For those doing IF...here's a practical problem I would like some thoughts on. Normally I prefer skipping dinner and doing breakfast and lunch...but socially this is very hard to do on weekends. Any thoughts on transition strategies going into Friday and going back on my preferred schedule Monday m...

Why do we want Gold to go up (serious question)? Are we thinking about this the wrong way? What is the impact to our daily lives if Gold doubles? Well, I think we definitely want it to go up if everything else is going down, which is basically why I thought we held it. Right, but everything else is...

Xan wrote: ↑Wed Aug 15, 2018 2:15 pm

buddtholomew wrote: ↑Wed Aug 15, 2018 1:18 pm I wouldn’t even bother with Gold unless we see inflation. Not going to see much inflation with tariffs, a strong USD and rising rates.

With everyone thinking that, doesn't that make it a good time to buy?

No way. Much better to buy high and sell low. After all, that's what most people do.

Desert wrote: ↑Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:32 pm It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it.

I can picture someone writing this about Trump's speaking style.

We've never seen an administration this corrupt. You should check on the personal wealth of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Then compare that against what they did in practical terms to deserve that wealth. As far as I know neither of them invented a better mousetrap or ran multinational corporation...

Good question...mine too. I read an article about them and was kinda surprised at the result. It is the same trust structure and issuing company as GLD. Purportedly the only difference is the fee and the share size basis. It is expected that GLD will remain popular with institutional investors wher...

What's the difference between GLD and GLDM?

My suggestion would be to use a different domain name that sounds like it has to do with Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio. More people will probably find it that way.

That's exactly what it is, a crapshoot, because gold is uncorrelated to stocks/bonds, at least that's what the data say. The theory is that when stocks/bonds go out of favor, that money will shift to cash or gold. But that shift may have a lag time of weeks or months, based on past results. The lag ...

You got $14M in the bank, and you don't feel like you can retire?

At my spending level, I could retire on $14M right now in my early 50s, even if the future portfolio return was negative every year until my death.

Thanks, Budd, for telling us more about yourself. What country did you emigrate from? How old were you?

Ok, Budd, time for you to inspire us a bit with some of your backstory. Trust me, you owe us this after having to read your griping for years. Tell us a little more about you and how you were able to amass $14M. Where did you immigrate from, how old were you, what was your career path, what were the...

$14M in the bank, and you still come on here to make the rest of us miserable? Come on, man, have a little decency. If you're going to come on here, bring some kind of uplifting quote about the rewards of working hard or living in a great country or something.

We’ve been on the same hopium for a while now. Even if equities tanked 100% I would still be way ahead of my gold position. Big mistake! So if your stocks went down to 0 that would still be better than gold? Wow, that is terrible! Yup, and since your buy you’ve stunk it up...too bad. Yet my 70/30 i...

Bias against "buffoons" is what it is. They saw Trump as an entitled buffoon, so they thought it was ok to treat him unfairly. Very unprofessional. They're supposed to treat everybody the same whether he's a buffoon or not. Who's the real buffoon? People say that Trump was born into money,...

I'm not sure. I would think so if the employer account is held directly at Vanguard. I don't think it would apply if you held VUSXX through another brokerage.

If I understand correctly, you can start with $50k+ in VUSXX and then later drop well below $50k without any problem, as long as: (a) this is in a retirement account (e.g., IRA, Roth IRA, 401k), or (b) you have at least $50k of total assets invested with Vanguard. So, you could open a PP with just s...

But we're the ones that believe our own group speak. Rich. He couldn't quite understand that some people have different investing philosophies for valid reasons. He gave it lip service, but didn't really believe it.

Those are good questions. I think a lot of us who do the PP, or something similar, have already asked ourselves those questions and have come to a different conclusion than you.

To me the beauty of the PP is that it goes a couple steps beyond your typical 60/40ish stock/bond portfolio. One step is that it adds gold, which is uncorrelated to stocks/bonds and also if held physically acts as insurance against low-probability, serious events (my go-to being the solar flare that...

Would Clyatt's 4/95 withdrawal be a problem for someone entering retirement right at the top of a big stock bubble? If things go way south for several years right after retirement, but they are only taking 5% decreases each year, would that significantly hurt their chances of success? I guess what I...

Thank you!

Simple is good. I read the threads over at bogleheads going on for pages and pages about withdrawal rates. It's pretty funny and then boring.

Sounds good. Thanks for the input. I like simple methods. Where can I read more about this method? You say it stress tested out 40 years. Was that published somewhere where I could read more about it, or was that just your personal test?

you just look at your year end balance and you get either 4% of it or if markets are down : you take the higher of 4% of the balance or what you took last year less 5% .. I want to make sure I understand this right, so please don't think I'm quibbling over words. Is the first line of your descripti...

i use bob clyatt's withdrawal method myself . it works great . it rewards you when markets are up and does not require much adjusting if it is down . you just look at your year end balance and you get either 4% of it or if markets are down : you take the higher of 4% of the balance or what you took...