I think "buy low, sell high" always applies.  The PP has that idea baked in with the 15/35 rebalancing bands, which keeps you from selling losing assets until they turn around and become winning assets.

Not sure where you got 9% long term.  The "expectation" I've heard is 4% real return, after inflation, as a 3- to 5-year average.  I think the PP is keeping up with that pretty well, and I don't see why it won't continue to.

I'm pretty sure that if you leave the bullion to your church in your will, they aren't going to reject it.  They'll find a way to accept it.

For me, it will go to my children, along with detailed instructions on how to set up a Permanent Portfolio for themselves, if they haven't already.

Thanks for the tip, Moda.  These podcasts make for great listening in the car.  I just started the recent one on U.S. torture of (alleged) terrorists.  I wish everyone who thinks its okay to waterboard these guys would listen to this.  Mr. Carlin sounds like what a true American should sound like --...

It sounds like you are both lucky to have each other.  Sorry for being so nosy.  It did cross my mind that maybe you were riffing, but I couldn't help asking, because I thought it would be pretty interesting if you did send her actual gold.

The best part of gold is having it in your possession (or close thereto; e.g., a bank safe deposit) in case of lots of different types of catastrophes.  For example, what if the ETF managers turn out to be crooks, or what if a solar flare hits and knocks out all electrical supplies (all those zeros ...

Thanks, Mark.  That sounds a lot like my 14 year old son.  Hopefully, he'll get motivated at some point also.

Now, I'm curious about the second half of what you said.  You send her gold every month?  As in bullion?

Mark Leavy wrote: She fixed my son when I had no idea what to do.

Do you care to elaborate?  Just curious as a fellow parent with a teenage son and wanting to be as ready as possible for whatever interesting situations might be headed our way.

I recently finished an entertaining novel called "The Barbarian Nurseries" by Hector Tobar, which deals with immigration issues, more from an immigrant's perspective.  I recommend it, especially since it's one of the rare novels that didn't leave me depressed by the end. I still say, "keep them out,...

stuper1, You're probably right.  I'm not very studied on the topic.  But this is what I want: 1) Significantly lower the inflow of new illegal immigrants. 2) Respect somewhat the dignity of people who consider the U.S. home by not starving/transporting them out of the country. Sounds good to me.  T...

It sounds like you are in retirement already.  To me, a good balance would be toward the end of each year to pull out as much money from your retirement account to just keep you below the next higher tax bracket, and use that money to buy physical gold.  That way you don't pay a higher tax rate on t...

Good choice.  You will sleep much better at night knowing that if push comes to shove you can always walk over to your bank, sew a few gold coins into your clothing, and fly off to start a new life in some remote place. YMMV.

In theory, I'm in favor of building a "wall".  In practice, I think it would be a terrible waste of money, because it wouldn't work (no matter what form it takes).  Humans are smart.  Desperate humans are especially smart.  They will find a way to get past the "wall".  Think of the wall as a permeab...

Counterintuitively, the more we learn about the universe the more mysterious it becomes. My purely intuitive personal belief is that eventually our assumptions about the speed and linearity of time will be broken, which will shed startling new light on scientific core beliefs like evolution and the...

Gold down = bad day ? 

I have some advice for you:  get a life. 

Maybe find a new hobby.  Try to get more exercise.  Maybe do both at the same time.  Ever played pickleball?

There is a big difference between driving 1 mph, or even 10 mph, over the speed limit and entering a foreign country illegally. And then using services which you have not contributed to the cost support of. If you enter Iran or North Korea without permission, you will find yourself jailed in a gool...

No one said the illegals don't work hard, or do jobs that [lazy!] Americans are loathe to do. But they still came here WITHOUT PERMISSION, and broke the law in doing so. None of the rest of the arguments really mean much at that point. They were also born into poverty WITHOUT PERMISSION.  What woul...

There is a big difference between driving 1 mph, or even 10 mph, over the speed limit and entering a foreign country illegally. And then using services which you have not contributed to the cost support of. If you enter Iran or North Korea without permission, you will find yourself jailed in a gool...

Since you don't have any physical gold, my vote is for purchasing physical gold with the entire 3%.  Unless you have a good percentage of your gold allocation in physical form, say in a bank safe deposit box, then you are missing out on some of the insurance aspects of gold for dealing with a seriou...

Moda, I agree with you 100%.  I bet all of these guys who like to call them "illegal" immigrants, don't call themselves "illegal" drivers when they drive 31 mph in a 30 mph zone.  That's just so you can get to your destination 30 seconds sooner, but when somebody who has absolutely no future in thei...

Gee, but if you just step back a little bit, gold, stocks, and bonds are all up since Jan 1, and the portfolio as a whole is up 1.5% in the first 6 weeks of 2015.  What's the problem?  You guys are like teenage girls constantly clicking on the latest news about the Kardashians. If you want a little ...

The immigration system is not broken. It suffers from extreme lack of enforcement from most all presidents. The dems want big government voters which illegals being amnestied provide. The GOP wants cheap labor to exploit which the illegals provide. It's a win-win for both of them. That's a great su...

But gold is a range limited oscillator in a band of $250 to $2500 in 2015 dollars. If you're at the bottom, you can see the future... the future is up! If you're at the top, you can see the future... it's down. In the middle... who knows. If we get to $2,500 gold, then who's to say it couldn't go t...

OK, the Hussman calculus goes to what I was mentioning a few weeks ago.  With only half of the PP assets being of a type that beats inflation in the long run, and with the yields and prices being what they are, there is no way in heck a PPer should be counting on more than about 2% real over the co...

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