I'm confused on a few points: The saliva of carnivorous animals does not contain digestive enzymes. Human saliva contains the carbohy- drate–digesting enzyme, salivary amylase. This enzyme is responsible for the majority of starch digestion. Is Mills' implication that salivary amylase (carbohydrate ...

"Healthy whole grains" is pure marketing fiction, I now believe. As it is depicted on the front of cereal boxes and bags of chips, absolutely.  However the form of the grain makes all the difference.  A beneficial whole grain should be as close to it's non-pulverized form as possible.  As...

stone wrote: Is the PP an investment strategy that appeals on the whole to the freakishly ripped?

Sadly, I am living evidence to the contrary...but at least I still have my chaps!

Bigamish, I think the article that I came across was: http://www.jci.org/articles/view/35846 I work alongside people who work on hypoxia and that's how I came across it. Very cool.   I wrongly assumed from your post that you were describing the role of O2 consumption/lactate influences on skeletal ...

Stone, you are absolutely correct regarding exercise & western diet.   Exercise is part of the whole picture, and regularly and intelligently applied, can stave off all sorts of lifestyle diseases, much like proper diet can.  However from a pure calorie in/out perspective, diet trumps exercise b...

I've also seen plenty of people who have followed a Vegan diet and have lost weight, lowered their cholesterol, avoided diabetes and have regained their health.   [snip] Yes-- low carb works.  On everyone? No it does not. Agreed on both counts.   Caveman low-carb (i.e., early phase Atkins-style), a...

Speaking as an academically-oriented animal physiologist, I am not sure that current dietary dogma is all big Pharmas fault.  Just as much blame should be placed on academic inertia.  Decades of repeating the same dietary advice has created an environment where suggesting alternatives to the norm, i...

jmourik wrote: BigAmish... Teaching evolution... Now that makes one curious about the person behind the handle and avatar...

Like an onion...I have layers. 

It's a funny thing, but sometimes people can come to a more rational understanding of things on their own through the careful placement of rational clues than if they are put through a formal re-education program to make their thinking match the one who has taken responsibility for re-educating the...

Where is that stat from?  Did you know that 50.000001% of private school teachers quit within the first 4.39 years.   :) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/08/AR2006050801344.html Also be aware that the $100K/year gym teacher, assuming the stat is real, is not the rule.  L...

I have several options in the Atlanta-metro area, ranging from outrageously marked up to fairly reasonable (~5-6% above spot).  However, the local monthly coin show is where I get the absolute best deals.  The local dealers that come to those shows lower their mark-up by 1-2% due to all of the conce...

Melveyer's website can be accessed by clicking the "Earth" icon on the left side of his posts.

I checked it out & was very impressed.  Stunned really, as it is written by a 20 year old. 

Well done Melveyer!

I'm in the exact same boat as you Murphy.  In my case, I am a first time "active" investor whose previous investing experience was simply throwing money into a set 403b TIAA-CREF retirement plan.  Having recently set early semi-retirement in 10 years as a personal goal, I started reading u...

Very true.  All the more reason to pay off the entire mortgage before the 5 (or 10 in some cases) year period expires.  In my specific refinancing case it made good financial sense as it will allow me to pay off my mortgage ~2 years early simply by maintaining what I was overpaying per month on my o...

I should also add that ING balloon mortgage monthly payments are based on a 30 year fixed  rate.  At 2.99%, that means that a ridiculous amount of my biweekly overpayment goes directly to principal.

ARM I assume? How long is the rate fixed? Technically it is a balloon mortgage.  Once 5 years passes (at 2.99%), I have to pay up what remains.  Nice thing about ING Direct mortgages of this type is that I can get a 5 year extension at the going interest rate (with a nominal fee...a couple hundred ...

Scored a 2.99% rate (w/ $1000 off closing costs) from ING Direct a few months ago.  Now I'll be able to pay my house off in under 5 years! 

Do all you guys who hold physical bullion just round to the nearest oz when purchasing? Then hold for the next ounce? Or do you buy an ETF until you have enough for the next purchase? I personally don't use ETFs for rebalancing (yet).  As far as purchasing to the nearest ounce, I generally don't st...

Goldmoney or BullionVault are looking better every day. When I first started my PP this January, I fully intended on using 100% IAU for my gold portion.  Fortunate circumstances got me to purchase bullion from the start, and now that I have experience with storage & purchase, not to mention hav...

So far, I have found the most reasonable premiums at local coin shows.  I always wondered how MT found premiums in the 2-4% range (non-internet) until I discovered the monthly Atlanta Metro Coin Show.  Also, x2 on Krugerrands...really good bang for buck premium-wise.

So far, 100% physical.

Just my luck that I only was able to complete the establishment of my PP last week. Here's hoping that 2011 is just as good!

I did read something about a short term trading fee here: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/td-ameritrade-offers-100-commission-free-etfs.html But that shouldn't be a problem anyway... I read that as well.  As you suggest such a fee would be rarely, if ever, applied when building a PP.  Even then, $20 for...

There's a long discussion on Bogleheads on this you might want to read: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=61231 I'd almost want a TDAmeritrade account for the link with https://www.kapitall.com ... Great links...thanks!  Based on the information discussed, I am inclined to go forward ...

Hi all, I am ready to start implementing my PP in the next couple of weeks & was hoping to get some input about TD Ameritrade as an online brokerage.  The biggest draw for me is that TLT, SHY, and VTI are all in their commission-free ETF listing, so the potential to manage several ETFs in one lo...