Resources · Framework
The framework
The ideas Vitrion is built on, as one structure: 7 parts, and every concept placed inside the broader one it narrows. Each opens on what it rests on, what rests on it, and where it is used.
- Parts
- 7
- Level 1
- 21
- Level 2
- 38
- Level 3
- 9
0
How any party is read
Vitrion reads any party - a person, a family, a company: anyone with financial aims - as a point between what it is aiming for and what it wants to avoid: a record behind it, and a range of futures ahead rather than one line.
12 conceptsto level 2
- Where a party standsWhere a party stands today.L1
- What a party is aiming forThe state a party is moving toward: a direction, never a box ticked.L1
- The rangeWhat lies ahead of a party: a spread of futures, never one line.L1
- DefinitionSaying exactly what something is, so it can be measured, and exactly what moves it, so it can be controlled.L1
- How defined something isSeven steps from unstated to proven: described, quantified, put in context, tracked, made actionable, and shown working in a real case.L2
- One definition, used everywhereA definition made once and used in every place it applies, so that improving it improves every place it reaches.L2
- Working examplesTurning a definition into a working example that can be checked, so an idea meets reality before anyone relies on it.L2
- How this framework growsThe rules this framework follows as it gains concepts: each placed once, inside the broader one it narrows, resting on what it depends on, with its sources beside it.L2
- The LeakThe share of decisions written out by hand where a definition already exists to make them.L2
- Definition flows downWhat is defined at the top sharpens everything beneath it: a clearer aim makes the order of actions clearer, and a clearer order makes each action clearer.L2
I
Time
Everything a plan shows is laid along time.
3 conceptsto level 1
II
Information
What sets the width of the range ahead of a party: how precisely its aims are stated, and how well its present position is known.
8 conceptsto level 2
III
Money
Money is the means to a life, not the aim.
7 conceptsto level 3
- Time and moneyMoney's value depends on when it is held.L1
- Market pricingHow markets put a price on the future: what investors expect to earn, how much it varies, and what they are paid for bearing that.L1
IV
Personality
The people a plan is for: what they are aiming at, how they decide alone and together, and how their minds shape the choices they make.
18 conceptsto level 3
- Ideals and aimsWhat a party is aiming at, from the direction that orients it to the targets and goals that can be checked by a date.L1
- TargetA measurable step toward what a party is aiming for: a statement that will be true or false by a stated time.L2
- Goals: the floor before the upsideWhat a party wants its money to do, in order: its needs first, then its wants - lifestyle, then aspirations.L2
- Needs & wantsWhat a party needs and what it wants: the income that is its floor, and what it hopes to do, by when.L3
- Outside your controlWhat moves whatever a party decides: inflation, wages, interest rates, returns and the rules.L3
- ViewpointThe person, or the people sharing goals, from whose side a plan is read: their goals and their outcomes, with other people's money counted only as it reaches them.L3
- RiskThe chance of falling short of a stated goal.L2
- Individuals and group dynamicsA plan is for people, singly and together: a household, the people it supports, and the ways their interests meet and pull apart.L1
- The householdThe people a plan is for, with everything they own, owe, earn and spend.L2
- Human capitalThe present value of all the earnings still to come.L2
- Life and health eventsDeath, disability and serious illness, and what each does to a party's finances: the hazards insurance exists for, so a plan can show what each would do to the range.L2
- Group dynamicsHow people deciding together move differently from each person alone, in a household and in a market.L2
- PsychologyHow minds shape money decisions: what people notice, what they fear, and where confidence runs ahead of evidence.L1
- Clarity, in Their Own HandsA party understanding its own financial world well enough to find it definite, measurable and in its own control.L2
- The illusion of validityConfidence in a judgement that comes from how well the story hangs together, not from how often such judgements prove right.L2
- The Value of CertaintyWhat it is worth to a party to be less unsure: of where it stands now, and so of where it is headed.L2
V
Idea and action
How an intention becomes a fact.
11 conceptsto level 3
- What to do nextThe principle that orders actions so the next one is the most likely to move a party toward its aim, and the surest of doing so.L1
- Moving ActionAn action that changes a party's position, so the future is more likely to be better than the present: a contribution made, a debt cleared, a policy taken.L2
- Defining ActionAn action that changes nothing in the world but sharpens what is known: measuring a figure, stating a threshold, deciding what done means.L2
- The Value of InformationInformation is worth gathering only if it could change what is done next.L2
- The Order of ActionsThe same actions in a different order produce a different result.L2
- DecisionA choice a party makes that changes the plan: a retirement age, a contribution, a drawdown, a product held.L1
- SovereigntyA party in command of its own finances: understanding them well enough to direct them, and able to bring about what it is aiming for.L1
VI
The plan
A party's record and its decisions, carried forward to the horizon and run through a thousand paths: the range ahead, and the chance every need is met.
9 conceptsto level 2
- The recordWhat is true about the household as entered: people, accounts, income, spending, debts and goals.L1
- Tax and rulesThe tax, super and pension rules a plan is run under, applied year by year as they stand and as they are scheduled to change.L2
- Products that can be boughtA plan is made of things that can actually be bought: real funds, policies and accounts, with their real fees, not an average with no name.L2
- SimulationThe plan carried through a thousand paths under one set of assumptions, producing the range and the chance.L1
- PathOne simulated life of the plan: one sequence of returns, inflation and events, year by year to the horizon.L2
- ProjectionThe single expected line: one path at average returns with no spread, shown and labelled as one.L2
- ChanceThe share of simulated futures in which every need is met, said as about n in 100, with its margin beside it.L2
- ScenarioThe plan with one or more decisions changed, run as its own simulation and shown beside the plan.L1
Sources
- Barbara Minto, The Pyramid Principle, ch. 1, 1987.Cited by How this framework grows
- Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, 1996.Cited by Probability
- Pierre-Simon Laplace, Essai philosophique sur les probabilités, 1814.Cited by Probability
- A. N. Kolmogorov, Grundbegriffe der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung, 1933.Cited by Probability
- Frank H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, 1921.Cited by Uncertainty, Probability, Risk
- Douglas W. Hubbard, How to Measure Anything, 2007.Cited by Measurement, Estimates as Ranges, The Value of Information
- P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics, 1927.Cited by Definition, Measurement
- Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner, Superforecasting, ch. 3, Keeping Score, 2015.Cited by Calibration
- Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, ch. 20, The Illusion of Validity, 2011.Cited by False Precision, The illusion of validity
- Ronald A. Howard, Management Science 34(6), Decision Analysis: Practice and Promise, 1988.Cited by The Value of Information, Decision
- Richard Rumelt, Good Strategy / Bad Strategy, ch. 5, The Kernel, 2011.Cited by What to do next
- Nicholas Metropolis and S. Ulam, Journal of the American Statistical Association 44(247), The Monte Carlo Method, 1949.Cited by Monte Carlo simulation
- Irving Fisher, The Theory of Interest, 1930.Cited by Time and money
- Eugene F. Fama, The Journal of Finance 25(2), 383-417, Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work, 1970.Cited by Market pricing
- John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, ch. 12, 1936.Cited by Market pricing, Group dynamics
- Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton, Triumph of the Optimists: 101 Years of Global Investment Returns, 2002.Cited by Expected return and volatility, What the Past Can Witness
- Harry Markowitz, The Journal of Finance 7(1), 77-91, Portfolio Selection, 1952.Cited by Expected return and volatility
- Benoit Mandelbrot, The Journal of Business 36(4), The Variation of Certain Speculative Prices, 1963.Cited by Fat tails
- Gary S. Becker, Human Capital, 1964.Cited by Human capital
- John W. Pratt, Econometrica 32(1/2), Risk Aversion in the Small and in the Large, 1964.Cited by The Value of Certainty
- Herodotus, Histories, 1.53 and 1.91, c. 430 BC.Cited by Decisions You Cannot Take Back
- docs/cma-provenance.md, Vitrion CMA Provenance Pack v1, 2026.Cited by Expected return and volatility
- Ole Peters, Nature Physics 15(12), The ergodicity problem in economics, 2019.Cited by Decisions You Cannot Take Back, The Loss That Ends the Game
- Ole Peters and Murray Gell-Mann, Chaos 26(2), Evaluating gambles using dynamics, 2016.Cited by The Loss That Ends the Game
- Daniel Bernoulli, Econometrica 22(1), Exposition of a New Theory on the Measurement of Risk, 1738; English translation 1954.Cited by Decisions You Cannot Take Back, The Loss That Ends the Game
- J. L. Kelly Jr, Bell System Technical Journal 35(4), A New Interpretation of Information Rate, 1956.Cited by The Loss That Ends the Game
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, 2018.Cited by The Loss That Ends the Game