PP ....Where Did It Go

General Discussion on the Permanent Portfolio Strategy

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dualstow
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Re: PP ....Where Did It Go

Post by dualstow » Sat Apr 11, 2015 1:07 pm

For what it's worth, my prof friend and his wife are both tenured and are making ~ $95,000/yr each. We haven't talked about it since Obamacare but they've had health coverage that made me green with envy. (And my coverage is so bare-bones that I decided to just leave my skin green).

They're at a Community College.

My guess is where PS and Sophie diverge is research vs classroom teacher.
Last edited by dualstow on Sat Apr 11, 2015 1:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: PP ....Where Did It Go

Post by dualstow » Sat Apr 11, 2015 2:35 pm

Desert wrote: Wow, $95K salary at a community college??  That sounds really high.
I thought so, too. It took them a long, long time to get up there, of course. I also learned from them that there are people who didn't work there for nearly as long who have massive pensions. Different rules back then.
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Re: PP ....Where Did It Go

Post by Cortopassi » Sat Apr 11, 2015 4:45 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Desert wrote:
MangoMan wrote: "And take the Cubs and Bears with you."
UIUC Class of '80 BS Biology here.
;D

Illinois is a sad state for sports these days.  What happened to the '85 Bearsss, the Jordan Bulls and the Mackovic/Lou Illini!?!  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.  I'm thinking it's all Obama's fault. 

Pugchief, at least most of your classes were on the side of Green St where all the girls were.  Cortopassi and I were over there sweltering in the TAM building with a bunch of dudes.  :)
It surely is Obama's fault. And I lived in Bromley Hall for 2 years, which was air conditioned!  8)
Your timing was just off. The engineering campus is now the nice part of town. Not sure if the girl situation has improved up there though.
I have some hope at least one of my daughters will go there, if for nothing else so that I can get some Papa Del's every now and then.

I did not take advantage of all the extracurricular activities down there when I went.  Not one b-ball game, only one football game.  Did see U2 and Peter Gabriel.  I could kick myself looking back but it was all in the name of conserving money.  I did meet my future wife there which was the highpoint!

I was in Forbes first two years and then roach infested apartments after.
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Re: PP ....Where Did It Go

Post by sophie » Sun Apr 12, 2015 10:16 pm

IMHO there is a huge disconnect between the output and the value to society in the humanities: dissertations that nobody reads, papers published in journals nobody reads, books published that nobody reads--all of this stuff is created for the single selfish purpose of advancing one's career, not expanding the boundaries of humanity's collective store of useful knowledge. Once written, this stuff is ignored forever because it is un-useful, un-commercializable, uninteresting to anyone except the writer and their half-dozen academic peers; it's pure make-work. It could cease with no real negative impact to anybody but the people whose careers have been built on churning it out. It's a giant circle jerk where people write useless nonsense in order to impress other people with political power over their careers who pretend to care because they themselves only write useless nonsense and know they must go through the same process. It is insular, self-serving, and it hurts the country for so many resources and so much time to be wasted on the academic equivalent of digging ditches and filling them back in again.
I understand exactly what you mean, PS!!  I actually started out with a math sciences undergraduate degree, and got off that track after I realized the goal was a constant circle of making up problems and solving them, with the solutions so intricate and opaque that they'd never, ever see actual use.  So it's not precisely the same as humanities...there are some in the humanities who do useful work like translating the Book of Judas.  Political science, however, is the world's biggest headache.  I took a poli sci course freshman year and almost failed it, I thought it was so ridiculous.  Thank heavens for freshman pass/fail...

Not all scientists are productive, and many rely on obfuscation to impress other people into thinking they're saying something with great significance.  If I read a paper and can't understand it, I know the author is just trying to snow me, and I move on.

As far as pay and quality of life improving after tenure:  I will let you know once the rubicon is crossed, and hope you're right!!  I suspect that's the case although not sure the actual impact in a clinical department.  One thing I did hear about is that tenured faculty get a private "tenure fund" that the university kicks $100K into every year.  You can spend it on whatever you want, but my chair advised banking it for lean times when grant funding runs dry.  Having that backup is going to be a big confidence booster. 

Small correction - grants are not for supplementing salary, but for funding part of it so you can spend your time on research - otherwise you have to spend your time earning money in other ways to justify your salary, like seeing patients.  So there are a lot of people working as hard as a private practice physician for half the pay, which I think is just plain stupid.  Not surprising that these people are bitter, and consequently these are the ones playing the petty political games.

However, provided you heed PS's and my words of warning...jump in, the water's fine.  And now I remember why I started going off on this tangent in the first place:  an academic career does greatly benefit from attending high quality (Ivy or equivalent) schools.  You can get away with a state school as an undergrad, but for graduate and/or professional school you need to aim high. To avoid getting killed with student loans, a prospective physician scientist should consider an MD/PhD program, where you get full funding to get both degrees from one institution - usually 2 years MD, then PhD, then finish MD.  Long haul and the programs are tough to get into, but the rewards are great.
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Re: PP ....Where Did It Go

Post by dragoncar » Mon Apr 13, 2015 12:50 am

Pointedstick wrote:
Wendy Brown, PhD PoliSci, UC Berkley wrote: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8306.html

These aims require an appreciation of tolerance as not only protean in meaning but also historically and politically discursive in character. They require surrendering an understanding of tolerance as a transcendent or universal concept, principle, doctrine, or virtue so that it can be considered instead as a political discourse and practice of governmentality that is historically and geographically variable in purpose, content, agents, and objects. As a consortium of para-legal and para-statist practices in modern constitutional liberalism—practices that are associated with the liberal state and liberal legalism but are not precisely codified by it—tolerance is exemplary of Foucault’s account of governmentality as that which organizes “the conduct of conduct”? at a variety of sites and through rationalities not limited to those formally countenanced as political. Absent the precise dictates, articulations, and prohibitions associated with the force of law, tolerance nevertheless produces and positions subjects, orchestrates meanings and practices of identity, marks bodies, and conditions political subjectivities.
Holy shit I just committed suicide.  Tolerance good mkay?
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Re: PP ....Where Did It Go

Post by MachineGhost » Fri May 15, 2015 6:27 pm

sophie wrote: Good for you Mike.  I think a lot of us have these stories.  example:  I made a stupid stock purchase in my Roth IRA, following the advice of my uncle the Wall Street broker.  It's now a penny stock and I leave it in the Roth as a constant reminder to myself not to ever, ever do something so idiotic again.
Brokers are trained salesman, not registered investment advisors with a fiduciary duty.  I would never take advice from one (and never have).  It sounds like he must have thought way too much of his non-existent abilities to think he had any trading or investment acumen after retirement.  Ignorance is more bottomless than stupidity!
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Re: PP ....Where Did It Go

Post by MachineGhost » Fri May 15, 2015 6:30 pm

barrett wrote: What balance of assets will grow enough going forward? If the world economy becomes even more deflationary in the next 5-10 years, that could be terrible for stocks.
Well, stocks are not the economy.  Stocks can stink while the economy is roaring.  You wouldn't get much by investing in Japanese small caps last couple of decades even though they're making gobs of money servicing domestic demand in their "Deflation".  So that would have to leave diversifying beyond the public equity monoculture which I've already advocated on here many times.
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes

Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet.  I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
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Re: PP ....Where Did It Go

Post by Libertarian666 » Sun May 17, 2015 12:17 pm

ochotona wrote:
Pointedstick wrote: Don't have a college fund. Every dollar you put in there is a dollar that the colleges will simply take. The less you have saved, the more financial aid and scholarships your daughters will get, and in any event IMHO any college that's so expensive that you have to save up to afford it is a bad deal. The best colleges (Harvard, Yale, etc) offer more or less free tuition to the children of non-rich parents, and the cheap state schools and 4th and 5th tier schools offer an education nearly as good, only lacking the elite student body, and for very little money. If you want to bankroll tuition at those places for your kids, it won't be hard at all. The big trap is 2nd and 3rd tier schools (especially the liberal arts varieties) that bill themselves as offering a Harvard-quality education, but for kids who can't get into Harvard (not said in those words of course :) )--these institutions are more or less scams in my opinion. You can tell them because they are all in the northeast, the buildings look new, they ooze elitism, their marketing literature implies that your child is a precious flower who they will take very good care of and expose to lots of interesting experiences rather than a mind to be molded and filled with useful information, and the yearly cost is $40k or higher.
OMG, that could be possible the worst advice given on college financing. One size does not fit all. I have sent two children through college debt free. My second is not going until Fall 2015, but 100% funded already, so I consider her college project "done".

Yes, if you put assets in the student's name, the FAFSA computation will grab most of it. So don't put it in the student's name. The 529 should be in the parent's name FBO the student ("For Benefit Of"). No Custodial accounts. I'm not sure about Education IRAs (Coverdells), have a small one, after the 529 came out I didn't see the point of the Coverdell any longer.

The real trick is, the FAFSA really only "works" for what I call poor and low middle class people. If you are a smart person, and have a good income, the FAFSA will compute your EFC, your Expected Family Contribution, way higher than you would ever imagine it should be. FAFSA thinks you should put a second mortgage on your home, take out college loans, burn all of your kid's money, and a bunch of yours, to pay for their college.

My son got $14,000 a year in merit-based, not need-based scholarships. Those enabled him to go to the non-Ivy, 2nd tier private college of his choice. But the majority was me writing checks out of the 529 account. If I hadn't had the 529, he'd be $100,000 in debt with student loans, and he's still in grad school, and the family will get him to his Master's degree debt-free, too. Because our EFC was $55,000 at the time!!!

My daughter is getting $8,000 a year in merit-based aid, but she's going to a State school, so I have to write checks out of the 529 FBO Daughter and also out of another bank account set aside specially for her. If I hadn't saved her entire life for college, she'd be $75,000 in debt with student loans by 2019. Because our EFC this year was $97,000 !!! (see, too much PP success). Oh yrs, did I mention I'm currently unemployed? That won't factor into the FAFSA until early 2016 when I do my 2015 taxes.

If you're truly a poor family, and you have a very gifted child who is highly sought after because he/she is a vegan homosexual Native Whatever, then yes, don't save a dime, and let your student throw him/herself at the feet of the scholarship granting body. But don't be surprised if the "aid" ends up being a subsidized Stafford loan, and you don't see grandkids for 10 or 12 extra years because the noose of student debt strangles their ability to launch into life.
There is a very simple way to ensure that the noose of student debt doesn't strangle your child's life: explain to him that student loans are a scam, as are most college degrees. If he or she can get a scholarship or work-study, for a useful degree, fine; otherwise, just give him or her the money you were going to waste on college so that he or she can start a business or otherwise get started in life. College degrees are unnecessary.

And I say this as someone with a rather expensive degree for its time, but still far cheaper in real terms than the ridiculous prices of today, which are due entirely to the student loan scam.
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Re: PP ....Where Did It Go

Post by vnatale » Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:29 am

Libertarian666 wrote:
Sun May 17, 2015 12:17 pm
ochotona wrote:
Pointedstick wrote: Don't have a college fund. Every dollar you put in there is a dollar that the colleges will simply take. The less you have saved, the more financial aid and scholarships your daughters will get, and in any event IMHO any college that's so expensive that you have to save up to afford it is a bad deal. The best colleges (Harvard, Yale, etc) offer more or less free tuition to the children of non-rich parents, and the cheap state schools and 4th and 5th tier schools offer an education nearly as good, only lacking the elite student body, and for very little money. If you want to bankroll tuition at those places for your kids, it won't be hard at all. The big trap is 2nd and 3rd tier schools (especially the liberal arts varieties) that bill themselves as offering a Harvard-quality education, but for kids who can't get into Harvard (not said in those words of course :) )--these institutions are more or less scams in my opinion. You can tell them because they are all in the northeast, the buildings look new, they ooze elitism, their marketing literature implies that your child is a precious flower who they will take very good care of and expose to lots of interesting experiences rather than a mind to be molded and filled with useful information, and the yearly cost is $40k or higher.
OMG, that could be possible the worst advice given on college financing. One size does not fit all. I have sent two children through college debt free. My second is not going until Fall 2015, but 100% funded already, so I consider her college project "done".

Yes, if you put assets in the student's name, the FAFSA computation will grab most of it. So don't put it in the student's name. The 529 should be in the parent's name FBO the student ("For Benefit Of"). No Custodial accounts. I'm not sure about Education IRAs (Coverdells), have a small one, after the 529 came out I didn't see the point of the Coverdell any longer.

The real trick is, the FAFSA really only "works" for what I call poor and low middle class people. If you are a smart person, and have a good income, the FAFSA will compute your EFC, your Expected Family Contribution, way higher than you would ever imagine it should be. FAFSA thinks you should put a second mortgage on your home, take out college loans, burn all of your kid's money, and a bunch of yours, to pay for their college.

My son got $14,000 a year in merit-based, not need-based scholarships. Those enabled him to go to the non-Ivy, 2nd tier private college of his choice. But the majority was me writing checks out of the 529 account. If I hadn't had the 529, he'd be $100,000 in debt with student loans, and he's still in grad school, and the family will get him to his Master's degree debt-free, too. Because our EFC was $55,000 at the time!!!

My daughter is getting $8,000 a year in merit-based aid, but she's going to a State school, so I have to write checks out of the 529 FBO Daughter and also out of another bank account set aside specially for her. If I hadn't saved her entire life for college, she'd be $75,000 in debt with student loans by 2019. Because our EFC this year was $97,000 !!! (see, too much PP success). Oh yrs, did I mention I'm currently unemployed? That won't factor into the FAFSA until early 2016 when I do my 2015 taxes.

If you're truly a poor family, and you have a very gifted child who is highly sought after because he/she is a vegan homosexual Native Whatever, then yes, don't save a dime, and let your student throw him/herself at the feet of the scholarship granting body. But don't be surprised if the "aid" ends up being a subsidized Stafford loan, and you don't see grandkids for 10 or 12 extra years because the noose of student debt strangles their ability to launch into life.
There is a very simple way to ensure that the noose of student debt doesn't strangle your child's life: explain to him that student loans are a scam, as are most college degrees. If he or she can get a scholarship or work-study, for a useful degree, fine; otherwise, just give him or her the money you were going to waste on college so that he or she can start a business or otherwise get started in life. College degrees are unnecessary.

And I say this as someone with a rather expensive degree for its time, but still far cheaper in real terms than the ridiculous prices of today, which are due entirely to the student loan scam.
Or, do what is advocated in this book: https://smile.amazon.com/Debt-Free-Outs ... l_huc_item Debt-Free U: How I Paid for an Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, or Mooching off My Parents

I read it straight through in one night. It all boils down to:

1) Go to local community college for 2 years
2) Go to state university for the last 2 years
3) Live at home as much as possible (alternatively have your parents buy a house to live in which you live with others and then sell it for a profit at the end of the four years)
4) Work as much as possible. 20 hours a week while in school. During ALL school vacations, work 40 hours.

VInny
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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