Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
When I search for the string “Academic Researcher Wade Pfau’s Statements Showing Interest ” I get over 50 hits
Your ability to cut and paste the same stuff over and over again is an inspiration to us all.
That list of comments from Wade is super. It’s the most concise statement of what Valuation-Informed Indexing is all about that exists today.
And the fact that he stopped saying those sorts of things when you Goons threatened to destroy his career tells the process side of the story very well. It took Wade many years of schooling to obtain his Ph.D. in Economics. When he investigated Valuation-Informed Indexing, he was performing a public service. We all need to know whether it is indeed true that “Yes. Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” So, when you Goons threatened him, you committed a crime against every investor alive on the planet today.
Not this boy, you know. Not in 17 years, not in 17 billion years. The only way in which I ever want to be associated with this massive act of financial fraud is in becoming known as the person who EXPOSED it.
I naturally wish you all good things. But there are limits, you know? I mean, come on.
Felony-Free Rob
Uh oh, Rob. There is a SWR discussion going on without any mention of you, VII or CAPE. these people are banking on their cotton candy nothingness. You better jump in there and rescue them from this fraud.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/investing/3036136-kitces-4-swr-sequence-risk.html
Thanks for the link, Anonymous.
I don’t think that those people are engaged in fraud because I don’t think that they are aware of the problems with the studies. We need to have a national debate re these matters so that everyone knows about the problems with the studies that yielded the 4 percent rule. The fraud is when people like you engage in abusive behavior to block those discussions from taking place.If you were truly confident that the Buy-and-Hold studies were legitimate, you would have no problem with letting people engage in civil and reasoned debate.
Bill Bernstein doesn’t think that the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent. Nor does Wade Pfau. Nor does Rob Arnott. Nor does Todd Tressider. Nor did John Walter Russell. Even Bill Bengen lost confidence in the 4 percent rule in the days following the 2008 crash. Please mark me down as agreeing with all those people. I think that the studies claiming that the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent are dangerous and should be corrected. At the very least honest posting should be permitted at every site so that those who would not follow the 4 percent rule if they knew the case against it could be alerted to the dangers before their lives are ruined.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
“I don’t think that those people are engaged in fraud because I don’t think that they are aware of the problems with the studies.”
You better go over there and save them from doom.
I want to save each and every one of us, Anonymous.
It’s not a one-man job. We need to see more people standing up to you Goons. Once we get to a certain number, things will just break open. I think that we will see that in the days following the next price crash. At that time, I will be able to tell the entire story and we will all be able to come to terms with what has happened.
I hope that that works for you.
My best and warmest wishes.
Doom-Opposed Rob
“I want to save each and every one of us, Anonymous.”
Okay. You better get over there and start with that group.
I’ve worked this very, very, very hard. I’ve done more than anyone else alive. I’ve got scars all over my body to prove it. It hurts to get beat up that bad over and over again.
I believe that there will be people stepping forward to help out in the days following the next crash. I will be back in the game when I see that there are enough people working it for us all to get to where deep in our hearts we all know that we need to be.
Hang in there, man. It gets better. A LOT better.
Watching and Waiting Rob
You gotta get out there and work for that $500 million, Rob.
I think it would be fair to say that the first $500 million is a lock at this point. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to bring it up to a cool billion.
Holy moly!
Rob with a “B”
How much of that $500 million have you collected so far?
Not one penny, Anonymous.
And that’s a problem.
People respond to incentives. If you want to get someone to do something, give him a reward. If you want to get someone not to do something, give him a penalty. That’s how it works. Right?
Say that I had collected not $500 million but just $1 million. Would that have made a difference? It would have made a huge difference. If I had collected $1 million by promoting Valuation-Informed Indexing, I would be the keynote speaker at the next Financial Bloggers Conference. Everyone would want to know how I did it. And lots of people would want to go down the road that I went down. So you would be hearing about Valuation-Informed Indexing at every site on the internet. It would be wonderful.
I think you agree with me that it has not happened. That’s why you don’t hear about this stuff that often. When I first said “Greaney’s study doesn’t include a valuations adjustment,” people didn’t know what to make of it. Lots of people were able to understand why a valuations adjustment might be required. But they had never heard that criticism of the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies voiced before. So they thought that I must be missing something. If I were right, lots of others would have made that point long before I came along. They hadn’t. So they figured that I must be wrong.
I don’t think that I am wrong. I have a different explanation for why lots of others did not make the point before me. People need to eat. And the Buy-and-Holders are so abusive that they make it impossible for a person who advocates Valuation-Informed Indexing to make a living in this field. So there aren’t many of us around. So you don’t here about it much.
I want to change that. I want people to hear about Valuation-Informed Indexing every day and at every site. How do we make that happen? I don’t think that I am going to make it happen by agreeing to shut up about my concerns about the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies. I think that I need to hang in there. I would never have had any problems if only there had been people who had come before who refused to back down when Buy-and-Holders attacked them for saying what they believed. If I want other people to hang in there and thereby help me, it seems to me that I need to hang in there and help others myself. That follows, does it not?
That’s why I never back down no matter how much pressure you apply. I want to make money in this field doing honest work. And I honestly do not believe that Greaney’s study contains a valuation adjustment. So I flat-out refuse to say that I believe that it does contain one. I insist on recognition of my right to post honestly about the flaws in the Buy-and-Hold studies and I encourage all others to do the same.
That’s the only way that things are ever going to change. Shiller did a wonderful thing by publishing Nobel-prize-winning research showing that there is precisely zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy could ever work for a single investor. But has his work really done us much practical good? It has not. The CAPE level we saw at the top of the bull market is the worst one that we have ever seen in the history of the U.S. market. Shiller taught us amazing things. But most of us are not taking what he taught us into consideration when setting our stock allocations. That needs to change.
The only way that it can change is for more of us who believe that valuation adjustments are needed to insist on our right to post honestly. Each time one of us backs down, the Buy-and-Holders get stronger. And each time one of us sticks to our guns, the Valuation-Informed Indexers get stronger.I want the Valuation-Informed Indexers to get stronger. So I stick to my guns and I encourage all other Valuation-Informed Indexers to do the same.
That’s the story. I wish you all good things.
Sticking-to-His-Guns Rob
“Not one penny, Anonymous.
And that’s a problem.”
“Say that I had collected not $500 million but just $1 million. Would that have made a difference? It would have made a huge difference. If I had collected $1 million by promoting Valuation-Informed Indexing, I would be the keynote speaker at the next Financial Bloggers Conference. Everyone would want to know how I did it. And lots of people would want to go down the road that I went down. So you would be hearing about Valuation-Informed Indexing at every site on the internet. I would be wonderful.”
You write these words, yet ignore the realities. As you have acknowledged, you haven’t made anything. Further, you have no track record or any other successes with VII. The very fact that you been unsuccessful shows you why no one is interested in VII.
It’s time to face reality in that your plan failed and you should be going with a plan “B”.
You write these words, yet ignore the realities. As you have acknowledged, you haven’t made anything. Further, you have no track record or any other successes with VII. The very fact that you been unsuccessful shows you why no one is interested in VII.
It’s time to face reality in that your plan failed and you should be going with a plan “B”.
I accept the realities. But I view them as temporary realities.
You are right that, as Valuation-Informed Indexing begins making money for people, people will flock to it. Today, there is no money in it. So people stay away from it.
If Shiller is right, we will be seeing another crash within the next year or two or three. If enough people are hurt in a serious enough way, there will be a demand for explanations and for strategies that insure that nothing like that can ever happen again. Valuation-Informed Indexers will be able to offer research-based answers to people’s questions and I believe that they will.
At that point, a few people will be making money with it. That will cause a few others to test the waters. Then more people will be making money. And then the idea will not seem so odd anymore because there will be a significant number of experts advocating it. Then the floodgates will open and things will just get better and better and better.
The ideas are rock-solid strong. But we need to get to a point where there are enough people advocating VII for it to take off. With 38 years of peer-reviewed research behind us, we are very close. We just need a few people to stand in the fire long enough to help a few others to feel comfortable getting on board.
All of the intimidation stuff tells me that the Buy-and-Holders recognize the power of the concept. If they didn’t see great power, they would not behave the way they do. You see the intimidation stuff as a reason to drop out. I see it as a reason to hang in there. We are coming at this thing from different perspectives.
Take care, man.
Rob
In summary, no one has been making money from VII. Glad you finally admit it. Sorry, but I choose to go with a proven track record.
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all good things, in any event.
Rob