Quite true. If you don't like the PP, what other options are there? Ya know, that's the response that always turns me against the PP even when I otherwise have a good opinion of it.  Saying "what else is there?" is a non-answer.  Obviously there are plenty of other options out there.  The...

Here's a question, do you honestly believe that there's easy money left on the table during a market rout by just buying stock?  If it was a clear-win, don't you think these bright minds at wall street would have picked it up faster than you? Who said anything about stocks?  Who said anything about...

Typically, Short Term Treasuries and banks (via Short Term Treasuries and private credit instruments) have provided a relatively good preservation of wealth. Harry Browne discussed this a number of times. So, this idea that all our purchasing power disappears when the dollar weaken usually isn't tr...

ZIRP is killing many of us and gold and stocks, the traditional inflation hedges, aren't keeping pace. The price of gold has gone up 500% in the last decade.  I would say that gold has more than kept pace with inflation. I was speaking in the context of post- financial crisis.  Many of us are exper...

  One thing I heard from a friend of mine recently is that casinos have studied human psychology very extensively and know a lot of information about how the human loss reaction works.  They use this to their advantage when you are playing there.  For example, if you have lost some money, they know...

From what I can tell, Marc rejects the official inflation numbers because they partake in hedonic adjustments . Yet, economists fully support hedonic adjustments because the quality of things improve dramatically in our lives. Our standard of living tends to improve over time. For instance, when yo...

Of course, wages will still rise (as they are, slowly, today.)  But they may not rise as quickly as crucial items like food and energy.  I think that this is the pain that Marc is referring to.  Don't you see a lot of this lately?  Wages never quite seeming to keep up with rising costs?  An additio...

Financial experts are sort of like football experts.  You can learn a lot about the sport by listening to them, but when it comes to predicting the actual outcome of a game they are no better than anyone else. The best use of financial experts is for help in understanding the underlying phenomena. ...

There are good experts to listen to, and bad ones.

Among the more interesting ones are Lacy Hunt of Hoisington and David Rosenburg.  They recognize the realities of deflation.  Though Rosenburg tends to go back and forth a bit too much for my taste.

Gary, I've never been a big fan of using the words conservative and leverage together in the same sentence.  A leveraged + conservative portfolio isn't slightly less conservative.  It's an entirely different risk profile.  And I didn't miss the part where you said "valuations seem lofty"....

Sorry Garry, that is not a exit plan. Slotine, you seem to have missed the part where I said I sell when valuations seem lofty.  That is a major key to risk control.  (And yes, I said "seem" since valuation is somewhat subjective, but I  err on the side of being conservative.)  I don't ex...

BM + 1.5% is realistic at IB.  However, seeing as how you've used it in the past, I don't think you should.  I'm saying this now because I know you'll eventually stumble across it - I just want to get the warning in.  Do you have a plan to unwind the carry trade? Sorry, I missed this earlier.  I pe...

I understand you guys that avoid leverage but I understand better the position of Gary. When you have an edge on a PP system you can use leverage up to a point depending on the historical DD of the PP system. You pay 2% interest to the broker, but you hope to win 8% in the longrun, correct? It is t...

I used to lambast margin until I actually tried it.  I use it for my income portfolio, which is a relatively conservative portfolio.  My monthly dividends exceed my monthly margin costs by  just enough to make it worthwhile.  With PP, there is no monthly income (and miniscule income overall) and no ...

I'll be nice and just say it's the random crap mutterings of a madman. The closest thing the US has experienced to a cost-push inflation was the 73/78's bout.  http://www.nber.org/chapters/c9160.pdf Thanks for the link... Interesting read.  I hadn't realized there were so many theories on what happ...

Hello.  I have been reading these forums and trying to get my head around gold....and whether or not I really need it.  In the previous thread, someone mentioned Jim Sinclair.  I would like to quote another one of his remarks: "Currency induced cost push inflation is what will collapse confiden...