On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:17:22 -0500, Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: answering portions of my post
> * Gary Denton ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > --------------- > > > Expense TICKER > > > Ratio > > > =============== > > > 0.09% ETSPX > > Sorry - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=ETSPX shows the expense ratio > > is 0.40% and a 10 year expense of $982 per $10,000 invested. > > > > > 0.10% FSMKX > > http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=FSMKX shows 0.19% and $480. > > > > > 0.10% FSTMX > > > > http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=FSTMX shows 0.25% and $579. > > Your information is out of date. If you had bothered to read the > prospectus or even done a news search, you would have seen that these > fund lowered their expenses last year. If you read the top of the page you saw it was as of 12/31/04 a horribly 2 weeks ago. > > > Institutional funds mean the investment is only available to > > institutions with millions of dollars to invest unlike the funds above > > which are available to any individual with thousands of dollars to > > invest. Actually a proper comparison in regard to expense ratios > > might be a fund with a $50 minimum investment, not these > > You really need to learn how to read. Institutional funds are exactly > the right comparison if you don't allow each individual to change their > own investment accounts. It will be interesting to see if a fund that has to keep track of millions of people making payroll donations of less than $100 a month can match the expense ratios of funds that require a $1,000,000 minimum investment. > > You are comparing apples and cow patties. It beat the index. This > > has nothing to do with what the expense ratio is. > > And you are completely clueless. Why do you pretend like you know what > you are talking about? > > Of COURSE the performance AFTER EXPENSES has to do with the expense > ratio. Only a fool would suggest that the quantity X - Y does not depend > on Y. If you bothered to look at the performance of S&P500 index funds > before opening your mouth, you would see that the higher the expenses, > the worse the performance. This is obvious. > > With index funds, the higher the expense ratio, the more it lags the > index it is supposed to track. With VIIIX, Gus Sauter skill, combined > with a very low expense ratio, allows VIIIX to slightly beat the index, > making the expense ratio a slight bonus instead of an expense. Creating a fund that exactly matches an index like the S&P 500 is more expensive than one that is similar to the S&P 500 but can avoid some of the trading required as Sauter and others have found. The lowest expense ratios would give higher performance but claiming that you can have negative expense ratios is clueless. > > > The future SS deficit for the next 75 years is somewhere between 0 and > > $4 trillion dollars depending on what assumptions you use and how you > > measure. > > So you know better than Ph.D. economists Gokhale and Smetters who I > previously referenced who quote the figure as above $7 trillion? Thank > goodness for you to point this out to us. Unlike them I am not paid shills for the American Enterprise Institute being paid to persuade people that privatized federal savings accounts make sense to replace Social Security. This is not to say they haven't done some good work. Using their approach of measuring total federal deficit showed that the Bush tax cuts his first term created much more long term deficits than the Social Security deficit. I should also note that you don't point out that their $7 trillion imbalance is their 'infinity' deficit and not a 75 year projection.. They seem to disagree with you by $3 trillion plus on the PV over infinity of the SS deficit. If you still want to use PV over infinity that when I pointed out actuarial accountants urging that not be used. > > You are incorrect, sir, that $2 trillion is simply actualizing > > implicit obligations. It does nothing of the kind. > > If you keep acting like you know what you are talking about, maybe you > will convince yourself. > > In the real world, yes, the $2 trillion is a simple accounting change. NO, you keep repeating that and I have provided links that show it isn't, it is nothing of the kind. It is new debt to replace funds being removed from the system and is not an accounting change that formalizes future obligations. > Social Security has implicit obligations to pay a stream of cash in the > future that has a present value equal to D. If we partially switch to > private accounts and reduce the benefits for the people who opt in, then > Social Securities implicit obligations go down by P, so the implicit > obligation is then D - P. And the government must officially borrow P in > order to finance the pay-as-you-go current benefit recipients. So the > total obligation after partial privatization is (D - P) + P = D. The > same as it is now. No change. That should be simple enough that even a > chimp could understand. Except that is not what the government is contemplating doing. The amount P that the government plans to borrow is not the future benefits amount but is the amount it is placing into the system in new borrowing to replace diverted funds. Gary 'have to get another chimp economist' Denton _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
