<p>I sold some intc puts today. No major reason. Just to do something.</p>
<p>Busdriver11, how is the empty nester situation working out so far?
I didnt want to stray too off topic in the ACA thread which is why I am asking you the question here. :)</p>
<p>It’s working out okay, dstark. I was very distressed at first, but with two kids in college, we decided we needed to work a lot more and kept busy that way. I’m finally used to it, and we do have our dogs. For the first time in 21 years, we are actually working at the same time instead of opposite schedules (to make sure someone was with the kids), so that’s a good change. Just saw the kids in NYC over Thanksgiving, doing well, but now there’s new things with them to worry over that I have no control over…eating right, exercising, cleaning their living spaces. Nothing too critical. Such is life, maybe the control I thought I had was all an illusion anyways.</p>
<p>I have found I have very little control of anything except my attitude. 
</p>
<p>The kids leaving the house was very hard for me, but with time i got used to the idea. </p>
<p>Sounds like you are off to a good start. </p>
<p>I love NY. Great walking city. Not a bad place to end up. </p>
<p>I thought one of your kids graduated and was working in NYC. How many kids do you have?</p>
<p>That’s true. That’s pretty much all we can influence anymore, ourselves. I can’t even influence my dogs unless I have a bit of food.</p>
<p>I have two kids. Yes, one is working in NYC as a software engineer, doing well…but I think he longs for the excitement of working with people who are truly passionate about the world of geekdom, not just for the paycheck. The other one is at Bucknell, which isn’t too far from NYC, and hopes to end up there one way or another. </p>
<p>Is your son also in the city with his new job? It is an exciting place to be.</p>
<p>“I can’t even influence my dogs unless I have a bit of food.”</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Yes, my son is in NYC and as you know… The downside is he may not come back. It is his life and he loves NYC.</p>
<p>That is a problem. You settle down in a beautiful place that you just know your kids will come back to…then they fall in love with NYC. However do you compete with that? I guess you become resigned to just visiting.</p>
<p>Yeah…</p>
<p>Bitcoin news of the day:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Huge</a> bitcoin heist: Black market drug shop Sheep Marketplace poofs with $40 million | Computerworld Blogs](<a href=“http://blogs.computerworld.com/cybercrime-and-hacking/23217/huge-bitcoin-heist-black-market-drug-shop-sheep-marketplace-poofs-40-million?source=CTWNLE_nlt_pm_2013-12-02]Huge”>http://blogs.computerworld.com/cybercrime-and-hacking/23217/huge-bitcoin-heist-black-market-drug-shop-sheep-marketplace-poofs-40-million?source=CTWNLE_nlt_pm_2013-12-02)</p>
<p>Fascinating. Maybe the Somali pirates could change their focus and attention to doing Bitcoin heists? Sort of joking, I think.</p>
<p>GP ,</p>
<p>From another thread you wrote…</p>
<p>“The yields for A-rated bonds and higher only make sense for longer maturities. Unless you know you’re going to hold the bond to maturity, you need to reconcile the duration risk and the lack of liquidity for most tax-exempt issues. It is much easier finding decent yields for 5 to 8 year corporate maturities with above average credit profiles than munis.”</p>
<p>What kind of yields are you seeing in the corporate bond market with maturities 5 to 8 years out?</p>
<p>If outright theft of bitcoins is too hard, you can always go the botnet route:</p>
<p>
[Two</a> charged with hacking computers to generate bitcoins - Computerworld](<a href=“Two charged with hacking computers to generate bitcoins | Computerworld”>Two charged with hacking computers to generate bitcoins | Computerworld)</p>
<p>Any bitcoin experts here? How do you buy bitcoins and/or “mine” them?</p>
<p>On an entirely different subject, we have the following today from the Philadelphia Inquirer</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20131205_Your_Money__How_investors_minimize_capital_gains_taxes.html[/url]”>Your Money: How investors minimize capital gains taxes;
<p>“There is an opportunity that we haven’t seen in previous years, to do what’s called ‘tax-loss harvesting,’ selling your appreciated stock and swapping that money into muni bonds.”</p>
<p>Did I miss something? Has the law changed? Don’t you automatically incur a tax liability if you sell appreciated stock and reinvest the funds?</p>
<p>EMM1, the article has some inconsistencies and inaccuracies. Something was probably lost in the translation. :)</p>
<p>Selling stocks to buy muni bonds is not a wash sale. I have a loss in a muni bond fund. I was actually going to do the opposite, sell munis and harvest loss.</p>
<p>That’s what I thought. But I think that it is unconscionable for a newspaper to publish such misleading information about the tax laws. Some unsuspecting reader might follow the advice and end up with an unexpected big bill.</p>
<p>EMM, i don’t get your objection. The article didn’t say to buy back the same stock. Besides, very few people would have a loss in stocks for the year.</p>
<p>What the article clearly implied was that you could minimize tax liability by selling appreciated stock and swapping the proceeds into municipal bonds.</p>
<p>Oh, I see. There’s no loss to harvest.</p>
<p>Another nobel prize winning economist predicting a reccession in 2014,</p>
<p>[Nobel</a> economics winner Fama says risk of global recession in 2014 - Yahoo Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nobel-economics-winner-fama-says-120234994.html]Nobel”>Nobel economics winner Fama says risk of global recession in 2014)</p>