Bob R

I'm considering a rent-to-own agreement, but was wondering if it is possible for me to sell my option to buy the house at the end of the rent-to-own term, or if that's something that can be put in the contract.

For example, I may get laid off between now and the end of the term, and will decide not to purchase the property. However, I will have had some "equity" built up through the rent-to-own agreement, and would like a way to protect that investment even if I don't buy the property. Selling the option would allow the current owner of the property to sell it at the end of the term, the only difference being that I'm not the buyer.

Has anyone included a clause like this in a rent-to-own agreement? If so how did it work out? Is there a reason this is a bad idea?

Thanks!

Bob

So I've been able to somehow get through college with no student debt, and have never had a car loan, student loans or a credit card. Unheard of, right? I worked a year before going to school and got several scholarships, and also got a good internship during school that helped pay for my expenses. I lived pretty frugally during that time and was even able to save a little money.

I now have a good paying job and have some substantial savings put together for a down payment on a house. I'm proud to say I've never had any debt.

Question: Is this bad for getting a good mortgage? I understand that most banks look at your FICO score. How does my not having ever had any debt affect this?

I've gotten conflicting answers saying, on the one hand, "you don't have any debt, so you should be able to borrow a lot", and on the other, "you don't have any payment history; why would the loan you thousands of dollars with no knowledge of your ability or history of repayment?"

Right now, I've got about 25% put together for the price range of home I'm looking for. What does the Yahoo Answers community think?

Thanks,

Bob

I've found a respecatble company through that trades through the Pink Sheets (believe it or not) and I'm curious as to how dividends paid by this company will be taxed and distributed. The company trades under the ticker CUPUF in the Pink Sheets, and is listed in US$ on the Toronto Stock Exchange under CUP.U. They're basically the utility that services the Cayman Islands, a low risk play as far as the Pink Sheets are concerned. They pay a 7% dividend. A few questions:

I have a TD Ameritrade account, and can purchase shares of CUPUF. I understand the liquidity risk, and would like to purchase a few hundred shares, but want to make sure that I'm not getting into anything sticky in the tax realm. Does anyone have any experience in the Pink Sheets similar to this that they'd be willing to share?

Thanks in advance,

Bob

How does the NYSE or NASDAQ know that certain sales of stock are short sales? If I were to borrow shares from my brokerage and sell them, are they required by law to report the sale as a short?

I've seen short interest reported on several websites, and I'm curious how that information is compiled.

Any information would be great!

Thanks,

Bob

I'm looking at an electrical diagram written in a foreign language, possibly Itallian or Spanish, and on a 3-phase motor, there is the word "Lamina" written beside one of the contacts.

Google translate didn't give any useful suggestions; anybody got an idea of what it might be?

Thanks!

Bob

I'm looking to get into writing basic programs for Windows XP; I'm curious though as to what the best editor for this purpose is. I used to write programs for my TI-83, and got pretty good at it and I've had some MATLAB and have dabbled in VBA with Excel, but beyond that, I don't have much programming knowledge. I know about for loops, if conditions, a little bit of general syntax, but nothing language specific.

Ultimately, I'd like to write a program that allows me to send and receive data through the parallel port on an old computer I've acquired to circuits that I've constructed myself. I'm a little bit more knowledgeable in that area. Ideally, I would like use the parallel port to control these external circuits managed by a program that I can edit. I don't know much about the programming realm so any advice or thoughts would be GREAT.

Thanks!

It is my understanding that at the heart of the fair tax is a national consumption tax, i.e. sales tax. I am curious, however, how that would work in practice. Here's a hypothetical situation to consider. Say that the national sales tax is 10%:

1. A mining company mines aluminum ore and sells it to a company that will refine the aluminum. Because this is a sale, the refiner must pay the sales tax, right?

2. Say that the refiner turns that ore into raw aluminum. It then goes to sell it to an auto manufacturer. Because this is also a sale, the manufacturer must pay sales tax as well, right?

3. Say that the auto maker then sells a vehicle made with that aluminum to a dealership. Does the dealer pay sales tax? (I don't think that this is how dealerships work exactly, but for the analogy's sake, assume it is)

4. When the dealer sells you that car, you can bet you'll be paying 10% of the price they advertise it at.

In the above scenario, the nominal tax rate is 10%. But with four stages of compounding, it really comes out to (1+0.1)^4 - 1, or 46.41% that the end consumer really ends up paying in tax.

Would a national consumption tax work like this? Most states levy some form of a sales tax, and you don't hear people complaining about "compounding effects" like this. I feel like there's a lot to be worked out with the fair tax as far as proper and effective structure and implementation goes.

Hello all,

I'm curious as to know what type of company or person would be willing to buy ethanol in bulk. I've got a little operation set up that can produce about 100 gallons of the stuff a week (don't worry, I've jumped through all the red tape and flaming hoops), and I'd like to start selling it, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Is there some kind of company that would buy the stuff in bulk? How much would I need to produce to get someone to take it off my hands? Should have thought about this before I filled out all the paperwork...

Thanks!

Bob

I am writing a cover letter, to a woman whose first and last name is given, but I am unsure how to address her. Should Mrs. last name be used, or should Ms. last name be used, or is there some way I can avoid using either?

Thanks,

Bob

I was recently issued a traffic violation for having my brights on. I was slowing down to a four-way-stop intersection, and as I was doing so another vehicle made a left turn from the intersecting road. After his turn, he began driving toward me as I slowed to a stop at the intersection. A patrol car was stopped on the other side of the intersection, and (I wasn't thinking) when I saw it, I turned my brights off. And the rest is history. Got pulled over, got a citation for having my brights on when the car that made a left turn entered the lane opposite mine. There were no other cars around, as it was around midnight out in the country and the car that turned was in my lane for only a few seconds.

My question is regarding what the law defines as "brights". My vehicle (a 1986 Chevy Nova) does not have very bright lights, and compared to some of the LED lamps that some newer vehicles have, they're completely harmless. Does the law define brights simply as the higher of the two lamp intensity settings for a given vehicle, or is there a specific illumination rating in lumens, or something of that sort? Also, would it be possible to argue that if there is no formal definition of "brights" on the books that it is relative, and had I not turned them down, there would have been no cause for the citation? Is there anywhere that these laws are recorded; would the public library have them? The citation was for $120, and I would really like to do something about it, even if I end up paying the entire fine.

Thanks for your time,

Bob

Hello all,

I am bored out of my mind this summer, and was reading through one of my old chemistry books from last semester, and I thought that I might kill some time trying to make a battery out of some pocket change. I've seen and heard of many ways to do it, but what I would like to do is attempt to predict the voltage and amperage output of a given battery type of known materials. The trouble I'm having is determining how the salt bridge or "battery acid(?)" affects these things. How would using salt water versus lemon juice or vineagar affect things? I've also heard of using a water and diluted bleach combination. If possible, I'd like to know some of the complex chemistry going on; chemical equations are fine, and in fact, I would prefer them. Please be as detailed as possible.

Thanks,

Bob

Well, I have a bit of a funny story to tell. I share a bathroom in our basement with my brother, and he's not the smartest of folks. We have a cabinet above the toilet and he keeps his things on the bottom shelf, and earlier this week while he was rushing to get out of the house, he dropped the cover to his electric razor in the toilet. Instead of fishing it out, he thought that it was small enough to make it through the pipes, and without thinking much further, flushed it and left. As I'm sure you can imagine, it is stuck in there real nice.

But before he realized that the cover didn't make it through, he came home and dropped another goody in there, this one of a more organic nature. At this point things are clogged, but not dangerously clogged. Water will still drain out of the bowl after a short time, but solid things are having a bit of trouble making it out, as I'm sure you can imagine.

What I would like to know is if there is anything that we could do to get the cover out of there without having to call a plumber. I'm not much of a handyman, but I'm willing to get a little dirty if it will save a plumbing expense. We have a sump pump in the room adjacent to the bathroom, and I'm told that the bathroom is far enough underground that water has to be pumped up to the sewer level in order for it to exit the house.

The solution I was thinking of was to turn off the water to the toilet and then drain as much of it out as possible, and then use a wet-dry vacuum to suck up the blockage. I'm not sure how large the pipe is, but I know that the blade cover is about 1.5" in diameter.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. If there's anything that I should NOT do, I'd also love to hear it. The last thing I'd like to do is make the situation worse, and possibly more funny. We have a small pond pump, something like 3000 gallons/hour, a few 5 gallon buckets, and some aquarium air pumps and air line. Oh, and a plunger, but I figure it's not a good idea to push it further through the pipes if the objective is to get it out.

A macgyver-type solution would be awesome, a neat plumbing trick would be great, a good plumber in the Sedgwick County, KS area would suffice, if you know one.

Thanks in advance, and I hope you get a kick out of this just like I am.

I am having some trouble getting this VBA code to work. I am a bit new to VBA, but have some very basic programming knowledge as far as if then else statements are concerned. What I'd like to have happen is for Excel to figure out how many days have elapsed between today and the last time this code was run, and to insert one row per day elapsed. Here is what I have so far:

Option Explicit

Sub Insert_Rows()

Dim x As Date

Dim y As Long

Dim z As Long

x = Date

y = Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(2, 1)

z = DateDiff("d", x, y) + 1

Rows("z:2").Select

Selection.Insert Shift:=xlDown, CopyOrigin:=xlFormatFromLeftOrAbove

End Sub

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Tips are great too. Also: what does "VBA" stand for? I've seen several webpages about VBA mentioned with C++ and other programming languages. I guess It'd be cool to know where the heck this thing came from and the limits of its capabilities.

Bob

Does the "Cold Blooded Pro" perk make you invisible to radar when using an unsilenced weapon? Are you invisible to the Harrier, Pave Low, and Predator Missiles?

Also, what is the difference between the two? What are some of the primary sources of error when using a strain gage?

Two gravity research satellites (ma = 250 kg ; mb=50 kg) are tethered by a cable, initially 12 m apart. The satellites and cable rotate with angular velocity Ni = 0.25 rpm. Ground controllers order satellite A to slowly unreel 6 m of additional cable. What is the angular velocity afterwards?

A racing car travels with a constant speed of 240 km/h (66.6667 m/s) around the elliptical race track. Determine the acceleration experienced by the driver at y = 0 on the positive x-axis.

Given:

y²/16 + x²/8 = 1 is the equation of the track

I wish I had the diagram to show you. There is a distance marking of 4 km from the origin to the ellipse's intersection with the positive x-axis, which is where they ask for the acceleration.

My thinking was that because the velocity was a constant 66.6667 m/s, the tangential acceleration will be zero, and so the total acceleration will be equal to the normal acceleration, which is given by v² / ρ. The answer given in the back of the book is 4.444 m/s², but when I calculate the acceleration by v² / ρ, I get 1.111 m/s²; using ρ = 4 km (the distance given in the diagram) and v = 66.6667 m/s.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

A particle travels along the path y² = 4x with a constant speed of v = 4 m/s. Determine the x and y components of the particle's velocity and acceleration when the particle is at x = 4 m.

Is it possible to solve for y and then differentiate this expression to find the velocity given at any position? I'm not really sure how to approach this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm a college student, and would like to invest some of my savings in the stock market. I don't have much, and so investing in individual stocks isn't really an option at this point because of transaction fees and the time required. Ideally, I'd like to find an S&P 500 index fund that has a low expense ratio as well as a low account minimum, preferably $250 or less. Does such a fund exist, or am I going to be dinged with a brutal fees to get one that meets these specifications?

I'm open to other investing ideas as well, and if you've got one, I'd love to hear it. With Interest rates where they're at right now, I really don't want to put what little I have in a CD because the rates are so dismal. Not really a good investment environment right now for folks like me, but I'm looking for something.