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 gold to platinum price ratio is at a ten year high:
The article even mentions Shiller and CAPE:
“Professor Huang found that, at least since 1975, the gold-platinum ratio has had a significantly better track record than the CAPE of forecasting the stock market’s subsequent one- and five-year returns. In fact, he found the gold-platinum ratio to have a superior track record than any of nine other well-known indicators that researchers previously found to have predictive ability.”
Based on this stunning information, I’ve decided to go 100% into stocks. Not only that, today begins my 15 year jihad demanding that all finance boards talk about nothing but this topic. Any advice?
You should do what sounds good to you, Anonymous. It’s your money.
But there’s a big difference between something being so “at least since 1975” and something being so for the entire history of the stock market. Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize in Economics for his “revolutionary” (his word) 1981 research findings. That gives the Valuation-Informed Indexing project a credibility that no other investing advice project possesses today (the key claims of the Buy-and-Hold Model are also supported by Nobel-prize-winning research but Shiller’s 1981 research discredited the research that supports Buy-and-Hold.).
And I’ve never said that finance boards should talk about nothing but Valuation-Informed Indexing. What I say is that those who believe in Buy-and-Hold should post their honest beliefs and that those who believe in Valuation-Informed Indexing should post their honest beliefs. There are today two schools of thought in academia re how stock investing works. That reality should be reflected in the discussions held at every finance site. The problem for 15 years is that many Buy-and-Holders find it unsettling for those who believe in the minority school-of-thought to be heard. But it is financial fraud to present debates in which the claim is made that discussions of the peer-reviewed research are permitted when in reality only discussions of peer-reviewed research supporting the dominant school of thought are permitted and discussions of research supporting the newer, minority school of thought are banned. Those engaging in or supporting such fraudulent acts are obviously responsible for any losses suffered by those who believe the false claims of the site owners that the sites permit honest posting re the peer-reviewed research.
You believe in Buy-and-Hold. I believe in Valuation-Informed Indexing. You have as much right to post honestly as I do. But I also have as much right to post honestly as you do. I don’t advance 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 to suppress discussions of Buy-and-Hold. And I don’t approve of you engaging in those abusive and criminal tactics to suppress discussions of Valuation-Informed Indexing. So I call you out on your b.s. when I see those sorts of smelly garbage appear before me.
If it is true that valuations affect long-term returns (I believe that it is true — I believe that Shiller merited his Nobel prize and that his powerful work and the powerful work done by hundreds who have come after him are in the process of bringing about a paradigm change in our understanding of how stock investing works in the real world), then the strategic recommendations of the Buy-and-Holders are dangerous. Every investor alive on the planet needs to know that. I don’t tell them that to hurt your feelings. I tell them that because it is simple human decency to protect people from acts of fraud practiced on such a widespread scale when opportunities to do so present themselves.
I hope that helps a small bit.
I naturally wish you all good things.
Rob
Anonymous says
There is no obligation for anyone to discuss what you want, when you want it and where you want. You have decided what is allowed on your board (to which you have banned thingsased on your criteria) and everyone else is free to do the same thing.
Rob says
The obligation is to follow the laws of the country you live in, Anonymous. The United States has laws against financial fraud.
Bernie Madoff is in prison today because he violated those laws. He sent transaction statements to the investors in his fund reporting transactions that had never taken place. He could have said: “There is no obligation for me to report only transactions that actually took place, I can report whatever I think will bring in a buck and those who believe my false statements will just have to live with the consequences.’ His jury did not find those sorts of claims convincing. They looked at the laws against financial fraud, saw that his behavior fit the definition and elected to send him to prison. That’s how our system works.
Greaney said that he calculated the safe withdrawal rate. People handed in resignations from their high-paying jobs on a belief that he was reporting the number accurately. Of course he did no such thing. There is no valuation adjustment in his “study.” Those who have calculated the number accurately have obtained very, very different numbers. Greaney has shown by his behavior that he knows perfectly well that there is no valuation adjustment in his study. If he really thought that he had included a valuation adjustment, he would have pointed to it rather than advancing death threats. Greaney will be going to prison following the next price crash, when people see with their own eyes how many lives he has destroyed with his dishonesty and his abusiveness.
So will a good number of those who have posted in “defense” of him or who have permitted those who have posted in “defense” of him to post at their sites. Juries will have to look at the circumstances that apply in each case in which someone has posted in “defense” of him to determine whether a prison sentence is appropriate or not and how long it should be. My job is to expose the cover-up as quickly as possible so that there will be as few prison sentences as possible given the circumstances that apply today and so that the prison sentences that are put into effect are as short as they can possibly be given the circumstances that apply today.
I hope that helps a small bit.
My best and warmest wishes to you.
Rob
Anonymous says
And show the SPECIFIC law that states it is fraud for people to block you and your posts, yet allows you to do the same thing.
Rob says
How about we leave it to your jury to decide the matter?
Rob
Anonymous says
So, you can’t point out a specific law. Without a law, there is no jury.
Rob says
It will be interesting to see how things play out, Anonymous.
I certainly wish you the best of luck with it in any event.
Rob
Anonymous says
Without a specific law, there is no need to wait to see how things turn out. We already have the conclusion.
Rob says
I have a funny feeling that the people who prosecuted Bernie Madoff pointed to a specific law somewhere in the process of doing so. If I were in your shoes and I were trying to identify that law, I would try running a Google search on the phrase “financial fraud.”
I wish you the best of luck with it, Anonymous.
Rob
Anonymous says
Bernie as the buying stocks, Rob…….which I guess makes him like you, since you aren’t buying stocks either.
Rob says
Maybe we should make it a crime not to buy stocks.
That would make the Wall Street Con Men even richer than they are today, no?
Is it possible to imagine any downside?
Rob
Anonymous says
As you suggested, here’s the top of the results from a Google search on “financial fraud”:
“Financial fraud can be broadly defined as an intentional act of deception involving financial transactions for purpose of personal gain.”
There are no financial transactions on blogs or message boards. Therefore there is no financial fraud happening on blogs or message boards.
Were you able to follow that lengthy chain of complex logic? I’ll understand if you got lost. Or if you simply dismiss it as “word games”.
Rob says
I was there when thousands of my friends were using Greaney’s study to determine when to hand in their resignations to their high-paying jobs.
I was there when those thousands of people showed great excitement about the amazing discussions that followed my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002, pointing out that the study does not contain an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.
I was there when Greaney’s Goon Squad responded with death threats and other insanely abusive acts to intimidate those who had worked up the courage to post honestly on the errors in his study to stop doing so.
I was there when the site administrator indicated that, while he personally believed that it would be “ideal” if honest posting on retirement planning could be permitted at a retirement planning board, Motley Fool would be banning those who posted honestly re the errors in the study and celebrating those who continued to promote the discredited research because Get Rich Quick strategies are what bring in the most money in the short term
I was there when the same pattern played out at scores of other site: (1) a percentage of the population of investors showing great interest in learning the realities of stock investing; (2) a group of Buy-and-Holders becoming insanely abusive in their efforts to stop any discussion of the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field; and (3) experts in the field showing regrets that they cannot do anything to clean up the field without putting their own careers at risk but ultimately deciding that they cannot stop this massive act of financial fraud (Shiller showed in 1981 that valuations affect long-term returns) cannot be stopped without being made to pay a price that is greater than they are willing to pay.
We are all obviously going to pull together to bring the Buy-and-Hold Crisis to an end in the days following the next price crash. We obviously don’t have any choice. Our economic system cannot continue to function if there is no way for millions of people who need to know how stock investing works to plan their affairs are not able to gain access to the information they need because a mistake that was made back in the 1960s has been covered up by a small number of Wall Street Con Men for 36 years now. We all obviously need to have a functioning economic system. So I have a funny feeling that we are going to pull together to expose the con.
Will people go to prison when that happens?
I believe that people will go to prison.
You say that you don’t believe it will happen. Well, you don’t believe it then.
How does that have anything to do with me?
You are obviously not going to go to prison just because I say that I believe you will. I have zero power to send anyone to prison. I have zero desire to send anyone to prison.
If you go to prison, it is going to be because there are millions of middle-class investors who are upset that your massive act of financial fraud destroyed their lives.
Is that not so?
I cannot control what those millions of middle-class investors do. If they don’t want to send you to prison, they won’t do it. If they want to send you to prison, there’s nothing that I can do to stop them.
What is it that you want from me, Anonymous?
Is there something that I can do for you that would in some way make you happier in how you feel about these matters?
I have offered to put forward some words aimed at getting your prison sentence reduced a bit. That you have already got without having to offer anything in return or without even having to ask for it.
Is there something else that I can do for you that doesn’t involve me going to the wrong side of the felony line myself?
I am going to testify honestly, okay? That one is not up for discussion. Is there something else?
Rob
Anonymous says
“I was there when thousands of my friends were using Greaney’s study to determine when to hand in their resignations to their high-paying jobs.
I was there when those thousands of people showed great excitement about the amazing discussions that followed my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002, pointing out that the study does not contain an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.”
And where are these “thousands”?
Rob says
They are everywhere, Anonymous.
It was thousands just at that one discussion board. Counting all middle-class investors, the number is in the millions.
It is these millions who enacted (through their elected representatives) the laws against financial fraud that will be employed to put in a prison cell.
We don’t want death threats being advanced during discussions of stock investing.
We don’t want demands for unjustified board bannings being advanced during discussions of stock investing.
We don’t want tens of thousands of acts of defamation being advanced during discussions of stock investing.
We don’t want threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs being advanced during discussions of stock investing.
We have the law on our side. We will get what we want. You Goons cannot do a thing to block us from having the discussions we want to have once you are placed in prison cells, where you belong.
Does all of that not make perfect sense?
Rob
Anonymous says
“It was thousands just at that one discussion board. ”
I read the board. I don’t see the thousands. They must have disappeared. Did the goons have those posts deleted?
Rob says
The members of your jury will get to see what people said BEFORE intimidation tactics were applied and then what people said AFTER intimidation tactics were applied. Then they will decide on the length of your prison sentence. That is how our system works, Anonymous.
I wish you the best of luck with it. But I love my country and I think that our criminal justice system is a good system and so I am going to leave that one up to your jury and show some respect for their decision.
I hope that works for you.
Rob
Anonymous says
“The members of your jury will get to see what people said BEFORE intimidation tactics were applied and then what people said AFTER intimidation tactics were applied. ”
How will they see anything if there is nothing listed on the boards. Will the jury just have to rely on your testimony?
Rob says
Greaney’s study is available at his web site, Anonymous. In the event that he takes it down, I have made a copy of it and would happy to supply it to any jury members who want to take a look.
It doesn’t contain a valuations adjustment. Even Greaney acknowledges that in a backhanded way. If Greaney truly believed that his study contained a valuations adjustment, he never would have put forward a single death threat.
I mean, come on.
Rob
Anonymous says
“Greaney’s study is available at his web site, Anonymous.”
I am referring to your comment about the “thousands” and not the fact based research of John Greaney.
As said, there is no list by thousands on any discussion board. Will the jury have to rely on your testimony?
Rob says
I am not able to follow what you are saying, Anonymous.
I do not believe that Greaney’s study contains a valuations adjustment. I do not believe it anymore today than I believed it on the morning of May 13, 2002.
I wish you all good things.
Rob
Anonymous says
“I am not able to follow what you are saying, Anonymous.”
Go back and read all the posts. You said there were “thousands that showed great excitement” and then referred to just one discussion board.
If you look up the discussion boards, there is not one showing thousands expressing great expression. As such, will the jury need to rely on your testimony about these “thousands”?
Rob says
Everything is documented and time-stamped.
Rob
Anonymous says
“Everything is documented and time-stamped.”
Yes, we can all read and we can see that the “thousands” is just made up, just like everything else. It takes more than just you making statements. It takes actual documented proof.
Anonymous says
“Everything is documented and time-stamped.”
You must have a special computer that shows all the “thousands” that the rest of us are missing.
Rob says
Okay, Anonymous.
Rob
Anonymous says
Of course, I am always prepared to back anything supported by facts. Just give me a life no to those “thousands” or to the death threats, etc and I would be happy to be the first to support you. However, if you can’t, just admit you are wrong. Simple as that.
Rob says
Makes sense.
Rob
Anonymous says
Perhaps someday you could provide all of us the links.
Rob says
Perhaps someday you will be placed in a prison cell where you belong and the millions of us who would like to be able to participate in discussions of what the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research tells us about how stock investing works in the real world will be able to do so without needing to worry about seeing 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 appear before our eyes on the discussion boards and blogs we visit.
Buy-and-Hold!
Rob
Anonymous says
Pearhaps someday you might leave your little fantasy world and join the rest of us in a place called reality.
Rob says
The laws of the United States are an important reality to me. I intend to continue to stay on the right side of them.
Rob