Important News: A New Permanent Portfolio Book Is On The Way!

[Roy]

Great news, guys.

At parties, everyone tells me how diversified they are (since their advisor assured them of such), the same with books, articles, blogs.  I'd like to see a section on how the PP is truly different than some of the more popular approaches that also claim "diversification" or imply superiority in some way.

After all the PP is being submitted as a direct competitor to these better approaches to investing.  These include:  the inexpensive passive index approaches pioneered by Bogle;  the academic "slice/dice" approaches;  as a dogleg to the last approach, there is sometimes an implied need for an advisor, since many of them write books utilizing some of these other better, academically-supported approaches.


I'm fine with economic environments.  But I'd like to see this expanded somewhat from what Harry originally posited to include the effect of panics, and correlative flights to assets perceived safe—the Flak Jacket effects—sometimes seen with Gold and often with Treasuries.  (And Gold that lags inflation by 4% —for 20 years— is not an "inflation hedge", per se.)  Contrariwise, I'd like you to show how the PP still chugged along even as Gold declined.  Point being:  portfolio as a whole.

Gold and LT Treasuries have very particular loves and fears and predictions by investors—much of the objection to the PP derives from the massive allocations to those assets; I'd address those fears head-on. 


Finally, while conceptual explications are essential, I'd like to see you two retain the wit, energy, and stylistic flair that comes across so beautifully in online debate.  A dull book on a great concept is still a dull book.  And there is lots of competition.

[Lone Wolf]

Fantastic news!  You two gentlemen are the perfect people for the job.  (This has the potential to be MediumTex's finest work since "Army of Darkness".)

I'm sure that you guys will cover this thoroughly, but material on "mindset" will be a nice addition to the Permanent Portfolio library.  When thinking about investing, it can be hard to get used to the idea of saying, "My portfolio is done.  I don't need to check it, tweak it, or fret about it."

One thing that would be helpful to me would be any stories or comments about what finally won you over to the PP strategy and how long it took you to get comfortable with it (assuming, of course, that you are comfortable with it).

Everybody's different, but what sold me was how thoroughly the portfolio had been "crash-tested" through a variety of historical situations.  When I looked at how the Permanent Portfolio navigated the craziness of events like the 2008 crisis, the inflation of the 70s, the interest rate spike of 1981, etc. I saw a system that had been through the fire.  Even examples like Iceland and Japan, although less successful than a US PP, showed the ruggedness that I wanted out of an investment portfolio.

I pondered why this kind of "toughness" was so hard to find in conventional portfolios.  That was when I understood that I'd never seen real diversification before.  Now I had... and I liked it!

[pershing83]

It is a fine idea and timely given HB's last book was published in 1999(I think). I hope I can download it on my Kindle.

As for Cuggino and PRPFX I believe it has more inflation protection built in. Also, its performance has been quite good, I think some of the knocks quite undeserved.

[rickb]

Chapter other countries PP: I find it facinating that the behaviors of the US PP, CA PP, UK PP and EU PP are similar and hold up to the theory.  Data could be presented to further support the PP case.  A discussion on currency risk could be included to guide non-USers to appropriate country/currency exposures.  I am not sure about exposure to US PP for non-USers, but I tend to think there would be value to that, in view of the reserve currency status. In 2008 and 2011 US PP did very well compared to other PPs (currency adjusted) so perhaps a 15 to 25% of assets in US PP could be advisable to non-USers to mitigate more extreme events (like Iceland 2008). Althoug on the long run, it seems to be at the cost of incresed volatility (currency risk).

A whole chapter on "International Considerations" or "PP for non-US residents" seems like it would be interesting.  Many of the posters here are from Canada and the UK.  This chapter could include a discussion of how an Icelandic PP would have held up in 2008 (with appropriate tip of the hat to Marc De Mesel) and how a Japanese PP would have held up since 1990 (hat tip to Clive?). 

Another topic not obviously covered in the TOC is a discussion of safe alternatives - like increasing the cash portion to further reduce downside risk (at the expense of some upside potential), or (another hat tip to Clive and/or Swedroe) a fat-tail minimization approach like Clive's recently suggested 70% 5-year Treasuries, 15% gold, 15% international value.  Perhaps this could be combined in a chapter on modifications that covers both the typical not very sensible tweak suggestions (e.g. TIPS instead of gold) as well as modifications/alternatives that are more reasonable (some international stock, SCV/EM a la Paul Boyer, etc.).

[craigr]

All great input everyone. We will put in more information dealing with the international applications as well. Many overseas have had great luck with the portfolio in their home countries.

[Kel]

Congrats on the book deal...definitely looking forward to it...as for creating a mutual fund while I have not researched the idea - I remember Mebane Faber of GTAA and Ivy Portfolio fame said they considered creating a mutual fund but chose an ETF as their vehicle instead ...the link below cites some of their reasoning...as many on this board know, their ETF is essentially a timed fund of funds strategy...

http://www.mebanefaber.com/2011/04/29/a ... beginning/


As for my story I have been aware of the permanent portfolio for at least 10 plus years, I didn't pay that much attention to it until about 3-4years ago when I started investing in the PRPFX. Plus it took me a long time to distiquish between investing and speculation and it was only after finding out about "crawling road" and listening to the harry brown radio show Craigr lists and MadMoneyMachine and Craig's podcasts that I understood it. Then after alot of research (including experimenting with my own asset class strategies and those on the simba's spreadsheet) I decided this is something I wanted to do. I then struggled with how to implement the strategy - dealing with how to buy various asset classes when they were at market highs etc...I thought of dollar cost averaging in as I had been doing with PRPFX. I also looked at the performance i missed by having a large part of my assets in managed funds like HSGFX etc...Then march 2011 I did a on paper 100K model portfolio on the 4 ETF representing the asset classes and watched it to see how comfortable I would be with it on a day to day basis...

Next I figure I will examine bond ladders and holding physical gold and other refinements....to the strategy.

Yesterday I moved a large part of my assets in to the 4 ETF version...all at once - for better or for worse....but the way I looked at it and given my limited knowledge I have not much of a choice if I want to retire appropriately.

[KevinW]

This is great news.  I think the existing PP material is technically sufficient to become fully informed, but doing that is a bit of an archaeology expedition.  It will be helpful to have a state-of-the-art description of the PP collated into one volume.

One thought: the topics that people keep asking about and discussing are the ones that need to be written about more.  To my mind they are:
- "I can't start the PP because asset X is obviously overpriced"
- whether to include international stocks (my opinion is "no" but it's your book)
- why TIPS, real estate, REITs, commodity indices, and gold mining stocks are all inferior to gold in a PP
- why T-Bills are safer than FDIC insurance
- the rebalancing bonus a.k.a. Markowitz theory a.k.a. why gold and cash add more to the portfolio than their historical averages alone would indicate

I also vote for a thorough explanation of how to implement the PP in non-US economies with charts of their backtested performance.  This makes several important points:
- at face value it's helpful to non-US investors
- the PP doesn't depend on any special properties of USA or USD, e.g. reserve status
- the Iceland and Japan cases show the PP works as advertised in severe hyperinflation, and deflation, resp.

The PP is accused of holding too much cash, but as a younger investor I need to point out that, in the common case of someone who starts saving from scratch in their 20s, the PP holds less cash than other approaches.  If a 22 year old starts saving 1/6 ~= 17% of their monthly income and follow advice to build a 12-month emergency fund before buying volatile assets, they will be in 100% cash for about 6 years.  After year 7, "age in bonds" has them buying 72% stock, 28% bond with 1/7 their savings for a total AA of 86% cash, 10% stock, 4% bonds.  It takes many years before stock becomes the majority asset.

***

How I came to the PP:

I first heard about the PP in 2009 on the Get Rich Slowly blog after the author posted about Craig explaining it at a Diehards meeting.  At first I thought the gold allocation was ridiculous and the portfolio was otherwise quaint (I left a comment to that effect there --- how things change).  Anyway, as I said in another thread, the backtest performance and sincerity of Browne's radio show stuck in my craw, and I slowly came around.

When I heard of the PP I was a Boglehead.  I eventually came around to the PP, but only after a protracted period of soul-searching that resembled the 5 stages of grief (tongue in cheek).

Denial: There's no way this could work.  25% gold!? And long term bonds don't make sense.  This must be Internet BS.

Anger (while listening to the podcasts): Alright, the backtests do look good.  And the asset classes are negatively correlated and passively invested, which is consistent with modern portfolio theory.  But, 25% gold!?  There must be some simpleminded oversight or insidious motive in here.  I will listen to these radio shows until I expose it!

Bargaining: OK well Browne is right about conservative investing, at least.  Tell you what, I'll cherry pick a couple of his ideas and build my own conservative asset allocation which will be better!  Swedroe's minimize-fat-tails is almost as good.  30/10/60 SCV/gold/short term treasuries is almost as good.  Maybe I could use REITs instead of gold?  50/50 global-stock/IT-treasuries is a nice symmetric allocation like the PP.  Maybe the answer is international REITs, or timber, or emerging markets dividend stocks...

Depression: It must be nice to be one of those PP guys but I could never do that.  I'm locked in to a volatile portfolio and need to stay the course or else I will lock in losses.  And my 401k doesn't have perfect options.  And people would think I'm weird.  This is my lot in life.

Acceptance: Perfect is the enemy of done.  It's time to stop wringing my hands and implement the best PP I can with the resources available.  Then I can put all this time and energy into something more productive.

In hindsight there were two key factors at work.  First, I am naturally risk-averse, and I have been successful in my professional life using a slow-and-steady continuous improvement strategy.  Yet the index investing literature had steered me into volatile stock-heavy AAs.  This was contrary to my nature which caused stress.  Learning about the PP helped me come to terms that I really am a conservative investor, and conservative investing can work and make sense.

Second, I'm a fan of science fiction, where a recurring theme is that the current order is only one of many possible ways of life; and that civilizations and societal structures come and go.  In fact stable, prosperous societies are the exception rather than the rule.  So that background made me appreciate the decision to invest in a timeless asset, and weight prosperity equally with other conditions.  Those seem to be huge stumbling blocks for people with a narrower view of American history.

[Storm]

Great story, KevinW.

My story is similar to others, I might imagine.  I was a heavy stock investor in the mid to late 1990s, when I first started my career.  I read Motley Fool and invested in the "Foolish Four", which had been backtested and showed impressive gains averaging around 10% annually (funny how they didn't talk about volatility), and now, if you google "Foolish 4", you see this impressive disclaimer at the top of their strategy page:

Important Note: This page contains detailed instructions for running a Foolish Four portfolio. Our thinking and our expectations for this strategy (and all Dow-based strategies) have changed. Please note that the returns quoted below are based on calendar-year portfolios for the period 1974-1999. Additional research has shown that investors cannot expect such high returns from these strategies in the future. Please see the Foolish Four Information Center for current information on this style of investing and more reasonable expectations of future returns.

So, I bought into the "you're young, put all your money in stocks" mentality, and I think at one point I even held Eastman Kodak stock, since it was one of the top 4 dividend paying stocks in the Dow.  Look at where Eastman Kodak is now.  Needless to say, I took heavy losses in 2002.  I sold at the worst possible time, in a state of fear, and stayed in cash for a few years.  This actually served me well in 2008, since I was 100% in cash at the time.

In 2009, I discovered Peter Schiff, and looked at some of his prescient predictions going back a few years.  I was convinced we were in for hyperinflation due to all of the bailouts and put all my money into GLD.  That was a great investment, and I bought gold around $900 an ounce.  At the same time, I started to realize that although I got lucky with gold, betting on hyperinflation wasn't going to be a winning strategy forever.  I looked at the deflation going on in the housing market and wondered how gold could be rising when the world was going through massive deleveraging and deflation.

I discovered the Crawling Road blog and PP historical returns post in early 2009, from a comment on Hacker News.  Someone had made an off the cuff remark about "how can you possibly get 3-4% over inflation returns on an investment consistently?" and the poster replied with a simple link to:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160324133 ... l-returns/

I was immediately intrigued, and researched the Permanent Portfolio furiously over the next few days.  I read the FAQ on each of the 4 asset classes, and determined almost immediately that this was the right way to diversify out of gold.  What really struck a chord with me was how HB had used the PP to diversify out of his gold winnings.  I was already up 20 or 30 percent on my gold holdings and this was music to my ears.

I've been almost 100% in the PP, outside of a company stock plan and a small VP, for the last 2 years now, going on 3, and I've been very pleased with the returns.  My wife and I are ahead of our investing goals, and are on track for early retirement, hopefully by the age of 50.

[craigr]

Kel, thanks for the story. I think it mirrors paths of many of us.

KevinW, your story as well is great. I went through something very similar before coming around. I thought the advice was odd until I internalized it with my own belief that the world is really uncertain and wider diversification is probably a really good idea. This meshed well with my own experience in start-ups and computer security where I saw a lot of random things happen with unpredictably good or very bad results.

[MediumTex]

KevinW,

That's a great post.  Very thought provoking.

When I first read "Fail Safe Investing" I thought to myself "Oh, this poor guy.  What a stupid way to put together a portfolio."  At the time I knew very little about the bond market.  If I had known more I probably would have thought even less of the portfolio.

But like many people, the ideas continued marinating in my mind, and the underlying economic theory behind the portfolio began to come into focus, and suddenly I began to see that virtually all investment strategies had almost no rigorous underlying economic theory other than backtesting and "recency effect", while the PP was essentially the manifestation of a theoretical framework that took into account the normal range of movements that any economy encounters over time (i.e., the real economy is either expanding or contracting and the money supply is also either expanding or contracting).

[craigr]

Great thoughts as well Storm. I got burned by the Foolish Four as well. That was the final straw that got me indexing and the rest is history. I remember them recommending Kodak back then! I had forgotten about that and you are right. That company over the last 10 years has been destroyed.

http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:EK

[AdamA]

That's a great post.  Very thought provoking.

I like reading these stories. 

[Kel]

These are great posts...sort of reminds me of chicken soup for the permanent portfolio ;-) - there are several chicken soup for the soul co-authors that live in the little town of Fairfield Iowa (where i live) or have lived here at one time or another. Btw we had the record turnout for the caucus last night!

[TK3]

I will definately buy a copy of the book.    Like many, I started reading the monster PP thread over at the Bogleheads site.  It was interesting how the PP was attacked as not a Boglehead approach.  All of the "stay the course" and "rebalance regularly" talked seemed to me to apply just as well to the PP.  One thing that also pushed me to the PP was the book, Yes, You Can Supercharge Your Portfolio by Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth.  This book introduced me to Geoff Consodine's Monte Carlo simulator, and a deep study of non-correlated assets.  I took 20 or 30 of the standard Lazy Portfolios and ran them through Consodine's simulator.  The PP not only outperformed many of them on a historical basis, but also projected the lowest go forward volitility of any of these portfolios( no surprise there).  Like many here, my greatest challenge is to fight the urge to tinker and think I can improve the PP, as well as to not look at the individual components of the portfolio when they are moving. 

[Exocet]

We will put in more information dealing with the international applications as well. Many overseas have had great luck with the portfolio in their home countries.

I would welcome a chapter on non-US investors.  In particular, when the non-US investor has a limited choice of investing products, which cannot replicate fully HB's ideas.  The example that comes to mind is the issue LT bonds - only 30 yr bonds work in the context of the deflationary stage to pull up the other three components.  However, such maturities are not easily available in every country (refer to the thread on PP in Australia).  Shorter maturities would defeat the very purpose of having bonds in the portfolio.

There is a second issue, which relates to both any investor (whether US or otherwise) and the problem of international diversification.  It'd be interesting to discuss why or why not an investor should look at a complete global diversification of the shares and bond components of the PP.  I believe that, from a rational perspective, both components should incorporate global assets in an exact proportion of the global market capitalisation.  (As an aside, the logical basis for a global portfolio in exact proportion to each market cap is explained in the book The Intelligent Portfolio: Practical Wisdom on Personal Investing from Financial Engines by Christopher L. Jones and William F. Sharpe, as the ultimate implementation of the efficient market hypothesis).

I've always wondered why we should stick to local bonds and shares whereas the gold component is a global component, which its price is derived from global action.

[Gumby]

I would welcome a chapter on non-US investors.

Appendix G of Why The Best Laid Investments Usually Go Wrong is a short two page recommendation on Foreign PPs titled, "Permanent Portfolio Alterations for Non-Americans."

Harry Browne says:

Permanent Portfolio Alterations for Non-Americans

The suggestions in this book are made with American readers in mind. If you live outside the United States, some of the suggestions I've made for the Permanent Portfolio can be changed. Whether you should use U.S. investments or use investments of the country in which you live depends on how stable and useful you consider the investment markets in the country where you live.

If you are an American living abroad and you expect to return to the US to live within the next few years, it isn't necessary to make any changes from the suggestions I've made. If you don't know when or whether you will return to the US, consider making the changes.

The purpose of Treasury bills in the portfolio is to provide stable purchasing power through a default-proof investment in the currency you rely on. So, for US Treasury bills, you can substitute the equivalent investment in the country in which you live. That can be bills, notes, or bonds issued by the government and maturing in one year.

The long-term bonds can be bonds of the government of the country in which you live, so that you will have protection if there's a deflation in your country. Use the longest maturity available.

Stock-market investments are meant to provide profit when you country is prosperous and inflation is low. So, in general, you should buy stocks of the companies in your country.

However, you might prefer to use American stock-market investments instead. Usually, the stock markets of the world move upward or downward together. And the US securities markets offer a greater number of alternatives — including such things as warrants and specialized mutual funds.

The decision may depend upon how adequately you believe you can cover yourself with stock investments of your own country. One possibility is to split the stock-market budget between investments of your country and the United States.

There is no reason to alter the suggestions I've made for gold, no matter where you live.

[Freedom_Found]

One thought: the topics that people keep asking about and discussing are the ones that need to be written about more.  To my mind they are:
- "I can't start the PP because asset X is obviously overpriced"
- whether to include international stocks (my opinion is "no" but it's your book)
- why TIPS, real estate, REITs, commodity indices, and gold mining stocks are all inferior to gold in a PP
- why T-Bills are safer than FDIC insurance

These are all great, especially the first one. I still can't bring myself to dump 50% of my life savings into gold and TLT after the runups of last year. I only learned about the PP some months ago, so it was already after the prices had increased. Hopefully those two will drop at least to early 2010 levels, or I'll just get over it and dump the money in.

The other area I've noticed there seems to be confusion on is when to rebalance, how often, the pros and cons of 15/35 vs. 20/30 bands, etc. etc.

Can't wait for the book, I'll definitely be ordering a copy.

[Storm]

One thought: the topics that people keep asking about and discussing are the ones that need to be written about more.  To my mind they are:
- "I can't start the PP because asset X is obviously overpriced"
- whether to include international stocks (my opinion is "no" but it's your book)
- why TIPS, real estate, REITs, commodity indices, and gold mining stocks are all inferior to gold in a PP
- why T-Bills are safer than FDIC insurance

These are all great, especially the first one. I still can't bring myself to dump 50% of my life savings into gold and TLT after the runups of last year. I only learned about the PP some months ago, so it was already after the prices had increased. Hopefully those two will drop at least to early 2010 levels, or I'll just get over it and dump the money in.

The other area I've noticed there seems to be confusion on is when to rebalance, how often, the pros and cons of 15/35 vs. 20/30 bands, etc. etc.

Can't wait for the book, I'll definitely be ordering a copy.

Freedom_Found, that first one traps a lot of us when we first begin to consider using the PP.  What I would ask you is this:  If gold and TLT drop significantly back to early 2010 levels, what would the rest of the assets in the PP do?  In fact, stocks have an almost directly inverse correlation to TLT, so any drop in TLT is likely to correlate with gains in the stock market.  If you stay out of the PP, sure, you miss the downside risk for TLT (if you think that is going to happen), but you also miss the upside risk for stocks.

I've learned that you can't predict what will happen next.  It's better to just bite the bullet and buy all 4 assets at once, no matter the price.  The only price that matters is the assets in relation to each other.

[gizmo_rat]

Great news, I'm sure you'll do a really good job with the book and I look forward to reading it.

What I like about the PP is it's simple conceptual model and management rules, most of which can be summarised in a few paragraphs. This makes its very human centred; simple, coherent, memorable, complete and forgiving. I hope that you'll be able to reflect this in your book.

Sometime after I gone into a PP I read "The Little book of bullet proof investment" which is probably the only investment book I've actually enjoyed reading (well the first few chapters at least).
For those that that haven't read it it's a short, warm and funny book, which addresses the experience and disappointment of investment.
It then introduces the idea of maximum drawdown as an indicator for a suitable asset allocation. So far all really good but then the actual allocation is complex and feels completely arbitrary  (1% EM why ?), which then makes rebalancing a pain which needs tool support (on a website). It's like gift wrapping a scorpion.

Contrast with the PP which at it's heart is all that good human centred stuff but lacks all the supporting narrative to outline why these qualities are important in real sustainable investment.

Something that I've found really interesting on this forum is people relating their long term experience of using the  PP. For a strategy that real people that have used for a few decades then it's really valuable to hear their experience. I suspect to a new investor this information is more trustworthy and credible than just back testing alone.

A major hurdle I had in starting up a PP was ignoring the market noise, as a new investor, my first action was to do "due diligence" on each of the assets on the interwebz, a mistake that cost me a good couple of months.  The conundrum is, unless you have something like the PP you don't know what market noise is and if you listen to market noise you won't put together something like a PP.

It's going to be interesting to see who you target your book at and how you address the differing needs of your audience. Good luck, you are the guys to do it.

[MediumTex]

It's going to be interesting to see who you target your book at and how you address the differing needs of your audience. Good luck, you are the guys to do it.

There is a challenge in finding the right focus.

Imagine a person who is a complete Star Wars buff writing a book about the Star Wars movies.  On the one hand, he could write a book trying to tie all of the movies together into a single narrative and pull out themes and interesting theories about the overall meaning of the series.

On the other hand, he could write a single chapter about the history of the sidearm carried by Han Solo, another chapter on how Luke came into possession of his landspeeder, another chapter on the history and significance of Princess Leah's hairdo, etc.

When one is a true buff, it's a challenge to figure out how to write what will always feel like a very basic overview, simply because for such a person there is seemingly so much to say.

For me, the PP is like a mental Everlasting Gobstopper.  I didn't plan it that way; the concept just entered my mind and I never got done thinking about it.

[cowboyhat]

I'm glad to hear you are writing an updated book and look forward to reading it.

The thing that really convinced me about the PP was William Bernstein's article, "Wild About Harry." I'm not exactly sure why that article was so compelling for me, but the feeling was visceral. Maybe it was hearing an intelligent criticism of the PP and also an explanation of why it works using a completely different investment framework from the one presented by HB. I really like to know a reason why I should not do something before I feel comfortable doing it.

I put ten thousand dollars into it that I had in a separate account for speculation and just watched it for about six months. Then one day I realized that all the anxiety I used to feel about that stupid speculation account was missing from my life, and I put the rest of my money into the PP. More and more I am losing track of what the stock market or gold prices or bonds are doing, and turning my attention to more interesting things.

A chapter for your book might be a criticism of the PP: Why the Permanent Portfolio is not for you.

[dualstow]

Looking forward to giving out copies of the book as gifts.

I hope you have an entire chapter called "Resist the Urge to Tinker."
Or maybe just write it as a footnote on every single page- that ought to get the point across. 

[AdamA]

The thing that really convinced me about the PP was William Bernstein's article, "Wild About Harry."

That is a very good article, and I do hope that you guys spend a little bit of time explaining not only economic cycles, but also asset correlation.  That chart in the Bernstein article is good, and understanding it makes the PP much easier to trust.

[Freedom_Found]

Freedom_Found, that first one traps a lot of us when we first begin to consider using the PP.  What I would ask you is this:  If gold and TLT drop significantly back to early 2010 levels, what would the rest of the assets in the PP do?  In fact, stocks have an almost directly inverse correlation to TLT, so any drop in TLT is likely to correlate with gains in the stock market.  If you stay out of the PP, sure, you miss the downside risk for TLT (if you think that is going to happen), but you also miss the upside risk for stocks.

I've learned that you can't predict what will happen next.  It's better to just bite the bullet and buy all 4 assets at once, no matter the price.  The only price that matters is the assets in relation to each other.

But I've been building up the stocks and cash parts of the PP, so that would actually be great. I know there's always a "but" .....  but.....at this time it just really seems that gold and TLT have been runup, and it's really hard to purposely ignore my "spidey sense" and purchase large quantities of these assets right now.

[gizmo_rat]

There is a challenge in finding the right focus.

Challenge in finding the right focus, there is.  FTFY

I suspect for your own sanity you'll need to be pretty tight in defining your target audience and pretty ruthless in disappointing those outside of it.

As long as you keep the "Care and cleaning of Carpets and Chaps" and "Safe but accessible storage of sharp pointy things in the home" chapters in I'll buy it. 

I'll leave it for you to decide between you who can best write those chapters.