On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 19:43:34 -0500, Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > * Gary Denton ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > Perhaps Erik can point me to these mutual funds with management fees > > less than 0.18% that an individual investor can participate in? > > Sure. Here are three: > > --------------- > 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. > --------------- > > Of course, if Americans decide that saving a few basis points outweighs > having a little bit of individual choice in their investments, then the > best thing to do would be to invest the money in a large instutional > type fund. Then you can get down to 0.05% or below, for example: You have no idea what you are parroting do you? 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 > > --------------- > Expense TICKER > Ratio > =============== > 0.05% VITBX > 0.03% VIIIX > 0.03% VITPX > > By the way, VIIIX is an S&P500 index fund that actually beat the S&P500 > index, AFTER ALL EXPENSES, by an average of 0.06% a year over the last > 10 years. In other words, VIIIX has a net NEGATIVE expense ratio! (This > is because Gus Sauter and his team are skilled at transactions involving > bid/ask spreads and S&P500 index futures) You are comparing apples and cow patties. It beat the index. This has nothing to do with what the expense ratio is. Actually there is another group of funds that does better than that at performance with minimal expense also limited to institutions. > > The other argument that Erik is making are that the the $2 trillion > > transition cost is simply making explicit the unfunded obligations of > > the SS fund. Not quite. A good argument if true but the $2 trillion > > is simply additional federal borrowing to replace the money diverted > > from going to SS to meet current obligations from individuals. You > > can recognize that Erik realizes this when he states the unfunded > > obligations of SS is over $10 trillion. > > No, you are quite confused. The SS deficit is somewhere between $3 > trillion and $10 trillion, depending on how you measure. The $2 trillion > in borrowing is simply transferring $2 trillion of that deficit from an > implicit obligation to an explicit one on the books. 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. You are incorrect, sir, that $2 trillion is simply actualizing implicit obligations. It does nothing of the kind. It is replacement funds to pay benefits during a period when they are shorting normal funds to set up a new system. The way the option 2 plan, the de facto Bush plan because he hasn't released one, reduces the SS deficit is purely by massively reducing benefits The trillion dollar new deficit, actually $15 trillion, not $2 trillion which is simply for ten years, is additional deficit funding as replacement financing as SS money is siphoned into fund accounts. Don't take my word for it. "Individual account plans that eliminate the long-term deficit in Social Security, such as the principal plan the Presidentïs Social Security commission proposed, do so entirely by reducing future Social Security benefits, not because of borrowing." "The individual accounts in Model 2 would create a financing hole, which would be filled with more than $2 trillion in transfers from the rest of the budget to Social Security. To be sure, Model 2 would eliminate the long-term deficit in Social Security, which over an infinite horizon amounts to more than $10 trillion in present value (if that figure is used, despite the problems with using it in this manner). But the individual accounts in Model 2 play no role in eliminating this long-term deficit. The $2 trillion cost associated with the individual account component of the plan is not the "price" of obtaining the long-term savings. "The amount that Social Security would lose because of the diversion of the payroll tax revenues to the accounts would exceed the additional Social Security benefit reductions to which these beneficiaries would be subject. Moreover, this would be the case on a permanent basis, not just during a transition period. "In addition, the individual accounts would create a cash flow problem for Social Security because funds would be diverted from Social Security decades before a workerïs Social Security benefits would be reduced in return. The private accounts, by themselves, consequently would push the Social Security Trust Fund back into insolvency and would permanently worsen Social Security's financial condition." http://www.cbpp.org/12-13-04socsec.htm As Krugman recently noted that $2 trillion additional borrowing is actually for the first 10 years and the full additional borrowing is $15 trillion. So even based on your numbers to eliminate a $10 trillion obligation over an infinite number of years, the great majority occurring over 100 years in the future, we should borrow $15 trillion over the next fifty. You must be in the running to be Bush's voodoo Whoo-Hoo economics adviser. http://www.pkarchive.org/column/011105.html So, you didn't know the real expense ratios of the mutual funds, you don't know what institutional funds are, you don't even know what expense ratios are in mutual funds, you don't know what converting an implicit obligation to an explicit one on the books really means, you constantly defend using a $10 trillion infinite years value for SS deficits while using a 10 year time-frame for additional new borrowing, you haven't seemed to realize the new borrowing is actually $15 trillion over 50 years, and you think I am confused. Whoo Hoo, gARY "just confused" dENTON _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
