Mostly Mary [0:01]

A foolish consistency, is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. A different drummer and now, coming to you from dead center, on your dial. Welcome to Risk Parity Radio, where we explore alternatives and asset allocations for the do-it-yourself investor, broadcasting to you now from the comfort of his easy chair. Here is your host, frank Vasquez.

Mostly Uncle Frank [0:37]

Thank you, Mary, and welcome to Risk Parity Radio. If you are new here and wonder what we are talking about, you may wish to go back and listen to some of the foundational episodes for this program.

Others [0:50]

Yeah, baby, yeah.

Mostly Uncle Frank [0:52]

And the basic foundational episodes are episodes 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. Some of our listeners, including Karen and Chris, have identified additional episodes that you may consider foundational, and those are episodes 12, 14, 16, 19, 21, 56, 82, and 184. Whoa, and you probably should check those out too, because we have the finest podcast audience available.

Mostly Mary [1:26]

Top drawer, really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:31]

Along with a host named after a hot dog.

Others [1:34]

Lighten up Francis.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:37]

But now onward to episode 376. I'm back. Release the hounds. I had a very nice visit to Chicago, saw a few friends, including Diana Mariam and Jacob Lund Fisker and another eight or nine guys who shall not be named but whom I grew up with. Let us ride to Camelot.

Others [2:04]

We're knights of the round table. We dance whenever we're able, we do routines, we call the scenes, we footwork impeccable. We dine well here in Camelot. We eat ham and jam and spam a lot.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:15]

And we had a really good time. We're knights of the round table.

Others [2:19]

Our shows are for the table. So many times we give and ride but aren't quite dancing able. We're off from mad in Camelot.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:35]

So I guess the question is did I miss anything? Real wrath of God type stuff? Yes, it appears that it was an election and the markets went crazy, and I'm sure there's more ups and downs left to come, but we will not be spending our time prognosticating or adjusting our portfolios based on such events. You can't handle the dogs and cats living together Mass hysteria. Instead, we will tend to your emails, and so, without further ado, here I go once again with the email.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:20]

First off. First off, we have an email from Anderson. All the old boys are going to be here this year.

Mostly Mary [3:37]

First off we have an email from Anderson and Anderson writes Previously you moved me to the front of the line for donating to the Father McKenna charity. However, I did not and feel guilty for getting skipped ahead. Feel free to move me to the very end of the line and then some. I have a question about HSA funding. I am 38 and have six kids and we make approximately $115,000 a year. My order of operations for funding retirement has been 1, get employer match. Two, max HSA. Three, contribute to Roth. Currently we can manage getting employer match and maxing HSA. My plan was to grow HSA to some number say $75,000 to $100,000, and then no longer contribute and let it grow. However, right now I pay almost no taxes due to so many dependents. In 15 years that will change significantly, which would likely be the time I stopped contributing to the HSA. If I followed the original plan. Do you think I should change my retirement contribution strategy as my taxes are so low currently, or am I just overthinking this? As always, thanks, anderson.

Others [4:45]

Well, john Thomas how long's it been that long huh? Oh sure, I got Dick's number.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:55]

Well, anderson, I feel almost compelled to move you to the front of the line, since Mary is the eldest of six children and I am the fourth of five. We have great sympathy for those with large families.

Mostly Uncle Frank [5:12]

Fredo, you're my older brother and I love you, but don't ever take sides with anyone against the family again, ever and just so all the rest of you know how that works if you donate to our sponsored charity, the Father McKenna Center, you get to go to the front of the email line. The Father McKenna Center supports hungry and homeless people in Washington DC and there are a couple different ways you can give. You can go through our support page and join our patrons on Patreon who give on a monthly basis. Or you can go straight to the Father McKenna website donation page and give there. We take cash, stock clothes, food, all kinds of stuff.

Others [5:52]

Yeah, baby, yeah.

Mostly Uncle Frank [5:54]

But if you make a donation to the Father McKenna Center and tell me about it in your email, I will move you to the front of the line Full disclosure. I am on the board of the Father McKenna Center and am the current treasurer, so now let's tend to your email. My initial reaction is yeah, you are probably overthinking this because, as you say, your taxable income sounds like it's really low, and so the sole purpose of these accounts for you would be the long-term tax-free growth that you could get out of either an HSA or a Roth. I think what's probably going to make the ultimate difference is what your long-term plan is for the HSA money, because it has several different treatments and can be used for other expenses when you get to 65. But it also has some disadvantages if you leave that HSA to an heir, because I believe you still have to spend that right away or take it as a tax hit, so it's not something you want to leave to heirs. The Roth is much more flexible and easier to deal with on that score and remember, if it's a Roth IRA, you can always withdraw the contributions from it as you go. So there's probably a bit more flexibility with the Roth, but your assets are going to grow the same regardless of whether they're in an HSA or a Roth. So I'd probably choose the Roth first in your circumstance or just choose some of both.

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:27]

That's often the correct answer to any question where you have two good choices and an uncertain future. Some of each is often the best answer you can get at, simply due to the fact that it's an uncertain future, and it seems to me that you can manage this effectively whichever way you go. So I wouldn't lose any sleep over it Not that you're getting any sleep with six kids, forget about it. Anyway, hopefully that helps. And thank, sleep with six kids. Forget about it. Anyway, hopefully that helps, and thank you for your email.

Others [8:05]

That's the way they all became the Brady Bunch. The Brady Bunch, the Brady Bunch. That's the way they became the Brady Bunch.

Mostly Uncle Frank [8:19]

Second off. Second off, we have a small novel from Camille Mary Mary, why you bugging? And Camille expounds Hi Frank.

Mostly Mary [8:38]

I came across a recent episode of Choose FI where you were the guest and got drawn in by hearing that I could possibly plan for retirement with a higher withdrawal rate than in the normative 4% rule. I then turned to your Risk Parity Radio podcast and have finished listening to your beginning, episodes 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. I would like some advice on diversifying my investments and what I can do with my investments when I am no longer considered a resident in the United States. I'll start by explaining my situation. I am from Canada but have been working in the United States for 10 years, plus a bid.

Others [9:18]

Good day, how's it going? I'm Bob McKenzie. This residency in the US, but for tax purposes.

Mostly Mary [9:37]

I file as a permanent resident and my accountants told me I cannot have investments in Canada at the same time. Well, I could, but it wouldn't be a wise tax move. So I have some money in Canada, still basically just in cash. I have a high income in the United States, though I pay for that mental health-wise. I am a nurse in the Bay Area and earn about $400,000 per year. I work a ton of on-call hours to get to this income level. Comparatively, if I worked in Canada I might make 90,000 dollars a year. If I worked in the UK, I might crack 40,000 pounds if I were lucky.

Mostly Mary [10:09]

I have gotten on the financial independence bandwagon, probably a bit unhealthily obsessed with the goal, but very much feel I need to keep this job of mine in California until I reach financial independence. I'm a big traveler and have traveled to 70 plus countries and worked or volunteered in every continent, including six months in Antarctica, so I realized that Bay Area prices are astronomically higher than elsewhere in the world. My goal, though flexible, is to reach financial independence and move to Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines or a similar locale. I do not budget precisely, but spend about $70,000 per year currently and about $2,450 per month on rent. I think I could comfortably live on about $60,000 per year almost anywhere else in the world.

Mostly Mary [11:00]

A bit more about me I don't own any assets besides my 2016 Mini Cooper. I am single, 39 years old and no kids. I have been an aggressive saver the last four years and my net worth currently is about $1.1 million. A spot of embarrassment for me is that about $140 of that net worth is currently owed to me in a real estate investment deal that went south. I was solely an investor in a flip the contractor slash owner lost out when selling the house at the peak of the 8% mortgage rates and he now owes me that $140,000. I have a contract that guaranteed my investment back. He's a long-term friend, so I haven't sought legal action, but he's now been owing me this money for over a year, so I don't really know if I can be counting this in my net worth anymore or not. So, fair to say, it scared me off from doing any other real estate investments.

Mostly Mary [12:04]

That aside, I have about 20% of funds in Betterment, which has me at 90% stocks and 10% bond portfolio. I have another almost 30% invested in a brokerage at Vanguard, which is all stocks, VUG, vtsax and MGK. I have about 20% invested in my 403B with Fidelity, which is also stocks Don't recommend me too bad but I also have about 5% in crypto. I have about 4% in a high yield savings and about 10% in my Canadian cash account. If social security still exists when I'm 65, I should receive about $1,800 a month. I am working towards the goal of having a $1.5 million net worth, but of course I have days of doubt where I think I need $1.7 million, etc. But anyway, those numbers are based on a 4% withdrawal rate.

Mostly Mary [12:52]

I really really despise my job, but I am stuck with it due to visa issues. I cannot work for a different company in the United States unless I get a new visa with that company, and it is hard to do, and I am tied to it due to the high salary that I wouldn't be able to achieve elsewhere. It takes years to gain seniority in the healthcare world, protected by unions, and seniority then gives you the privilege of taking these on-call shifts to make more money. I have been trying to take an aggressive approach to my growth phase of financial independence, although not sure if that's the smartest. I have avoided investing in almost any bonds, number one due to lower returns. And number two due to the fact that I am unsure how I can take out long-term bonds if and when I will leave the United States. And three, I looked into investing in I-bonds once and the government said I needed to be a permanent resident, like have a green card, which I don't have. So maybe I have over complicated things or maybe not.

Mostly Mary [13:51]

My questions are what would your recommendations be to diversify my portfolio now while I'm still in the growth phase of financial independence, although getting closer to reaching my goal in the next one to two years? How should I modify my investments once I reach financial independence and presuming that I am moving out of the country in two years and not positive where I will be settling, what should I do with my investments once leaving the US? I believe that, since I will not have any residency in the US when I am not working here anymore, I do not believe I am supposed to be holding US financial accounts. Would I be able to do a 5% withdrawal rate not based in the US and potentially, might I have to claim residency back in Canada again to be able to receive appropriate stock market slash bond return versus in countries like in Mexico or Indonesia. Thank you for your consideration and all your wise words of advice to the financial independence community.

Mostly Mary [14:52]

Hi, I emailed on Sunday, september 22nd. I realized my first email was a bit hasty and I'm hoping I can amend a few things. I realize I might actually be doing okay as to where my portfolio is at the moment in the accumulation phase, basically all in stocks and once I reach financial independence I will model my portfolio after the golden ratio or golden butterfly portfolios Three. My main question is where to move my funds after I leave ratio or golden butterfly portfolios Three. My main question is where to move my funds after I leave the US. Gold is a pretty easy international investment, but the other asset classes I feel lost on. Thank you.

Mostly Uncle Frank [15:29]

And now I believe you have exhausted Mary, mary, mary, I need your huggin'. Thank you, mary. All right, let's work through your expose. My first observation is the questions that I cannot answer, but since you have an accountant that should help you, because they are tax questions and it seems like you've already had a number of conversations with them as to treatment of assets while you are working in the United States and where you should hold your accounts, and I've concluded, based on the accountant's advice, that you should hold them in the US. I do not know whether that's good advice or not, but I assume you're working with somebody competent.

Mostly Mary [16:22]

Hearts and kidneys are tinker toys.

Mostly Uncle Frank [16:25]

But here's the big question when you leave the US to go live in another country and assuming you're not coming back and don't have any real need to be connected with the US, coming back and don't have any real need to be connected with the US I would imagine that your accountant is going to advise you to get your accounts out of the US, or at least the ones you can get out of the US. I'm not sure what you can do with that 403B, because the problem with leaving accounts in the US is you may be subject to various US taxation schemes that you may not be subject to if the accounts are located somewhere else and for non-US nationals. There's usually no reason you would want to put assets in the United States unless you have to, because it creates all kinds of reporting and other requirements. So my guess is it's going to make sense to move all of the assets in the accounts you currently hold in the US to accounts outside the US at the time you leave the US. Now I would guess, and what you should look into, is using interactive brokers as your broker and perhaps even, while they're in the US, moving it to an account, a US-based account there, and then switching it to a foreign-based account when you leave. Now, interactive Brokers has Canadian-based accounts. I don't know if it makes sense for you to use a Canadian-based account or to use an account that's based in some other jurisdiction, like the Cayman Islands or something like that. These are all questions that you need to be talking to your accountant about, because they will affect how your assets are ultimately taxed, as well as which jurisdictions are taxing them, and so I would be having those discussions with your accountant now to see whether there's something you're supposed to do or need to do now, or would be better if you did now, as opposed to waiting and eventually transferring these assets somewhere else.

Mostly Uncle Frank [18:26]

One thing you probably do not want to do is hold US-based accounts when you're living somewhere else. Oftentimes, a lot of US brokers or financial institutions won't let you hold an account with a foreign address because it creates too many reporting requirements on their end, and so they just say we're not doing it. Not going to do it Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture, but I think interactive brokers is probably the place to go, because they support accounts worldwide and can relocate them in various jurisdictions, and they'll also allow you to trade things in multiple jurisdictions, including the US or Canada or many dozens of other ones, using ETFs and other financial instruments. Just about anything that you would want to trade you can trade there at Interactive Brokers. That is actually where we hold our primary taxable account.

Mostly Uncle Frank [19:28]

All right, now let's talk about your investments. What your investments reveal about you is that you've been trying to beat the market, which is very tempting and it works sometimes, and in fact, you can see that in your case, it has worked very well, for instance, with your selection of MGK. It probably hasn't worked as well with whatever Betterment has you in. I would not use robo thingies or target date thingies. More complicated mint is not better. Am I right? Or am I right or am I right?

Mostly Uncle Frank [20:00]

Right right, right, and I can't see you really being able to even use tax loss harvesting when only part of your assets are there, and we're not talking about $10 million, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, regardless of what you do, I would get your money out of Betterment. Forget about it. Okay, so MGK has worked very well for you because over the past five years or so, the best performers in the US stock market and worldwide stock markets have been these extremely large cap growth companies, these tech companies. Historically, these things go in phases that you cannot time. Another good example of this was in the late 1990s, where you saw these kinds of companies grow hand over fist for about five years in a row and then it all came crashing down in 2000 to 2002, and they lost up to 80% of their value. Whether that's going to happen again, and when it's going to happen again, I don't know, and you don't know either, but it's a possibility.

Others [21:07]

A really big one here, which is huge.

Mostly Uncle Frank [21:12]

Now, obviously, where your attempts to beat the market have failed or have not worked out as well is with this real estate investment you made, and it was good of you to come clean about it, because it's a substantial part of your assets. Now it is an asset on your balance sheet, but I don't think you can rely on that at this point as something you can include in what you plan to retire upon. The lesson you should probably learn from this is not only be careful what you invest in, but don't invest in illiquid things, because, especially if you are planning on retiring, you don't want anything that's illiquid. You want it all liquid. You want it in ETFs and other things that you can sell whenever you want to and you're not faced with something that's tied up in some kind of real estate investment. Tied up in some kind of real estate investment. If something is illiquid, like a real estate holding, then it needs to be generating income for it to be a useful retirement investment. Something that is not liquid and not generating income is not something you want in any retirement portfolio, unless you're just completely over-saved. All right, let's move on to the next part of your email. You're talking about a goal of having $1.5 to $1.7 million as your retirement assets, but right now, it seems like you only have about $900,000, at least in these funds, not including the real estate investment. I don't think it's realistic for you to expect to get there in one to two years, unless you are saving a whole lot of money in these accounts, because typically, you would expect an investment of $900,000 in index funds to double about every seven years, but that's without adding anything to it. Obviously, if you're adding to that, it's going to double on average in less than seven years. It could take longer, though, and that is the difficulty of trying to time things exactly when you are investing in something that is volatile like the stock market. This problem does kind of go away if you can just be flexible, because if you just keep contributing more to your investments and letting them grow over time, yes, they will get there. Whether they get there in three years or 10 years, though, is unclear. I would be doubtful they would get there in one or two, unless you are literally saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. I think it's fine to continue with the index funds while you're in your accumulation phase, but as you get closer to pulling the plug on this.

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:55]

You do want to start thinking about, well, what do I want my portfolio to look like when I am in retirement? Whether it's going to look like something like a golden butterfly or a golden ratio or some variation on that theme. So to facilitate that, first off, I would start making future investments into value-tilted stocks, like a small-cap value fund, like AVUV would be a good fund, or VIOV, the Vanguard fund, ciov, the Vanguard Fund, because you are going to want a kind of 50-50 value split when you get to retirement as far as your equities are concerned. I mean a 50-50 growth and value split. And since you seem to be past Bon Jovi Phi well, you're halfway there there this is a good time to start building that out. And then, once you've built that out sufficiently, you can build out the rest of the portfolio that you're planning on moving to. I would also try to keep the crypto to about two or three percent of your entire portfolio, at least when you get to retirement. You can use that as essentially part of your growth assets. It's very highly correlated with growth stocks. But once you get to, say, three quarters or 80 percent to your FI goal, that FI number, then I really would start building out the other parts of this portfolio as quickly as possible and maybe even moving some of the portfolio into that, because what that will do is it will slow down the growth, yes, but it will also remove a whole lot of the volatility, because your biggest risk, as you get closer, is to have a stock market crash right before you want to retire, in which case, if you're holding what you're holding right now, you may not be retiring for another seven or eight years just waiting for this to get back to where you are now. If it is indeed a 2000 to 2002 kind of crash.

Mostly Uncle Frank [26:00]

And the good thing is, if you're moving all these things to accounts at interactive brokers, you can invest in US-based ETFs there or ETFs based in other countries. If you're moving all these things to accounts at interactive brokers, you can invest in US-based ETFs there or ETFs based in other countries if you really wanted to. The US-based ones are generally the ones with the lowest expense fees and, until you finally settle on some jurisdiction, you're probably going to be best off investing in US dollar-denominated assets anyway, because otherwise you are going to be taking a currency risk if you go outside of the US dollar or one of the other reserve currencies, like the euro or the yen, who don't have reserve currencies as their local currency, often are hoarding dollars, euro or other things like that, simply because they're concerned about the potential devaluation of their currency at any particular time. And that's definitely true of jurisdictions like Mexico or Indonesia or the Philippines. Once you do settle down in a location, then, yes, you will need to hold some cash, probably in the local jurisdiction's currency, but I wouldn't make that a priority. And if you do leave it primarily invested in US assets, then, yes, this 5% withdrawal rate that applies to these kind of portfolios still applies regardless of where you are located, because it's the same assets you're invested in. Now, the calculators at portfolio charts do allow you to change the country and you will get different results with different portfolios, but I believe most or all of the countries there are developed economies.

Mostly Uncle Frank [27:41]

Essentially, my final thought is you do ultimately want to get all of these ducks in a row, have your portfolio in its retirement configuration before you pull the plug on all of this stuff and again, that's because of this danger of a market crash after you quit your job, but before you settle in to wherever you're going to be next. You have a very interesting situation, but I think it's going to work out pretty well. But feel free to write back in if what I said was not very clear and hopefully at least some of it helps. And thank you for your email Last off. Last off, an email from Chris.

Mostly Mary [28:34]

Ain't nothing wrong with that, and Chris writes Dear Frank, I'm on episode 140, and I'm glad that I still have many more to go.

Mostly Mary [28:47]

I will look forward to the entertaining hours ahead of me. Your message seems a deeply skeptical one, in the very best senses of the word, as genuine inquiry in the face of uncertainty and perhaps even in the search of tranquility. To your immense credit, you're not selling us anything, including definite answers, but you are helping your listeners unlearn the things we do that make us suck at investing, and encouraging us to find effective things to do instead. You place a lot of emphasis on backtesting, not, as I now realize, to over-optimize, but instead to help us find some combination of assets which stands a good chance of meeting our own financial needs in the future, even though we have no way to determine ahead of time the most highly performing solution. At any point in a backtest, what happened next was unknown, and our task is to take what lessons we can from what actually did happen next. I don't have a specific question. I just wanted to express my thanks and appreciation. Best wishes, chris.

Others [29:49]

The best, Jerry the best.

Mostly Uncle Frank [29:51]

Well, Chris, I'm glad you're enjoying the podcast and getting something out of it.

Mostly Mary [29:55]

You are talking about the nonsensical ravings of a lunatic mind.

Mostly Uncle Frank [30:01]

As you have observed, my approach is very curiosity-driven. One of the things that I most dislike about a lot of personal finance is it seems to gravitate towards kinds of guru worship or Dead Sea Scroll ideas that somebody came up with 10, 15, 20 years ago. I actually view personal finance as an evolving technology that is getting better over time and allows us, as DIY investors, to use better tools and also to have better investment vehicles to use to construct portfolios with, and there's no reason that we should be wedded to something just because it was the best idea 10, 15, or 20 years ago.

Mostly Mary [30:53]

That's not an improvement.

Mostly Uncle Frank [30:55]

And that we should be constantly questioning whether there is a better idea today, because often there is in terms of investments that are available, kinds of accounts and the organization of investments. It Can't.

Others [31:10]

Work it.

Mostly Uncle Frank [31:17]

The reason we rely mostly on backtesting is because it's the best available information in most cases. Because it's the best available information in most cases Because you either have to rely on historical performance of assets in various economic environments or you have to use some kind of a crystal ball, regardless of what you call it.

Others [31:45]

My name's.

Mostly Uncle Frank [31:46]

Sonia, I'm going to be showing you the crystal ball and how to use it, or how I use it. And whenever someone is using a number as a projected return in the future or a level of inflation or anything else like that, unless that is based on some kind of history, then it is a crystal ball that is being used.

Others [32:05]

A crystal ball can help you, it can guide you.

Mostly Uncle Frank [32:09]

I think that's the first thing you want to recognize when you are looking at some analysis. Where do these assumptions come from? And if they do not come from historical data, they must come from a crystal ball.

Others [32:23]

You can actually feel the energy from your ball by just putting your hands in and out.

Mostly Uncle Frank [32:30]

And the chances are that crystal ball is going to be less accurate than long-term historical data.

Others [32:38]

Now you can also use the ball to connect to the spirit world.

Mostly Uncle Frank [32:42]

It may be more accurate than short-term historical data, because we know that data that is of, less than, say, 10 years is just noise, as Fama and French would say.

Mostly Uncle Frank [32:53]

So we do need to be looking at as much data as we have in as many different economic environments as we can analyze in, and then the best use of these historical analyses is ultimately not to come up with firm predictions of numbers for the future, but to basically compare one idea with another when your idea is represented by a particular portfolio construction.

Mostly Uncle Frank [33:21]

That is the straight stuff, oh funk master. That is the straight stuff, oh Funkmaster. That's why one of my favorite tools is that portfolio matrix at portfolio charts, which I'll link to again in the show notes, because that allows you to quickly compare a whole bunch of common portfolios with one that you put in on a variety of metrics that could include overall returns, could include safe withdrawal rates, can include drawdowns of how deep they are, how long they are, because that is ultimately an objective way of saying that, well, this portfolio is better than that one for this purpose, because if you were not using some kind of criteria like that, you were just making up things, you were just telling stories about which one you think might be better in the future, as opposed to looking at some data that says well, if we looked at the 1970s, we can see that this kind of portfolio outperforms this other one, and that's really the only question that we ultimately have to answer.

Others [34:19]

That's the fact, jack. That's the fact.

Mostly Uncle Frank [34:22]

Jack, because you can never come up with the best portfolio for the future. If you do think that way, you are just fooling yourself With whatever crystal ball you're consulting.

Others [34:39]

This is the one that I tend to use more often. I have a calcite ball and I have a black obsidian one here.

Mostly Uncle Frank [34:49]

All you can really say is that it appears to be more probable that portfolio A will be better than portfolio B on a particular metric like a safe withdrawal rate, but in order to get there, you have to use all the assets that are available.

Mostly Uncle Frank [35:06]

Much of personal finance restricts your asset choices to just stocks and just bonds, and then restricts your choice of stocks to just large-cap US and large-cap international or some other artificial construction. That is not the world we live in. We have more choices than that and there is no reason not to be analyzing multiple choices of things that we have lots of data for, whether that be different forms of factor investing or alternative assets such as gold and managed futures that are uncorrelated with stocks and bonds. Now, academics and people who run hedge funds and manage money professionally, including very large pension funds, don't have any problem with thinking about alternative assets beyond a two or three-fund portfolio, and while that may have been a limitation 15 or 20 years ago, it is not a limitation now and there's no reason to be stuck with those kind of limitations.

Others [36:09]

No more flying solo.

Mostly Uncle Frank [36:12]

And no, it doesn't need to be too complicated. That's the other phony objection that is often made. Well, we have to keep it simple, really simple. We can't have more than three funds. It's not simple enough. We can't have more than three funds.

Others [36:27]

It's not simple enough.

Mostly Uncle Frank [36:31]

You know what? That's just not true. Simplicity is important, but an unbounded appeal to simplicity as the most important thing is really not a good approach to investing. It's just not.

Mostly Mary [36:43]

That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.

Mostly Uncle Frank [36:48]

We need to go all Einstein on this and make it as simple as possible, but no simpler if that would interfere with serving its ultimate purpose.

Mostly Mary [36:59]

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Mostly Uncle Frank [37:04]

And so, with all of the materials we look at, we always try to apply Bruce Lee's adages, which are take what is useful, discard what is useless and add something uniquely your own. Fortunately, we don't have to add much of our own, because there is so much good material out there. It's more of a matter of just combining the ideas that other people have come up with, and I am proudly extremely unoriginal, because we don't really need to invent new mousetraps. We just need to adapt the ones that already exist to suit our purposes. Anyway, I hope you continue to work your way through all of the episodes and feel free to send in your own questions when you have them. Yes, because it's listener questions that really make this podcast what it is today, and I often learn just as much as you do from looking into them, and so thank you very much for your email.

Mostly Uncle Frank [38:04]

Here's a horoscope for everyone Aquarius you're going to die. Capricorn you're going to die. Gemini you're going to die twice. But now I see our signal is beginning to fade. If you have comments or questions for me, please send them to frankatriskparodyradarcom that email is frankatriskparodyradarcom or you can go to the website, wwwriskparodyradarcom. Put your message into the contact form and I'll get it that way. If you haven't had a chance to do it, please go to your favorite podcast provider and like subscribe you'll make some stars. Podcast provider, and like subscribe You'll make some stars. A follower of you. That would be great.

Mostly Mary [38:47]

Okay.

Mostly Uncle Frank [38:49]

Thank you once again for tuning in. This is Frank Vasquez with risk Perry radio.

Others [39:07]

Signing off. I have to push the.

Mostly Uncle Frank [39:12]

Primalot.

Mostly Mary [39:18]

On second thoughts. Let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place. All right, silly plays Right. The Risk Parody Radio Show is hosted by Frank Vasquez. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax or legal advice. Please consult with your own advisors before taking any actions based on any information you have heard here, making sure to take into account your own personal circumstances.