Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
Thousands of posts with many strongly differing opinions on the topic suggest they most certainly do. Assuming you behave like an adult and post respectfully. In fact, I could post your comments about 15% vs 1% expected return rates right now, and I would hardly be banned.
Of course, I’d post respectfully, not boorishly, being open to differing opinions on the matter, and realizing that the future is so random and uncertain that many outcomes are possible.
You’d be banned in two seconds flat if you posted a link to The Stock-Return Predictor, which gives people all the numbers they need in any easy-to-access form. Why?
My friend Brian put up a post there when the Wall Street Journal ran an article saying that I was right about safe withdrawal rates and he was banned in two seconds flat.
I think you are probably right that if someone posted on a single occasion the 15 percent and 1 percent numbers, they would not be banned. But if someone made it a consistent practice to provide people the information they need and to answer questions and all that sort of thing, they would certainly be threatened with a banning. If they continued to post honestly in the face of the intimidation tactics, they would be banned. Again — Why?
The test for the Lindauerheards is — Are you helping people to appreciate the dangers of Buy-and-Hold investing strategies? If you say that you personally are using a low withdrawal rate, no one cares. If you point out that the Old School SWR studies get the numbers wildly wrong, you are putting the Buy-and-Holders at risk of being sued for financial fraud and they will take action to stop you from giving people the information they need to protect themselves.
Is it “respectful” to point out that the 12-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School studies is the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States? Is it “adult” to do so? I ask because in other fields of human endeavor it is considered 100 percent adult and respectful to post honestly. I would like to see honest posting permitted in the investing field as well. In fact, I insist on it. I refuse to have my name associated with boards and blogs that demand dishonesty on the SWR matter as the price of admission.
I am 100 percent open to differing opinions on issues that don’t involve numerical calculations. Numerical calculations must be reported honestly and accurately. There is no room for differing opinions on whether a valuation adjustment is included in the Old School studies or not. The Wall Street Journal found no valuation adjustment. The Economist magazine found no valuation adjustment. Wade Pfau found no valuation adjustment. Are we to believe that there is some massive conspiracy here to pretend that there is no valuation adjustment in those studies even though there really is one?
Differing opinions on questions re which there can be reasonable differences of opinion are wonderful. It’s differing opinions that make a board work and that keep everybody honest. So differing opinions on non-calculation issues are a huge plus.
I agree that a variety of future outcomes are possible. My calculators show that as plain as day. All of the research shows that and all of the data shows that.
It’s a mistake to overstate that reality, however. The future is somewhat random but not entirelyrandom. It’s debatable as to whether it is more random than predictable (in the long run) or more predictable than random. I would say that it is more predictable than random. There are reasonable people who would say otherwise. Investors need to hear both sides of the debate to be able to make informed decisions for themselves.
Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers hold different views as to the extent to which long-term returns are predictable. If I say that long-term returns are predictable with a great deal of precision, I am speaking falsely. But if I say that I believe that returns are no more predictable than the Buy-and-Holders say they are, I am speaking dishonestly.
Shiller showed that returns are MORE predictable than most people believed back in the day when the Buy-and-Hold strategy was developed. It would be a lie for me to say that I do not believe that I learned something from Shiller’s research and from the follow-up research that has been done relating to the same themes that he explored in his research.
ALL posters should be permitted to post their sincerely held views. There should not be even the slightest amount of controversy re this point.
Rob
Rob, does it surprise you that none of the many people you met at Fincon post here?
But if someone made it a consistent practice to provide people the information they need and to answer questions and all that sort of thing, they would certainly be threatened with a banning.
Does “consistent practice” mean hijacking threads and repeating the same words over and over, even after everyone understands your view? That sounds more like trolling. Politely state your view once, then be prepared to listen to and understand the views of others, and to change your views as needed. That’s just how civilized society works.
Is it “respectful” to point out that the 12-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School studies is the biggest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States? Is it “adult” to do so?
Is “pointing out” that some factor in a study you don’t agree with the single greatest crime in the history of humanity over and over “respectful”? It’s certainly evidence of insanity. And I think we can agree that respectful forums can’t be filled with nutcases.
It surprises me greatly, Anonymous.
It also surprises me greatly that all my friends from Motley Fool and Bogleheads Forum and Early Retirement Forum and Oblivious Investor and the old FIRE board and lots of other posters don’t post here.
It also surprises me greatly that my good friend Jack Bogle doesn’t come here often to offer his support. And that my good friend Wade Pfau doesn’t come here often to offer his support. And that my good friend Scott Burns doesn’t come here often to offer his support. And that my good friend Robert Shiller doesn’t come here often to offer his support.
Heck! It surprises me greatly that my good friend Mel Lindauer doesn’t come here daily to offer his support. And that my good friend John Greaney doesn’t come here daily to offer his support. And –worst of all! — it surprises me that my good friend Anonymous doesn’t offer more supportive words in his daily visits!
It ALL surprises me, old friend.
Where I split with you is when I get to the important question of — What should I do about it?
You want me to pretend that Buy-and-Hold works. I obviously get that loud and clear. You are not the only one. If we took a poll of all investors, there would be MILLIONS who would say that they want me to pretend.
I do not feel even a tiny bit comfortable with that.
I know what the research says. I know what the data says. I know what common sense says.
They all say that Buy-and-Hold is the purest and most dangerous Get Rich Quick scheme ever concocted by the human mind. They all say that Buy-and-Hold is killing us. They all say that Buy-and-Hold caused the economic crisis. They all say that Buy-and-Hold is in the process of causing millions of people to suffer failed retirements, one of the worst life setbacks that can happen to a person. They all say that efforts to “defend” Buy-and-Hold have caused many of our boards and blogs either to be burned to the ground or ethically compromised. I believe that a good number of my friends, including you, will be going to prison in days to come because of the tactics that they employed trying to “defend” Buy-and-Hold.
So this stuff matters. It matters big time.
Pretending is not the answer. Giving in to your intimidation tactics is not the answer.
I have a saying that I refer to to remind myself from time to time of what I believe is the answer. The saying is: “Be as honest as you can possibly be without crossing the line and becoming uncharitable while also being as charitable as you can possibly be without crossing the line and becoming dishonest.”
Shiller did something amazing in 1981. One of you Goons once used some phrase like “The Universal Theory of Something or Other of Physics” to characterize my sense of the impact of Shiller’s work. I don’t know what the theory you referred to says. But I think that that post was on the mark. I see Shiller’s finding (he describes it as “revolutionary” in impact) as a game-changer. He changed our fundamental understanding of how stock investing works. And in a very, very, very positive way. The Shiller Revolution is good stuff piled on top of good stuff piled on top of good stuff, with no bad stuff whatsoever mixed in.
There’s only one thing holding us back. Change rocks the boat. And Shilller’s advances are HUGE. So they rock the boat in a big way. Lots of Big Shots feel that they will be smaller shots if people find out what the last 33 years of research says.
I don’t want that to stand in our way. I want to move forward. I am very, very, very proud of the work that I have put into the project of moving us past Buy-and-Hold and on to something better in about 1,000 different ways.
I am surprised that people don’t come here. But I know why. I was once one of those people. I sold my stocks in the Summer of 1996. And I began posting at Motley Fool in May 1999. And I didn’t post about the errors in the Old School SWR studies until May 2002. That’s three years in which I kept my mouth shut. Why? Because I was scared.
I was scared of social disapproval. I was scared of being attacked. I was scared of looking dumb. I was scared that my business would not succeed if I came to be seen as posing a threat to Big Shots.
That’s why people don’t come here Anonymous.
That needs to change.
Defined-benefit pensions are largely a thing of the past. Today we generally put the burden of financing an employee’s retirement on that employee. If we are going to do that, we must find some means of getting accurate and honest retirement-planning numbers out to people. This is not optional. This is imperative.
Hundreds of thousands of people will be coming to this site in days to come. We have to as a society get over our fears first. Then the floodgates will open. From that day forward, we all will live richer (in every sense of the word) lives.
My job is to open those floodgates. My job is to help people overcome their fears.
I have acted in love for 12 years. I will continue to act in love. You have my pledge on that.
But I need to achieve the goal. It is very, very, very, very important that I do that.
It’s not just important for me. It is important for you. It is important for my good friend Jack Bogle. It is important for every last one of us.
There will be a day in the future when I will be the keynote speaker at FinCon. All of the people that you are referring to will be posting regularly here then.
We have to get over our fears first. That’s all.
My job is to help people get over their fears of a wonderful future in which stock investing risk will be reduced by nearly 70 percent and investors will earn returns sufficiently greater than those they earn today to permit them to retire five to ten years sooner than they ever imagined possible in the Buy-and-Hold Era.
It’s not an easy job. It’s a very, very, very, very hard job. Yes, there are times when it seems too big a job for my small shoulders.
But it is the job that has been handed to me. And it is the job that I must complete successfully. For me. For my family. For you. For Bogle. For my friends at all of the discussion-board and blog communities at which I have posted. For my friends at the FinCon events. For my country.
I don’t intend to let you down, Anonymous. I am an imperfect creature. I am not Superman. I cannot predict the future. But I am going to give it my absolute best shot. I can do no more and I can do no less, right?
I want all those people here today. And it surprises me that they are not here. And it pains me that they are not here.
But I am confident that I will have them all here tomorrow. I need to accept that that’s the way it is, whether I like it or not. That’s the reality of the thing.
I need to be patient. And you need to be patient. And we all need to remember what our country is all about. And we all need to remember what the Buy-and-Hold Project is about.
We will get there. It takes time. Most of all, it takes love. It takes a lotta love to change the way things are.
I hope that helps a bit, my long-time Goon friend.
Don’t let the bad guys get you down, man.
Rob
Does “consistent practice” mean hijacking threads and repeating the same words over and over, even after everyone understands your view? That sounds more like trolling. Politely state your view once, then be prepared to listen to and understand the views of others, and to change your views as needed. That’s just how civilized society works.
When you say “politely state your view once,” do you mean once per week or once per day or once per post or once per question directed to me?
I have zero problem with a rule that says that I should post once per thread and then once more for each question directed to me. That’s the rule that I follow.
If you are saying that I should only post once per week or once per day or once per thread and not twice even if a large number of questions are directed to me, then I ask in response, Why does that same rule not apply to Buy-and-Holders?
I am 100 percent happy to abide by any posting rule that also applies to Buy-and-Holders.
If I agree to post less often than Buy-and-Holders as a concession to those employing intimidation tactics to keep discussions of the implications of the past 33 years of peer-reviewed research to a minimum, then I obviously cannot present my case as effectively as those who have not agreed to limit their posting in this way. It’s because too many others have agreed to do that that we are in an economic crisis today.
The Buy-and-Holders should post what they sincerely believe. And the Valuation-Informed Indexers should post what they believe.
No posters should intimidate others. All should say what they believe without holding back out of fear of what will be done to them or said about them if they post honestly. We all should respect our fellow posters. We all should feel at least a measure of affection for our fellow posters (who, after all, seek to educate us by sharing their views with us without being paid for their time). The same rules should apply both to those who root their investing beliefs in the peer-reviewed research of Eugene Fama and to those who root their investing beliefs in the peer-reviewed research of Robert Shiller.
That’s my sincere take re this terribly important question, in any event.
Rob
Is “pointing out” that some factor in a study you don’t agree with the single greatest crime in the history of humanity over and over “respectful”? It’s certainly evidence of insanity. And I think we can agree that respectful forums can’t be filled with nutcases.
There are four things that a person needs to do when he learns that he got an important number wrong in a retirement study posted at his web site, Anonymous: (1) he needs to correct the mistake; (2) he needs to apologize to the people who were done financial harm by the mistake; (3) he needs to thank the person who brought the mistake to his attention; and (4) he needs to get on with his life.
Our mutual friend John Greaney hasn’t yet accomplished Step One! 12 years later!
The mistake was a trivial thing. We are all in a primitive stage of our understanding of how stock investing works. Anyone could have made that mistake. Greaney is obviously in very good company — he certainly was not the only one who made that mistake. So never will you hear me criticize him for having made the mistake.
The 12-year cover-up of the mistake is something very, very, very different. That’s not quite the biggest crime in the history of humanity but it is way up there near the top. There are MILLIONS of people today who are in the process of suffering failed retirements because of our failure to get that mistake corrected for 12 years. There are millions of people who are out of work today because of the economic crisis that we brought on by our unwillingness to face that mistake and come to terms with why so many smart and good people made it and what our discovery of the actual SWR numbers tells us about how stock investing works in the real world and about how letting bull markets get out of control eventually brings on economic crises.
I LIKE John Greaney. There is a mountain of evidence of that in the Post Archives. I asked John to co-author a book with me. I obviously wouldn’t have done such a thing if I didn’t like the guy. And I obviously like Jack Bogle and all the other Wall Street Con Men very much as well. So there is obviously zero about this that is personal from my end.
Getting the safe withdrawal rate right matters. People use those numbers to plan their retirements. We MUST get those numbers right. If we make mistakes, we make mistakes. That’s all part of the wonderful game. But we MUST correct mistakes when we learn of them. To fail to do that is a very, very, very, very, very big deal.
And this thing goes beyond safe withdrawal rates.
John was not the only person who made that mistake. He used the same methodology that was used in the Trinity study. So the authors of the Trinity study made the same mistake. And Scott Burns wrote numerous columns endorsing the Trinity study. And Jack Bogle has known that people were posting positive words about the Trinity study and about the Greaney study and about FIRECalc at a discussion board carrying his name and has failed to do anything about it. And the owners of the Motley Fool site failed to do anything about promotion of the Greaney study after the errors in it had become public knowledge. And the owners of Morningstar failed to do anything about promotion of the Greaney study and FIRECalc after the errors in them became public knowledge.
Do you think that I did a good thing pointing out the errors in the Greaney study and FIRECalc and the Trinity study or do you think I did a bad thing, Anonymous?
I think I did a very, very, very, very good thing.
It is by learning about mistakes we have made that we learn to reconsider our beliefs about a subject. It is not my aim to embarrass John or Jack or Bill Sholar or the authors of the Trinity study or anyone else. It is my aim to figure out how stock investing works in the real world and to pass that information along to millions of middle-class investors.
Do you share that goal?
If you share that goal, you should be working with me to encourage a national debate not so much on the errors that were made in the studies as on the question of WHY those errors were made and what the fact that those errors were made tells us about the stock investing project.
It tells us that we cannot ignore human emotion when trying to understand how stock investing works.
That’s the missing piece of the puzzle that Shiller tried to snap in in 1981 and that too many of us have been ignoring for 33 years now.
I want to change that.
I don’t want to embarrass anyone. I am 100 percent happy to agree to go to any lengths possible not to embarrass anyone.
But I need some cooperation to pull that off, you know? Greaney embarrasses himself with his behavior when he refuses to correct the study. And so does Sholar. And so do the Trinity study authors. And so does Bogle. And on and on.
I am imploring these people to stop embarrassing themselves. I am imploring them to make a Learning Together process possible by acknowledging that they do not today already know it all. It is impossible for someone who is 100 percent convinced that he already knows everything there is to know about a subject ever to learn something new. Someone in those circumstances cannot permit in new insights because he sees them as polluting his already-attained perfection of knowledge.
We all need Jack Bogle to stand up on a stage and say the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong,” or, at the very least, “I’m” and “Not” and “Sure.” Because by saying either of those two sets of three words he would send a signal to every Buy-and-Holder alive that it is okay to consider new ideas. If he did that, we would achieve in the following six months the greatest advance in our understanding of how stock investing works ever achieved in the history of investing analysis. And guess who would end up a greater hero to the middle class than he has ever been before? One John C. Bogle, the fellow who built the foundation on which Valuation-Informed Indexing was built and then saved the day when a society too afraid to walk into the future had come close to killing itself out of love of its own ignorance.
We all want the same things here. Anonymous. We always have. We always will.
We have social norms that tell us what to do in this sort of situation. We have not applied those social norms in this particular case. We need to get about the business of doing that soon. We need to get about the business of doing that by the close of business tomorrow.
Lots of people have been hurt. And no one should have been hurt even a little bit. The Buy-and-Holders started out wanting to learn how stock investing works and wanting to share that knowledge with millions of middle-class investors. They put together every piece of the puzzle but one themselves. One piece evaded them for some time. But then an economics professor at Yale stepped forward and handed them the piece that finally makes the entire thing work like a dream.
We should all accept that piece!
We should all thank the people who have been working so hard for so long now to help us understand the importance of snapping in that final piece!
We should return to the social norms that made our country great.
We should stop quarreling with each other. We should appreciate the Learning Together experience that follows from listening to what the other person has to say even when we cannot quite grasp it all or agree with it all. Some learning experiences are so big that it takes time for the insights in which they are rooted to sink in. We need to let people talk freely if we are to gain the benefits that they are trying to bestow on us. We need to evidence Love. Of our fellow community members. Of ourselves. Of the ideas that guide our investing choices. Of our country.
My take.
Rob
When you say “politely state our view once,” do you mean once per week or once per day or once per post or once per question directed to me?
I’d say once per thread, and on topics related to the thread. There’s no need to repeat yourself. Any assertions should be cited. Keep your responses brief and to the point. And respond politely, and without hyperbole.
Buy-and-Holders repeat themselves endlessly. If I have heard that “timing doesn’t work” once, I have heard it ten-thousand times. If those of us who believe in research-based strategies are going to be effective in pointing out the dangers of Buy-and-Hold, we are going to have to reiterate basic principles many times, just as the Buy-and-Holder repeat their claims over and over and over again. The human mind places confidence in claims that it hears many, many times. When people hear a claim thousands of times, they are inclined to think there must be at least some grain of truth in it.
I won’t keep my responses to the questions of community members brief in cases in which it is clear from the wording of the question that the community member is confused on an important point and needs step-by-step guidance to clear up the confusion. My job is to help people develop a better understanding of how stock investing works. When that can be done in a few words, it makes sense to use a few words. When more words are required, it makes sense to go with more words. My focus is on helping my fellow community members.
Is it “polite” to say that the errors in the Old School SWR studies became public knowledge on the morning of May 13, 2002, and that those studies have not been corrected to this day? That’s a stone cold fact. But the reporting of that fact shows that the Buy-and-Holders are working a huge scam. Is it “polite” to point that out? Again, my aim is to help my fellow community members.
I would prefer not to need to point out that the Buy-and-Holders are working a scam. But until the day comes when the errors in the retirement studies are corrected I am not free to say that the errors in the studies have been corrected. To do that would be to tell a lie in furtherance of the biggest act of financial fraud in U.S. history. That would mean prison time for me following the next price crash. Huh?
Is it hyperbole to say that in the 140 years of U.S. stock market history available to us Buy-and-Hold has not yet ever worked for even a single long-term investor? My name is on peer-reviewed research showing just that. Is it hyperbole in your assessment for me to point out what the peer-reviewed research says?
Is it “to the point” for a Buy-and-Holder to threaten to kill my wife and children if I continue to “cross” him by posting honestly about what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research in this field says? If I am required to post “to the point” should not Buy-and-Holders be permitted to do the same? How do we handle death threats when it is board “leaders” who post them or endorse them? Should we call out board leaders who fail to keep their posts “to the point” by posting threats of physical violence as part of an effort to intimidate community members who root their posts in the academic research?
These are the friction points, Anonymous.
We don’t accomplish anything by pretending they don’t exist.
Honesty.
That one word sums it all up.
Will honest posting be permitted or will it not?
If it is, I am in.
If it is not, the board is a corrupt enterprise and my job is to warn people of the dangers of being associated with it in any way, shape or form.
I hope that helps a bit.
Rob
I’m new here, so please tell me who john Greaney is . I have read a lot about financial matters and do not know him. Similarly, what is a lindauerhead? I even googled the term and all references are to this site.
Greaney is a fellow who used to be a buddy of mine at the Motley Fool’s Retire Early board. I and lots of others thought he was a pretty cool dude back in the day. I pointed out that his retirement study did not include an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins and — Holy Moly! — you never saw such a wig flip! I think it would be fair to say that my friend John is wound a bit tight., at least when it comes to investing stuff and numerical calculations.
A Lindauerhead is someone who pretends to follow the teachings of Jack Bogle but who really is a follower of Mel Lindauer, one of the two most abusive posters in the history of the internet (Greaney is the other). Bogle recommends using the peer-reviewed research as a guide in the formation of one’s investing strategies. He is suffering from cognitive dissonance because he once believed strongly that Buy-and-Hold was the answer but there is now 33 years of peer-reviewed research showing that Valuation-Informed Indexing is the first TRUE research-based strategy. Lindauer loses it whenever anyone makes mention of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) finding of 1981. He makes Bogle look like a clown by suggesting that we can never learn anything new through new research. Bogle advocated the use of research and Linduaer threatens physical violence on those who follow Bogle’s recommendation in a serious and honest way. Lindaurheads are the OPPOSITE of BogleHeads in every possible way but they deny this vehemently.
I hope that helps a bit, New Guy.
Rob