One thing I know is triple A corporate bonds held up very well during the Great Depression, so that is probably what we'll see when faith in the U.S. government erodes. My recollection is that there was some survivorship bias there: for corporations that didn't go bust, their bonds held up OK. But ...

I do the same thing, BBB. Of my paper gold, a fraction is SGOL and the remainder is GTU. I buy SGOL because it's commission-free, and when the GTU discount gets to -8%, I sell all the SGOL and replace it with GTU, on the reasoning that my money is buying more shares, enhancing its purchasing power....

Goodasgold, you are absolutely right. I googled "safe deposit box insurance" as opposed to gold coin insurance.  Previous threads on this topic fizzled out because it turned out to be very expensive to insure coins.  However, I discovered that it is NOT so expensive to insure safe deposit...

The yield curve was inverted in 1969 so it may not have made much difference, but the above numbers are for 10 year Treasuries.  There were no 30 years issued then, so perhaps MG's data was extrapolated somehow...with no gold and no Treasury options, the PP in 1969 is a purely mythological beast an...

As someone who bought in at the top (early 2000) and sold at the bottom (early 2009), I have vowed never to do that again. I went all-cash in 2009 (then did years of research, then last year discovered PP) and I'm not about to put 25% of that into a stock index fund at these levels. Yes, I realize t...

I think safe deposit boxes are a fine option.  You might want to think about insurance.  See this thread: http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/gold/do-you-insure-your-gold/ That's a super-helpful thread. Thanks for the pointer! BTW, here is an updated link for XL Specialty Insurance: http://xlgroup...

Just FYI:

http://www.etfchannel.com/article/20141 ... 42014.htm/

As far as I can see, the only reason to hold a gold ETF is if you have a lot of money tied up in tax-deferred instruments, such as a 401(k) plan or IRA.

I haven't bothered with overseas storage, either, and I have Canadian cousins. Still, many of those wiser than me -- pretty much everyone here is -- do recommend it. I pay nothing for my safe deposit box storage just for keeping US$10K in a checking account at the bank. If I open a new box at a dif...

Having become convinced that PP is the way to go, I am finally getting around to implementation. Naturally, part of that is seeking to minimize fees (e.g., why buy an actively managed stock mutual fund with an expense ratio of 1% or more when I can buy an index fund with an expense ratio of 0.10%?)....

Few folks here or anywhere else will need to worry about having that much money to invest, but it seems that the long-term ultra-rich (at least those who care about what we might call dynastic wealth) often invest in tangible assets like land and art (and gold, but we've got that covered via PP). D...

Few folks here or anywhere else will need to worry about having that much money to invest, but it seems that the long-term ultra-rich (at least those who care about what we might call dynastic wealth) often invest in tangible assets like land and art (and gold, but we've got that covered via PP).

Strictly speaking, Hussman doesn't make "predictions" about what is about to happen in the market.  What he does is utilize an ensemble of market indicators to identify historical profiles which have or have not been favorable to prospective investors.  His approach is to apply that histo...

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/article/investing-in-gold Which says, and I quote... Gold has been a part of economic life in many cultures going back thousands of years. As an asset, it tends to be particularly attractive during periods of economic uncertainty or political instability. O...

EdwardjK wrote: The $175K assumes I have to pay Federal and state taxes.  So the net is somewhere between $100 and $125K.

Oh, I prefer not to think of taxes as a voluntary household expense because I'd get too angry and depressed. :-)

The Japanese 30 year bond rate is currently 1.68%.  While we may never end up where Japan is today, the present rates comparison makes our 3.92% yield look pretty rich.  Oh, and the 10 year bond hit 3% today.  At the beginning of the year, the 10 year rate was 1.86% and the 30 year was at 3.04%.  I...

OK, full disclosure.  My wife and I are 57 years old.  She is retiring in 2014.  Our total portfolio is around $6.5M and I estimate we need about $175K per year to live on.  Roughly one third of our portfolio is in tax advantaged accounts.  We have a $317K mortgage balance which I expect to pay off...

Hi EdwardjK, What I've spent most of my time studying over the last 4+ years has been dividend investing. Only in the last few months have I learned about PP, so I haven't spent all my time dithering over PP. :-) Unfortunately, to me it appears to be a sub-optimal time to go from 100% cash to PP, si...

Good thread. As someone who is new to PP, I struggle with these questions. I've been 100% cash starting in 2009 (before that I was an uninformed 60/40 investor) and since then I've done a lot of research and reading on possible investment strategies. Recently I've become (mostly) convinced that PP i...

To me, one of the attractions of PP is that you don't need to set aside cash for 6-18 months of living expenses or whatever you're comfortable with - that's just built into the portfolio itself. However, you seem to want even more of a cushion, which I can't argue with since personally I'd prefer to...

You can open an account in Canada if you'd like. I'm not sure of the requirements now. Many foreign banks want nothing to do with Americans now and that likely includes Canada with the new FATCA rules. But I'm not fully up on the current situation. I'll do some research on the topic and report back...

For folks in America, opening a bank account at a Canadian bank and storing gold in a safe deposit box there would seem to be an effective approach to geographic diversification. I noticed that in an earlier forum thread this option wasn't highly recommended, and it's not really discussed in Rowland...

For folks in America, opening a bank account at a Canadian bank and storing gold in a safe deposit box there would seem to be an effective approach to geographic diversification. I noticed that in an earlier forum thread this option wasn't highly recommended, and it's not really discussed in Rowland...

I didn't answer your questions because (1) I don't claim to have the answers :-) and (2) I don't think it's at all likely that the U.S. dollar will lose its reserve currency status. However, it seems to me that the U.S. dollar couldn't lose its reserve currency status unless some major changes were ...

To what currency would the U.S. dollar lose its reserve status? Based on the research I've done, I would say that the U.S. dollar might not be a beautiful currency, but it's prettier than the alternatives (in this context, mainly the euro, the yen, and the yuan). A real gold bug might argue that the...