There are some nice middle grounds available these days.  Our OB employs both obstetricians and midwives.  So normal births can generally be done by midwives, but an OB is ready to be called in at any time.  You can do a midwife birth in the hospital, or in their "birthing center", which i...

Congratulations, PS! As far as maternity costs: we also had a private room in a new hospital with its own bathroom.  I don't know about HBO; we didn't turn on the TV. Our insurance doesn't cover maternity, so we were self-pay for this.  The sticker price for the hospital delivery was something like ...

Rebalancing also looks different when you are adding regularly to your portfolio.  Some people recommend adding all new money to cash and then rebalancing when cash gets to be 35% of your total PP.  Other people buy lagging assets when adding new money.  Thereby restoring a 4 x 25 portfolio once or...

I wouldn't say it's ever necessarily wrong to rebalance, though.  15/35 isn't set in stone.  You can use other bands, or even just rebalance when you feel like it, as long as you are aware that there's a transaction cost, and that you might be leaving money on the table (but probably not much, and y...

Welcome, belhawk!

A rebalance is triggered by any one of your four components hitting 35% or 15% of the total portfolio's value.  Then you set them all back to 25%.

Texas Precious Metals is less expensive than APMEX the last time I checked. I'm prejudiced because it's 90 miles away, though, so I could drive there, though arguably it's safer and less expensive to receive an insured shipment, since they pay for shipping. Still holding out for below $1000. Oh, it...

Brilliant idea, Greg.  I hope one of the mods will move the non-chart comments from the other thread over here.

And it is historically unprecedented for the PP to have a losing year, a winning year and a losing year in a row.  That is out of sample behavior so that is a warning that old operating assumptions may fall apart. That may technically be true but I think a lot of the dips with the PP over the years...

Can you see the irony in your statement? No, I do not.  I'm not an ideologue so my actions aren't all construed for some nebulous groupthink.  Perhaps you can explain the irony you saw? Irony: It was pointed out that your word choice made you sound like an immature teenager, and your response was b...

We're not going to get anywhere if you continue to misconstrue my point of view. Not trying to.  Really. If you want to discuss this, I'd appreciate it if you would give me an example of beliefs you haven't chosen, so I can understand what you're trying to say here. Sorry, I missed your request for...

Well, we just disagree about this, apparently.  Can you give me an example of a religious belief that you have that you feel you aren't choosing on any level to believe?  I don't need to convince you that my view is correct, but I'd like to understand what you're saying. Liking Hawaiian shirts isn'...

You have the choice to hold onto false beliefs just as you do to let them "crumble away". I disagree.  If you've reached the point of admitting that your beliefs have been false, then you already believe that they're false.  You can choose to keep going through the motions, yes, but you c...

It is a choice, whether or not somebody's aware of that. And, it may be based on various things, some of which are conscious and others unconscious.  But ultimately faith is a choice. People don't really understand that at times, and just think that what they believe is simple "truth". I'...

It's definitely a matter of will - it's a choice to believe certain things. As is your choice not to believe them. Are you sure about that?  As an unbeliever, could you, tomorrow, decide to believe?  Or would you only be pretending? I don't think we can choose what we believe at all.  We can be con...

Fred wrote:Sorry to say it if it offends you, but I believe the answer involves religion.

Um...  Duh?  Don't we know that's why they did this?

Moving my reply from earlier...

Devout enough to mow people down, but not devout enough for a head covering?

I used to think that this forum was a place where most other members were like-minded rational souls. But wow, this thread has been eye-opening and very disappointing. There are some posters here who are unhinged, and who have completely lost touch with objective reality. Extraordinary claims requi...

jafs, I don't think that's how it works.  Yes, there may be an official designation that later comes, but classified information is classified information the moment it's generated.  And the Secretary of State herself is surely qualified to know what's classified.  If not her, then who?

I'm far beyond either athiesm or religion. Truly, we are in the presence of greatness!  This man, MG, has ascended beyond anything we can imagine.  Discussing the God of the universe is pedestrian, banal, boring to him.  We can only hope he'll tell us what brand of toothpaste to use, or what "...

Jack Jones wrote:I'm a Debian Stable guy. Now that I think of it, it's sort of like the PP of Linux distros.

I'm with you, Jack.  For laptops, desktops, and servers.

The supposed "appropriation" of yoga is obviously bunk, but I really would prefer if they would offer "stretching classes" rather than "yoga classes", so that I would know they're not espousing some kind of Hindu mysticism.

My wife has been a CHM (Christian Healthcare Ministries) member for some time.  She got it before she got pregnant the first time because it's pretty much the only way to have any kind of coverage for a normal maternity if you're self-employed. We have a real insurance plan, too; we're still grandfa...

So two layers of buckets are okay, and zero layers of buckets are okay, but the absolute worst is one layer, which happens to be what the PP has.  Right?

Jack Jones called you out pretty well on your "this time it's different" flip-flops.  It also seems that you don't know what you believe (despite believing it very strongly) about bucket systems.  First they don't work, they're an illusion, they do nothing but kill returns.  And now sudden...

TennPaGa wrote: LHO, I assume.

You got it.