Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Hi Maurice,
It’s good to know that our strategic oil reserve is near capacity. During the Cold War there was talk of converting some of these into missile silos. Fortunately, it never happened.
It is not especially worrisome to me that some of …
Hi Old Joe,
Thank you for reading my post so promptly. I just added another word to my vocabulary., tergiversate. We get some of those both in the political arena and in the investment world.
Best Wishes.
Hi Davidrmoran,
Well my third try at your question just might be the charm. My goal is a home run, but I just might strike out again by your assessment. Too bad, but that’s not worrisome to me.
In my original post on this topic, in my opening pa…
Hi Guys,
I’ve been a baseball fan forever.
I had the good fortune to live in New York City during the reigns of Yogi Berra and Roy Campanella as catchers for the Yankees and the Dodgers. What a treat! I had the privilege of seeing both all star…
Hi Davidrmoran,
Yes, I purposely expanded my reply to your question to a less personal level. No evasion or obfuscation was intended. Sorry that it did not satisfy your standards. I did have reasons to do so.
My personal response to a fuel pric…
Hi Old Joe,
We're on the same page.
Tar sands oil is tough stuff. It takes extraordinary work to convert it into useful products. I read somewhere that the required input energy is nearly equal to net output yield. It's a tight balance, hence s…
Hi Davidrmoran,
If price drops, the economics wizards project that demand will increase. They draw the demand curve for an individual just like it's assembled for the composite group. In the price and quantity coordinates, the curve slopes downwa…
Hi Guys,
Oil is fungible. As an end user, I really don’t much care about where the drilling was done. What I do care about is the price. I will likely use more if the price is lowered.
The economists’ universal tool is the composite supply-dema…
Hi LewisBraham,
Thank you for your contribution.
Your comments mistakenly focus on the debate issue. That was not the primary thrust of my submittal. My main purpose was to plea for more respectful decorum in the exchanges.
The lack of decorum …
Hi LewisBraham,
My forecast of a cloudburst was spot on target.
I promised a topic closure a few posts ago, and I want to honor that promise. No more presidential comments from me at this juncture.
Let's get back to mutual fund and investment str…
Hi LewisBraham,
Yes, I continue voting for anticipated leadership qualities. I am ex-military and I treasure the benefits of committed leadership. I recognize that leaders are never perfect given the uncertainties that often exist at crucial deci…
Hi davidrmoran,
What happened? No additional references to Paul Krugman, at least not yet.
In the political arena I try to be as neutral as possible. That neutrality is mostly governed by my belief that the most important personal asset that a U…
Hi Guys,
As I posted earlier, I watched the entire 5 hours of the Republican debate on CNN yesterday as a learning experience. I was puzzled by a debate summary that was posted by an MFOer presumably from the NY Times.
I certainly agreed with som…
Hi Guys,
I am definitely not a political junkie. I have to think twice to remember who my state governor is, and three times to recall my mayor’s name.
Given the numerous Republican candidates, and the likelihood of a minor expansion to the Democ…
Hi Guys,
Thank you for rescuing the spirit of this thread. A few comments had taken a nasty direction.
I am definitely not an economics expert, but I am trying hard to learn. I am currently reading economics textbooks; that’s a hard road for me,…
Hi Guys,
Well the exchange has certainly become more heated. It is also adding to my vocabulary. I had never encountered “desnotted” before today.
I checked the Internet for a definition and scored zero replies. Therefore, I assume it is an inv…
Hi Guys,
Tongue in cheek, Albert Einstein said, "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."
We all fall victim to that attractive face saving ploy, especially when justifying poor investment outcomes. It's convenient to choose an alter…
Hi Dex,
I’m an engineer by training and by professional practice. I carry with me a “can do” attitude and discipline. I am never in the doomsday prophets camp. I am not clairvoyant, but I do not share your negative perspectives.
World trade rel…
Hi Old Joe,
Yes, my thinking on many issues has evolved over time. I suspect that is equally true with you.
To be otherwise would imply that we have not matured and have not learned. Being unreceptive to a changing world and evolving environment…
Hi Dex,
Thank you for contributing to the topic. Several perspectives always make the discussion more informative, especially if those views differ somewhat.
Although the scale has changed in the positive direction, free trade has forever been a …
Hi Guys,
The Simons' interview does not reveal any practical investment insights that individual investors can exploit.
The guts of the Simons approach was to collect, slice, and dice countless financial data using computers and thousands of candi…
Hi Guys,
Morgan Housel is a smart and perceptive financial writer. I have enjoyed and benefited from his frequent columns for several years now, and am rarely disappointed.
The original article was published in late 2014 on The Motley Fool websit…
Hi msf,
It is quite possible that we interpreted the Rethinking Retirement document differently or even that we went to a different reference from among those posted by ibartman.
I pulled the 3% number from the “whitepaper” link in ibartman’s orig…
Hi Guys,
The recent paper by Professors Pfau & Dokken on the erosion of the 4% retirement drawdown rule allows me to get out my old broken record that extols the virtues of Monte Carlo analysis.
I have done this so any times that MFO members m…
Hi Guys,
Economics is not physics. The answer to what might work economically depends on who you ask. A neo-Smithian, a Keynesian, an Austrian, a Supply-Sider, a Monetarist would each give you a somewhat different and nuanced answer. Each has so…
Hi Guys,
“There is always a well known solution to every human problem – neat, plausible, and wrong.” That wisdom comes from H.L. Mencken. You can double down on it when investing.
Will Rogers put it that “It isn’t what we know that gives us tro…
Hi Old Joe,
You and I are on the same page here. This likely happens far more often than either you or I would believe.
Investors do indeed hate uncertainty, but since investing is all about guesstimating future performance, uncertainty is always…
Hi Guys,
Professor Smith forecasts a likely Fed funds rate increase in their mid-September meeting based on encouraging recent US macroeconomic performance data updates and revisions. He certainly cobbles together a large body of data to support h…
Hi Guys,
Like Edmond, I don’t have a horse directly in this race. I select the mutual funds that I own without a Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) criterion. My uniformed overarching belief is that any additional constraints imposed in the sel…
Hi Guys,
I don’t do lotteries. But the subject and your comments intrigued me. I’m a California resident so I naturally searched for info about my state lottery history. The search was easily done and I was well rewarded. Here is a Link to a com…
Hi Catch22,
I congratulate and salute you and your wife on your long-term commitment to local musical educational programs. That’s terrific. The final benefits to the fortunate recipients of your efforts far outweigh your meaningful time commitme…
Hi Guys,
The post asserting victory is rubbish and boorish to the extreme.
After 102 submittals and nearly 300 viewers, nothing was settled. There was no opinion movement in either direction. To proclaim otherwise is pure garbage and completely …
Hi Guys,
Given the subject matter of this posting, it was predictable that a heated, pejorative exchange would result. It did not disappoint as the “idiot” word quickly surfaced. Nobody on the MFO Board is an idiot, although I’m sometimes suspect…
Hi Guys,
Peter Lynch made a rookie blunder when he recommended a survivable 7% withdrawal rate for a retirement portfolio. He based the faulty endorsement assuming historical average portfolio returns with zero volatility, zero standard deviation …
Hi Guys,
"Lafayette, we are here!"
For a long time I erroneously believed this famous quote was said by Blackjack Pershing. It was not. It was made by one of his staff, Colonel Charles Stanton, on July 4, 1917.
Our military doubled down on our …
Hi rjb112,
Thank you for your question. Larry Swedroe has actually generated a list of 14 investment Truths. I was just quoting Number 10 from that set.
His list appeared in a book he authored a few years ago. The title of the book is “The Succ…
Hi Guys,
Investors often ask two questions when assessing a forecast. What is their historical accuracy record? What have they done for us lately?
Those questions are definitely appropriate for the GMO 7-year forecasts. The original references …
Hi Guys,
I do believe that the GMO crew is a talented and skillful group of active investors.
Yet, I’m often puzzled by their 7-year forecasting releases. As a general observation, their forecasts frequently project various asset class returns t…
Hi Mr. Braham and Guys,
I don’t worry that only “23% of Certified Financial Planners are women”. In fact, I congratulate that industry for its recent advances in that area. Anecdotally, I have recently attended several financial meetings where th…
Hi Davidrmoran,
I do read every reference that I post on MFO. You are absolutely correct that I should not have written "recent exchange". Instead, I should have reported it as a "recent 25iq release". Sorry for the error.
I owned the Gabelli S…
