I just finished watching a CNBC program that provided an interesting insight into the US economic relationship with China. I must say it was distressing to me to see so many Americans in our manufacturing sector put out of work by companies that have chosen to move overseas to take advantage of lowe...

If 30 year TIPS are yielding around the same a 30 year bond why wouldn't I just purchase them instead? Maybe I am reading this recent auction chart wrong: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/RI/OFNtebnd but it looks like the yield on a 30 year TIP bond auctioned on 5/16/11 was 4.38%. I must not be reading...

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Thank you Clive. Those numbers are quite amazing if you ask me! The trend from 1800 to 1900 seems very flat and stable compared to the last 100 years.

In fact they actually look slightly deflationary.

True, maybe his argument is simplistic but the inflation trend is very well established over the last 100 years and the fed seems hellbent on preventing deflation. I think that if you print enough money eventually you will get less purchasing power......I can't really see the difference between deva...

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Interesting article that argues that inflation is followed by rising wages not caused by them. The ultimate chicken and egg dilemma

Link to article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-p ... 51140.html

That might have been the case in the past, but there is increasingly an argument that international emerging markets are decoupling from western markets. I am not 100 percent committed to my international exposure as I said earlier because i still don't know if I would have the guts to double down o...

I actually hold only about 5 percent of the intl allocation in bonds...the other is in equity. In terms of the zigging and zagging I view international exposure as another class that zigs and zags independently of the other traditional 4 assets. I would imagine that it should smooth out the line mor...

Interesting approach.   Just a few questions.... Don't you think that the higher returns are a result of the falling interest rate environment that we had since the early 80's? I imagine that a portfolio with 50 percent LT treasuries would underperform in a rising rate environment. Where and how do ...

I have made international bonds (mostly emerging markets) a portion of my international exposure through the Templeton GIM and Wisdom tree ELD funds. I am trying to add about 20 percent Intl exposure to the traditional 4 way PP in an effort to avoid the potential for either 1) a Japanese style defla...

A Japanese PP investor would have a CAGR of .5% over the entire decade of 1990 to 2000. Here is a link to the picture..maybe that will work for you.  http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bH_i2OLPOjU/TBiN80pP5MI/AAAAAAAAEqs/N-pqol3Sdhc/s320/PP_JapanENG_90.gif As MediumTex indicated, I am not 100% sure what bond...

I think that the argument for a little (10%) international equity exposure and possibly a little foreign currency exposure would be beneficial to an entirely domestic PP to avoid a Japanese style PP situation. The other big concern that I have going forward is the fact that humans are potentially be...

If we are heading for an environment akin to 1990 Japan, things could be ugly. The CAGR for the PP in Japan during this time was .5% ouch! See attached picture: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bH_i2OLPOjU/TBiN80pP5MI/AAAAAAAAEqs/N-pqol3Sdhc/s320/PP_JapanENG_90.gif Any ideas on variable portfolio investmen...

Does the historical record of the portfolio give us an idea of how it would perform in an environment of economic stagnation with slowly rising interest rates due to monetary and commodity inflation starting from a period with historically low bond yields? My primary concern with the portfolio has b...

Another thing to consider regarding this is the ultimate reality that we will have to improve efficiency in the way that we use all of our natural resources (energy, wood, arable land, water etc.) This does create investment opportunities for companies that position themselves to create products whi...

I do a lot of reading over at theoildrum.com and an interesting article appeared challenging the notion that future economic growth at the rates that we have grown to expect over the last 100 years are simply not possible in a resource constrained world: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7848#more Here...

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