I'm no expert, but I've seen my aged father get a lot of minor skin cancers removed from his face and head over the past couple of decades.  It is a cumulative thing.  My dad's lifetime of outdoor work has been compounded by his past 40 years of winters in the Florida sun.  You can't wait till the d...

thanks, I wondered how to spell it.  Is it French?

I've been comparing notes with friends who like us have seen and supported our kids through college recently.  We all agree after the fact that standing aside and letting kids pick majors for self-actualization and what not is a bad idea.  "Oh, you like history, you are getting a history degree...

I don't look at my PP very often.  I don't watch financial news.  As a result, I rarely have these sorts of anxieties.  I'm not trying to sound superior.  And I don't have any good advice on how to ignore the stuff.  But, if you CAN ignore it, you'll be better off. Look, no asset allocation is going...

Why are the people who want to raise the minimum wage such pikers?  Why not $30, or $50.  Then we'd all be comfortable.  Wheeeeee! No, the $13 or $15 is a great example of central planning.  Some people have decided that $15 would be a good minimum wage, for reasons X, Y, and Z.    Need I point out ...

Sorry, I should have put a 

I mean, is there a chance in a million we are going to see a tight money recession?

North Korea is worse than ISIS, except they hide their atrocities.  Why aren't we going after them? There are bad guys all over the globe.  The only reason we are bombing ISIS is out of shame: A) we destroyed Iraq for no reason, and B) we will be humiliated if ISIS succeeds.  I was about to write, a...

The US media says it so it must be true!

Tight money, what is that? 

Push3r, I too put my money in GLD because it was so easy to do within my existing framework and comfort zone.  I'm talking a big lump sum. Oh, how I wish I had invested in physical gold and Perth Mint unallocated gold rather than GLD.  I'm not (too) worried about the paper gold and counter party asp...

Looking back at Craig and Jim's book, I see they said if your PP gets big enough, consider keeping one year's expenses in cash and the rest in short term treasuries.

I have nothing with losses, nothing at all.  That's a good thing, for sure.  I have not bought anything in probably 5-7 years.  Well, maybe just some cash-like short term bond fund purchases.  Just letting it grow, less the distributions we've spent. 

Cash is what I wonder about.  To me it is just undeployed investment money.  I am keeping my 25%, but for what purpose?  I don't need it to keep me calm.  And it's yielding nothing.  Of course I recall when cash earned double digits or close. It seems like if your PP becomes big enough, there should...

By the way, do you know that the collectibles tax is not simply 28%?  It is 28% max.  It's less if you are in a tax bracket lower than 28%. 

I did a couple of hours of research and ran it by the CPA.  CPA punched a couple of different scenarios into their software using our 2013 return.  Bottom line including state taxes would be that we would start out around 20% taxes on the gains.  If the gains get bigger, the Medicare Surtax would ki...

No, I have no losses.  I just went back and added that to the post.

Everything in taxable was bought during a restructuring after the crash, so it's all up since then.  Yay!  Obviously that's good, but for the rebalancing taxes.

I'm about at my rebalance bands.  Stocks 34%, Gold 16.5%.  And in a bit of market timing sentiment, I'm ready to make the moves.  But my god the taxes.  Our portfolio is almost all taxable (non-sheltered), and our stocks are all in taxable.  In our three stock index funds, we are looking at built in...

My wife's uncle routinely trounces the market.  And with penny stocks.  Just ask him!

Has anyone read the GLD shareholder-vote proposals pending now?  Thoughts?

I'm in a similar situation;  I just cannot see taking the tax haircut.  If you look at the tax bill as insurance against problems with the ETF, that insurance premium is way too high, IMO.

I'd say build what you want.  The resale market might not be as big but you will still sell it.  If you have some land, as it sounds, I think buyers would be more flexible on the house anyway.

Yes, you should read or watch Jim Grant every chance you get, IMO.

Contractors usually don't ask you questions early enough.  They are busy and wait till the last minute to ask you all sorts of things.  Then you are running around to look at materials and make decisions.  If you have a spouse, these rushed decisions will be even more trying. Such as: Where do you w...

Kshartle, We can't run out of other people's money in a closed system... nor can you with the way our fiat monetary system works. So if you can provide some reason why providing housing, food, education, and healthcare will collapse a society (into not being able to provide it for people going forw...

I'm of the opinion that it's hopeless.  Prosperity and democracy lead to overly-generous welfare, using the term very generally.  Eventually entitlements and programs become too much for the productive economy to bear, and a long slide begins.  Then hungry upstarts, countries on the rise, will take ...