Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist - The F.S.A.

An anonymous commenter left this:

What is securitization dude? Can ya explain in in simple, lucid terms?

Can do dude. First, to define another term:
security:

A security is a type of transferrable interest representing financial value. Traditionally securities have been categorised between debt and equity securities, and between bearer and registered securities

So when you buy a stock, a bond, a CD, etc you are buying a security.

Now securitization just describes the process of turning things that are not securities (i.e. credit card receivables) into securities that investors can legally buy. So in that sense it's simple to understand. However, the process is very complicated and requires tons of lawyers.

For more on the topic see these two posts: how credit cards make money and more on securitization.

Tags: personal finance securitization

First the good news:
I got a raise which takes effect next month. It was more than I was expecting so I am happy about that. All of my raise will be going into my 401k as I now qualify for MATCHING! Also, I've learned that the same percentage will be taken out of my bonus at the end of the year. Not only that, but I will get a match on that as well. PLUS, I also qualify for profit sharing this year as well which could be a sizable percentage of my total compensation (bonus + base). After crunching the numbers, and taking into account my expected bonus the total contributions from both my employer and I will be north of $13,000! In actuality, I expect it to be more like $10,000. Notice, that's contributions not value. Between now and the end of the year, the market could tank for all I know, but at least I'm saving something.

On top of that, my expected take-home bonus will be able to cover the two major expenses so far (wife's college and child-care costs) plus a little more.

Now the bad news:
It's shaping up to be a very expensive month. Home repairs are the largest source of this. There was a portion of discretionary spending in there for the kids, but by and large repairing the house is the biggest chunk. To top it off, we've found new things that needs repair. I'm going to be calling the plumber either today or tomorrow to take care of it. I'm thinking it's a 3-4 hour job @ $72/hr for a total cost of $288 + materials. On top of that, we're waiting for some test results and depending on what it says, that's going to determine whether or not I take a second job.

Thanks to everyone that commented on that second job post. I will definitely be taking a look at tutoring rather than coding or working in retail. I only hope that I'd be able to find 2-4 students to tutor so that I could fill up the cash bank quickly :).

The Silver Lining:
I am cautiously optimistic that I won't need to take the second job. The first repair we did to correct the problem should be enough without going the expensive route, but the test will tell. I'm really excited about my raise and what it could potentially mean about my bonus at the end of the year. Taking a look at last year's bonus, taxes were like 33% of the amount, so I'm factoring that in for this one. I think that might mean I'll still getting a refund this year.

After doing a quick search on google, I did find this one informative article about taxes and bonuses. I think I might do what they said to do in the article. I don't owe any federal taxes right now, so I am reasonably sure that I should be able to change my W4 so that I get the money sooner, rather than later. We will see.

Tags: personal finance

Latest God Squad

Seeing as how TRA has gone off the deep end, I have taken it upon myself to begin reviewing the God Squad. I figure it will give me something to write about and get me on a schedule. Besides, I liked the old god squad reviews, so I hope I can do the spirit of those reviews justice in this inaugural issue of FSA's God Squad reviews.

In this weeks God Squad, we have a couple of vapid points about names of churches and dealing with a catholic mother-in-law that won't attend other denominations baptism before we get to this juicy question:

My friend asked me the following question. How would you respond?: 'Can you give biblical proof or point to an event that proves the existence of the Holy Spirit?'

My main quibble with this is how does anything in the bible provide proof to this point and I wonder if the "friend" really only wanted an "event" more so than "text in an old book". As to be expected the squad took the easy way out and just passed along a bible quote, specifically 1 Corinthians 2:9-13 (KJV):

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: For the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. . . . Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual."

As it is written where exactly? I'm assuming the bible. This is always the problem with biblical proof of anything, for example:
Atheist: How do you know god exists?
Christian: Well, it says so right here in the bible.
Atheist: But the bible was written by men.
Christian: No, it's the word of God.
Atheist: Well, how do you know that?
Christian: Well, it says so right here in the bible...

And round and round we go. To top if off there are numerous versions of the bible, even some with cool myths. Plus there are all the various translations issues.

I remember watching Robin Williams on Broadway where he was joking about muslim suicide bombers with this joke (I'm paraphrasing): Recently a Muslim scholar has come forth saying that due to a translation error in the Koran, that it's not 72 virgins but 72 raisens. Can you imagine the look on that guys face when he gets to heaven and says, 'Where's my bitches'...'Here are your raisens'..

Could you imagine if it wasn't the "meek" that inherited the earth, but the "freaks" due to one translation error? And it wasn't "turn the other cheek", but "take their mother's first-born son and eat him"? Ridiculous, right?

Despite all these issues, the squad did answer the question. I only wish they had attempted to make it more substantiative and convincing than that.

Tags: god squad atheism

I had the opportunity to watch South Park's season six episode entitled Biggest Douche in the Universe. Here is a very salient quote:

Stan: I am saying this to you, John Edward. You are a liar. You are a fake. And you are the biggest douche ever. The big questions in life are tough; Where are we from? Why are we here? Where are we going? But as long as there's big douchey liars like you around, we're never going to find the answers to those questions. You're not just lying, you're slowing down the progress of all mankind, YOU DOUCHE!

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Over at polymath (a new addition to the blogroll) there is a brouhaha, nay a veritable scream-fest about whether .9 repeating is equal to one, here is the post. For those who are wondering, it does*. The math is clear and simple and there are numerous ways of proving it. That being said, go check it out. There are many people who say that it doesn't. Be forewarned, there are over 400 comments! Some of them are just truly "great", like this one:

fuck you all, you you put in the scientific calculator in your pc, 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 , it will be equal to 1 and not equal to 0.999999999999 dickheads.. 2/3 is equal to 0.6666666666666667 and not to 0.666666666666. the number 7 is there and it is for being there that 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 =1

Such passion, such fury, such intensity....over mathematics! Too bad it relies on "my calculator says it, so it must be true" which is argument ad calculatoriom or just plain crap since I made that up. It's worth a chuckle.

* Here are a few simple proofs:
a. 1 = 3 * 1/3
b. 1 = 3 * .33333
c. therefore: 1 = .99999, QED b*tch

a. x = .9999
b. 10x = 9.99999
c. 10x - x = 9x
d. 9.9999 - .9999 = 1
e. therefore: x = .99999 = 1, QED b*tch

---slightly more complicated proof----
a. .9999 is a the sum of an infinite geometric series of the form: .99999 = 9/10 + 9/100 + 9/1000 + ....
b. or expressed in the form a*r^k = (9/10) * (1/10)^k
c. this sum converges, and the formula for the value it converges to is a/(1-r) where a = (9/10) and (1-r) = 9/10
d. so the sum is equal to (9/10)/(9/10) = 1
e. therefore .9999 = 1, QED b*tch

Tags: math

HT: GIFS.

Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland who is co-sponsoring a bill on the Ten Commandments was on the Colbert Report. My all-around favorite guy, Stephen Colbert, was able to make him look like a complete jack-ass. The exchange went something like this:

Colbert: "What are the Ten Commandments?"
...
Westmoreland:: "Mmmmm...don't murder....don't lie...don't steal...uhhhhh...I can't name 'em all."

That's right. The Ten commandments are soooo important that you have co-sponsered a bill to get it displayed in the House and the Senate, but you don't even know what all of them are!

Riiight. I would come up with some sort of clever retort but all I have is what a jackass.

Tags: atheism westmoreland

HT: GIFS.

Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland who is co-sponsoring a bill on the Ten Commandments was on the Colbert Report. My all-around favorite guy, Stephen Colbert, was able to make him look like a complete jack-ass. The exchange went something like this:

Colbert: "What are the Ten Commandments?"
...
Westmoreland:: "Mmmmm...don't murder....don't lie...don't steal...uhhhhh...I can't name 'em all."

That's right. The Ten commandments are soooo important that you have co-sponsered a bill to get it displayed in the House and the Senate, but you don't even know what all of them are!

Riiight. I would come up with some sort of clever retort but all I have is what a jackass.

Tags: atheism westmoreland

A few belated responses before I forget:
MB said

Nagin was quite bad, but if I were you I wouldn't blame black people for this result; New Orleans post-Katrina is majority white.

The last thing I like doing is to admit that I'm wrong. Unfortunately it looks like I have to do that now. Nagin was able to achieve victory by garnering a lot of white votes as well. It wasn't all the black people's fault. Hey ricemutt, is there a seat at the table for one more? Pass the humble pie.

Darius said

I'm wondering about the nature of the journey of an atheist - looking at your profile.

What do you want to know? I'd be more than happy to share.

That's it for now.


Tags: atheism

Thanks to LYA :P (love the new blog look by the way)

1. Charmed - I blame my wife. Yes, I watched Charmed. I could take the easy route and be like: it's because of the three hot chicks, but I am a bigger man than that. It wasn't the chicks, it was the cheesy plot, that was just so good. So yea, you can make fun of me now.

2. Anime - I've already mentioned that.

3. I too watch The Simpons and Family Guy. Not as much anymore, because the kids keep us busy. Have also been enjoying South Park.

4. Eminem - he's funny, and I like his lyrics. Yes, feel free to taunt me.

5. Underworld the movie. I got a thing for vampires and werewolves, what can I say.

6. DLISTED.BLOGSPOT.COM! You got me started on that site, and I find myself always going back. Thanks a lot! :P

Alright, what are your guilty pleasures?

Tags:

This month saw our net worth plummet to around -4,000. I don't feel too bad though as that is about the amount of CC debt we had to take on to pay for my wife's school after they decided to screw us. So while I was feeling midly positive, something went wrong again.

We could potentially be looking at a few thousand dollars of home repair costs coming up fairly soon. Since we already have $4,000 of un-planned expenditure for my wife's school, and $4,000 of planned expenditure for child-care coming up, I have begun seriously considering getting a second job. This will depend on the final costs of the repairs and whether more work will be required after the initial expenditure. I'm not looking forward to working two jobs. I'm already working 55+ hours during the week, and I find the idea of giving up my weekends to be...odious. From a practical standpoint, potentially being $11,000 in debt and hoping that my after-tax bonus will cover all of it is not going to work. As such, here are some ideas I've been mulling around:

• Minimum wage retail job: I've been fortunate that I've never had to work a minimum wage job my entire life. All my jobs have been more than minimum wage and while I certainly wouldn't want to start now, it might be my only option.


• SAT tutor: I got a 1530 on my SATs and scored 770 on math, so I might try to be a Math SAT tutor. Then again, that was 6 years ago and the test has changed dramatically since then. On the plus side, I'd be making anywhere from $15-$20/hr, but on the other hand I most likely wouldn't be able to do that for 16 hours on Saturday and Sunday.


• Programming: I've tried sites like rentacoder before, and frankly it was a waste of my time. Going up against people in lower cost areas like India is a losing proposition. Plus, I don't want to be doing other people's homework. This would be last on my list after working at Burger King.

As it stands, I still have to see what the total cost for the repairs will be. Hopefully it won't require me to work two jobs, but I should know in a couple of weeks.
Of course, the unspoken assumption is that we will have to modify our spending habits during this time. Either way, I hope to figure this out soon.

Tags: personal finance

More and more I am reminded that being an atheist does not preclude one-self to an entirely rational worldview. Being an atheist means one thing and one thing only: you believe that there is no god. By that token, Buddhists are also atheist. Although they have their own collection of irrational views about the world as well.

Sadly, there are others who call themselves atheist and still believe in things like UFOs, ghosts, psychics, and various other new-age idiocy. Not only that, but we have an atheist who is a holocaust denying, white supremecists, one who was purposely infecting women with HIV, and many who believe that abortion* is wrong.

All this just drives home the point that atheists are just like other group of people. While we all have one thing in common, the difference in beliefs after that point is no different from the multitude of christian denominations.

In fact, it might be even worse for atheists because it keeps us fractured and unable to rally massive number of people to fight against various infringements on nonbelievers rights. Then again, I wouldn't want to associate with someone like Larry Darby anyway...especially since I'm black.

*From my perspective, someone who thinks abortion is wrong isn't being rational, just as from my perspective, someone who thinks that god, ghosts, psychics, etc exists isn't being rational.

Tags: atheism

I showed you how to use the pmt function in excel to calculate the monthly payment for your loans. Now, I'm going to show you how to create an amortization table in excel to figure out exactly how your loan pays down over time.

Why would you want to create your own amortization table instead of using the bevy of financial calculators out there? Three reasons:
1. You can customize your table to suit your needs. See what is your current loan balance. You could even enter in some home appreciation assumptions to see how your equity builds up. This would be important if you are trying to see when you can get rid of PMI payments.
2. Like everything else in life, some people are DIY'ers. For me in particular, I like having amortization tables for all my loans, so I can see where I am each month. It gives me a sense of control, whether it's a false sense or not.
3. It's easy! Trust me.

With that out of the way, let's get started.

First, a little bit about how loans work (in general). Every month you loan balance goes up by interest and down by the amount of principal paid. Because you're charged interest on the loan amount, the principal amount is not reduced by the same amount of your monthly payment. Lets take a look at this in Excel.

We need three inputs: Loan Amount, Interest Rate, and Loan term in months.

Now we need to calculate our monthly payment using the pmt function. Remember, we divide the interest rate by 12 to get a monthly rate. See image below.




From here we mimic what happpens to our loan. We get charged interest on the remaining loan balance, and our monthly payment covers interest and some principal. We take the balance minus the principal repaid too see what the remaining balance is each month. See the image below. I've included the formulas for each cell.



Now, we double-check to make sure we did everything correctly. In month 360 we should have paid off our entire loan. Lo and behold, we did.



That's it. We're done. Now you can customize it to your hearts content, adding equity buildup in homes and look at how making extra payments will affect your loan. I'm assuming most people are already familiar with Excel and know how to copy down formulas and the like. If there are any questions, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. Hope this was helpful.


Tags: personal finance amortization

I took discrete mathematics in college and wasn't very good at it. However, I did appreciate and learn some things from the class. One of them is the pigeonhole principle. The principle is this: if you have 5 holes and you are trying to put 6 pigeons into the holes, then at least one pigeon hole has to have two holes pigeons. Seems pretty trivial and obvious right?

Yet when you extend upon that principle, it has very real applications. Here's an example.

A computer scientist from MIT comes out with a new file compression technique. He states that given any 4 MB file, he can compress it to 2 MB. Using the pigeonhole principle, you can prove him wrong without ever seeing his software! How's that for smarts?

You would basically say that there are more 4MB files than 2MB files*. Since we're trying to place all 4MB files into 2MB files, some 4MB files would end up as the same 2MB file. Imagine taking a 4MB mp3 of Briteny Spears, and a 4MB mp3 of one of Chopin's Etudes. You could end up with the same 2MB file upon compression, and how would you go about decompressing it to the original mp3 file? QED b*tch.

So there you have the pigeonhole principle.

* remember that a computer file is just a series of bytes. 2MB is 2*2^20 bytes and 4MB is 4*2^20 bytes. That's why there are more 4MB files than 2MB files.

Tags: pigeonhole principle math

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, but do contian a kernel of truth. I have been swamped at work and etc in my personal life. This blog is still a priority for me, albeit a low(er) priority. Have no fear, I will be back with gusto sometime soon. I hope to participate in more carnivals as well. Thanks for your patience and I promise to be a better blogger.

Tags: none