Plain-language summary: everything published on Colbertism is general information and commentary about economics and markets. Nothing on this site is financial, investment, tax, accounting, or legal advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold anything. We do not know your circumstances, and reading our work does not make us your adviser. Examples are simplified for teaching. Markets can lose money, including the money you started with. Before acting on anything you read here, talk to licensed professionals who know your situation. The sections of this disclaimer say this precisely.
Effective date: August 13, 2026.
1. Purpose and Scope of This Disclaimer
Colbertism is an independent publication covering economics and financial markets. We publish essays, explainers, and analysis on subjects that include government and corporate bonds, portfolio theory, taxation, trade policy, monetary policy, currencies, commodities, and crypto assets. This Disclaimer applies to all of that material, in every format in which we deliver it: articles and essays on this website, charts and tables embedded in them, our email newsletter, downloadable files, and any responses our editors post in comments or send through the site (together, the “Content”).
This Disclaimer is operated by the publisher of Colbertism, based in Indonesia, and forms part of our Terms of Use. Reading further, or using the site at all, means you accept it. If you do not accept it, please do not rely on the Content. Background on who we are is available on our About page, and the full set of site policies is collected at our legal hub.
2. General Information Purpose
All Content is provided for general informational and educational purposes only. It is journalism and commentary, not a professional service. The Content is written for a broad audience and is not tailored to any individual reader, any specific portfolio, or any particular transaction. It is not a substitute for individualized advice from a qualified professional, and it should never be treated as the sole basis for any decision that involves your money, your taxes, or your legal obligations.
3. No Financial or Investment Advice
Nothing on Colbertism constitutes financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other form of advice, and nothing on Colbertism should be read as one. In unmistakable terms:
- Nothing we publish is a recommendation, solicitation, endorsement, or offer to buy, sell, hold, subscribe for, or otherwise transact in any security, bond, share, fund, derivative, currency, commodity, crypto asset, or any other financial instrument or asset.
- Discussion of an asset, strategy, index, or market is analysis of that subject, not an instruction to act on it. If we describe how duration risk works using a specific bond, we are teaching a concept, not recommending the bond.
- No fiduciary, advisory, brokerage, or client relationship is created by reading the Content, subscribing to the newsletter, commenting on an article, or contacting us. We owe you no duty of care as an adviser, because we are not your adviser.
- The publisher and contributors of Colbertism are not registered or licensed as investment advisers, broker-dealers, securities analysts, or financial planners in Indonesia or in any other jurisdiction, and the Content is not investment research or a research report under any regulatory framework.
In plain terms: we write about markets; we do not tell you what to do in them.
4. No Tax Advice and No Legal Advice
We regularly publish essays about taxation and about laws that shape trade and markets. Those essays describe how systems work in general. They are not tax advice, accounting advice, or legal advice, and they cannot be, for at least three reasons: tax and legal outcomes depend on facts specific to you; rules differ sharply between jurisdictions and often between provinces, states, and cities within them; and rules change, sometimes retroactively. A statement about a tax rate, threshold, deduction, or treaty that was accurate when an essay was written may be wrong by the time you read it. Do not prepare a filing, structure a transaction, or take a legal position based on the Content. Consult a licensed tax professional or attorney admitted in your jurisdiction.
5. Consult Licensed Professionals
Sound financial, tax, and legal decisions depend on facts we cannot see: your income and its stability, your debts and obligations, your time horizon, your tolerance for loss, your country of residence and tax status, your family situation, and your existing holdings. Before making any decision influenced by the Content, consult professionals who are licensed in your jurisdiction and who have examined your actual situation, such as a registered investment adviser, a certified public accountant or registered tax consultant, or a qualified attorney. If a professional’s individualized advice conflicts with something you read here, follow the professional.
6. Educational Examples, Simplified Models, and Stylized Charts
Because Colbertism is an educational publication, our essays make heavy use of worked examples, and you should understand how to read them:
- Illustrative numbers. Portfolios, yields, tax rates, and prices in examples are frequently rounded or invented to make the arithmetic easy to follow. A “USD 10,000 portfolio earning 5 percent” is a teaching device, not a market observation or an attainable offer.
- Simplified models. Our models deliberately omit real-world frictions such as taxes, fees, commissions, bid-ask spreads, slippage, currency conversion costs, and inflation unless the text says otherwise. Real outcomes are almost always worse than frictionless models suggest.
- Stylized charts. Charts drawn to illustrate a concept rather than to plot measured data are marked as stylized or illustrative in the caption or surrounding text. Charts of real data identify their source and date.
- Flagged approximations. Where a figure is approximate, the text says so with words such as “approximately,” “roughly,” or “on the order of.” Treat those figures as orders of magnitude, not inputs for your own calculations.
The labeling conventions we commit to are:
| Label in text or caption | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Illustrative | Numbers invented or rounded for teaching; not real market data. |
| Stylized | Chart or diagram drawn to show a shape or relationship, not plotted from a dataset. |
| Approximate / roughly | Real figure simplified; the true value differs and may have moved since writing. |
| Hypothetical / backtest | Computed after the fact; no actual money was invested and real results would differ. |
| Source and date cited | Actual data as reported by the named source on the stated date. |
No example in the Content depicts a real account of ours or of any reader unless the text explicitly says so.
7. Past Performance and Forward-Looking Statements
Past performance does not guarantee, indicate, or reliably predict future results. Historical returns, yields, spreads, and correlations discussed in the Content describe what happened, not what will happen. Hypothetical and backtested results carry additional limitations: they are constructed with hindsight, they do not reflect the discipline required to hold a strategy through drawdowns, and they typically exclude costs. Any forward-looking statement in the Content, including scenarios, projections, and phrases such as “we expect” or “this suggests,” is an opinion about an uncertain future. Actual outcomes can differ materially, and you should not rely on such statements.
8. Market Risk and Risk of Loss
All investing and trading involve risk, including the possible loss of some or all invested principal. Among other things: bond prices fall when interest rates rise, and issuers can default; equity values can decline for reasons unrelated to a company’s performance; currency and commodity markets are volatile and can move against a position rapidly; crypto assets can lose most or all of their value and may lack any recovery mechanism; leverage magnifies both gains and losses and can produce losses greater than the amount invested; and diversification reduces certain risks but does not ensure a profit or protect against loss in a declining market. Never risk money you cannot afford to lose, and never assume that a concept explained clearly in an essay is therefore safe to execute.
9. Accuracy, Timeliness, and Completeness
Every essay reflects the information, data, prices, rates, and laws available to the author at the time of writing, and each article displays its publication date. Markets move continuously; tax codes, tariffs, and regulations change; data gets revised. We update evergreen explainers periodically, but updates can lag events, and dated commentary is generally left as a record of what we thought at the time. We work carefully, follow the review and corrections procedures described in our Editorial Standards, and correct material errors when we find them, but we do not warrant that any Content is accurate, current, or complete, and we cannot promise that a given essay addresses every consideration relevant to its topic, let alone to your decision. Omission of a risk, rule, or exception from an essay is not a representation that it does not exist.
10. Opinions and Independence
Opinions expressed in the Content are those of the individual authors alone. They are held in good faith on the evidence available when written, and they can and do change as evidence changes; a later essay may revise or contradict an earlier one, and the later essay controls as a statement of our current view. Opinions of contributors are not necessarily those of the publication, and nothing here speaks for any author’s employer or any other organization. Colbertism carries no sponsored content and accepts no paid placements. Third-party advertising served on the site, including through Google AdSense, does not influence editorial positions, and advertisers have no advance access to our work. If we ever adopt affiliate links, they will be disclosed and governed by the pre-committed rules in our Advertising Disclosure, and their presence will never constitute a recommendation of any product or asset.
11. External Links and Third-Party Content
The Content links to external websites, datasets, papers, and tools for reference and convenience. We do not control those resources, we do not endorse them, and we are not responsible for their accuracy, completeness, availability, security, or business practices. A link is a citation, not a warranty. External resources are governed by their own terms and privacy policies, which you should review before relying on them or submitting information to them. The same applies to third-party advertisements displayed on the site and to any page you reach by clicking one; how advertising cookies work here is described in our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
12. No Reliance and Limitation of Liability
The Content is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. You rely on the Content entirely at your own risk. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the publisher, editors, authors, and contributors of Colbertism shall not be liable for any loss or damage of any kind arising out of or in connection with your use of, or reliance on, the Content or the site, including trading or investment losses, lost profits, lost savings, tax penalties, and any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages, even if we were advised that such damages were possible. Nothing in this section excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited under the mandatory provisions of Indonesian law. The full limitation of liability and its procedural terms appear in our Terms of Use, which prevail over this summary.
13. Jurisdictional Notice
Colbertism is operated from Indonesia, and this Disclaimer is governed by the laws of the Republic of Indonesia. The site is accessible worldwide, but the Content is not directed at, and is not intended for distribution to or use by, any person in any jurisdiction where its publication, distribution, or consumption would be contrary to law or regulation, or would subject us to any registration or licensing requirement. Nothing on this site is an offer or solicitation to any person in any jurisdiction in which such an offer or solicitation would be unlawful. If you access the site from outside Indonesia, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for compliance with your local laws, including any rules governing financial promotions in your country.
14. Relationship to Our Terms of Use and Other Policies
This Disclaimer is incorporated into, and should be read together with, our Terms of Use. If this Disclaimer conflicts with the Terms of Use, the Terms of Use control. Related policies cover neighboring ground and are not duplicated here: our Privacy Policy explains what data we collect and why, our Cookie Policy covers cookies and advertising technologies, our Editorial Standards describe how we research, review, and correct our work, our Advertising Disclosure covers advertising and any future affiliate relationships, and our Copyright and DMCA Policy governs reuse of our material and infringement claims.
15. Changes to This Disclaimer
We may revise this Disclaimer from time to time, for example when we launch new content formats, adopt affiliate links, or respond to legal developments. Revisions take effect when the updated version is posted on this page with a new effective date. For material changes, we will add a note at the top of this page describing what changed and, where practical, flag the change in the newsletter. Your continued use of the site after a revised Disclaimer takes effect constitutes acceptance of the revision, as further described in the Terms of Use. We recommend rechecking this page occasionally, and always before acting on older Content.
16. Questions and Contact
If anything in this Disclaimer is unclear, if you believe a piece of Content is mislabeled under the conventions in Section 6, or if you have found an error we should correct, please reach us through the contact form. Email reaches us at [email protected], and messages submitted through either route are handled as described in the Privacy Policy. We read every message and aim to respond to substantive policy questions within a reasonable period, ordinarily ten business days. Please remember that our replies are subject to this same Disclaimer: we can explain what we published and why, but we cannot advise you on your personal financial, tax, or legal decisions.