Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Making things a ‘matter of opinion’ when they are logically false/true….
I feel a need to offer a second response to your comment focusing on these particular words.
Buy-and-Holders say that investors are always collectively rational in their pricing of stocks. Valuation-Informed Indexers say that there are times when investors are collectively irrationally exuberant re stocks and other times when investors are collectively irrationally depressed re stocks. You are saying that not only do you personally believe that the Valuation-Informed Indexing view is wrong but that the Buy-and-Hold view is true as a matter of pure metaphysical logic, that there can be no legitimate questioning of it.
Buy-and-Holders say that stock investing risk is stable, that there is only one safe withdrawal rate that applies at all valuation levels and that investors should remain at the same stock allocation at all times so long as their personal life circumstances remain stable. Again, you are saying that this view is true as a matter of pure metaphysical logic, that there can be no legitimate questioning of it, that there is nothing that those who believe that Shiller’s Nobel prize was merited can contribute to any discussion of stock investing.
Buy-and-Holders say that no form of market timing can work and that therefore stocks are the only thing that can be purchased in this world in which there is no need for the person doing the purchasing to exercise price discipline when doing the purchasing. Again, you are saying that this is so as a matter of pure metaphysical logic, that it is an axiom beyond question or dispute or challenge.
Why is it an axiom beyond question or dispute or challenge? In the world of science, things can be questioned. If Buy-and-Hold is beyond question, Buy-and-Hold is not the product of science. Once the claim that price discipline is not required when buying stocks is advanced as dogma, we have left the realm of science.
If Shiller had published his Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns in 1961 rather than in 1981, we would all be Valuation-Informed Indexers today. Buy-and-Hold left the realm of science and became dogma in the 16 years between when Fama showed that short-term timing never works in 1965 and when Shiller showed that long-term timing always works and is always required in 1981. Our dispute is not one rooted in differences over what the historical return data says. Our dispute is a turf fight. There is a lot of money in Buy-and-Hold and the people who make that money were embarrassed when those engaging in science uncovered their error and have become increasingly desperate to cover it up as more and more time has passed and more and more lives have been destroyed by it.
I am grateful to the Buy-and-Holders for establishing the ideal that stock investing claims should be rooted in science. But they fail to honor their own ideal when they advance death threats and demands for unjustified board bannings and thousands of acts of defamation and threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs. That stuff ain’t science. That stuff is the OPPOSITE of science. That stuff represents a running away from science. That stuff is rooted in an emotional desire to avoid a developing science that in recent decades has been saying something that the Buy-and-Holders did not expect it ever to say and that the Buy-and-Holders very, very, very much do not want to hear (or even to permit others to hear).
There is nothing illogical in a belief that price discipline is required when buying stocks just as it is when buying anything else. The illogical thing is to believe that, just because humankind did not always know everything there was to know about how stock investing works, we must all remain ignorant of the realities for all time so as not to upset those who made a mistake over 50 years ago. Mistakes are part of the scientific process and correcting mistakes when they are uncovered is also a part of the scientific process.
That’s my sincere take, Laugh.
I do wish you all good things.
Former (Because I Am a Believer in Science and Science Permits Us to Learn New Things Over Time) Buy-and-Holder Rob
“Shiller showed that long-term timing always works and is always required in 1981. ”
Do you have a link to the 1981 paper?
I read it once years ago, Sean. You can find it on the internet if you are interested. He wrote the paper with Campbell.
And he talks about it in his book Irrational Exuberance. And of course there are mentions of it in articles and in the newspaper reports on why he was awarded the Nobel prize and so forth.
I find your question interesting in way because it mirrors a question that I often want to ask the Buy-and-Holders. They say that there is research showing the market timing doesn’t work and I always want to ask them to provide a link to the paper showing that. The closest thing that we have is a paper published by Eugene Fama showing that SHORT-TERM timing doesn’t work. There has never been a paper showing that long-term timing (price discipline) doesn’t work. Wade Pfau spent months searching the literature to see if he could find such a paper and he came up empty-handed. There is zero evidence in the literature showing or even suggesting that long-term timing either might not work or might not be required. And of course, if valuations affect long-term returns, as Shiller showed, long-term timing MUST work and is ALWAYS required by every investor seeking to keep his risk profile roughly constant over time.
There can of course be legitimate differences of opinion as to how to practice long-term timing. We don’t know everything there is to know about the subject of stock investing. So we are not able to give perfect guidance today. My guess is that we will never be able to give perfect guidance. But we are able to say that those who absolutely refuse to practice long-term timing even at times of extreme overvaluation are dramatically reducing their lifetime return by doing so while also dramatically increasing the risk they take on with their investment decisions.
Just because we do not know everything does not mean that we do not know anything. We know that valuations affect long-term returns. So we know that dogmatic Buy-and-Hold strategies are dangerous strategies. Those who used a 4 percent withdrawal rate for retirements that began at the top of the bubble have only a 30 percent chance of seeing those retirements survive 30 years. I think we should be telling those people the realities at every investing discussion board and blog on the internet.
My best and warmest wishes to you.
Rob
The Shiller/Campbell paper is actually from 1988
http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/campbell/files/campbellshiller_jf1988.pdf
I am shocked to hear that, Sean. I have been saying that he published his “revolutionary” research findings in 1981 for as long back as I can remember. I’ve said it THOUSANDS of times.
I don’t know how I got the idea in my head that Shiller’s research was published in 1981 rather than 1988. That goes back too far for me to have a clear recollection. I will try to check on this when some time opens up for me to do so. But if I indeed was wrong all those thousands of times, I am certainly grateful to you for bringing this error to my attention. Yowsa!
I’ll make a little point here. If I indeed was wrong (I am largely but not yet entirely convinced that I was), you are helping me out by pointing out the errors. I see this as one of the great powers of our new internet communications medium — people who see our stuff can points out errors that we make that we do not see ourselves. Again, I am grateful that you have done so here. I have to add that I wish that one of the many thousands of people who have seen me make that error would have pointed it out at an earlier time and saved me the embarrassment of making the error. I doesn’t hurt anyone in a serious way because the year in which the paper was published doesn’t affect the investment realities that it revealed. But it would obviously be better not to get the year wrong. There is a history here and it is important and we should all endeavor to state things properly.
Anyway, I will check into it a bit. Presuming that you are right that the paper was published in 1988 rather than 1981, I will think of you each time that I say “we have 30 years of peer-reviewed research showing that….” rather than “we have 37 years of peer-reviewed research showing that….” I expect that I will be writing those words on many, many occasions in days to come.
Holy moly!
Red-Faced Rob
The Wikipedia article on Shiller indicates that the “revolutionary” Shiller research was indeed published in 1981:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._Shiller
In 1981 Shiller published an article in which he challenged the efficient-market hypothesis, which was the dominant view in the economics profession at the time.[15] Shiller argued that in a rational stock market, investors would base stock prices on the expected receipt of future dividends, discounted to a present value. He examined the performance of the U.S. stock market since the 1920s, and considered the kinds of expectations of future dividends and discount rates that could justify the wide range of variation experienced in the stock market. Shiller concluded that the volatility of the stock market was greater than could plausibly be explained by any rational view of the future.
The behavioral finance school gained new credibility following the October 1987 stock market crash. Shiller’s work included survey research that asked investors and stock traders what motivated them to make trades; the results further bolstered his hypothesis that these decisions are often driven by emotion instead of rational calculation. Much of this survey data has been gathered continuously since 1989.
It appears to me that the 1988 research was follow-up research exploring similar themes.
Relieved Rob
The 81 paper did not address using PE10 to predict future stock returns. That was the 88 Shiller Campbell paper.
The 81 Shiller just addressed stock price volatility. “Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends”.
Sean:
You are making a helpful point. I am grateful.
I think it is important to understand, though, that it was the 1981 research that was “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word) in its implications. The Wikipedia article notes that it was the 1981 article that challenges the Efficient Market Hypothesis. That’s what changed the world. It is universally accepted that price discipline is needed in every market other than the stock market. The thing that threw everybody off re stocks was the Efficient Market Hypothesis. If the market truly were efficient, Buy-and-Hold would be the ideal strategy. But Shiller showed in 1981 that that is not so. He removed the foundation stone of the Buy-and-Hold concept.
Once you know that Buy-and-Hold does not work, the next step in the logic chain is to determine what DOES work. That’s where using P/E10 to predict future stock returns comes in. The 1988 research builds upon the 1981 research. Shiller would not have even thought to look at that question had he not first discredited the Efficient Market Hypothesis/Buy-and-Hold. Wade Pfau and I went another step down the logic chain when we showed with our research that a 30 percent/60 percent/90 percent Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy has performed better than Buy-and-Hold on a risk-adjusted basis for all 30-year time-periods in the historical record (there were a small number of 30-year time-periods in which Buy-and-Hold did better on a nominal basis). And other researchers will of course explore other aspects of the question in days to come and we will all live better lives from that point forward as a result.
The most important research was the 1981 research. That’s what changed the world. Buy-and-Hold cannot work if what Shiller showed in 1981 is real. If the market is not efficient, common sense tells you that you need to exercise price discipline when buying stocks. Why wouldn’t you? The only reason anyone ever gave not to do so was the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which was just a mistake.
The bottom line on all this is that we all need to be talking about this stuff at every discussion board and blog on the internet. We made a great leap forward intellectually in 1981 and we made additional big leaps forward in 1988 and in 2011, when Wade and I published our paper. We all should be doing everything in our power to keep the ball rolling. We all should want to see as much research on these questions as possible and we all should want to see as much discussion of the implications of the research published as possible. Learning experiences are the one true free lunch in this world.
Do you agree?
Does it concern you that Shiller challenged/discredited the Efficient Market Hypothesis in 1981 and yet there are still people promoting the investment strategy that follows from that hypothesis today, in the year 2018? It scares the beejeebers out of me. If the market is efficient, the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent. If valuations affect long-term returns, as Shiller’s work (BOTH the 1981 and 1988 papers) showed, the safe withdrawal rate for those who retired in January 2000 was only 1.6 percent and those who retired at that time and were persuaded by the Buy-and-Holders to take a 4 percent withdrawal have only a 30 percent chance of seeing their retirements survive 30 years. That scares me to death. That means that we will likely be seeing millions of failed retirements in days to come. This will be one of the greatest public policy crises in the history of our nation. How do you think people are going to feel when they learn that those millions of failed retirements could have been avoided just by us electing as a nation of people to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research in this field?
I can use all the help that I can get. If you are prepared to sign up for The Cause, we have plenty of room for you, my new friend!
Recruiter Rob
“I can use all the help that I can get.”
Yes, you do. We have suggested many times that you need to seek the help of a qualified mental health expert.
That suggestion is one of the things showing me that Buy-and-Hold is rooted in emotion, Anonymous. If Buy-and-Hold were real, it would be possible to engage in civil and reasoned discussions re its merit. But Buy-and-Holders go nuts when someone challenges their belief in their strategy because there is nothing behind it but a shaky emotional desire that gains produced by irrational exuberance count for as much as gains produced by economic realities.
I think about how I would react if someone on the Valuation-Informed Indexing side behaved the way you Goons behave. If someone on the VII side said that Bogle needs to consult a mental health professional, I would be horrified. I would distance myself from the comment in every way possible because I would feel that all reasonable people would conclude that reliance on that tactic showed that the research-based case for Valuation-Informed Indexing must be weak. Most Buy-and-Holders don’t personally employ such tactics. Only a small percentage are outright Goons. But the vast majority of Buy-and-Holders TOLERATE the employment of such tactics by you Goons. That’s why we are where we are today.
When I point out that there is no valuation adjustment in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies even though we have 37 years of peer-reviewed research showing that valuations affect long-term returns, there should be a universal acknowledgment that that point is of huge importance. If the Buy-and-Holders got the numbers that people use to plan their retirements wrong, what else did they get wrong? Probably everything, The entire point of investment analysis is to help people finance their retirements. If you are that careless about retirement planning, you just shouldn’t be working in this field. You may be as smart as the dickens (most Buy-and-Holders are indeed very smart). But you haven’t achieved the level of control over your emotions that you need to possess to offer helpful investment advice if you don’t appreciate the need to get the numbers right in retirement studies.
The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Debate has never been an intellectual debate. There have been good intellectual points made on both sides. But the core dispute has never been one that could be resolved by making reference to data or research or logic or common sense. The core dispute is emotional in nature. The Valuation-Informed Indexers say that we should consult the peer-reviewed research in this field to determine the true and lasting value of our stock portfolios. The Buy-and-Holders say that we should go by the numbers printed on our portfolio statements, that the validity of those numbers may not be questioned in public discussions. 90 percent of the population wants those numbers to be real, 90 percent of the population desperately needs those numbers to be real.That’s the story and that has always been the story.
Will the story change when prices fall by 50 percent or more? I think it will change. I don’t think there is going to be much interest then in maintaining a belief that the earlier numbers were real. When the numbers no longer appear on portfolio statements, most reasonable people are going to come to accept that those numbers were fantasy numbers all along. If they were real, they wouldn’t change so dramatically in such a small amount of time. And then the learning process will go into hyper-drive. We will have 37 years worth of powerful stock investing insights opened to us all at once. My guess is that we will as a nation of people learn more about how stock investing works in the year following the next price crash than we learned in the preceding 37 years (or whatever it turns out to be) in which Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) research findings were available to us for our review and consideration.
But I could be wrong. That’s always the curve ball. I thought that Greaney’s smear campaign would be shut down after two days, three at the most. The joke was obviously on me re that one. If I could be wrong about that one, I obviously could be wrong re this one too. But I just am not able to play it any other way. In a debate between reason and emotion, I am going to take the side of reason. It’s what I am, right down to the core. I was a Buy-and-Holder myself for several years and the thing that drew me to the strategy was its claim that it was a strategy rooted in research (I believe that the Buy-and-Holders were being sincere in making that claim even though I also of course believe that they have been proven wrong).
I think that stock investing strategies should be rooted in peer-reviewed research and I think that in future days they will be. I believe that there will come a day when every investing discussion board and blog on the internet will permit honest posting on the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. I believe that it is going to take a price crash that is going to cause an ocean of human misery to get us there and that reality of course breaks my heart in a thousand pieces. But I do think we will get there all the same. And, as John Walter Russell suggested many years ago, I believe that in the end The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Debate will end up helping us all in many ways that today we cannot even imagine.
I vote for reason over emotion in stock investing. Every time. I offer no apologies whatsoever.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, my dear friend.
Reasonable Rob
The comment is simply that you need help. Your answer confirms that you need help. You are so clouded that you can’t see it.
The help that I need is help getting every investing discussion board and blog on the internet opened to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. We’re all in this together and that helps each and every one of us in a huge way. We permit people to do honest work in the engineering field and in the legal field and in the medical field. We should be permitting people to do honest work in the investing advice field as well. I am 100 percent sure.
We know that we have academic researchers who would like to be doing honest work. Why not let them? We know that we have bloggers who would like to be doing honest work. Why not let them? We know that we have investment advisers who would like to be doing honest work. Why not let them? It’s a win/win/win/win/win. If the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research in this field is legitimate research, we will all learn that and we will all live better lives from that point forward. If Buy-and-Hold is real, we will learn that and, of course, if Buy-and-Hold is real, that would be a good thing. So we can’t lose.
We all need help, Anonymous. We all have a Get Rich Quick urge which makes it difficult for us to think clearly when investing in stocks and that has made stocks a risky asset class for many years now. But we all also today have available to us the solution to the problem. Shiller showed us what makes stocks risky and he provided to us the tool we need (P/E10) to know when to cut back on our stock allocation and thereby permit ourselves to retire many years earlier while taking on dramatically less risk. Good for us, you know? Now we just need to give ourselves permission to talk about the realities of stock investing at every board and blog and thereby spread the word about how to live better lives from this point forward.
The good news here is 50 times more good than the bad news here is bad. That’s the bottom line. It breaks my heart into a thousand pieces to think that it is going to take another stock crash to get to the place where deep in our hearts we all want to be. It’s a horrible reality. But it remains the case that the good news here is 50 times more good than the bad news here is bad. I think we all need to keep our eyes on the prize.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, dear Goon friend.
Hang in there.
Clouded Rob
“The help that I need is help getting every investing discussion board and blog on the internet opened to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics.”
That is not the help you need. You have been banned from boards due to your behavior. It has been well documented. You just refuse to actually take honest feedback.
If Shiller is right (I obviously believe that he is), we will be seeing another price crash in days to come and the ocean of human misery that will come with it. At that time, we will decide as a nation whether we want to continue the 37-year cover-up or whether we want to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. I vote for opening the internet to honest posting. We’ll see how things go.
There is no valuation adjustment in the Greaney retirement study. And there is no valuation adjustment in any of the other Buy-and-Hold retirement studies. If there were, we never would have seen a single death threat or a single demand for a single unjustified board banning or a single act of defamation or a single threat to get a single academic researcher fired from a single job. I don’t think that intimidation tactics are going to continue to work once millions of people have seen over one-half of their retirement savings disappear into thin air. But I could be wrong. It’s been known to happen. We will just have to wait and see.
At any rate, I offer zero apologies for refusing to respond to your intimidation tactics by silencing myself. I believe that, in the days following the next price crash, even a good number of you Goons will look back at what happened and wish that you could go back and play it differently. But, yet again, we will just have to wait and see. Everybody loves Buy-and-Hold and all other Get Rich Quick schemes when prices are high. No one loves them when it comes time to pay the price. I am proud that I spoke up at a time when we could have helped the millions of people (including you Goons!) who are in the process of being hurt. It was hard to take all the hits I took. But I never flinched.
Greaney’s study contains no valuations adjustment despite the 37 years of peer-reviewed research showing that one is required. I said it on the morning of May 13, 2002, I say it today, and I will be saying it 16 billion years from today if I somehow happen to still be kicking at that time. At any place at which reporting honestly on what the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research teaches us about how to calculate safe withdrawal rates accurately is a bannable offence, I am properly banned. Any investing board that bans honest posting on errors in retirement studies is a corrupt enterprise that I want no part of.
I think of you Goons as friends and I hope that we will be working together in future days. But I won’t post dishonestly re the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements to make it happen. I won’t even think about it or consider it or negotiate over it. That’s behavior of which I am very, very, very proud. And I don’t view death threats as “honest feedback.” Death threats are acts of intimidation. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, you would never even consider resorting to the use of such low tactics.
I do wish you all good things, in any event. I hope that helps a small bit.
Behavior Problem Rob
It is not an intimidation tactic. An example of an intimidation tactic would be when someone tells someone else that they are going to prison. The advice that many have given you has and continues to be directed towards addressing the root of your problems. If someone had a drinking problem or drug problem, you would recommend that they go to rehab. If someone had a weight problem, you would tell them that they need the help of a weight loss professional. Thus, the obvious advice that many have given you is that you need to seek help from a mental health professional.
Okay, Anonymous.
If there is ever anything that I can do to help you out, please let me know and I will be on it in three seconds and you won’t have to ask a second time.
I obviously am not going to say that I believe that there is a valuation adjustment in the Greaney study or in any of the other Buy-and-Hold retirement studies. To aid the massive act of financial fraud makes your situation worse while also hurting millions of other people. Not this boy, you know?
I do wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person. I hope that that helps a tiny bit.
Mental-Health-Problem-Case Rob
“If there is ever anything that I can do to help you out, please let me know and I will be on it in three seconds and you won’t have to ask a second time.”
I don’t need help. Just trying to get you the real help you need.
Okay.
I wonder how the idea entered my head that you were seeking something from me.
I’ve got to work harder on trying to remember to take those darn meds!
Bipolar Rob
“I wonder how the idea entered my head that you were seeking something from me.”
You are the one telling us that you want full access to any board on the internet. Thus, the often given recommendation of you getting the help of a mental health professional was proposed once again. This is the key towards you getting the resolution you need. With proper help, perhaps you will then know how to behave and access can reopen for you.
I certainly want full access to every board on the internet, Anonymous. I don’t want that just for me. That benefits everyone. And of course I want to see every other person who wants to post at our boards to have full access to every board. About 10 percent of the population of investors holds doubts about Buy-and-Hold. I want all of those people posting. And I of course also want the 90 percent that has full confidence in Buy-and-Hold to be posting at every board as well. I enjoy hearing from people who agree with me. But I usually learn more from people who do NOT agree with me.
If I need help from a mental health professional because I believe that people with different views should all be allowed to post, then all of the owners of the sites need help from a mental health professional too. Every site that I have visited permits people with different views to participate in the discussions. No, the rules are not always administered properly. Most site owners are Buy-and-Holders; that biases them. And even the few who are not Buy-and-Holders don’t want to alienate the 90 percent of their potential readers who are Buy-and-Holders and thus are reluctant to permit Buy-and-Hold to be challenged too forcefully.
I offer zero apologies for my behavior, Anonymous. I am very proud of my work and I have gone to a lot of effort to respond to as many questions as possible at every board that I have visited. If I held back on stating my beliefs about how stock investing works just as strongly as I hold them, I would feel that I was letting the community down by failing to do my part to make the discussions diverse and spirited and provocative. I want the discussions to be friendly and respectful as well, to be sure, and so I make great efforts to praise the efforts of my Buy-and-Hold friends to argue their case forcefully as well. But I hope that I don’t pull my punches in stating the case for Valuation-Informed Indexing. And I don’t think it would be at all a good idea for me to begin going down a road where I would do that in return for being able to post again at the numerous sites that I love that have banned me.
Your suggestion that there might be some arrangement that I could agree to that would permit me again to participate in communities for which I have a deep affection exerts a tiny bit of pull on me only because my love for those communities is real and deep. But if I agree to post views other than those I hold, I would be betraying those communities rather than helping then. That possibility of course holds no appeal at all.
There is not one school of thought as to how stock investing works in the year 2018, Anonymous. There are two — Buy-and-Hold and Valuation-Informed Indexing. I am a Valuation-Informed Indexer. I have to post like one or not post at all. It breaks my heart to think that another day might pass in which I will not post at all. But it would break my heart worse to betray my fellow community members by pretending to be something that I am not. I am not a Buy-and-Holder. I am a Valuation-Informed Indexer. That has to show in my posts. I hold different views on how stock investing works from those held by my Buy-and-Hold friends. How could that not influence my posting?
There is no problem with my behavior. The problem is the hyper-sensitivity of some Buy-and-Holders. Every poster should be posting what he or she sincerely believes about whatever topics it is that he or she is addressing. Those who are made uncomfortable in some way by my posts of course have every right in the world not to read a word of any of them. That’s obviously so. But they do not have a right to decide for others what those others can read by banning posters who make a forceful and unapologetic case for Valuation-Informed Indexing.
I want to see Valuation-Informed Indexing grow in popularity. It is shocking to me that the concept has won over only about 10 percent of investors in the 37 years since it was born with the publication of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) research findings of 1981. I think it would be fair to say that a big part of the reason why progress has been so slow is that most Valuation-Informed Indexers have been pulling their punches for 37 years so as not to annoy their Buy-and-Hold friends. Not this boy, you know?
I want the ideas to spread. I don’t want to pull punches. I have zero problem seeing the ideas not catch on if that happens despite my best efforts to explain them carefully. But I have a big problem with behaving in such a way as to make it likely that the ideas will not catch on until after we experience another price crash, at which time it will be too late for many of my fellow community members to protect themselves from its effect. I have to do my part. I have to post honestly. I have to argue the case forcefully. I have to answer questions carefully. If I do less than that, I am responsible for the board at which I am posting failing to achieve its full potential as a learning resource. Yucko, you know? That’s not me.
I hope that helps a tiny bit.
As always, I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, my dear Buy-and-Hold friend.
Non-Apologetic Rob
“I offer zero apologies for my behavior, Anonymous. ”
Then you must deal with the consequences, just like anyone else that does not behavior in a proper way.
If someone has a drinking problem or a drug problem, but won’t seek treatment, we don’t just give them a pass. Neither should you get a pass.
We all have crosses that we have to carry in this life.
I wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors, in any event.
No-Treatment, No-Pass Rob
“We all have crosses that we have to carry in this life.”
“Have” to carry? Of course not. You have chosen your path and now you reject getting the help you need.
I have never had a choice. Do I have the choice to flap my arms in the air and fly to the moon? I have a better chance of doing that than I do of posting dishonestly re the numbers that my fellow community members are using to plan their retirements. It’s not in me. Good, bad or indifferent, that’s the way it is.
I haven’t asked for your help. I believe that there will be millions helping me in the days following the next price crash. If there are, then so bet it. If there are not, then again so be it. I will accept what comes. Part of that is accepting what I am. And I am not a person who can post dishonestly re the numbers that his fellow community members are using to plan their retirements. That one is a non-starter. It’s not something that I have ever considered even for two seconds. It’s not something that I ever will consider for even two seconds.
There are things that I can do. But that is not one of those things. Good, bad or indifferent, that’s my fate. I don’t complain about it. I don’t apologize for it. I am proud of it. There are things that other people are good at that I am not good at. That’s one that I am good at. I am grateful that I am not able to post dishonestly re the numbers that my fellow community members are using to plan their retirements. We wouldn’t all have the amazing peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with Wade Pfau if I had been able to post dishonestly re the numbers that my fellow community members are using to plan their retirements. That’s my greatest achievement in this life. That’s the greatest contribution that I have made to this world. And I never would have posted the things that caused Wade to contact me had I been able to give in to the intimidation tactics and post dishonestly.
The only help that I am seeking is help getting every investing discussion board and blog on the internet opened to honest posting on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. If you are ever able to offer help in that regard, I’m here. If you are not, I hope that I will obtain that help elsewhere. If I don’t, I suppose that I will have to live with not obtaining the help that I hope to obtain. It is my understanding that worse things have happened from time to time in this mixed-up worlds of ours. Whachagonnado?
I haven’t chosen my path — I AM my path. Please feel free to quote me all over the internet. I would feel that you were doing me a favor by doing so. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
My best and warmest wishes to you, dear friend.
Born-to-Follow-This-Path Rob
“I have never had a choice.”
You had a choice to behave or not behave. You had a choice to tell the truth or lie. You chose the later in both cases.
There have been thousands of people who have looked at the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site over the past 16 years. Not one has been able to identify a valuations adjustment in the study. That tells the tale.
I “misbehaved” on the morning of May 13, 2002, by pointing out this obvious reality to my fellow community members at the Motley Fool’s Retire Early board. Greaney didn’t like my act of misbehavior one tiny little bit. There are a lot of Buy-and-Holders who share his basic take on the matter. And there are a lot of Normals who, seeing the reaction of the most emotional Buy-and-Holders, have elected to keep quiet about what they believe and what they have seen except perhaps to note their doubts about Buy-and-Hold in the most vague and general ways. That’s not me.
I am proud of my many, many, many acts of “misbehavior.” I think we need to launch a national debate on the far-reaching implications of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (Shiller’s word), Nobel-prize-winning research. I think that would be best for every single person involved. The prison sentences would be shorter if the debate were launched prior to the onset of the next price crash. The number of civil lawsuits would be fewer. The number of failed retirements would be fewer. The damage to our economic and political systems would be less.
My acts of “misbehavior” put me on the right side of the felony line rather than on the wrong side of it. I do not believe that Greaey’s study contains a valuation adjustment. So, if I say that it does or I pretend that I have not noticed that it lacks one, I am doing what Bernie Madoff did — I am committing financial fraud. When calculated honestly and accurately, the safe withdrawal rate at the top of the bubble was 1.6 percent, not 4 percent. Retirees who relied on the Buy-and-Hold studies to plan their retirements entered retirements that have only a 30 percent chance of surviving 30 years. In the event that stocks continue to perform in the future at least somewhat as they have always performed in the past, this act of financial fraud is likely going to hurt more people than Bernie Madoff’s act of fraud by a factor of 100 or more.
Not this boy, you know? Not by a long shot. No way, no how. Zero chance. A prison sentence is not in my future, Goon intimidation tactics or no Goon intimidation tactics. I would be truly grateful if you would try to find somebody else.
I extend my best wishes to you and yours, my dear Goon friend. But please mark me down as a “no” re the financial fraud garbage. A STRONG no. A NON-NEGOTIABLE no. I think of you as a friend. But there are limits. I mean, come on.
Don’t let the bad guys get you down, Anonymous.
Misbehaving Rob
Your last post provides a good overview as to why you need a mental health professional as you are detached from reality.
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, in any event.
Hang in there, my dear friend.
Detached Rob