Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
The folks who set prices have massive amounts of information including Shillers work. They can also read or have their computers ingest your awful website.
The market concludes you are irrelevant.
The market has concluded that I am irrelevant. As of today, it would be fair to say that the market has indeed concluded that. All that you have to do to understand what is going on is to look at today’s P/E10 level. That tells the story. Today’s investors are on a collective basis insanely irrational. They have rejected the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research; they don’t like what it says and they don’t care to think about what it says. And so they have rejected this fellow on the internet who is always talking about that last 36 years of peer-reviewed research and how important it is and how we need to be talking about it at every discussion board and blog on the internet. The peer-reviewed research is irrelevant today and this Rob Bennett fellow, who drones on about the peer-reviewed research, is irrelevant too.
You nailed it, Laugh.
The part you leave out is that the market has never remained at today’s P/E10 level for long. It just doesn’t work like that. A man can blot out all his troubles by becoming a drunk. He can say “my job is irrelevant” and “my health is irrelevant” and “my marriage is irrelevant” and “my family is irrelevant” and “my financial future is irrelevant” and “my self-respect is irrelevant.” It works for a time, does it not? The guy is satisfied with his circumstances and so he continues on down that path. Only the next drink matters. Everything else is irrelevant.
It’s not a good long-term strategy, Laugh. The world continues to exist whether this drunk fellow deems it irrelevant or not. And the peer-reviewed research continues to exist for you and for all Buy-and-Holders, whether you deem it irrelevant or not. The peer-reviewed research describes REALITY. You want no part of it because reality imposes on your Buy-and-Hold fantasy world, the world where price matters for everything you buy except stocks, stocks are the one big exception to the otherwise universal rule. I think that reality is going to intrude on your fantasy world, Laugh. The peer-reviewed research shows that this is what has been happening for 145 years running now, the entire history of the stock market available to us, and I believe that it is going to continue happening on a going-forward basis. I believe that the peer-reviewed research is trying to tell us something important and so I am not willing to disregard it for whatever temporary pleasures I could attain from living in the Buy-and-Hold fantasy world.
We will see what happens, okay? It is all going to play out before us.
I am on your side. When the Normals turn on you, I am going to put forward words aimed at getting your prison sentence reduced a bit. I am going to say that you suffered from cognitive dissonance, which is what I believe. I am going to say that you followed the strategies that you urged others to follow, suggesting that you were not fully engaged in a scam as the word is generally understood. I am going to say that you got caught up in something a lot bigger than you realized at the beginning of your involvement and felt trapped and couldn’t find a way out of your predicament. I am going to do what I can. I don’t ask for anything in return. I am going to do it because I believe that it is the right thing to do.
I am not going to say that I believe that Greaney included a valuations adjustment in his study. I am not going to deny that there is 36 years of peer-reviewed research showing that a valuations adjustment is required. There are things that I cannot say and remain on the right side of the law. I love my country. So there are lines that I am not willing to cross. Caring for you does not mean not caring for myself. I am going to continue to respect the laws of our nation while doing everything in my power to help you out while remaining within the confines of those laws, which I believe to be good and necessary laws.
I was your friend on May 13, 2002, I am your friend today and I will be your friend on the day that I am called to testify at your trial. That one is non-negotiable. I hope that works for you.
So we will see. And then we will pick up our bags and move forward to our next exciting adventure having learned whatever is it that we were supposed to learn from this crazy saga and a half.
Please take good care, my old friend.
Rob
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