"SHOW ME THE MONEY" VIEWS on HOW to make MONEY GR

[retailguy]

No, but all this damn money I am being taxed is being pissed away by government programs that if they were outsourced to a landscaping company in each country could be done in half the time and for half the price, since that company is looking to turn profit, versus the county workers which are unionized and non-profit. It's a load of crap is what it is. My roomate, for example, is working for the county up north as an assistant civil engineer, and he is getting a fat paycheck every week to do virtually nothing. He even agrees a much better use of money would be to pay a profit-seeking company to get the job done in a third of the time for a third of the money.

You just became a conservative.... May I be the first to welcome you.

[Partial]

So, If I have a choice of making 9500 or 8400 and quiting, it would probably make more sense to stop working just before the 8400 since I wouldn't be using my time wisely, correct?

NO! You'd pay tax on the income ABOVE $8450 at 10% to start, therefore you'd keep 90 cents for every dollar you earned in federal taxes. Even when you "bump" into another tax bracket, it NEVER makes sense to not earn every dollar you can earn. Never stop earning money, instead structure your life on how to minimize taxes.

Take the extra money and funnel it into a retirement package and you STILL pay no tax. You don't get the money until you retire, but you need to start building retirement savings anyhow. Earn every single nickel you can this summer.

Alright, that makes sense. I have my company currently taking the max amount out of my paycheck that they will match for the 401k. I have to talk to someone though and figure out how to access this. It's certainly not much, but atleast it is almost what they take out for social security, so it works I suppose. By the end of summer it may only be a few hundred bucks, but I suppose that is better than nothing. Are there rules about yanking that money out if necessary? I am thinking about getting it into something that can gain some interest rather than just having it sit and do nothing.

[pacfan]

You just became a conservative.... May I be the first to welcome you.

imagine this in Darth Vader's voice and its kinda funny.

[Partial]

Knock it off. NOW!!!

I realize this is my own doing for bringing that up to begin with. It was a mistake. I am not going to edit that. But it ends now. No more politics in this thread. This is really useful stuff that I do not want corrupted by a political debate.

We can create a seperate thread for that if thats what we want.

[SkinBasket]

Rush Limbaugh says to invest heavily in small banks because democrats are just lazy fools who hang out like bums in parks.


Maybe if you use ALL CAPS and bold it, someone will listen. Lighten up Partial. Even money matters need some comedy.

[Deputy Nutz]

Partial it doesn't matter if you vote republican or democrat, your money gets pissed away.

Join me in my milita, and we will put an end to big government.

[Partial]

How much does your average salary increase per year? I asked my mom this and she said 3% is pretty standard when there is no promotion or raise or anything. Any thoughts?

[Deputy Nutz]

right now it is about 2.7% standard.

[Partial]

Does that cap off? Assuming an engineer starts at 50,000, gets his MBA and jumps to 75,000 after 8 years, if you worked for like 37 years when all is said and done you'll be making approximately 174,300.30 at 3% salary increase per year. That just seems outrageously high to me for anyone

[Patler]

Does that cap off? Assuming an engineer starts at 50,000, gets his MBA and jumps to 75,000 after 8 years, if you worked for like 37 years when all is said and done you'll be making approximately 174,300.30 at 3% salary increase per year. That just seems outrageously high to me for anyone

Well, 37 years ago (1969) I thought I would be quite well-off if I could make $10,000-$15,000 per year. At the time, I believe I was working for $.95 per hour. I was excited when it went above a dollar.

I suspect that by 2045 you will look back at your starting salary and chuckle about how well you did with so little money!

[Partial]

touche, that makes sense because inflation is probably only slightly lower than the salary increase you'd get each year. On a bad year i'd guess it could be even more.

[retailguy]

Partial, I think you are really UNDERESTIMATING what your earning potential could be. Practically, you probably couldn't predict it if you tried, but that's not what is really important.

Today, just earn what you can, and if you can save for retirement, do that.

Your 401K can be moved if you leave your employer. Any credible financial planner can help you move it. You may want to leave it right where it is at, if that is allowed under the terms of the plan. Otherwise, you can roll it over to an IRA with a planner or investment broker. Just work with someone that you can trust, and don't buy and sell frequently. Buy it, hold it and don't sell it unless something drastically changes with the investment vehicle you chose.

edit: May the force be with you. Never forget, even Darth Vader became a "good guy" in the end.

[pacfan]

edit: May the force be with you. Never forget, even Darth Vader became a "good guy" in the end.

hey, hey, hey!!! it didn't happen 'til he saw all wrongs he committed and then it was to late.

Partial don't be yelling at me now, its just not nice.

[Bretsky]

ANYBODY EVER HAD ANY POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES WITH OVERSTOCK.COM ?

Plz note I don't own the stock and am not pimping it for a good investment. I'm beginning to research it and view it as a high risk high reward stock if it turns out. Interesting read below, but don't take it as advice about anything

The tempting numbers behind Overstock
Latest Market Update
July 05, 2006 -- 16:20 ET


Recognizing multibagger opportunities is difficult for most investors. Even when the opportunity sits squarely in front of them, most investors fail to see it.

For instance, observers were bewildered when Bill Miller was aggressively buying shares of Amazon.com (AMZN, news, msgs) below $7 per share in 2001. These observers couldn't see the earnings leverage in the Amazon model because of an overwhelming cloud of negativity.

An opportunity of similar magnitude to buying Amazon below $7 in 2001 exists today for investors in Overstock.com (OSTK, news, msgs). Over the next eight to 10 years, it's reasonable to expect Overstock will reach $4 billion in annual sales. If the operating model matures as I anticipate, the earnings and free cash flow will justify a business value of at least $4 billion, or more than nine times today's market value.

Increased share of market
While that may seem outrageous to some, there's a good chance that I'm too conservative. My sales-growth expectations, at 17% annually, are probably too low. Sales may be closer to $5 billion to $6 billion in eight to 10 years as Overstock continues to take share in the excess-inventory market, which is currently a $60 billion addressable market. Inefficient distribution of excess inventory is an expensive "headache" for brand-name manufacturers.

Overstock cures that headache.

Excess inventory levels are notoriously irregular and difficult for manufacturers to manage. They have to deal with unpredictable change in both the nominal level and across product categories. Using a single distribution partner, like Overstock, requires no capital outlay by manufacturers and results in fast conversion of excess inventory to cash.

Another reason my calculations may be too conservative is that the advantages of Overstock's business model may eventually command a premium valuation, perhaps 1.5 times sales. This implies a business value that is about 15 times the current value within this eight- to 10-year time period.

A model like Amazon is subject to assault based on price. For example, Buy.com is advertising books at 10% below the Amazon price. Overstock's model doesn't have the same vulnerability:

The online space that Overstock competes in is a winner-take-all category. As with eBay (EBAY, news, msgs), in the online auction space, there's a self-reinforcing dynamic at work here. Buyers naturally migrate to the inventory liquidation site that has the most product, and sellers want to sell on the site that has the most buyers. It's a mistake to underestimate the importance of this dynamic -- or its potential long-term value.

The 'magic' of organic growth
Look at the analyst reports in the early years of every great organic growth story, and you'll see that analysts miss this critical variable each and every time. That is, they underestimate earnings leverage. Organic growth begets powerful earnings leverage because it's exponentially cheaper to grow organically than to grow via acquisition.

It's irrefutable that Overstock has generated significant organic growth. The company's 2002 sales were $92 million, and sales this year will exceed 10 times that, or over $920 million. While I estimate that the Overstock model will eventually mature at a free cash flow margin of 3.5% of sales, it may be materially higher.

When Home Depot (HD, news, msgs) was generating 3.5% to 4% net margins several years ago, analysts (including me) failed to identify the earnings leverage in the model that resulted in 7% margins. It's quite impressive that Dell (DELL, news, msgs) can sell a low-margin commodity product and generate well over 6% net margins (up from less than 2% in the early years). If I had been given Dell's operating metrics in the early days, my guess is that I would have estimated, at the very most, an ultimate net margin level of only 3% or so.

The most powerful earnings leverage is found in operating models, like those discussed above, where there is a combination of both organic growth and category dominance. Because Overstock has both organic growth and dominates a winner-take-all online category, it's reasonably likely that I have underestimated its long-term profitability.

Because of the way earnings leverage works, the transition from losing 2 to 3 cents to earning 3 cents or more per dollar of revenue requires nothing heroic for Overstock. At $1 billion in sales, the company generates $150 million in gross profit dollars. (I consider a 15% gross margin a conservative assumption.) At $2 billion it generates $300 million, and at $4 billion it generates $600 million. Costs such as marketing, technology and G&A (general and administrative) grow in nominal terms, but not as a percentage of sales.

Think of technology and G&A as the cost of "headquarters." Much of that cost is front-end loaded. While headquarters will cost more at $2 billion in sales than it does at $1 billion in sales, it will not cost anywhere near twice as much.

High-risk phase is over
That marketing expense will decline as a percent of sales is obvious. But building a No. 1 brand -- a top-five retail online destination -- is expensive. According to industry sources, Overstock has gone from zero unprompted name recognition a few years ago to 4% about 30 months ago, to 29% today (for purposes of comparison, Amazon is at 44%). Prompted name recognition is also impressive, at 70%. With the brand-building phase nearly complete, marketing dollars naturally decline as a percentage of revenue.

The high-risk phase in the Overstock evolution is over -- that's the early phase in which Overstock emerged as the clear leader from a pack of competitors such as Ubid, eCost, Buy.com, Mercata and SmartBargains.

There will be dozens of reasons over the next eight to 10 years for Overstock investors to short-circuit this multibagger opportunity. While this model is exceedingly well positioned, it will not grow in a linear fashion. Like most great organic growth stories, this one will grow in fits and starts, marked by periods of brilliance as well as error.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/TheStreet/TheTemptingNumbersBehindOverstock.aspx

[Partial]

Well B, if it means anything to you, which is probably doesn't, i've heard of the site, and been to it, but i've never once considered shopping there. Whenever I need a specific product, I first go to Ebay, then I go to Froogle and find it there, and then I check a retail store. I do a TON of online shopping. Just figured i'd lay it out there, but it is probably meaningless in the grand scheme of things.