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Here is a link to a post that PeteyPerson put to the raddr-pages.com board this morning. The post sets forth a good bit of the language of one of the posts that was put to the Berkshire-Hathaway thread that I linked to in my post up above. http://www.raddr-pages.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=957 I not...

Hi John, Maybe I am missing something. How does a 2.5% TIPS yield-to-maturity become a 4.78% w/r rate? Under what circumstances do certain stocks or indices offer lower returns compared to an inflation-matched cash equivalent? I'm assuming here you are referring to IBonds which another colleague amu...

Rob, I believe I have covered most of your points in my other reply. I do disagree that one never achieves financial independence. Essential expenses are not a choice, but all other expenses are a choice. True, life without the niceties is not that nice.. but those are still individual choices, each...

Perfect UncleMick! Trust you to cut right to the core of the point! :lol::lol: Petey Ben Franklin And, and - Does anybody remember the old E. F. Hutton brokerage ad about the young guy and old guy out on a dig? If you are FI - you can call what you do - anything you want.

Hi Rob, I believe it was Charlie Munger who said, "Don't waste your time with people whose ideas you immediately know to be stupid." I've had plenty of occasion to get mad at a poster who said something offensive or something I just completely disagree with. This happens in real life too w...

Hi Karma, Nice to hear from you again. Glad my posting was clear for you. My own take would be that it is perfectly fine if you try the completely dormant lifestyle and you find it doesn't suit. I would certainly consider taking some time for myself but later volunteering for a worthwhile charity li...

I'm avoiding traditional UK pension plans because whilst they offer tax-free deposits, they have significant negatives. One must buy an annuity with at least 75% of the money accumulated. Annuity rates have come crashing down from a peak of 10% to 4% for payout periods of 30+ years (what moron ever ...

Hi Rob, Well I wasn't thinking of intercst though I noted you couldn't help but do so. I just don't find further discussion of intercst to be productive. I don't tend to think about "retirement" in my own mind. I do think it conjurs up images of being old and gray (or worse) and it isn't m...

Sounds accurate. Was the executive summary for your purposes or was I unclear? :) Petey Petey - May I be so bold as to say - you are not yet FIREd, though I hope close to FI - you require more activity than you found than when you took extended leave - you do not believe that a person who needs to w...

In recent years, almost everything has been tied to the US consumer. Without a healthy economy in the United States, many foreign companies would have had a very hard time selling their products. [This is the internal consumption problem. It is not unique to Japan.] This is the kind of thing that c...

Merck just got some more bad news. Stock hammered some more.

Petey

ben wrote:Hammered due to some patent issues - down about 10% today - dividends around 5%. might be time to pick up some more eh JWR?

Hi John, I am curious what the baseline fundamentals were for U.S. Small Cap Value stocks? i.e. What were the expected returns from earnings growth, dividends and PE expansion/contraction? I ask partly because Dimensional ScV offers substantially higher returns because they get deeping into the valu...

Hi Rob, I agree with the points. Whilst I am not retired, I have had occasion where I was taking an extended break, occasions where I was overworking and everything in between. Being simply idle is not satisfying for me. I need to delve into subjects I enjoy more deeply or explore new subjects. I wo...

Thanks for the link, ForeignExchange. I compared the US Value and US Growth with the Wilshire 5000 index. Purists, which includes James O'Shaughnessy when he writes his books, will tell you that you have to wait fourteen years to be sure that he has a winning strategy. My bet is that he is already ...

Charles Ellis discovered the advantage of utility stocks over bonds long before Lowell Miller. This is helpful. It suggests that utilities (or something like them) are a better choice than bonds in a balanced portfolio. I know that Lowell Miller makes that argument. The interest rate of bonds is so...

Jonny; fully agree. Congrats on your set-up! :D Meanwhile don't take for granted that I at age 35 can pull any money from any retirement plans! :D While a bit of my total net worth is in a company pension the rules state that I can touch them when 60 at the earliest. Even if stop working. Have been ...

Hi bpp, The reference for this is probably long gone. It was definitely US war bonds though. Petey Hi Petey, Many say that the US Govt is "risk-free" and ignore or aren't aware that the US Govt defaulted on their financing agreements on War Bonds. Do you have a reference for this? I have h...

John, It is true that an investor could indeed own 100% TIPS at 4% real and live happily on a 4% w/d rate. There are risks however. The instrument is newish. You are reliant on the US Government not defaulting and staying solvent to keep paying you. Many say that the US Govt is "risk-free"...

I find it sort of unplesant to watch them go on claiming to have some secret "swr tool" while the gullible apparently fall for it which is why this board is of less interest to me. I arrived at the rehp board at tmf after people had given up reasoning with hocus and turned toward sneering...

Rob, Instead of continuing to talk about intercst, do you think you might be able to reply to your lengthy reply to you in this thread that I made several days ago? I think it contained some useful points worth exploring. The discussion related directly to your point about starting from a high valua...