Yeah, I mean, I think we've all kind of known he's had issues before even running for president. It's just that.. he's been president for so long now. I would have expected someone at a CNN desk by now to capitulate and be like "Yo, maybe we should, like, uhhhhhh.. say something?" Many of us south ...

Back to topic, LTTs are still within band; haven't changed band. Did just buy some T-Bills (better rates than online saving account) Yes, it would be nice to be talking about Treasuries in this thread! Ditto for me with purchasing T-Bills. The last couple of years lulled me to sleep regarding cash ...

Ray Dalio just sent me his take on current US-China relations:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/us-china ... 00QQ%3D%3D

For me the most interesting part of this thread is that you and your wife have both been willing to think this over/talk it out over a significant period of time. Maybe call it The Consensus Portfolio. I keep imagining an Onion piece with the title "Husband & Wife Actually Agree On Something'. In ou...

Is it just coincidence that Pointedstick is in New Mexico?

As my wife and I are closing in on retirement, I went to see a fee-only financial planner for a sanity check. I told him I was confident in our situation and plan but I wanted him to give it a sanity check and poke holes in it where he could. We met virtually a couple times so he could understand o...

And until they do, the satanizing will continue. I know that was a typo but I think I am going to start calling it "satanizing" from now on. O0 Joking aside, jalanlong, I feel for you and your son. Our 24-year-old daughter who doesn't have any known learning "challenges" told us recently that she i...

Again reporting from "ultra-liberal" Western Massachusetts where the vaunted liberal authoritarianism does NOT seem to reign. Yesterday I was at a music event. I was there from about 2 PM to 11:30 PM. There were two stages inside and one stage outside. There were a lot of people there. When I was l...

Maybe I am getting to an age where I am all about quality time left and would rather just watch a good movie or spend time with my dogs rather than looking for new ETFs that could add an extra % to my annual returns. Where do you guys stand on someone who makes a good living just paying off all deb...

I need to remember where I got my data and see if I can run those numbers again...just by the math of it (using PV monthly returns) I'd be a bit surprised if daily data didn't at least show low 20%s. The site I (and many others) used to use was peaktotrough.com but that stopped updating years ago. ...

Up to now down 5% over a year is about the max that was touted . So far it is down more than 2x that half way through a year so I would venture to say many are not happy being down more than 2x that going in to the second half of the year The Permanent Portfolio book (by Craig & MT) from 2012 did s...

Uganda says exploration results show it has 31 million tonnes of gold ore https://www.mining.com/web/uganda-says-exploration-results-show-it-has-31-million-tonnes-of-gold-ore/ Story sounds suspicious. Agree with whatchamacallit that the story is probably way off in some way. Ugandan miners having f...

Another thought I had on this is kind of conspiracy-ish, but here it is. Paying with cash used to be the way most transactions were settled in China but the CCP has been trying to make that more difficult. Not saying they are causing whatever is going on with cash withdrawals… just that they may not...

By the way, I put the word 'virus" in quotes above because, according to my Chinese friends, what's really going on with the lockdowns is a struggle within the Communist party before they meet later this year to either extend Xi's reign or kick him out. Xi is more or less taking an extreme action a...

Here in the US a lot of people had their right to work taken away from them for part or most of the pandemic, but there were payments from the government to at least partly cover that disruption. The Chinese government has done nothing similar as far as I know. The "virus" lockdowns have been brutal...

I don't convert my paper I-bonds to digital. I keep them in my local bank safe deposit box, along with some gold. A bit of physical diversification is never a bad thing. I do the same as jhogue. Right now, less than 20% of our US Savings Bonds (still redeeming some old EEs) are in electronic form. ...

Good to get your update, Cortopassi. It seems this has become less of a PP forum and more of a "this is what I am doing now" place. Which is fine. Good that you have an allocation that allows you to not worry at the moment. Wife and I have been loading up on I-Bonds (we even followed jhogue's I-Bond...

$100+ oil never hurts the oil business. Things are picking up. We expect 2023 to be exceptional for our oil & gas cloud computing and consulting company. Thanks. Can you recommend something to read that explains the pros and cons of the Keystone XL Pipeline? I'm looking for something that doesn't h...

I'm dropping in after a long absence. I'm taking note of the pretty severe drawdown in the HBPP, and I must say it's making me more hopeful about the model. Even though HBPP is a collection of four things, not just one thing, mean reversion is a strong force. If the portfolio is down 10% or more th...

But it may make sense for my younger wife to buy them for a few more years (just not in a year when she "receives" her gifted bonds). What does your older wife think about not recieving an i-bond gift? :P Let’s just say that having my own polygamist cult has its advantages when it comes to skirting...

I have embraced the I-bond “gift box” strategy. For 2022, we maxed out I-bonds at a guaranteed annualized rate of 7.12%/9.62%. I then bought $10K each as 2023 gifts for my wife and I in the week before the 1 May 2022 rate re-set, also at 7.12%/9.62%. After the 1 May re-set I bought yet another $10K...

On my own premise, we might as well assume that the banning of "assault style" weapons are off the table. There are too many people and politicians who are against this idea. The same with high capacity mags. I don't see that anyone has questioned this "opening statement" by joypog. Is the battle a...

I concur with Desert. Heck of a job, Dually!

Tlt is a 14 year duration so 5 years to recovery seems way to short I see that it's current duration is 18.08 here: https://www.ishares.com/us/products/239454/TLT?cid=ppc:ishares_us:google:fund-names-priorities&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1ZeUBhDyARIsAOzAqQKh8eLrV4bzLAkl9t3F_cGAD0hqACgaeK7n9BCyZq4P7isXMrgS29saAt...

I heard last night that Phoenix played the all-time worst game 7 of any sport! I prefer to think of it as Dallas playing the all-time best game 7 of any sport. 8) I was only able to watch a few minutes early in the game but Dallas was making it tough on the Suns to get a decent shot and when they d...