ERICOPOLY

You could also be 100% invested and hedge a portion of what you invest with at-the-money puts. You'll do better this way as long as you beat the hurdle rate of the annualized cost of the puts. You won't suffer too much anyhow if the market goes straight down -- it would have been better to be in cash in that case... however I think during the rest of the years you will (I believe) make up for it.

Guitar lessons.

You'll be fine -- the ban does not include 3-way bulbs: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=3-way%20incandescent%20light%20bulbs&sprefix=3-way+incan%2Caps%2C200&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A3-way%20incandescent%20light%20bulbs It also allow you to have " high efficiency incandescents -- which are just regular incandescents that have the filament wrapped in gas"

It appears the average inheritance in Australia is over $501,919. Here in the US, only $177,000: http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/13/retirement/american-inheritance/index.html?iid=HP_LN I'm sure that is heavily linked to residential property valuation.

On the positive side, we do all benefit by having fewer electricity transmission lines. In some areas, there are brownouts during peak loads. Plus, it's really no extra bother in screwing one type of light bulb versus another. They are interchangeable. It's not like you are being forced to bicycle to work instead of driving your car. That would save more energy but it would perhaps be a serious impediment to your ability to live your life as you please. This is not freedom limiting. No more so than say, having a building code that doesn't allow you to put single-pane glass windows in your home. Sure, the double pane glass costs more. Isn't that freedom-limiting too? I guess it is.

Actually, if you could just convince the Chinese to dump their treasury holdings, and convince US taxpayers to purchase them... that would go a long way towards fixing the budget.

I envision them to set low interest rates and high tax rates. So that if you are earning 3% interest rate and paying 40% tax, you only have 1.8% left which doesn't even give you a positive return after inflation. So they are effectively seizing 100% of your real return. I expect them to bring this tax in... immediately. Oh wait, they've exceeded my expectations! The 100% tax is already here.

I just turned off the central heating and opened my doors. Ahh.... it's over 70 here today :) Forecast for Monday is 77.

That's hilarious.

There are legitimate reasons outside of the "greenhouse gas" arguments. Such as... problem of peak load use on the electricity grid. Can you alleviate pressure on the electricity grid if you draw less electricity from it?

I suppose my heat argument applies best to an apartment building where the heat from your incandescent warms the people on the floors above you.

Is the efficiency of heating form the bulb the same as that from a heater? No, because some of the energy is "wasted" as light.

You can of course still buy a 3 way incandescent bulb to replace you banned non-3way bulbs. The ban doesn't include them and they are much cheaper than LEDs. Personally, I've already swapped all of my non-halogen bulbs for LEDs and CFLs. But I know that people who shop only on price are going to buy the 3-way before the LEDs.

I think in the winter months, the big losers are the people who use radiant electric heating. Or electric furnaces. Absolutely ZERO energy will be saved (during cold spells) by switching to CFLs or LEDs. They'll just wind up paying more for those light bulbs with no compensating offset on the electric utility bill. They will only see their gains when it is warm enough to turn off the electric heater (after taking account for the lost heat from their lighting).

The heat given off by incandescent lights warms your house in the winter. So while wasteful, it is not 100% waste. During summer if you are running the air conditioner when you have the light on, that's when the full magnitude of the waste occurs. So homes will now be colder in the winter. More natural gas will flow to the homes. But perhaps less consumed by the electric utilities. However, considering that electric utilities also burn coal, then perhaps this ban leads to an overall increase in natural gas consumption and an overall decrease in coal consumption. Then in the Northeast, I believe heating oil is still relatively common. I presume people will need to purchase more heating oil now to warm their homes.

It looks like you can only deduct up to $2,500 of student loan interest: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc456.html The interesting thing is that it's kind of like a business. You borrow money to purchase your education, and your true "profit" is the spread between your income and the cost of buying that income (your education). Therefore there should really be no limit to how much student loan interest you can deduct. After all, you aren't really making any money for yourself on every dollar you pay in student loan interest. Your "net profit" is your income less your student loan interest. It's a bit like if the government put a limit on how much bond interest expense a corporation could deduct. What if SHLD wasn't allowed to deduct it's interest expense from it's revenues? It would be taxed on revenue, not income. That wouldn't be fair either.

Nationwide, about 12% of a home's power bill goes towards lighting, according to the EPA. Light bulb manufacturers will cease making traditional 40 and 60-watt light bulbs -- the most popular in the country -- at the start of 2014. The rules were signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007. http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/13/news/economy/light-bulb-ban/index.html?iid=HP_LN The electric utilities aren't going to like this one :)

Every time they raise the income tax rate, it effectively makes it harder to pay off the student loan. So suppose they give you a tax credit for principle repayment on student loans?

Actually, I just realized something that is completely unfair here. 1. Child takes out loan at age 18 for college 2. Works out wonderfully and he make $300,000 a year in Silicon Valley soon after graduation 3. Has to pay 50% income tax 4. Has to pay off his student loan with after-tax income. Huh? Why is he left to pay off the student loan when he only gets to keep 50% of his income? Why does the government feel entitled to half the income, but doesn't feel obligated to pay down half of the loan principle? That's a free ride if there ever was one.

The gift tax rules only come up because you are taking the money out of your taxable estate when you put it into a 529 plan. However, the gift is revocable at any time (if you later decide your child won't use it or if you fear they'll waste it on parties). Should estate taxes be of concern to you (and you do want to leave money to your kids) then you wouldn't want to spend the funds from the 529 plan on their education. Instead, you would want to leave the funds in the 529 plan and pay your child's expenses for education directly out of your own pocket (further reducing your taxable estate). Then they can spend the plan's money on college for their own kids (and/or grandkids). These plans with such huge contribution limits are more about tax planning than college saving, if you ask me. But fair enough, if I educate my child the rest of the country will benefit from the taxes he pays or from the jobs he creates after he starts a company. Whatever. Or somebody else's company benefits from having an educated employee. So not paying taxes on the income that funds his education seems only right and fair since in a way his education is for the good of all.

A lot of 18 year olds are basically children still. It's why we don't let them drink.

That sounds like the root cause of the student debt problem. Lenders would be more careful who they lend to if there were threat of bankruptcy. The A+ student with an acceptance letter to the UC Berkley Engineering school would still be able to get a loan. The lender can be incentivized to guide the child with no worldly experience away from costly mistakes.

I think he's saying that Koreans of all income levels generally value education more than low income American families. Which over two or three generations would make the Koreans quite wealthy, just as you say. I think the whole thing is dominated cultural influence (in other words, the parents). Can we compare the test scores of Koreans educated in American public schools versus the test scores of Koreans educated in Korean public schools? Then you would at least strip out some of the cultural influence and can better isolate whether the schools themselves are the problem. I would find it interesting to see how their test scores stack up against the world. You might even take the test scores from public schools of non-affluent Asian neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

My best friend is Korean and he said even the poor kids feel academic pressure from their parents. You don't see that as much in the poor communities in the United States. Yeah, does the following statement make any sense? The University of California is crammed with Asian students because they are the richest demographic in American society

Ahh... sorry. Well, like I said, I hate working in fractions. So I would just divide the warrant premium by the number of shares. Then that would give me the per-share premium. So if the premium were 40 50 cents and it was converting to 1.25x shares, then I guess that would be a 30 40 cent premium per share. Then you use the formula plugging in 30 40 cents for the option premium, and whatever the new strike price is at that point. EDIT: Fixed the numbers