Thanks for posting that, Longstreet. Interesting to read that article six years later with the knowledge that the stock market didn't bottom until about four months after it was written. Those were painful times. Regarding SS payments, I would think of them as cash bonuses every month that they come...

Their decision to leave the board was obviously a coordinated effort as both stopped posting around the same time. The cynic in me sees a relationship between the book release and decision to move on to other ventures. I am comforted that they left when the portfolio regained its composure after 20...

This really should be another thread, but... Reub, MT and Craig have written a TON about the PP. Before they wrote the book, they answered a gazillion questions on that epic Boglehead thread, and they both gave a lot of input here as well. Craig has already gone on record as saying that he is just t...

Central banks hold gold because they don't believe that their paper currencies will hold up over the long term. The really remarkable thing is that other countries - most notably Germany - have stored at least some of their gold in the US.

I look way too often. A big reason for me is that I find this forum interesting and it's hard not to check on current values when people are talking about LTTs, stocks and gold. I am planning to start getting quarterly paper statements but I don't know if that will help because it takes 30 seconds t...

One of the three percenters here. Our property taxes were about 2% of the value of our home when we bought it at the end of 2007. Prices crashed, the town did a reassessment and just upped the mill rate so as not to have any less tax money coming in. Very painful.

I always hear that silver is an industrial metal as opposed to a precious metal. Just wondering what folks think... is the current low price a reflection of industry just not needing as much of it at the moment? I guess my answer to mortalpawn's question would be that adding some silver might not be...

I own two places with no debt. I knew on a gut level that this was not smart but I didn't really understand why until I got hold of Craig & MT's book and started listening to Harry Browne's podcasts. So, for the moment... real estate rich(ish), cash-on-hand poor, retirement... well, not as high ...

Then nothing.  Fundamentally and absolutely there is nothing you could reliably do.  The only way to reliably make money?  Do something productive.  Do something so valuable that people take the extreme step of actually taking money out of their pockets and handing it over to you.  Out of the busin...

I don't have a label for what kind of laziness went into putting that graph together but, man, is it ever crappy! Also, I am always skeptical when there are exactly ten signs/reasons for something. Ten signs your spouse doesn't love you anymore. Ten foods to avoid if you want to lose weight, etc. I ...

I would be curious how many of the folks who are anxious about the PP are checking their balances every day or even more frequently. The people on this forum who seem to have peace of mind generally say that they don't check very often. Either that or they are young, accumulating quickly, and can bu...

Libertarian666 wrote: I'm hoping to do a move from tax-deferred to taxable at a nice low price, and it looks like I'm going to get my chance.

Tech, Is your intention to just have less of your tax-deferred space taken up by gold?

WildAboutHarry wrote: It is not unexpected that the reflection of an unreasonable boom is an unreasonable bust.

WAH, is this your own invention or are you quoting someone?

I find that brilliant.

To my way of thinking gold would have been worse than cash prior to 1972 because you couldn't invest it and earn interest. Gold would have lost out to inflation of the dollar which, as we know, was quite high starting in 1966. Also, the period starting in 2008 was something more than a "tight-m...

Sophie,

You have been missed around here.

Nice post as always.

It's not about government regulation; it's about a culture that values honesty and safety in commerce. If they passed that law in China, it would be widely ignored and the appropriate officials simply bought off. It's not the law itself that grants those very real and tangible benefits to Americans...

My wife is Chinese. Her mom and sister still live in China and her mom was recently told that she has a small blood clot in her brain. We are shipping over omega 3, garlic oil & aspirin today. All these were recommended by her doctor and are available in China, but the quality apparently varies ...

What strikes me about these tables though is that they don't seem to take rebalancing back to a 4X25 AA into account. The PP returns shown just assume that you start each year with an identical allocation to each asset. With all the bouncing around in gold and stock values, there should have been s...

mukramesh, In my view, the only goal of having some gold in an ETF in your 401k is to be able to sell some of it with no tax consequences in the event the asset spikes upward. Having all physical gold would be great were it not for the potential tax consequences. I think you are right to want to fil...

[quote="barrett"] mukramesh, welcome to the PP forum. Your post has a couple of explicit questions and few others that are implied but I'll throw out a couple of ideas. Lots of people try to juice cash returns in different ways. You want to have at least some of your cash as "dry powd...

mukramesh, welcome to the PP forum. Your post has a couple of explicit questions and few others that are implied but I'll throw out a couple of ideas. Lots of people try to juice cash returns in different ways. You want to have at least some of your cash as "dry powder" meaning that it is ...

Bedraggled, You can see some Japan data here: http://europeanpermanentportfolio.blogspot.com/p/permanent-portfolio.html What strikes me about these tables though is that they don't seem to take rebalancing back to a 4X25 AA into account. The PP returns shown just assume that you start each year with...

Yeah, the PP is the worst way to invest, except for all the others. I think it's useful when any AA is in a down period to run through some alternative scenarios in your head. For example, if I held all cash, I'd have almost no volatility unless we have inflation. But we are almost certain to have i...

Tyler, that was friggin' brilliant.

I too am feeling the pain this month. I am terribly loss averse and would do well to only check on this stuff every few months. It's just hard to ignore the markets and PP performance when checking out this forum.

Lowe, I am curious about how you feel towards your LTTs (assuming you hold them) inasmuch as you see deflation as likely. Do you not see them as providing much of a cushion during a deflationary time? Also, I agree with what mortalpawn said... that an inflationary event could happen really quickly a...