I’ve posted Entry #263 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called Shiller’s Comments About the Recent Price Drop Are Disingenuous.
Juicy Excerpt: I rank Robert Shiller as the most important investing analyst of all time. So, when the thought of giving this column entry the headline that you see above popped into my head, I hesitated. I looked up the word to see precisely what it signifies to say that something is “disingenuous.” The answer that came back is: “not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.” I concluded that the term fits.
RM – What do you think will happen to interest rates?
RB – “I do not focus on interest rates very much. I am very much a long term investor. Interest rates will go up and go down over the long term.”
Rob, interest rates establish THE COST OF MONEY. Surely anyone fashioning themselves as a Valuation informed Investor, who insists on price discipline in all things, who eschews stocks for the safety of bonds, would find the price of money to be an essential piece of information, and along with yield, to be one of the PRIMARY factors driving investment decisions. How do you defend your answer, given what I think is obviously the truth, as I just outlined?
Good question.
Shiller described his finding that valuations affect long-term returns as “revolutionary.” That means that it changes everything that we once thought we knew about how stock investing works.
Stocks provide an average long-term return of 6.5 percent real. That’s outstanding. It’s possible for some super-smart investors to beat that. But there is no need for the average person (the person to whom my words are directed) to do much better than that. A return of 6.5 percent real is good enough to finance a decent retirement for the vast majority of people. So the primary goal is to lock in that 6.5 percent real return as your personal long-term return or at least get close to it. That’s the name of the game.
You can’t do that without taking valuations into consideration. The most likely 10-year annualized return on stocks in 2000 was a negative 1 percent. That’s 7.5 percentage points off the mark for a significant stretch of time (most of us build our retirement portfolio from about age 25 to age 65 — so 10 years is 25 percent of the time we have to build our retirement portfolio). That doesn’t cut it. So you needed to move away from stocks in 2000. TIPS were paying 4 percent real. That’s good enough, especially for an asset class that is super-safe. You can make up for the difference between the 4 percent TIPS return and the 6.5 percent goal by investing in stocks following the next crash, when the likely 10-year return will be about 15 percent real.
You are adding a layer of complexity when you start worrying about interest rates. It’s not crazy to take interest rates into consideration. I won’t object if you do so. But it is not necessary. You don’t have to consider interest rates to lock in that 6.5 percent real return. And there’s risk in considering factors that you don’t need to consider.
Bogle argues the merits of keeping your investing strategy simple. This is one where I think he is 100 percent right. This is one of many points that Bogle has made that cause me to call him a “genius,” second only to Shiller in my assessment. You might incorporate the interest-rate factor into your strategy in an effective way. But the more complicated you make things, the more likely you are to out-smart yourself. How much do you really add by mixing in that factor? How much added risk are you taking on by making your plan more complicated?
I consider valuations because the valuations factor is huge. It’s 80 percent of the stock investing story. Ignore valuations and you are ignoring pretty much everything. You are shooting in the dark.
But interest rates are not a huge deal. Please look at the historical data going back to 1870. Investors who paid zero attention to interest rates did just fine. You can’t say that about valuations. Investors who ignored valuations hurt themselves in a big way. They took on far more risk than they needed to and they reduced their long-term return dramatically. For what purpose?
There are super-smart people who can earn a slightly higher return by taking factors like interest rates into consideration. They should go for it. But it is not for the average person, in my assessment. It complicates things and the complication is an unnecessary one and with added complexity comes added risk. I think it makes more sense just to lock in that 6.5 percent real and be satisfied with a plenty-good-enough return. That’s the strategy consistent with Bogle’s thinking and he is the king when it comes to investing strategies for the average person (with the exception of the mistake he made re valuations because all the research was not yet in when he took his initial stab at creating a research-based strategy).
I hope that helps a bit, Anonymous.
I could be wrong! It’s been known to happen! If it were happening again, I would probably be the last to know! I suffer from biases, like all the other humans!
Rob
interest rates establish THE COST OF MONEY.
I’ll add a few more words on this particular point because I find your overall question fresh and interesting.
I understand why you say that interest rates establish the cost of money. That is the conventional take.
Shiller’s revolutionary finding of 1981 will be changing the conventional understanding as we all begin to explore the IMPLICATIONS of his Nobel-Prize-winning work. Shiller’s research suggests that establishing the cost of money is not so simple a matter as we once imagined.
An interest rate of x in 2015 is not the same as an interest rate of x in 2000. In 2015, we are probably one or two or perhaps three years away from a stock crash that will pull the most likely 10-year annualized return on stocks up to 15 percent real. In 2000, we were 16 or 17 or perhaps 18 years away from that crash. Do you see the difference?
People who share my doubts about the wisdom of buying stocks today have a hard time lowering their stock allocations because they HATE the idea of accepting the low returns offered today by the super-safe asset classes. They believe that the cannot finance their retirements on such returns. In a surface sense, they are of course correct. Today’s returns are horrible in a surface sense.
But long-term investors need to look deeper. Over a 10-year basis, investors who earn 2 percent real for the next two years and then 15 percent real for the following 8 years will be earning a return far in excess of the 6.5 percent real return that is the average return for stocks. That’s AMAZING. Today’s returns on super-safe asset classes are great. They look bad. But the story is very different when you take the implications of Shiller’s revolutionary finding of 1981 into consideration.
To understand this better, it helps to take into consideration the REASON why interest rates are so low today.
Interest rates are low because the Fed is trying to hold off the coming price crash. I don’t believe that they can do this because the primary cause of the coming crash is that investor psychology needs to change for market to be able to continue to function. But the next crash is going to cause a deepening of the economic crisis and that has huge political implications and so the Fed naturally is motivated to do what it can to hold back that crash. And keeping interest rates low certainly has delayed the crash for a good amount of time.
In a surface sense, interest rates can be said to reveal the cost of money. But that’s not really true in a deep sense and in a long-term sense. Money being held in stock form is massively overpriced today. Lots of people want to move their money from stocks to more appealing asset classes. There are political reasons why the Fed does not want to see that happen. So the cost of money is temporarily being kept artificially low. But the value of the money obtained at today’s low prices will be revealed as very great once the crash hits and the long-term return on stocks skyrockets. The long-term value of the money that can be obtained at today’s low interest rates is off the charts.
The core problem of all analyses done under the Buy-and-Hold Model is the root assumption of that model that economic transactions are rational transactions. Rationally, the price of money should reflect it value. But this just isn’t so! That’s what Shiller showed! He showed that investors are NOT rational. All overvaluation is irrational and all undervaluation is irrational and both are 100 percent real phenomena that investors need to take into consideration when developing their strategies. Money is artificially and irrationally priced today.
The material in this post probably doesn’t matter much for the average investor. He just needs to keep his head down, keep it simple and lock in that 6.5 percent real long-term return. But it doesn’t hurt to think through the theory that explains how things are playing out.
I think this question is a helpful one. I am grateful for it. I wish we saw more questions of this nature being brought up on a daily basis in all sorts of venues. We need to launch a national debate re this stuff and to thereby launch a massive learning experience.
Please take good care.
Rob
Are you really building the foundation of all your thought processes on ‘the stock market must return 6.5%’ and everything is derivative from that?
No.
If productivity changes, the 6.5 percent real number will change. The long-term average return for U.S. stocks has been 6.5 percent real for 140 years now. So I think that’s a good default expectation. But I can certainly imagine circumstances in which the number would be 6.3 percent real on a gping-forward basis or 6.7 percent real on a going-forward basis.
But not 30 percent real. The Buy-and-Holders treat returns of 30 percent real as if they were something other than an emotion-based fantasy. They look at the number on their portfolio statement following a return of 30 percent real and start planning their retirement as if that portfolio-statement number were legitimate. They experience a series of years of fantasy returns and start thinking to themselves: “Hey, looks like I can retire early! That’s what the famous 4 percent rule tells me!”
Um — No.
If you are thinking of handing in your resignation from a high-paying job, you should first calculate your net worth accurately. If you are using Buy-and-Hold numbers during an out-of-control bull market, the numbers on your portfolio statement are wildly off the mark. There’s 34 years of peer-reviewed research showing that. You should make the necessary adjustments so that you know your true net worth before you hand in any resignations.
Whenever I see the annual return go up a good bit above 6.5 percent real, I know that the Wall Street Con Men are up to their old tricks and that we will be seeing a good bit of human suffering down the road a bit as a result. I oppose the relentless promotion of the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage. I advise people to use accurate numbers when planning their retirements, not Buy-and-Hold/4 percent rule numbers. I don’t do financial fraud. Not ever. Not once. It’s not my particular cup of tea.
Honesty matters, Laugh. Reality matters. Peer-reviewed research matters. Fantasy can help sell stuff. But the 4 percent rule is marketing garbage, nothing more. We should tell people that before the Buy-and-Hold Lies destroy more lives.
My take.
Rob
Can you point me to someone who says that they are expecting 30% returns? Quite a tall strawman.
I haven’t seen any posts on bogleheads advocating blind advocacy of the 4% rule of thumb. The majority seem to be targeting a much lower or variable swr and all are aware of lower future returns. Larry posts incessantly yet respectfully on the subject. Tilting at many windmills.
Your comment on resigning from a job – hyper ironic.
Seems from all the evidence that you have ‘won’. Too bad you never figured out how to make yourself marketable.
Buy-and-Holders don’t expect 30 percent returns. But they act as if the 30 percent returns that are reflected in their portfolio statements are real. When they are adding up their assets, they count that money. When they are seeking to determine whether they have enough to retire or not, they don’t apply a discount factor for the extent of overvaluation in the market at that point in time.
This is not a small point, Laugh. This is everything. Buy-and-Hold is rooted in the idea that the market is efficient, that stocks are always priced properly. Shiller showed that that is not so. Stock returns are real up to 6.5 percent per year. But returns above that returns are the product of investor emotion — we pump up prices because we want to fool ourselves into thinking that our financial circumstances are better than they really are.
Valuation-Informed Indexers believe in reporting things accurately.. We want to know where we really stand. We want to be able to plan effectively. Buy-and-Hold is a numbers-based approach. That’s what I love about it. When you root things in the numbers, you avoid subjectivity. You are giving people something hard to work with. But once you go to a numbers-based approach, you MUST make an effort to get the numbers right. If you don’t account for valuations, it’s impossible to get the numbers right. So Buy-and-Hold is the worst of all worlds — a numbers-based approach (which lends the thing credibility in the eyes of most smart people) that gets all the numbers wildly wrong (which makes the thing dangerous as all get-out).
You say that you have never seen blind advocacy of the 4 percent rule. Were you at the Motley Fool board in the time-period when The Great SWR Debate began? People there were using the 4 percent rule ON A DAILY BASIS to identify the day when they would hand in their resignations from high-paying jobs, jobs that they would not be able to get back if they made a mistake. And the numbers they were using were wildly off the mark! When you used a valuations adjustment, the calculation shows that a retirement that began at the top of the bubble and called for a 4 percent withdrawal had a 30 percent chance of surviving 30 years. Greaney was saying those retirements were “100 percent safe.”
When you say that the Buy-and-Holders don’t advocate “blind advocacy” of the 4 percent rule, what you mean is that they permit people to hold off on retiring until they have more assets than what the 4 percent rule would require. But they do not permit discussion of what the numbers say when a valuations adjustment is employed! I know whereof I speak re this one! I have the scars are over my body to prove the point! Why do you think that is? Why does it upset Buy-and-Holders so much for someone to show people the numbers you get using The Retirement Risk Evaluator?
It upsets them because to show people the real numbers sticks a pin in the fantasy balloon. Valuation-Informed Indexing is real. It is another numbers-based approach, so it has the same potential credibility as is possessed by Buy-and-Hold. But it goes one extra step. It reports the numbers honestly and accurately. It is the first true research-based approach (Buy-and-Hold is based on the research that existed from 1965 through 1980 but ignores the research published from 1981 forward). There’s a reason why Buy-and-Holders lose it when someone reports honestly and accurately on the peer-reviewed research in this field. Doing that makes it impossible for the Buy-and-Holders to work their scam both on themselves and on others.
Do you deny that discussion of The Retirement Risk Evaluator is prohibited at the Bogleheads Forum? If you do, you are a liar. It is prohibited. And thousands of community members there expressed a desire to be able to discuss it. The Buy-and-Holders see it as a threat. And they are right — Valuation-Informed Indexing IS a threat to Buy-and-Hold. If Shiller is right, Fama is wrong. If Valuation-Informed Indexing is the ideal strategy, Buy-and-Hold is the worst possible strategy.
The Buy-and-Holders know that, if these matters are discussed, Buy-and-Hold may end up deposited in the dustbin of history. THAT”S WHAT I WANT TO SEE HAPPEN. I believe that Buy-and-Hold was a mistake. I believe that it was a noble effort. I certainly don’t have anything bad to say about the purpose of the Buy-and-Hold project in its early days. Valuation-Informed Indexing wouldn’t exist if Buy-and-Hold had not come before it. Valuation-Informed Indexing is the fruit of the same project. Back in 2002, I intended to call this “Buy-and-Hold 2.0” or “The New Buy-and-Hold” or something like that. I am building on Bogle’s work.
BOGLE HATES THE IDEA OF SOMEONE BUILDING ON HIS WORK, changing it and bringing it up to date and thereby improving it.
No?
He hates the idea. That’s why we see all this conflict. The published rules of the Bogleheads Forum permit honest posting re the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research. Mel Lindauer and his Goon pals are brutally abusive to those who post honestly at that board. But Lindauer couldn’t get away with his dishonesty if Bogle didn’t back him up. Bogle backs him up all the way. Bogle plays the lead role in the most massive act of financial fraud in U.S. history. I love the guy. But that’s the way it is. I am a journalist and it is my job to tell people the true story. That is the true story here. It is a very big story.
No one is saying that the Bogleheads advocate blind advocacy of the 4 percent rule. That’s not the dispute. The dispute is over the fact that the Bogleheads do not permit advocacy of accurate and honest SWR numbers. I am fine with undermining support for the 4 percent rule. That rule has obviously destroyed millions of lives. But I want to take it a step forward. I don’t just want to show people how dangerous the 4 percent rule is. I also want to show them the numbers you get WHEN YOU DO THE CALCULATIONS HONESTLY, when you don’t commit financial fraud by “forgetting” to include a valuations adjustment.
Does the leadership of the Bogleheads Forum have a problem with that?
You know darn well that they do. Freakin’ Jack Bogle has a problem with that. That’s the issue here. Bogle needs to get over the fact that he made a mistake when he developed Buy-and-Hold many years back (before Shiller published his “revolutionary” [Shiller’s word] research).
If Shiller had published his revolutionary research in 1961, there never would have been a Buy-and-Hold. Bogle would have included a valuations adjustment going back to the first day and the thing would have worked and there never would have been an out-of-control bull market or an economic crisis putting millions of middle-class people out of work and we all would be living far richer lives today. But that’s not the way things played out.
We humans don’t know everything. We cannot see into the future. Buy-and-Hold was state-of-the-art stuff when Bogle founded Vanguard in the mid-1970, so that is what he went with. That part of the story is just fine. But when you advocate a research-based strategy, you are obligated to keep up with the research. Those who still advocate Buy-and-Hold today are 34 years behind in their reading of the research! Huh? Wha? That’s not acceptable, Laugh. That’s not okay. It’s not a close call. That’s not even freakin’ legal under the laws of the United States. Financial fraud is a felony. Bernie Madoff is in prison today for doing 1/500th of what Jack Bogle has done.
If you possess even the tiniest bit of sense, you secretly acknowledge that we need to somehow get out of this mess.
How do we propose that we do that?
There is only one way. Bogle needs to come clean. He needs to give that “I Was Wrong” speech (or at the very minimum an “I’m Not Sure” speech. If Bogle says either “I Was Wrong” or “I’m Not Sure,” there are going to be thousands of researchers and journalists and investment advisors who are going to feel safe to come forward with their sincere thoughts about how stock investing works in the real world. The entire nation is going to enjoy a massive Learning Experience. We are going to see more advances in the investing advice field in one year than we have seen in the past 30 years in the computer electronics field. It is going to be amazing.
Do the “leaders” of the Bogleheads Forum object to that amazing learning experience?
They sure do. They will fight to the death to stop it from taking place.
And the millions of middle-class investors whose lives are in the process of being destroyed as a result of this massive act of financial fraud will put them in prison following the next price crash.
Too sad, in my assessment.
If you want a kind and hard-working and balanced and sympathetic person to work with you to try to get your prison sentence reduced a bit, you’ve got him.
If you want someone to help you in your 13-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School SWR studies and thereby to get his own name added to the list of those going to prison, please look elsewhere. Not this boy. Not freakin’ interested. No can do.
That’s the story, Laugh. As you know. As I have said THOUSANDS of times now.
If you cannot give honest investing advice, you are better off not giving investing advice at all. Investing advice that can only be “defended” with death threats and demands for unjustified board bannings and tens of thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs is not honest. Buy-and-Hold needs to be brought down. I am the one who was elected to do the job. I am going to give it my best shot. That’s my pledge to you and to my good friend Jack Bogle and to the millions of middle-class people whose financial futures have been placed in my hands.
I don’t like having to carry this level of responsibility. I didn’t ask for the job. I don’t want the job. But here we are, you know? Whether I like it or not, this is my life. So I am going to give it my best shot. I wish you the best of luck with your efforts to hold me back (while of course also wishing myself and the millions of middle-class investors whose lives are in the process of being ruined the best of luck in our efforts to clean up this field of the corruption that has come to dominate it in the Buy-and-Hold Era). That’s as far as I can go. I don’t cross The Felony Line. Not once. Not ever. Non-negotiable.
We need to move forward. We need to launch a National Debate re the IMPLICATIONS of the past 34 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. That’s my sincere take re this terribly important matter in any event.
Valuation-Informed Indexing is the future. Buy-and-Hold is the past. Millions of lives are at stake. We all need to get about the business of moving from our ignorant past into our bright and exciting and promising and HONEST future. We will all feel a lot better about ourselves on the morning after Bogle gives that speech and it is written up on the front page of the New York Times.
I hope that helps a bit.
I am 100 percent confident that honest discussion of the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research will be very, very “marketable” following announcement of your prison term.
But I could be wrong. I don’t know everything. We are all going to have to wait and see how it plays out. Nothing could be more clear.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, my dear Goon friend.
Rob
The majority seem to be targeting a much lower or variable swr and all are aware of lower future returns. Larry posts incessantly yet respectfully on the subject.
The reference is to Larry Swedroe.
Larry and I will be great friends once your prisons sentence is announced, Laugh. Larry would LOVE to be able to post with complete honesty re his views on how stock investing works and he would LOVE to be able to engage in a learning experience with me and with thousands of other community members (including my good friend Jack Bogle!) participating in a Learning Experience.
There is a limit to how much Larry can contribute or learn today because he ALSO wants to be able to turn a buck and turning a buck means agreeing to compromises that the Buy-and-Holders demand so that can avoid prison terms for another day or another week or another month or another year.
Too sad!
I want to know what Larry really thinks. All of it. Not pieces of honesty here and there. I want the whole thing.
So do all his clients.
So do all those who read his works.
One some level of consciousness, so does freakin’ Jack Bogle.
Bogle cannot learn from Larry so long as Larry lives in fear of the smear campaign that the Lindaurheads will direct at him if he posts in complete honestly (not in partial honesty, which, yes, he does today, I am talking here about COMPLETE honesty, which is something very different and very, very magical).
There are millions of people unemployed today because of our collective tolerance of the Buy-and-Hold Lies. There are tens of thousands of entrepreneurs who have seen their businesses fail because of our tolerance of the Buy-and-Hold Lies. There are millions of people headed to failed retirements because of the Buy-and-Hold Lies. There are millions of people on both the left and on the right who are losing confidence in our system of government because of the economic problems brought on by our tolerance of the Buy-and-Hold Lies.
It stops here.
Not this boy.
Not in 13 years. Not in 13 billion years.
No can do.
Find someone else.
If Larry’s words of partial honesty help some people come to a better understanding of what the last 13 years of peer-reviewed research say, good for him. That makes me happy.
But it has been 34 years since we learned that there is precisely zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy could ever work for even a single long-term investor either in this solar system or in some other solar system very far away from ours. Everyone on the planet should know this. Why doesn’t everyone on the planet know this?
They don’t know it because people like Larry Swedroe make compromises. They want to make a buck and they want to behave in an ethical manner and the Buy-and-Holders have for 34 years now made it impossible for anyone (including Robert Shiller!) to do both. So Larry (and lots and lots of others, to be sure) compromises himself.
I don’t do that.
I acknowledge that I could be wrong. That I do in two seconds. That is something very different.
I don’t say “oh, perhaps Buy-and-Hold really might somehow work out for one or two long-term investors on some distant solar system far, far away.” I don’t believe it and so I don’t say it. Larry does. Or at least he implies it so that The Great Mel Linduaer will not ban him from the place where he wants to market his partially honest investing advice and turn a nice buck doing it.
No.
Not this boy.
I post with COMPLETE honesty or I post not.
I think Buy-and-Hold is garbage. Not intentional garbage. I love the people who came up with the strategy and have promoted it for many years. All of my work is in tribute to them and their breakthrough insights of an earlier day. So this is garbage that I admire greatly. But it really is garbage today. It BECAME garbage when Shiller published his “revolutionary” (his word) research findings and Bogle failed to walk to the front of a big room and say the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong” (or at the very least “I’m” and “Not’ and “Sure”). NOW Buy-and-Hold is garbage. It pains me to say it. But that is the reality. And it is my job as a journalist to report the realities in a fair but HONEST way.
If Larry can live with himself for engaging in PARTIAL rather than full honesty, that’s up to him. I cannot do that. Partial honesty is not for me. I have seen too many lives ruined over the past 13 years. Including the lives of you Goons. You wouldn’t be going to prison if Larry had insisted on his right to post with FULL honesty going back to the first day. Larry’s compromises played a big role in putting you in the circumstances in which you find yourself today, Laugh. Too bad for Laugh. And too bad for Larry too, in my humble assessment.
I don’t go there.
Please stop asking. You embarrass both of us when you do so.
I may succeed and I may fail. Time will tell the story. But I ain’t taking the Larry Swedroe path. Larry has betrayed himself with this partial honesty business, in my assessment. Larry has betrayed his profession with this partial honesty business, in my assessment. Larry has betrayed his country with this partial honesty business, in my assessment. And on a personal basis, Larry has betrayed you Goons and Larry has betrayed my good friend Jack Bogle with this partial honesty business, in my assessment.
I love Jack Bogle.
More than Jack Bogle loves himself, I think it would be fair to say.
I love Jack enough to “cross” him by demanding COMPLETE honesty of him.
I want to see the same ethical standards that apply in every other field of human endeavor made applicable in the investing advice field.
I don’t want there to be any more Larry Swedroes. I don’t want people capable of generating the insights that he is capable of generating feeling that they must hold back so that some internet Goon does not destroy his reputation. That sort of thing makes me sick. Please mark me down as OPPOSED to that sort of thing. Please feel free to quote me re this one at every investing discussion board and blog on Planet Internet.
I have earned my reputation as The Most Hated Poster on the Internet. Because I have been unyielding in my determination to expose the Lie at the root of Buy-and-Hold that has destroyed millions of middle-class lives.
So be it.
Ban me.
Sue me.
Put me in prison.
Give me the death penalty.
Hit me with your best shot.
But no lies.
Not from this guy.
Not re what the implications of the last 34 years of peer-reviewed research in this field say about how stock investing works in the real world.
I have chosen a different path than the path chosen by my good friend Larry Swedroe.
I believe that following the next price crash I will be making more money than Larry could make on his partial honesty path in 50 lifetimes.
But we will see, you know?
You Goons will believe it when you see it.
As of today, I have not made one thin dime. That’s a stone cold fact.
So we are all just going to have to wait and see how it all plays out following the crash.
Please give Larry my best wishes. He doesn’t like the idea of me telling people about his lies. But I love the man. I want to change things so that he doesn’t feel a need to compromise himself and so that he can begin feeling clean again and making contributions 10 times more valuable than the ones he is able to put forward in his compromised state of today. I want the best for Larry just as I want the best for Bogle and for you Goons.
More lies are not the answer.
I am sure.
Rob
May be worth mentioning that the ‘Larry’ path is not open to you. Since you have marginalized yourself with bizarre and embarrassing antisocial behavior it would not be credible at this point for you to somehow become a ‘normal’ functioning part of the community.
Basically your only hope is the infinitesimal chance that the large numbers of people who are repulsed by you will somehow reverse polarity after the next price crash. Good luck with that!
Since you have marginalized yourself with bizarre and embarrassing antisocial behavior it would not be credible at this point for you to somehow become a ‘normal’ functioning part of the community.
The posting dishonestly thing is not an option for me either, Laugh. I am not capable of it.
So I guess that I am pretty much screwed at this point.
I will have to learn to accept it somehow. No?
Basically your only hope is the infinitesimal chance that the large numbers of people who are repulsed by you will somehow reverse polarity after the next price crash.
I wouldn’t use precisely those words to describe what I think is going to happen. But they are not too terribly far off the mark either, in my assessment.
As much as most people love Get Rich Quick strategies in times like today (when prices are high), that’s how much they hate them following price crashes that wipe out most of their retirements savings. So, yes, I am expecting to see a reversal of polarities.
But we are just going to have to wait to see how it plays out. I could be wrong. It has been known to happen. If it were in the process of happening again, I would in all likelihood be the last to know.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors, old friend.
Rob