I propose a portfolio which is a traditional permanent portfolio mix with a bitcoin variable portfolio sidecar. Hows: 24% gold 24% cash 24% stocks 24% long term bonds 4% bitcoin Turns out the back testing is amazing. Sure, the backtesting of that portfolio would be amazing at this point. It would b...

Sophie, I checked out your suggestion at portfoliovisualizer.com using VTSMX for stocks, VBMFX for total bond market, VFITX for intermediate Treasuries, and VUSTX for long Treasuries. The data sets go back to 1993. Using a 60/40 split to stocks and bonds, the CAGR with total bonds is 8.40%, with int...

Kriegsspiel wrote:The PP has a 'duration' of longer than 5 days.

Could you please explain what that means. I'm slow. Thanks!

Thanks for that great, enlightening, comforting post, Sophie!

I thought you said earlier that you only have 7.5% in gold. That seems like a very modest allocation. I myself feel that 25% gold is too much. I'm aiming for about 15%, with about 2/3 of that in physical as black-swan insurance and 1/3 paper gold for re-balancing.

Exactly, don't forget the historical results. We haven't seen anything with the PP that is outside the bounds of historical results. Over the medium- to long-term, however, the results are pretty good. Maybe not as good as a stock-heavy portfolio, but definitely less volatile and more consistent, wh...

I'm sure those international stock funds do nothing but go up forever, and never go down.

Budd, do you ever look at historical PP returns? As with any portfolio, the PP has times when it has drawdowns. The difference to most portfolios is that the drawdowns are smaller and less time is required to recover from them. Gold/bonds don't necessarily help the PP on the very day that stocks dro...

I think if you backtest the PP using 10-year Treasuries instead of 30-year Treasuries, there is not a whole lot of difference in the results.

I've trimmed back a little in stocks and moved it to cash to make myself more comfortable. Currently at about 38% in stocks overall.

Moda, I agree with everything you just posted. I guess I'm just slow. For me, it took this whole Trump thing for the scales to drop off my eyes. So even though he's an odious slimeball, I'm thankful for that. Also, I agree with some of his policies regardless of his personal likeability or lack ther...

I saw this comment posted on unz.com today and agree with it 100%: "The most important thing Trump may have accomplished is unmasking the media hypocrisy and its sheer contempt towards 80% of the country. I used to believe that the journalists were reasonable people who tried to report fairly b...

Hmmm, I wonder, has Mexico ever meddled in US elections? Has anyone ever raised a stink about that? How about Israel?

I heard the psychiatrist's diagnosis reported on a mainstream radio station. Talk about fake news. It's ridiculous that such a thing would even get reported by a supposedly reputable news source. I can't remember which station it was. Could have been CBS or NPR. Sometimes I tune in NPR to see if the...

WiseOne, I agree 100%.

Think for yourself all you want, but also go back and look at the predictions for many of the last years about long bonds. The "experts" have been saying they will lose value for years, and in fact what has happened is that many years they have been the biggest winner.

Because I'm not motivated just by money. America is no longer a melting pot where immigrants are getting assimilated into a common American culture. It's now just a bunch of different races that barely know each other. A few people at the top are getting very rich, and elsewhere the middle class is ...

I saw a comment on unz.com this morning that seemed like a simple, good explanation for why the establishment doesn't like Trump: "mass immigration is all about propping up the ponzi economy by increasing population and increasing consumer demand…. consumer demand is 70% or more of the economy…...

Kriegsspiel wrote: Americans had a lot in common with Germany and Italy in the 1940s too

There was no need for a war with Germany and Italy in the 1940s either. War is a racket.

Right, and all this Trump-Russia hysteria is just more of the same racket, along with trying to bring down a duly elected president as you mentioned. It would seem to me that the military-industrial complex doesn't think Trump will be sufficiently hawkish to enable them to meet their growth targets...

Right, and all this Trump-Russia hysteria is just more of the same racket, along with trying to bring down a duly elected president as you mentioned. It would seem to me that the military-industrial complex doesn't think Trump will be sufficiently hawkish to enable them to meet their growth targets.

Just for fun, I quickly looked up the military spending for 2016 for the US and Russia. One was at $69 billion and the other at $611 billion. I'm pretty sure everybody knows which country has the larger budget.

An old but good book on the subject: War Is A Racket, by Major General Smedley Butler.

The whole idea that Russia is a credible threat to the U.S. is laughable on its face , and thus it seems obvious to me that it's just another bogeyman manufactured by the establishment media on behalf of the military-industrial complex. In capability, or intent? Seems like a curious statement, rega...

The whole idea that Russia is a credible threat to the U.S. is laughable on its face, and thus it seems obvious to me that it's just another bogeyman manufactured by the establishment media on behalf of the military-industrial complex.

You mean it would be worth more than $1,000 now. Just for those who haven't noticed the incredible spike in bitcoin prices lately. I bought $300 worth of bitcoin a while back, and now it's worth over $3,000. I should probably cash it in, but I can't stop wondering whether bitcoin might go to $100,00...