These are interesting thoughts that I have not heard before and find to be let's say non-intuitive. I'm more familiar with phrases like "if you suffer a 50% decline, you then need a 100% increase to break even". Do you have any good references to point me to that discuss what you're saying...

mathjak107, You've done well, and I'm happy for you, but do you ever consider that maybe you were a bit lucky in the sense that when the markets were down you didn't also lose your job and have to start relying on "retirement savings" to tide you over until you could find a new job. For so...

Not if you are using it as Black Swan insurance. well than remember you can't complain about the value dripping away once the black swan goes bye bye as typically happens over and over . The last time I checked, any type of insurance is not free. But that doesn't mean that I don't have any insuranc...

Not if you are using it as Black Swan insurance.

Frugal, One big question you have to ask yourself is: how much time will you realistically be able to put into your portfolio management? How often are you really going to be able to check in on things and make changes if necessary? If you can commit to doing that say once a month, then you can prob...

I personally see 25/25/25/25 as a very conservative and agnostic portfolio. I would not want to go less than 25% stocks even though stocks may seem over-valued. As others have said, stocks can go up further from here. During the 2008 crash, the 4x25 survived fairly well. Hopefully, it would do the s...

Kbg, You seem very trusting of governments. You do understand who governments exist to serve, don't you? Yes, the wealthy and powerful. They aren't looking out for the little guy (i.e., me). They are looking out for people who make millions and billions of dollars. That's how it works. If it fits th...

Welcome David,

I don't understand what your question is. Could you please try to re-phrase it?

I joined the forum in 2010 after discovering the famous thread on BH forum with lots of gems from Craig and MT. Initially I had 50% in pure PP in IRAs and taxable and another 50% in a PP-like portfolio in my 401k. Some of you might remember my whining about bad 401k with no gold, no LTTs, and a sol...

I have to confess that I can't see why a UBI couldn't work in a democracy. If most of the wealth is concentrated in say the upper 10% of the population, then why wouldn't at least 50% of the voters vote to redistribute that wealth in the form of a UBI?

I just read Buchanan's latest column at UNZ, criticizing Trump for the Syria missile strike. I didn't see any sign of anti-Semitism or hinting that Israel could have been behind it, despite the very great possibility that Israel is behind a lot of everything that happens in the Middle East. Again, a...

I suspect that I've changed. He sounds pretty reasonable to me now. I'm talking about reading the articles of his that get posted on www.unz.com. If you read what the mainstream media has to say about him, I'm pretty sure he sounds like a nazi.

Pat Buchanan is even suggesting it might be a false flag operation. Pat Buchanan, ugh. He says a lot of things, and most of them should be ignored. 10 years ago I would have agreed with you completely. Nowadays, I find I agree with most of what Buchanan says. What does he say that you don't like?

Try: 15% Total Stock Market 15% Mid cap Value 25% Small cap Value 20% Long term Treasuries 25% Gold Modeljc Butterfly? 7.7% REAL RETURNS That might be why NO BELIEVES IN THE PERMANENT PORTFOLIO? PP RETURNS ARE SMALL AND BORING AND WE ALL HOPE FOR MORE Add in 10% to 15% cash, by removing say 5% SCV ...

If you have more than say 15 years to retirement, I might recommend 40% to 50% in the Total Stock etf, as long as you can convince yourself that you won't sell during the inevitable downturns. When those downturns come, you just have to tell yourself that stocks will turn around at some point. The l...

So, for stuper1 and Tenn, since most/much of the mainstream media is throwing God out of our culture and replacing Him with hedonism, I assume you think they are wrong and there really is a God the source of all truth, in charge of all that was, is and will be, including President Trump? Thus, resi...

Let's assume for the moment that Assad did use poison gas, which as I said before, seems very implausible to me. Do you think he's an idiot? But anyway, let's assume that he did, and that he killed 82 people including children by doing so. Okay, he's a bad guy, I get it. I don't really care if he ki...

I'm highly skeptical of the proof of chemical weapons use. Why would Assad use chemical weapons now? It seems like he has been winning lately. Why would he risk raising international ire? He has plenty of other "approved" ways of killing people. Doesn't it seem fishy that all of a sudden h...

What are the expense ratios on those two options?

What has the performance of the default fund been over the years?

Emerging markets are a fine component to a portfolio in the right dosage. Tyler, I have a question about your portfoliocharts.com website. Do you have a calculator that will do something like the following: I pick a certain number of specific assets, say 2 to 10 specific assets. Then, I ask the cal...

To the stance that we should not invest in all assets equally since the chance of outcome is not 25% - The PP is designed for ALL economic environments, not only those that happen more or less frequently. Which is why, to me, the PP seems like a great retirement portfolio. But for an accumulation p...

Maddy, I really enjoy your posts. So often very funny and/or thought provoking.

No, we are not wrong, because we believe in passive, low-expense-ratio, well-diversified investing. In fact, our investing is actually better diversified than the typical stock/bond portfolio, because we also hold a valuable commodity (gold) which is uncorrelated with stocks/bonds. You only have to ...

I don't know when the end of the dollar will come. Neither does anyone else, because it cannot be known in advance. But that it will end one day is about as certain as anything other than the laws of physics. BTW, there is only one circumstance in which a person of moderate means can multiply his w...

Will the Perth Mint keep track of your cost basis for all of your monthly investments into perpetuity? Otherwise, you will need to track that yourself for tax purposes, which seems like a pain to me.