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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

#51

Post by spaetzleesser »

beaconstudios wrote: post #17
Guthur wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it must be satire, or maybe someone straight out of uni and still waiting for the reality check.

Is the US government really that bad? I hear Americans complain about it all the time but from my experience in the UK the government is mostly competent most of the time.

The IRS is quite ok to deal with. When I was freelance i called them a few times and always got somebody to explain the situation in a competent manner. That’s better than calling support at most private companies.

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

#52

Post by skeptikal »

roenxi wrote: post #22

> They're zero-risk bonds... To qualify this, there is zero risk that the technical letter of the agreement won't be honoured. Lending money to the US government is very high risk right now. Simple person metrics like debt to GDP indicate they're currently fighting a bigger war than WWII, and the trend-line says they are losing. If you lend the US government enough money to buy a sandwich there is a real risk that at…

The idea that the US will de jure default on its obligations is risible.

De facto its happened at least once before when Nixon closed the gold window overnight.

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

#53

Post by randallsquared »

imtringued wrote: post #42

This guy sent $10025 and is getting a $25 refund in 8 weeks (which is a ridiculous time to process a refund) and then for some reason decided to lock up another $10k and tries to pass this off as accidential?

He seems to believe that he's getting two refunds in 8-10 weeks: one for 10000, and one for 9975, because he interpreted "excess purchase" as "the purchase that exceeded", rather than as "excess amount", which is the interpretation you used, and is consistent with rejecting the 9975 as well.

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

#54

Post by otherme123 »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #16

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

So if someone makes an honest mistake and types and extra number, it's OK to both 1) don't process any amount and 2) hold the money for two months. That doesn't feel right to me.

E.g. I buy shares and mistype the ticker or buy extra. It processes but then I notice my mistake and I can either fix it by selling, or decide ir doesn't matter and keep the shares. What doesn't make any sense is the broker keeping the money for two months and not giving me any share.

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

#55

Post by dubcanada »

zinekeller wrote: post #44
laurencerowe wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a loan to the currency issuer so it’s effectively the same risk as holding cash.

While you have a point... it's complicated. Selective defaults are already common for companies, so there could be a chance (to emphasise, a miniscule but still-existing chance) that it'll default on this bond while still guaranteeing the value of its currency.

I mean it’s safe to say if the government is going to default on a 10k loan there are bigger issues.

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

#56

Post by skeptikal »

beaconstudios wrote: post #17
Guthur wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it must be satire, or maybe someone straight out of uni and still waiting for the reality check.

Is the US government really that bad? I hear Americans complain about it all the time but from my experience in the UK the government is mostly competent most of the time.

As a Canadian who’s (very) thankfully becoming American I can guarantee you that American government is very incompetent. At least in comparison to a Commonwealth one. The wait times, the level of uncaring, the general attitude was jarring when I first moved here.

I even worked as for a few years for the gov, and the bureaucracy is even worse inside!

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

#58

Post by dubcanada »

It honestly sounds like you have zero idea how any of this works, saw some ad about 8% and without reading anything else decided to go all in. And then you decided you wanted to try and break the software while playing around $20k to the US treasury. And now you’re shocked you have to wait 2 months for a refund that’s technically your fault.

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

#59

Post by noxer »

laurencerowe wrote: post #39
hirako2000 wrote: post #34

Zero risk loan and guaranteed interest rate doesn't mean no risk the government won't default on repayments. If that happens, it is likely to get back the full capital + interest, but at that point in a currency worth initial capital - interest. Lending to a government is only safe when trust of that government is high. At the moment we are at a all time low since the 30s with regards to the US government treasury.

This is a loan to the currency issuer so it’s effectively the same risk as holding cash.

Only if you ignore the risk of missed opportunities because its not like holding cash its like owning cash but someone else holds it and you can not do anything with it.

Beside that its a loan to the gov not the currency issuer which is the Federal Reserve Bank (In the US).

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

#60

Post by zulln »

> This pseudo-security measure actually only slows down humans, not bots, because you can still edit the value of the text field using Javascript (and in fact it's easier to do it that way if you know how).

Surely this is to prevent keyloggers, no slowing down bots. With that said it is questionable if it is worth it. People would probably pick less secure password as a result.

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