'em a few Minutemen IIs for
fun. China acting up? Santa's bringing a bag full
of Titans with 20MT warheads to Peking. All US-flagged
vessels will be replaced with TridentIII subs (let the
cruise-line geezers swim) and all US air carriers will
be required to replace their planes with B-70s, for
extra impressive value. Slim Pickens for president!
Nukular Fucking Weapons! We'll be invincible! -John
\_ You're an idiot. Or this is a weak troll. Or both.
Either way, there's no point in providing a serious
reply. No military = pick your new foreign leadership.
\_ John, you my hero.
\_ Oh My God John I just creamed my shorts. I wish
I wrote that. -brain
\_ Funny how I knew this was John by line 2. I got
as far as "mind control helmets".
\_ I would totally LOVE to keep and save all the money that the
social security system is taking away from me to squander
on the retirees of today.
\_ You get your turn when you're retired to screw the
children and grand children of the people who are
screwing you now.
\_ Unfortunately, I am of post-babyboom and
pre-echoboom, meaning that I get screwed
and when I try to screw, they have the
numbers to share the burden. Maybe that
means I will have a comfortable retirement
even if I spend all my money today.
\_ Me too and no we won't because the 'echo
boomers' are going to make sure there's lots
of SS money in place before they get there.
They'll outnumber the old geezers. We'll be
fine. SS isn't the kind of program that can
be changed over night and it isn't going
away any time soon.
\_ Pay down the debt = interest rates go down, bonds are less
attractive (capital is cheaper), money is distributed to more
efficient uses (ie. capital) ... Virtually every credible
economist, including Greenspan, supports paying down the
debt before taxes. The benefits of paying down the debt
assumption of 1.5% average annual growth rate, which is way conservative.
The average for the century (with Great Depression and all) is something
like twice that, not to mention current growth rates...
outway lower taxes.
\_ Too bad we do neither to any great degree.
\_ Ah, the sound of young impressionable minds soaking up libertarian
propaganda. Government debt is not like yours or mine. Most of the
lack of a name in an inherintly anonymous forum. I
government debt is owned directly or inderectly (eq via pension funds)
private individuals. So, we have a bunch of ordinary Americans repaying
another bunch of ordinary Americans. Who exacly is getting a better deal
- the lenders or the borrowers is, as usual, far from clear.
The very popular study of Social Security going broke is based on the
assumption of 1.5% average annual growth rate, which is way
conservative. The average for the century (with Great Depression and
\_ Oops, sorry I wrote that. -- ilyas
all) is something like twice that, not to mention current growth
rates...
Does the above poster imply that "Greenspan supports lower interest
rates"? (simple transitivity) The way I understand Federal Reserve's
current approach is that they see issuing government paper as primarily
an instrument of monetary policy, not fiscal policy. -muchandr
\_ Hey Muchkin, I never had a chance to ask what your political views
were. -- ilyas
\_ Then don't. Not on the motd.
\_ Hey, the man isn't stupid, he can write me.
And sign your name.
-- ilyas
\_ What's up with the obsession with signing one's name? If
they wanted to they would have in the first place, duh.
\_ Coward. -- ilyas
\_ G-duh! You're such an idiot. "Anyone who doesn't
post everything with their real name like me is a
coward!!!! -ilyas". Sheesh, you and Tom. At least
Tom is mature enough now to stop drooling over the
anon posters and dismissing them entirely merely for
lack of a name in an inherently anonymous forum. I
suspect it'll take you even longer to grow up since
you're clearly less intelligent than Tom.
\_ It's 'inherently.' And the motd isn't inherently
anything. You can choose to sign your name and
stand by your words like me, or Tom, or psb or
you could just be an anonymous bombardier whose
words don't carry any weight. -- ilyas
\_ Anonymity does not make the words any less true.
And signing one's name doesn't make the words
any more true. You're a perfect example of
the latter. You sign everything yet your words
signify nothing. Numerous anonymous people
here have provided a lot of useful and accurate
information. Anonymity has nothing to do with
the quality or value of the contribution. And
yes the motd is inherently anonymous as there
is no signing requirement or method to enforce
such a thing. The default is anonymity. If
you choose otherwise, that's nice, but not at
all relevent to anything.
\_ If they signify nothing then replying is
a waste of time. At any rate, I am of the
opinion that truly tasteful flaming has to
have a name behind it. God knows there are
lots of people I don't like, and I never
had a problem telling them this to their
face. -- ilyas
\_ I'm glad you're happy being a loutish
boor. The rest of us try to get along
and mostly shut the fuck up when we don't
like someone because telling them so won't
improve matters and often makes it worse.
And what does tasteful flaming have to
do with anything? Feeling like a topic
change?
\_ Since low private savings rate is considered a problem, what are
are some approaches to increasing the incentive for private
savings. |
| 1999/11/30-12/1 [Finance/Banking, Recreation/House, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:16974 Activity:kinda low |
11/30 Hi, I'm looking for a reference CD-ROM on trees and plants. I went
to a couple of Frys stores and they didn't seem to have it. I'm
wondering if encyclopedia CD-ROMs have that info. Stuff like
temperature and water requirements for trees and plants, what kind of
soil they need, etc. Thanks.
\_ http://www.sunset.com/Books/cdroms/WesternGardenCD.html (Sunset
Magazine's _Western Garden Book_ on CD-ROM.) -- kahogan
\_ Thanks a lot kahogan! |
| 1999/8/28 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives, Recreation/Media] UID:16417 Activity:nil 57%like:15884 |
8/26 Star Wars in ASCII! http://www.asciimation.co.nz --dim |
| 1999/8/11 [Finance/Banking] UID:16288 Activity:kinda low |
8/10 Why doesn't Arizona use daylight savings time?
\_ Hawaii doesn't either. No farms in Hawaii or Arizona?
\_ And why does the Navajo Nation do?
\_ Why is China all one time zone?
\_ Why should they?
\_ So that it'll be in sync with most of the country, I'd think. |
| 1999/4/2 [Finance/Banking] UID:15689 Activity:nil |
4/1 Anyone willing to sell/loan out some CRACK (and PCP
if you have it) to a poor game needy graduate student? - seidl |
| 1999/3/24-25 [Finance/Banking] UID:15645 Activity:nil |
3/24 What exactly is "money market"? How is it different from regular
savings account that earns interest?
\_ <DEAD>fyiowa.webpoint.com/finance/sv_mma.htm<DEAD> |
| 1999/3/3 [Finance/Banking, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:15522 Activity:high |
3/2 I got this "11 CDs for the price of 1" deal from BMG Music Service
in mail. Are these CD club things real? Are they traps? Thanks.
\_ BMG is pretty good because you only have to buy one. Columbia
house is bad because you have to buy more than one. However,
keep in mind that you still pay shipping for the 10 "free" CD's.
When you factor that in, the free CD's come out to be about
$2.50 each, I think. It's still a good deal, though. - mikeym
house is bad because you have to buy more than one. Keep in mind
that you still pay shipping for the 10 "free" CD's. When you
factor that in, the free CD's are about $2.50 each. It's still a
good deal, though. - mikeym
\_ I got dicked by Columbia House once; they did not respond
to multiple requests to cancel my "membership", even after
after I sent back multiple CDs with "CANCEL MY MEMBERSHIP"
letters (I'd fulfilled my part of the deal and bought the CDs
I had to, which were pretty good.) They kept sending me discs
and ignoring my phone calls, so I just started keeping them,
which is when I got hit by lots of nasty letters. A few
angry phone calls eventually set them straight, but it was
a big pain in the ass. -John
\_ Does BMG use the same trick to make money?
\_ They both take an enormously long time to respond to
cancellation notices (like 3 months). However, you can
respond to their mailings on-line. CH also has this
new thing were you do not need to respond to their
mailings unless you want to receive something.
\_ BMG is starting that now too
\_ bmg thinks e-mail spam is a valid form of advertising. boycott them.
\_ I've joined both BMG and CH multiple times -- unless the system
has changed recently, BMG CDs average to $3.50 each, including
shipping, and CH Cds are $5 each. BMG has a pretty small
selection, though, and so now I generally use CH. -niloc |
| 1998/11/25-29 [Finance/Banking] UID:15030 Activity:low |
11/25 Does anyone know of a credit union/bank that will loan to students
on a relatively low interest rate? perhaps $2000/1yr?
Thanks ...
|_ You could see about a standard student loan, I think they have
nice rates and interest deferred until you graduate etc.
\_If you can get yourself a perkins loan, the deferred
interest is 5%, as opposed to the adj rate of direct
loans which are 7+%.
\_ Get a credit card with a low introductory rate, and ask
for convenience checks.
\_ Some convenience checks charge 2-3%...read the fine
print.
\_ Actually, I got a Southwest VISA card with a
low introductory rate, and they haven't charged
me for using their convenience checks. But yes,
do read the fine print.
\_ but they do charge the normal cash advance
interest, which is typicall 14-19%/yr |
| 1998/11/23-24 [Finance/Banking] UID:15009 Activity:high |
11/23 Bank of America on-line banking SUCKS BIG TIME. It is full of graphics
and everything is friggin' slow. Does anyone have similar experience
w/Citibank? Is it worth switching to? Thanks.
\_ I have been using the one with Chase Manhattan and it's quick
enough for me who has to call international as I cannot use
their toll-free numbers from Tokyo. (FYI: The toll-free
numbers in US work as toll-free only in US, and the ones in
Japan work only in Japan.) Their 24 hours telephone customer
service is good as I can call collect. --yumin
\_ online banking? What can you do with online banking that you
\_ Paying bills to Pag Bell, PG&E, etc. Getting a transaction
can't do with a checkbook and an ATM card?
\_ Satying in the comfort of your little cubbyhole of a cubicle.
And in some areas, not haveta worry about being mugged at the
ATM.
\_ since when did personal computers start dispensing cash?
\_ not everyone goes to an atm to deposit/withdraw cash.
\_ Paying bills to Pac Bell, PG&E, etc. Getting a transaction
history in spreadsheet or Quicken format. Staying dry while
xfering from checking to savings/credit card. |
| 1998/11/3 [Finance/Banking] UID:14886 Activity:nil |
11/2 San Francisco Book Fair this weekend -- check out http://www.sfbook.org if you're interested. They usu. have lots of authors, signings, deals on slightly damaged books, etc. --tabloyd |
| 1998/8/27 [Finance/Banking] UID:14520 Activity:high |
8/26 Late Night Denizens of Soda Rejoice! BofA is bringing you an ATM!
Watch for a versatel machine to appear this fall at the cafe on the
roof of Bechtel Hall!
\_ Sounds bad for Le Petit & Seven Palms...
\_ Oh, it sure does! I bet they'll go out of business now!
YOU ARE A PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR AN ABORTION AND YOU WOULD BE
MARKEDLY IMPROVED BY INDEFINITE TORTURE. -(fucker)
\_ I wouldn't rejoice at a new BofA ATM appearing _anywhere_.
"Hey! $75 transaction fee for non-customers who withdraw
from this ATM!" Couldn't the School of Engineering have cut
from this ATM!" Couldn't the powers-that-be have cut
a deal with a credit union, or some less profiteering bank?
\_ like C.U.B.S. for example, something
that would have made _sense_ and been
good for the students... |
| 1998/6/24 [Finance/Banking] UID:14246 Activity:high |
6/23 Up to 4 tix for Lillith fair tomorrow Wed 6/24 to sell. Lawn seats.
$20 each ($13 dollar savings each inc. BASS fee). -moray 649-8791
\_ 2 tix, now. (As of 11am, I'm not going). |
| 12/24 |