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Be aware that an index fund, like Vanguard's or USAA's, charge about 0.18% for management. These are not "managed" funds. They are on autopilot and cost almost nothing. Managed funds can become insane and charge 5%. The 2-4% being discussed here is not from the elimination of fees. An S&P500 index fund is dirt cheap at 0.18%. The 2-4% in question here comes from the index itself being flawed.

As I approach relevant events, I am studying the crap out of this healthcare stuff. Guys, it appears to me that the huge issue is pre-existing conditions. I am hanging out on a lot of generic early retirement discussion boards. The people on those do not necessarily care about leaving the country to retire. They just want to retire. Many cannot and it's because of pre-existing conditions. If you are working, the group healthcare plan offered by your employer is required to NOT consider pre-existing conditions. They have to cover everyone they hire. When you are not working,

Before I do, a comment re: Eneukman's point. And the comment is "exactly". The point of the study is that the index is flawed. It may indeed describe "the market" in a broad sense, but not in a precise sense. The largest capitalization stocks are powerful in the index. It is possible that they should not be. 1/N addresses that and seems to outperform it. Now, as for variance capture. If you have the index of 100 FTSE stocks or 500 S&P stocks, the overall price fluctuation of that index can be described by an average and a sigma (standard deviation). The motion from 1 and 2 a

A few other thoughts: 1) I don't know if you are an investor, but if so it may help your frame of mind to understand that years like this one have often been called more frustrating than booms or crashes. Going sideways chews up the calendar and you make jack and the days pass and you make jack and the frustration extends into the rest of your life. If this is in play for you, be on your guard that your frame of thought is not normal because of it. 2) If you're young, a stint in Asian banking could be very good for your career -- and there may be some unexpected benefit of maybe an a

I'm gonna reply to myself because that was so badly written: An S&P500 Index Fund would have given you about 5% gain last year (2005). It has become customary to call that "The Market". People who think they can beat the market usually don't. Most fund managers fail to do so. The S&P is a capitalization based index. Companies are put in the index and given a divisor. The divisor is capitalization based. When each company's price is divided by that divisor and all the 500 results of that are added up, you get the S&P500 index. A study has popped up challenging

Spent a lot of time in Singapore over the years. A bit of background: Singapore is and has been for about 30 years the dominant power of the region both financially and militarily. They take very seriously the military threat unfolding in islamic Indonesia. All of their military strategic planning is strictly offensive. They have reasoned, rightly, that they cannot defend such a small territory so they will fight all wars on the enemy's territory. Or rather, over it. Singapore funds very high quality Air Force with F-16 avionic block versions far superior to Thailand's. Singapore

Folks, Those of you who are using or plan to use personal investment portfolios as a source of living expenses might be interested in the following. Warning: esoterica follows. A few months ago a study in the US emerged concerning the concept of index mutual funds. It has been known for some time now that most "managed" mutual funds, with costs embedded within the fund to pay for that "management", tend to underperform the overall market. In the US the index that measure the market is usually quoted as either the Dow Jones Industrial Average or more recently the Standards and Poors

shilo, I don't think domestic policies cover you overseas. Maybe you can find one that does, but this is why TravelGuard exists in general -- to cover medical costs encountered during vacation elsewhere. There are possible reasons to get a policy before quitting, but I suspect this isn't one of them. I would suggest that what you have to do is contact the health plans that do business in Thailand -- maybe thru the Expats club -- even before you arrive just to ask them what "pre-existing" conditions means for them. Given you were a smoker and are overweight . . . I'll tell ya, I wou

Saturday night introspection by a bunch of guys who are not pleased. In general. Not pleased. All of us. The change of residency -- gotta move there and seem to mean to stay there. Nevada won't be the one to complain. It will be Calif or NY or whatever other state wants your bux. It will be THEY who complain. The key is to stop their curiosity before it gets underway. Do not just stop filing tax forms there. That will trigger the curiosity. Time everything so you file a single part year resident form the year you move. That single item will answer their questions and put the

I have not moved but this is much on my mind and my trigger date is defined more by the market than the calendar. Two things: 1) I plan a maildrop / forwarding service in Nevada. The rules for domicile for tax purposes seem to sum up as . . . did you move there and did you intend to stay there. You only have to move there and intend to stay there . . . for a time. I think the key is to be there (there being a zero tax state) long enough to file a tax return there, meaning a part year tax return for your old state. That way the old state has a record of where you went. It stops an

Two suggestions: 1) At no time have alcohol involved when dealing with this problem. 2) Put the house and land up for sale at your fair asking price that will get offers, accept one of those offers as soon as possible, close the deal and walk away. Far away.

I confess I don't have a great read of where the transition threshold is for working overseas, but I think there is one. There are a lot of bankers who work in Hong Kong. They make western salaries, pay Asian cost of living and save/invest one helluva lot of money over 10-15 yrs. In that business, they don't fall behind. I've talked to guys who go to Asia to work in other fields and the one thing they mention that catches my attention is that they work on "old stuff". In whatever field that is not finance, they do not stay current. Asia doesn't innovate construction techniques, or

Usual caveats, guys, as regards "pre existing conditions". If you have had a heart attack, you are in a special category that insurers do not want to touch. How broadly the term "pre existing conditions" is interpreted to be is dicey. I have heard of guys on hypertension medication being said to have a "pre-existing cardio vascular condition". That means no coverage for stroke, heart attack, kidney failure and a ton of other things. The pre existing condition clauses are, frankly, more important than the price. You have to get past those clauses first before you would even look

A thought re: low depreciation on cars. This is a big deal in the world of leasing. When you lease a car, you are paying for: 1) interest on the loan that funds the decline in value of the car over time 2) the amount of decline in the value of the car I have no idea if leasing is even offered in Thailand, but if it was it would look something like this in a low depreciation environment: The car costs 1.2 million baht. You're going to drive it for 2 yrs and when you turn it back in it will be worth 1.1 million baht. So all you're financing is 100,000 baht over two years

Interesting TT. How do they get insurance? Will not the insurance companies declare the value to be decreasing each year and cover it only for that amount?

Oh hell, since I f'ed that up, here's another tidbit I have noticed guys not paying attention to. "I have a car. Gas costs me X baht, insurance is Y baht. Oil changes Z baht. My annual costs are therefore X + Y + Z and monthly /12 and I don't pay the bus or train or tuk tuk or mototaxi to go to BKK or up north or out of town." No. You forgot depreciation. It's not some vague bullcrap thing. It's real. You buy a car for 600K baht, you ain't selling it 3 years from now for 600K. In the US the depreciation rate would be about 300K of the 600K baht over 3 yrs for a brand new

A bad error on my part Ting Tong. Good catch, and frankly that makes the situation more profoundly serious. The error derived from my difficulty accepting that a condo might only cost $10,000 USD. Turns out I should have trusted that it would be 100K USD and adjusted the baht total accordingly, not vice versa. The calculations were done in baht. 5% of 400K baht is 20K baht per year, but that is now moot and wrong. I suppose the example is very poor because no condo will cost that little. I'll scope the condo threads and see what is a typical number and re-present the numbers.

Perhaps a new tidbit of sorts I haven't babbled about before. The quotes of monthly living expenses vary because guys have different tastes, ages, drink/smoke or don't drink/smoke and like to take trips or don't. But one thing that can be addressed explicitly is the concept of : I own my condo so I don't have any monthly housing expense. No, gents, it doesn't work that way. Let's take the case where your condo does not appreciate. You buy it and someday can sell it for what exactly what you paid for it. No gain; no loss. You ante up maybe what, 400,000 baht for it? Mayb

Ha. First base, 2nd base, 3rd base . . . baseball. The runner starts at "home". He hits a ball. If it is not caught and he can run to first base (90 feet away) before the ball gets thrown to a guy "guarding" that base, then he has "made it to first base" . . . having hit a single. If another batter behind him now also hits "safely" that runner on first base will advance to 2nd or 3rd base. His final goal is to return to "home" and doing so scores a run and he is done and goes and sits down for a while. So getting to 2nd base means you've made good progress. Getting to 3rd base

MrStein, I have a sense here that there may not be common calibration in what's being discussed. Much of what you're saying seems to be pointed at accumulating big money. See, that comment is somewhat contradictory to the title of the thread. The idea of CD laddering is for people who are already on 3rd base (the brits have no idea what we're talking about). If you already have a nestegg that you're pretty sure is going to last the rest of your life, and do so providing a very comfortable lifestyle, why take risks? Maturity laddering is what one does to maximize the fixed

You know what, Gary, I knew that was coming as soon as I hit the send key. Inversion of the yield curve. It's not the normal state of affairs.

Let's not talk about what is enough or what you plan. Let me offer a thought that is not rocket science and well known in the literature. It's called laddering. You just divided 400K by 25 and got your $1333/mo (49K baht). Clearly you can park some money in the bank for a few percent interest and improve on that, and I'm sure you know that. This is an idea that shows you how to optimize on that few percent. Let's talk about CDs. For the UK guys, a CD is a certificate of deposit. It is you lending money to the bank for a specified maturity period. Dunno what you call the instrum

You know, we all just leap to the keyboard and start pounding out gems when we're in various moods. It's Friday friggin night in the US, a hard week of work is done and worse weeks are on my particular horizon upcoming with probably half of the nights of the next month spent in hotels in three different time zones -- and MrStein uncorks this little gem of a troll. Nah, it's not a troll. It's too sophisticated. You know what it is? It's Friday friggin night wherever MrStein happens to be too and he wants out of his situation as fast as he can get out of his too, and he's looking for the

Lots of good stuff in MrStein's post. This item above I want to jump on because it's related to a pet hobby horse I have here on the board, and because I want to go to bed leaving the guys with an upbeat note. I usually pound on my keyboard here telling guys not to dart off to Pattaya without satisfying the magical 4-4.5% money issue for extraction from their assets. Well, I have a bit of good news for all. The 4-4.5% perspective is based on history for several things. 1) The stock market, 2) bond returns and 3) inflation. The calculators that come up with 4% as the extract

You former US civil servants and retired military who can get health care overseas have a big plus, as long as it lasts. When one turns 65, as of now, private insurers start saying no. And I mean no at almost any price. The pre-existing conditions total have accumulated to an unacceptable level by then. So this becomes a major reason to keep an eye on Medicare. If expats succeed in getting Medicare to send money for treatment overseas, the age 65 problem disappears. If not, one has a very difficult issue to address at age 65. Keep an eye on this, guys. When govt pe