I believe an average German has lots of capital in the various current and future social benefits and comparatively quite low savings rate. What I would do in your case is to first calculate how much I have in savings compared to the value of the social security benefits. Then I would decide how ris...

What's the reason for such low yields? They seem lower than what they had even during the great depression.

I doubt it's uniform throughout the whole EU (e.g., Greece should be paying more). Why don't you lend your cash to a reasonable larger EU country which pays a more reasonable amount?

Talmudic portfolio 1/3 business 1/3 land/real estate 1/3 gold

Yes you are right, I should have mentioned that the Krona devalued significantly, which makes the seemingly fantastic nominal returns of the Icelandic PP in 2008 misleading. The PP didn't make anyone rich in 2008, let's be clear about that: but it would have saved your ass, even with the devaluatio...

It is easy to beat any portfolio by using hindsight to point out how an investor could have done better than any given static, passive portfolio. Not sure how I'd explain it without comparing it to anything. Let me try. It looks like the value of Icelandic currency fell for each 1 unit to 0.4. Icel...

Are you suggesting that the HBPP does not work as advertised for international investors, then? Harry Browne never suggested that , he always advocated for following the basic PP principles as applied to whatever domestic economy you live and work in. And the PP has a long and storied history of wo...

Gold does indeed act as a "insurance policy" if a currency should fail. The concerns about a currency failing is not new. No this is not the case. HB has clearly specified it works only wrt USD. When there is significant world economy worry then money flows into the world reserve currency...

But how does that fix my (and other people's) worries about the low yield of long-bonds and its associated risks? If you pay even more attention to PP components you'll realize that gold is nothing but a useless metal, equity is an artificially inflated asset to give appearance that economy is supp...

I'd just go with something simple like

60% VWRD
40% IEGA

or if you really want some gold:

50% VWRD
10% SGLN
40% IEGA

Very discouraging answers... I do have a pension that's indeed about 10K per year. Mortgage on the house is about 50% of the current value. But there's a personal reason I don't want stocks to be a large part of my portfolio: volatility. I'm a contractor, I've got enough risk in my life and I do no...

I think PP is less than ideal for most Europeans. An average Western European has a solid salary but they tend to pay tons of taxes and have low after tax savings. As such, most Europeans have tons of safety net, including solid pensions. They also tend to own inherited real estate. It is critical t...

edit reason: misunderstood the question; it was an irrelevant comment

I appreciate the work you are trying to do on the Bogleheads forum in that thread, but it's a waste of time. I've posted over there (in that thread even), and they are extremely close-minded. It's going to take a real sustained downturn before those guys get over their hubris. I don't mind what the...

Bernstein was right that it's not easy sticking to PP when everyone else around you is getting rich in the equity market heavy portfolios.

Bogle says expected long term equity returns are ~2% real taking into account overvaluation.

I don't follow this since according to his formula, for example, European market should return the same but if I look at the charts European has under-performed US significantly.

What are other reasonable SCV alternatives in a portfolio such as this? For example, plugging in 10% REITS 10% EM gives me pretty much the same results as SCV and it seems more diversified?

I think those in 0.2% have all their money in trusts and similar legal entities so that none of their money is touched by estate tax. I think estate tax hits primarily those who barely made it and probably have not realized yet that they should use some means to protect their money, that is, probabl...

Does anyone know if there are any expected changes to the estate tax with Trump administration?

Also note, I guess your country is a typical EU socialist/welfare country with loads of safety net, pensions, etc. and quite low personal savings/investing capital. You might want to go through an extensive calculation of how much this welfare safety net is worth and to consider the total as your fi...

I'd say either run a US PP or stick with a Boglehead's portfolio if you are non-US person. The peculiar connection between USD as a world reserve currency and gold plays a role not to be ignored in a PP. You can see right now, for example, that GBP or Turkish Lira are tanking but gold is not really ...

Can you tell us a bit about ways and costs of buying bullion in Singapore and costs related to storing it in Malca-Amit vaults you mentioned?

Is anyone aware if there will be any changes to taxes with Trump? In particular any changes to capital gains, dividends, and estate tax? If yes, shall these changes also affect NRAs and how long does it usually take to pass and implement such changes in US?

You should rethink your ideas taking into account the following two points: - Gold is a part of PP exactly because the rest is in a FIAT currency. If you're looking for a hard currency then don't look at CHF or SGD but into more gold as it's the only hard currency left. Or maybe Bitcoin as it's a ha...

This forum is also quite quiet recently. It's a pity since it's critical IMO to have a supportive community during the rough times in order to stick with a portfolio such as PP.

If in a "dodgy" country you can run US PP or any other reasonable Bogleheads portfolio such as US, European, Singaporean, and so on. This decision should be driven by, for example, which currency/government you trust more with your fixed income or maybe long term planning needs or a correl...