Some people simply want the freedom to protect themselves against crazy-sounding, almost unimaginable things. If doing so doesn't infringe on anyone else's person or property, why should they be prevented from doing so? I guess you also have some boundary to this? Would you be happy for a US instit...

To use [Freedom_Found's] seat belt analogy, I'm perfectly fine driving with my standard shoulder and lap belt with supplemental air bags (my .40 handgun).  Some politician came along and outlawed those safety harnesses that Formula 1 drivers wear.  Does that mean I can't protect myself?  I'm perfec...

Tortoise, it seems like more beautiful women live in the Southern California, perhaps because it's warmer and farther from the craze of work-obsessed Silicon Valley.  :)  Yes, I think you're right. The most beautiful women seem to enjoy living a lifestyle that allows them to show off their beauty a...

I have never understood why so many people stayed in California.  It always seemed to me that the taxes, high cost of living, pollution, dysfunctional state government, and crime would have caused the place to simply be abandoned, sort of like a political Superfund site. Perfect mild weather, gorge...

Even if I were very confident that rates would stay low for a very long time, the interest rate risk would seem to dwarf any possible gains. That's an interesting point. Until now, I had never bothered to calculate the maximum possible capital gain for a 30-year bond (i.e., the capital gain resulti...

Gumby wrote:

Ad Orientem wrote: Holy crap!  Who in their right mind keeps a cool $100 M in a bank account?

Probably a lottery winner not knowing what to do next.

Could be, but the address on the slip says East Hampton, NY. Some of the richest and most powerful people in the world have vacation homes in the Hamptons.

Nice, Tortoise!  I take it that is not one of your personal savings accounts...  How many people with $100K actually take cash out of ATMs? You mean $100M? Take another gander at the receipt :) I wonder if CapitalOne dings that person with a low-balance fee whenever the balance dips below $100M...

Storm wrote: But, if you do have a lot of cash to manage (I wish I had that problem ) this can be an effective way of maintaining insurance while banking with your preferred bank.

You mean your ATM receipts don't look like this?

I know what you mean, Adam. The trivialization of war by marketing an ultra-realistic war game to a rap soundtrack is a bit creepy and distasteful to me. Then again, the marketing profession in general strikes me as creepy and distasteful. The issue of desensitization is an interesting one, and I ha...

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to announce the final results of the first official Suicide Portfolio Contest! And the winner is... https://docs.google.com/drawings/pub?id=14RRizKc2gM4k10FgjsH_6bRzM4z1JDsVRjriSGOqOLw&w=804&h=561 Here are the detailed results: Name         Final Portfolio Va...

That Live More, Work Less book sounds interesting. I'll check it out. There are certain lucrative careers I considered but didn't go into specifically because I knew they would require me to work 60+ hour weeks on a regular basis. I like money, but I guess I like free time even more. Some evidence s...

It seems like a lot (if not most) of this forum's members have either retired very early or have a goal of doing so. I've been married for a little over a year. My opinion is that the ideal situation for a person determined to retire super-early is to be single, without children, and not living with...

That's an odd coincidence that you posted this review today, because I just received my Gold Coin Balance in the mail today. I agree completely: It's a really handy tool that is a great deal for the price. I've tried it on a Krugerrand and an Eagle so far, and it works as advertised on both of them....

Moda, In case this adds a bit of clarity, here is the short passage from Jorg Guido Hulsmann's The Ethics of Money Production that I first shared in this post from our gold standard discussion back in July when the topic of legal tender came up briefly: A legal tender is money or a money certificate...

What is a "closet index fund?" Actively managed funds that simply follow the index and don't stock pick. There's no way to prove they are doing this for sure, but if their performance closely matches a relevent benchmark over a long enough period of time, they probably are. The problem is...

Any current stats on what portion of stock assets (total dollar value), are managed via a stock index investing approach? portion of individual investors take this approach? portion of institutional investors (pension, insurance) take this approach? According to Figure 2.11 in this Investment Compa...

I'm 32, and my main purpose in using the PP is simply peace of mind. I loathe stress.

No plans to retire early. I plan to eventually find something I enjoy doing so much that I'll want to do it for the rest of my life.

Not sure why the media outlets are making such a big deal out of this. According to the Connecticut Lottery's own web site, this kind of situation is not unprecedented: CAN WINNERS REMAIN ANONYMOUS? Certain information regarding our winners is published and made available.  The Lottery will publish ...

Regarding the conversations that already exist on this forum--I can think of two great ways to separate the wheat from the chaff: Use the Search function to find threads containing specific keywords or phrases Filter the threads in decreasing order of number of replies or views by clicking on the &q...

Since this six-month contest started on June 9th, which is a Thursday, shall we say the final results will be based on closing prices Wednesday, December 7th? That's exactly 26 weeks, or 182 days. I haven't updated the results since early October, so I'm hoping that might make the final results a bi...

The more people index, the more numerous and obvious the opportunities would become to profit from mispriced stocks. At a certain point, those opportunities would simply be so numerous and so obvious that at least some people would take advantage of them. As a result, those people would generally en...

What is worse than idle labor? In some cases, misallocated labor. Whereas idle labor simply fails to produce new wealth, misallocated labor has the potential to actually destroy existing wealth. To the extent that inflation can encourage the misallocation of labor, it might under certain circumstan...

Anyone have ideas as to why Chavez is repatriating Venezuela's foreign gold reserves ? The article mentions the following as possible explanations: President Chavez has explained the move as an act of sovereignty that will protect Venezuela's reserves from global economic turbulence. [...] Some crit...

Interesting, thanks Clive! I learn new things all the time on this forum :) From the Wikipedia article on bond valuation : In many markets, it is market practice to quote bonds on a clean-price basis. When a purchase is settled, the accrued interest is added to the quoted clean price to arrive at th...

Typically the price paid will reflect an adjustment for the time value to the next payment date - otherwise you could buy T's a few days before the payment and sell again just after the payment and pocket the income whilst only having held for a few days perhaps. If it wasn't that way you could mak...