This issue really goes to the heart of the fundamental matter of how society is going to be structured.  I think that right now we are at the stage of industrial capitalism where a lot of delusional notions have yet to be purged from the system, simply because this modern system of rapid economic ex...

All modern governments have bought into the idea that a steady level of low inflation is desirable to keep the velocity of money high and to keep the economy expanding (whether or not there is actual underlying aggregate demand to facilitate this expansion). Thus, over time all world currencies will...

Do you think a 1 to 5 year treasuries (Gilts) ladder would be too excessive for PP's 'cash'? I ask because in the UK you can ISA (tax free account) gilts with 5 years or more to maturity at the time of purchase, so gross income is retained.  You can't however ISA Gilts with less than 5 years to mat...

Maybe just a lot of bad luck with individual stock picks? I don't know if this is why, but this is one reason why I don't think the mutual fund and the PP are the same thing at all and I'm loathe to suggest the mutual fund as a substitute.  The active stock picking really bothers me. Agreed.  Alway...

MediumTex has also floated the idea of using I-Bonds for the cash which is another option if you can work within their limits. They would be as safe as t-bills. They are not however a substitute for the LT bonds in the portfolio, nor the gold. FYI. Series EE savings bonds are also fine for a portio...

If I was otherwise comfortable using Fidelity, I would take advantage of something like this for as long as it was offered. If, however, I wasn't comfortable with Fidelity as a general matter, a gimmicky thing like this wouldn't make me want to do business with them. It looks like Vanguard is doing ...

As for Taleb, the guy is probably a genius philosopher and a smarter human being than I, although I feel his whole proposal has a paradox embedded in it and I'm not the only one.  But how on earth to use his observations to practical benefit is beyond me. I believe that Taleb has basically come up ...

For those who are doing PP tire kicking, right now is a good time to study bond movements in relation to the rest of the PP and as an example of how following market predictions is a truly pointless activity. Note that this is the same bond market that people said was about to see dramatically highe...

Chase and Citi have recently done a $100 incentive for opening an account and having three direct deposits or some other combination of balances and debit card activity.  I took advantage of the Chase offer and did the direct deposit but didn't do the Citi offer. Marketing research work is also a si...

Are you ("you" meaning anyone) prepared to ride your allocation to the beach?  This is true for all portfolios, but especially when specific class sectors are involved.  I'm guessing that no matter which Equity division produces technically superior outcomes (and one can apportion that 25...

is there a fund you recommend instead of VUSTX ? or is getting set up to buy TLT the only option? I think there may be a mutual fund that does zeroes (someone else may chime in), but I would say TLT, EDV or individual bonds are your choices for the LT bond part of the PP. There are probably plenty ...

I think HB would say that bullion is better than an ETF and an ETF is better than nothing. People act like these ETFs are scams, but I don't see the market pricing in anything like that.  For example, the spread between GLD and IAU never budges more than a couple of pennies.  To me, that means that ...

Every investment approach has a set of economic, political, social, cultural, and ecological beliefs embedded in the assumptions on which the strategy is based (and these assumptions rarely show up in the prospectus). Sometimes, oftentimes, investors do not realize they are making bets.  For exampl...

Roy, That's a great post.  It got me to thinking about what an investor really needs to know when evaluating the PP (or any other approach to investing). First, in evaluating an approach to investing and its suitability to a particular investor, it is important for the investor to understand his own...

TLT pays a monthly dividend.  For some reason, the chart on Yahoo Finance sometimes doesn't show a dividend every month, but it pays one monthly.  It normally shows up in your account around the 11th of the month. EDV pays a dividend quarterly (for anyone who is interested in zeroes). For those who ...

Pres wrote:

MediumTex wrote: I put a small sign out in my yard.  :D

"I OWN GOLD - VISIT CRAWLINGROAD.COM TO LEARN WHERE I HIDE IT"

I don't mind telling them. I will just be honest and say that I keep it at Pres's house. 

VTSMX for domestic equities and VGTSX for international exposure.  My allocation is 85%/15%.

There are plenty of good low cost index funds out there.

I put a small sign out in my yard. 

That's not correct.  TIPS have only been around for 13 years, so there is no long stretch of time over which to evaluate the performance of TIPS relative to gold. Clarification: the expected behavior of TIPS is quite typical of what gold effectively returns most of the time: a small real return ove...

That explosive growth is what the PP needs to offset losses in other assets (especially LT bonds) when needed. But just to pick a fight here... That whole argument basically stems on A) reliance on past performance being indicative of the future (guilty of this myself many times over) and B) predic...

Why would it be important to be able to access all of your cash holdings during a few days when the markets are closed? What would an investor want to do with funds that are already invested in the safest instruments in the world (t-bills) during such a period?  If you are talking about accessing th...

I think that whatever approach one takes to storage, it makes sense to have diversity among storage methods and multiple layers of security around each method of storage.  This isn't as hard to do as it may sound. A person who owns a little PRPFX, GLD, coins in a safe deposit box, coins in a coffee ...

Most PP followers seem to hate TIPS. Let me clarify this point a bit. I don't think PP-ers hate TIPS in general--rather, I think they do not believe that TIPS are a suitable replacement for gold in the PP structure. As part of a different allocation strategy where the viability of the whole portfol...

Let me partially answer your question. The key to the security of anything, IMHO, is not in putting it in a strong enough box or behind a tall enough fence, but rather in focusing on minimizing the number of people who are aware that there is something interesting either in the box or behind the fen...

so the question is ... what are -the pros and cons of total bond vs treasuries Total bond market contains corporates and treasurys, which is going to be riskier than 100% treasuries and may provide a slightly higher return based upon the same duration of bond. In a deflationary spiral, corporates w...