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Chuck BV

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    • My impression is that Jack Bogle made some very insightful and important observations about stocks and stock funds, and those got generalized to bonds as well. I think we saw the folly of that in 2022 as Bond indexes went into descent in tandem with stock indexes. These days I tend to favor short-term treasury funds as a kind of "easy" button, and for the moment there seems to be a lot of value in money market funds such as Fidelity's SPAXX. In principle, given my views, a bond ladder and thoughtful incorporation of TIPS should be considered. I hope to consider those more thoughtfully when I do not have a pesky full-time job competing for my attention. I recall reading in Morningstar that, while managers of active stock funds rarely outperform their index (e.g., the S&P500), that is more common for managers of active bond funds.

      Post: Bond Index Funds or Something Else?

      Link to comment from February 1, 2025

    • The fact that a majority of the US people re-elected someone a someone convicted of financial misdealings, and who seemed to see business fraud as a standard operating procedure, suggests that the US as a whole is becoming less like northern Europe and more like Argentina. My own retirement is based on three legs--a pension, Social Security, and an income stream from tax-qualified savings. The pension and Social Security depend on the full faith of the US Government. Currently, almost half of the qualified savings are in fixed-income assets, and much of this also depends on the full faith and credit of the US Government. To pretend this is not a vulnerability would be like being a resident of Pompei in 78 AD, or of Malibu in 2024.

      Post: Limits of Power by Jonathan Clements

      Link to comment from January 18, 2025

    • Thank you for both your perspective and your inspiration.

      Post: Four Questions

      Link to comment from December 28, 2024

    • Thanks David. I've heard such things. A distant relative in Florida did well for himself as a plumber, at one time owning a business with over a dozen employees. He was also in the right place at the right time to be successful with flipping houses, which no doubt helped. Another distant relative in Iowa seems to have spent over a decade trying to get a firm footing in the lower rungs in the trades. So it seems that path, like the college degree path, has its chutes and ladders and your mileage may vary.

      Post: Dream Retirement – Is it fading away?

      Link to comment from November 3, 2024

    • The lead-in to this essay was about "the American Dream". MS Copilot was able to identify for me some elements commonly attributed to the American Dream--home ownership, equitable economic opportunity, and a sense of financial security. It seems to me that those like me who are now approaching retirement--the last of the Boomers--enjoyed advantages over those coming after because we were more likely to have had jobs providing defined benefits (even if mixed with defined contributions), and because decently paid trade jobs were more widely available. The millennials and Gen Z see the economy they're coming up in as more of a casino, and I can't tell them they're wrong. Currently, having even the possibility of security in retirement requires more discipline and savvy at an early age compared to previous decades.

      Post: Dream Retirement – Is it fading away?

      Link to comment from November 2, 2024

    • Cute. I've never seen the airlines do that, but Amtrak in California very much uses buses to fill in the gaps in their rail service. I suspect that they were not honest enough to say "we'll use bus service to take you to our hub" is partially because Greyhound tanked the reputation of buses in the US decades ago (although the major US carriers are approaching doing the same for air travel in the US).

      Post: Landline Flight, anyone?

      Link to comment from October 12, 2024

    • Thanks for an informative article. The TIPS ladder approach is attractive after having watch bond funds go down at the same time as stocks in 2022. But my understanding is that part of a classic "4% rule" strategy for drawdown is rebalancing between a target stock/bond allocation quarterly or annually. It seems like having most or all of one's fixed-income assets in TIPS would make rebalancing difficult. Am I overlooking something?

      Post: Laying Down a Floor

      Link to comment from September 14, 2024

    • Today I mentioned in passing military tribunals in the Global War on Terror, but couldn't remember offhand the location where detainees were held other than "in Cuba". My 19-year-old daughter immediately came up with "Guantanamo", even though she was a kid when that was going on. At 64 I worry every time something like that happens that I might have already stripped a couple of mental cogs. But I know that I'll do what I can (per Peter Attia), and live with what I have to (per Ryan Holiday). On the AirPods--I've never owned them, but I've watched enough interns my daughter's age lose AirPods that I won't attribute that to age.

      Post: My senior moment

      Link to comment from July 3, 2024

    • Great article, and great tips here and in the comment section. There are two things I am curious about for this type of arrangement. First--is there a downside in not building a rooted community that could be important farther along in retirement/life? Second, medical expenses--as a South American-in-law, I had supposed that if I ever do something like this it would look more like 6 months North America and 6 months in South America, and we would get medical needs met out of pocket while in South America. It sounds like you spend more time in Europe and the British Isles. Are medical costs too high to take that approach there?

      Post: Our Nomadic Life

      Link to comment from June 5, 2024

    • After reading several of these examples in Humble Dollar, it is too easy to imagine a world of AI rehashing and repeating AI. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

      Post: Selling My Soul

      Link to comment from May 27, 2024

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