Jurgis

You can only protect people from themselves so much. ::)

You guys think that two Buffett clarifications posted on the other thread are not enough?

Nobody says that. Yeah, I know I should have said "compounded annualized returns" in the poll instead of the consecutive years options. Not gonna edit now. I have idea for another poll some other time. Regarding discussion, please use http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/strategies/buffett's-50-per-year-on-small-sums/ thread. Thanks.

Thank you for voting. 8)

I think you are misinterpreting my last statement. I did not say that outside view is not used. I said: So let's ask this: do you combine outside view probabilities with inside view probabilities in your process? If so, how do you calculate inside view probabilities?

To be strict, we shouldn't count current year, since it's not finished. But if you prefer to count it, it's up to you. I have no control over this and nobody's gonna ask you to support your claim. We are all rational and honest human beings here I presume. ;)

3 Buffetts among us so far. 8)

For strategy discussion or discussion on Buffett's claim, please use http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/strategies/buffett's-50-per-year-on-small-sums/ thread. Thanks.

This is related to Buffett's claim that he can generate 50%+ annual returns with low amount of money. Have fun.

Since you seem to be lonely here, I'll +1 that I liked Base Rate View somewhat. I and friends had a long discussion (to be continued perhaps) about "Thinking Fast and Slow". My one big conclusion from the discussion (in)applicable to investing: - You can possibly get outside view probabilities - not always but perhaps - You can have inside view - It's very hard to impossible to assign probabilities for inside view for various reasons (humans cannot think probabilistically, there's no prior data set for inside view, etc.) - So that's why almost nobody combines outside view probabilities to inside view probabilities in their process - or produce probabilistic models for investing. There are exceptions - somewhat. That's where people like Thorp make/made their money. Even he used mostly outside view + heuristics. I'm not sure he explicitly assigned inside view probabilities and did integration with outside view. Edit: when you can construct probabilistic models, they tend to work really well, like Thorp's friends/proteges who shoveled gains in Asian horse racing, etc.

Right. I probably should not have said free healthcare. The systems vary a lot depending on country. In some, you have to pay premiums to be covered. In some you have to pay for certain time to be covered (in the future too), similar to US social security. In some, there's no payment at all; it comes from general taxes. And so on. Thanks for clarifying Canada's model. :)

In addition moving to country X is often different from moving to country X and getting (medical) benefits from country X. The fact that you are allowed to live legally in country X doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to get free healthcare or other benefits from country X. The converse is that some countries don't have "pay for healthcare" concept at all, so you get free healthcare even if you are foreigner living there, since they have no way to price and charge you. I don't know how this is in case of Canada.

To be safe I'd double Fidelity's estimate of $240k per couple. So we are back to $500k for 65+ and whatever else you need until then. To reiterate this ( https://www.genworth.com/about-us/industry-expertise/cost-of-care.html ) estimates long term care at $5k per month, nursing home at $11k per month. They might be jacking up price display though, since they sell insurance. Even if you half the costs, $240K would be gone really fast. Of course, the flip side is that when you're in nursing home, you might not have other expenses??? But if your spouse isn't, that doesn't apply. Anyway, like I said to Liberty, people can decide themselves. Of course, majority of Americans may not save even 240K just for medical costs. Definitely throws a wrench into lower income MMMs.

If this is addressed to me, then, no, that's not what I am saying. What I am saying is that people who retire young, do not allocate enough money for increasing medical costs for the future. And the medical costs hit you late in life when going back to work is possibly not an option. In optimistic scenario, you retire early with a bigger nest egg than needed for other things, you continue to be frugal and your investments+frugality cover the shortage of medical funds == no problems. In pessimistic scenario, the shortage surfaces when you're 70+, with no chance of employment, hit by long term care costs == big problems. Well, maybe your earnings/savings go to near zero and Medicaid saves you. It's still your choice to retire or not. I'd rather be safe. Others can decide for themselves. I'm thinking about it, but weather sucks (in general) and RE prices suck (right now). And I'm not sure it's easy to get GC equivalent/citizenship for full benefit coverage. I'm considering other countries too. I'm also considering just having extra $1M for medical. 8)

Liberty, oddball already looked at MMM forum. MMM has a plan that is no longer available at that price point. Even if it was available, it doesn't address other problems I raised. I think it's not sustainable long term for his family either. We will see how his medical expenses go for the next 20-30 years... but then it will be too late for us who have to make decisions now. ( Of course he's now getting huge payoff from the blog, so even if medical goes through the roof, he can cover it. ). No, "work a year or two longer" won't cover medical. Try 10 years longer, then perhaps. I'm going for being very safe, and we can quibble, but I'm gonna stay with $1M number for just medical costs for the rest of one's life. I include everything in this number: insurance, copays, doctors, drugs, dental, long term care, etc. I think I'm being somewhat generous assuming $1M will cover a family. Sure, it's not a reason to abandon the retirement project. Just delays it. Caveats: yeah, people can risk and retire, go to cheapo country for medical if they get cancer/Alzheimers/etc maybe. I have relatives who've done that (although they had free coverage in target country, which is not given). Or perhaps USA institutes universal Medicare in next couple years and anyone who risked and retired wins. BTW, even with universal Medicare, I'd probably allocate ~$500K for any long term care needs until the end of life. This might be on the "very safe" side too, but people do need nursing homes and these cost a lot... even without butlers and Cadillacs.

Thanks oddball. Yeah, I think his "$237/mo in 2012 for a $20k family deductible plan with a max of $32k out of pocket" is presented overoptimistically. Like you said, it probably costs way more now. And someone commented on his site that it might not cover drugs and some other things. Also his post doesn't cover health deterioration and premium increases as you age (offset by Medicare from 65, but not for things that Medicare doesn't cover). In short, I agree with you:

I'll ask lazy question (i.e. I did not search on MMM blog): How does he deal with medical costs? I am talking US medical costs, not Canadian/UK/other-somewhat-socialist-countries. Isn't the costs something like ~$10K a year per person for unemployed? OK, so you can non-insure while you are young and healthy, but what you gonna do if when you are old and need long term care which is something like $30-60K a year? It's a serious question, because IMO this is the biggest hurdle to retire in US. Theoretically, assuming no medical costs, I could retire tomorrow. With medical costs, you may need something like $1M in current dollars for 30+ years of potentially high medical bills. Yeah, at some point you get Medicare, but that doesn't cover everything AFAIK. (Dirty calc: $500K * 3% = 15K per year for medical, I am taking 3% to avoid drawdowns, any good quality long term care will be way above 15K a year, so $1M instead of 500k?). Any comments, insights, ideas welcome. I already know the suggestion to move to a country with lower medical costs. 8)

Yes, right. A lot of my engineer friends are so clueless about investing that it's scary. The worst ones don't even invest into our company's super-great ESPP that guarantees 15% return. And then there's a step ladder of various misconceptions from that. I think the problem of this thread is that it conflates two quite different topics: 1. Will serious professional investors like people frequenting CoBF be disappointed with index performance going from this point. And what such people should do. 2. Will Joe and Jane Average be disappointed with index performance sometime in the future and/or leave indexes at the wrong time.

That's partially what I am doing. Issue with this: BRKA - Buffett may die soon; personally I don't think it will do well after Buffett. Fairfax - you can read about Fairfax issues on CoBF and decide whether it will outperform market going forward. ;) MKL - rather expensive right now.

Stats? Although, yeah, I also love how rightwingers are now against Hillary as war-monger. Aren't they the party of military strength and American power extension over the world? What you said is true for both sides, no? :P This doesn't count you, you are consistent. I'm pointing a finger at some others ;)

Perhaps you should listen to John Bogle before writing this...

Oh, please. You don't even know the real left. Let me tell you a secret: all my real left friends completely agree with you on Obama/Hillary/Bush/etc. wars. I should welcome you and your C-buddy to the real left. We love you guys. Sometimes. I never said I was real left. You just want to engage in tribalism and paint left with single brush, don't you?

So in your world it is better if a dictator kills thousands or millions of people and others should not intervene because they might kill some civilians during intervention? Interesting empathy... I'm pretty sure millions of Koreans and hundreds of thousands in Balkans would disagree with you. Sure, it doesn't always work. Unfortunately. Welcome to real life.

Care to provide stats? Please do count Ukraine, Georgia and Syria from Russian side. But yeah, if I was living in a country run by a repressive regime, I would support USA invading my country to get rid of said regime. Even accounting for collateral damage. The real problem is not USA. The real problem is that the new regime is usually not much better and that most of damage comes from internal infighting.

Since you haven't lived under Russian occupation for 20+ years, I'm gonna go with you and that rightwing poster being naive rather than me. Putin is evil nutcase. And anyone believing otherwise is just someone living in their pink cuddly shell which is very far away from Russia. Or bought by Putin propaganda ... like certain presidential candidate. (Oh, noes, Russia does not have propaganda machine, only Hillary does... )