I have posted Entry #79 to my weekly Beyond Buy-and-Hold column at the Out of Your Rut site. It’s called It Breaks My Heart When People Don’t Comment on My Investing Posts.
Juicy Excerpt: I get the silent treatment all the time. I write three weekly columns and two monthly columns and lots of Guest Blog Entries. I can go weeks without seeing a single comment on my stuff. Here at the Out of Your Rut site, I got a good number of comments in my early days. Then people figured out what I am about and stopped commenting. I sometimes feel that I am suffering from reverse Sally Field syndrome. I may someday blurt out: “You hate me! You really hate me!”
Well, I’ll comment on something you wrote then Rob, and ask you to illuminate people as to your thinking and experiences on it, since you decided you knew enough about the topic to see yourself made into a quoted expert.
In an article called “Workplace gossip can be costly to your career,” posted Sunday, August 14, 2005 in the Juneau Empire, you said:
“…one of the most common places to be surrounded by gossip is at the workplace. If you care about your job – and in order to stay out of trouble – it’s always a good idea to avoid contributing to office gossip at any time.”
“The big risk with contributing to office gossip is that – because all communication of it is veiled in secrecy – the message conveyed can be altered by any participant in the communication chain to the detriment of any previous participant”
The article goes on: “Bennett says that if you spread a rumor about someone – your boss, for example – it can easily be changed by someone whether you know it or not. And when it comes time for your manager to track down the source, you’ll be blamed, no matter how outrageous the message has become.”
Rob, can you tell us more about your personal experience with management blaming someone for spreading rumors and gossip? Have you ever seen it end a career, especially if relations with the boss were already strained?
I’m just curious as to how you decided to write on this particular topic, and why you consider yourself such an expert in the field that you thought your opinions were valuable, unique or interesting enough to be shared in a public way with others.
I write about personal finance, Drip Guy. Career growth is a personal finance topic. So, yes, gossip in the workplace is within my area of expertise. After I finish the investing book, I plan to write the third part of my financial freedom trilogy on career growth. It will be titled “The Self-Directed Life.” And there will likely be a paragraph or two dealing with workplace gossip.
However, I am not particularly knowledgable about all aspects of career growth or about all aspect of any other area of personal finance. I wouldn’t be a good person to ask how to fill out one of those forms you have to fill out to get a government job. I hate those things! I would probably take a job paying $10,000 less just to avoid having to fill one of those things out. So there are hundreds of people who could help you with that sort of thing better than I could.
My area of expertise is the area in which people issues overlap with personal finance issues. Look at the titles of my two books: (1) Passion Saving; and (2) Investing for Humans. Do you see?
A lot of people who write about money management and investing and career growth present themselves as authority figures, people who study things and make up rules and gain degrees and wear suits and run numbers. There’s a place for that. But that ain’t me. I am an emotions guy. That’s very important territory, largely overlooked territory and territory I cover better than most others in this field.
That’s what I’m good at, Drip Guy. That sort of thing comes to me naturally whereas some of the stuff that others in this field are good at does NOT come to me naturally. I let the others do what the others are good at and I do the stuff that I am good at.
I believe that a big part of this is that I am an INFJ under the Myers-Briggs personality assessment system. Most in this field are INTJs or something similar. That’s the difference between an engineer or an economist or an accountant on one hand and a teacher or a psychologist or a minister on the other hand.
You don’t dig me because you are more inclined to the INTJ way of thinking. But other community members do dig me, very much. You have to figure out how to accept that reality.
You don’t have to interact with me. You don’t have to agree with me.
But you have to accept that there will be people in any community who will adopt a take different than the one you adopt. You can be friends with them (the ideal) or you can ignore them (perfectly acceptable). You cannot threaten to kill their family members. You can not engage in smear campaigns against them. You cannot put forward defamatory posts about them. You cannot try to destroy their businesses.
That’s the way it is, my abusive-posting INTJ or something similar friend. I wish you the best in all your future life endeavors despite your distrust of all writing in the personal finance field that directs itself to those human, emotional, REAL issues that in my strongly held opinion have been ignored for far too long.
Love is the answer, Drip Guy. Really. Each time you feel yourself giving in to temptations to hate, you need to pull it back and remind yourself that love is the answer. You probably don’t like hearing it said like that and you should certainly feel free to translate my words into a formula more to your liking. But love really is the answer however it is that you INTJ types process that reality and hate really is a stone cold drag.
Yowsa! I hope that covers it!
Rob
Rob: “Look at the titles of my two books: (1) Passion Saving; and (2) Investing for Humans. Do you see?”
No Rob, I don’t believe I do — did I somehow miss the announcement of the availability of a second self-published book from you?
Or is this just another hypothetical?
You’ve stumbled onto something important with this post, Drip Guy.
You think of me as unqualified.
Fine.
But then how the F did I end up being the person who discovered the errors in the Old School SWR studies? How did that HAPPEN?
It wasn’t an accident.
I have a different personality type than Bill Bernstein or John Bogle or even Wade Pfau. So guess what? I see things they don’t see.
It works the other way around. They see things I don’t see. That’s why I never touched a number in all my dealings with John Walter Russell. He was the numbers guy. I was the always asking annoying questions guy.
We need both types, Drip Guy.
You don’t see that. And you are shocked that some guy who uses lines from Frank Sinatra songs as the headings to his Vanguard Diehards posts can come up with insights that these guys you revere cannot come up with.
Sorry.
It is what it is. God made different types of people and He expects us all to live together down here in the Valley of Tears and to make a serious effort not to blow each other up.
I revere those people too. Partly because they can pull off all these magic tricks that I cannot understand much less pull off myself.
But I got my own bag of tricks, Drip Guy. That’s a stone cold fact. And you are going to have to let that one in whether you like the idea or not. You are not being asked for permission. You are being told how it is going to play out.
I hope we are communicating.
I love ya, man. That’s why I don’t want to see you hurt yourself any more than you already have.
There are things in this world that you cannot understand, Drip Guy. It’s SUPPOSED to be that way. It’s actually a good thing. This means that all the burden is not on your shoulders or on the shoulders of other INTJ types.
Bogle and Shiller go together like chocolate and peanut butter. That’s the real deal.
Investing is done by humans. People who are good with numbers can never hope to figure it out by talking only to other people who are good with numbers. It takes a community to identify the true SWR!
Rob
did I somehow miss the announcement of the availability of a second self-published book from you?
What the heck is wrong with you, man?
Please fix!
Don’t waste time talking. Fix this problem that makes you sound like a Grade-A jerk.
Please make this your top priority, Drip Guy. A nation tunes its lonely eyes to you.
Rob
“But then how the F did I end up being the person who discovered the errors in the Old School SWR studies?”
I think probably this is the root of your problem. You didn’t discover any errors. All you did was point out some underlying assumptions and limitations of the study that any educated reader already knew and understood.
And it is downright frightening that you have wasted a good chunk of your life tilting and windmills like this.
I don’t get it. DripGuy asked a simple question: what second book? You didn’t answer this simple question, but rather attacked him personally.
Why?
Do you think responses like yours to DripGuy might be one reason you see so few comments to you site?
I too am curious why you didn’t respond to DripGuy’s simple question and instead chose to respond with a personal attack.
You didn’t discover any errors.
Then why have there been numerous reports in top-name publications like the Economist that the Old School studies get the numbers wildly wrong?
The idea is to get the numbers right, What, not to get them wildly wrong.
I mean, come on.
Rob
All you did was point out some underlying assumptions and limitations of the study that any educated reader already knew and understood.
No.
I was at the Motley Fool’s Retire Early board in the years when people were putting up threads on a daily basis about Greaney’s SWR study and how they were using it to plan their retirements. These were people who possessed enough intelligence and self-discipline to be able to accumulate the assets needed to retire in their 50s or in some cases even in their 40s (my recollection is that Greaney himself retired in his early 40s). Are you telling me that these people were not “educated” re personal finance issues?
They were plenty educated, What. They were emotionally addicted to Buy-and-Hold, which means they were emotionally addicted to Get Rich Quick. An emotional addiction to a Get Rich Quick strategy cancels out the benefits of any education or intelligence you possess. Once you become emotionally addicted to a Get Rich Quick approach, all of your mental energies are directed to coming up with rationalizations for why it might all turn out different this time and this might be the first time in history when Get Rich Quick actually pays off in the long term.
Bogle doesn’t lack education, What. Bernstein doesn’t lack education. Swedroe doesn’t lack educations. Burns doesn’t lack education. What these people lack is an appreciation of the dangers of Get Rich Quick investing strategies and a lack of appreciation that a belief that it is not necessary to change your stock allocation in response to big price swings transforms any investment strategy you are following into a Get Rich Quick strategy. These people are blind to the realities of stock investing not because they lack intellect but because their emotional attachment to Buy-and-Hold renders them unable to let in to their consciousness all data points revealing the dangers of this strategy. These are highly intelligent and highly educated people suffering from cognitive dissonance on all topics relating to stock investing.
If the people who developed and promoted these studies had known that they were going to cause millions of people to suffer failed retirements, they never would have developed them or promoted them in the first place. Nothing could be more obvious to any halfway reasonable person. If you don’t see that causing millions of failed retirements is a bad thing, you either are suffering from cognitive dissonance yourself or are a psychopath. There is no third explanation of the words you put forward in this comment, What.
Rob
And it is downright frightening that you have wasted a good chunk of your life tilting and windmills like this.
The move from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing is the most important advance in the history of investing analysis, What. There is nothing else that comes in a close second place.
We now have available to us an investing strategy that permits middle-class people to obtain far higher returns at greatly reduced risk, thereby permitting its followers to retire five to ten years sooner than they previously thought possible. On top of that, we have available to us a means to greatly stabilize our economy. Each of the four economic crises we have experienced from 1870 forward were caused by the promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies. We now have the research available to us to help policymakers do what is needed to insure that Buy-and-Hold never gains a foothold in the investing community again.
If you are able to imagine any other work I could have been engaged in over the past 10 years that would have yielded even 1 percent of the benefits of the work that I have done developing the Valuation-Informed Indexing model I would sure like you to share with us what you think that might be.
We strongly disagree re this one. I think you are 100 percent out to lunch, What.
Rob
Do you think responses like yours to DripGuy might be one reason you see so few comments to you site?
No.
I think that as a society we are feeling great shame and embarrassment as a result of our growing realization that 90 percent of us were taken in by the purest and most dangerous Get Rich Quick scheme ever concocted by the human mind (not intentionally so concocted, but still…). We need to get over that. We need to begin reaping the benefits of the amazing insights we have developed over the past 10 years.
My job is to do everything in my power to speed up the day when we open the internet to honest posting on SWRs and many other critically important investment-related topics and thereby begin reaping those benefits. I believe that I am following the right approach by being absolutely rigid re demands that I agree to post dishonestly myself while being absolutely open and loving and warm and respectful and understanding re all other possibilities presented to me.
We’ll see how it all works out, Kimber. I remain a cockeyed optimist. Sue me.
Rob
I too am curious why you didn’t respond to DripGuy’s simple question and instead chose to respond with a personal attack.
He degraded himself with the question, Visage. And he degraded those of us who heard his words. We like to think our fellow humans are capable of better.
He needs to work it harder. Not a little bit harder. He needs to work it a lot harder. So do you.
Rob
Well, since the benefit of your work is basically 0 then I suppose just about anything else would have done.
And yes, all those people you mention understand the study. I think you missed the point – you are the one who isn’t educated. It’s like you read a book about the Ocean and think you are the messiah because you learned that water is wet.
Well, since the benefit of your work is basically 0 then I suppose just about anything else would have done.
Please take a moment to consider how crazy you sound when you say something like this, What.
Let’s just limit ourselves to the SWR question. Getting the SWR right saves millions of people from suffering failed retirements. That’s of zero benefit? How so?
You are not even making minimal sense here, What. How can there be zero benefit in saving millions of people from suffering failed retirements? A failed retirement is a serious life setback. One of the primary purposes of financial planning is to become able to achieve a successful retirement.
You are saying that it counts for zero. But there must be some part of you that appreciates that such a claim is pure nonsense.
That’s why you are so angry, What. You are divided against yourself. There is a part of you that believes that getting the retirement numbers right is a good thing and the part of you that is emotionally attached to Get Rich Quick hates that part of What as much as he hates Rob Bennett.
The good part of you is not your enemy any more than Rob Bennett is your enemy. Your true enemy is Get Rich Quick. Your true enemy is Buy-and-Hold. Your true enemy is marketing mumbo jumbo aimed at your emotions rather than at your capacity to engage in reason.
I hope you’ll give the matter some thought, What.
Rob
all those people you mention understand the study.
No, they don’t, What.
Let’s talk about John Bogle since he’s the leader of the Buy-and-Hold cause.
Say that John Bogle worked in any field other than stock investing. What do you think he would do if he discovered that Mel Lindauer was posting at a board with his name on it? He would be on the phone in 20 minutes threatening legal action. Give me a break.
Bogle has not sought legal action. I have sent him three e-mails asking for his help with the Lindauer Matter and he hasn’t responded to any of them. The only conclusion we can draw is that he is corrupt to the core or he doesn’t fully understand, he is suffering from cognitive dissonance and he is living in a fog.
John Bogle is a hero of mine for the work he did laying the foundation for the Valuation-Informed Indexing model. So you’ll have to excuse me if I elect to take the charitable view of things and conclude that he doesn’t understand, that he is suffering from cognitive dissonance and that he is living in a fog.
Those of us who are true friends to the man should not be encouraging him to continue to drag his reputation through the mud by continuing to promote this Get Rich Quick garbage. We should be encouraging him to walk to the front of the room and say those three powerful and wonderful and healing works “I” and “Was” and “Wrong” and thereby launch the national debate on what really works in stock investing that will within six months take us out of this economic crisis.
Those are my sincere thoughts re the matter, in any event.
Please take, care, What.
you are the one who isn’t educated. It’s like you read a book about the Ocean and think you are the messiah because you learned that water is wet.
We’re not all that far apart re this one, What.
I never went to Investing School and I never managed a big fund. We agree on that much.
All that I have ever said about stock investing follows from the painfully obvious observation that valuations matter. We agree on that much.
I never could have done what I’ve done without help from hundreds of good and smart and hard-working people with names like John Walter Russell and John Bogle and Robert Shiller and Wade Pfau and Michael Kitces and Bill Bernstein and Scott Burns and Rob Arnott and Peter Bernstein and Andrew Smithers and Sam Parler and Jeremy Grantham and John C Craig and Microlepsis and BenSolar and Wanderer and Cliff Asness and Ed Easterling and on and on. We agree on that much.
There is indeed a sense in which I am saying that water is wet. I don’t have a problem with you putting it that way.
Where we go on different tracks is when you suggest that having someone say “water is wet” out loud and in clear and firm and uncompromising terms isn’t a super big deal in InvestoWorld in the Year 2012.
We have achieved a consensus that the Old School SWR studies get the numbers wildly wrong. That’s good. That makes me happy. That is the “water is wet” statement that I was making in 2002, when people were throwing rocks at me for even suggesting the possibility that water is wet.
It’s not enough in the Year 2012. The “water is wet” statement in 2012 is that, since we all know that the Old School SWR studies get the numbers that people use to plan their retirements wildly wrong, we need to correct those goshdarned Old School SWR studies before they cause more human misery.
I’m still saying things that no one else is saying, What. I’m still ahead of the curve. I like to think that I am no longer 10 years ahead of the curve, perhaps we’ve got it down to five years or three years or one year at this point. But so long as I am saying things that very much need to be said that none of the others are saying, I am ahead of the curve, no?
Do you hear Bogle demanding that the Old School SWR studies all be corrected by the close of business today? Do you hear Shiller saying that? Do you hear Bengen saying that? Heaven help us all, do you hear Lindauer or Greaney saying that?
Why not?
Why are these other people not saying that water is wet?
I’m not at the top because I am so smart, What. I am at the top because all the hot shots are so dumb.
The better way to put it is that I am at the top because all the hot shots are to various degrees suffering from cognitive dissonance.
Do you know what the cure is? It is to open the internet to honest posting on all kinds of important investment-related topics. Do you know what the magic is in that? It is that, once these people are able to openly give voice to their doubts about Buy-and-Hold, they are going to hear thousands of their friends and neighbors and co-workers and fellow community members giving voice to their doubts too. And that is going to convince them that we need to all get to work building a new model, one that works, one that doesn’t cause such human misery.
I am not smarter in an I.Q. sense than any of these other people, What. But I sure as shootin’ am saying smarter things. That’s because I gave up on Buy-and-Hold a long, long time ago. I gave up on Buy-and-Hold on the night of August 27, 2002. That’s the night that Greaney threatened to kill my wife and children if I continued posting honestly on SWRs and hundreds of Buy-and-Holders who were in the room at the time and heard what he said sat on their hands and did nothing.
That ain’t normal behavior among the humans, What. So we know that there is something at the root of this Buy-and-Hold business that is very, very, very very sick and twisted.
I’ve picked up a clue as to what it might be. I think it might be the Get Rich Quick element, the part that is supported by precisely zero research and zero data but that serves as marketing wildfire when the time comes to make a buck from this stuff. It’s that Get Rich Quick garbage that tells us that there is no need to lower our stock allocations when stock prices go to insanely dangerous levels that is killing us, What. It’s that Get Rich Quick element of the Buy-and-Hold package that is making Bogle and Bernstein and Burns and, heaven help us all, Lindauer and Greaney and all the other Goons sound so goshdarned moronic when they talk about stock investing.
The Buy-and-Holders achieved a breakthrough when they came up with the idea of rooting their strategies in research and data. That was pow, pow, powerful stuff.
They gave it all back and then some when they let the Marketing Department Con Men persuade them to stretch the truth just a wee bit and change the finding from “Short-Term Timing Doesn’t Work” (supported by the research) to “No Form of Timing Is Required” (pure Get Rich Quick marketing garbage).
If it hurts their precious wittle feelings when I point out that the things they say about investing sound as dumb as sin, that ain’t on me, What. That’s on them. I am the one telling them to give up the Get Rich Quick garbage. I am the one saying to go back to the cool idea of letting the academic research be our guide. I am the one saying to correct the Old School studies. I am the one saying to open every investing board and blog on the internet to honest posting on hundreds of important investment-related topics. I am the one saying to launch a national debate on what really works in stock investing. I am the one saying that we all should be working together to bring the economic crisis to an end as soon as humanly possible.
Are most of those people going to rush past me once they work up the courage to acknowledge in clear and firm and bold and uncompromising words that The Buy-and-Hold Emperor Is Wearing No Clothes? Probably.
You know what? I’m cool with that. It doesn’t bother me.
I want to see the economic crisis brought to an end. I want to do something to help the thousands of my fellow community members who are in the process of suffering failed retirements because of the Campaign of Terror that has been waged against our board communities for ten years now. I’m not worried about who gets the credit for all the amazing insights we have developed together over the past 10 years. There are so many great insights that my view is that there is credit enough to go around. It’s not a problem.
The only problem is that, so long as you continue defending this fantasy that there is some alternate universe where a pure Get Rich Quick approach can work, you don’t get credit for anything because you say stuff that makes you sound like a freakin’ moron. And, so long as you aren’t getting credit for any insights, you hate all the fine community members doing constructive, positive, life-affiirming, honest work.
We are not seeking to keep all the goodies to ourselves, What. You are on the outside looking in only because you are too darn proud to walk through the door, plop your butt down in a chair and get to work mining the good stuff.
I cannot plop your butt for you, What. That’s an inside job.
You dig, man?
Courage! Onward!
Rob
One more note, What.
Who was it who told you to give up the funny stuff back on the morning of May 13, 2002, when you could have spared yourself a ton of embarrassment and a ton of legal liabilities by doing so? That was me. The other guy was saying the other thing.
It’s when you mess up that you find out who your real friends are. Anyone can laugh at a screw-up. It takes a friend to work up the courage to take you aside and say some words to try to help you better understand the facts of life.
Please give it some thought, my long-time abusive posting friend.
Rob
“Let’s just limit ourselves to the SWR question. Getting the SWR right saves millions of people from suffering failed retirements. That’s of zero benefit? How so?”
So – are you saying you have accomplished this? I think you are probably about as far away now as you were at the start. In fact, I am pretty sure the benefit of your work is as close to 0 as you could possibly have gotten.
“spared yourself a ton of embarrassment and a ton of legal liabilities by doing so?”
I am not sure what you are talking about exactly. I am not aware of any embarrassment or legal liabilities. I can see how many people would be embarrassed by the way you behave online – is that what you are referring to? Well, don’t worry, you don’t embarrass me.
“Why are these other people not saying that water is wet?”
Everybody knows that water is wet and basically every publication that uses a ‘SWR’ as a baseline caveats it.
“That’s why you are so angry, What. You are divided against yourself.”
Actually, I am not angry or divided – why exactly would I be? Because I might be more rich if I followed some vaguely defined plan (no matter how many words you seem to write it is amazingly vague) written by someone who is ill? And frankly I view you as a very ill person but you are entertaining nonetheless.
So – are you saying you have accomplished this?
We showed beyond any reasonable doubt that the numbers in the Old School SWR studies are wildly wrong on the afternoon of May 18, 2002, when John Walter Russell put up his sensitivity study. One community member commented with good sense that anyone who would think of using a retirement “study” with such statistical sensitivity numbers would have to be out of his or her mind.
We provided the correct numbers a couple of years later. They were put forward as John’s first post to The SWR Research Group board (shut down a bit later by Buy-and-Holders who did not want the correct numbers being brought to the attention of the millions of middle-class investors who need to know about them.
The Retirement Risk Evaluator is of course rooted in John’s New School SWR research and gets the numbers right.
And if any errors are ever brought to my attention, you can count on me to correct them within 24 hours of the time I learn of them. I sure ain’t planning to go down the road travelled over the past 10 years by the Lindaerheads and the Greaney Goon. Holy moly!
Rob
I am not sure what you are talking about exactly.
It was a mysterious comment, What.
Good point.
Rob
basically every publication that uses a ‘SWR’ as a baseline caveats it.
The thing to do with a study that gets the retirement numbers wildly wrong is not to caveat it but to correct it, What.
I know from speaking to tens of thousands of middle-class investors that a high percentage of the population believes that the people advocating Buy-and-Hold strategies are shooting straight with them. The reality is that there is now 30 years of academic research showing that there is precisely zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy could ever work for any long-term investor. This is why the widespread promotion of Buy-and-Hold has caused an economic crisis each and every one of the four times the idea has become dominant. Let us all pray to God that there will not be a fifth.
If Buy-and-Hold were a legitimate strategy, there obviously would never have been a single death threat. Or a single board banning. Or a single act of defamation. Or a single intimidation post. Or a single deception post. Or a single word game post. People promoting honest strategies do not behave in this manner.
Caveats aim’t getting the job done, What. We need corrections. We need them before the close of business today.
Sooner than that would be preferable.
Rob
Actually, I am not angry or divided
Truly outstanding.
Rob
no matter how many words you seem to write it is amazingly vague
There is nothing even a tiny bit “vague” in the idea that people need to look at the price of the stocks they are buying before they put money down on the table, What. People look at the price of everything else they buy in this consumer wonderland of ours.
It is of course to the short-term benefit of Wall Street con men for people not to look at price. In the long term, however, even the Wall Street con men suffer in the economic crisis inevitably brought on by the widespread promotion of Buy-and-Hold strategies.
Much of the wealth of millions of people is tied up in the stock market. It is obviously not possible for any market to function once the idea that price doesn’t matter becomes widespread. We need a functioning stock market for our economic system to recover and survive and ultimately thrive. There is every reason in the world to believe that we are going to get it shortly after we reach a consensus as a society to open every board and blog on the internet to honest posting on SWRs and many other critically important investment-related topics.
Rob
I view you as a very ill person but you are entertaining nonetheless.
This language reveals you to be someone who possesses confidence in the case he is putting forward, What.
Buy-and-Hold is science. That’s what makes it so special.
Rob
“Much of the wealth of millions of people is tied up in the stock market.”
Actually, this view is almost entirely incorrect. Most average Americans have next to nothing in the stock market.
And the Internet is almost entirely open to all kinds of posting. You just happen to be such a buffoon you manage to get yourself kicked off of every island there is.
Regarding your accomplishments I must say you are a complete failure. Your basic/simple ideas *should* be able to sell lots of books and get yourself on the cheesy ‘business news’ TV channels but your personality is so horribly flawed that it makes it impossible. And let’s not get into how bad your writing is. Even perma-bears like Roubini and consistent underperformers like Hussman can get 15 minutes.
Most average Americans have next to nothing in the stock market.
People who don’t have any savings don’t have much effect on the economy, What.
It is people with savings who have the greatest impact. When people lose most of their savings, they pull back from spending, causing an economic collapse. We should be permitting people to hear accurate and honest information on how to invest so that they do not behave in such a manner as to lose their accumulated savings of a lifetime and thereby bring on an economic crisis.
What a far-out idea!
Rob
And the Internet is almost entirely open to all kinds of posting.
Please point us to the URL of a major investing site that focuses on the implications of Shiller’s research.
There isn’t one.
There should be hundreds of such sites.
The reason that there are not is that our society is today suffering from a Catch-22. We all want to know how to invest effectively. But the experts didn’t know all the realities when Buy-and-Hold was developed (how could they have? Research on critical points had not yet been published). So millions of us are today following Buy-and-Hold strategies, the most dangerous strategies ever concocted by the human mind. We want to do better but we are so frightened by how badly we have messed things up that we dare not acknowledge our mistakes. Hundreds of web sites would gladly serve our needs if we could acknowledge those needs. But how can we acknowledge our needs without acknowledging that we did not know it all all along? The economic crisis will continue to worsen until we work up the courage to acknowledge having made a mistake and yet we cannot be certain we made a mistake until we become informed of the realities and few will set up sites to tell us the realities until we become sufficiently aware of them to be able to say out loud that we made a mistake.
The economic crisis is our friend, What. That’s the bottom line. The economic crisis is softening our hearts. Once our hearts are sufficiently softened, we will all be working together to make things better. We will all feel 500 times better about our futures than we feel today.
I look forward to seeing your face on the other side of the Big Black Mountain, my long-time abusive-posting friend!
Rob
You just happen to be such a buffoon you manage to get yourself kicked off of every island there is.
That explains the death threats, What.
People promoting legitimate investment strategies always become so upset by the words of “buffoons” that they lower themselves to putting forward death threats to silence them.
It’s good to see all of the pieces of the puzzle finally beginning to snap into place.
Rob
Regarding your accomplishments I must say you are a complete failure.
I was just very, very, very, very, very lucky with that post that I put forward on the morning of May 13, 2002.
Good point.
Rob
Your basic/simple ideas *should* be able to sell lots of books and get yourself on the cheesy ‘business news’ TV channels but your personality is so horribly flawed that it makes it impossible.
Makes sense.
Rob
And let’s not get into how bad your writing is.
The research-supported case for Buy-and-Hold, circa March 2012.
Rob
“And let’s not get into how bad your writing is.
The research-supported case for Buy-and-Hold, circa March 2012
”
This has nothing to do with buy and hold, it has everything to do with why you are a complete failure. The fact that 2002 is so long ago and you have done nothing and accomplished nothing in the meantime is sad.
Any used car salesman could take your ideas and make a mint on them (whether the ideas are right or wrong or even make any sense is a different topic).
I haven’t seen any death threats – where are they? You mention them in a lot of your ramblings but I have never actually seen any. It makes you seem nuts.
This has nothing to do with buy and hold, it has everything to do with why you are a complete failure.
Good point, What.
Buy-and-Hold is the cat’s pajamas. I forgot.
Rob
It makes you seem nuts.
If you discover errors in retirement studies and have death threats directed at you by the people who made the errors, you are nuts.
If you make errors in retirement studies and fail to correct them but instead direct death threats at the people who point out the errors, you offer “expert” investment advice.
That makes sense, What.
Rob
Any used car salesman could take your ideas and make a mint on them (whether the ideas are right or wrong or even make any sense is a different topic).
I don’t claim to possess the skills of a user-car salesman. So I cannot say.
I care deeply about the question of whether the ideas stand up to scrutiny or not.
I am confident that I will be compensated beyond my wildest dreams if the ideas stand up to scrutiny. So I don’t see any particular need to call in any used-car salesmen for guidance on how to proceed. If we open the internet up to honest posting, we will find out whether anyone is able to identify any flaws. Then I get a huge payoff if I deserve one and nothing if I don’t (which is of course the proper result in that circumstance).
So, from my way of looking at things, calling in used car salesmen is a waste of time.
We need a national debate on the realities of stock investing. We need to open every board and blog on the internet to honest posting on SWRS and hundreds of other critically important investment-related topics. That will tell us everything we need to know.
There are no different sides here, What. Buy-and-Holders want to know how to invest effectively every bit as much as Valuation-Informed Indexers want to know how to invest effectively. Every board and blog to which I have posted has protections in place protecting us all from the sorts of tactics that have been employed by the Lindaurheads and the Greaney Goons to block our discussions. When things get bad enough that people just get fed up with the nonsense, we will proceed according to the dictates of our long-held social norms and we will find out everything we need to find out.
My strong hunch is that we are all going to someday look back at the ten years in which we had a Debate About Having a Debate as a huge waste of time and energy. But we’ll see.
Please take care.
Rob
I am still wondering if you actually published that second book that DripGuy asked you about.
Well yes, saying that you have had death threats directed at you and then being unable to produce any evidence to support your claim is pretty much bad s crazy.
I have a feeling you will continue to post ineffectively until you just can’t anymore or become a non-functioning whatever-condition-you-have. And then things will move on.
I bet I could take your small minded ideas (which I won’t since I don’t actually agree they are practical and your blabbering is too vague to really pin them down), write some articles, publish a book, and get them spread far and wide no problem. I mean, look at Robert Kiyosaki – not a single good idea or concept and he could do it.
Ideas are spread by people, What.
Say that you are a blog owner. Do you want to be writing articles about what the academic research says on stock investing at a time when Wall Street is spending hundreds of millions of marketing dollars promoting Buy-and-Hold? It’s a lot easier to piggyback on those hundreds of millions and just push Get Rich Quick yourself.
Do you know how most people react? They say “yeah, I heard something like that before somewhere, there must be something to it.” Tell people what the academic research says and their reaction is “Well, that makes sense but it is the opposite in every way from what the Wall Street guy was saying and he is in the business so he must know.” For so long as the people who make money from us following Get RIch Quick are the people we listen to to determine whether Get RIch Quick is a good idea or not, Get Rich Quick will prevail.
All of this changes when people are hurting so bad that they begin to question the garbage that the Wall Street con men have been shoving down our throats for years now. Stocks are always best? No matter what the price? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
You are focused on marketing. Marketing helps with Get RIch Quick approaches. That’s not what Valuation-Informed Indexing is. VII is a research-backed approach. Marketing isn’t needed for those open to hearing what the research says. And marketing won’t help for those so addicted to what they heard about through earlier marketing that they can’t bear to admit their mistake.
All that we need to turn the entire country to VII is another stock crash. I don’t wish it on any of us. I pray that we avoid it. I have for ten years been doing the work that I have hoped might permit us to avoid it. But the reality is that the signs are that that is the only thing that will make a difference. If that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is, and you and I and everyone else are just going to need to accept it.
The next crash will soften our hearts and we will permit the 10 percent of the population that hasn’t been taken in by the Wall Street Con Men to tell us what they have been trying to tell us for years. We will all benefit, even the Wall Street Con Men (they would love to be able to give good advice, they certainty started their careers thinking that that is what they would be doing).
The answer here isn’t marketing gimmicks. It is regaining our humanity. We adopted rules at all of our boards to keep us human because deep in our hearts that is what we want to be. I am going to continue to argue that we should respect our own humanity and the humanity of our fellow community members in all our dealings with them.
You will continue to do what you do. Until one day either you won’t be able to stand it anymore and you will stop or someone else will not be able to stand it anymore and he or she will stop you. I will pray for you. That’s about all I can do.
I’ve told you that I intend to bring lawsuits against you and to encourage others to bring lawsuits against you because I think that is the right thing to do. I am your friend and I always act like a friend when you ask questions. I don’t want you getting one of those official-looking letters one day and saying “I thought Rob was my friend!” I am a friend who is going to bring legal action against you and encourage many others to bring legal action against you, You need that as part of your healing process. And our society needs to know that justice was done in this matter to come to a good resolution of it.
The fact that we are going to bring lawsuits against you doesn’t mean that we cannot care about you. And please don’t think that your feeling that you need to act as if you hate all of us means that you can’t have feelings of warmth and affection and respect toward all of us either. Permitting such feelings in will take you to a better place than will all of your feelings of hate and anger and contempt.
My best to you, my long-time abusive posting friend.
Until your next nonsense gibberish post!
Rob
What legal action are you talking about? This makes you seem even more unhinged!
You don’t even know who I am!
After 2 of the worst stock market plunges in the US EVER and you can’t get any traction! And yet you think the solution is another plunge so people will listen to you? Cmon Rob, you just have no idea how to convince anybody of anything and its because the way you present yourself and work with other people is terrible.
And yet you think the solution is another plunge so people will listen to you?
I hate to call it a “solution.”
But, yes, I do think it is a fair thing to say that the only development that has made a big difference over the past 10 years was the crash. That melted some hearts, softened some pride. We need more of that to get to where we all deep in our hearts want to be.
There’s no limit to what we can do once our pride is softened. But we will continue to go around in circles until we learn to say those wonderful and powerful words “I” and “Was’ and “Wrong.”
We need to reach down deep.
That’s my sincere take re this important question, in any event, What.
Rob
You don’t even know who I am!
What?
Rob