“How Could Someone Who Holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton Come to Believe That There are Zero Peer-Reviewed Studies Showing that Long-Term Timing Is Not Required for Long-Term Investing Success?”

Set forth below are the texts of two comments that I recently put to the Goon Central board:

Reality bites, don’t it hocus!?

Reality bites in both directions, Yip.

Wade said those things. You have quoted him accurately.

He also advanced the 45 quotes that I reported on in the article linked to above.

He still believes those 45 things. Even if he didn’t, the fact that he once believed those 45 things would be news with major public policy significance. He held a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton when he said those things. He is in a position to know the truth of these matters. And yet he believed that there has never been a single study showing that long-term timing doesn’t work or isn’t required for long-term success. A Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton researched this question and that is what he discovered. Even if he changed his mind at a later date (he hasn’t), that would be big news. It would raise the question — How could this be? How could someone who holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton come to believe that there are zero peer-reviewed studies on the record showing that long-term timing does not work or is not required for long-term success?

We all need to know the answer to that one, Yip. Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers alike. And we will not ever come to know the answer until we give ourselves permission to discuss the question. It is through discussion that we learn. So we MUST permit (and encourage!) civil and reasoned discussion of these matters. There is no other path from the horrible place where we all are today to the wonderful place where deep down in our hearts each and every one of us wants to be tomorrow.

If I win, we all win.

If you win, we all lose.

It doesn’t take me too long to figure out who to root for re this one, my old friend.

Rob

This game can be played the other way around.I promote myself as the most severe critic of Buy-and-Hold alive on Planet Earth today.Yet on the morning of May 13, 2002, if you had asked me what investing strategy I follow, I would have said “Buy-and-Hold” and I would have said it proudly.What gives? Am I the genius who discovered the horrible flaw in the Buy-and-Hold strategy? Or am I the dunderhead who at a time in his life when he held a Masters in Tax Law from George Washington University and had rose to the level of Director at the Ernst & Young consulting firm and who had written the #1 best-selling report in the history of the Soapbox.com site and who had transformed himself into a sufficiently effective saver to be able to start from zero and yet in 10 years save what he needed for his family of four to live off his savings for many, many years to come still believed in this oh-so-horrible and oh-so-obviously-flawed Buy-and-Hold strategy?

I am that genius, Yip. And I am that dunderhead. I possess two, two, two characteristics of the Human in one! We are all human. We all have the potential of genius within us. And we all have the potential of dunderheadedness within us.

John Bogle is one of the darn humans. So is Robert Shiller. So is Wade Pfau. So is Bill Bernsteinzz. So is John Greaney. So is Rob Bennett. So is Rob Arnott. So is Albert Sanchez Graells. So is Scott Burnszzz. So is Mel Linduaer. So is Microlepsis. So is John D. Craig. So is Ed Easterling. So is Larry Swedroe. So is J.D. Roth. So is Mike Piper. And on and on and on and on and on.

We are stuck together on this planet, Yip. We all possess access to some pieces of the puzzle and have been denied access to other pieces of the puzzle. We have a system in this country that permits us to share with each other the pieces that we each hold in our hands so that the collective entity we call “the United States of America” can come to possess as many of the pieces as possible and we can all thrive together. We need to play it that way in the investing area just as we do in all the other areas. Our decision to play it very, very differently in the investing area is in the process of killing us.

We need to figure out why Wade Pfau believed the things he did when he was being a dunderhead (regardless of whether you think it is Wade 1.0 who is the dunderhead or Wade 2.0 who is the dunderhead). And we need to figure out why Rob Bennett believed the things he believed when he was being a dunderhead (regardless of whether you think it was the pre-May 13, 2002, version of Rob who was the dunderhead or the post-May 13, 2002, version of Rob who is the dunderhead). And we need to figure out whether Old Saint Jack is being a dunderhead when he says things in his speeches that support what Rob believes or when he says things in his speeches that support what Mel believes.

We’re all dunderheads here, Yip. Each and every one of us.

And we are all geniuses too. So we are all entitled to the respect and affection and gratitude of all the other dunderheads when we venture to put forward our genius posts on the discussion boards and blogs that we have built together for that purpose.

I am telling you the way it is going to be, my old friend. I am not asking, I am telling. There is a difference. Please try very hard to understand. It is critical that you understand that I am telling and not asking so that you will know how to proceed after reading these words.

My best wishes to you and yours.

Rob