Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 02:18 PM) But that is fundamentally different from being able to establish a long term retirement plan. No, it's not. Good personal finance habits through your life provides you with late-life retirement benefits like having some savings and not having anything to pay for.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 02:12 PM) the only reason people don't have large retirement accounts is lack of education and responsibility? Absolutely. The people we're talking about here don't understand money and finances. They spend too much. They buy s*** they can't afford. They over extend themselves. They're the idiots that think buying a 250k home with a 5 year arm is a good decision because they can pay for it right now. Or a lower monthly payment on a car but for a longer term with high interest is the right decision. And they make those mistakes for 60 years. Hell, the most basic one of all is that education = more money.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 02:12 PM) Financial investment isn't a "basic skill of survival" anywhere before the late-20th century. I don't think we should look to a social retirement scheme only as a last-resort. I think it should be a guaranteed thing for everyone. I don't see any social benefit to funneling such a huge chunk of our wealth to the financial sector and exposing people to so much individual risk. PERSONAL FINANCE is the basic skill of survival. Not really sure how you can dispute that in today's world.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 02:00 PM) Again, you're back to a tautology. I'm asking why that's currently the system (it's only been that way for a few decades) and if it makes any sense for it to be that way. I don't agree that it does, and I don't see any net benefits that result from tying individual investment savvy to your ability to get by once you can no longer work. Are you equating providing food, shelter and clothing to the same sorts of skills required to be a successful investor? You and jenks have both said "it's how people provide for their families" or some stuff about "hunter-gatherers." Investment income is not how 99.99999% of people have ever provided for their families, and it's not how 99% of them provide for them now. It's an additional skill that you'd need to be able to pick up and do well with decades before you'll see the end results and hope there's no catastrophes outside of your control along the way. Why? Why not just increase SS benefits and not put so much individual risk out there? What good comes of tying retirement to how well you invested your money over the past 30 years? If 99% of people don't do it in the first place, why is it a problem? If SS has been the main retirement plan, why isn't the current level sufficient? I'm not seeing old people dying left and right because their SS checks aren't big enough.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 01:54 PM) Like I said, someone needs to give you a lesson in financial literacy, because you're in deep denial about how big health care costs are. Oh please Balta, teach me. Look, I deal with this crap all the time with my job. Medical care is expensive. I get that. But if you don't have the money, you're not left on the street to die. You're not kicked out of a nursing home. W What we're talking about here isn't getting rid of a social safety net, it's adding to one for people that with a little bit of education and self-responsibility don't need.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 01:30 PM) 1) We (the Western world) haven't been living in "hunter/gatherer" societies for a few thousand years now, but those societies and even many agrarian societies tended to be heavily egalitarian. Very few people actually provide for their family via investment income anyway. Most people provide for their family by selling their labor. Saying "that's how you provide for [your retirement]" is just a tautology. I'm asking why is that the current (and relatively recent) system, and should it be that way? What's the societal benefits of that? What are the costs and risks? Saving a small portion of your yearly salary without investing it isn't going to result in that much savings. Take the median income, $50k, at %5 a year (which might be more than your typical family of four can reasonably afford to set aside). That's only $75,000 after 30 years of working. You don't have to be a Harvard business grad to realize that having money set aside in retirement is a good idea, and you don't have to be a Harvard business grad to realize that many people can't actually afford to set aside all that much. And that you need it to grow with compounding interest over time for it to amount to anything, which is an assumption the whole model is built on but isn't working out in actual practice very well. But it's the same principle - that for some reason our basic skill of survival is ignored simply because the Great Provider is there for us. Look, I've said it ten times now, I'm fine helping people out and I agree the collective group is in the best position to do that. But what your socialist dreams create is a society of GIMME GIMME GIMME, I have the RIGHT to that assistance. It's not a last resort, it's the first expectation. There's a huge societal detriment to that and we see it all the time in Chicago. Welfare is a failure. And every time we decide to chip away at personal responsibility (or familial responsibility) we just extend the problem. Not fixed annuities. Not CD's. You might not get that 6-7% yearly return, but you'll get more than 0. I think you're too stuck on this limited period of time where the market crapped out. Look at the overall trend of the stock market and it's being going up, up, up, even with some dips. I'm not aware of too many conservative, long-term investments that have failed. And the bolded goes back to a debate a few weeks ago - these poor souls are the victims of their own stupidity. They can't do anything about it so society has the responsibility to help them out. I don't view people or the world that way. Umm, less government dependence and more financial freedom?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 01:27 PM) This is a great clause to throw in at the end of a discussion of why financial literacy and financial planning is the most important skill one should have. Because you're dramatically underestimating health care costs...to the point where someone could reasonably question your financial literacy. Let's just look at Medicare itself's numbers: And another number: That $1200 a month would...on average, be 1/2 gone entirely due to medical problems. And since it's an average...that means this happens: The last 5 years of life being the key there, basically nursing home care, which you don't directly pay for. Either your SS or Medicaid pays for it (and you're provided everything you need). You don't need an extra 1500 bucks to play checkers in the home on weekends.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 12:43 PM) I know the answer! You can keep it locked up in a safe asset like your house! Those don't decrease in value! Or a bank! Those are always stable! Clearly the answer is to just give people the same things - same houses, same cars, same clothes. That way we're all equal and if something bad happens to someone we have a ready supply of the same s*** to give them.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 12:24 PM) Three things, first one most important. 1) Why should your ability to retire be tied to your financial investing aptitude (and ability to set aside current earnings for investment)? Why should we prize that as the most important skill someone could have, and why should we funnel so much of our economy towards the financial sector? 2) "safe" investments can turn to s***, too. That's why the 2008 collapse was so bad. 3) Even if you aren't near retirement when the investments take a s***, it could still mean a "lost decade" that destroys any sort of annual compounding projections. You could be stuck with a 401(k) plan with s***ty high-fee options with terrible returns. You can have no 401(k) option at all. (1) First, savings =/= investment. Planning out your long term debt =/= investment. You don't to be a Harvard business grad to understand that later in life, when you stop working, your income stream stops coming in and you need to be prepared. And really, why the hell shouldn't your personal finance practices be the most important skill you have?? That's how you provide for yourself and your family. If this were a hunting/gathering society, wouldn't the most important skill be tied to your ability to obtain food and feed your family? When did that idea get lost? Oh, right, when government became the Great Provider of Everything. (2) Buy annuities if you can't handle risk in the market but still want a steady rate of return. Open a money market account. There are lots of different ways to protect the money you've earned and be conservative with your investments. Anyone over 60 should be doing this anyway. (3) This is true, but better personal finance practices and investment practices as you age limits the damage. At the end of the day everyone that lost their money in the recession, had they stuck with it, made it all back and then some. Why is it the governments responsibility to pay for someones retirement? I just don't get that mindset. I get wanting to help people that have fallen on hard times. I don't get this "right" to be taken care of by the government no matter what your position is in life. I know that's your socialist dream and all, but I literally don't understand that way of thinking. And I still don't see how $1200+ a month isn't sufficient for an old person (or twice that for an old married couple). You don't have kids to pay for, you shouldn't have debt (and even if you pay for a car or pay rent, how much could you possibly need?) Supplemental insurance can be pricey, I get that, but MOST health problems are covered by Medicare, so it's not like you're paying out of pocket costs for every health problem you have.

This just means one less day of having to throw out junk mail.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 10:57 AM) It's hard to save up a significant amount of money for your future when wages have been stagnant for decades but COL hasn't, and when the markets take a huge s*** right as you happen to approach retirement. Nor can you rely on friends and family if they're going through the same situation. You can responsibly plan for the future and still have your plans go to s*** through no fault of your own. Or maybe through fault of your own, but nobody's perfect, and people shouldn't be made to suffer because our experiment in "everyone's an investor! (minus management fees!)" didn't work out so well. I'd much rather have a robust social safety net than rely on everyone to be their own little savers and investors. If you were that close to retirement none of your investments should have been in the market at all precisely for that risk of losing a big chunk of it. I'm in favor of a social safety net too, but for those people that get screwed by life, not those people that are willfully ignorant/irresponsible about it. If you don't save a dime over your lifetime and SS isn't enough to cover you, whelp, too bad.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 11:06 AM) Just pay your taxes. I'm sure that I will at the end of the day. Just wondering if that's really "income" or a "gift."

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 10:34 AM) Absolutely he could. Its all a matter of if you get audited, the "it slipped my mind" isn't going to fly. Of course if you are a basic W-2 filer with pretty simple returns, the odds of being audited tend to be pretty minor. And it would be hard for them to identify it other then checking into your bank records and noticing the large deposit. I'd probably have a tax accountant submit for all of the 1099's and various documents that are out there to ensure it wasn't reported (and you just didn't get it mailed to you). Cause when you get on the 13K with penalties, fines, and interest on top of it (if it was reported and you didn't include it), you are definitely risking it. I'm doing it myself too so....oops! Just forgot to put that on the form Mr. IRS man. Let me file an amended return... Seriously though, what are the odds? It's a few grand, and I think I have a good argument that it's not "income" because I didn't "work" for it. How is it any different than someone giving me a physical gift like a bottle of scotch or a dinner for hooking them up with a network connection?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 10:32 AM) My dad is an IRS agent, I have already reported jenks to the appropriate authorities. Ha nice.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 09:58 AM) How was the money disbursed to you? By check.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 6, 2013 -> 10:21 AM) A significant number of Americans don't live in a house that they own and healthcare costs are still a huge financial burden, and a significant number of those that do live in their own house still have debt tied to it. That's a result of having stagnant wages for decades but increasing cost-of-living. Cars break down and don't last 20-30 years without extensive maintenance. Are you really advocating for a society were most seniors have to scrape by on $1200 a month? No, but i'm not sure how much more of a safety net we need to implement on a nation-wide basis, nor do I think it's societies responsibility to take care of those people that plan for the future irresponsibly. It'd be a good thing if the expectation was that your family/friends had to help you out instead of the government. Perhaps people would change their ways, have a little bit more personal responsibility during their lives, knowing they'd eventually have to ask for help from people they know, as opposed to the Big Nanny.

Why would you need more than 1200+ a month, plus whatever you have saved for retirement? By 65 you shouldn't have any debt. House, loans, cars, etc should all be paid off. You don't have to worry about healthcare costs or prescription drug costs. What else is there?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 5, 2013 -> 09:57 PM) The End of Cod This is why I'm highly skeptical of relying on technology for any sort of long-term ecological/environmental solutions--more often than not, technological advances have just made it easier and more profitable to strip ever-more resources out of the environment. And it's a labor/economic problem as well as the industry that a lot of these small New England towns relied on is simply gone and not coming back, just like Midwest manufacturing towns, a lot of mining towns and PNW logging towns. No more Filet-o-Fish Edit: Nevermind! McDonald's uses the Atlantic Pollock, not Cod. http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-N...stainable-label

If you don't get a 1099, can you consider the money you received a gift? Anyone have this issue come up? The scenario: I worked a case for my firm that had been referred to us by another firm. The two firms split the cut of the settlement proceeds that I was able to get. As a "thank you," the other firm gave me a portion of their cut. I never received a 1099 and it's less than the gift tax amount of $13k. Can I consider this a non-taxable gift? Technically I wasn't working for them, I was working for my firm. He just happened to get a referral fee, and was nice enough to give me a thank you portion.

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2013/02/05/stu...e-cyberloafing/ Yep, I'd say that's pretty accurate. Edit: Bah, can an admin fix the thread title to "Surfing." Thanks.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 5, 2013 -> 04:54 PM) I doubt the lawsuit would be frivolous, but that is going to depend on how quickly Trump loses in summary judgment. Motion for sanctions generally has to be after the defendant has been found not liabile. As for your second part, I am confused as to why there would be any shift of burden. It will be up to Trump to prove by the preponderance of the evidence that Maher and Trump had a contract. In order to prove a contract Trump has to allege elements and prove those elements. Some of the problems that Trump will have is 1) offer, what were the exact terms, when did it expire, does a "joke" constitute an offer, 2) acceptance, did Trump actually ever accept the "offer" that Maher made, 3) meeting of the minds were Maher and Trump on the same page when Trump accepted the offer and 4) consideration, what was Maher going to get. It also appears they are not arguing unilateral contract, as the pleadings state specifically that Trump accepted Maher's offer. In a unilateral contract acceptance is irrelevant. All that matters is that there was an offer and completion. If I put up: "$1,000 reward to first person to find my dog" you dont write me a letter stating you are going to find my dog, you find my dog, you get the money. So it seems that Trump's attorneys are trying to play both sides, yet didnt plead it in the alternative. This should be summary judgment. Trump's attorneys cant even formulate what the offer is in the pleadings. Its just a mismashed jumble quote "suppose that perhaps DT had been the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan... I hope its not true... but, unless he can offer proof, I'm willing to offer $5million dollars to Donald Trump." The brief bolded 1 part, I am going to bold a different part. That is called a hypothetical. The more I read their pleadings, the more I would go for sanctions. Even their lawyers cant keep this joke straight. It's Trump's burden to establish a contract, yes, but for Maher to get out of this he's going to have to use, as a defense, that it was a joke and he didn't mean it. Trump doesn't have to show that Maher was serious. At least that's what I would argue without doing any research into it. Re: the jet case, I think advertising is a different ballgame than this case. And really, I think that was a BS decision If you're going to fake offer crap to get people to buy your product, you should be prepared to give them what you offer, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 5, 2013 -> 04:39 PM) check volokh's links (he's a professor of law at UCLA, though not, as he notes, of contract law). He cites Washington law, which isn't controlling. Still though, I agree that it's going to come down to a reasonable person standard as to whether he really intended to make the offer. Edit: from that case: It would have been really interesting if Maher's comment was something like "i'll give you 5 million if you prove you're actually American given what awful principles you hold." The orangutan line pushes it to the realm of absurdity. But hey, they can get it to trial at least, and let the trier of fact (jury) decide.

There's no way this would be considered frivolous. First, there's a good argument to be made there, even if he ultimately loses and it's more likely than not that he will lose. Frivolous is filing a case you know has 0% chance of winning. You can be pretty certain you will lose and still file the case without being sanctioned. Second, i'm not aware of any "joke" defense to contracts. Yes, this will come down to a reasonable person standard, i.e. would a reasonable person believe that Maher intended to create a unilateral contract. But that's Maher's burden now, not Trumps.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 5, 2013 -> 03:48 PM) I'm trying to get over the fact that this sounds unworkable on investigation grounds. If a robbery suspect is apprehended, how do you actually link the suspect to the stolen goods and victim if the police never shows up to take a statement, fingerprint the door, or anything else like that? Clearly it can't just be a free pass for robbery, right? How do you take evidence in the case if the police don't arrive at some point? That's what I mean - they've just admitted that they're giving up on those cases completely. They're not going to even fake being police. I have an email into one my CPD buddies. I'm interested to see what he says. I'm guessing it's the reality that 99% of the time those are bulls*** cases that never get solved anyway, so why waste the time/money/manpower.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 5, 2013 -> 03:40 PM) You can see why they wouldn't want to establish that precedent though...the police would then be potentially liable for every failure to protect a citizen, and all their negligent actions would be called into question, etc, etc... Yeah, but you can state that on different grounds like, hey just because a judge enters a protective order doesn't mean you get an armed security team to follow you around.