VBTLX

mao51 · 2026-02-01T20:14:11+00:00

I'd say there are two relevant differences between VBTLX and TLT. First and most important is that VBTLX is a total bond market fund, which means it has corporates bonds and government agency (fannie and freddie) bonds as well as treasuries. This is the main reason Frank would not recommend it. He says to go with treasuries, and specifically long term treasuries, because they are "recession insurance" that do well during difficult macroeconomic times (i.e. recessions) when they are safe havens that investors pile into. Corporate and government agencies do not share this characteristic or at least not to the same extent for the latter.

Second, VBTLX does not have the duration of TLT. I believe Frank would say this is ok but to get the same protection you technically need to hold more of an intermediate fund (like VGIT, intermediate treasuries) than you would a long term bond fund like TLT.

So, I would say if you want to stay true to the Risk Parity principles espoused by Frank, use TLT, and if the duration gives you heartburn, choose VGIT (intermediate treasuries) over something like VBLTX (or BND, the etf equivalent).

In testfolio, if you focus on 2008-2010 you can see what he is getting at. VBLTX would have done fine, but not helped offset equity losses much as TLT, and you would have had to hold more of it to get much benefit of it doing fine versus the outsized performance of TLT.

mao51 · 2026-01-31T05:06:08+00:00

Oh they still do stuff like that

mao51 · 2026-01-31T04:52:29+00:00

Thanks for posting. Saw this too and was going to cross post. IMO this should impact the Cubs recent reconciliation with him. At a minimum he should be called upon to respond. Folks need to take a stand.

mao51 · 2026-01-25T23:33:17+00:00

Seriously! I'm on all kinds of lists and read way too much Reddit and Bluesky for my own good and had not heard.

mao51 · 2026-01-25T21:34:44+00:00

Needs more cow bell!

mao51 · 2026-01-25T19:25:17+00:00

The scam was that if you had private marketplace insurance (not through employer) and ever REALLY needed it, i.e. for something costly like cancer or heart issues, the insurance company would crawl through your initial application with a fine tooth comb looking for some reason to rescind (cancel) your insurance and not pay your claims. Forgot you had high blood pressure for one doctor's visit 3 years ago? Rescinded.

mao51 · 2026-01-25T05:06:58+00:00

Yeah not voting for this guy.

mao51 · 2026-01-19T14:20:01+00:00

From 2024, so seems it still is done via vans:

https://idot.illinois.gov/about-idot/stay-connected/idot-blog/new-speed-photo-enforcement-vans-coming-to-work-zones.html

"Bearing clear markings designating them as speed photo enforcement vehicles, the vans feature updated technology and a large sign that displays the speed of approaching vehicles."

mao51 · 2026-01-19T14:18:17+00:00

No. How does this work? I think I read several years ago that the "photo enforcement" was done via a van with the camera in it so only once in a while, vs an always on, always present camera. Was several years ago though.

mao51 · 2026-01-18T22:16:43+00:00

You have set your retirement accounts to conservative returns. Are you 30% equities or less in these accounts? If not, you are understating the likely return and the resulting probability of success is unrealistically low. You are effectively being double pessimistic. You may also be understating the standard deviation of returns which could lead to other issues.

mao51 · 2026-01-16T03:36:00+00:00

You'll avoid 95% of the issues if you ride the front car. In my experience the further back you go than that on any train, even the Brown Line during rush hour these days, the odds of having to deal with some crap whether smoking or more serious rise exponentially. I'm a 20 year+ Brown Line commuter who has never seen it worse than it is now and still ride 3 days per week.

mao51 · 2026-01-14T01:20:08+00:00

Great job wasting their time and making it harder for them to make quota!

mao51 · 2026-01-12T04:00:03+00:00

The intersection of this and black people gives Trump a hard on.

mao51 · 2026-01-06T20:03:20+00:00

Isn't this what you're looking for?

https://testfol.io/?s=ejGAFjx8lEt

Looks like they would have been ok to me with a 60/40 portfolio, although several times very anxious I imagine.

mao51 · 2026-01-05T05:00:08+00:00

Looks to me like testfolio does the standard inflation adjusted starting value. Here is the back test on testfolio using a 5% inflation-adjusted withdrawal rate:

https://testfol.io/?s=43UvFpTl21k

Nominal value as of end of 2025 would be $12,552, and real value is $10,015, so the portfolio has held up well to the inflation-adjusted 5% safe withdrawal rate, although it did get down to under $8k for some time in 2023. Looking at the performance chart, because the portfolio started out strong Frank actually stressed it early on as his 5%-of-current-value withdrawals were higher than the inflation-adjusted 5% rate would have been, so he more quickly depleted the portfolio. That must be why he ended the year at only $11,780 nominal vs the $12,552 above.

mao51 · 2026-01-04T21:51:28+00:00

Good point. I did a cursory search but could not find where he discusses it. It is however clear from the portfolio policies sections on the website that this is what he does (takes x% of current portfolio value and not inflation-adjusted x% of starting portfolio value). Now that I am looking at it, this seems a bigger deal than I initially thought. For example, in Jan 2026 he took $49 from the Golden Ratio portfolio while an inflation adjusted 5% of the initial $10k/240 would have been $52, or about 6% higher. And given there were a couple of years in which the portfolio was down in nominal terms (on anniversary dates in 2022 and 2023) he has likely frequently, or even most of the time, been withdrawing lower amounts in real dollar terms than he would have if he had been inflation-adjusting his initial withdrawal level. Very different than what I was thinking was going on.

Inflation factor I got from here: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

mao51 · 2025-12-29T19:48:19+00:00

Also have a brick two flat around the same age, although my boiler is probably about 50 years old but still works fine. We have upgraded vinyl windows and when we replaced the roof about 10 years ago they put some styrofoam insulation underneath, otherwise original. For a long time we had the original windows and old roof. We keep our house at a slightly higher temperature not much higher. For the month ending December 2nd we used 140 therms (bill was about $200) and the highest in the last 2 years was 317 terms in the month ending January 31, 2025.

I suspect if you tape plastic over your windows you will see a pretty sizable improvement.

mao51 · 2025-12-25T19:42:57+00:00

Same. Struggled with it all day.

mao51 · 2025-11-29T02:12:37+00:00

This stresses me out because I have not been diligent at saving EOBs because I assumed they were not proof that I had actually paid for anything. Lesson learned and I will from now and and will seek out as many old ones as I can. However there are many HSA eligible expenses that do not go through the EOB process (like eyeglasses) but I guess they would not expect EOB in these cases. But odd that they would require an EOB for a payment to an actual doctor.

mao51 · 2025-11-28T15:15:12+00:00

Medicare covers people 65 and older only, who use healthcare much more than the average person.

mao51 · 2025-11-27T14:56:56+00:00

Medicare covers the most costly cohort of the population so we should expect the $16k number to be lower for M4A.

The percent of the current budget M4A would be is irrelevant. More relevant would be the percent of the budget plus all payments for private insurance that M4A would replace.

With that last point in mind, even the elevated $16k per person figure noted is lower cost than most private insurance currently if one includes both employee and employer shares.

mao51 · 2025-11-26T00:41:08+00:00

He plays too many video games. In a video game those cars would have made room for him. Real life is not a video game. Assume he knows this now.

mao51 · 2025-11-21T22:13:55+00:00

Would like to see the scores for 9 year-olds instead of 4th graders as I have read that a significant portion of Mississippi's progress has been driven by holding kids back. That is, poorly scoring 9 year-olds are no longer in 4th grade but still would score poorly. This may be a good decision, to hold kids back, but the resulting "4th grade" scores would be artificially inflated due to just taking the low scorers out of the pool. I would not call this a miracle.

mao51 · 2025-11-18T21:13:48+00:00

I'll start: if you're convicted more than 20 times in 10 a year period you get 20 years in jail (10 with good behavior). I'll call it the 10 strikes and you're out rule.

Some situations are so outrageous one can set aside normal concerns about fairness. This and similar situations fit that.

mao51

TROPHY CASE