MT, I wasn't really suggesting anything, just raising the question (to which I don't claim to know the answer myself). I'm interested in your thoughts on this - do you feel the economy at present is expanding or contracting, and are price levels increasing or decreasing? I think that the economy is...

Over the last 40 years it has been that simple. Are you suggesting that the stock market might respond to one type of economic expansion differently than it would another?  Why would it?  If corporate profits are increasing, do we care why?  We may care a lot, I just thought I would ask the questio...

The PP is premised upon the following assumptions: 1. At a given point in time, the economy can only be on an expansion trajectory or a contraction trajectory.  It's possible for the economy to be neither expanding nor contracting, but such a condition rarely lasts for very long. MT, Is it really s...

The truth is that permanent open market operations merely change the composition of outstanding private sector assets and serve no role in helping to fund the US government.  It’s true that the government could use the Fed to fund the US Treasury’s spending, but that would involve a full blown reje...

On a related note, I have heard it said that an unprecedented amount of money is sitting on the balance sheets of major banks, including the treasury primary dealers, in the form of excess reserves. The Fed's money expansion strategy relied on the banks as a whole to put the money created by the Fed...

Your supply-and-demand analysis isn't wrong, but I think you're making an assumption that the Fed is creating artificial demand rather than crowding out demand from non-Fed market participants. If the Fed were to stop buying all the new bonds, what's to say that demand from private entities, foreig...

Your supply-and-demand analysis isn't wrong, but I think you're making an assumption that the Fed is creating artificial demand rather than crowding out demand from non-Fed market participants. If the Fed were to stop buying all the new bonds, what's to say that demand from private entities, foreig...

Sometimes I see statistics on the market that say things like: X is what your return would have been investing in SPY over a given period and X- is what would have been your return if you had missed the 10 best trading days during that same period. The main point being that the peaks and valleys hea...

Sure, but that applies to any falling asset. Unless you think it's going to zero, I think buying when it's falling is probably better than buying when it's rising. [/quote] Why exactly do you think buying an asset when it's falling is better than buying when it's rising? I'm not saying I disagree, ...

This is not a rhetorical question. I am interested in opinions on why the PP is down as much as it is at the moment. By way of background, I started my PP in October 2012, and inception to date I am down about 7%. I didn't expect a riskless investment but I didn't expect to be down this much either,...

Would you guys feel better if the PP was down 5% and S&P down 30% or PP up 5% and S&P up 30%? I personally would feel much better about the former. Good question. Neither scenario is necessarily bad, but I would certainly feel "better" about the former. This is because my objectiv...

Hi, Like a few other members on the forum, I am having a hard time throwing down hard earned money into US government paper for the PP. This arises from US dollar devaluation risk and/or direct or indirect default risk (indirect default meaning an effective default through inflation). So what commen...

Okay, thanks - I"ll read both those papers this weekend in the hope of gaining some better understanding.

I like your term - mind-melting. Appropos

If the Fed printing money means nothing in the grand scheme of things, then they can give me some.  If it does mean something, it means inflation. and my favorite video dumping on neoclassical economics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQLthVztQSk I think that part of what Gumby and others are getti...

I get that the Permanent Portfolio is built on the interplay between four different asset classes that should behave in complementary ways depending on whether we are in (or transitioning between) four different economic cycles. I get it and I like it. Upside is somewhat blunted, but ruinous downsid...

Are we in Prosperity, Recession, Inflation or Deflation?

What about the past couple of years? What economic condition would you classify 2011 and 2012?

Thank you,

Hi, I have read both Harry Browne and Craig Rowland's books. The PP theory is appealing and makes good sense to me for that part of my assets I want to keep safe. So I set up a PP in October, and as of today it is down 1.5%. I realize this is a long term strategy, and I'm not panicking, but I someti...