If Asians are so smart, why is Asia so poor? Is it smart to be poor?

I was wondering what the brain trust here thinks about using the Permanent Portfolio to raise money in order to get a downpayment for a mortgage? It's a strategy I've been using to some success. Any criticisms?

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Investment ... 449&sr=8-9

Looks good! I will pre-order shortly.

A huge percentage of America's debt is held internally as well, possibly a majority of it, so we are more similar to Japan than some might think.

moda0306 wrote: Indices,

So did he TRY to starve these people or was it just the disorganized bureaucracy of Communism basically "by accident?"

Probably started out as an accident then I would imagine the thinking went that they might as well kill a few more to achieve a "solution".

I always think it's worth pointing out exactly how these many people were killed. In Hitler's case, he killed 6 million people, systeamatically putting them in camps, and then pushing them into gas chambers. In Mao's case, his rule may have resulted in several times as many deaths, but I think it's...

Reub wrote: MG, this not a game. This is about the future of the Middle East and beyond. It is about keeping real nuclear weapons out of the hands of real vicious regimes and ultimately real terrorists. 9/11 really did happen.

And what are you doing to prepare for this, in your mind, very real possibility?

This ETF has risks but it seems less risky than PRPFX. Or am I missing something?

I have a feeling that, push come to shove, the government would fully fund SIPC in the event of a massive market crash, as it would the FDIC. Not a 100 percent guarantee, but I think likely.

I hope it comes and wipes out my credit card debt.

Will the book reveal MediumTex's true identity?

Here's the cure: Before you stock pick, see if you can find legitimate millionaires who used their own money to pick stocks and become super rich. Remember, they have to have used their own money and not others' money. Be sure to also find stock pickers who started in similar circumstances to yourse...

What inflation?

This is awesome news. Who is the publisher?

This country is a republic in name only today.  The reality is that it has become an oligarchy.  Back in the 1950's Senator Bob Taft of Ohio, a great American and one of the last of the old school true conservative Republicans said that every President since the 1930's had been chosen by the Chase ...

I think if we're a lot like Switzerland during WWII, where most of us are savvy with small-to-medium sized weapons that can do a lot of damage from a person's home, we've gotten 99.99% of the way to full defensive freedom without giving bat-sh!t crazy criminals a blank check for destructive behavio...

Even though I think she insane, it's interesting how the far right and the far left are both very populist in tone, and essentially advocate a lot of the same things (greater punishment for financiers who break the law is one example).

Iceland has more recent/easy available data. What about other crises then. How would a Confederate PP have held up, or Russia, Argentina, Danish 1813 bankruptcy ...etc... there's many many to choose from - history is littered with such crises - from big to small. Germany 1918-24 hyperinflation look...

I have become convinced that at some point in the future we are all going to die.

People may instead choose to allocate 90/10 (Risky/"riskless") or 75/25 as HB has chosen I suspect Harry might have considered the PP to be more of a 25/75 From Fail-Safe Investing : Here are some alternative approaches. None is as safe as the Permanent Portfolio I’ve recommended. But you...

Reub wrote: FoxNews presents news as news and opinion as opinion. NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, BBC present news as opinion and opinion as news.

LOL

I stated that this was a good solution for most investors on the Boglehead's forum and was called an idiot. That's surprising!  Why were you called an idiot?  I'd have thought that the Bogleheads would think this a conservative but effective approach. No they believe young people should be full up ...

I stated that this was a good solution for most investors on the Boglehead's forum and was called an idiot. Good to see the NY Times is also written by idiots.

What is a "closet index fund?" Actively managed funds that simply follow the index and don't stock pick. There's no way to prove they are doing this for sure, but if their performance closely matches a relevent benchmark over a long enough period of time, they probably are. The problem is...

Any current stats on what portion of stock assets (total dollar value), are managed via a stock index investing approach? portion of individual investors take this approach? portion of institutional investors (pension, insurance) take this approach? According to Figure 2.11 in this Investment Compa...