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I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

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Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#161

Post by jldugger »

erwincoumans wrote: post #150
gte525u wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really golden. It' just i-bond inflation rates are high at the moment. The bond rates are set per 6 month window - but you get it relative to the purchase date. So if you buy before the last possible day before the rate change date you would get 7.12% (annualized) for 6 months then 9.6% (annualized) for 6 months. If you buy after the rate change, you would get 9.6% (annualized) followed by some yet to be det…

So the undetermined inflation rate for November 2022 has to go down to less than 7.12% (annualized) for that (the April case) to be a real "golden" opportunity? How likely is that?

More like the interest rate 30y from now has to be higher than 7.12 annualized, since thats the one period that will be different, everything else is just the same but lagged

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#163

Post by tmpz22 »

antihero wrote: post #124
rockbruno wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have witnessed this working at FAANG where people usually have the choice to allocate their grants into either risky options or safe, straight cash. The amount of people I see going all-in into the riskiest option and then proceeding to not understand why they lost their "compensation" (?) when the stock drops frightens me.

It's because in tech you are paid so fucking much that any ridiculous screw up you might do only affects you momentarily, you can still afford your bizzaro happy life, if you've fucked your savings money there's always more cash for rent, bills, enjoyment, on the horizon. Life become a fucking toy on some levels. There is no fear.

A lot of FANNG is non-software roles. A lot of FANNG are contractors. A lot of FANNG is over leveraged (house, random tax liabilities, supporting family members).

I’m utterly convinced FANNG comp is overvalued due to selection bias on Blind and direct PR efforts by those companies.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#164

Post by jhanschoo »

jefftk wrote: post #62

> They require you to enter your password by clicking on a virtual keyboard. This pseudo-security measure actually only slows down humans, not bots, because you can still edit the value of the text field using Javascript. I don't think this is generally worth it as a security measure, but the goal is not to protect against automation. Instead, custom on-screen keyboards are attempts to thwart keyloggers.

Especially, I suppose, third-party keyboards on Android. My bank's Android app uses an in-app PIN pad for this purpose.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#165

Post by tzs »

hanoz wrote: post #9

Er, what? Surely he's got the wrong end of the stick and they'll be refunding the excess $25 of his second purchase, (and now the entire $9975 of his superfluous third).

It's not obvious. In general if you attempt to purchase a certain amount or quantity of some item and for some reason it is only possible for them to sell you a smaller amount of that item, with some items a smaller amount will be acceptable to you and with some items a smaller amount is not acceptable.

If the first case delivering the smaller amount and refunding the overpayment would be what the customer would want. In the second case delivering nothing and refunding the entire payment would be what the customer would want.

I could see purchases of financial instruments fall into either group. It would depend on what alternate investments are available to the person. Say I've got $10k to invest and my first choice in investment #1. I try to purchase $10k of #1 and it turns out there is a limit of $5k. My second choice is investment #2 which has no limits.

In that case I'd want $5k in #1 and the other $5k in #2 and so the behavior I'd want from the seller of #1 when I try to buy $10k is to sell me $5k and refund my $5k overpayment.

But suppose #2 has a minimum investment of $6k, and I have no good #3. In this case what I might want is all $10k in #2. When my attempt to purchase $10k of #1 fails I'd want them to sell me nothing and refund all $10k so I can buy #2.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#166

Post by rcxdude »

oli-g wrote: post #104
jrimbault wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if there's a keylogger installed, why would the same keylogger not take regular screenshots ?

Screenshots wouldn't be of much help. The frequency would need to be almost like a low-fps video recording in order to capture the buttons' pressed state. At that is assuming the state is visually distinct in the first place.

The usual way a keylogger like this would work is taking a screenshot on every mouse click (and maybe every few keystrokes), with the mouse pointer location recorded alongside (if not visible in the screenshot). It is a lot more difficult than just recording keystrokes though.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#167

Post by erwincoumans »

jldugger wrote: post #161
erwincoumans wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the undetermined inflation rate for November 2022 has to go down to less than 7.12% (annualized) for that (the April case) to be a real "golden" opportunity? How likely is that?

More like the interest rate 30y from now has to be higher than 7.12 annualized, since thats the one period that will be different, everything else is just the same but lagged

That is serious long thinking. For the comparison April versus May 2032 ibonds case I was assuming a sale after exactly 1 year (and spend it, say on a Europe trip instead of investing it). You would loose out on 3 months interest, selling ibonds before 5 years, so the numbers are a bit different.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#168

Post by jug »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #16

Alternative title: "I purposefully tried to make a transaction that breaks the rules, it didn't end well."

This is the logic I don’t follow. “Here’s a site with a weird UX responsible for my money, let’s see what happen if I do something silly with it…” Dear god no. Don’t. The red flags…?

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#169

Post by mtrower »

flik wrote: post #146
JadeNB wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the author having 20K as all his money(if true, not confirmed in the article) The author explicitly indicates that it is all of their savings: > I sat there with my $173.12 of remaining savings and $25 in I-bonds, feeling like I had accomplished something truly remarkable.

I read this as 173.12 of remaining savings "to invest" (and not entire savings)

> Whatever, I thought, I still have a little over $10k left in my bank, and my next paycheck will come soon.

I don't know, but I don't have a good feeling about that...

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#170

Post by zarzavat »

eterm wrote: post #21
viraptor wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They thought they exceeded the limit by trying to send $10000+$25, so given that the $10000 was coming back, they expected that they're again $9975 under the limit.

That's an odd interpretation of the refund. The email clearly states, > "A refund of the excess purchase..." So they'd be refunded the excess, i.e. $25. Putting another $9,975 through just feels like being "too smart".

It’s bad English. The unambiguous terminology would be simply “excess” or “excess part of the purchase”. The term “excess purchase” sounds like the entire purchase is excess i.e. the adjective “excess” is modifying the noun “purchase” [the purchase was excess]. But they intended it as a noun adjunct where the noun “purchase” is modifying the noun “excess” [the excess was a purchase]. But this parse is not at all preferably taken syntactically, only the semantics clue you into it.

Very sloppy for a consumer financial communication, but I guess that governments can get away with it.

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