Hello old friends

Other discussions not related to the Permanent Portfolio

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D1984
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by D1984 » Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:50 pm

jalanlong wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:20 pm
vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 5:54 pm
jalanlong wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 5:39 pm
vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 4:48 pm
jalanlong wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 2:20 pm
Desert wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 12:22 pm
It's tough to be optimistic regarding future returns right now, regardless of portfolio mix. Interest rates are low, and equity valuations are super high (as we'd expect, when interest rates have been anchored low for so long). I expect gold to continue to deliver its uncorrelated and unpredictable fluctuations.

We might finally see some international outperformance, but that's not a certainty either, of course. Since everything looks pricey to me, it's pretty easy to stay the course! :)
My bank account offers me 3.5% right now. It is tough for me not to just take that and try to increase my savings rate other than to depend on market returns for the future!
With what kind of conditions does your bank offer that? On unlimited amounts? Also, shouldn't your bank's offer be available to all of the rest of us?
https://www.hmbradley.com/

Conditions aren’t that hard to meet.
Thanks

Is there a way of doing a "direct deposit" without being employed, having it done by your employer?
My understanding is that they need a direct deposit from either an employer, pension or government retirement of some sort. I am not sure if their system is sophisticated enough to know certain workarounds like Treasury Direct aren’t government retirement checks.
It's been a while since I had to do any simulated direct deposits--the trial deposit method works fine for me in my two reward checking accounts since they don't care about the actual amount of the DD--but my understanding is that since 2015 or 2016 or thereabouts the ACH system uses codes to indicate an actual ACH DD (i.e. preauthorized or prearranged direct deposit of employer/payroll/government funds) vs a P2P transaction (like when someone else's account besides your own sends you money via Paypal or via Cashedge or via something like CapOne P2P....a few banks still do code these as DDs but most don't) or a CIE (Customer Initiated Entry) or just as a regular ACH push which IIRC codes as an ACH Direct Payment (both of the latter two would be in situations like where you link, say, your Bank of America acct to your Chase acct and just ACH some money to yourself electronically); almost no banks code such customer-initiated ACH pushes as DDs any longer.

I have no idea how Treasury Direct codes (probably as a regular ACH push or as P2P....I'm assuming by "Treasury Direct" you mean pushing funds yourself from your own TreasuryDirect account to a regular bank account) but it could be worth a shot to see.
Last edited by D1984 on Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
D1984
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by D1984 » Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:55 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 7:53 pm
D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 6:35 pm
vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 5:54 pm
jalanlong wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 5:39 pm
vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 4:48 pm
jalanlong wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 2:20 pm
Desert wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 12:22 pm
It's tough to be optimistic regarding future returns right now, regardless of portfolio mix. Interest rates are low, and equity valuations are super high (as we'd expect, when interest rates have been anchored low for so long). I expect gold to continue to deliver its uncorrelated and unpredictable fluctuations.

We might finally see some international outperformance, but that's not a certainty either, of course. Since everything looks pricey to me, it's pretty easy to stay the course! :)
My bank account offers me 3.5% right now. It is tough for me not to just take that and try to increase my savings rate other than to depend on market returns for the future!
With what kind of conditions does your bank offer that? On unlimited amounts? Also, shouldn't your bank's offer be available to all of the rest of us?
https://www.hmbradley.com/

Conditions aren’t that hard to meet.
Thanks

Is there a way of doing a "direct deposit" without being employed, having it done by your employer?
Depends on which bank and what size "direct deposit" they require. While nowadays pretty much no bank will actually count a simple ACH inbound transfer as a direct deposit (I remember the good old days when they pretty much all did count those as direct deposits) From my experience I'd say that 95% of banks will count those free "trial deposits" that banks send (to test an ACH account you've linked) as actual direct deposits even if they are only a few cents each.

The next option up would be an actual "payroll service"; IIRC Patriot Payroll is (or at least was) the cheapest at $10 per month plus a few bucks for each "employee" (which in this case would just be you) enrolled in direct deposit. I believe you also need a business checking account to use a payroll service like this but last time I checked Suntrust/Truist offered one of these free as long as the account has less than 100 transactions per month, didn't write paper checks, used your debit card at least five times per month (after the first 12 months....before that no debit card usage is required to keep the account free), and had less than $2K a month in total paper cash deposits or withdrawals (they don't care if you deposit even billions of dollars via ACH....they just don't want to have a bunch of physical cash deposits/withdrawals to have to deal with).

Payroll4Free is free to use but they charge a $15 flat monthly fee for the use of direct deposit for anything from 1-25 employees.

Don't bother with big outfits like ADP or Paychex because they are too $$$$ and they don't really want businesses with less than 99 or 100 employees anyway for the most part (and you wouldn't be a actual business anyhow....you'd just be masquerading as a sole proprietorship in order to create direct deposits for your one "employee" i.e. yourself).

Actually, these payroll type services come in kinda handy too when you need to qualify for those bank account opening bonuses that require $4K, $5K, $10K, $15K or more in direct deposits per month or in 60 days or less.......
Until just recently I was the finance director for a non-profit. I did the payroll using QuickBooks and because we were a non-profit one of our banks allowed us to do unlimited ACHs with no charges.

So I'm highly familiar with that way of doing it. Had no conception of how I could originate one on my own unless transferring funds from my Vanguard account to a checking account would be considered a direct deposit.

You do mention something else that is also oftentimes a requirement. Using a debit card. I've never once used a debit card in my life as I generally dislike dealing with cash since it can be lost. Looking at my records...it seems that due to the virus last year and not having the usual places where I could only use cash...I set my all-time record by not spending any cash for six+ months. I also see that I've had only four cash transactions in total in the last 12 months.

It looks like Payroll4Free would be my best option...though it would cost $180 a year which I'd have to make sure I was earning at least that amount to break even before some offer made me money.
One good bank account bonus and you've made that $180 up and then some.....come to think of it, most banks only make you wait either 180 or 365 days since you last closed the account until you can do it over and get the cash bonus of anywhere from $100 to $800 again.

And assuming you have, say, $100K sitting around in T-Bills (or even in a savings account earning 0.5% which right now beats what T-Bills are paying) you'd be better off by some $3K a year if HM Bradley pays 3.5%; even if you only had $50K you'd be better of by $1,500 a year; that would more than pay for the $180 even if you didn't use your new simulated DD setup to nab yourself some account opening bonuses on top of that.

EDITED TO ADD: For the debit card stuff you can just pump an extra $0.10 or $0.15 of gas and then pay with the debit card when you get fuel; use a cashback credit card for the main fill up (to get 5% or at least 3% cash back) and then do several tiny transactions with your debit card (I don't believe most of these accounts have a minimum size limit on how much each debit card transaction has to be). Alternately, if your cable/phone/cell phone provider lets you pay by credit or debit (they usually set a minimum of either $1 or $5 for this) with no additional fee you can just save your debit card info on their payment form setup on their website and you can set up an automatic payment for ten or twelve transactions per month--or since the payment info is saved, you can just log in once or twice a day--or ten times all in one day if their system lets you--and just keep hitting "pay"; I meet my ten transactions a month for one of my reward checking accounts this way and it takes me less than three minutes per month.
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vnatale
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by vnatale » Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:03 pm

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:55 pm




One good bank account bonus and you've made that $180 up and then some.....come to think of it, most banks only make you wait either 180 or 365 days since you last closed the account until you can do it over and get the cash bonus of anywhere from $100 to $800 again.

And assuming you have, say, $100K sitting around in T-Bills (or even in a savings account earning 0.5% which right now beats what T-Bills are paying) you'd be better off by some $3K a year if HM Bradley pays 3.5%; even if you only had $50K you'd be better of by $1,500 a year; that would more than pay for the $180 even if you didn't use your new simulated DD setup to nab yourself some account opening bonuses on top of that.
[/quote]

Now that I'm working so much less...I could easily accomplish what you describe. However, it goes greatly counter to why I'm investing all my cash in T-bills. Lowest risk.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
D1984
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by D1984 » Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:11 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:03 pm
D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:55 pm
One good bank account bonus and you've made that $180 up and then some.....come to think of it, most banks only make you wait either 180 or 365 days since you last closed the account until you can do it over and get the cash bonus of anywhere from $100 to $800 again.

And assuming you have, say, $100K sitting around in T-Bills (or even in a savings account earning 0.5% which right now beats what T-Bills are paying) you'd be better off by some $3K a year if HM Bradley pays 3.5%; even if you only had $50K you'd be better of by $1,500 a year; that would more than pay for the $180 even if you didn't use your new simulated DD setup to nab yourself some account opening bonuses on top of that.
Now that I'm working so much less...I could easily accomplish what you describe. However, it goes greatly counter to why I'm investing all my cash in T-bills. Lowest risk.
OK....but if things ever get to the point where banks are failing left and right and the government can't take them over and guarantee all insured deposits via FDIC and then reopen the bank a day or two later at most I think this country will be so screwed that even money in T-bills might end up either frozen, seized, involuntarily converted to longer-term bonds, or otherwise not easily accessible (and/or inflated away). As long as you keep bank account funds well under the FDIC limit you should be fine. AFAIK no one has EVER lost money in an FDIC/NCUA insured institution if their funds were under the insured amount limit.
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vnatale
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by vnatale » Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:27 pm

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:11 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:03 pm

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:55 pm




One good bank account bonus and you've made that $180 up and then some.....come to think of it, most banks only make you wait either 180 or 365 days since you last closed the account until you can do it over and get the cash bonus of anywhere from $100 to $800 again.

And assuming you have, say, $100K sitting around in T-Bills (or even in a savings account earning 0.5% which right now beats what T-Bills are paying) you'd be better off by some $3K a year if HM Bradley pays 3.5%; even if you only had $50K you'd be better of by $1,500 a year; that would more than pay for the $180 even if you didn't use your new simulated DD setup to nab yourself some account opening bonuses on top of that.


Now that I'm working so much less...I could easily accomplish what you describe. However, it goes greatly counter to why I'm investing all my cash in T-bills. Lowest risk.


OK....but if things ever get to the point where banks are failing left and right and the government can't take them over and guarantee all insured deposits via FDIC and then reopen the bank a day or two later at most I think this country will be so screwed that even money in T-bills might end up either frozen, seized, involuntarily converted to longer-term bonds, or otherwise not easily accessible (and/or inflated away). As long as you keep bank account funds well under the FDIC limit you should be fine. AFAIK no one has EVER lost money in an FDIC/NCUA insured institution if their funds were under the insured amount limit.


1) There could be selected bank failures. And, it seems like the ones who are paying more than others would be prime candidates for a future failure. Plus, when a bank is in that state....aren't they now exempt from honoring all these things that they promised to you plus tying up your money for months until things get settled?

2) I know TIPS are generally reviled here..but they would offer some inflation protection.

Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
D1984
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by D1984 » Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:53 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:27 pm
D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:11 pm
vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:03 pm
D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:55 pm
One good bank account bonus and you've made that $180 up and then some.....come to think of it, most banks only make you wait either 180 or 365 days since you last closed the account until you can do it over and get the cash bonus of anywhere from $100 to $800 again.

And assuming you have, say, $100K sitting around in T-Bills (or even in a savings account earning 0.5% which right now beats what T-Bills are paying) you'd be better off by some $3K a year if HM Bradley pays 3.5%; even if you only had $50K you'd be better of by $1,500 a year; that would more than pay for the $180 even if you didn't use your new simulated DD setup to nab yourself some account opening bonuses on top of that.
Now that I'm working so much less...I could easily accomplish what you describe. However, it goes greatly counter to why I'm investing all my cash in T-bills. Lowest risk.
OK....but if things ever get to the point where banks are failing left and right and the government can't take them over and guarantee all insured deposits via FDIC and then reopen the bank a day or two later at most I think this country will be so screwed that even money in T-bills might end up either frozen, seized, involuntarily converted to longer-term bonds, or otherwise not easily accessible (and/or inflated away). As long as you keep bank account funds well under the FDIC limit you should be fine. AFAIK no one has EVER lost money in an FDIC/NCUA insured institution if their funds were under the insured amount limit.
1) There could be selected bank failures. And, it seems like the ones who are paying more than others would be prime candidates for a future failure. Plus, when a bank is in that state....aren't they now exempt from honoring all these things that they promised to you plus tying up your money for months until things get settled?

2) I know TIPS are generally reviled here..but they would offer some inflation protection.
1. When banks are offering higher rates it can mean they are desperate for funds and are in an economically dicey situation and/or need to pay higher rates because they are a riskier proposition for depositors....but typically it means they are doing well and have found plenty of opportunities to make loans and thus are having to offer higher rates to get said deposits in order to have more money to lend out; they figure having to pay a higher rate on borrowed capital to lend out is a small price to pay to actually have more money to lend....and money to lend is what they need most when business is booming. Alternately, the whole thing could just be a promo rate (the bank trying to get new money....presumably hoping that some of it will "stick" even if/when they lower the rate) but if that's the case neither of the above applies and your money is still at no more risk than it would be in an average FDIC-insured bank.

When/if a bank fails the high interest rate would apply to the day the FDIC took them over if it was on a checking or savings account; if it was on a CD you they can reset the rate once the new bank the FDIC sold the failed bank to takes over but they have to notify you and give you a period of time to let you break the CD without penalty if they do that. Also, I've had one bank I've had an account with fail and one get taken over on a Friday afternoon and get sold by the FDIC right before it would've failed (kind of a forced merger with a stronger bank; the shareholders and preferred stockholders lost everything; the unsecured debenture holders took a haircut; the secured bondholders simply had their bonds converted to obligations of the new stronger bank at the same maturity and rate as before, and depositors like me who had money that was under the insured limit lost nothing; in neither case did it take months or even weeks; in the first case it took a day; in the second one when the bank reopened on Monday I just had an account with the exact same account number at the new bank (and I would've had access to the account immediately on Saturday had I needed it since the new bank was open from Saturday morning until 2 PM so I wouldn't really have eve had to wait until Monday); the new bank even replaced any paper checks we had unused from the old bank free of charge and issued us debit cards within a few days (sent by second day mail); I haven't written a check since maybe 2002 so I didn't have any old checks but I could've gotten cash from the new bank with no problem had I needed/wanted it.

Theoretically FDIC can (i.e. is legally allowed to) wait as long as need be until they allow you access to your money when a bank fails but they aren't exactly disposed to do this simply because doing so could help lead to a repeat of the banking crises of 1931 and 1933 (i.e. if people think their money will be lost/locked up/inaccessible when and if a bank fails they may start a bank run and thus in a "self-fulfilling prophecy" manner precipitate the very bank failure they were worried about) if it happened at even one or two failed banks over a short period of time; also, the FDIC has a line of credit directly from the Treasury and Fed in order to forestall liquidity issues like this; finally, if a new stronger bank takes over the failed bank then it is in the stronger bank's economic self-interest (i.e. providing good customer service in order to retain depositors) to NOT delay you one bit in accessing your own money in your bank account.


2. Which would be fine if short-term TIPS weren't paying -2.6% (or even worse!) right now. Got I-Bonds? If you want to buy more than $10K a year Arizona and Wyoming LLCs are cheap and trusts set up with those $45 DIY trust kits are cheaper still.....
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vnatale
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by vnatale » Wed Jun 30, 2021 11:06 pm

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:53 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:27 pm

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:11 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:03 pm

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:55 pm




One good bank account bonus and you've made that $180 up and then some.....come to think of it, most banks only make you wait either 180 or 365 days since you last closed the account until you can do it over and get the cash bonus of anywhere from $100 to $800 again.

And assuming you have, say, $100K sitting around in T-Bills (or even in a savings account earning 0.5% which right now beats what T-Bills are paying) you'd be better off by some $3K a year if HM Bradley pays 3.5%; even if you only had $50K you'd be better of by $1,500 a year; that would more than pay for the $180 even if you didn't use your new simulated DD setup to nab yourself some account opening bonuses on top of that.


Now that I'm working so much less...I could easily accomplish what you describe. However, it goes greatly counter to why I'm investing all my cash in T-bills. Lowest risk.


OK....but if things ever get to the point where banks are failing left and right and the government can't take them over and guarantee all insured deposits via FDIC and then reopen the bank a day or two later at most I think this country will be so screwed that even money in T-bills might end up either frozen, seized, involuntarily converted to longer-term bonds, or otherwise not easily accessible (and/or inflated away). As long as you keep bank account funds well under the FDIC limit you should be fine. AFAIK no one has EVER lost money in an FDIC/NCUA insured institution if their funds were under the insured amount limit.


1) There could be selected bank failures. And, it seems like the ones who are paying more than others would be prime candidates for a future failure. Plus, when a bank is in that state....aren't they now exempt from honoring all these things that they promised to you plus tying up your money for months until things get settled?

2) I know TIPS are generally reviled here..but they would offer some inflation protection.


1. When banks are offering higher rates it can mean they are desperate for funds and are in an economically dicey situation and/or need to pay higher rates because they are a riskier proposition for depositors....but typically it means they are doing well and have found plenty of opportunities to make loans and thus are having to offer higher rates to get said deposits in order to have more money to lend out; they figure having to pay a higher rate on borrowed capital to lend out is a small price to pay to actually have more money to lend....and money to lend is what they need most when business is booming. Alternately, the whole thing could just be a promo rate (the bank trying to get new money....presumably hoping that some of it will "stick" even if/when they lower the rate) but if that's the case neither of the above applies and your money is still at no more risk than it would be in an average FDIC-insured bank.

When/if a bank fails the high interest rate would apply to the day the FDIC took them over if it was on a checking or savings account; if it was on a CD you they can reset the rate once the new bank the FDIC sold the failed bank to takes over but they have to notify you and give you a period of time to let you break the CD without penalty if they do that. Also, I've had one bank I've had an account with fail and one get taken over on a Friday afternoon and get sold by the FDIC right before it would've failed (kind of a forced merger with a stronger bank; the shareholders and preferred stockholders lost everything; the unsecured debenture holders took a haircut; the secured bondholders simply had their bonds converted to obligations of the new stronger bank at the same maturity and rate as before, and depositors like me who had money that was under the insured limit lost nothing; in neither case did it take months or even weeks; in the first case it took a day; in the second one when the bank reopened on Monday I just had an account with the exact same account number at the new bank (and I would've had access to the account immediately on Saturday had I needed it since the new bank was open from Saturday morning until 2 PM so I wouldn't really have eve had to wait until Monday); the new bank even replaced any paper checks we had unused from the old bank free of charge and issued us debit cards within a few days (sent by second day mail); I haven't written a check since maybe 2002 so I didn't have any old checks but I could've gotten cash from the new bank with no problem had I needed/wanted it.

Theoretically FDIC can (i.e. is legally allowed to) wait as long as need be until they allow you access to your money when a bank fails but they aren't exactly disposed to do this simply because doing so could help lead to a repeat of the banking crises of 1931 and 1933 (i.e. if people think their money will be lost/locked up/inaccessible when and if a bank fails they may start a bank run and thus in a "self-fulfilling prophecy" manner precipitate the very bank failure they were worried about) if it happened at even one or two failed banks over a short period of time; also, the FDIC has a line of credit directly from the Treasury and Fed in order to forestall liquidity issues like this; finally, if a new stronger bank takes over the failed bank then it is in the stronger bank's economic self-interest (i.e. providing good customer service in order to retain depositors) to NOT delay you one bit in accessing your own money in your bank account.


2. Which would be fine if short-term TIPS weren't paying -2.6% (or even worse!) right now. Got I-Bonds? If you want to buy more than $10K a year Arizona and Wyoming LLCs are cheap and trusts set up with those $45 DIY trust kits are cheaper still.....


1. Are you familiar with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Isl ... ing_crisis.

Since it happened in Rhode Island it's not completely unlikely to happen in another state at some point in our lives.

"Though the state persisted in taking measures to ensure people recouped their losses, progress was slow. The Governor announced a plan to allow depositors to withdraw up to half of the funds in their accounts up to a certain amount, but repayments to clients of still-closed banks did not begin until six months after the initial closure.[7][21] Eight months in, 200,000 customers at 13 institutions still could not access their deposits worth about $1.2 billion.[20] After a year, only 36 of the 45 institutions had reopened, and most of the biggest remained closed, including Rhode Island Central, the state's second largest credit union.[7][14][22] By that time, depositors with small accounts of $2,500 or less had been repaid in full, but others with money at the nine still-closed institutions had only received about 10% of their funds.[14] Two and a half years after the closure, a small number of depositors still did not have access to their money.[23]"

I believe that one of Harry Browne's tenets is to not chase yield with that type of risk...and to confine your risk to the three volatile components of the Permanent Portfolio.

2. Are you referring to actual TIPS or TIPS funds with those yields?

What are the annual costs in Arizona and Wyoming for their LLCs? It has been awhile but I believe a Massachusetts LLC requires a $500 annual fee plus other associated annual costs.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
D1984
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Executive Member
Posts: 730
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:23 pm

Re: Hello old friends

Post by D1984 » Wed Jun 30, 2021 11:36 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 11:06 pm
D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:53 pm
vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:27 pm
D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:11 pm
vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:03 pm
D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:55 pm
One good bank account bonus and you've made that $180 up and then some.....come to think of it, most banks only make you wait either 180 or 365 days since you last closed the account until you can do it over and get the cash bonus of anywhere from $100 to $800 again.

And assuming you have, say, $100K sitting around in T-Bills (or even in a savings account earning 0.5% which right now beats what T-Bills are paying) you'd be better off by some $3K a year if HM Bradley pays 3.5%; even if you only had $50K you'd be better of by $1,500 a year; that would more than pay for the $180 even if you didn't use your new simulated DD setup to nab yourself some account opening bonuses on top of that.
Now that I'm working so much less...I could easily accomplish what you describe. However, it goes greatly counter to why I'm investing all my cash in T-bills. Lowest risk.
OK....but if things ever get to the point where banks are failing left and right and the government can't take them over and guarantee all insured deposits via FDIC and then reopen the bank a day or two later at most I think this country will be so screwed that even money in T-bills might end up either frozen, seized, involuntarily converted to longer-term bonds, or otherwise not easily accessible (and/or inflated away). As long as you keep bank account funds well under the FDIC limit you should be fine. AFAIK no one has EVER lost money in an FDIC/NCUA insured institution if their funds were under the insured amount limit.
1) There could be selected bank failures. And, it seems like the ones who are paying more than others would be prime candidates for a future failure. Plus, when a bank is in that state....aren't they now exempt from honoring all these things that they promised to you plus tying up your money for months until things get settled?

2) I know TIPS are generally reviled here..but they would offer some inflation protection.
1. When banks are offering higher rates it can mean they are desperate for funds and are in an economically dicey situation and/or need to pay higher rates because they are a riskier proposition for depositors....but typically it means they are doing well and have found plenty of opportunities to make loans and thus are having to offer higher rates to get said deposits in order to have more money to lend out; they figure having to pay a higher rate on borrowed capital to lend out is a small price to pay to actually have more money to lend....and money to lend is what they need most when business is booming. Alternately, the whole thing could just be a promo rate (the bank trying to get new money....presumably hoping that some of it will "stick" even if/when they lower the rate) but if that's the case neither of the above applies and your money is still at no more risk than it would be in an average FDIC-insured bank.

When/if a bank fails the high interest rate would apply to the day the FDIC took them over if it was on a checking or savings account; if it was on a CD you they can reset the rate once the new bank the FDIC sold the failed bank to takes over but they have to notify you and give you a period of time to let you break the CD without penalty if they do that. Also, I've had one bank I've had an account with fail and one get taken over on a Friday afternoon and get sold by the FDIC right before it would've failed (kind of a forced merger with a stronger bank; the shareholders and preferred stockholders lost everything; the unsecured debenture holders took a haircut; the secured bondholders simply had their bonds converted to obligations of the new stronger bank at the same maturity and rate as before, and depositors like me who had money that was under the insured limit lost nothing; in neither case did it take months or even weeks; in the first case it took a day; in the second one when the bank reopened on Monday I just had an account with the exact same account number at the new bank (and I would've had access to the account immediately on Saturday had I needed it since the new bank was open from Saturday morning until 2 PM so I wouldn't really have eve had to wait until Monday); the new bank even replaced any paper checks we had unused from the old bank free of charge and issued us debit cards within a few days (sent by second day mail); I haven't written a check since maybe 2002 so I didn't have any old checks but I could've gotten cash from the new bank with no problem had I needed/wanted it.

Theoretically FDIC can (i.e. is legally allowed to) wait as long as need be until they allow you access to your money when a bank fails but they aren't exactly disposed to do this simply because doing so could help lead to a repeat of the banking crises of 1931 and 1933 (i.e. if people think their money will be lost/locked up/inaccessible when and if a bank fails they may start a bank run and thus in a "self-fulfilling prophecy" manner precipitate the very bank failure they were worried about) if it happened at even one or two failed banks over a short period of time; also, the FDIC has a line of credit directly from the Treasury and Fed in order to forestall liquidity issues like this; finally, if a new stronger bank takes over the failed bank then it is in the stronger bank's economic self-interest (i.e. providing good customer service in order to retain depositors) to NOT delay you one bit in accessing your own money in your bank account.


2. Which would be fine if short-term TIPS weren't paying -2.6% (or even worse!) right now. Got I-Bonds? If you want to buy more than $10K a year Arizona and Wyoming LLCs are cheap and trusts set up with those $45 DIY trust kits are cheaper still.....
1. Are you familiar with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Isl ... ing_crisis.

Since it happened in Rhode Island it's not completely unlikely to happen in another state at some point in our lives.

"Though the state persisted in taking measures to ensure people recouped their losses, progress was slow. The Governor announced a plan to allow depositors to withdraw up to half of the funds in their accounts up to a certain amount, but repayments to clients of still-closed banks did not begin until six months after the initial closure.[7][21] Eight months in, 200,000 customers at 13 institutions still could not access their deposits worth about $1.2 billion.[20] After a year, only 36 of the 45 institutions had reopened, and most of the biggest remained closed, including Rhode Island Central, the state's second largest credit union.[7][14][22] By that time, depositors with small accounts of $2,500 or less had been repaid in full, but others with money at the nine still-closed institutions had only received about 10% of their funds.[14] Two and a half years after the closure, a small number of depositors still did not have access to their money.[23]"

I believe that one of Harry Browne's tenets is to not chase yield with that type of risk...and to confine your risk to the three volatile components of the Permanent Portfolio.

2. Are you referring to actual TIPS or TIPS funds with those yields?

What are the annual costs in Arizona and Wyoming for their LLCs? It has been awhile but I believe a Massachusetts LLC requires a $500 annual fee plus other associated annual costs.
1. Yes, but how many of those institutions that failed were privately (or quasi-privately and/or only at the state government lever) insured by RISDIC vs how many were FDIC insured from the get-go? You couldn't pay me enough to put money in a privately insured bank or credit union; back in 2007 there were a few credit unions offering 6.75, 7, and 7.25% CDs but when I saw that they were insured through ASI (American Share Insurance) rather than NCUA I was like "yep, that's a nice tall glass of hell no". Private share insurance doesn't really work if more than a few banks fail at a time unless the insurer is so large as to have tens or hundreds of billions in reserves and/or reinsurance....which RISDIC clearly did not. Also, from what the article says RISDIC had problems with conflicts of interest and was thus kind of a "self-regulation" situation...and it also suffered from adverse selection (by the time of the failures almost of all the CUs insured by RISDIC were the weak or unsound ones since the good ones had already switched to FDIC/NCUA coverage and only the crappy ones were unable to obtain this coverage). None of this happens with the FDIC; how many insured shareholders had their money locked up for months or years in 2008/2009?

2. Arizona LLCs cost $50 one time to the state to set up; agent fees and fees for publication of the registration cost anywhere from $39 to upwards of $250; a few counties charge an additional (one-time) fee of $30 or more as well if the LLC is located/registered there. Missouri is $50 one time to file; I'm not sure about agent fees in MO. Wyoming LLCs cost a $100 one time to file and their state annual fee system is sort of weird; it's based on the amount of assets actually in Wyoming (so keep your paper I-bonds in Massachusetts and your electronic ones at TreasuryDirect) but even if you have no assets with an actual situ in or nexus with Wyoming the bare minimum fee to the state of Wyoming annually is still $50.

That Massachusetts LLC fee sounds like a rip-off....Tennessee, New York, DC, and North Carolina have high filing and annual fees but Massachusetts takes the cake with a $500 one time filing fee and a $500 annual fee IIRC (and that's not even counting agent fees). Theoretically you could come out worse using a Tennesse LLC (they have a maximum one-time registration fee of $3K for LLCs with 60 members or more and they also levy a franchise tax and excise tax on LLCs and not just corporations) but for a small single-member LLC that holds non-state taxable stuff like Treasury securities Massachusetts claims the dubious honor for being pretty much the most expensive. IIRC I do believe you can file a foreign registration for an LLC in another state if you don't want to pay Massachusetts fees, though; I think I mentioned the details of that in my PM from a year or two ago.


3. Actual TIPS yields taken from WSJ and Barron's for anywhere from six-month TIPS (or rather, ones with less than six months to maturity), 1 year TIPS, and 2 year TIPS. TIPS ETFs/mutual funds may not show a negative yield but there is no free lunch; any short-term TIPS fund will experience either: A. A decline in NAV at maturity and/or B. A negative yield on its TIPS; bond funds can't just wish away negative nominal yields. Now, if inflation does spike then that negative 2.6% yield might not be so bad....but even if it hits 10% (which isn't very likely at all) and you get a 7.4% return you've still earned a negative 2.6% real return just because that was the starting yield. I-Bonds never have this issue; this worst you'll get is a slight penalty for turning them in before five years (and if you have a nice ladder set up you're good to go once you have a decent chunk of them maturing every year and they are all mostly older than five years). Plus.....TIPS also have real interest rate risk (if rates rise enough they can still lose money if not held until maturity...and if bought in the secondary market they can lose money even if they are held to maturity presuming you bought them at a high enough price and low enough yield); I-Bonds do not.
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by vnatale » Thu Jul 01, 2021 9:11 am

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 11:36 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 11:06 pm

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:53 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:27 pm

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:11 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 10:03 pm

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:55 pm




One good bank account bonus and you've made that $180 up and then some.....come to think of it, most banks only make you wait either 180 or 365 days since you last closed the account until you can do it over and get the cash bonus of anywhere from $100 to $800 again.

And assuming you have, say, $100K sitting around in T-Bills (or even in a savings account earning 0.5% which right now beats what T-Bills are paying) you'd be better off by some $3K a year if HM Bradley pays 3.5%; even if you only had $50K you'd be better of by $1,500 a year; that would more than pay for the $180 even if you didn't use your new simulated DD setup to nab yourself some account opening bonuses on top of that.


Now that I'm working so much less...I could easily accomplish what you describe. However, it goes greatly counter to why I'm investing all my cash in T-bills. Lowest risk.


OK....but if things ever get to the point where banks are failing left and right and the government can't take them over and guarantee all insured deposits via FDIC and then reopen the bank a day or two later at most I think this country will be so screwed that even money in T-bills might end up either frozen, seized, involuntarily converted to longer-term bonds, or otherwise not easily accessible (and/or inflated away). As long as you keep bank account funds well under the FDIC limit you should be fine. AFAIK no one has EVER lost money in an FDIC/NCUA insured institution if their funds were under the insured amount limit.


1) There could be selected bank failures. And, it seems like the ones who are paying more than others would be prime candidates for a future failure. Plus, when a bank is in that state....aren't they now exempt from honoring all these things that they promised to you plus tying up your money for months until things get settled?

2) I know TIPS are generally reviled here..but they would offer some inflation protection.


1. When banks are offering higher rates it can mean they are desperate for funds and are in an economically dicey situation and/or need to pay higher rates because they are a riskier proposition for depositors....but typically it means they are doing well and have found plenty of opportunities to make loans and thus are having to offer higher rates to get said deposits in order to have more money to lend out; they figure having to pay a higher rate on borrowed capital to lend out is a small price to pay to actually have more money to lend....and money to lend is what they need most when business is booming. Alternately, the whole thing could just be a promo rate (the bank trying to get new money....presumably hoping that some of it will "stick" even if/when they lower the rate) but if that's the case neither of the above applies and your money is still at no more risk than it would be in an average FDIC-insured bank.

When/if a bank fails the high interest rate would apply to the day the FDIC took them over if it was on a checking or savings account; if it was on a CD you they can reset the rate once the new bank the FDIC sold the failed bank to takes over but they have to notify you and give you a period of time to let you break the CD without penalty if they do that. Also, I've had one bank I've had an account with fail and one get taken over on a Friday afternoon and get sold by the FDIC right before it would've failed (kind of a forced merger with a stronger bank; the shareholders and preferred stockholders lost everything; the unsecured debenture holders took a haircut; the secured bondholders simply had their bonds converted to obligations of the new stronger bank at the same maturity and rate as before, and depositors like me who had money that was under the insured limit lost nothing; in neither case did it take months or even weeks; in the first case it took a day; in the second one when the bank reopened on Monday I just had an account with the exact same account number at the new bank (and I would've had access to the account immediately on Saturday had I needed it since the new bank was open from Saturday morning until 2 PM so I wouldn't really have eve had to wait until Monday); the new bank even replaced any paper checks we had unused from the old bank free of charge and issued us debit cards within a few days (sent by second day mail); I haven't written a check since maybe 2002 so I didn't have any old checks but I could've gotten cash from the new bank with no problem had I needed/wanted it.

Theoretically FDIC can (i.e. is legally allowed to) wait as long as need be until they allow you access to your money when a bank fails but they aren't exactly disposed to do this simply because doing so could help lead to a repeat of the banking crises of 1931 and 1933 (i.e. if people think their money will be lost/locked up/inaccessible when and if a bank fails they may start a bank run and thus in a "self-fulfilling prophecy" manner precipitate the very bank failure they were worried about) if it happened at even one or two failed banks over a short period of time; also, the FDIC has a line of credit directly from the Treasury and Fed in order to forestall liquidity issues like this; finally, if a new stronger bank takes over the failed bank then it is in the stronger bank's economic self-interest (i.e. providing good customer service in order to retain depositors) to NOT delay you one bit in accessing your own money in your bank account.


2. Which would be fine if short-term TIPS weren't paying -2.6% (or even worse!) right now. Got I-Bonds? If you want to buy more than $10K a year Arizona and Wyoming LLCs are cheap and trusts set up with those $45 DIY trust kits are cheaper still.....


1. Are you familiar with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Isl ... ing_crisis.

Since it happened in Rhode Island it's not completely unlikely to happen in another state at some point in our lives.

"Though the state persisted in taking measures to ensure people recouped their losses, progress was slow. The Governor announced a plan to allow depositors to withdraw up to half of the funds in their accounts up to a certain amount, but repayments to clients of still-closed banks did not begin until six months after the initial closure.[7][21] Eight months in, 200,000 customers at 13 institutions still could not access their deposits worth about $1.2 billion.[20] After a year, only 36 of the 45 institutions had reopened, and most of the biggest remained closed, including Rhode Island Central, the state's second largest credit union.[7][14][22] By that time, depositors with small accounts of $2,500 or less had been repaid in full, but others with money at the nine still-closed institutions had only received about 10% of their funds.[14] Two and a half years after the closure, a small number of depositors still did not have access to their money.[23]"

I believe that one of Harry Browne's tenets is to not chase yield with that type of risk...and to confine your risk to the three volatile components of the Permanent Portfolio.

2. Are you referring to actual TIPS or TIPS funds with those yields?

What are the annual costs in Arizona and Wyoming for their LLCs? It has been awhile but I believe a Massachusetts LLC requires a $500 annual fee plus other associated annual costs.


1. Yes, but how many of those institutions that failed were privately (or quasi-privately and/or only at the state government lever) insured by RISDIC vs how many were FDIC insured from the get-go? You couldn't pay me enough to put money in a privately insured bank or credit union; back in 2007 there were a few credit unions offering 6.75, 7, and 7.25% CDs but when I saw that they were insured through ASI (American Share Insurance) rather than NCUA I was like "yep, that's a nice tall glass of hell no". Private share insurance doesn't really work if more than a few banks fail at a time unless the insurer is so large as to have tens or hundreds of billions in reserves and/or reinsurance....which RISDIC clearly did not. Also, from what the article says RISDIC had problems with conflicts of interest and was thus kind of a "self-regulation" situation...and it also suffered from adverse selection (by the time of the failures almost of all the CUs insured by RISDIC were the weak or unsound ones since the good ones had already switched to FDIC/NCUA coverage and only the crappy ones were unable to obtain this coverage). None of this happens with the FDIC; how many insured shareholders had their money locked up for months or years in 2008/2009?

2. Arizona LLCs cost $50 one time to the state to set up; agent fees and fees for publication of the registration cost anywhere from $39 to upwards of $250; a few counties charge an additional (one-time) fee of $30 or more as well if the LLC is located/registered there. Missouri is $50 one time to file; I'm not sure about agent fees in MO. Wyoming LLCs cost a $100 one time to file and their state annual fee system is sort of weird; it's based on the amount of assets actually in Wyoming (so keep your paper I-bonds in Massachusetts and your electronic ones at TreasuryDirect) but even if you have no assets with an actual situ in or nexus with Wyoming the bare minimum fee to the state of Wyoming annually is still $50.

That Massachusetts LLC fee sounds like a rip-off....Tennessee, New York, DC, and North Carolina have high filing and annual fees but Massachusetts takes the cake with a $500 one time filing fee and a $500 annual fee IIRC (and that's not even counting agent fees). Theoretically you could come out worse using a Tennesse LLC (they have a maximum one-time registration fee of $3K for LLCs with 60 members or more and they also levy a franchise tax and excise tax on LLCs and not just corporations) but for a small single-member LLC that holds non-state taxable stuff like Treasury securities Massachusetts claims the dubious honor for being pretty much the most expensive. IIRC I do believe you can file a foreign registration for an LLC in another state if you don't want to pay Massachusetts fees, though; I think I mentioned the details of that in my PM from a year or two ago.


3. Actual TIPS yields taken from WSJ and Barron's for anywhere from six-month TIPS (or rather, ones with less than six months to maturity), 1 year TIPS, and 2 year TIPS. TIPS ETFs/mutual funds may not show a negative yield but there is no free lunch; any short-term TIPS fund will experience either: A. A decline in NAV at maturity and/or B. A negative yield on its TIPS; bond funds can't just wish away negative nominal yields. Now, if inflation does spike then that negative 2.6% yield might not be so bad....but even if it hits 10% (which isn't very likely at all) and you get a 7.4% return you've still earned a negative 2.6% real return just because that was the starting yield. I-Bonds never have this issue; this worst you'll get is a slight penalty for turning them in before five years (and if you have a nice ladder set up you're good to go once you have a decent chunk of them maturing every year and they are all mostly older than five years). Plus.....TIPS also have real interest rate risk (if rates rise enough they can still lose money if not held until maturity...and if bought in the secondary market they can lose money even if they are held to maturity presuming you bought them at a high enough price and low enough yield); I-Bonds do not.


As usual... a TON here! Thanks for all of it. Have bookmarked it for future reference.

That leads to a question for this forum....Is there any way to bookmark / make any posts favorites within the forum (e.g., outside of one's browser)?
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by vnatale » Thu Jul 01, 2021 11:45 am

MangoMan wrote:
Thu Jul 01, 2021 11:18 am

Please guys,
How about editing the nested quotes? It's brutal to read your one sentence response to 15 paragraphs of quotes in quotes.
/PSA


I have tried....but it is sometimes even more brutal to be able to selectively edit.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by Xan » Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:34 pm

Tortoise (I think it was Tortoise) had some good ideas about changing the default behavior. That involves either convincing the developers of the forum to implement those ideas, or for me to add custom code to this instance. I haven't pursued either.

One thing that might help is that I don't think it's necessary to use the quote feature when you're replying to a comment which is the most recent in the thread.
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by vnatale » Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:40 pm

Xan wrote:
Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:34 pm


One thing that might help is that I don't think it's necessary to use the quote feature when you're replying to a comment which is the most recent in the thread.


However, the major flaw with that one is that I am replying to the last one "I" am seeing. If I am doing a lengthy response which takes me some time to create then one or two or three more responses from others may appear before mine.

For those then looking at my response they can then be lost trying to tie in my response to the last one (or any others appearing) prior to the "actual" one to which I was responding.

I've many times experienced this by seeing a response without any quoting, looking at the just prior response, and not seeing any connection at all between that reply and the prior post to it.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by jalanlong » Tue Jul 06, 2021 2:54 pm

D1984 wrote:
Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:50 pm

It's been a while since I had to do any simulated direct deposits--the trial deposit method works fine for me in my two reward checking accounts since they don't care about the actual amount of the DD--but my understanding is that since 2015 or 2016 or thereabouts the ACH system uses codes to indicate an actual ACH DD (i.e. preauthorized or prearranged direct deposit of employer/payroll/government funds) vs a P2P transaction (like when someone else's account besides your own sends you money via Paypal or via Cashedge or via something like CapOne P2P....a few banks still do code these as DDs but most don't) or a CIE (Customer Initiated Entry) or just as a regular ACH push which IIRC codes as an ACH Direct Payment (both of the latter two would be in situations like where you link, say, your Bank of America acct to your Chase acct and just ACH some money to yourself electronically); almost no banks code such customer-initiated ACH pushes as DDs any longer.

I have no idea how Treasury Direct codes (probably as a regular ACH push or as P2P....I'm assuming by "Treasury Direct" you mean pushing funds yourself from your own TreasuryDirect account to a regular bank account) but it could be worth a shot to see.
Speaking of Treasury Direct, I logged in for the first time in a year this week because I wanted to buy some I bonds. However, they now say due to increased "security issues" if I want to add a new bank to my profile I have to take a form to a bank and have a bank officer there sign it to validate my signature etc. That is too much work for me. Every other account I use lets you add other accounts thru plaid or micro deposit verification. Having to go have a notary type person at a bank watch me sign a form to add a bank account seems over the top.
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by dualstow » Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:36 am

As long as I’m here deleting spam attached to this thread, Hi Desert!
I was gone when you came back. Cheers 🍻
RIP Marcello Gandini
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by jalanlong » Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:41 pm

Desert wrote:
Tue Apr 06, 2021 8:16 pm
Thank you all so much for the kind comments, that's much appreciated.

Barrett, unfortunately I don't have any tricks up my sleeve for boosting yield in the bond allocation. Some investors have "reached" for more return in the form of a higher equity allocation, longer duration, more credit risk, etc. But I think it's important to try to maintain one's chosen risk profile, despite the sad, small present interest rates.

Prior to the pandemic, I had watched the Wellesley Income fund (VWIAX) for many years, as many of us have. I continue to be impressed with the track record of that fund, so I finally decided to put a portion of our investments into it, to bring a bit of an allocation to corporate bonds and large value equities. I've maintained that position now for a couple years, and plan to keep it for a long time, assuming the fund continues to stick with its investment philosophy.

But other than that, I'm pretty much sticking with the 60/30/10 allocation I had previously. It's probably too conservative for many, but it's working fine for my low investment risk tolerance. The HBPP, Golden Butterfly, and a bunch of other portfolios continue to look great as well. I'm thinking we may finally see some wage pressure and resulting price inflation in the coming years, so I expect and hope that interest rates will climb a bit in response.
You know your Desert Portfolio is sort of the basis for this ETF although without the 10% gold.

https://amplifyetfs.com/Data/Sites/6/me ... tSheet.pdf
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Re: Hello old friends

Post by Kriegsspiel » Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:53 pm

It looks more like Larry Swedroe's portfolios. They're similar to the Desert portfolio sans gold.
You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever.
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