600 Members Coming Up

[blue_ruin17]

And that is the highest compliment I could receive, thank you.

I credit the PP community (here and elsewhere) for exorcising many investment 'inner-demons' which I had carried with me for years.

For example: in high school, I remember having a class on personal finances. In it, we learned about how investing in the stock market would grow your money at about 10% a year, as long as you kept your money in the market "for the long run". There was a slick chart that demonstrated how, if we invested some small amount of money in the stock market every month starting at age 18, how we would be multi-millionaires by age 65. The chart was so gorgeous, and that exponential curve so beautiful -- I fell in love. I determined then and there to become a dutiful investor, with the same resolve of a monk or a knight.

But, even though I was only 16 years old (or something like that), something didn't quite sit right. Even though I was still almost totally ignorant about economics or investing, I could sense that I wasn't being told the full story. "It couldn't be that easy", I thought to myself. "If it were, everyone would be millionaires." And I also had the sneaking suspicion that the past wasn't an indicator of the future. "Why is it guaranteed that stocks will be so stellar for my generation, just because they did for the last?" I never asked any of these questions, probably because my subconscious recognized that my teacher had no grasp of the subject herself.

I graduated in the summer of 2008 and started university in September of that same year... well, it goes without saying that any scraps of faith that I had in "100% stocks for the long run" were eviscerated. For those who lived through that crisis, you will remember that it wasn't just the 40% drawdown that was disturbing, that's just a number: it was the atmospheric tinge of APOCALYPSE that hung on the air-waves and oozed from the newspapers that I'll never forget. At the time, no one knew just how far this implosion was going to go. It could have been the end of the financial system as we knew it. I was terrified, and I didn't even have a dime in the market.

After that experience, I felt like a desert wanderer with no home to settle my savings into. Nothing was safe, nothing made sense. No portfolio or asset allocation system relieved my doubts. They all made me feel like I was being taught about the "glories" of the stock market by my personal finance teacher in high school again.

When I stumbled upon the PP, the internal logic of it appealed to me immediately. It was so contrarian, so bizarre, so utterly insane that I knew immediately that it warranted investigation, since everything that was mainstream had to that point failed to seduce me in anyway. The community answered most of the questions about it, and I never felt like I was being sold fishy, suspicious reasoning. I felt like I found home, finally.

A few lingering questions remained though. That's where MediumTex comes in.

It is him, in particular, who resolved many of the final "tough questions" that I had regarding the portfolio, especially related to the subject of Peak Oil. I owe a lot to the PP community, but especially to Tex for reconciling all of my fears, objections and hesitancies.

[sophie]

Blue Ruin, thank you for this post. There is a lot of wisdom in it.

[Sir_Bondalot]

Count another one (me) in!

[Kbg]

OK I'll be a voice off key...PP is a wonderful port. If you are young dial down gold and up stocks 10% (15/35%)

Since 1978, it has worked better 9.24 vs. 8.69 CAGR AND slightly less drawdown...

Actually if you are old, maybe you should do this as well.

[dualstow]

Count another one (me) in!

Welcome!

[bedraggled]

666!

Devilish, ain't it?

Do we need a thread anticipating 700 registered members?

[bedraggled]

698!

I started this thread anticipating 600.

Is the sign-up rate accelerating? 1000 may be sooner than we think. Can the math people calculate the start of a geometric progression? After all, this should be the antithesis (?) of regression to the mean- but I wish I were more quantitative.

Any lurkers for 700?

[dualstow]

Ha! I never think to look except when you post here. Wait until the end of this bull market.

[Tortoise]

Instead of the number of total members, a more meaningful metric for general popularity of this forum at any given time would probably be the number of active members (for example, people who log in at least once per week or something).

The number of total members will naturally tend to increase over time since it reflects the new members who sign up but not the old members who stop logging in.

[bedraggled]

So 1,000 members in less than 3 years?

Maybe the next crunch will bring the goal in 2 years.

[Hal]

So now we have 698 members, would anyone mind sharing how they first found out about the Permanent Portfolio? Particularly interested with the newest members as the PP is rarely, if ever, mentioned elsewhere these days. Nothing like the 2008 timeframe.

[Kriegsspiel]

It was on Bogleheads in 2012.

[Smith1776]

Chain of events:

1) Found out about Ron Paul's portfolio via public filings a couple years ago - mostly gold, silver, and mining stocks.
2) Scoffed.
3) Somehow there was a link to related portfolios that also held a lot of gold.
4) Got linked to the Permanent Portfolio Family of Funds (PRPFX)
5) Scoffed.
6) Googled and found the epic Bogleheads thread with craigr and MediumTex.
7) Read literally the whole thread.
8 ) Switched to Permanent Portfolio.
9) Now regularly scoffing at the Three Fund Portfolio, 60/40, etc.

[boglerdude]

Saw it in one of the many gold bashing threads on bogleheads. I'm still not sure if a deflationary currency is good, despite thinking about it daily for years :/ "Good for whom" might be part of the answer.

[bedraggled]

I notice we are approaching 1,000 members.

On July 12, 2017, I wrote we were at 599 members. That prompted sweetbethescrivener to sign on as #600. All hail Herman Melville! (The best short story ever)?

Anyway, the time between 600 and today seems short. Is the 4x25 finding followers more quickly?

Great to hear from Pointed Stick. Anyone heard from TennPaGa? And the Desert Portfolio has me as an admirer but when the choice among that, the Golden Butterfly and Harry’ Concoction weighs on me, Harry always seems best.

On to 1,000 or 10,000!

[ochotona]

I notice we are approaching 1,000 members.

On to 1,000 or 10,000!

If membership spikes into the thousands, it would probably be time to transition to portfolios more aggressive than Harry's

[bedraggled]

Ocho,

Aggressive Portfolios?

I thought those thousands would be looking to go 4x25, in line with the HBPP philosophy- and it is a lovely philosophy.

Please comment.

Thanks.

[Xan]

Many of the signup will have been spammers, I'm afraid.

[bedraggled]

Let us hope....

[Smith1776]

For the most part I'd love to see the masses adopt Harry Browne's excellent ideas.

On the other hand, I don't expect that will happen, and part of me doesn't want it either. Browne's ideas are simply too countercultural, and unorthodox for the average investor. You really have to understand the nuances of his thinking too before you see how bloody insightful he was.

But yeah, there's a part of me that likes that "elite" feeling of being in such an unusual group. Beyond that, the tight knit feel of this forum is so much better than alternative forums. I don't want that to change.

As for the idea of aggressive/defensive portfolios -- the PP can be turned up to be as aggressive as one likes. Just crank up your VP like I did in the Browne + Graham thread.

[ochotona]

Ocho,

Aggressive Portfolios?

I thought those thousands would be looking to go 4x25, in line with the HBPP philosophy- and it is a lovely philosophy.

Please comment.

Thanks.

I just mean that most people buy high, sell low. They will go for conservative allocations like HBPP after the storm has passed, when it would actually help them to have more risk. Then just before the next storm arrive, they will walk around the golf course holding metal rods.

[Smith1776]

Ocho,

Aggressive Portfolios?

I thought those thousands would be looking to go 4x25, in line with the HBPP philosophy- and it is a lovely philosophy.

Please comment.

Thanks.

I just mean that most people buy high, sell low. They will go for conservative allocations like HBPP after the storm has passed, when it would actually help them to have more risk. Then just before the next storm arrive, they will walk around the golf course holding metal rods.

Yup, just as William Berstein pointed out in his prescient Wild About Harry paper.

[bedraggled]

Let’s dredge up the member number thread. We are at 985.

How quickly will we reach 1,000?

[ochotona]

I predict gold dumps to $1377.50, and we don't increase members

[dualstow]

I predict gold dumps to $1377.50, and we don't increase members

Funny but true. Membership is directly correlated with the price of GOLD.