I needed to stash away money into the PP until I was financially independent, then I could consider VP investments. I'm gonna break this down into 2 different sections: VP Why are you in the PP? Are you a danger to yourself gambling-wise? If so, just stay in the PP. Are you afraid of losing money? ...

The story is not over. What will be interesting will be to see when the PP rebounds and how much of the rebound upside it captures. I hear you. There is always a chance it will snow sometime in the future as well. But wearing snow boots in May from a risk/reward standpoint is just silly. You can't ...

Although I generally agree with this… not so much for the PP. People expect the PP to be a fast-turning ship because that is insurance they thought they were paying for by giving up their higher expected returns. I think the real problem is that the PP is not geared towards rising rates and relies o...

I agree it's never going to be the worst option but I think it's wise to look at how to build a better bunker. Lots of great input Kevin. I appreciate seeing your well thought-out posts. We consider it a decent investment philosophy/allocation that will never be the best performing, or the worst pe...

The scenario playing out now is one that I envisioned and was one of the reasons why I chose the PP in the first place. What is playing out now is high inflation, rising interest rates, with a potentially weakening economy. This was the exact scenario that I thought gold was supposed to bail us out...

Dump the PP allocation. DISCLAIMER: I already know this is going to be heresy and I am not really looking to get into the weeds again. This has been discussed previously ad nauseam. IMHO, the risk-reward profile of the PP is much more complicated then people here want to believe. I also believe this...

Mark, Since it appears that you like to travel, have you considered puerto rico's Act 60? Just put in your 183 days each year and spend the rest of your time travelling somewhere else. They even lower the number of days if there is a disaster that strikes. Assuming the PR government doesn't screw yo...

Speaking of praise be...a thread worthy of participating in. +1 I often find Mark's posts to be a breath of fresh air. A couple of questions though. First, what do you do when interest rates go up? Over a long enough time horizon that's something you have to consider. Second, what happens when you ...

Given that it could be feasible under the right conditions (thanks! ahhrunforthehills ), the last piece of the puzzle seems to be how to handle re-balancing. My first blush at that would be to just buy a single ETF that is a bond/equity mix . And then also hold some physical gold outside the system...

I just ran a comparison between living off of margin vs paying annual capital gains taxes. It seems to really boil down to portfolio performance and how many years you will still be in the market. A high annual return combined with a low withdrawal rate makes living off a margin loan a winner after ...

Hi Mark, Great topic. I too have been curious about this. I just ran a spreadsheet that would account for the margin, LTV, etc. over a 50 year period. It appears based on my data (which might be riddled with errors) that in order to do this somewhat safely you would need to keep your Withdrawal Rate...

It's great to see your name reappear on the forum ahrunforthehills! Your posts have been some of the best I've ever read here. Obviously it's not just the PP but the whole universe of low or reduced "fat tails" portfolios intended for retirees and others who can't handle deep or protracte...

Thanks for a thoughtful and well reasoned post Kevin, Years back I was discussing the PP concept with a retired Japanese stockbroker and she stated exactly those concerns relating to living in Japan (very low return on 3/4 of the portfolio). Now here we are with the same issue. I had been very seri...

What you say doesn't make sense at all. If you want to be actively involved in your portfolio and you believe that is the way to maximize your risk/reward ratio. That statement in itself is very revealing. The PP has outperformed its expectations in recent years so I can understand how it has attra...

Old ladies aren’t the only people who want to set it and forget it. ::) Nothing wrong with that as long as you are willing to except a higher risk of lower returns. Lots of people give up money for insurance that, from a risk-adjusted standpoint, isn’t optimal. That doesn’t make them wrong. It just...

TBH, this forum is basically just a collection of INTJ rants that I like to occasionally check while I am sitting on the pot. It is entertainment. If it wasn't for the "Politics" and "Other Discussions" sections, I think this forum would already be dead. I don't realistically eve...

Here is a 15 minute lecture that explains it better than I could ...the potential is definitely real. That said, most altcoin are shit. Just schemes to make a quick buck with no serious potential https://youtu.be/Zuc2_7MGZ_g Interesting how he pretty much just assumes at 10:50 that the military for...

Then you got Harry Reid claiming that UFO/UAP debris are allegedly in the possession of Lockheed Martin. He tried for years to get access but couldn't get the necessary clearances. Senate Majority leader is a pretty credible position. Say what? Yea, it's crazy. The New Yorker just did a piece on it...

My best guess is that the military treats UFO incidents as highly classified and tries to sweep them under the rug, as you described, mainly because the inability to explain such incidents suggests certain limitations in our military's capabilities. They probably consider that embarrassing and a po...

I am the last person to believe in UFOs, but... The thing that unnerves me the most about it is how the government seems to handle the information and treats witnesses. For example, look at the USS Nimitz incident. You have all of the air control systems on the entire Navy Strike Carrier Group 11 th...

If I would have put in $1000 when I knew about it at $100 per bitcoin or whatever it was at the time. Think about what you will lose if you put 1% of your investable assets into Bitcoin and it goes to 0 versus what you may gain if it just keeps doubling. If I was 3 feet taller I would have Lebron’s...

Thanks for the feedback. It's nice to know that even if I am completely nuts in my ramblings... at least there are other people here that speak my same level of crazy

Thank you for your perspective. I keep asking myself “what if”? What if Bitcoin is legitimate even with all the challenges outlined to owning and transacting. What if... I have .60% of investable assets in Bitcoin to answer all the what ifs... People seem to think that somehow bitcoin can operate t...

Thank you for your perspective. I keep asking myself “what if”? What if Bitcoin is legitimate even with all the challenges outlined to owning and transacting. What if... I have .60% of investable assets in Bitcoin to answer all the what ifs... I hear ya. "What ifs" are hard to quantify. T...

Hi Budd, Anyways, no I don’t own any (but I have been researching it for years). I am not opposed to it anymore than I am other types of high-risk venture. In fact, the ONLY reason i even commented was because this forum is really beginning to misclassify bitcoin in a crazy way. Can bitcoin be the n...