volpri, I sure will continue! I await the dude as well. There is nothing between me and him, but air and opportunity and getting his chest caved/carved/holed in.
Correct, for you guys with the kids at the ex-wife house. Just charge it to the game and moved on a find a new woman. Pay your child support, spoil kids and count it as a loss. Let the knew woman fullfill you.
I went through this several years ago. The biggest drawdown my trading account ever had was the day the divorce was finalized by the judge in Court. Mine was in Lake County, Illinois (North Chicago Suburbs). I personally know quite a few traders in Chicago who have undergone divorce. First of all, alimony is very rare. If a spouse is young enough to work and without a major debilitating handicap nobody gets alimony any more unless both parties agree to it. Judges are moving away from alimony judgements - it's a relic of the past when women never worked and had far fewer workplace opportunities than men. (Thanks, Feminists !) Just about all states are community property jurisdictions. So your spouse is entitled to half of your trading account equity (including open positions), half of any other investment accounts like IRAs, 401Ks, checking, etc. etc. All real and ordinary property purchased after the marriage your spouse is entitled to half. Also, if during the divorce proceedings one party possesses more assets than the other - the Courts will typically rule the liquidation of and transfer of assets to the "deficient" party expressly to pay for legal fees, expert witnesses, etc. etc.. Family Court is a system designed to encourage adversarial behavior and malevolence in order to generate attorneys fees. The United States is the only industrialized Country in the World with an adversarial Family Court system. Also, if you earn considerably more than your spouse, you can expect her to get greater than 50%. My ex got 61%. In Illinois the judge plugged the income and assets into his state-provided excel spreadsheet and out came the final judgement. But one spouse will get greedy. That means an avalanche of Court filings and Pleas for Relief. If you don't defend yourself, she wins by default. So you have to play the game - and the attorneys are the big winners. The tough part about trading income is child support. The judge will base those payments on your last three years of income averaged. And if you have a down year or two in the future it will be somewhat difficult to get the child support reduced. Hope that helps. Having been through this somewhat recently as a trader, and personally knowing dozens of traders that have been through the same - I thought I'd add some color.
I agree with this. A vasectomy, and keeping future relationships to under two years (defacto duration), is the way to avoid the risk. Running a portfolio of women each for under two years, with occasional rebalancing is the way to optimize. Efficient frontier, etc. * It does suck, that the government makes long meaningful relationships so financially risky. The legislation is, unromantic. Unless you're a low income male feminist, I suppose.
In my native country there is a system of living together but not marry. In that system both persons stay financially independent, so each person keeps his/her fortune and income, there is never any possibility to get alimony from your ex-partner. If the relation stops nobody has to pay anything if there are no children. You don't even have to go to court or take a laywer. It is enough to go to the cityhall and declare that you want to stop the relation.
In many countries, the homosexuals had this changed, so they, who could not marry back then, were treated the same as married couples, if they were together for over two years. Unfortunately, this also applies to the rest of us, even if we are purposely unmarried. So, the state has effectively incentivized multiple short term relationships.
Well, in the United States of America, a significant portion (I would say a majority) of the politicians hold J.D. degrees (they're lawyers). The Judges are former lawyers that get elected or appointed. In a divorce settlement, the lawyers are allowed to get paid directly from your 401K and other retirement plan accounts for any outstanding billings upon settlement. So the lawyers always get paid. It's a Cabal.
Let me provide a great example of how child support payments are a trader's biggest challenge. There are literally hundreds of former pit traders in Chicago who could not make the transition from the pit to the screen - and try as they might they couldn't get their child support reduced. Or by the time the three year income averaging kicked in enough to help they were already hopelessly in arrears for huge amounts. And back child support owed never gets reduced. Plenty of them are bankrupt and owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in back child support. And if they get a job managing a jewelry store or servicing mortgages at a Chase Bank branch that paycheck is going to get garnished. Someone told me that State DMV's won't issue you a Drivers License if you are in arrears for child support. It's a Federal law that States have to pursue delinquent child support for other States. It's worse than the IRS - at least they'll work with you. In Illinois, children of divorce actually have more rights and benefits than children from intact families. Illinois State Law requires an ex-spouse to pay for College and expenses until the child reaches 25 years of age - it's actually considered child support. There is no such law for children of intact families.
Thus... bitcoin physical, sell futures, escape before they flag your passport. Unwind at the foreign airport. Child support can put you in debtors prison. Happens everyday. * If you have no access to your kids anyway, where is the downside.