Does being involved in the management of a corporation make me ineligible for a workshare program?
"Assuming you are paying into and eligible to collect regular Employment Insurance benefits for the job in question, I don't see how owning a side business would, by itself, affect your ability to participate in the workshare program.  Many people own dormant businesses ($0 revenue / $0 income), or businesses with insignificant net income (e.g. a small table at the flea market, or a fledgling web-site with up-front costs and no ad revenue, yet ;-) I think what matters is if your side business generated income substantial enough to put you over a certain threshold. Then you may be required to repay a portion of the EI benefits received through the workshare program.  On this issue, I found the following article informative: How to make work-sharing work for you, from the Globe & Mail's Report on Business site.  Here's a relevant quote: ""[...] If you work elsewhere during   the agreement, and earn more than an   amount equal to 40% of your weekly   benefit rate, that amount shall be   deducted from your work sharing   benefits payable that week. [...]"" The definitive source for information on the workshare program is the Service Canada web site.  In particular, see the Work-Sharing Applicant Guide, which discusses eligibility criteria.  Section IV confirms the Globe article's statement above: ""[...] Earnings received in any week   by a Work-Sharing participant, from   sources other than Work-Sharing   employment, that are in excess of an   amount equal to 40% or $75 (whichever   is greater) of the participant's   weekly benefit rate, shall be deducted   from the Work-Sharing benefits payable   in that week. [...]"" Finally, here's one more interesting article that discusses the workshare program: Canada: Employment Law @ Gowlings - March 30, 2009."
"Strategy would be my top factor.  While this may be implied, I do think it helps to have an idea of what is causing the buy and sell signals in speculating as I'd rather follow a strategy than try to figure things out completely from scratch that doesn't quite make sense to me. There are generally a couple of different schools of analysis that may be worth passing along: Fundamental Analysis:Fundamental analysis of a business involves analyzing its financial statements and health, its management and competitive advantages, and its competitors and markets. When applied to futures and forex, it focuses on the overall state of the economy, interest rates, production, earnings, and management. When analyzing a stock, futures contract, or currency using fundamental analysis there are two basic approaches one can use; bottom up analysis and top down analysis. The term is used to distinguish such analysis from other types of investment analysis, such as quantitative analysis and technical analysis. Technical Analysis:In finance, technical analysis is a security analysis methodology for forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. Behavioral economics and quantitative analysis use many of the same tools of technical analysis, which, being an aspect of active management, stands in contradiction to much of modern portfolio theory. The efficacy of both technical and fundamental analysis is disputed by the efficient-market hypothesis which states that stock market prices are essentially unpredictable. There are tools like ""Stock Screeners"" that will let you filter based on various criteria to use each analysis in a mix.  There are various strategies one could use.  Wikipedia under Stock Speculator lists: ""Several different types of stock trading strategies or approaches exist including day trading, trend following, market making, scalping (trading), momentum trading, trading the news, and arbitrage.""  Thus, I'd advise research what approach are you wanting to use as the ""Make it up as we go along losing real money all the way"" wouldn't be my suggested approach. There is something to be said for there being numerous columnists and newsletter peddlers if you want other ideas but I would suggest having a strategy before putting one's toe in the water." From watching the hearings and reading the papers, it appears that JPMs London Office entered into a hedge-like position that was meant to hedge against a worldwide economic downturn. As far as I know, JPM corporate found this position on their own (probably alerted by the huge mark-to-market losses) and it was not found by some outside manager.  That position itself was a hedge that turned out not to be a very good hedge, and upon this finding it was determined that JPM needed to exit this hedge. Unfortunately, the position had lost a substantial amount even by this point. This, according to Dimon, was because this particular group had been very successful in previous years and was not subject to the same regulations as most other groups.  JPM has been very quiet about the details, because they don't need the position getting any more out of control than it already is. I assume some market participants have a good idea on what it is exactly, given its size, but I do not.   It is not really like LTCM, which was not hedging and were supposed to be taking arbitrage positions in the market. It is also unlike LTCM is myriad ways (being 1 major position, $8B is not the same to JPM as to LTCM, JPM will almost 100% take the full loss, etc).  I would recommend watching [this](http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/306502-102). Dimon clearly thinks the position was very unwise, and they are unwinding it, but details will be in short supply until JPM gets out of the position. What are the consequences if I ignore the emails? If you ignore the emails they will try harder to collect the money from you until they give up. Unlike what some other people here say, defaulting on a loan is NOT a crime and is NOT the same as stealing. There is a large number of reasons that can make someone unable to pay off a loan. Lenders are aware of the risk associated with default; they will try to collect the debt but at the end of the day if you don't have money/assets there is not much they can do.   As far as immigration goes, there is nothing on a DS-160 form that asks you about bankruptcies or unpaid obligations. I doubt the consular officer will know of this situation, but it is possible. It is not grounds for visa ineligibility however, so you will be fine if everything else is fine. The only scenario in which unpaid student loans can come up relevant in immigration to the US is if and when you apply for US Citizenship. One of the requirements for Citizenship is having good moral character. Having a large amount of unpaid debt constitutes evidence of a poor moral character. But it is very unlikely you'd be denied Citizenship on grounds of that alone.  I got a social security number when I took up on campus jobs at the school and I do have a credit score. Can they get a hold of this and report to the credit bureaus even though I don't live in America? Yes, they probably already have.  How would this affect me if I visit America often? Does this mean I would not ever be able to live in America? No. See above. You will have a hard time borrowing again.  Will they know when I come to America and arrest me at the border or can they take away my passport? No. Unpaid debt is no grounds for inadmissibility, so even if the CBP agent knows of it he will not do anything. And again, unpaid debt is not a crime so you will not be arrested. "Yes, so much for audit. We are audited yearly by one of big-4 and me being in IT Management was asked by the Auditors prove that ""the system will not allow to enter an order for a customer that does not exist."" ?!?!?!  As for finance, I was once asked to setup credit card processing of a new type of orders. Done and tested! I then asked them to tell me when they start accepting the new orders, because I need to setup a job to send the charges to the bank. They did not inform me and accepted orders for $100,000s. Suddenly, after a year they discovered that we do not get paid by the bank.   You would think that one of the basic jobs of accounting it to make sure Total Sales = Total Payments.   We had write off $100,000s because I can only charge customers for orders in the last 30 days, before their credit card authorizations expires." I guess I am trying to avoid making her a partner, which creates the struggle of how to compensate her. Having her be a partner is pretty straightforward - she would get an agreed % of any business, mine or hers. Not sure I want/need to do that.....but maybe it's the only way? This is business as usual, except that you need to keep in mind that the corporate entity is separate from the individual. As such - all the background checks and references should be with regards to the actual renter - the corporation. You should be cautious as it is not so easy to dissolve an individual (well... Not as easy, and certainly not as legal), as it is to dissolve the corporation. So you may end up with a tenant who doesn't pay and doesn't have to pay because the actual renter, the corporation, no longer exists. So check the corporation background - age, credit worthiness, tax returns/business activity, judgements against, etc etc, as you would do for an individual. Well there is certainly a debate to be had about the effect of unions, free riders, and laws forcing unions to cover nonmembers.   But the question at hand is a legal one. Can the employee be forced to pay dues to a union as a condition of employment? Playing devil's advocate here:  Let's say you pull this off as a hired manager with no/little salary but with a share in profits. You really put in a lot of work and get the place going. What is going to stop them to kick you out after a season and take it over again themselves benefitting from your effort?