Investing, economics, finance and random thoughts.
Archive for April, 2010
Permanent Portfolio Discussion Forum
Apr 29th
Thanks everyone for checking out the new forum. We have almost 200 messages in just two days. Come on over and join the discussion:
Permanent Portfolio Discussion Forum
We have some really knowledgeable posters and great questions. Thanks for participating if you have already.
Be Ruthless!
Apr 27th
I am seeing recent books from old authors touting this or that new investment idea. Their previous advice may have been off the mark, but this time they’ve got it all figured out. And just think, they are willing to sell you their wisdom for the low price of $12.95 in soft cover or a low monthly subscription fee.
No thanks.
People should be absolutely ruthless when it comes to assessing investment advice. An attitude of guilty until proven innocent will serve them well.
Be ruthless when looking at what an investment guru is saying. Maybe they did change their tune, but what is to say the new tune is right this time either? How did their advice work in the past? Was their economic thinking sound? Did they tell you to do things with your money that in hindsight were very risky? Did they make predictions and how did they turn out? Don’t rely on what they said their predictions were, go back yourself and read what they said and compare it to what actually happened. Be ruthless about the accuracy.
Also, don’t be lulled into “Aw, schucks…” apologies about how off they were before and how much they’ve learned their lesson. Those kinds of statements don’t get your money back. Early in my investing career I learned this lesson the hard way. Following a popular investment guru cost me money that didn’t need to be lost. I wasn’t ruthless enough in questioning the advice I was getting. I am now.
Investing is not a popularity contest and investors are not graded lower for coming off like a skeptical jerk. Be a jerk. Be ruthless. Question everything a guru says and why they are saying it. Make them prove what they are saying is true – Every last word of it.
Investors that are ruthless in assessing where to put their money put the odds in their favor. Unleash the ruthless investing jackass that is deep inside of you. You’ll be better off for it.
New Forum
Apr 25th
I have started a discussion forum on the Permanent Portfolio investment strategy here:
Permanent Portfolio Discussion Forum
The forum is just starting and changes will be made as it goes forward. Please keep your conversations civil!
Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson…
Apr 13th
Some quotes to remember this fine man:
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Never spend your money before you have earned it.