I always imagined Thomas Peterffy would be an America-born American. I never expected he would speak English with such heavy accent. And I never knew I can allow them to loan my stocks out and would share 50/50 with them the interest that they earn. I have never been approached by them for that.
This actually could be a very competitive product. How is it that this got approval from regulators?.... Interesting.
According to wiki, he arrived in NYC at age 21 without speaking english. I remember he once said that he got into computer programming (an obscure or emerging task at the time) because learning computer language seemed easier than learning english. So, without his troubles learning english, IB might not even exist today.
I showed my ignorance. I thought all debit cards were prepaid. Obviously I've never used a debit card other than the prepaid ones. I've used an ATM only once. (I don't have a cell phone, either. And no, I'm not a Luddite... just a KISS kind of guy.)
Not all that powerful. 8 years old, Precision T3500, Xeon W3570 CPU, 4GB RAM, Win7-32bit. However when I first started trading the ES, it was on a lesser machine with a 56K dial-up modem.
Upgrade for you or for me? If I were going to upgrade right now, my first choice would be Dell Precision T5810, with Xeon E5-1620 CPU or better. I'm thinking it won't be long before a slew of them come available off-lease for ~$350-$400. The best price on Dell Outlet right now is ~$700-$750, including current discount promotion, with full 3-yr warranty.