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1) Here's a list of top dividend paying stocks, from Kiplinger's.

2) Here's a list of Treasury note and bill yields, from Treasury Direct.

You can see the differentials in returns. I guess 1 and 2 percent returns on stocks is superseded by the expected appreciation.

If you started buying stocks in 1987, "dollar cost averaging" with your income, you would be in a very good position today. My point is that the game has changed. The financial media used to whisper/joke about the "Greenspan Put". More recently one of the Fed Vice chairs (Stanley Fischer) said overtly that the Fed should take on a "third mandate", that of financial market stability. Today, it de facto if not de jure acts to support financial markets. It is going to stop its balance sheet runoff and interest rate increase program in response to the December stock market drops. This support has changed the nature of the game from dividends to chasing appreciation, since there the Fed is all but explicitly supporting the market. And it's not just here but also in the world's 2nd largest economy, China.

Oh and by the way, I listen to Bloomberg radio for financial market commentary most mornings. And I read The Economist for further observations.

I'm not heavily exposed to the stock market. But there are people I respect who have been, and are today, "all-in" on the stock market. And they've done quite well. I can only provide my perspective, FWIW, and YMMV. I support informed decisions.

Uh-huh.

Equifax is already facing the largest class-action lawsuit in US history
https://bgr.com/2017/09/08/equifax-hack-lawsuit-class-action-how-to-join/

Equifax's Massive Data Breach Has Cost the Company $4 Billion So Far
http://time.com/money/4936732/equifaxs-massive-data-breach-has-cost-the-company-4-billion-so-far/

How to Get In on a Class-Action Lawsuit Against Equifax
https://www.kiplinger.com/article/credit/T017-C000-S002-get-in-on-a-class-action-lawsuit-against-equifax.html

I won $8,000 from Equifax in Small Claims Court. Here’s how you can, too.
https://blog.legalist.com/i-won-8-000-from-equifax-in-small-claims-court-heres-how-you-can-too-f0ce6925c079?gi=f38cd2b5686f

Equifax will not survive fallout from massive breach, says technology attorney
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/equifax-will-not-survive-fallout-from-massive-breach-says-technology-attorney.html

There are 23 class-action lawsuits filed and a congressional investigation, as well as lawsuits that may be yet to come, Grossman said.

Sure, there's been little fallout.

It's not going to affect your employment prospects with any company worth working for. In fact, in a lot of companies, it will enhance them -- there really are lots of companies who value employees who act ethically.

( Wow, are you really that stu... ) Read

Personally, I'd rather have an all solar power grid than have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.

Financial Cost of the Iraq War: Indirect and Delayed Costs

According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq, or $6,300 per U.S. citizen.

Richard Sammon (July 2007). "Iraq War: The Cost in Dollars". Retrieved 2007-07-23.
"U.S. CBO estimates $2.4 trillion long-term war costs". Reuters. October 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-24.

But you're absolutely right, it's where the thresholds are set that makes all the difference. 250k individual income is very much in the 1% territory.

Lower even than that. 1% is ~425k. 250k is somewhere around the 3% income percentile: http://www.kiplinger.com/artic... If you take cost of living into account as well (which you should), it becomes an even bigger problem. After all, 250k in NY/California isn't the same as 250k in Wyoming.

But when you say "60-70% taxes for "high-income taxpayers" without any thresholds or anything, that makes me think about people making $1M getting that level of taxation, and I don't have a problem with that at all.

Except it's not. If you look at Norway's tax brackets (which is the system you're commenting on), the 50+% tax rate occurs at a low level of income. Their _average_ personal tax rate is around ~42.25%. If that's the model you're saying Bernie is shooting for, people aren't going to accept it here. The US average is around 31.5%. You're basically talking about a ~40% hike in everyone's taxes, not just millionaires. And what most liberals don't understand (or don't want to) is that such a hike in everyone's taxes is necessary to achieve the model. You can't squeeze enough money out of rich people alone to achieve the kind of extravagant social programs you find in Europe.

I will say, however, I think that one really, really big problem in this country today is the cost of housing. It's gone way up in the last 15 years, largely thanks to the housing bubble. I'm not exactly sure about what can be done, but I do think the government has a responsibility to try to fix that somehow.

I think this one will fix itself. It's not a problem of housing costs so much as stagnant wages, which appear to finally be recovering. Basically, costs went up, but wages didn't go up to match.

You think that a report that is 13 years old based on data from 24-14 years ago is even close to factual? Really? The taxes have gone DOWN since that report was done, we have many more miles of roads , infrastructure, and you base a decision on that? Fucking A.

Taxes have not gone down since that report. Fucking A, indeed.

bullshit.

I'm not up on all the most current regional slang. In your area does "bullshit" also mean, "I don't know and can't bother to find out"?

Saving money on surgery and more, negotiating medical costs
How to Negotiate Hospital Bills and Avoid Medical Bankruptcy
30 Ways to Cut Health Care Costs

How far can you walk in a day?

The farthest I've ever walked continuously on foot is eight miles, but I've done 25 miles on a bicycle. What does that distance imply, other than that I'm out of shape?

In any case, I was referring to places with expensive housing like the northeast and California areas, where housing costs tend to run double the U.S. average according to this slideshow.

"The 1%" includes most *households* in the US with an income somewhere between $200-250k, which is easily achieved these days by a 2-professional household with a few years of industry experience in their respective fields.

Try again. To be in the 1%, you must have an adjusted gross income of $343,927 which would probably equate to an unadjusted family income of over $400,000. Not easily achievable.

And now, we have reached peak oil

Flashback from 1973. Oil cost as much as $80/barrel in 1973, adjust for inflation and you will see that it was actually more expensive back then. It is well know that there are vast, untapped, oil reserves all over the world. The largest of which happen to lie in the US. We could easily increase production if many of the bans on oil drilling in the US were lifted.

http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/The_U.S._s_Untapped_Bounty_080630.html

The U.S. is sitting on the world's largest, untapped oil reserves -- reservoirs which energy experts know exist, but which have not yet been tapped and may not be attainable with current technology. In fact, such untapped reserves are estimated at about 2.3 trillion barrels, nearly three times more than the reserves held by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) nations and sufficient to meet 300 years of demand -- at today's levels -- for auto, truck, aircraft, heating and industrial fuel, without importing a single barrel of oil.

What's the problem then? Why aren't oil companies jumping to pump the black gold? Contrary to what some conspiracy theorists would have you believe, there is no cabal of oil companies and foreign governments blocking the way, bottling up U.S. oil production. The reality is much more mundane. Those untapped reserves are located in places that either Uncle Sam has put off-limits for environmental reasons or are too costly to get -- or a combination of both.

You might actually want to check and see who is actually sending in more money to the government. I am betting you think it is the poor or middle class. You would be wrong according to the reported government numbers. The bottom 50% earners are only paying 2.7% of the total income tax received. This is actual money sent in to the government. Where is the myth that the poor are paying more than others coming from?

If the bottom 50% of the earners are only paying 2.7% of the income tax that ends up to be even less of the total amount of revenue that the federal government actually gets. How do people say the "rich" are getting off scott-free and the middle class and the poor are actually paying for everything? The actual revenue numbers being reported by the federal government don't seem to support that statement.

Top 1% Pay 38% of all income tax
Top 5% Pay 59% of all income tax
Top 10% Pay 70% of all income tax
Bottom 50% Pay 2.7% of all income tax
47% of American Households didn't pay any income tax for 2009.

45% of all the revenues of the government in 2009 and 2010 were from income tax. Corporate tax revenue was 13% in 2009 and 9% in 2010 of total revenues. The federal government revenues from largest to smallest are Income Tax, Social Security and other payroll taxes, Corporate Tax. All the other taxes don't even add up to the Corporate Tax amounts.

So if you added corporate taxes to the top 5% then you are talking 71.7% of revenues in 2009. It would 67.7% of revenues in 2010. So it would appear to me that the "rich" in this country are paying significantly more than half of the cash needed/used for the government to run.

So exactly who are the "rich" that we are talking about? It is just the fat cats on Wall Street and the CEOs? I don't think so.

If you look at who the corporations are in this country you might be surprised. 99% of all corporations/firms in this country have under 100 employees. They make up 30% of the revenue of all US companies. If you move up to companies with under 500 employees now you are talking about 46% of all the revenue of US companies. So small businesses are paying roughly 30% of the corporate taxes and small-medium companies are paying roughly 46% of all the corporate taxes. I suspect that most of the people who own these businesses would be considered "rich" by most people, but they are not the wall street fat cats and typical CEOs that people think of as the "rich". I make that comment because I hear people saying the middle class is disappearing. If that is the case then I would assume that those who own their own business are considered "rich".

Please explain to me how this is suppose to work where the "rich" supposedly are not paying their fair share. I am not saying the distribution of earnings in the US is a good/perfect thing. I do think everyone still has a chance to make more money and own their own business today, if they are willing to work hard and take the risks required.

http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/smallbus.html
http://www.kiplinger.com/features/archives/how-your-income-stacks-up.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget
http://budget.house.gov/
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/index.html
http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/federal-revenue
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/07/income-tax-47-of-american_n_529059.html

I think the following URL sums up anything I could say:

http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/kiptips/archives/10-riskiest-places-to-give-your-social-security.html

If it is obvious that the debtor will never be able to pay back, you would have trouble selling the loan, right? Unless the buyer is unaware of the risk involved, of course.

Exactly. Securitization packages up pools of loans into bonds that get given a credit rating by an agency. A lot of bond buyers just go by the bonds' ratings. These bond buyers are the ones who ultimately provide the easy money that ends up being used for the junk mortgages.

Who are these bond buyers? All sorts of banks, and, more worrisome, retirement pensions and bond mutual funds in people's 401k plans. Look, for example, at what happened to Fidelity Ultra-Short Bond Fund. This is a fund that was supposed to be extra-low risk; it lists "preservation of capital" as a goal, and it's supposed to compete with money-market funds and bank accounts. It lost 20% because of exposure to highly-rated subprime securities.

It's harder to dispute fraudulent charges on a debit card.

Dude, if you cannot figure out that being paid $17 and hour means that you are being paid $17 per hour WORKED, you are an idiot. The math is not debatable.

You want your $17/per hour then fine. You win. They are only getting that much per hour because of a forced unemployement for 1/4 of a year. X per year is still only that much per year.

Apparently, you are too stupid to understand that $20 is not pennies. It isn't by any stretch of the imagination. It costs more than $20 to get immunized, but even if it was $20 exactly, calling it pennies is at best a gross exaggeration. As for no one making a killing... The vaccine industry is an $11 BILLION a year industry that is expected to $20 BILLION a year by 2012.

Oh noes! Someone is making a profit creating a product that people need and selling it! And like I said if you can't afford $20 to keep your kid alive then the state will help you out - and that's not a cost in a school budget, that's welfare. Otherwise, it is pennies since almost all of the required shots are 1-time shots, or at least multiple in a short period.

Again, you say things that make you look stupid. Trying to imply that immunized kids are going to give your kid whooping cough is pretty dumb. That, and you keep saying 'conspiracy'. It is clear that you don't know what the word means.

You're so fucking stupid you can even comprehend a simple sentence. I said kids who WEREN'T immunized were going to give another kid whooping cough. You are the one who was railing AGAINST immunizations because they were some conspiracy by pediatricians and pharmaceutical companies to make more money.

And according to Oregon School Board Association you are just plain wrong. They show that salaries in Oregon go up to $60,452. That's a full 30% more than the fake number you pulled out of your ass. They also show that 27% of Oregon teachers are making more than $50k a year. The average across the state is $50,937.92. Seriously. $50k a year is doing just fine.

The fewer 30% at over $50k are skewing the almost 60% that are right in the $40,000 - $49,999 range. Someone needs to learn about 'averages'. Look at the pay schedule and you'll see that to get to 60k you need to be at or over 30 years with more than a masters degree. Even then though, I will admit I overstated, but not by much, not when a large majority are right in the range I said. My point still stands though, one can't comfortably support a family on a teacher's salary, unless somehow they start off with 25 years of experience!

I am impressed that Oregon has been increasing pay and are way above California. Why a teacher would teach in SoCal is beyond me. A doctorate in teaching there gets you $46,951 to 56,835. And you want them to cut teacher pay? I will say that the starting pay is much better than OR, but with the cost of living what it is there a teacher would make significantly less.

That wasn't even my point when we started this little war. You wanted to cut school funding because you thought teachers "... make a decent living working part time." Because supposedly 8-hour days are part time. If you want to call the California education system a mess you won't get any argument from me. Either fix the problem or quite bitching. Oregon and Washington are INCREASING spending and seeing a benefit. We require the same immunizations, have administration, have a bus system, and no one here screams crazy shit about conspiracies or collusion between government, drug companies, and doctors. Maybe if Californians didn't use teachers as a scapegoat then they could actually sit down and figure out where the real problems are. Nah, it's easier to blame teachers and continue the downward spiral.

My education is fine. If you had read before, their pay is garnished so that they are paid year round, with a forced 3-month 'sabbatical'. They may not be around kids during the summer or billing hours, but they certainly aren't unemployed. They aren't pulling unemployment during the summer, and it's not like they can find employment elsewhere since all the schools are closed.

Dude, if you cannot figure out that being paid $17 and hour means that you are being paid $17 per hour WORKED, you are an idiot. The math is not debatable.

You just proved my point. If you bothered to look at that page you'd see those were bulk prices. Most of those cost a buck or two each. These aren't cancer drugs - someone is making money but not a killing. If you can't scrounge up $20 to get your kid vaccinated then the state will take care of it. As I said, once again:

Apparently, you are too stupid to understand that $20 is not pennies. It isn't by any stretch of the imagination. It costs more than $20 to get immunized, but even if it was $20 exactly, calling it pennies is at best a gross exaggeration. As for no one making a killing... The vaccine industry is an $11 BILLION a year industry that is expected to $20 BILLION a year by 2012.

... because I don't want your precious little snowflake giving my kid whooping cough doesn't make it a conspiracy.

Again, you say things that make you look stupid. Trying to imply that immunized kids are going to give your kid whooping cough is pretty dumb. That, and you keep saying 'conspiracy'. It is clear that you don't know what the word means.

Oh, and given how dumb you are and/or how much you tend to lie, I looked up the data on your quote:

No teacher in Washington or Oregon is making more than 45k per year and that's after 25 years of work.

And according to Oregon School Board Association you are just plain wrong. They show that salaries in Oregon go up to $60,452. That's a full 30% more than the fake number you pulled out of your ass. They also show that 27% of Oregon teachers are making more than $50k a year. The average across the state is $50,937.92. Seriously. $50k a year is doing just fine.

I was using 89 billion per year...

I looked around for your 6.5 billion per week figure and could not find it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/business/17leonh ardt.html?ex=1326690000&en=7f221bfce7a6408c&ei=509 0
The Times is known as a liberal paper and they are saying 700 billion total- at a rate of about 2 billion per week.

http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast /archive/The_True_Cost_0720723.html
Kiplinger says about 2.5 billion per week:
The war in Iraq is exacting a large taxpayer toll that will fuel much debate and affect the ability of Congress to find funding for popular domestic programs. With 158,000 troops in Iraq, at least until September and probably much longer, the war costs $300 million a day -- or almost $10 billion a month.

Here...
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/selling_so lar_t.php

It looks like 1kw is 22,000 (for a non battery backed up system) so that's $33,000 for a non battery backed up 1.5kw system. That's lower than the $50k per house subsidized ($100k per house raw cost) I was using a couple years ago.

Its not clear that this is unsubsidized but I think it is before subsidies (and is MUCH cheaper than when I did my last rough calculation).

So say $40k for a battery backed system (and 7k per 10 years for replacing batteries and inverters but ignoring that).

At 40k, you'd get 6,200 houses per week or about 322k houses per year.

Per wiki..
In the year 2005, there were approximately 113,146,000 households in the United States.

So it would take 3 centuries to give them solar power.

Drop the cost factor to a 10th of what it is now and it would take 30 years (exciting!).

I think they are going to bottom out at about $5k per system + batteries if you want those and then inflate up after that.

The cool thing about solar is that it doesn't add energy to the environment. Burning coal/Nuclear/Fusion adds energy that was stored in the past. Solar just converts current energy that was shining on the house anyway.

If that is the case - I don't have numbers that confirm your assertion

since we know that the top bracket is 35%, we can double the taxes of that top 5% to 70%, they will then be paying 100% of the taxes, and the rest of us can do trivial little things like be able to afford medical care.

• At $137,500.00, a person with that income is only in the 28% tax bracket. Doubling his highest marginal tax rate would not yield 70%.
• More importantly, that person is not paying 28%. He is only paying $15,107.50 + 0.28 * 63,300 = 32,831.50 / 137,500.00 = 23.9% Bumping him up to 70% would be quite a shock!

1. The rich will find loopholes. They always do when it's worth their while.
2. They'll quit working. Think about it. If you made $300,000 already this year, and it was September or so... would you really work the rest of the year for $0.30 on the dollar? Or would you just take a cruise to Tahiti?
3. Taxpatriates. It's extreme, but people more and more are renouncing their citizenship in high-tax countries and moving to low-tax countries and taking their wealth with them. Make it worth their while, and they'll move to Bermuda.

According to this, at least the first $1M in an estate is exempt from estate tax. To say he "couldn't afford the taxes" is a bit misleading. I could believe that he was forced to sell the house to cover the taxes on the excess value over $1M, but that's not the same thing, and it's not a problem most people would be afraid to face.

That said, I would have no problem supporting heavy estate taxes if I thought the government would do a better job of handling the money than most heirs do, but sadly, nothing is further from the truth. Frankly, I'd rather some spoiled rich brat spend it than Robert Byrd and his ilk.

http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfinance/tools/col leges/pubcollege.php?sortby=INRANK03&orderby=flip& states%5B%5D=OH&myschool%5B%5D=Miami+University&ou tputby=table

Please go and nod somewhere else, unless you have something useful to say.

NCSU is listed by kiplinger as the 11th best value for all universities in the country.
http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/colleges/

They may not be MIT but they are pretty darn good for engineering.

For example, their engeneering department has the 11th highest research budget of any school in the US.

The NCSU Centennial Campus is an enormous research center (a second campus) where over 100 companies and government agencies work hand in hand with the university. For example, in addition to their nanotech biomed research, they are also closely involved in NASA work with projects like the space shuttle: http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/news/news_articles/puzzle .html

If you currently have a Debit card, cut it up. Ask your bank for a card that ONLY does ATM transactions and nothing else. You are NOT protected if a debit card is stolen or misused - your money is GONE. Credit card companies protect you from paying more than $50 if a card is stolen / misused.

Not true. See here. Granted, credit cards have a broader umbrella then debit cards, but there are protections in place - the Visa and MC "zero-liability" apply to debit cars these days as well. It's tougher to dispute a debit purchase vs a credit purchase, but's its definately doable.

Credit cards. Under federal law, if someone steals your credit card you're only responsible to pay the first $50 of unauthorized charges. And, says FTC lawyer Carol Reynolds, if you notify the issuer before the thief makes any charges, you may not be out anything. You're also free from liability if unauthorized purchases occur when the card is not physically present, say in an Internet purchase, she says.

Zero-liability policies, like those offered by Visa and MasterCard, add a second layer of protection. Under these programs you won't pay anything if someone fraudulently uses your credit card online or off.

Debit cards. The rules are similar for debit cards, but there are a few restrictions. For example, your liability under federal law is limited to $50, but only if you notify the issuer within two business days of discovering the card's loss or theft. Your liability could jump to $500 if you put it off. And even this cap is lifted if you wait more than 60 calendar days from the time your bank statement is mailed.

Federal protections are a bit more generous if a thief just steals your debit card number (and not the actual card), but you still have 60 days after receiving your bank statement to report any unauthorized transactions.

The Visa and MasterCard zero-liability policies also apply to debit cards, but only to non-PIN transactions. If a thief steals your card and your PIN, the federal rules are your only defense.

For additional protection check your homeowners or renter's insurance policy. Most cover up to $500 for losses from unauthorized card use.

Also, get a new SSN issued and have the old marked as fradulent. It will prevent any new credit cards or loans being created in your name and destroy your credit

The parent poster is spot on that debit cards without charges is the future. About a year ago or so either Newsweek/Times/WSJ etc did an article about the fleecing of America when it came to check cards, especially when you consider it against the debit card. What's the big deal?

The costs involved in the back end. Debit cards don't cost nearly as much as check cards do. Why? Because check cards are locked into the credit card system, that's why. It costs the store significantly more to process a credit card than it does to process your debit transaction ($1 versus $.10). Its a matter of using the Visa/MC credit processing or a regional ATM network (Cirrus, Tyme etc) to process funds. Look at this Kiplinger article about it. So why do we use it?

Because Visa has made a HUGE push in the US to convince us that the Visa check card rocks! All those commercials with Marion Jones or the rabbits etc where using your Visa check card is better than using checks. Why? Because its more profitable, until they pissed off Wal-Mart.

Me? I don't use a debit or check card. I use credit cards so I don't have my checking account drained it someone gets a hold of my check card number.

As for using a debit card to pay for a coke? Ehhh...the US is still attached to dollar bill so what hope do getting people to change? =D As for the SMS, I don't think SMS is nearly as big as SMS in Europe/the rest of the world because we get locked into $40 a month plans, so we might as well use our minutes.

I don't mean to be argumentative, but most of the federal government's income really DOES come from fees and taxes as shown by kiplinger over here.

That's what the whole fuss over a budget surplus was about not too long ago, since the government was taxing more than it spent. Also, so long as the budget is balanced, most federal bonds that are floated simply pay off older debts.

Unfortunately, it looks like recent events have thrown out any hope for a balanced budget any time soon.

I don't mean to be argumentative, but most of the federal government's income really DOES come from fees and taxes as shown by kiplinger over here.

That's what the whole fuss over a budget surplus was about not too long ago, since the government was taxing more than it spent. Also, so long as the budget is balanced, most federal bonds that are floated simply pay off older debts.

Unfortunately, it looks like recent events have thrown out any hope for a balanced budget any time soon.