Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to another blog entry at this site:
A contributing factor of you getting kicked off all those sites is the factbthat also don’t listen. You have your agenda and want to spread it on every thread, even when it is not the subject being discussed. You think that your points are more important than what anyone else has to say, yet give no consideration to the opinion of others. If it doesn’t mesh with your line of thinking, you say that people are lying or “afraid” and that is just a bunch of bull.
I plead “guilty” to having an agenda and wanting to spread it far and wide. No apologies whatsoever.
I plead “not guilty” to pushing that agenda on any thread in which it was not relevant. That is something that I would never do. That is something that I would never consider doing. I am a very big believer in following rules, Anonymous. And that is a rule which is needed and makes sense and which I endorse. I never, ever break that rule.
All that said, there is a small bit of legitimacy to what you are saying here.
Shiller’s findings are relevant to a LOT of threads.
That’s not my doing. That’s just the way it is. Shiller’s findings are of fundamental importance. They are relevant to many, many. many discussions.
I plead “guilty” to believing that my points are more important than the points being made by most others. Everyone is guilty of that. If I didn’t think my points were important, they wouldn’t be my points. I obviously always show respect and affection to those making other points. I obviously always try to learn from those making different points. That’s as far as a human can go. We all have biases. We all are influenced by the life experiences that have comprised our lives and by the particular skill sets that we bring to the table.
I plead “not guilty” to saying that people who don’t believe in Valuation-Informed Indexing are lying or afraid. I have said 10,000 times that there are millions of good and smart people who believe in Buy-and-Hold. I was a Buy-and-Holder myself prior to the evening of August 27, 2002. Do you seriously believe that I called myself a liar and a fearful person prior to that date?
I plead “guilty” to saying that those who engage in Goon behavior (death threats, demands for unjustified board bannings, tens of thousands of acts of defamation, threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs) are liars or fearful. Those behaviors are over the line of what is considered acceptable or tolerable in a free society.
The root problem here is that Buy-and-Hold and Valuation-Informed Indexing are opposite strategies that both claim to be rooted in the peer-reviewed academic research. If VII weren’t rooted in research, the Buy-and-Holders wouldn’t get so upset. They still wouldn’t follow VII strategies. But they wouldn’t see VII as a threat. They see it as a threat because they believe that their ideas are rooted in research and those advocating VII are advocating a strategy that is the opposite in every possible way that is ALSO said to be rooted in the research. Huh?
The answer is for Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers to show respect and affection for each other and to try to learn from each other.
That’s the way that this would have played out if getting this investing stuff right weren’t so darn important. If it were a small thing, the Buy-and-Holders could say “well, this new stuff doesn’t sound quite right, but let’s hear what these people have to say, it sure can’t hurt just to listen to them.” In this case, it CAN hurt. If the Valuation-Informed Indexers are wrong, they could cause people to suffer failed retirements. So the Buy-and-Holders feel a need to come on very strong.
The other side of the story is that, if you believe in Valuation-Informed Indexing, it is the Buy-and-Holders who are causing failed retirements! We believe just as strongly in what we believe. Buy-and-Hold is every bit as dangerous in the eyes of Valuation-Informed Indexers as Valuation-Informed Indexing is in the eyes of Buy-and-Holders.
We have to find some way of having a conversation without yelling at each other.
I am game for anything that doesn’t require me to say something that I do not believe. I don’t want to tell lies. That’s normal and understandable, right?
Now –
The problem comes with what you say up front. Shiller’s findings are “revolutionary.” They turn our old understanding of how stock investing works on its head. They change every strategic consideration.
It’s not my intent to jump on every thread in which the Buy-and-Holders are having a conversation amongst themselves and ruin it for them by turning it into an argument. It is NOT my intent to do that.
But it is not only confirmed Buy-and-Holders who participate on our boards and blogs. About 10 percent of our community members follow VII strategies. Those people should be able to hear the VII side of the story on all the threads on which it applies (and that is most of them). And there is a much larger percentage of the community that remains in the Buy-and-Hold camp but would like to hear the other side of the story from time to time as well. Those people have rights. The Buy-and-Hold dogmatics don’t get to decide by themselves how things go down.
Say that the Buy-and-Holders wanted the right to label some threads “For Buy-and-Holders Only” so that they didn’t need to get in arguments re basic points with the Valuation-Informed Indexers. I have no problem with that so long as the same right is extended to the Valuation-Informed Indexers. We get to have our threads where the Buy-and-Holders stay out too. And of course there would be other threats (most threads) in which both Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers would participate.
The core thing here is that there needs to be a general recognition that there are TWO schools of academic thought re how stock investing works, not one. Buy-and-Holders are not dumb. Buy-and-Holders are not evil. But it is NOT true that Buy-and-Hold has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Fama won a Nobel Prize. So did Shiller. Both schools of thought are valid today. Every board and blog on the internet must be open to discussion of both schools of thought.
No one who comes to the table with a halfway reasonable mind is going to have a hard time working out details with me. I am 100 percent happy to bend over backwards to be reasonable and accommodating to my Buy-and-Hold friends. Put forward reasonable suggestions and we can lock this down in 24 hours.
It is NOT reasonable to expect me to sit in the audience for years while John Greaney pushes his retirement study on a daily basis and not say anything even though I am aware of the 33 years of peer-reviewed research showing that that study gets the numbers wildly wrong. I am not saying it that way as some sort of dig. I am saying it that way to make you aware of the very real problem here. You put me in an impossible situation when you apply intimidation tactics to silence me re something like that.
Greaney may well believe in the study. I believe that he does. Bogle may well believe in the investing strategy. I believe that he does.
But it is NOT the case that the Old School SWR methodology is beyond dispute proven. It is NOT that.
I have every bit as much right to advocate Valuation-Informed Indexing as Bogle has to advocate Buy-and-Hold. That right MUST be respected. There can be zero negotiation re that one.
Work with me and I will do everything I can to make things proceed smoothly.
Pull out intimidation tactics and I will call out your sorry ass on it. Every time. I am FAMOUS for it.
It has to be said that way because the bad stuff has been going on too long now for it to be ignored.
But, if you want to work together, I am 100 percent on board. I LOVE the good that the Buy-and-Holders have done, which is considerable. I care deeply about all of my Buy-and-Hold friends. It is my strongly held belief that VII is just a new version of Buy-and-Hold. We are not enemies. We are friends. We should be working together. It is a national tragedy that things ever got so far off track that there are people who today think of the two sides as working toward different purposes. We want the same things. And we can only obtain the things we want by working together.
I DO listen.
I listen to reasoned and civil arguments.
I do NOT listen to intimidation. Not ever. Intimidation tactics are a total and complete turn-off for me. My ears clog out when some Goon comes forward with dirty, smelly, disgusting intimidation tactics.
Your move.
Please THINK before posting your next words. We all have to live with the consequences of what you put forward. Please listen to that voice within you that is telling you to take things in a positive and constructive and life-affirming direction. If you listen carefully to that voice, you will see all good things come back to you in return.
Rob
Anonymous says
You do go off topic as part of driving your agenda and you oblivious to all of this.
Rob says
My primary theme is that we should all love our country and so we should all follow its laws.
What the heck is the off-topic part?
If we love our country, we should correct errors in retirement studies that do harm to the people who live in it.
No?
Rob
Rob says
I don’t think I am oblivious to anything, Anonymous.
If anything, I am too keenly aware of things that many others are not seeing clearly.
Of course if I WERE oblivious I wouldn’t see it, right?
That’s always the rub down here in the Valley of Tears.
If I AM oblivious, I am oblivious to that reality. Sorry!
I love my country.
That one is non-negotiable.
That’s the bottom line here.
If I love my country with an oblivious love, then I guess I love my country with an oblivious love.
But I cannot stop loving my country because some internet Goon got an important number wrong in a retirement study posted to his web site. That can never happen.
So we will all just have to wait and see how it all plays out.
I don’t see that there are any other options open to any of us.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors regardless of what investing strategies you elect to pursue.
Don’t let the bad guys get you down, man.
Rob
Anonymous says
If you see consistent messages from others about your behavior, that is a clear sign that you should self reflect and look to see how you can correct your issues.
Rob says
Thousands of my fellow community members have said that they would like to see honest posting on the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research permitted.
Some of the biggest names in the field have said that they learned things from me that they never learned in their Ph.D. programs. Wade Pfau told me that he anticipated winning a Nobel Prize as a result of the research he did with me.
The laws against financial fraud have been on the books in this country for years. They are supported by men and women both, by old and young both, by Democrats and Republicans both.
That’s pretty darn consistent feedback, Anonymous.
The only dissenters have been you Goons.
And you Goons are going to prison following the next price crash.
My interest in signing up with you is very, very low.
It’s zero, actually.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Anonymous says
That is because everyone that points out your behavior issues suddenly becomes a goon in your mind.
Rob says
People have been tempted by the prospect of making easy money since the day the world began, Anonymous.
There is no easier money to be made than the money that is made exploiting the Get Rich Quick impulse that resides within every investor.
I ain’t going there.
We will as a society work out who goes to prison and for how long. That’s not my job. My job is to tell the story honestly and fairly. That’s what I intend to do.
I wish you all good things.
Rob
Anonymous says
Rob has created the perfect out for himself so he never has to face reality.
Every year that goes by without a single step of progress he blames on a vast conspiracy that will change when some event that has already happened numerous times happens again in the future (crash).
When the actual brains behind the research he is touting here tell him and everyone it can’t be used as he suggests it is because they are corrupt and fearful (Wade Shiller).
When every single person who he encounters tells him he is an obnoxious brat it is because he loves his country. (?????)
Rob says
Millions of people will lose most of their retirement money in the next crash, Anonymous. They will be able to sue all of those who have continued to promote Buy-and-Hold strategies for 34 years after the peer-reviewed research in this field showed that there was precisely zero chance that such a “strategy” could ever work for even a single long-term investor. Why wouldn’t they do so?
Once those lawsuits start, everyone flips. People don’t want to be sued. People don’t want to go to prison. It is going to be a stampede.
If you don’t think so, you don’t think so. I think so. So I am working hard to build a reputation as the most severe critic of Buy-and-Hold posting on the internet today. Make sense?
I wish you all good things, my long-time Goon friend.
Rob
Rob says
I do indeed love my country.
One of the things that I love about it is that we were smart enough to pass laws making the tactics employed by you Goons felonies calling for prison time.
Good for us!
Please take good care, man.
Rob
Anonymous says
Rob,
When you first embarked on this journey you were very open about your personal finances. Now you are very vague. Is this because you expected to have considerably more success than you have had?
Anonymous says
If the buy and hold crowd loses their money in the next crash, why would they be sued? There is nothing left to pay for any awards, if what you say is true.
Rob says
There is nothing left to pay for any awards, if what you say is true.
My guess is that we will need to enact some sort of partial amnesty. You are right that there will not be enough money left to make full payments because so much of the money that most of us have been counting on to fund our retirements has been only Pretend Money.
But there is not going to be zero money left, Anonymous. We will figure out a way to make it work. What alternative do we have? We will do the best that we are able to do. We can do no more and we can do no less.
Please don’t forget that we will be entering the greatest period of economic growth in our history. Showing people how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent is no small thing. The entire problem going back to the first day has been that Valuation-Informed Indexing is such a big advance that it makes the Buy-and-Holders feel bad. We all will be seeing the benefits of that huge advance once your prison sentence is announced.
Take good care.
Rob
Rob says
When you first embarked on this journey you were very open about your personal finances. Now you are very vague. Is this because you expected to have considerably more success than you have had?
I certainly didn’t expect to see the biggest act of financial fraud in U.S. history, Anonymous.
But I wouldn’t be receiving a settlement payment of $500 million if it were not for that massive act of financial fraud.
That’s one of the reasons why I love my country. We have a legal system that puts Goons like you in prison and that makes those of us who post honestly on these sorts of matters very, very rich people.
Good for us!
I think that’s super.
I wish you all good things.
Rob
Anonymous says
What is your back up plan when you don’t get the $500 million?
Rob says
What is your backup plan if you get hit by a car tomorrow and have to live the rest of your life in a wheelchair, Anonymous?
Not one of us knows with certainty what is going to happen tomorrow.
There are reasons why I believe that am going to get the $500 million. I believe that Jack Bogle is a good man. I believe that the rest of the Wall Street Con Men are good people. So I believe that when they see what they have done to our country, they are going to be anxious to put things right and they will be pleased to be able to make a $500 million payment to the fellow who has been trying to help them out of their jam for 13 years now.
Is it possible that I won’t get the $500 million? In a theoretical sense, ANYTHING is possible. I could get the $500 million and then become addicted to gambling and lose it all. That would be a Hitchcockian twist, no?
Things happen, Anonymous. Sometimes things that we very much do not expect to see happen. That’s so for me. That’s so for you. That’s so for Bogle. That’s so for all of us.
If an angel came down from the sky tomorrow and told me that I wasn’t going to get the $500 million, it wouldn’t change anything.
I still wouldn’t want to commit financial fraud and go to prison.
And, if an angle came down from heaven and told me that the laws against financial fraud were soon going to be repealed, even that wouldn’t change anything. I still wouldn’t want to sell out my friends and neighbors and co-workers and fellow community members.
You can’t teach a dog to meow. You can’t teach a cat to bark. You can’t teach Rob Bennett to post dishonestly re safe withdrawal rates. I am not friggin’ capable of it. I just cannot do it.
You are going to have to try to find someone else.
Really.
Rob
Anonymous says
Things happen, Anonymous. Sometimes things that we very much do not expect to see happen.
The doubling of the stock market since 2010, exactly the opposite of what lucky VII suggested, for example? That dern future, so hard to control!
Rob says
Any increase in the price of stocks makes the value proposition of stocks worse, Anonymous. All that you are saying is that stocks are now a very bad buy.
Was a doubling of price a possibility in 2010, according to the research? It was. It was not the most likely scenario. But there are always multiple possible scenarios that can play out. That’s the one that came through.
You are engaging in deception when you say that the peer-reviewed research in this field says something different. I wonder why.
The future cannot be controlled. But we can know by making use of peer-reviewed research what strategies are most likely to pay off in the long-term and which strategies are long shots. We should be making use of the research to make ourselves less emotional, not more emotional.
It is giving in to our Get Rich Quick emotions than hurts us in the end.
My take.
Rob
Rob says
You’re angry that the research supports me.
But that is not my doing.
Outside of the paper that I co-authored with Wade, I am not a researcher., I am a reporter.
Your real beef is with the 140 years of historical return data on which the research is based.
Life is so unfair!
Rob
Anonymous says
Any increase in the price of stocks makes the value proposition of stocks worse, Anonymous. All that you are saying is that stocks are now a very bad buy.
Doesn’t matter. Simply by rebalancing as stock prices double, you take about as much money off the table as your original investment. Similarly, you rebalance into stocks – buying when they’re cheap – during market corrections. That’s the glory of a portfolio that holds both stocks and bonds, and why the kids of folks who own 100% bond portfolios don’t get to go to Disneyland.
Unemployment may also be a factor there, of course.
Rob says
We disagree, Anonymous.
I believe that it is important to try to keep your risk profile roughly constant. As stock valuations go higher, you have to lower your stock allocation for your overall portfolio to retain the same risk profile.
That’s it. That’s the only point re which we disagree. We agree re everything else, which is a lot. But that one point has implications that reach in a lot of directions. If you believe that the thing you want to keep constant is your stock allocation, you are a Buy-and-Holder. If you believe that the thing you want to keep constant is your risk profile, you are a Valuation-Informed Indexer. Your beliefs about hundreds of strategic questions end up in different places depending on how you come down on that core issue.
My best wishes to you.
Rob