Right now he likes 1) Undeveloped land 2) Cash 3) Gold 4) Fine art 5) Alternatives. Not sure what that last category entails. Maybe I have to buy the book to find that out. Interesting that he likes cash so much inasmuch as he has predicted the collapse of the dollar.

Interesting also that as much as he likes gold, Rickards only advocates that his "clients" have 10% of their investable assets in gold if they are "conservative" and 20% if they are "more aggressive." Both are low by PP standards. He is big on owning physical gold and n...

Just curious if the rest of you kinda get the blank stare when explaining the PP to people you know. My wife is OK with it but doesn't really want to understand the details. My friends who have investible assets seem wedded to what they are already doing. My brother-in-law & sister both like the...

This pretty much sums up his take on the PP:

"...All that said, I am surprised at how well the strategy works.  Too easy, and easy strategies rarely work."

Sam, In goodasgold's example from 1981 it's important to remember that a PP allocation came roaring back in 1982 (up over 20% in nominal terms). Also, the numbers I have seen LTT's actually showed a slight nominal rise for 1981 though I don't remember how hard they initially got hit by the FED's act...

PS,

To be clear, you are all for intensive research on alternative (wind, solar, tidal) energy sources, correct? At least that is what I think you have posted elsewhere. It seems to me that you and Doodle are not really on opposite sides of the climate debate.

I find it curious that this Rickards' article has not generated any comments yet on this forum. Does he just have too much invested in the various scenarios he lays out to be taken (too) seriously? I read Currency Wars and it actually got me interested in physical gold which in turn led me to the PP...

Ad O,

We are up about 1% on the LTTs today. Time to sell and buy pork bellies?

My Opposite Portfolio is 100% long bonds. Anyone got a worse idea than that?

This is more in the category of "enough" rather than "just good enough." I found that spending time in third-world countries largely cured me of the craving to own a lot of crap. I'm happy if I have some books, basic furniture, clothes that are just good enough and whatever I nee...

dr ratdog, You have joined an underground movement. At five coins we teach you the secret handshake. At the ten-coin threshold you get a plaque for your home office! I would never feel comfortable ordering online but many on here seem to. At the coin dealer I have bought from they tell me that they ...

Lazy I, Kshartle seems to thrive on more active investing. He accepts drawdowns like John Travolta welcomed the thermonuclear warhead to his gut in the movie Broken Arrow. Not everyone has his pain threshold. It sounds to me like you have already won the game and don't need to be aggressive. Just my...

Hey Sam, Just thinking that your idea might make sense if you split your time fairly evenly between two first-world countries and plan to continue doing so for quite a long time. In that case you would always be dealing with taxes and other financial rules in the country where you actually hold the ...

So there seems to be some interest in discussing other lazy portfolios so I thought I'd try to get the ball rolling. Using the PP starting this year is the first time I have ever followed any kind of investment strategy that actually had a plan or reason behind it. Anyone on here have any experience...

True enough, Stuper1, but I still think the question is a valid one if one subscribes to the basic idea that money flowing between assets in the PP causes prices of one asset to rise as prices of another fall. I don't know what figures to trust but a quick search online shows world equities valued a...

Hey Murphy, No takers so far so I'll give this a shot. If I were to rate the four assets of the PP for their potential to do well over the next few years, I would pick gold, then stocks, then cash. LTTs I expect to lose money. That being said, I hold them all in equal weight because my track record ...

Exactly my thinking, Dualstow. Think of all the jewels we shall be able to buy!

Interesting. Any thoughts here on what an investor holding individual 30-year treasuries might experience in the event of massive withdrawals on bond funds? Would the 30-year issues get beaten down in price or would bond holders still be looking for "high quality" bonds? Neither of the abo...

Hey, aren't you three posters all relatively young? A few more days like today and you'll have yourself a buying opportunity. One thing that I wonder about with money flowing between assets is the relative size of the markets for LTTs, gold and stocks. For example, I assume the dollar value of total...

Excellent post, Doodle. Ditto with Tokyo in 1970.... though we can't credit the EPA with that one. And let's not forget something as simple as car emissions on which restrictions were imposed from above. Lots of people used to drive smoke-belching beaters around and think nothing of it.

Ouch. A pretty big hit today. Moda, if you are right, I will be rebalancing into bonds at higher rates and happy for the higher overall yield in my PP (I'll be steadily venting on the way down though. Grrr.).

I am ready to start the bidding anytime! The precious scrolls have been unearthed!

Before anyone jumps up in my grill, it looks like I've missed about ten pages of intense climate debate that has been taking place on the thread "Why do conservatives hate Obama so?" It's likely that my previous post on this thread is going over old ground. To paraphrase Kshartle, apologie...

Things like nuclear winter, the tremendous growth of population in the 20th century, the concept of peak oil, and ozone depletion are surely worthy of our attention, no? If scientists aren't talking about them, who is going to? For me the danger is that actions can be taken by governments that are h...

Dualstow, your Sam Harris post (http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-dont-i-criticize-israel) was terrific. I just got around to giving it a read today. And PS's follow up comments were spot on if more than little bit sobering. I can't quite get behind the title of this thread though. To me it fee...