Since 1975, it's almost 3% CAGR difference.  I don't think we can count on gold quadrupling again in just a few years like it did after the gold window was closed. Even at today's price levels, gold has quadrupled from where it was in 2000. True, but it took more than a few years and was after a 20...

A good long-term comparison would be PRPFX vs. Wellington.  PP no longer follows PRPFX exactly, but that is the original formulation and it's a good approximation.  Wellington is actively managed but low cost, low turnover, and has been around along time, so it makes a good 60/40 BH proxy.  I'll ac...

That's kinda what spurred my post to begin with.  From when mediumtex said "A rolling three year period of negative returns would make me open up the hood and take a look."  We are nearing that point. 2014 returned like 12% on the PP.  Where are you getting this 3-year period of negative ...

Morningstar charts total returns when comparing stocks to a mutual fund.

http://tinyurl.com/ohwuw5e

Kka, Darwinism surely can be questioned, but done so using the scientific method, not, as you say, dogma religion masquerading as science, which is exactly what ID is. It's not a scientific theory. It doesn't hold up to the rigor of the scientific method. Yes it is and does.  Intelligent design is ...

Moda, I edited one of your sentences for you.  You're welcome.  :) All study of evolution origins is doing, as in all real science, is to understand reality. Perhaps one day we will stumble upon God evolution. Until then, though, we shouldn't assume he it exists just because something appears irred...

The problem is that evolution has multiple meanings. "When evolution is defined as mere change over time within species, no one disputes that such evolution is a fact. But neo-Darwinian evolution -- the great claim that unguided natural selection acting upon random mutations is the driving forc...

There is a joke from Bill Hicks that you just reminded me of... A fundamentalist Christian says to Bill, "I believe God created me in one day" Bill responds, "looks like he rushed it." If humans are the best that God can do, then what a sorry creator we have.... Don't read this ...

Kka, They have found life on earth in the depths of the oceans where no sunlight reaches and the only source of heat and energy is the scalding hot magma that pours out of the cracks in the sea floor. I don't know what sources you read but there are strong arguments that the building blocks of life...

Im curious how the possible discovery of life on mars will change religious views. There is a very good chance that we will discover that there was life on mars. Some form of energy and water are all that is necessary for life on Earth so it stands to reason that since Mars apoears to have had rive...

I don't understand your statement. I, too, am an atheist, but I clearly know the difference between right and wrong. Objectively or otherwise. For an atheist, the framework of right and wrong; or good and evil, is only a cultural meme.  It's something accidental, something that evolved out of mere ...

Kshartle wrote: The baby (zygote, fetus) is a part of the woman's body.

Not true.
http://www.abortionfacts.com/facts/3

Well, as a nihilist I don't believe in "gods plan" mostly cause I don't think nature has a plan. Natural selection (the process that created humans) is in fact the definition of "no plan"...it's a binary selection process of live/die/live/die repeated over and over again. I know...

It will be interesting to watch things play out this year.  On one hand, MachineGhost tells us bonds will rally while stocks and gold tank, and kshartle is convinced the exact opposite will occur (see http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/bonds/why-hold-long-bonds-now/msg92357/#msg92357).  I'll ackn...

It will be interesting to watch things play out this year.  On one hand, MachineGhost tells us bonds will rally while stocks and gold tank, and kshartle is convinced the exact opposite will occur (see http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/bonds/why-hold-long-bonds-now/msg92357/#msg92357).  I'll ackno...

I don't think we're there yet.

Savings rate is around 4%.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/PSAVERT/

Personal debt service ratio is still lower than any time since 1980.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/ ... io-at.html

I've been under the impression that Mt.Gox was the big player, #1 exchange. So you can send them money and "buy" bitcoins there but they are stuck there? So they will take money and you get nothing in return right now? What is going on? Does anyone know? I guess they were the #1 exchange,...

You can't buy them on Mt. Gox? My understanding is that there may be difficulty withdrawing coins from MtGox, which may be causing the discrepancy in pricing.  I have a small fraction of a bitcoin in Coinbase to use for purchases where a vendor offers a bitcoin discount, and I noticed that for most...

Kshartle wrote: Down to $325.

MtGox is not the place to find the current price.  In the past it was above the average exchange price, and recently it's been way below.  http://www.coindesk.com/ is more accurate and showing around $620 USD right now.

doodle wrote: Veracity of Bible under more scrutiny: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/scien ... =dayp&_r=0

Hardly.
http://blogs.christianpost.com/dear-eph ... lse-19994/

Decimated is not the word I would use. http://www.peaktotrough.com/hbpp.cgi says PP was down 9.4% in 1981, while cashless PP was down 14.6%.  http://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/ViewHistoricalReturns shows PP was down 5.2%, cashless PP down 11.6%. And in 1981, T-bills returned almost 15% and 2-year t...

In the case of rape it is not so black and white.  This is because the act of conception was a purely evil act.  If I was aware that I was conceived via rape then I would contemplate suicide, and would not fault my mother for ending my life early on.  If I could sacrifice my life so that she wouldn...

When you take risk and return into account, there was a rebalancing bonus even for that period.  An unrebalanced PP had a higher return over that period, but higher risk as well.  A rebalanced PP's return is higher than the average return of its constituent assets because of diversification return. ...

The non-rebalanced return was higher because it wasn't a 50/50 portfolio for very long.  It probably averaged more like 80/20. There really is a rebalancing bonus, also called a diversification return.  More detail here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1898864 http://www.jstor.org...