Boghies Account Talk

[Boghie]

Pulled the Trigger

As promised, I have made the following IFT. And, I've printed out the 'receipt' as recommended by Alevin. So, even though I don’t like the ‘F Fund’ I have to incorporate some of it into a more balanced approach:

• 10% G - A little cash to buy on a dip
• 18% F - No idea. It must be science!!!
• 40% C - A place to migrate some of that G/F stuff too
• 20% S - Buying a bit more.
• 12% I - Underweighting this pig
• Return: 6%, Risk 8%

I cannot stand 'investing' in a bubble - which is where the 'F Fund' is. But it will probably deflate slower than a normal bubble.:nuts:

 

[MaStA]

Re: Pulled the Trigger

As promised, I have made the following IFT. And, I've printed out the 'receipt' as recommended by Alevin. So, even though I don’t like the ‘F Fund’ I have to incorporate some of it into a more balanced approach:

• 10% G - A little cash to buy on a dip
• 18% F - No idea. It must be science!!!
• 40% C - A place to migrate some of that G/F stuff too
• 20% S - Buying a bit more.
• 12% I - Underweighting this pig
• Return: 6%, Risk 8%

I cannot stand 'investing' in a bubble - which is where the 'F Fund' is. But it will probably deflate slower than a normal bubble.:nuts:

Now I think you should change your signature block to "Lookin' up at the rainbow".

 

[Boghie]

President Obama, Please Enjoy Your Vacation...

This was then:
Why the Obamas are Political Black Swans

This is now:
Obama, Beware of the Bunnies



For one, I am thankful our Presidential Black Swan has settled the exclusive utopia of Marthas Vineyard. My only regret is that he will alight again in mere days - with the admirable goal of managing the economy and creating jobs. Maybe we should have a contest to predict the coming Black Swan Event. Here are the criteria as defined by Nicholas Taleb:

• The event is a surprise (to the observer).
• The event has a major impact.
• After its first recording, the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected (e.g., the relevant data were available but not accounted for).

I think the first is a given. This observer (President Obama) is surprised by everything economic. And, we are awaiting a major speech on new (probably old socialist ideas) statist programs to save the West from capitalism. That should satisfy the second criteria. Then, we can predict that not enough was actually borrowed and spent on government welfare and green industry to actually make a difference.

Here is my prediction:

1. Bad Mouth S&P and Money Center Banks
2. Eulogize Warren Buffet and the folk at Marthas Vineyard
3. Blather about Millionaires and Billionaires making something like $250K.
4. Demand tax increases to support an enhanced version of Johnson’s ‘Job Corps’
5. Then watch the stock and bond markets fall!!! There was so much hope and change.

It’s still too early for the markets to discount this President.

 

[SteelSaving]

I still say blanket amnesty to get more workers here to pay into the boomer's social security. Where will the jobs come from? That's the surprise, probably a soylent green production facility.

 

[Birchtree]

I just read an excellent article on our precious Section 8 participants. "The Obama administration is now launching a pilot program giving local housing authorities wide discretion to pay higher rent subsidies to allow Section 8 beneficiaries to move into even more affluent zip codes. Hasn't this program helped wreck enough neighborhood?" They're just moving trash from one spot to another - with the same results. Crime will continue as will homicides. The play book is that violent crime skyrockets in neighborhoods where Section 8 recipients resettle.

 

[alevin]

Re: Pulled the Trigger

As promised, I have made the following IFT. And, I've printed out the 'receipt' as recommended by Alevin. So, even though I don’t like the ‘F Fund’ I have to incorporate some of it into a more balanced approach:

• 10% G - A little cash to buy on a dip
• 18% F - No idea. It must be science!!!
• 40% C - A place to migrate some of that G/F stuff too
• 20% S - Buying a bit more.
• 12% I - Underweighting this pig
• Return: 6%, Risk 8%

the 'F Fund'...will probably deflate slower than a normal bubble.:nuts:

Boghie, how do you calculate that Return%/ Risk% thing again? I know you must have 'splained it once somewhere. Mind doing it again for us slow learners?

 

[SteelSaving]

I just read an excellent article on our precious Section 8 participants. "The Obama administration is now launching a pilot program giving local housing authorities wide discretion to pay higher rent subsidies to allow Section 8 beneficiaries to move into even more affluent zip codes. Hasn't this program helped wreck enough neighborhood?" They're just moving trash from one spot to another - with the same results. Crime will continue as will homicides. The play book is that violent crime skyrockets in neighborhoods where Section 8 recipients resettle.

And the people leaving those neighborhoods are going back to the cities. Some kind of thing similar to what China's doing? Or an attempt to get us more "green?"

 

[Silverbird]

Re: How 'Bout That Relief Rally!!!

China's policy is, if you were not born in the area that you are living in, you are a non-resident and never get the rights to be treated as a resident. You have no property rights, and your kids are not eligible to go to local subsidized schools. In order to get housing, you usually have to bribe a local to let you buy (and they can pull it out from underneath you at any time). Their latest actions (causing protests) were to bulldoze some of the privately run schools for these non-residents. So those poor sots from the countryside moving into the big city, or people displaced by the latest mega project who don't want to move where the authorities tell them to go (as in Three Gorges Dam) are sheep to be shorn by the local officials.

I don't think we are talking about Chinese policy here!

 

[SteelSaving]

Re: How 'Bout That Relief Rally!!!

China's policy is, if you were not born in the area that you are living in, you are a non-resident and never get the rights to be treated as a resident. You have no property rights, and your kids are not eligible to go to local subsidized schools. In order to get housing, you usually have to bribe a local to let you buy (and they can pull it out from underneath you at any time). Their latest actions (causing protests) were to bulldoze some of the privately run schools for these non-residents. So those poor sots from the countryside moving into the big city, or people displaced by the latest mega project who don't want to move where the authorities tell them to go (as in Three Gorges Dam) are sheep to be shorn by the local officials.

I don't think we are talking about Chinese policy here!

Well all I meant was the attempt to move the population into more urban areas. The other stuff is news to me.
You'd think they would make it more hellish to remain in the countryside instead of making it hell to get in the city.

 

[Birchtree]

Re: How 'Bout That Relief Rally!!!

See what a 72% illegitimacy rate in the minority at risk population brings to your neighborhood. "Section 8 rental subsidies have long been one of the most controversial federal social programs. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Obama administration is making a troubled program worse. In the 1990s the feds were embarrassed by skyrocketing crime rates in public housing - up to 10 times the national average. The governments response was to hand out vouchers to residents of the projects (authorized under Section 8 of the Housing and Community Development act of 1974), dispersing them to safer and more upscale locales.

Section 8's budget soared to $19 billion this year from $7 billion in 1994. HUD now picks up the rent for more than two million households nationwide; tenants pay 30% of their income toward rent and utilities while the feds pay the rest. Section 8 recipients receive monthly rental subsidies of up to $2.851 in the Stamford-Norwalk, Conn., area, $2764 in Honolulu and $2,582 in Columbia, Md.

But the dispersal of public housing residents to quieter neighborhoods has failed to weed out the criminal element that made life miserable for most residents of the projects. Homicide was simply moved to a new location, not eliminated. Violent crime has skyrocked in neighborhoods where Section 8 recipients resettled."

My solution is to stop providing the financial incentive for minorities to get pregnant and onto welfare. The liberals are still hoping on another MLK look alike out of the 72% of illegitimates born into welfare and eventually prison.

 

[Dutchy]

I just read an excellent article on our precious Section 8 participants. "The Obama administration is now launching a pilot program giving local housing authorities wide discretion to pay higher rent subsidies to allow Section 8 beneficiaries to move into even more affluent zip codes. Hasn't this program helped wreck enough neighborhood?" They're just moving trash from one spot to another - with the same results. Crime will continue as will homicides. The play book is that violent crime skyrockets in neighborhoods where Section 8 recipients resettle.

You are correct Birch...... Just spread the crime and misery around and destroy more neighborhoods and housing values....Maybe the goal is to get the poor kids into better schools..... But wait that does'nt work either as the poor kids just bring on discipline problems and lower test scores by their very presence We should all relocate to a quiet cabin in Wyoming!

 

[SteelSaving]

Shhhhhhh!!!

Wyoming is supposed to be my secret!

 

[Boghie]

Re: Pulled the Trigger

Boghie, how do you calculate that Return%/ Risk% thing again? I know you must have 'splained it once somewhere. Mind doing it again for us slow learners?

Alevin,

I enter my allocations (actual and future projected) into Quicken 2011. The allocation manager uses long term return and risk ratios to generate the numbers. I have notices that the expected returns and risk numbers are more conservative than some other sources.

It helps me set an allocation off a base from Ric Edelman's 'The Lies About Money'. I generally try to be in one of three allocations I picked from that source. But, I do have a boom and panic allocation - which are rarely used. So, I don't really 'market time' because I generally have an allocation that includes as many asset classes as possible. I have a really cloudy crystal ball. If I followed my brilliant mind I would not have anything in the 'F Fund' - the only one holding water...

Anyway, the return and risk numbers are generated by Quicken. And, the 'risk' is not just a standard deviation.

 

[Boghie]

Re: Pulled the Trigger

On Section 8...

How long can it be justified when home values continue to plummet? I mean, it is intended to provide housing for those priced out of the market.

My solution to get the Fed Gubmint out of annual deficit...

• Baseline to the 1964 expenditures (inflation adjusted).
• Challenge ANY department or benefit created after that year.
• If a department or benefit is determined to be beneificial than fund it.

I think that would lop lots of fat off the Gubmint love handles. Even if you did the above with FY1980 your baseline budget would start with $1.8 Trillion in expenditures - and that date would include all the gubmint departments the Libs love. Our expected tax receipts are $2.6 Trillion. Thus, we have $800 Billion to fund additional Social Security, Medicare and recession unemployment benefits. That is more than enough - it would leave a bunch to fund much of the DOD growth.

 

[Boghie]

Proud of My Hiku... Consider it Copyrighted!!!

Sitting in the dark...
Here in America's North Korea...
No vision of the Black Swan Event taking flight...
El Presidente spoke, Millions Gloomed in Candlelignt, Years of Green Power...

The Black Swan never flew
But he did, he did
Ripples

 

[Birchtree]

Re: Proud of My Hiku... Consider it Copyrighted!!!

It's time for the return of the kerosene lantern. I remember my grand parents using them in the late 1950s while at camp on South Pond in New Hampshire.

 

[Boghie]

Re: Proud of My Hiku... Consider it Copyrighted!!!

Re(1): 'The Unfinished Business of September 11', The Belmont Club, Richard Fernandez

Richard Fernandez,

The story of September 11 must for all time become the story of how a certain date became unspeakable to al-Qaeda and its followers; a tale of how this day of all others, became the blackest day in the history of Islam. It should forever be a date that can never be mentioned without arousing a deep sense of shame throughout the Middle East so that in generations hence, people should still come up to strangers unbidden and say, “I’m sorry for September 11.“ Until then it is unfinished business.

We have no right to forgive. We have no right to forget. We have no right to move on until this final condition is met. That in the holy of holies of our civilization’s enemies, in the innermost recesses of their sanctum sanctorum they should say with heartfelt ardor: never again. Never again. Never, ever again.

To al-Qaeda and other barbarians sliming this earth.

We still remember Carthage.

A Solution

 

[Boghie]

Movin' a Bit Back Into The Market...

The market sentiment is looking 6 - 9 months out and ignoring pain. What is nine months out? We are talking about June of next year - when the elections are in full swing. My guess is that the market likes the fact that the front runners against President Obama are not milquetoast (most) politicians. They are betting on the election providing a Reaganesque attitude change.

• 0% G - Buying the dip
• 20% F - It is still September after all
• 45% C - The safest (I hope) of the equity funds
• 25% S - Buying the dip.
• 10% I - Underweighting this pig a bit more
• Return: I will have to guess at about 6% return, 8% risk

I hate equities in the summer - and especially in September and October. But, 'G Fund' guarantees 'The Alpo Meal Deal Retirement'. Also, we seem to have baked in an economic slowdown. It feels like da'Boyz are trying to migrate to equities in small chunks - small enough not to explode share prices. Finally, how does a 0.01%/day return hedge against equities. It doesn't. Thus, a bit more into the 'F Fund'. I have one more IFT this month.

 

[Boghie]

Re: Movin' a Bit Back Into The Market...

To Clarify with Quicken's expected risk and return:

• 0% G - Buying the dip
• 20% F - It is still September after all
• 45% C - The safest (I hope) of the equity funds
• 25% S - Buying the dip.
• 10% I - Underweighting this pig a bit more
• Expected Return: 6%
• Expected Risk: 9%

But, with one day of equities growth:

• 0% G - Buying the dip
• 19.949% F - It is still September after all
• 45.137% C - The safest (I hope) of the equity funds
• 24.957% S - Buying the dip.
• 9.958% I - Underweighting this pig a bit more
• Expected Return: 7%
• Expected Risk: 10%

Guess I shaved the allocation percentages a bit, eh...

It's odd that such a small fractional adjustment (One Day!!!) increased my expected risk by a full point. But, then again, it increased my expected return by a full point. Run baby run...

 

[Boghie]

Re: Movin' a Bit Back Into The Market...

Market has moved beyond correction, time for safety:

• 0% G - Still not in a market crash so Bonds should stay liquid
• 40% F - It is still September after all
• 40% C - The safest (I hope) of the equity funds
• 20% S - American mid-cap/small-cap should not be affected, but they have!!!
• 0% I - No reason to be here

Expected Return: 6%
Expected Risk: 8% (a modified standard deviation)

I wanted to be in a 6%/8% moderate risk allocation on 9/15, but I was so close to the boundries that a brief uptick in the market increased my risk. Very happy I cut my 'I Fund' allocation in half on that day. Still have part of September and all of October to survive. Hate locking in losses. Yuk.

The 40% F should buffer me a bit more than 20%.

G is for crashes, not there yet.

Been wrong all year

Yowser.