Let's debate the Permanent Portfolio

[Kriegsspiel]

As one of the forum's retard-adjacent members, I am an enthusiastic proponent of you smart people talking about the PP in ways I won't understand.

[Kbg]

I'd prefer more along the lines of a recheck of the PPs assumptions/thesis and do they still track/hold up. I think if we go far and wide on a bunch of related but not directly germane we are going to be all over the place and politics will roll into the mix.

[whatchamacallit]

Long thread already here. What I skimmed, it isn't necessarily question of what is much better than PP.

What I feel and I assume others as well is all the market confusion in general.

Record debt makes you question cash and bonds.

Stock prices that have no correlation to productivity at all.

Gold that feels like it should still be king but isn't as easy to move across borders as crypto.

Crypto that requires more faith than the depreciated cash and bonds.

Maybe the confusion really is being caused by the new asset class crypto which would also be a whole new thread.

[yankees60]

Towards the beginning of the musical 1776, the representative from Rhode Island, when casting the deciding vote on whether or not to allow discussion on the question of independence, said "Hell yes, I'm for debatin' anything!"

Go for it, guys.

Hey! I spent the first 22 1/2 years of my life in Rhode Island! How many of you have even met anyone from Rhode Island???!! I've actually met some people who live in this country who never heard of Rhode Island!

[yankees60]

As one of the forum's retard-adjacent members, I am an enthusiastic proponent of you smart people talking about the PP in ways I won't understand.

For the record....in my time here....I've never had you in the former but always in the latter!

[yankees60]

Long thread already here. What I skimmed, it isn't necessarily question of what is much better than PP.

What I feel and I assume others as well is all the market confusion in general.

Record debt makes you question cash and bonds.

Stock prices that have no correlation to productivity at all.

Gold that feels like it should still be king but isn't as easy to move across borders as crypto.

Crypto that requires more faith than the depreciated cash and bonds.

Maybe the confusion really is being caused by the new asset class crypto which would also be a whole new thread.

Just read the below long, long article.

In both this topic (and others in the forum) there are several among us questioning of the future efficacy of the Permanent Portfolio primarily due to not knowing whether or not future economics will resemble past economics. Or, whether we've undergone radical shifts for which the Permanent Portfolio is now mis-aligned.

This author extremely optimistically lists 17 reasons why he sees good economic times ahead. Any or all of them could be dissected in this discussion of the future viability of both the Permanent Portfolio as a whole and its four component parts.

17 Reasons to Let the Economic Optimism Begin

by Neil Irwin

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/13/upsh ... #after-top

[Concluding paragraph]

Economics may be a dismal science, and those of us who write about it are consigned to see what is broken in the world. But sometimes, things align in surprising ways, and the result is a period in which things really do get better. This is starting to look like one of those times.