With all due respect Scott, I thought he laid that out pretty well. At first blush I thought it was meant seriously as a put-down of Junkster's expressed incredulity. Than ... oh boy.
Yeh - I've heard the general idea before too and tend to agree. Wouldn't want to be walking down the street with a pocket full of gold or anything else of great value during periods of civil unrest.

Well, if I'm going to go into detail:
1. I don't care what people invest in. If you want to buy Beanie Babies, that's great. If someone wants to invest in metals or baseball cards (as for the latter, good lord I wish I'd sold mine years ago before the bottom fell out. I literally called a dealer who I knew used to sell them, along other things - coins, stamps, jewelry, etc) and asked last year if they still did and they laughed.
For those who have the mindset of buying metals as an "insurance policy" against any number of scenarios, I'd hope that they have some level of diversification to their holdings, as in my view - the mentality that leads to owning gold in that regard does not mean just holding gold.
If things go "Mad Max" (and the trailer for the remake of that looks nuts), then you hold your gold with the hope that you have some "monetary" asset that can be traded for the new currency on the other side if it ever gets there. If we go "Mad Max" for whatever reason, hopefully you have other such preparations (seeds, essentials, some skills including gardening, etc.) You hope that you are able to hold onto your gold until the "other side" of it. Your stocks aren't going to do you any good, the gold is at least tangible if you can go through the period and hopefully you've created enough friends (even, gasp, Republicans! It's amazing how much energy is spent in this country on anger over someone else's political views, left or right wing) that you may be able to trade the gold within your network.
However, in Weimar Germany (see the book "When Money Dies"), things didn't go "Mad Max", but they were awful. Still, restaurants were open (although the actual total for the cost of your meal may have changed by the time you were done with it) and someone with some gold coins may suddenly be able to pay off their mortgage with one. From "When Money Dies", "...I, too, have exchanged by husband's gold watch for four sacks of potatoes, which will at all events carry us through the Winter." If you were the farmer with a ton of potatoes to sell and a field to grow more, you were likely in better shape than the person with no field and some gold, but that person was in better shape than the person with a bunch of Papiermarks whose value was depreciating so rapidly that some used them as wallpaper.
"A liter of milk, which had cost 7 marks in April 1922 and 16 in August, by mid-September cost 26 marks. In only nine months, Mr Seed's chauffeur's weekly bill for an identical food basket had risen from 370 marks to 2,615. ...An increase in wages granted at the end of one week would not meet the rise in prices the following Tuesday."
then:
"In the meantime, September's 26 mark liter of milk became October's 50-mark litre." (202 by December.)
It goes on (again, it's been a while since I've read it and an understandably dark and depressing read but an interesting look at history.)
Again, I swing towards the idea of productive assets, but I don't have anything against those who go for metals - although I do think that if they are entirely in metals that's a mistake as there are any number of things that could fall under someone looking for "insurance policy" assets (seeds - even, gasp, GMO ones! lol)
---
As for the idea that other things do well and that land (ag land) is a good idea: "Her Hans-Georg von der Osten recollects that in February 1922, with a loan from a friendly banker, he bought an estate neighboring his own property in
Pomerania for 4 million marks. He then paid the debt in the autumn with the sale of less than half the crop of one of his potato fields. In June of the
same year, when prices were shooting up ahead of the mark, he bought 100 tons of maize from a dealer for 8 million marks. A week later, he sold it back to the dealer for
double the amount. Only the country people were surviving in Germany in any comfort: anyone who lived off the land had the readiest access to real values."
Everything is also not either "black or white", there are periods in history where things were awful but things still functioned and metals were not a bad thing to have. However, I think those who have the mentality of gold as an insurance policy would be mistaken to just go for that alone.
Additionally, I guess it goes back to my philosophy when it comes to investing in the present day. While there are admittedly a couple of exceptions, I sleep well at night from the standpoint of the majority of what I'm invested in are things are hard assets and/or that serve a need, including energy, ag, health care, railroads (I own CP, CNI, UNP, BNSF (BRk-B) and KSU, so that covers Canada, most of America and Mexico, as KSU goes into Mexico and UNP owns a 26% stake in Ferromex) and the like. I mean, even Visa and Mastercard - who take a % of every transaction and prices go up over time. There's "bad" where society is still functioning, and if that happens, I do believe that these things will fare better. If things don't get bad, these are still necessities in many cases.

"Good company to own. " Yes, until China figures out how to make a decent airplane. But that's most likely a few years off yet.

I think so. Their aircraft manufacturing is limited to military planes I think. The business for them would be manufacturing aircraft parts or assemblies. Similar to how Mitsubishi and other Japanese companies are making parts for Boeing.

"Good company to own. " Yes, until China figures out how to make a decent airplane. But that's most likely a few years off yet.

Ted Williams always my idol and we can only imagine his career and single season stats had he not missed seasons during World War II AND the Korean conflict. How many more batting crowns would he have won? He won two when he was 39 and 40 in 1957 and 1958. Hitting 388 when you are 39 years old is beyond amazing!

I just don't understand why you don't understand. When the whole thing falls apart, as will surely happen pretty soon now, you can take your gold and silver to the supermarket and trade it for stuff because they won't accept money anymore. When you present your gold or silver for payment the clerk will try to kill you and take all of it. But you won't worry, because you will be accompanied by your armed troop of NRA bodyguards, who will surely volunteer to protect innocent citizens such as yourself. Unless, of course, they decide to kill and rob you.
I hope that this helps.

Ha! Ha! But you are 53 years too late. Back then was when my friend's John Birch Society's brother-in-law kept preaching to me the same scenario.

Perhaps Chip can help on this. I believe that when I access MFO from here in SF it always is via CloudFlare, which in my case seems to have an internet presence of some sort in San Jose, to the south of us. I'm guessing that "DOsS protection" may indicate some defense against a "denial of service" type attack, which as I understand it, results when a large number of "compromised" computers are given simultaneous instructions to request connection to a specific site, thus creating a traffic situation which results in seriously compromising that site's ability to respond to the incoming service requests.
You may remember that MFO and other sites were apparently victims of such attacks some months ago. Perhaps CloudFlare is automatically checking the site traffic status to detect and possibly deter such attacks.
BTW, lately I notice that pulling up MFO frequently seems to require two attempts- the first attempt seems to "hang" indefinitely; the second works quite quickly. (When I was first learning electronics fifty years ago we attributed things like this to "gremlins". Perhaps they've evolved along with the technology,)

FYI: Mid cap stock funds have run a close second to small cap stock funds in the past 15 years. And they've run a close second to large cap stock funds since the beginning of last year.
A $10,000 investment in the average mid cap mutual fund on Dec. 31, 1999, would have grown to $34,456 by Jan. 23 this year, according to Morningstar Inc. data. The same amount placed in the average small cap fund would have sprouted into $36,968. How about large cap funds? Just $16,964. Less than the S&P 500's $18,600.
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTg4OTUyMTg=
Enlarged Graphic:
http://news.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=WEBlv012715.jpg&docId=736437&xmpSource=&width=1000&height=1152&caption=&id=736345

>>>Say what? Perhaps the fund type has not been around very long; but hopefully many of the fund managers have, eh? The managers are "unconstrained" by the fund prospectus and happened to get the call wrong on bond prices. Not unlike "calling" any other sector of investing and not unlike what we individual investors face in our "unconstrained" portfolios attempting to stay ahead of the curve with where to "put the money" to obtain a best total return.
Many folks have had problems with bond directions over the past few years, yes?
Regards,
Catch

You've got that right Catch. The managers are unconstrained, can go anywhere and do anything, and as you said, "happened to get the call wrong on bond prices", the direction of interest rates, etc.
Interesting that many of the mutual fund companies' "non-unconstrained" funds are doing fine. Just compare the Metropolitan West Unconstrained Bond with their Total Return Bond, the PIMCO unconstrained with the PIMCO Total Return, Harbor Bond vs. Harbor Unconstrained Bond, etc etc.
Isn't that a bit ironic, that when they can go anywhere and do anything, their performance has been terrible compared to when they are constrained by the Prospectus to invest closely to pre-established guidelines, often even not allowed to stray too far from an index?

catch, if there were some sort of periodic table for equity sector funds going back to the 90s you better believe you would find a lot of trend persistency. Where would some of us be were it not for tech and telecom in the late 90s. Or for that matter from the late 80s throughout the next decade. Look what biotech has done the past several years and how some here have exploited that trend. Same goes for a periodic table of all the various bond sectors. Real trend persistency there with emerging markets debt and high yield corporate debt leading the way.

Hi Guys,
I studied in New York City for two years.
New Yorkers are tough, resourceful folks. The storm is a blip that will marginally and momentarily suppress consumer spending. Recovery will follow immediately as New York dumps the snow into the Hudson and East Rivers.
Business as usual. Only the news agencies benefit by promoting fear and worry. For investors, this is a not an issue.
Best Wishes.

Not clear to me what you mean by 'not download'; there is online version and there is CD/download, or so I believe, as in the past.
If I got the latest narrative right, and I may not have, they did not include D in the CD/download at one price point, and you had to go up to the next point.
But they walked that back with a rebate and apology, recognizing they had stepped in it.
I use online only and pricing is set upon filing or when you start to use D, IIRC. It jumped up a few years ago, and I dislike paying more, but it is so useful, since it does accurate auto-import from Fido and Merrill, and the others do not do that.
If you do not need auto-import, then sure, switch, and TaxAct sure is getting a lot of attention.

Thanks @Ted.
Noted at the end of the M* article:
"Nontraditional funds are trailing intermediate funds again in 2015, as interest rates continue to fall. Intermediate funds returned an average of 0.9 percent as of Jan. 13, while flexible funds lost 0.1 percent, according to Morningstar.
It still may be too early to make a valid judgment about the flexible funds, said Sarah Bush, a senior analyst at Morningstar.
“They haven’t been around that long,” Bush said in a telephone interview. “We are going to have to see how they perform through a whole cycle.”
>>>Say what? Perhaps the fund type has not been around very long; but hopefully many of the fund managers have, eh? The managers are "unconstrained" by the fund prospectus and happened to get the call wrong on bond prices. Not unlike "calling" any other sector of investing and not unlike what we individual investors face in our "unconstrained" portfolios attempting to stay ahead of the curve with where to "put the money" to obtain a best total return.
Many folks have had problems with bond directions over the past few years, yes?
Regards,
Catch

FYI: The new generation of bond funds just can’t keep up with your parents’ investments.
Unconstrained funds, part of a new breed of mutual funds designed with the flexibility to profit in rising and falling markets, returned an average of 1.2 percent in 2014, compared with 5.2 percent for intermediate-term funds, historically the most popular bond investment. The new funds, the best-selling segment of the fixed-income category in 2014, also trailed in the past three and five years, and are behind again in 2015, according to Morningstar Inc.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2015-01-15/flexible-bond-funds-flop-as-rate-drop-stings-top-sellers.html
M* Unconstrained Bond Fund Returns:
http://news.morningstar.com/fund-category-returns/nontraditional-bond/$FOCA$NT.aspx

Gross: "We brought consumption forward and issued one giant credit card for the past 30 years. Now the bill is coming due. Investors need to get used to low returns, and low growth, inflation, and interest rates for a long time." Very SCARY.
Faber: "Policy makers have created an environment in which a corporation with a lot of cash isn’t going to build a factory or a business. It is going to buy back shares or take over another company. In each takeover, staff is eliminated and there is no capital spending. "
Barrons Roundtable tracker:
Faber, Zulauf, Schafer, and Witmer are top of the pack. I like Witmer's style, just simple company turnarounds with no guesses about economy, etc.
http://blog.pundittracker.com/barrons-roundtable-2013-performance-updated-2002-13-rankings/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=barrons-roundtable-2013-performance-updated-2002-13-rankings

Tough call. Had a poster here a month ago recommending oil at $58 as a sure-fire bet.
Come to research past posts, and he'd been buying at around $90 a month or so earlier (but said he had "shorted out" of that position as WTI continued falling.) Today, it's closer to $48.
Deflation is the biggest wild card here and my crystal ball on that subject is badly shattered.
Based on past cycles ... oil will recover nicely at some future time (measured in years rather than decades).
---
Caught T. Boone Pickens on CNBC this week. He's thinking oil will drop to the low-mid $40s in coming months - but than rebound to $65-$70 by year's end as the effects of domestic curtailment in production take effect and remain around that level. Recommended waiting a bit longer to buy. I've also commented before that it won't hit $40 - and am sticking with that bet. Even at lower prices, major suppliers, like Shell and Exxon, may prosper - as the stuff still needs to be moved, stored, and sold at retail. Unlike the well-head cost, those costs are relatively fixed.
---
I'm overweight this sector and so wrestle with the things that could go wrong. Among the unknowns and worrisome possibilities:
-Continued global price deflation
-Global warming (and a shift away from fossil fuels)
-Fracking (more of it and at lower cost)
-Alternative energy sources becoming more cost competitive **
-New technology to extract more energy from a gallon of fuel
-Less reliance on traditional forms of transit as drones and automated/driverless vehicles expand.(Driverless vehicles would consume less fuel for a number of reasons - especially if carrying no passengers))
-Use of lighter-weight industrial materials reducing the amount of energy used to transport them.
**Alternatives: solar, wind, hydro (especially tidal energy), geo-thermal, hydrogen (which can be extracted from water, but at great expense) and advances in nuclear which will reduce or eliminate the hazards commonly associated with it.

For a people to succeed, they need to have universal education. It should be free. For our government to be profiting on the backs of students trying to get ahead is unbelievable. Note that these students, by definition, are the poorest, otherwise, they wouldn't need the loans. Yeah, how elitist is this?
Nopers, higher education should be FREE to anyone able to be admitted and that can maintain good grades.

Herein lies the problem. Universities of the sort most people think of when they think of "college" exist primarily to produce research and secondarily to produce researchers. They do not exist to educate undergraduates (I'm excluding the sorts of colleges where Professor Snowball is tenured, which exist far more for undergraduate teaching). You want a place where really smart people can exist and not be hassled by everyday life in order to produce cures for awful diseases, and new technologies to make our lives easier, and art that makes our lives more livable, and theories that improve social structures. The model has always relied on undergraduates as a sort of necessary evil to bring in funding and to cull through for more researcher prospects (think about how many tenured professors or grad students you've ever met who say they chose their profession because they wanted to teach -- I'm willing to bet the number will rapidly approach zero). It's an historical anomaly coming out of World War II that created the push for universities to be a sort of vocational training grounds. Universities really aren't set up to do that, and do a pretty poor job of it anyways (how many of you learned everything about your job *on the job*?).
In any case, if you make tertiary education free, you risk undermining the research aspect of American universities, which, as a whole, represent the single greatest collection of knowledge ever known to mankind (and it isn't close, even to other modern countries).
One giant reason costs have soared for undergraduates is because it costs a lot of money to conduct good research. A lot of that money used to come from the Federal and state governments, but isn't being provided anymore after tax cuts over the past 20 years. States get left holding the bag when the feds cut funding for mandated programs. Universities are often one of the first place funding gets cut. The cost gets passed on directly to the consumer.
Another reason is simply that we want our universities and colleges to do and provide more and more, particularly to undergrads. And they simply aren't set up to do that without more capital expenditure. If your primary job is to produce widget x, and suddenly you find yourself having to provide for entirety of the welfare and vocational training of intern y, you have to choose how to allocate your money or come up with a whole bunch of new money by raising costs.
All of which is to say, at least I finally get where the 529 adjustment is coming from thanks to the article: The Administration wants to close a tax shelter for wealthier Americans that results in their children having a future advantage and is theoretically not available to middle class and poorer students, who end up either taking loans or not going to college because they perceive they can't afford it. That at least is a reason this was proposed (other than Obama likes taxing people). The problem is that the proposal still looks at colleges and universities as primarily educational endeavors and a ticket to making your life better. While it's true that college graduates make far more over their lives then those without a degree, I've never seen anyone actually study whether that's because those with degrees have innate advantages other than the degree.
What I'd like to hear proposed is a way to move our secondary education system towards a model that teaches more specified learning and vocational skills (and that doesn't have to mean plumbing and car repair. Ask yourself, what does a college know about training people who want to go into business?) When I arrived in the U.K. for grad school, I distinctly remember being shocked at how much better British students were prepared coming out of school than their American counterparts. The level exam system enabled them to already focus on specific subjects they were interested in, and by the time they got to University they were focused on studying one thing only. They didn't need two years of prerequisites because they had them in high school, the time to degree was shorter, and the level of work they were able to do immediately was much higher. As a side note, because tertiary education was free, the University was falling down. It simply couldn't get enough funding from the government to support its very old infrastructure, and couldn't charge students to make up the difference (the college bursar once showed me a report showing how my College was losing L900 a month per student on housing alone because of upkeep). It was also losing top researchers to American couterparts because of facilities and salaries.
It's great to want an education and to make more money. But 529s aren't a major problem. Unprepared students and their parents wanting universities to cater to them is. Change the model which causes that problem. Create more Community Colleges. Let research universities get back to doing what they do best. And if you want to do something about 529s, do something about the fees which make them useless to most savers.

FYI: Bargain hunting can be a thrill, but remember that it can also be dangerous.
Brave investors are picking through energy stocks, looking to buy those pummeled by the plunging price of oil. Billions of dollars flowed into energy stock funds last month, a huge leap from the norm, enticed by prices marked down by 25 percent or more since last summer. But many mutual fund managers and other professional investors have a warning for the bargain hunters: Don’t be surprised if it takes years for the prices of energy stocks to fully recover.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.dallasnews.com/business/personal-finance/headlines/20150119-energy-stocks-buy-low-or-get-out-of-the-way.ece
M* Equity Energy Fund Returns:
http://news.morningstar.com/fund-category-returns/equity-energy/$FOCA$EE.aspx

OAKBX may do better when energy recovers. They seem to attempt balancing opposing market elements to a greater degree than many conservative allocation funds do. Energy is one part of that equation and it certainly hasn't paid off recently.
Peer group leader PRWCX (which I also own) has an edge on ER and has outperformed for the past several years. But the two investment approaches are quite different (despite the funds often being lumped together by observors).
OAKBX is a hard fund to categorize in part because of the balancing act they attempt. (When the parts are working well, volatility appears low). Also, the managers vary market exposure according to their read on market valuation. I hold it in my conservative/hybrid sleeve - but there have been periods when it appeared more aggressive,
* Nice chart by Charles. He is correct in the moderate allocation label for OAKBX and that label agrees with both Lipper and M*. Personally (I realize that counts little) I consider OAKBX and PRWCX both to be at the upper (aggressive) end of the conservative allocation spectrum.
(I've owned OAKBX for 8-10 years and PRWCX for about 20)

About OAKBX - I had owned this fund for over 15 years but recently sold it for a couple of reasons. One, as you mentioned it had started to lag it's peer's on a consistent basis and two, I built my own equity income/dividend income fund to do the same job I had been paying the Oakmark managers to do saving myself those management fees. NO, I do not think that I am smarter or more clever than they are but I could choose equally or less riskier stocks then this fund holds and get paid a higher yield to do so. That increased yield was really what I was after. YMMV

I'll give you this for free (you won't read it)...sure fire method: you have to do work... that will stop most investors...they want easy
1) Learn the managers (credentials) you are hiring a coach
2) Know and understand the funds holdings...your players
3) past performance, I agree with 10 years... esp. now thru 2008 period, look for 8-10% avg. depending on category
4) Cost and Fund Firm...your budget and Administration staff
Now you are in business....enjoy