Hello Michelle,
I am in the same boat as you. I have so many ideas and visions what i want to design, but I cant sew nor sketch out designs. So, did you ever find someone to help you create you designs? Do you have a clothes line that your working on right now? I would love to hear from you.
Invest the money! Take a look at what $10,000 invested at the bottom of the last bear market was worth 10 years later! Invest! Keep it as safe as possible - blue chip stocks and corporate bonds.
Daniel, think about this for a moment. Do you think that ALL the people who received bonuses at AIG were involved in the company's negative performance? What about the IT director who dramatically exceeded performance? What about the person running facilities who dramatically decreased expenses?
This over-generalization and misunderstanding of how compensation works is frankly dangerous and misguided.
Why would all the remaining good people want to work for a company that is being torn apart when they can go somewhere else? Shall we just let them go without paying them, let the company completely fail and lose our $160B investment in it? The amount of these bonuses is chump-change to the wasteful billions that congress has spent in the last month alone. Who should we really be mad at? I wonder why congress is making such a stink about this? Possibly to distract from their mismanagement and reckless spending?
Really? This article is retarded, there is risk with every investment. Even the ones you described above. There is risk of inflation, currency risk, opportunity risk, transactional risk (if the bank goes bust, it would take you a lot of time to recover your money from the FDIC).... just to name a few. Maybe you should research and actucally study this stuff before you post more crap on the internet?
yes, you are right that the deductibility of the donations depends on how the new tax law will be written. If it works like the current tax system, it would mean that these people can donate up to 50% of their adjusted gross income and since their tax rate is 90% they wouldn't have to pay 90% taxes on the part they donate. However, if the 90% tax is just a brand new surcharge that's not tax deductible, then some of them already have to pay over 100% of the bonus due to state taxes. So the bottom line is that there is really no point in trying to keep the money.
There are too many choices and so I decided to prioritize this way:
1) Focus on the biggest problems and 2) Fund long-term solutions rather than temporary help.
My current notion of the biggest problems are:
* planetary destruction
* extreme poverty
* torture, abuse, and pain
My current favorite way to fight planet destruction via charity is the techniques used by The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International: they actually buy land in ecologically fragile areas so they can treat it properly themselves rather than begging politicians for favors, etc. They also work with other landowners both to learn from them and to teach them. Landowners fear some conservation groups because once a rare species is found on your land, someone may try to tell you that can no longer do what you want to with your own land. The Nature Conservancy instead assumes they must be doing something right and approaches them in a cooperative way rather than an adversarial way. I suspect Conservation International does this, too, though I don't know for sure, but their overhead costs are lower, so I contribute to them, too.
I've also heard that small organizations that clean up local areas are the best, especially for oceanic environments, but I haven't found any favorites in this category yet.
My current favorite way to help fight poverty is with microlending. FINCA International and ACCION will make small loans (such as $200 to buy a sewing machine) and have borrowers meet regularly to give each other advice on running a company. Once the loans are paid back, they can ask for more (such as another sewing machine so they can hire a worker). I like that the amount of money you donate is used over and over. I don't like that the interest rates charged are obscene by our standards.
I also like Planned Parenthood, which is about access and culturally compatible education, so that people can have only as many children as they want, which can help keep them out of poverty.
I haven't found ideal charities that deal with pain (there's a cancer pain research institute I donate to), torture (I think Amnesty International is probably good, but it's the only one I've found), or abuse (there's a local organization I donate to which tries to prevent abuse through parent education as well as reacting to abuse). I only recently added these issues to my list, and it's very depressing to research these organizations.
Thank you for lifting up Sanford Health as a great organization to support. Our Foundation IS actively seeking donations to help us in our quest to find a cure for type 1 diabetes, within Denny Sanford's lifetime. If you are interested in supporting us, or just learning more about what we are hoping to accomplish, please visit our website at: www.sanfordproject.org. To make a gift, select "Make a donation" and follow the steps. Thank you!
If you do donate your bonus, the government cannot tax it 90% because the money is gone.
If you owe taxes, it doesn't matter if the money is gone--the IRS can still come after you for it. It does that all the time--and will take whatever money you happen to have lying around.
In this particular case, it will matter a great deal just how the law that eventually gets passed is written. It could well be that donating your entire bonus would reduce your taxible income by that much, but not reduce the special 90% tax that you owe. If you'd donated the money you'd just have to scrape together the 90% out of savings (or ask the charity to give 90% of it back).
At this point, I expect the smart move would just to be to do what the open-letter guy did: Pledge to donating the after-tax sum, once you know for sure what the taxes will be. One extra bonus: it'll get the philanthropic community on your side.
I've had a cell phone for 14 years, and Skype for 5 years. I still have my land line. The foremost reason is call quality is always good. Sorry, but I can usually tell when you are using Vonage or other VOIP services, and always tell when you are using a cell phone. With unlimited calling, including taxes, it comes to $44 month. If I cut the line and went totally cell phone, I would have to increase my plan usage for $40 / month. So I figure $4 month for superior voice quality and uptime is a reasonable price to pay.
Can someone please provide advise: My mother has been a bookkeeper at the same nonprofit for 28 years. She has a new boss that wants my mom out...she does not know what she is doing, and my mother has been cleaning up her mistakes for months.
My mother finally said something to the director that this woman does not know her job and quickly my mom was written up by teh evil woman or insubornation..final warning. Funny thing is my mom has never had any problems and nothing in her file for 28 years.
Now my mom faces each day of this new boss tryign to find things to fire her about..and actually resorting to lies now. The boss is also havign someone sit in my moms office all day takign notes on what she does all day long. She also asked the IT dept to pritn out all the emails my mom has written...little does she knwo there is nothing to find. The boss is planning on restructing and then allowing her to reapply for a job, that si if she cant find somethign to fire her.
My mom wants to be laid off...collect severance and get the hell out if there...any advise on how she should do this? She was told that if she ever goes to the director again she will be fired. I live 3000 miles and one upset pissed daughter!!!HELP
Why should AIG employees get performance bonuses when the company is failing? Why should we reward the people who threw AIG into a tailspin in the firstplace?
The Southern Baptist Disaster Relief through the North American Mission Board is an outstanding organization that is very much on the forefront during disasters. They also do not evangelize... only reach out and help people through the rough times with meals, showers, chain saw teams, etc. Having been part of a team during Katrina, its a very worthwhile organization to contribute to.... whether you are a Baptist or not.
I read that you reccomend Costco for bulk suppliments. I would also reccomend Puritans Pride. Quite often, they will give you discounts like buy 1 bottle, get 1 or 2 free; buy 2, get three free. I'm talking 100-200 pills per bottle! They can offer low prices because they cut out the middleman, and they make their own products.
The Grill Sgt.
Perhaps it's a matter of it being new, but I've tried a couple of times with the same product (entering lowest price found vs. next lowest price found) and it doesn't always return the best deal. It would be great if it would allow you to enter the entire deal (rebates, shipping, price matching, etc.).
I found an MP3 player for $89.95 at a site, but wasn't willing to purchase from them. I tried Overstock and found it for $15 more. I tried to Online Price Match and managed to get the final purchase for $95, which would have been $98 (with shipping) from the first vendor. Got it through MyPoints so I earned some extras too.
Totally with the "pay for performance" thing. After all, it's what we non-execs manage with, right? If one of us f***ed up that bad, a bonus would be out of the question. We'd be lucky if we still had a job, and a second chance to do better.
So I say, if it's good enough for us, it's good enough for them. The unit(s) that tanked the company, and pretty near took the economy with it, should go. The 'contractual bonuses' come into play only as long as they're still at the company. So fire their incompetent asses.
Why would you pay a bonus to 'retain' such 'skilled, knowledgeable, results-getting' asswipes? They failed. Epically. Let them go, maybe then you can hire someone who might be able to do the job.....
This retail store is not a new thing for ING Direct. I have been saving with ING since 2003 and I think the store went up in 2005 or 2006. I have never purchased anything from them but I look longingly at their bright, cheery, orange stuff from time to time. When ING had better savings rates, there were pockets of fans who would giddily purchase their logo-products I'm sure... now that interest rates are so low everywhere, well...
amen, sister! if those of us who have the means and resources to make it by are struggling, imagine how much worse it must be for those who didn't have the resources to begin with. i hope we all take posts like yours to heart and look to find even just a small amount to contribute to worthy causes. mine are my local church, Relay For Life, and Goodwill (for any unused items laying around the house).
It looks like they're just selling an overabundance of schwag that they would usually give out to employees and people at conferences. Maybe they're liquidating. I definitely wouldn't buy these things since I rather get stuff with company logos for free.
Hello Michelle,
I am in the same boat as you. I have so many ideas and visions what i want to design, but I cant sew nor sketch out designs. So, did you ever find someone to help you create you designs? Do you have a clothes line that your working on right now? I would love to hear from you.
Thanks,
Chrysti
Invest the money! Take a look at what $10,000 invested at the bottom of the last bear market was worth 10 years later! Invest! Keep it as safe as possible - blue chip stocks and corporate bonds.
Many people would kill to be in your situation.
(Hope I didn't sound greedy.)
Or you could invest the money in a college savings account for your future child. It would help your future child avoid student debt.
Thanks,
Nate
Daniel, think about this for a moment. Do you think that ALL the people who received bonuses at AIG were involved in the company's negative performance? What about the IT director who dramatically exceeded performance? What about the person running facilities who dramatically decreased expenses?
This over-generalization and misunderstanding of how compensation works is frankly dangerous and misguided.
Why would all the remaining good people want to work for a company that is being torn apart when they can go somewhere else? Shall we just let them go without paying them, let the company completely fail and lose our $160B investment in it? The amount of these bonuses is chump-change to the wasteful billions that congress has spent in the last month alone. Who should we really be mad at? I wonder why congress is making such a stink about this? Possibly to distract from their mismanagement and reckless spending?
Nice Argument Xin.
If it were my money I would be donating it to charity.
-Nate
Really? This article is retarded, there is risk with every investment. Even the ones you described above. There is risk of inflation, currency risk, opportunity risk, transactional risk (if the bank goes bust, it would take you a lot of time to recover your money from the FDIC).... just to name a few. Maybe you should research and actucally study this stuff before you post more crap on the internet?
yes, you are right that the deductibility of the donations depends on how the new tax law will be written. If it works like the current tax system, it would mean that these people can donate up to 50% of their adjusted gross income and since their tax rate is 90% they wouldn't have to pay 90% taxes on the part they donate. However, if the 90% tax is just a brand new surcharge that's not tax deductible, then some of them already have to pay over 100% of the bonus due to state taxes. So the bottom line is that there is really no point in trying to keep the money.
Did you think that corporations wouldn't check their own Wiki page? That one was common sense.
There are too many choices and so I decided to prioritize this way:
1) Focus on the biggest problems and 2) Fund long-term solutions rather than temporary help.
My current notion of the biggest problems are:
* planetary destruction
* extreme poverty
* torture, abuse, and pain
My current favorite way to fight planet destruction via charity is the techniques used by The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International: they actually buy land in ecologically fragile areas so they can treat it properly themselves rather than begging politicians for favors, etc. They also work with other landowners both to learn from them and to teach them. Landowners fear some conservation groups because once a rare species is found on your land, someone may try to tell you that can no longer do what you want to with your own land. The Nature Conservancy instead assumes they must be doing something right and approaches them in a cooperative way rather than an adversarial way. I suspect Conservation International does this, too, though I don't know for sure, but their overhead costs are lower, so I contribute to them, too.
I've also heard that small organizations that clean up local areas are the best, especially for oceanic environments, but I haven't found any favorites in this category yet.
My current favorite way to help fight poverty is with microlending. FINCA International and ACCION will make small loans (such as $200 to buy a sewing machine) and have borrowers meet regularly to give each other advice on running a company. Once the loans are paid back, they can ask for more (such as another sewing machine so they can hire a worker). I like that the amount of money you donate is used over and over. I don't like that the interest rates charged are obscene by our standards.
I also like Planned Parenthood, which is about access and culturally compatible education, so that people can have only as many children as they want, which can help keep them out of poverty.
I haven't found ideal charities that deal with pain (there's a cancer pain research institute I donate to), torture (I think Amnesty International is probably good, but it's the only one I've found), or abuse (there's a local organization I donate to which tries to prevent abuse through parent education as well as reacting to abuse). I only recently added these issues to my list, and it's very depressing to research these organizations.
Thank you for lifting up Sanford Health as a great organization to support. Our Foundation IS actively seeking donations to help us in our quest to find a cure for type 1 diabetes, within Denny Sanford's lifetime. If you are interested in supporting us, or just learning more about what we are hoping to accomplish, please visit our website at: www.sanfordproject.org. To make a gift, select "Make a donation" and follow the steps. Thank you!
Good advice, except I'm not sure this is true:
If you owe taxes, it doesn't matter if the money is gone--the IRS can still come after you for it. It does that all the time--and will take whatever money you happen to have lying around.
In this particular case, it will matter a great deal just how the law that eventually gets passed is written. It could well be that donating your entire bonus would reduce your taxible income by that much, but not reduce the special 90% tax that you owe. If you'd donated the money you'd just have to scrape together the 90% out of savings (or ask the charity to give 90% of it back).
At this point, I expect the smart move would just to be to do what the open-letter guy did: Pledge to donating the after-tax sum, once you know for sure what the taxes will be. One extra bonus: it'll get the philanthropic community on your side.
I've had a cell phone for 14 years, and Skype for 5 years. I still have my land line. The foremost reason is call quality is always good. Sorry, but I can usually tell when you are using Vonage or other VOIP services, and always tell when you are using a cell phone. With unlimited calling, including taxes, it comes to $44 month. If I cut the line and went totally cell phone, I would have to increase my plan usage for $40 / month. So I figure $4 month for superior voice quality and uptime is a reasonable price to pay.
Can someone please provide advise: My mother has been a bookkeeper at the same nonprofit for 28 years. She has a new boss that wants my mom out...she does not know what she is doing, and my mother has been cleaning up her mistakes for months.
My mother finally said something to the director that this woman does not know her job and quickly my mom was written up by teh evil woman or insubornation..final warning. Funny thing is my mom has never had any problems and nothing in her file for 28 years.
Now my mom faces each day of this new boss tryign to find things to fire her about..and actually resorting to lies now. The boss is also havign someone sit in my moms office all day takign notes on what she does all day long. She also asked the IT dept to pritn out all the emails my mom has written...little does she knwo there is nothing to find. The boss is planning on restructing and then allowing her to reapply for a job, that si if she cant find somethign to fire her.
My mom wants to be laid off...collect severance and get the hell out if there...any advise on how she should do this? She was told that if she ever goes to the director again she will be fired. I live 3000 miles and one upset pissed daughter!!!HELP
Why should AIG employees get performance bonuses when the company is failing? Why should we reward the people who threw AIG into a tailspin in the firstplace?
The Southern Baptist Disaster Relief through the North American Mission Board is an outstanding organization that is very much on the forefront during disasters. They also do not evangelize... only reach out and help people through the rough times with meals, showers, chain saw teams, etc. Having been part of a team during Katrina, its a very worthwhile organization to contribute to.... whether you are a Baptist or not.
I read that you reccomend Costco for bulk suppliments. I would also reccomend Puritans Pride. Quite often, they will give you discounts like buy 1 bottle, get 1 or 2 free; buy 2, get three free. I'm talking 100-200 pills per bottle! They can offer low prices because they cut out the middleman, and they make their own products.
The Grill Sgt.
Xin Lu,
Excellent idea! Why didn't I think of it!
Thumb their noses at those attach dogs in Congress. (As if they had a leg to stand on.)
Perhaps it's a matter of it being new, but I've tried a couple of times with the same product (entering lowest price found vs. next lowest price found) and it doesn't always return the best deal. It would be great if it would allow you to enter the entire deal (rebates, shipping, price matching, etc.).
I found an MP3 player for $89.95 at a site, but wasn't willing to purchase from them. I tried Overstock and found it for $15 more. I tried to Online Price Match and managed to get the final purchase for $95, which would have been $98 (with shipping) from the first vendor. Got it through MyPoints so I earned some extras too.
Totally with the "pay for performance" thing. After all, it's what we non-execs manage with, right? If one of us f***ed up that bad, a bonus would be out of the question. We'd be lucky if we still had a job, and a second chance to do better.
So I say, if it's good enough for us, it's good enough for them. The unit(s) that tanked the company, and pretty near took the economy with it, should go. The 'contractual bonuses' come into play only as long as they're still at the company. So fire their incompetent asses.
Why would you pay a bonus to 'retain' such 'skilled, knowledgeable, results-getting' asswipes? They failed. Epically. Let them go, maybe then you can hire someone who might be able to do the job.....
I was actually thinking of writing this a while ago. Anyway, it seems that at least one bonus recipient is donating everything: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html
This retail store is not a new thing for ING Direct. I have been saving with ING since 2003 and I think the store went up in 2005 or 2006. I have never purchased anything from them but I look longingly at their bright, cheery, orange stuff from time to time. When ING had better savings rates, there were pockets of fans who would giddily purchase their logo-products I'm sure... now that interest rates are so low everywhere, well...
I just love reading your articles. Keep up the good work!
Great idea, Xin!
Catherine Shaffer
Wise Bread Contributor
amen, sister! if those of us who have the means and resources to make it by are struggling, imagine how much worse it must be for those who didn't have the resources to begin with. i hope we all take posts like yours to heart and look to find even just a small amount to contribute to worthy causes. mine are my local church, Relay For Life, and Goodwill (for any unused items laying around the house).
It looks like they're just selling an overabundance of schwag that they would usually give out to employees and people at conferences. Maybe they're liquidating. I definitely wouldn't buy these things since I rather get stuff with company logos for free.