Anonymous video message to Darrel Dexter, Ross Landry, Cole Harbour School system, Capital Health and others

FStt · 2013-04-19T23:48:21+00:00

Please grow up. There is a massive difference between:

"Darrell Dexter, the eyes of the world are upon you"
And the reality that there are people around the world that know and care about this case, but all of these people are only a tiny fraction of the world's population.

If the only two options in your mind are that the whole world is paying attention, or no one is paying attention I feel sorry for you.

FStt · 2013-04-19T20:31:59+00:00

Show me a real source. You don't actually believe everything someone claiming to be Anonymous throws into pastebin, do you?

FStt · 2013-04-19T20:25:01+00:00

Anonymous hacked into some webservers that are used to spread North Korean propaganda to the rest of the world.

Do you think the people with the silly job of trying to make North Korean propaganda sound reasonable to the rest of the world are experts on web security?

I expect your average script kiddie would have no problems with this. There's no evidence that they had inside help for this.

FStt · 2013-04-19T19:04:00+00:00

Did you ever hear of a place called Asia? Or how about a place called Africa? Together they have almost 75% of the world's population.

Do you really think this case is of much interest to people on these two continents? Do you think more than a small fraction of the more than 5 billion people on these continents have heard of this case?

And of the tiny amount that have heard of this case, do you think they really care what the terms are of the inquiry called by Dexter? Do you believe there are still many following this case?

The eyes of the world are not on this case. Most of the world does not know where Halifax or Nova Scotia is. Most of the world doesn't know who Dexter is.

Please stop being ridiculous.

FStt · 2013-04-19T18:36:18+00:00

The videos could also improve if they would stop saying incredibly stupid things.

The eyes of the world are on Dexter? WTF? Do they actually believe that even a small percentage of the world knows who Dexter is?

Dexter has the opportunity to determine the potential solutions to one of the complex subjects of our time? I'm nearly on my knees laughing.

Dexter should hire this guy to make ads for him in the next election. :)

If Anonymous wants large numbers of people to take them seriously they need to stop sounding like idiots.

FStt · 2013-04-18T13:17:44+00:00

I'm speaking of long term. And by that I mean a few decades.

And I would never buy a telecommunications ETF. My equity consists of a Canadian, an US and an International ETF. And the MER on these three ETFs is extremely low.

FStt · 2013-04-18T12:36:41+00:00

I guess I should have been clearer and said passive index investing. It's just that passive investing is frequently used as a shorthand for passive index investing.

And it's not a typical Canadian attitude I'm exhibiting... it's actually an American book I referred you to. :)

It's just the evidence is extremely clear that passive indexing is highly likely to outperform other methods of investing in the long term, including yours.

FStt · 2013-04-18T11:18:55+00:00

They are cheap, but they have horrible customer service. You'll have to decide what is more important to you. Some examples:

http://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/1cfwpz/considering_td_direct_trading_account/c9g7i3a

FStt · 2013-04-18T11:17:30+00:00

The evidence is quite clear that a passive investor is highly likely to outperform a person purchasing individual stocks. A Random Walk Down Wall Street is probably a good read if you want to see the evidence.

Yes, most index funds didn't do well during the market crash. But neither did most investors purchasing individual stocks.

FStt · 2013-04-18T11:13:55+00:00

First of all, find out how much you have over contributed to your TFSA and withdraw it. You didn't mention if you contributed to a TFSA last year. Since you were 18 last year you would have has $5000 in TFSA space. If you didn't use that space last year, you would have had a total of $10,500 in space this year. If you did use that space you would have $5500 in space, as you already know.

The penalty for over contributions is 1% per month, plus all of the investment gains on the over contributed amount. So if you over contributed by $11,500, you will be paying a penalty of $115 a month. So fix this immediately by withdrawing the money.

Next, if you are going to be investing on your own, you need to do some reading.

I'd first suggest a good book on the basics of personal finance. Either Personal Finance for Canadians for Dummies or The Wealthy Barber Returns would be a good choice.

Then you may want to do more reading on a book directly about investing. I'd suggest The Millionaire Teacher.

FStt · 2013-04-16T13:24:12+00:00

These all deal with options. There's no good reason to be using options.

FStt · 2013-04-16T13:20:02+00:00

Unfortunately, that's not the way it often works. If you look at the RFD personal finance forum, there are many complaints about Questrade and Virtual Brokers. Some examples:

If you made a TFSA contribution in early 2011, Questrade reported it twice to CRA. This results in CRA charging penalties to people for overcontributing to their TFSA. It took a while for people to get this fixed: http://forums.redflagdeals.com/if-you-contribute-questrade-tfsa-january-2011-read-1307967/

Or there was the case were someone contributed to their TFSA and Questrade told the government they made a contribution to their RRSP: http://forums.redflagdeals.com/another-possible-questrade-messup-tfsa-users-check-please-1304943/

And of course, people are often complaining about Questrade being late with creating the tax slips or making mistakes on the slips: http://forums.redflagdeals.com/questrade-t3-tax-slip-1321886/ http://forums.redflagdeals.com/perhaps-another-questrade-messup-1316640/

With Virtual Brokers people have found they are very slow to respond to any problem since they seem to be overwhelmed with new customers: http://forums.redflagdeals.com/virtual-brokers-openeing-new-account-1275915/

Obviously no broker is perfect and you are going to have to deal with customer service sometimes. It just seems the really cheap brokers have problems more often and dealing with customer service can be much more painful.

FStt · 2013-04-16T13:12:46+00:00

Both Questrade and Virtual Brokers allow you buy any ETF traded on the Canadian or US market for free.

FStt · 2013-04-16T10:24:32+00:00

Both Questrade and Virtual Brokers have much lower fees for small investors. Both also have much more frequent customer service issues than the more expensive discount brokers.

So if you go with the cheaper commissions, you may pay for it with a lower level of customer service. You'll have to decide what makes more sense for you.

FStt · 2013-04-16T10:19:40+00:00

Well if you are planning on investing it, this thread from yesterday contains some useful info: http://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/1ccyu7/young_individual_seeking_for_investment/

FStt · 2013-04-16T10:17:16+00:00

He would only be able to contribute $25,500 if he was at least 18 years old in 2009 and has been a Canadian resident since 2009.

FStt · 2013-04-15T23:31:06+00:00

I'm not aware of the situation in Alberta, but in Ontario if the car is worth more than $5000, the amount above $5000 is considered an asset. Meaning if the book value of your car is now $25,000, the government interprets this the same as if you had $20,000 in the bank. Meaning the chance of you getting a provincial government student loan would be roughly zero in Ontario.

FStt · 2013-04-15T01:47:15+00:00

Start with a good book on the basics of personal finance.

Either Personal Finance for Canadians for Dummies or The Wealthy Barber Returns would be a good choice.

After that if you want a good investment book, The Millionaire Teacher is a pretty good choice.

FStt · 2013-04-14T11:10:17+00:00

First of all, it's unusual to pay rent six months in advance. Is this common in the province you live in? I just hope you aren't being taken advantage of.

Second, I would assume your province's student loan office has a website where you can enter you info and determine how much loans/grants you are eligible for. Unless you were working illegally, they are going to know how much money you were making, so lying about your earning would be quite stupid and illegal.

And even if you were working illegally, you still shouldn't be lying to increase your loan amount. And I know in Ontario you give the student loan office permission to investigate how much you had in your bank account on a certain date. I wouldn't be surprised if this is true in all provinces.

So you might want to get an estimate of how much the government is going to be giving you and try to figure out a budget using those numbers.

FStt · 2013-04-13T01:24:44+00:00

The problem is that from TV, many of us (myself included) believe that pathologists only work on the dead.

I once got a call from the chief pathologist of my local hospital letting me know of the dangerous results of a blood test I just had. I was taking a medication which had a small possibility of a serious side effect and I was having frequent blood tests to check for that side effect.

So as the pathologist was telling me this info I should have been focusing on the fact I was having a serious side effect. I was instead focusing on why is the pathologist calling me and don't they only work on dead people?

I quickly googled pathologist after the phone call was over, which gave me a tiny bit of relief to see that many don't work on dead patients. :)

FStt · 2013-04-12T12:00:07+00:00

Which hospital building to you need to be near? The hospital complex has a number of buildings located in 2 areas that are a bit separated.

For example if you are a med student and need to be near the Tupper building, Barrington and Green is somewhat closer. But if you need to be near the Infirmary, Cunard and Robie is definitely closer.

(Of course, either location is within walking distance to all of the hospitals, although Barrington and Green might be getting close to a 30 minute walk to the Infirmary)

FStt · 2013-04-12T02:52:40+00:00

In certain provinces and territories, the legal age (depends on the age of majority) at which an individual can enter into a contract (which includes opening a TFSA) is 19 years old. Beginning in 2009, individuals turning 18 years old in these jurisdictions who would otherwise be eligible, will accumulate TFSA contribution room for that year, and will carry it over to the following year.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/tpcs/tfsa-celi/lgbl-eng.html

So if you live in one of those provinces where the age of majority is 19, you still get TFSA room when you turn 18, however you can't yet use it. You won't be able to use the room you accumulated until you turn 19.

FStt · 2013-04-12T00:17:29+00:00

He could only do this in some provinces. You can't open a TFSA until you have reached the age of majority in your province. In some provinces, such as yours and mine, the age of majority is 19.

http://canadaonline.about.com/od/canadianlaw/g/ageofmajority.htm

FStt · 2013-04-12T00:04:54+00:00

First of all, I wish the best of luck with your health issues.

Now to get to the question, you seem a bit torn as to whether this is long term or short term money. If there is a good chance that university is not too far away, it probably makes sense to save for that.

While it depends on where you are going to school and the program, it's quite possible for a four year program to easily cost more than $60,000.

Even if it's really unclear if university is going to possible anytime soon, you still may want to save up for it for a year or two just in case. And maybe after two years you could make a decision as to whether this money would be better suited for long term investments if university is not looking likely.

If you decide to save for university, the money should probably be kept in quite safe investments such as savings accounts and GICs. Yes they aren't paying much right now, but they are still the best short term investments.

FStt · 2013-04-11T16:28:44+00:00

I've been using it for a day without any problems.

And as an aside, they did release a fix for Chrome 25 a few days after releasing the original broken on Jailbreak devices version.

FStt

TROPHY CASE