Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the PP strategy suddenly were to catch on with the general public and become the most popular investment strategy in the world.  (That will probably never happen, and yet I still like to wonder about this.) If the PP is a good investment strategy for an indivi...

Most (if not all) gold mutual funds invest in gold mining stocks, not gold bullion itself.  For investing in gold bullion, buy one of the gold ETFs--or, even better, the physical metal itself. There are a number of reasons why gold mining stocks should not be part of the gold portion of one's PP.  H...

FWIW, Harry Browne mentioned silver a couple of times in his 1989 book The Economic Time Bomb.  I quoted the two relevant passages in the following thread:

http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/in ... 91.msg3575

I have a 401(k) brokerage account through Schwab and two brokerage accounts through Vanguard--one taxable and one for my IRA.  Very pleased with Vanguard because of their rock-bottom expense ratios, low portfolio turnover, and client-owned business model.

Thanks for the info, everyone.

Sounds like I'm probably over-analyzing this particular permutation of doom.  I do keep some emergency cash at home, so hopefully that would provide a cushion against any temporary illiquidity in the money markets.

The sweep account may only be holding funds for a few days, whereas the Treasury MM funds may be holding funds for years. The probability of something going wrong with the sweep accounts during the short period your funds are moving in or out of them is, IMHO, pretty low. Yes, but during that time ...

If this question has been answered in a previous thread, then I apologize. I have seen a number of people on this forum ask where they should park their cash when no Treasury money market funds are available (e.g., because they are closed to new investors, as many of them currently are).  One of the...

The thing that is so impressive about what the U.S. has achieved in this area is that it exists in a multi-cultural society.  Japan also has a very strong social cohesion factor, but that is less surprising in a homogeneous society with a strong tradition of intrasociety trust. In the case of the U...

Based on Kitco's information, their Pool Accounts charge a $15 administrative fee for all purchase and sale transactions under $2,500.  (See the last question on their FAQ at https://online.kitco.com/help/faq_bullion_pool.html .)  Then, on top of that, when you've saved up enough to take physical de...

I sold off a very large position in silver in early November of last year, when the spot price was around $24.  It had gone up about 35% since I bought in, but I sold it in order to convert to the PP.  Ouch. So apparently I can't time the markets worth a damn.  But really, that's why I decided to co...

In his 1989 book The Economic Time Bomb , HB advocated two seemingly contradictory approaches to silver: Page 188 - "If you believe silver belongs in your Permanent Portfolio, you'll need to carve a place for it by removing some of your stocks and some of your gold." Page 210 - "As a very small part...

As craig said, though, long term bonds are going to pay you a nice coupon yield even if rates don't fall, and if rates do begin to edge back up that will probably be a symptom of a recovering economy, as opposed to this crazy inflation that everyone seems to be expecting (though no one seems to hav...

Interesting, thanks for the replies. As far as practical investing is concerned, it does seem clear that the minimal turnover of a market cap-weighted index makes it the lowest-cost choice for a stock index fund.  Other possible types of index weighting interest me for a number of reasons, but I agr...

The most popular stock index funds seem to be capitalization-weighted, meaning each component stock in the index is weighted by its total market value (capitalization).  But capitalization-weighting is not the only way to create a stock index.  Indexes can also be equal-weighted/price-weighted, fund...

I have been saying lately that 1984, Animal Farm , and other thoughtful and thought provoking classics are wasted on middle-schoolers and high-schoolers; at least those of today.  They were wasted on me at that age, and I have observed that they were wasted on my 3 children.  Kids that age just do ...

As we have this discussion, remember the following: The United States has the largest manufacturing economy in the world. It's a smaller part of the economy than it used to be, but it's still bigger than any other country's. I think that much of the decline of America's manufacturing base is a medi...

I'm interested in hearing some of your responses to the following question:  How important is a country's manufacturing base as a determining factor in its long-term economic prosperity? My own thoughts on the matter are mixed.  Until fairly recently, I tended to agree with people like Peter Schiff,...

My question is whether or not Austrian economics says anything about market-timing, stock picking, etc.  Obviously many people on the Austrian side believe they can predict economic events... An interesting article about this very question appeared in early 2009 on the Ludwig von Mises Institute we...

Although I try not to place too much emphasis on backtesting, I'm curious:  why doesn't anyone seem to discuss the PP's backtested performance beyond 1972--when the U.S. dollar was still partially convertible into gold?  Or, better yet, beyond 1933--when the dollar was still fully convertible into g...

Coffee wrote: You don't care what return your investment will provide in years to come?

Okay, maybe I care a little bit

Past returns are never a guarantee of future returns, so I take them all with a grain of salt--including the average historical returns calculated for the PP.  Who knows what its return will be in the future?  Not me.  I just know that the PP tends to be significantly less volatile than traditional ...