Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
There IS no such such Ban, as you well know. The only applicable ban is the one regarding a single mentally ill persistent troll, for his rotten BEHAVIOR, not for his bizarre beliefs. Shiller can post, Easterling can post, etc.
Any of a host of perma-bears, timers, wave-speculators, kooks, cranks, swindlers, and nuts can post on pretty much any board out there. In fact, right up until his demise, even that twisted old codger, the irascible JWR was perfectly free to post.
The only major ban I know of is for YOU, personally, at more than a dozen finance boards.
You said you hoped to veer off into writing at political boards next, and I very much suspect that the pattern will repeat itself there, as well, even in the wild-and-wooly world of internet political wrangling. That would be quite a feat for even you, Rob, to attain multiple bans in that freak show.
You are making a legitimate point, Helper. Thanks for being frank in your comment. Frankness always helps to bring real issues to the table.
John Walter Russell was ultimately banned at one or two places. But it was an exceedingly rare thing for him to be banned. During the time we were working together on a daily basis, there were several places where he was praised on a daily basis and where I was banned. He would get into trouble only when he talked about me. And John always got more comments posted at his site, even though I had more traffic at my site. When I would post at John’s site, there were people who would be turned off, even though the two of us were saying the same thing (obviously in somewhat different ways).
I also agree with you that lots of kooks and cranks and nuts are permitted to post at just about every site at which I have been banned.
I half agree and half disagree with what you say about Shiller and Easterling. Whether they were banned or not would depend on how strongly they stated their views. I can imagine them being tolerated and I can imagine them being banned at some places if they spoke frankly.
The basic point you are making — that there is something special about me that does not apply in the case of other people who have investing beliefs in many ways similar to my own — is legitimate. I’ll give you that one.
We all should be trying to figure out what that extra factor that I bring to the table is. Knowing what that extra factor is is important. When we identify that extra factor, we are on our way to resolving not only the problem of the friction at the boards but the problem re what we all need to do to become far more effective investors in the future than we have ever been in the past.
There are numerous people who have acknowledged that I am 100 percent kind and polite and warm in my dealings with all my fellow posters, even those who have threatened to kill my wife and children. So it is obviously not that I am in any way abusive in the way that that word is ordinarily interpreted when people are discussing who should and who should not be permitted to post at discussion boards and blogs. I have never violated a posting rule and I am the last person in the world who ever would do so. But there is something that I am doing that bothers lots of people in a big way. It would be constructive to figure out what that something is.
I believe it is five things.
One, I root everything I say in the academic research. Mot of the kooks you refer to do not do that. Buy-and-Holder sincerely believe that their strategy is rooted in the academic research and that gives them comfort. If some kook comes along and offers a different take, it does not bother the Buy-and-Holders too much because they believe that their strategy is rooted in research and the kook’s strategy is not. I am different. I insist that people look at the research. I never back away from that. I say both that VII IS rooted in research and that Buy-and-Hold is not. I pose more of a threat to Buy-and-Holders than the kooks who are not challenging their positions re what the research says.
Two, I not only advocate something new, I also say that Buy-and-Hold does NOT work. This touches emotional hot buttons. I think this is the difference between me and John Walter Russell. Russell’s usual practice was to present his research and offer little discussion of what it meant. He rarely said the words “Buy-and-Hold doesn’t work.” People felt they could tolerate what he was saying on grounds that everybody is entitled to an opinion. And lots of people believe that valuations matter. So they liked it that he was exploring how valuations matter. The obvious implication of his research was that Buy-and-Hold does not work. But so long as he didn’t say those words, people didn’t feel that they had to respond to him. When I say “Buy-and-Hold doesn’t work,” Buy-and-Holders feel compelled to respond and it annoys the piss out of them that I say that over and over and over again.
Three, I make grand claims about how wonderful Valuation-Informed Indexing is. This is what Scott Burns was getting at when he said that my approach is “catastrophically unproductive” and that my claim that there is a “New School” of SWR analysis is “self-aggrandizing.” He feels that it makes him look stupid that there was this huge potential to offer better investing advice all these years and that he missed it. I am not only saying that there were little mistakes made, I am saying that the mistakes that were made ruined millions of lives. It is hard for people to accept that. It makes them feel that they are bad, that they steered their friends wrong and that they let their families down and that they let their clients down and that they let their readers down. It makes people feel badly about themselves.
Four, I do not seem qualified to make such grand claims. I do think it is possible that Shiller would be tolerated if he said the same things I say because people would say “well, he won a Nobel prize, I have to respect that.” I am some fellow whose only claim to expertise in this field is that I happened to figure out how to get words posted to the internet. People feel that it is an outrage that I make such grand claims. As one fellow put it, it sounds “grandiose.” It rubs people’s fur the wrong way when I say things like “I know more about how stock investing works than Jack Bogle,” who is a well-loved (properly so) figure in this field.
Five, many of the things that I say sound like thinly veiled attacks on the personal integrity of the biggest names in this field. Probably the most extreme case is where I say that Jack Bogle is at risk of going to prison for financial fraud. That claim is so far outside the realm of what most people think is reasonable that they cannot accept or even tolerate hearing me say it. A somewhat less extreme case is when I say that the errors in the Old School SWR studies have been covered up for 12 years. When I say something like that, I am not just offering a different view on investing. I am not saying “Oh, I would use a withdrawal rate of 3 percent rather than 4 percent.” It sounds like I am saying that people of considerable accomplishments lack integrity. That’s a very serious charge. The general reaction is to respond with the thought: “Where the heck does he get off with this stuff?” Those sorts of claims make even supporters of my ideas angry because they see it as a nasty business for me to make such claims.
I think those are the big five factors in why I am perceived differently than others who say that valuations matter or who in some other way take issue with core Buy-and-Hold principles: (1) I focus on the findings of peer-reviewed research rather than just express a personal point of view; (2) I attack Buy-and-Hold as well as advocate Valuation-Informed Indexing; (3) I make expansive claims that strike most people as grandiose and even impossible (Wade said “it all seems so implausible”); (4) I do not possess the credentials that would make people respect even less expansive claims; and (5) I seem to be questioning the personal integrity of a good number of people who have stellar reputations built up over a long period of time.
I have not worked hard on the political side. But I have tried a few things there. The reason I have not worked those fields harder is that I have generally experienced the same reactions there that I have seen on the investing sites. I have hopes that that things will be different at political sites. But I wouldn’t bet a big bunch of money on this turning out to be the case.
I hope that helps a bit, Helper.
Rob
Anonymous says
#4 is by far the biggest reason.
Rob says
I ain’t no investing expert, Anonymous. And I don’t claim to be one.
But Wade Pfau possesses all the necessary credentials. Wade spent 16 months of his life studying Valuation-Informed Indexing. He found that it checked out in ever possible way.
The response of the Buy-and-Hold Mafia was to threaten to get him fired from his job if he continued to “cross” them by publishing honest research.
So the problem here is corruption. Anyone who thinks that we can get accurate information about how to invest without first dealing with the corruption of the Buy-and-Holders is fooling himself.
Lots of people don’t like hearing that. I don’t like saying it.
But I know that I have to say it if I am to have any hope whatsoever of getting your prison sentence shortened a bit. So I solider on.
I look forward to the announcement of your prison sentence, Anonymous. Not because I wish you any ill. Because I want to keep your prison sentence as limited as possible and the sooner it is announced the shorter it will be.
My best wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Evidence Based Investing says
No. You are wrong of course.
Those five reasons are what you would like the issue to be. But none of them are the issue.
The issue is the way you behave when interacting with others either by email or or discussion boards.
Numerous people come to the same conclusion independently.
And tell you so.
And you ignore them.
Over and Over again.
Rob says
The Buy-and-Holders consider it inappropriate behavior to demand that the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies be promptly corrected.
Guilty as charged.
No apologies whatsoever.
My best wishes.
Rob
Rob says
I’ll give a slightly different response to your comment, Evidence. I am going on vacation tomorrow morning. So I probably will not be able to react to any words you elect to put forward for a week or so. But, if you come back with something, I will certainly take a look when I return.
I don’t disagree with you that numerous people come to the same conclusion independently.
I don’t disagree that at least a good number of them make an effort to explain how they feel about things to me.
It’s not quite right to say that I ignore them. I make a sincere effort to LISTEN to every word directed at me re this matter. However, it IS true that I elect not to follow most of the advice re how to behave re this matter that is directed my way. So I don’t think we are in disagreement here.
And I don’t disagree that the same pattern repeats over and over again.
So we agree on much.
The thing we do NOT agree on is whether the behavior you are referring to is positive or negative.
My investing views are not majority views. I certainly hold no illusions that they are.
The problem from my point of view is that I believe that minority views re investing MUST be expressed AT ALL TIMES and under the same conditions as majority views. I get it that my views make many people feel uncomfortable. I get that loud and clear. That reality makes me feel that it is all the more urgent that these views be heard.
Discussion boards and blogs are communities of people holding a diversity of viewpoints re the subjects examined.
My views are at an extreme end of the spectrum of opinion.
For many years, these views were not heard AT ALL. Today, they are heard in small doses but only in small doses. I believe that all of our communities need to explore the implications of Shiller’s views far more frequently than they ever have before and in far more depth than they ever have before.
This is not something that can be put up to a majority vote. The majority is emotionally invested in Buy-and-Hold. If decisions as to what ideas a community could hear were made by majority vote, new ideas would never have a chance to grow and the communities following this practice would suffer. I believe that new ideas are the lifeblood of our communities. We not only should permit discussion of them. We should ENCOURAGE the discussion of them.
I certainly believe that the communities should decide what topics will be discussed. But not by majority vote taken at the time when a particular issue comes to the table. The communities decide what issues can be discussed by the rules they adopt to govern debate. All of our communities have elected to adopt rules that PERMIT discussion of the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research. That settles the matter.
People ARE uncomfortable with things I say. The best expression of this discomfort was put forward by a guy who said: “Rob is the most polite and gentle guy I have come across on the internet. And he irritates me to no end!” That guy was telling us how he really feels. I bug the piss out of him.
Your solution is to “protect” him from my words.
My solution is to figure out why my words bug the piss out of him.
If he were confident in his investing strategies, nothing I said could bother him. He shouldn’t be so irritated by mere words. There is something wrong here.
The P/E10 value that applies today tells us what is wrong. People are irrationally attached to stocks today. This whole thing is circular. People are upset to hear about the research because they are irrationally attached to stocks and people are irrationally attached to stocks because they have not heard about the research.
The only way to break the circle is to get posts about the research before people. Anyone who cares to can ignore those posts. But the posts need to be there at every board and blog for those who want to tap into what is said in them.
I don’t expect to convince you. I am putting these words forward because I felt that there was at least some truth in your comment and I felt that should be acknowledged.
There are many people who love my stuff. It is a minority. But there are a good number of such people. But there is also a larger number that is upset by my stuff. People tell me that all the time in various ways and, yes, I do largely ignore them. Because I don’t think that doing the popular thing helps anyone in these circumstances.
We need to get people exposed to the new ideas so that they can make up their own minds. It will hurt a bit for some. But that’s what happens when a society makes a decision to start rooting investing advice in research. Research findings change over time and that can be upsetting. It also can be very liberating in the long run.
Take care, man.
Rob
laugh says
I like how every post is now about yourself. And I am sure you have a 20-30 paragraph explanation for it and it all makes sense.
Rob says
I do.
The posts that write today are intended for viewing after the next crash, Laugh.
We need to help people understand what happened to them. We don’t just want to say “oh, people messed up, sorry!” We need to go into as much detail as possible. Not because we want to linger over bad stuff. Because we want to AVOID bad stuff in the future. We have to make a complete case as to why it is important that investors focus on valuations ALL THE TIME and why it is critical that they make whatever adjustments in their portfolio allocations AS SOON AS THEY ARE CALLED FOR because, if they wait, it will get harder and harder to make those adjustments.
Buy-and-Hold is a trap. It does seem to work for periods of time. But the more people there are who come to believe in it, the higher valuations go. The higher valuations go, the more frightened people become that everything is going to collapse. And the more frightened people become that everything is going to collapse, the more people suppress any honest, research-based comments. Each aspect of the thing feeds into all the others.
And the more you struggle to get out of the trap, the tighter it pulls in on you. I believe that you Goons would permit honest posting on SWRs today if we could do it over. But to come clean today would require more than that. You would have to own up to the threats made to silence Wade Pfau and lots of other stuff. If you didn’t want to own up to the errors in the Old School SWR studies, you REALLY don’t want to own up to threatening academic researchers. The evidence that the numbers in the Old School SWR studies are wrong is now a mountain. But the trap is harder to get out of than ever before.
Not all of the posts are about me. But a lot of them are. My story is a compelling illustration of how things work when a large number of investors come to believe that Buy-and-Hold strategies might work. I should pose no threat to anyone. I possess no expertise in this field and I don’t claim to possess any. So why would my words pose a threat to the Buy-and-Holders? Why would they care enough to threaten to kill my wife and children if I continued posting honestly?
The threat exists because long before I came on the scene lots of other good and smart people tried to tell us all the truth about stock investing and were suppressed. By the time I came along the Buy-and-Holders were already insanely defensive. I didn’t know it. My sense is that a lot of them didn’t really know it. But they sensed that Shiller’s work was dangerous stuff and that anyone trying to discuss it had to be silenced pronto. So Buy-and-Holders started lashing out at me within five minutes of my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002.
This is not an intellectual debate. There are important points of an intellectual nature in play. But all the evidence re the intellectual matters are on one side. So that part is easy. The reason why things have played out as they have is that the emotion is 50 times more intense on the Buy-and-Hold side than it is on the Valuation-Informed Indexing side, which has not yet won the strong loyalty even of those who generally believe in it.
My story illustrates well all the points that most need to be heard.
Other stories do too. Wade’s story obviously makes very important points.
And even the stories of you Goons make important points.
All of those stories are more important today than the substantive, intellectual points. The substantive, intellectual points are the good stuff. That’s the stuff we want to work up to. But we need to clear out the emotional stuff to get to the place where we all deep in our hearts want to go.
I wish you well, Laugh.
Rob