Interesting thought that we might be conflating communism and fascism. It's a little hard to tell the difference, isn't it? There are definitely socialists/communists pushing in that direction, but there are also those (e.g. the Clintons) who simply want power and control. They are aligned right now...

There's nowhere better to go than here, I'm afraid. My answer to the thread title: No, not yet. But we're getting frighteningly close. Censorship, persecution for holding views that run counter to the state's preferences, a "Pravda" machine instead of the free press that the Founders envis...

At the risk of being politcally incorrect, I feel obliged to point out that the Arizona audit book is not yet closed. 50,000 questionable ballots were found, and these have been referred to the Attorney General for further investigation. They included mail in ballots that were never sent out (i.e. p...

I'm not an I-Bond hater, just a Treasury Direct hater. I just wish there was somewhere else to buy them. +1 Clunkiest website ever. I was locked out for years. I would surely have bought more i-bonds in the past several years, but I just hate the website. They recently "updated" the websi...

Thank you for posting this Kevin! Very informative read. Makes me glad I shied away from jumping into TIPS, for sure. tl;dr - TIPS may be good for a tax-advantaged account, definitely don't want them in taxable, iBonds are the bomb right now and for the near to mid future. Also, I gathered that: - a...

You might want to be careful tying bodily autonomy too closely to remaining a vector for disease. I'm puzzled. Hasn't the CDC made it clear that vaccinated people are still "vectors for disease" which is why they must continue to wear masks? Being vaccinated is about protecting yourself f...

Interesting how STILL no one who admits to voting for Biden has responded to MangoMan. I conclude that those of us who remain sane and socially gracious all seem to be those who did not vote for Biden. Where are those posters who heaped so much vitriole against us and That Other Candidate who shall ...

Kbg, The beauty of the PP is that there isn't much left to talk about, after almost 10 years of discussions on the topic. The board has always had active "other" discussions, and very often the "other" posts outscored the PP-related posts. This is nothing new. I viewed this board...

p.s. Thomas Sowell's book, "The Vision of the Anointed" goes into a lot of detail on the evils of social engineering policies and their unintended consequences. It's a very good read, highly recommended - and I would suggest getting it in physical form as it's likely high on the list of th...

18 months ago I would have considered this thought crazy, but like the open US border, has it occurred to anyone that the Afghanistan result was desired? Nah I don't think so. The main difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats firmly believe that social engineering is possible ...

Xan and MangoMan were talking about using I Bonds as a short term strategy, so the inconvenience factor does indeed weigh heavily. I agree with you that I Bonds are a great long term repository for cash. The overall interest rate I'm getting on my I Bond stash, built up over the years, is quite plea...

I gather that the original point of the thread was whether Trump would have done better. It's hard to say of course. I will just say that from a policy standpoint, Trump did a LOT better than Biden - who has been consistently a hot mess from Day 1. The question of whether policy should outweigh pers...

Got it. So the minimum voting age should be 50!!

jhogue, you are brilliant!!!!! Thank you for that little fairy tale! Yes you're absolutely correct: if cash is running at a deficit wrt inflation it will indeed push up at least one of the other three assets, and I guess that's what's been happening. It doesn't mean that playing with TIPS to squeeze...

My mother's savings are heavily into individual stocks, and she's done quite well plus has a lot of losses built up so that she could probably sell the whole lot and not pay a penny in taxes. I'm a bit jealous! The index fund approach has its good points, but it sucks when it comes to tax liability...

Thanks jhogue! That chart is sobering indeed. On the other hand, 2% is not the end of the world, even though it does suggest that there is at least a theoretical scenario where a tips fund can lose more than that. The problem seems to be the premium/discount to NAV issue. Would a mutual fund be safe...

How about "anyone who is not a citizen" can't vote? That would be incendiary enough, since the Democratic Party is hell bent on giving the vote to illegal immigrants - to say nothing of green card holders, students here on a J-1 visa etc. The next question is whether there are groups of Am...

Yes well put Kbg! The PP is about protecting your nest egg, not striking it rich. One thing we'd all discussed is using the PP for "core" retirement savings, i.e. enough to live on, and any savings beyond that can be 100% stocks. If the stocks lose value or go flat for a decade like they h...

Nice analysis jhogue but I beg to differ just a bit.... The 4-5% spread between interest rates and inflation rate is absolutely 100% unprecedented, at least going back to 1970. It's too much of a gap to ignore, and there must be a way to exploit it to minimize the damage from a large cash holding. A...

A short term TIPS fund is not a bad idea at all as a cash holding, to supplement I bonds and treasury money market funds. We are in an unprecedented situation where the gap between nominal interest rates and inflation is exceeding 4%, approaching 5%. I bonds are not quite filling the gap, with their...

Well said vincent! It's not just about the gold. It's how those three volatile asset classes were chosen to be as uncorrelated with each other as it's possible to get. All other asset classes are either strongly correlated with one of them (e.g. the different stock classes), or correlate with a mix ...

My current favorite from the Babylon Bee: https://babylonbee.com/news/governor-abbot-approval-rating-skyrockets-after-getting-dozens-of-democrats-to-leave-texas/ And I posted this before but it's still hilarious. Jon Stewart is refreshingly untied to any particular political ideology, and here's the...

Do Dems want a race war? Oh hell yeah. For decades, the dems viewed minorities as a permanent underclass that could always be counted upon to sell their vote for the promise of a welfare check. Now they're viewed as the instrumentality by which civil society will once and for all be broken and gove...

Hilarious series of videos from Reason TV: Great Moments in Unintended Consequences. Enjoy!! And I can't wait to see what will happen with Biden's new multi-trillion spending plan, with the best of intentions....what could possibly go wrong?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSwMEtuL-GQ&list=PLBu...

He does in fact include "nuisance crimes" on his priority list. He was one of the original architects of the "broken windows" philosophy, and he intends to bring that back. His platform on homelessness is not too well developed. Something about repurposing empty office buildings ...