Knuckleheads PP thread resurrected

[Tortoise]

Figured it would happen soon:

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewto ... &start=700

[yankees60]

Figured it would happen soon:

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewto ... &start=700

I see that as of right now William "Bill" Bernstein is the last person to leave a comment.

Vinny

[Dieter]

Figured it would happen soon:

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewto ... &start=700

I see that as of right now William "Bill" Bernstein is the last person to leave a comment.

Vinny

"
Mind you, I have nothing against a little gold; in small amounts, maybe even the 25% of the HBPP, it might improve portfolio behavior.

But it's kind of like bourbon at bedtime; a shot here and there is fine. But you don't want to drink a fifth each night.
"

Lol!

[stuper1]

Wow, clearly we are in a crisis, when somebody on Knuckleheads would say that 25% gold might be considered a small amount.

It was interesting to see Smith1776 as one of the commenters on that last page in 2018, although it looks like his comment got removed somehow.

[yankees60]

Wow, clearly we are in a crisis, when somebody on Knuckleheads would say that 25% gold might be considered a small amount.

It was interesting to see Smith1776 as one of the commenters on that last page in 2018, although it looks like his comment got removed somehow.

He'll have to tell us if he had made an attempt to recruit people to come here? Although I did see someone today making reference to this forum.

Vinny

[Smith1776]

Archetypical performance chasing. The prudent folks on this forum have been into the PP well before the SHTF. That's what it truly means to be a long-term investor and stay the course.

Wow, clearly we are in a crisis, when somebody on Knuckleheads would say that 25% gold might be considered a small amount.

It was interesting to see Smith1776 as one of the commenters on that last page in 2018, although it looks like his comment got removed somehow.

He'll have to tell us if he had made an attempt to recruit people to come here? Although I did see someone today making reference to this forum.

Vinny

I will have no part in recruiting the riffraff of the Knuckleheads forum into our elite club. That's like putting regular gasoline into a sports car.

If any of them see reason and join of their own volition, that's a different story though.

[Smith1776]

I really like this MediumTex post from that 'other' forum.

To compare the subtlety and completeness of Harry Browne's worldview to a current "flavor of the week" market commentator, consider Nassim Taleb.

Taleb's major insight is that market lightning strikes more often than people think and in places people wouldn't have thought lightning would be a danger. This is Taleb's claim to fame. Harry Browne, OTOH, takes Taleb's basic point as an obvious assumption in constructing the PP, and you might say that every PP package comes with a complimentary lightning rod.

From a messaging perspective, Taleb is basically an entertainer who tells scary and interesting stories (he is typical in this regard, though some of his pundit colleagues tell happy stories of all-you-can-eat rainbow stew buffets--it's all just entertainment). Harry Browne, OTOH, was more of a philosopher who offered the distilled results of his study of markets and human nature, along with practical strategies.

I think that one needs to understand how Harry Browne differed from most market chatterboxes in order to appreciate why the PP is so different from most approaches to investing.

I notice that it is often the market card readers, diviners and chicken bone jockeys who find the PP the most offensive. It's like they have been told that their Rube Goldberg investing device has been made obsolete and the assumptions on which their whole existence was premised have been invalidated. It is a predictably upsetting experience to a "Master of the Universe" type personality. That's not meant as a knock against market commentators; rather, it is meant as a tool to assist the amateur investor in understanding why there is so much resistance to the PP concept in some areas of the investment community.

To use a different analogy, I think that the average Wall Street receiver isn't tuned to pick up the PP frequency.

[Kevin K.]

Love the Medium Tex quote - he's a fountain of immortal and irreverent wit and wisdom.

So I posted a link to Tyler's latest summary of portfolio performance during the market's most recent horrific month in hopes of getting a few more Bogleheads to broaden their horizons.

It was indeed great fun to read the witty William Bernstein quote! If only the rest of the crew on that forum had a fraction of Bernstein's brilliance and sincere appreciation of risk parity portfolios like the PP. His book "Deep Risk" is essentially a dialogue with Craig's writing on the PP and Browne's work itself and for me anyway helped me appreciate the PP more and, especially, made me realize how brilliant the Golden Butterfly iteration of the PP is.

Speaking of Bernstein, here's a really good very recent interview with him that touches on market history and the life cycles of the investor being every bit as much worth taking into account as backtested results and dangerous risk tolerance questionnaires. He really is one of the towering minds of investing and his humility and humor are delightful.

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2020/0 ... bernstein/

[mathjak107]

I think out of all the thinkers my least favorite has always been Bernstein

[dualstow]

null

I’m lovin’ your null posts.

I would love to meet a Zen master on a forum, just so I could quote him.

Null

[yankees60]

Love the Medium Tex quote - he's a fountain of immortal and irreverent wit and wisdom.

So I posted a link to Tyler's latest summary of portfolio performance during the market's most recent horrific month in hopes of getting a few more Bogleheads to broaden their horizons.

It was indeed great fun to read the witty William Bernstein quote! If only the rest of the crew on that forum had a fraction of Bernstein's brilliance and sincere appreciation of risk parity portfolios like the PP. His book "Deep Risk" is essentially a dialogue with Craig's writing on the PP and Browne's work itself and for me anyway helped me appreciate the PP more and, especially, made me realize how brilliant the Golden Butterfly iteration of the PP is.

Speaking of Bernstein, here's a really good very recent interview with him that touches on market history and the life cycles of the investor being every bit as much worth taking into account as backtested results and dangerous risk tolerance questionnaires. He really is one of the towering minds of investing and his humility and humor are delightful.

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2020/0 ... bernstein/

Bernstein is definitely in my top 3 and had a huge influence on my investing choices.

Vinny

[dualstow]

..It doesn’t take cash from your bank reserves to pay employees to stay home and not work. Feh! what good is it?

Hey Tom, if you’re going to going to put Yiddish interjections into make-believe Boglehead quotes, know that feh is almost always an expression of disgust, no matter what wiktionary says.

[Smith1776]

null

I’m lovin’ your null posts.

I would love to meet a Zen master on a forum, just so I could quote him.

Null

Be one with the null!

[CT-Scott]

I will have no part in recruiting the riffraff of the Knuckleheads forum into our elite club. That's like putting regular gasoline into a sports car.

If any of them see reason and join of their own volition, that's a different story though.

Ha, I love it! So I'm guessing because we don't see the red-fonted moderator notations in those "null" posts, that you were the one who deliberately nulled them out so as to deny the Knuckleheads whatever wisdom you had previously blessed upon them, and later decided they were unworthy of?

I think we need a heavy-handed moderator here, but with only one rule (at least, for now), where the rule is that any reference to the "Bogleheads forum" will be replaced with the "Knuckleheads forum". First time is free, 2nd time gets a warning, 3rd time a 24-hour ban (I'm kidding, but for those that are unaware, that's the sort of thing they do over there).

[Smith1776]

Ha, I love it! So I'm guessing because we don't see the red-fonted moderator notations in those "null" posts, that you were the one who deliberately nulled them out so as to deny the Knuckleheads whatever wisdom you had previously blessed upon them, and later decided they were unworthy of?

I think we need a heavy-handed moderator here, but with only one rule (at least, for now), where the rule is that any reference to the "Bogleheads forum" will be replaced with the "Knuckleheads forum". First time is free, 2nd time gets a warning, 3rd time a 24-hour ban (I'm kidding, but for those that are unaware, that's the sort of thing they do over there).

Hahahahaha. Something along those lines, though I'm not sure I have a ton of wisdom. Joking aside, I just want to distance myself and not associate too strongly with that crowd anymore. I'll still lurk for the interesting topics, but I don't think I'll be posting there anymore.

To kind of elaborate, Larry Swedroe's last post there sort of summed it up for me very nicely for me.

I'll close with this last post on Bogleheads for me, removing it from my favorites list so won't be checking any longer, which is sad. What's sad is that this used to be a place where one could have a good discussion on various topics and just agree to disagree. Now this has become a "religious" site IMO [OT comment removed by admin LadyGeek], where if you disagree you are EVIL, have bad intentions. So you get only one side of any viewpoint and learn nothing, because you learn from those you DISAGREE with it, and you become subject more and more to confirmation bias. One reason I enjoyed the discussions was you got challenged and had to defend positions, and if could not you learned something, and if could you learned something as well. But that type discussion is no longer possible here so I'm saying farewell, not goodbye.

The moderating in the middle of the paragraph just accentuates why I'm not a fan of the place anymore. We can't have a conversation and say anything real, for fear of the Knucklehead Thought Police cracking down on us.

[Kbg]

Techno,

You worked for HB, really?

Also...please expand on your "he wouldn't do LTTs now" comment. The most interesting PP related comment I've heard for a good while. I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on this.

From a value/expected long term returns perspective, bond nominal returns are about as easy as it gets and with this rationale buying LTTs borders on pure stupidity. The flip side is convexity.

[dualstow]

Techno,

Unless he deleted it, he didn’t even post in this thread. You were looking for a bond thread, right?

[CT-Scott]

Techno,

Unless he deleted it, he didn’t even post in this thread. You were looking for a bond thread, right?

He's posted a couple of times recently in the Knuckleheads thread linked to in this thread. I think that's where he mentioned having worked for HB.

[dualstow]

Ah, thank you. I searched this thread, but not the older one.

I do remember much older conversations about tech procuring some internal computer components(?) software for Harry Browne.
↳ here’s some: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10658

[Libertarian666]

Techno,

You worked for HB, really?

Also...please expand on your "he wouldn't do LTTs now" comment. The most interesting PP related comment I've heard for a good while. I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on this.

From a value/expected long term returns perspective, bond nominal returns are about as easy as it gets and with this rationale buying LTTs borders on pure stupidity. The flip side is convexity.

Yes, I wrote some software for him to speed up some calculations on his HP 9845 "personal computer". It had some kind of "internal language" to add functions to the BASIC interpreter. That's what I wrote the software in.

I don't think he would be interested in LTTs at these ridiculously low interest rates with insane amounts of money printing going on at the same time.

It's obvious to me that one (or both) of these events is now virtually assured in the relatively short term:
1. The dollar is destroyed by the Fed's continuing money printing.
2. The Fed stops printing money and the bond interest rate goes to what it would be in a free market, which would be much higher than it is now because all the borrowers would have to compete.

If either of these happens, bonds will be toast.

[Kbg]

I don't think it's that simple...the dollar is always relative to another currency and all the other majors and minors are doing the same thing.

Not saying LTTs are a good deal, back to convexity and perceived flight to quality. It's easy enough to not have to guess...just watch inflation measurements.

[craigr]

It was indeed great fun to read the witty William Bernstein quote! If only the rest of the crew on that forum had a fraction of Bernstein's brilliance and sincere appreciation of risk parity portfolios like the PP. His book "Deep Risk" is essentially a dialogue with Craig's writing on the PP and Browne's work itself and for me anyway helped me appreciate the PP more and, especially, made me realize how brilliant the Golden Butterfly iteration of the PP is.

Bill Bernstein and I are friends and when I am visiting in town where he lives I have gone to his house for dinner with him and his lovely wife. I talked to him quite a bit when he wrote the book Deep Risk and am mentioned in the acknowledgements which is why is why it has my overtones in it I suspect.

I think Bill's main critique of the PP is that it has tracking error vs. a more conventional portfolio. This is completely valid to me. This is probably why the portfolio tends to attract very engineer/technical/introvert types that are able to detach themselves emotionally I feel. It takes a certain personality to take the Red Pill and just let go of trying to predict the markets. It also takes a certain kind of person that is OK with a portfolio that just tries to ride the middle and doesn't get worked up when Bob in Accounting is bragging about their 22.7% gains in TechCorp stock that year.

I think the PP really incorporates philosophy of being very detached yet prepared for the unexpected. One thing I've always liked about the portfolio is that it gives you options to respond to extraordinary scenarios. You can hang tight, but if things are going truly off the rails you aren't so locked into a single asset that you lose everything. It's important in a crisis to always have options available to respond even if you don't have to use them. For me, that PP does exactly that.

[Libertarian666]

It was indeed great fun to read the witty William Bernstein quote! If only the rest of the crew on that forum had a fraction of Bernstein's brilliance and sincere appreciation of risk parity portfolios like the PP. His book "Deep Risk" is essentially a dialogue with Craig's writing on the PP and Browne's work itself and for me anyway helped me appreciate the PP more and, especially, made me realize how brilliant the Golden Butterfly iteration of the PP is.

Bill Bernstein and I are friends and when I am visiting in town where he lives I have gone to his house for dinner with him and his lovely wife. I talked to him quite a bit when he wrote the book Deep Risk and am mentioned in the acknowledgements which is why is why it has my overtones in it I suspect.

I think Bill's main critique of the PP is that it has tracking error vs. a more conventional portfolio. This is completely valid to me. This is probably why the portfolio tends to attract very engineer/technical/introvert types that are able to detach themselves emotionally I feel. It takes a certain personality to take the Red Pill and just let go of trying to predict the markets. It also takes a certain kind of person that is OK with a portfolio that just tries to ride the middle and doesn't get worked up when Bob in Accounting is bragging about their 22.7% gains in TechCorp stock that year.

Yes, FOMO is a powerful emotion for many people. Unfortunately FOMO seems to make them forget how difficult it is to "stay the course" with a 50-50 stock/bond portfolio when the stock market is tanking, which is why there are so many threads about that on Knuckleheads when that occurs.

[pp4me]

I see they now have a "Beware the Hype of Gold" thread that was begun by the much respected Taylor Lattimore.

Since he had good things to say about the PP in a review of the book I'm going to assume he means you might want to think twice about rushing into it at $2k/ounce if you don't own any.

That would probably be good advice but if you actually did want to start the PP right now, what asset class wouldn't you be worried about?

[dualstow]

...
I'm going to assume he means you might want to think twice about rushing into it at $2k/ounce if you don't own any.

That would probably be good advice but if you actually did want to start the PP right now, what asset class wouldn't you be worried about?

Always seems to be the case, doesn’t it.