/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>963267
>Why don't you answer those questions for OP
Because the ethical rules of my profession prevent me from making specific statements of law that might be deemed to created or have created an attorney-client relationship or to solicit such a relationship. I'm not going to risk civil liability, disciplinary action, or suspension of my license by giving an anonymous stranger specific legal advice, especially when the full details of the situation are unknown.

You, on the other hand, are free to give your lay opinions on legal topics with whatever degree of confidence you choose to muster at that moment. There's literally no consequence to your actions, and no harm if/when you're wrong (other than whatever damage you cause to the people who listen to you).

For better or worse, I operate under a higher set of rules in these cases. As an accountant, I'm surprised you didn't know about this. I'm aware that accountants have an ethical code of conduct as well, although it obviously doesn't apply here.

>>963226
>proof that his leave was medical
Being "medical" isn't a standard under FMLA, ADA, or any state law variant. The standard is the existence of a disability or a qualifying condition.

Also, calling his employer "massive jackasses" is juvenile. Employers are allowed to exercise their legal rights, just the same as their employees. If you don't like the laws, then blame Congress. Blaming the employer for following the law is just asinine.

>>963228
>You can assume I'm not a lawyer, doesn't mean I'm not.
I don't really need to assume. It's not hard to tell when someone has or doesn't have the type of critical analysis that comes with law degree and/or years of legal practice. I didn't assume; I inferred.

I don't know whether you have any background in employment issues or not. I do know that you have no idea how someone would invoke their FMLA, ADA or other rights. OP can either keep his condition private, or he can seek to invoke whatever statutory employment protections that might apply. He can't do both, no matter how many times you (wrongly) claim otherwise.

>>963137
>not mentioning you don't have to disclose your medical conditions
I didn't mention it because if OP wants to keep his job, then he'll have to disclose it.

Did you read the original post, or any of OP's other posts. The guy really wants to keep the job. So, unlike you, I gave advice that might make that possible.

Your only advice is "tough shit" which is not only inaccurate and incomplete, but shows the legal sophistication of a fucking moron.

>even bringing FMLA/ADA
I never said that FMLA, ADA or any other law does or does not apply. What I said was it depends on the circumstances and the condition. You also haven't even mentioned state laws, which are often more protective than Federal statutes. Since we don't know where OP is from, it would be wrong to ignore the full potential of statutory protections.

When non-lawyers like you try to give legal advice over the internet, you do so much more harm than good. Its a real shame, because the person that bears the brunt is OP, and he didn't do anything to deserve your shitty advice.

>>962914
Yes, even for at will.

However, it's important that you understand that even if your condition qualifies you for protected status, that does not mean you have a guaranteed job for life. While it may be illegal to fire you for having a medical condition, it is legal to fire you for being unable to show up and do your job.

Specifically, the law might give you protected leave to get your condition treated or under control (e.g., FMLA), or might force your employer to make reasonable accommodations for your condition (ADA), or prevent the employer from firing you solely because you were or currently are ill (anti-discrimination laws).

However, if the condition results in you being unable to actually perform the requirements of the job, then you can be terminated.

>insert standard disclaimer: this stuff is very complicated, and its impossible to give you anything but very general advice and an overview of the law

>>962725
Mental illness can qualify for protection under FMLA, ADA, and/or some state discrimination laws. It depends on the nature of your condition.

If you actually have a "severe mental illness" and that condition results in you being admitted to a hospital or treatment facility, and the condition is confirmed by medical authorities, then I'd say its pretty likely that you'd be afforded some form of legal protection for your job. The specifics will depend on the nature of the disability and which laws apply.

>income bragging thread

>>960489
>can't i leave it in the hands of a philantrophy company or something?
Yes, of course. Every school is going to have a foundation or office that accepts gifts in support of scholarships. If you're making a gift in the neighborhood of $100k, then they'll gladly help you with the logistics. They'll also handle the investing and they'll decide who gets the scholarship. Your involvement pretty much ends after making the gift.

As an alternative, you could open a donor advised trust. Donor advised trusts are becoming much more common, and you can them at Fidelity and Vanguard these days. You would continue to manage the investment decisions, and you would decide when and how much to withdraw each year for scholarships. However, the withdrawals would have to go to the school's scholarship foundation, and they (not you) would decide who actually gets the money. (If you make the decision, its not considered charity.) Your interest in the trust passes with your estate, so in theory your descendants could carry on the annual gifts. Or you could make a lump sum donation of the trust on your death.

Either way, since your money goes to the school's foundation, the amount doesn't matter. Whether its $1K/year, $2k, $5K or whatever .... the foundation will combine your money with their other gifts and make it count. You won't get your name on a building, but if you goal is to help people, then you shouldn't care about the recognition.

Charitable trusts are pretty common among people of reasonable means. I personally advise on several donor advised trusts, and I'll be opening my own personal donor advised trust before year end.

There's not enough room here to go over all the details, but if you're curious and need more guidance I can point you to some sources to learn more.

As long as the loan to you (the individual) is at or above the AFR, you should be fine. Anything less, and you're likely to be recharacterized.

https://apps.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/federalRates.html

>>958304
>If you watch Bogle's video (where Bogle said the things in the OP), he's talking about the return of the 10-year treasury to maturity.
He's actually talking about a bond portfolio of potentially mixed-duration holdings. In the interview itself, he talks about both 10 and 12-year maturities. Its also reasonable to assume that a prudent bond investor might also have shorter term instruments in the mix too. All of this means predicting the performance of a bond portfolio is not as easy as reading the yield numbers off the debenture. You have to consider a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, future monetary policy.

Lot's of people have fixed income securities in their portfolio. Very few of them put all of their money into 10-year notes and roll them over, all at once, every decade. Taking the current 10-year treasury yield as the predictor of future bond returns is about as accurate as predicting the Patriots will win the next 10 Superbowls.

>>958304
>If you watch Bogle's video (where Bogle said the things in the OP), he's talking about the return of the 10-year treasury to maturity.
He's actually talking about a bond portfolio of potentially mixed-duration holdings. In the interview itself, he talks about both 10 and 12-year maturities. Its also reasonable to assume that a prudent bond investor might also have shorter term instruments in the mix too. All of this means predicting the performance of a bond portfolio is not as easy as ready the yield numbers off the debenture. You have to consider a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, future monetary policy.

Lot's of people have fixed income securities in their portfolio. Very few of them put all of their money into 10-year notes and roll them over, all at once, every decade. Taking the current 10-year treasury yield as the predictor of future bond returns is about as accurate as predicting the Patriots will win the next 10 Superbowls.

>>958289
>10 year Treasury has a fixed return of 2% per annum
You don't see to understand what it means to predict future bond returns. Protip: it's not about buying a 10-year bond at T-0 and holding to maturity.

>>958258
Your statements about the predictability of both bond and equity returns are equally hyperbolic (albeit in opposite directions), though I'm not sure what point you're trying make with the exagerations.

>>958241
Cool story bro.

>>958235

>>958201
It should worry you to a degree. Or more accurately stated, you should factor it into your expectations and planning. Jack has been pretty accurate about his 10-year bond return predictions, but much less accurate about his 10-year equity return predictions. Despite that, he may very well be correct that the next 10 years might show lean equity returns.

The real question, though, is what to do with this information. Not investing isn't an option because that has a guaranteed negative real return. Active investing (as opposed to to indexing) suffers from the same deficiencies in bear markets and bull markets, historically. Real estate, international investing, and alternative investing each could outperform ... and could easily underperform as well. Speculative gambles like forex, commodities, and cryptocurrencies are still crap shoots.

So at the end of the day, we're left to rely on the principles of diversification. Spread your bets around so you don't miss the hot sectors, whatever they may be. Also, ten years of slow markets (if it happens) isn't that important for young investors or for older investors with fully-funded balances. Who it really hurts is the 40-50 year olds who got started late in their savings, and who also might have missed much of the recent bull rally. Everyone else will be fine.

Lastly, let's remember that all wealth is relative. If the markets are crawling along at 4% or whatever, then the vast majority of people are seeing their wealth grow at 4% or less. All you have to do to keep from falling behind is to keep pace. Indeed, often times, keeping pace results in you getting ahead if you follow disciplined long-term buy-and-hold tax-efficient strategies (such as indexing).

At the end of the day, I hope Jack is wrong on his speculative predictions, and that future equity returns remain strong. But either way, I think even Jack would tell you to stay the course.

>>958007
In no way is 26-27 too old to get your financial house in order. You still have 30-40 years before the normal retirement age, which is plenty of time to compound your savings into a nice nest egg.

The bottom line is that you've got to make your current income your number one priority. Everything about financial health starts with your income. Be honest about your skills and talents, and find a path that provides a steady wage or salary. Work on improving yourself and your prospects so that your income increases with time.

As for starting a business, if you truly have the skillset to start your own business and see it through, then great. But most people don't. And you don't have a huge cushion of time to spend too many more years without getting on an upward income track. Taking risks is part of life. So is knowing when not to take risks.

The rest of the picture is pretty easy once you have a steady income. So easy, in fact, that you shouldn't even worry about it. Just save as much as is reasonable in your circumstances. Set aside an emergency fund in cash covering 3-6 months normal living expenses. Then invest in diversified, low-cost index funds for the core of your account (a Vanguard all-in-one fund is a great place to start). Don't touch your savings except in cases of real emergency. All really simple stuff, really. So don't stress about it. Job first; the rest comes later.

>Also you've mentioned above you made quite a few mistakes? Could you tell me more? Any major fuck ups?
Nothing major, thankfully. I've been excessively reckless in my early investing, and came close to getting badly burned by the dot-com bubble. My carefree dalliances into options and margin trading added way more risk than I realized and that I should have been comfortable bearing. Fortunately I had sufficient gains to offset the inevitable losses that it didn't set me backwards, but it easily could have been quite bad for me.

>>957854
>what would you say is the lowest amount you would need to retire/be FI in your 40s
Impossible question to answer with any specificity because it depends so much on the quality and type of life you're willing to accept, and the things you're willing to compromise to get there.

My "minimum" numbers are much larger than would be applicable to most people. It's not that I'm out of touch with reality; it's that my goals are much larger than simple financial independence or extreme retirement. Indeed, as I have stated before, I personally think that there are fundamental flaws with the extreme retirement philosophy ... most notably that it simply replaces one type of financial stress (maximizing income and savings) with another (living for decades with a limited asset pool).

So for me, that meant my "minimum" amount included a huge discretionary bucket (for quality of life) and a huge cushion bucket (to eliminate risk and stress).

I'm not trying to dodge your question, but rather I'm hoping to explain why my "minimum" may not be informative or illustrative for you.

With that long-winded disclaimer out of the way, for me -- for my lifestyle, my wants, and my goals -- I was not comfortable giving up my earned income until I had accumulated between $3-4m in investable assets, which I projected to safety provide at least $120K annually.

>>957776
>do you own any bitcoins?
I do not. Bitcoin is not an investment. It's a speculative gamble on the adoption rate of the technology, and therefore it does not fit within my investing criteria.

I'll admit that I'm very intrigued by the concept of cryptocurrency, and it wouldn't surprise me if the technology eventually takes root, but I don't think Bitcoin will be the surviving protocol. Unless Bitcoin adopts features that address fraud and charge-back needs, it will never be accepted by mainstream financial institutions. However, these features are incompatible with the zealous commitment of Bitcoiners to perfect anonymity. And the market for an anonymous currency is miniscule compared to the market for a fully-functioning reversible mode of value exchange. Because anonymity and reversibility cannot peacefully co-exist within the Bitcoin protocol (to the best of my knowledge), I think Bitcoin will wither on the vine.

My guess is that some other protocol -- likely one developed by or with the support of the government -- will be the cryptocoin that actually takes hold and garners real and sustained public support.

As such, I don't have any rationale reason to own Bitcoin or any other current cryptocurrency at the present time.

>>957416
>Are you enjoying your retirement that you took waaaay too long to start?
Things are good, thanks. It's been interesting to see how people react IRL when I tell them that I've stopped working. Most either want to know how much it takes to do that, or, they think I'm crazy for not wanting to keep working.

>>957412
>All of them, across the board, wished they had saved more and wasted less.
This, +1, upvoted, liked, and subscribed.

Not to mention, I've literally NEVER heard anyone in their 40's, 50's or 60's say, "I wish I'd saved less when I was younger."

>>956362
>I like it keep it up.
Thanks man. To be fair, I gave him every opportunity to stop calling me a liar, but even I have my limits. Just goes to show ... you never know who's on the other end of the computer.

>>956319
>could you give me a super short synopsis of what you do?
Sure. I primarily do corporate restructurings, including bankruptcy. I've also worked on a variety of structured finance, private equity, and secured lending transactions. I worked in Biglaw for almost 20 years, including several years as a capital partner. Later, I opened my own firm.

>>956255
>Pretty good for an english major.
I know, right? I can't help but chuckle every time I see English on the "shit tier" list of majors.

>>956256
>Do you ever wish you had a family of your own?
Sure, I think about the "road not taken" from time to time. But at the end of the day, I know how I'm wired. I'm not good at compromising, and I pretty much want things my way all the time. That's not a good recipe for a long-term relationship of equals.

>>956259
Necessary? I guess not, considering you've got an appreciating asset (the business) that's outpacing the average return of the market anyway. In theory, you could justify your approach on the grounds that you're investing in the future return of the business.

I should also point out that I've never advised people to live like paupers solely to increase their savings rate. I'm not a fan of "extreme retirement" and I believe that FIRE gurus like MMM are a bit scammy.

However, I seriously question whether it's a prudent approach. You're putting all your eggs into one basket, with no guarantee that the business will grow or even retain its value. One bad lawsuit, change in the market, new regulation, or whatever ... and suddenly your business is worth 25% of its former value.

You'll think I'm exaggerating, but recall that I've done lots of business bankruptcy cases. I've seen former million dollar companies sell for pennies, sometimes due to no fault of the owner.

If you're smart, you always have a plan B. Saving a chunk of your income should be your plan B. It'll be there in case the business doesn't provide enough for your future, or in case you need to start over for any reason. (Important to note that your 401k and IRA can't be seized by creditors, while your business can and will be taken from you if the shit hits the fan).

If you're smart enough to run a successful business, then you should be smart enough to find some middle ground.

>>956126
>And it's me
No, it's not.

Game over man.

Assuming you've been telling the truth in this thread, you should open a SEP-IRA. Since you won't hit the $53,000 cap due to the 25% limit, you could also open an individual 401(k) if you take the time to incorporate your business before year end.

Charitable contributions are fine. You're under the phase-out cap, so that should be an issue. However, with that much self-employment income you should be timing donations with the goal of avoiding AMT. Your accountant could help with that, if you weren't such a cheapskate.