Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the discussion of a blog entry at this site:
I am grateful to you for putting forward something that deals with substantive issues, Banned. We work out our differences by dealing with substantive issues.
There is a contradiction in the words used to introduce the table set forth at the link. First, it says: “By owning the entire market (all of the asset classes), susceptibility to changes in market variations is minimized.” Then it says: “Large variations over a short period of time, but tends to be stable when viewed over the long term.”
The first statement cannot possibly be true if the second statement is true (and the second statement IS true). These are not my words. These are the words of the Bogleheads, the primary advocates of Buy-and-Hold. And these words show why Buy-and-Hold can never work for even a single long-term investor.
The second statement is a wonderful summation of the 140 years of U.S. stock market history available to us. Year to year variations in returns are indeed INSANE. And long-term variations are indeed minimal. We are in complete agreement re this statement.
Where we differ is re its MEANING. You take this statement as signifying support for a Buy-and-Hold strategy. I take it as a warning NOT to follow a Buy-and-Hold strategy.
If returns are stable over the long term and if that stable return is a good one (it is), you want to be heavily invested in stocks as a rule. We agree re that point.
If returns are wildly variable in the short term, you want to be heavily invested in stocks during the short-term periods when returns are very, very good but you do NOT want to be heavily invested in stocks when returns are very, very bad. You want to avoid taking the huge hit that comes from being invested in stocks during price crashes. Avoiding crashes will increase your return DRAMATICALLY while also diminishing your risk DRAMATICALLY. The lifetime benefit is counter-intutively high. You would need to work the numbers to see how huge a difference this makes.
That’s Valuation-Informed Indexing, Banned. The only difference between Buy-and-Hold and VII is that with VII you lower your stock allocation at times of price crashes (those times when the short-term variation works against you) and increase it at times of huge price jumps (those times when the short-term variation works to your benefit). That’s the entire deal.
Now –
Buy-and-Holders would have to be insane not to want to take advantage of return predictability if it existed. They obviously do not believe that these times of short-term variability (in both directions) can be predicted. I obviously do. That’s the only issue in dispute.
This is where I say the Buy-and-Holders have never put forward a single sliver of evidence supporting their position. This was Wade Pfau’s most important finding. This is why Wade says that the research that he and I did together belongs in the Journal of Finance, the most important journal in the field.
Wade has a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton. He makes a living doing investment research. If there is anyone alive who is able to determine whether there is a study showing that long-term timing is not required, Wade is that person. Wade spent months trying to find such a study. He never found one. He was amazed. He kept thinking that he had done something wrong. He must have missed it! But he looked and he looked and he looked and he never found any such study.
He wanted to be sure. So he went to the Bogleheads Forum to see if anyone there knew of one. No one did. Not John Bogle. Not Bill Bernstein. Not Larry Swedrow. Not Rick Ferri. Not Taylor Larimore. None of these people have ever seen a single study supporting the core principle upon which the Buy-and-Hold strategy is built.
If these people never heard of a study, there is no study, Banned. There is zero reason for any rational person to believe that long-term timing (paying attention to price) is not absolutely required for anyone hoping to have a realistic chance of long-term investing success.
Now — to the first statement that appears before the presentation of the table!
The first statement says: “”By owning the entire market (all of the asset classes), susceptibility to changes in market variations is minimized.”
No! This is false!
The research that Wade and I did shows that the far bigger factor is the valuation level that applies when the asset is purchased. Just paying attention to valuations alone takes 70 percent of the risk out of stock investing. Owning a large number of asset classes does virtually nothing to minimize risk compared to the simple act of taking valuations into consideration when setting your stock allocation. Buy-and-Holders do not minimize risk by going with a pure Get Rich Quick approach. They MAXIMIZE it! Just as common sense tells us must be so!
There never can be any justification for failing to take price into account when buying something, Banned. It cannot be. It is a logical impossibility.
If you want to say that Buy-and-Holders sincerely believe that it is not necessary to take price into account, I can go along with that statement. But I cannot go along with a statement that there is research supporting such a statement. Wade checked this very, very, very carefully. There is no such research. There never will be any. The idea that it is not necessary to take price into account when buying stocks is dangerous and false and wrong and absurd.
Buy-and-Hold was a mistake.
It was a mistake made by good and smart people who were trying to help us. But it was a mistake all the same.
That mistake caused our economic crisis. That mistake needs to be fixed.
I wish you all good things.
Rob
Rob,
It is interesting in how you have hung much of your campaign on the shoulders of Wade, yet you ignore him when it is not convenient for you. As you may recall, he also had this to say:
“Hi Rob,
I forgot that I was still saying things like this even 2 weeks after the initial incident.
This was more than a year ago now, but I am thinking that I was just trying to explain politely to you that I’d rather have you quit writing about me, or at least stop using my name. I suppose that I figured the only way you might understand why is if I explained it in terms of your favorite conspiracy theories.
I will make one more attempt at a reality check for you. You go on and on about how I allegedly lack personal integrity because I allowed the Goons to threaten me into silence.
The reality is that though I may have for a brief moment got a bit too caught up in YOUR drama, I do not have any fears about the Goons.
The reality is that you are causing me 1000x more career damage than the Goons ever could have by filling Google with so much nonsense about me, and sharing embarrassing private details such as my overly ambitious journal submission strategies, etc. Those in particular are highly private. People don’t publicly share where they submit articles to unless those articles are accepted. You’ve violated my trust in so many countless ways and yet you still proclaim to be my friend.
And the further reality is that if I *did* lack personal integrity, I could have made this all stop just by saying the meaningless sentence you want so desperately to hear: “I think the errors in the traditional safe withdrawal rate studies must be corrected by using Rob’s analytically valid method.”
But I don’t believe that. I do not believe you have offered a valid correction to the safe withdrawal rate question. And I believe that retirement income strategies go much further than the question of a safe withdrawal rate. And so that is why I’ve had to endure your ongoing harassment for months on end now.
Usually I can figure out the Rob-logic behind what you are thinking, but I really don’t know how you think you come out of this whole episode looking like the good guy. I guess it is because you think you are saving my soul and putting me back on the path of righteousness, or something, huh? If only you had the power to do a little bit of self reflection…
Now that the whole email history is on display, we have the reminder of how angry you got at the very beginning when I referred to you as dogmatic. Yet, look at the way you’ve treated me for disagreeing with you on something which you don’t even understand. You quote numbers from JWR’s statistical work, but I’m not sure if you can even distinguish a mean from a median. So how can you be sure his work is right? I don’t know either, as I never did get around to digging into it, and I doubt I ever will now. But I’m not sure how a properly calculated lower confidence bound for a 2000 retiree could have been higher than zero.
Rob, suppose the stock market does drop 65% as you are expecting. It might happen, who knows.
Step 1: Stock Market Drops 65%
Step 2: ??
Step 3: Rob wins $500 million settlement from the Goons, the Goons are sent to prison, the investing public learns about and adopts VII.
What is Step 2? There isn’t one. You will still be in the same position as you’ve been in for the last 10 years. Why didn’t something happen for you after the 2008 financial crisis? You are like the guy who keeps predicting new ends for the world as each previous prediction date passes by.
That is why I’m telling you, from one human being to another, that it is time to move on. You are a smart guy, and you could use your talents for something productive. While warning people about the 4% rule is helpful, the way that you go about doing it is rather “catastrophically unproductive” as one wise fellow said to you years ago. I provide a loud voice that is critical of the 4% rule, and so spending your days assassinating my character is counterproductive to your underlying cause. So perhaps you can start fresh with a new issue of social import that carries less baggage for you. What happened in the past is a sunk cost, but you still have a chance to turn things around and start afresh today. And you can do all of this while still being honest and true to yourself.”
Buy and Hold will do in the future what it has done in the past. It will deliver for investors the market return minus the low costs associated with buy and hold investing.
It is absolutly the best way to deliver to investors as a whole the gains of the stock market.
Only someone who doesn’t understand math could possibly believe that investors as a whole can achieve returns greater that the market as a whole.
Only buy and hold can deliver the maximum possible return for investors as a whole.
As you may recall, he also had this to say:
I say that Jack Bogle should have spoken up when you Goons threatened to send defamatory e-mails to Wade’s employer in an effort to get him fired from his job. Then Wade would never have felt a need to say things he does not believe in order to hold onto his job. We would all be better off. We can only learn from academic researchers when they express their honest beliefs.
I of course don’t mean to suggest that this is so only of my good friend Jack Bogle. It is true of my friend Bill Bernstein. And of my friend Larry Swedroe. And of my friend Scott Burns. And of my friend Rick Ferri.
Each time one of us stands up to the Buy-and-Hold Mafia, it grows weaker.
Each time the Buy-and-Hold MAfia grows weaker, the end of the economic crisis draws closer.
I wish you all good things, Pink.
Rob the Honest
So, Rob, when will you stop damaging Wade’s career? Have you any morals?
Also, this section obliterates your entire 11 year campaign:
“But I don’t believe that. I do not believe you have offered a valid correction to the safe withdrawal rate question. And I believe that retirement income strategies go much further than the question of a safe withdrawal rate. And so that is why I’ve had to endure your ongoing harassment for months on end now.”
That one simple paragraph says it all, Rob. Everyone knows you are wrong, the retirement issuesgo way beyond the SWR issue and when people don’t agree with you, your response is to harass them and threaten them. In fact, we see your little campaign again yesterday with the often threatened prison time and lawsuits. The problem for you is that all of these facts are out there for people to see.
Buy and Hold will do in the future what it has done in the past. It will deliver for investors the market return minus the low costs associated with buy and hold investing.
I agree 100 percent, Evidence.
The problem is that the most likely long-term market return in 2000 was a negative number.
When investors lose ground on their retirement hopes rather than gain ground, they cut back on spending.
When millions cut back on spending, tens of thousands of businesses fail.
When tens of thousands of businesses fail, millions lose their jobs.
This is why Buy-and-Hold has led us to an economic crisis each and every time in U.S. history in which it has become popular. There has never been a single exception because there never can be an exception. Buy-and-Hold leads to economic crisis because no economy can function without price discipline and the core principle of Buy-and-Hold is that long-term timing (the exercise of price discipline when buying stocks) is not required.
My warmest regards to you and yours.
Rob the Price-Discipline Fanatic
Wade has said that it is you causing him career damage, not your mystical goons theory.
Also, I don’t Jack, Larry, Rick or Scott would consider you a friend.
It is absolutly the best way to deliver to investors as a whole the gains of the stock market.
It is also the best way to deliver LOSSES, Evidence.
Gains are a plus. Losses are a minus.
At times when the market is priced to deliver long-term gains, Valuation-Informed Indexers adopt the same stock allocations as Buy-and-Holders.
When the market is priced to deliver long-term losses, Valuation-Informed Indexers go with far lower stock allocations than Buy-and-Holders. So our losses are much smaller.
That’s why Valuation-Informed Indexers always do so much better. Getting all the gains while greatly reducing your losses is A GOOD THING. It is not even possible for the rational human mind to imagine any possible downside.
Don’t let the bad guys get you down, man.
Rob the Gain-Seeker and Loss-Avoider
Only someone who doesn’t understand math could possibly believe that investors as a whole can achieve returns greater that the market as a whole.
This makes zero sense.
An investor who is out of the market during a time-period when the market is providing huge losses only needs to earn a zero return with his non-market investments to be far ahead of those invested in the market.
And there are non-market investments that provide returns HIGHER than zero.
Take good care.
Rob the Logical
Only buy and hold can deliver the maximum possible return for investors as a whole.
Um — sure thing, Evidence.
I believe you.
No — really!
Rob the Easily Convinced
That one simple paragraph says it all, Rob.
The 16 months of e-mails that Wade wrote during the time when he believed that the same ethical standards that apply in every other field of human endeavor also apply in the investing field also say it all, Pink.
We know what Wade says when he is telling the truth and we know what Wade says when Goons like you threaten to destroy his career and Big Shots like Jack Bogle and Bill Bernstein and Larry Swedroe and Rick Ferri and Scott Burns raise not a finger to help him out.
I prefer the things Wade says when he is telling the truth. Call me madcap.
Rob the Buy-ad-Hold Mafia Critic
Wade has said that it is you causing him career damage, not your mystical goons theory.
And before you Goons threatened him, Wade was objecting to Mel Lindauer’s unethical behavior at the Bogleheads Forum, just as I and hundreds of others have objected to it in the past.
If Buy-and-Hold were a legitimate strategy, not one “expert” would be willing to have his name associated with a site at which the sorts of individuals who have posted in “defense” of Lindauer are permitted to participate. Give me a freakin’ break.
The fact that you have to threaten academic researchers to keep Buy-and-Hold alive shows how long the idea has been dead intellectually.
And guess what?
Wade is going to testify honestly when he is put under oath and faces perjury charges if he fails to do so. Just another one of those crazy hunches of mine.
Please take good care, Pink.
Rob the Non-Perjurer
So, basically things that Wade says that you dont like are lies in your mind.
You have a very evil and warped mind, Rob. You should be ashamed at the way you treat people.
Also, I don’t Jack, Larry, Rick or Scott would consider you a friend.
You’re wrong, Pink.
They don’t want to go to prison. So, yes, they are concerned about my exposure of the 11-year cover-up.
But that is only one part of what these fellows are.
Jack loved the idea of helping millions of middle-class investors when he started out. His amazing accomplishments testify to this reality. The part of him that wants to help investors is still present within him on some level of consciousness. That part of Jack Bogle LOVES the idea of coming clean on safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. That part of Jack Bogle recognizes Rob Bennett as his best friend in the world. That part of Jack Bogle CANNOT WAIT to put all the ugliness associated with his “support” for John Greaeny and Mel Linduaer behind him and to return to being a ETHICAL and HONEST stock advisor.
The same is obviously true of all the others. There are REASONS why we have a ban on the tactics employed by those posting in “defense” of Lindauer and Greaney at EVERY investing board and blog on the internet. It is because those tactics are sub-human and we all want to protect our humanity. Bogle didn’t agree to follow the published rules of the Morningstar site just because he had to do so to be permitted to post there. He pressed the “I Agree” button because he appreciates the need for those rules. Bogle is SICKENED by the tactics employed by you Goons. He is just too afraid of what you will do to him if he says so to speak up at the moment. I intend to take care of that problem.
Bogle has done wrong things. So have all the others you mention.
Bogle and all the others have also all done good things.
Just because they betray the good of themselves from time to time because of their fear of you Goons does not mean that they are no longer “friends” with their good sides. I will be enjoying a good relationship with all these people for many, many years to come. Their pretend friendship with you Goons will come to a total and complete stop on the day your prison sentences are announced. Pretend friendships don’t stand the test of time, Pink.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors, Pink.
Rob
basically things that Wade says that you dont like are lies in your mind.
It’s the gun at his head that I don’t like, Pink.
It’s because you put a gun to his head that you are going to prison.
I don’t want to be sharing a cell next to yours. So I speak out against your use of a gun to turn a fine young academic researcher into a Goon puppet.
I’d be grateful for anything you can do to share the word about my opposition to your use of threats to get Wade Pfau fired from his job all over the internet. Every little bit counts. Please give it some thought.
My warmest wishes to you and yours in any event.
Rob the Internet Phenomenon
Rob,
There you go again with the threats once you find that you are on the losing end of a debate.
The fact remains that you are the one with the greatest chance at sitting in front of a jury to await your fate. Your lies will not look good. Maybe they will put you next to your “friend”, Bernie Madoff.
Time will tell the tale, my old friend.
My best wishes to you.
Rob the Trial-Ready
Rob,
Doesn’t it bother your conscience to lie so much? It seems a day can’t pass without seeing you lie on a constant basis. In the face of factual evidence, you will still hold to your lies. It has become pathological for you.
Both sides will testify under oath.
And a jury will decide the matter.
That’s how our system works, Pink.
I wish you all good things.
Rob the Patriot
And again the threats from you Rob. Threats and lies come so easy for you. You are an evil person.
I’m mean through and through, Pink.
Imagine someone telling the truth about the numbers we all use to plan our retirements — The idea!
How are the Wall Street Con Men supposed to compete with that?
My best wishes to you.
Rob the Terrible
But you don’t tell the truth, Rob. Again, Wade said it best to you as follows:
“But I don’t believe that. I do not believe you have offered a valid correction to the safe withdrawal rate question. And I believe that retirement income strategies go much further than the question of a safe withdrawal rate. And so that is why I’ve had to endure your ongoing harassment for months on end now.”
You must be one of the con men you speak of.
I wish you well, Pink.
Rob the Warm and Friendly
Bennett: ” Valuation-Informed Indexers always do so much better.”
So please list the annual and overall net returns of your own VII portfolio over the last 11 years, Rob.
That one concrete example should do wonders to both sell and to explain your approach.
The thing that will help to sell and explain the first true research-based strategy is for you Goons to be sent to prison, Banned.
That’s going to go viral.
The peer-reviewed academic research has shown for 32 years now that there is zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy can ever work for even a single long-term investor. Once you Goons are sent to prison, there will be no more Buy-and-Hold Mafia dictating what can and can not be said about the academic research on the internet. “Buy-and-Hold” will be a dirty phrase. The academics will be telling us the truth. The journalists will be telling us the truth. The policymakers will be telling us the truth.
Everyone will be telling us the truth. Why the heck wouldn’t they be once you Goons have been safely placed in prison cells? I mean, come on.
We don’t have laws against financial fraud for no reason, Banned. You are the reason.
We didn’t make financial fraud a felony for no reason, Banned. You are the reason.
I mean, come on.
Rob the Stater of the Obvious
I never lose an argument. Because I am always right. You could be always right too, except of course when you argue with me. Just follow these simple steps.
1) I am always right.
2) Words mean what I say they mean. A “friend” is anyone that I would like to be my friend, even if they detest me or have never heard of me. A “criminal” is anyone who disagrees with me, or has ever deleted my comments. Of course, I delete comments all the time, but that’s perfectly okay because I am always right.
3) If what I claim hasn’t been proven, it just hasn’t been proven YET. It will be proven, someday. I don’t have to say when. Might be tomorrow, might be a hundred years from now. The point is, I am right.
4) If your so-called “evidence” and “logic” and “reality” suggest that I may be wrong, then YOU are wrong. Because by definition, I am always right.
5) Smart people who actually know stuff agree with me. If they say they don’t agree with me, it’s just because you are intimidating them. I don’t care what they say, I care how they feel, and I alone know how they really feel. On the inside, they agree with me. Why wouldn’t they – I am always right.
It’s great to be me.
Ideas rise.
And ideas fall.
It is the way of the world, Guy.
We are witnessing the fall of an idea that once seemed to many to hold a good bit of promise.
The full truth is that the people who saw promise in that idea are heroes to me and to millions of others. So I am working hard to see that they get the credit they merit for the important work they have done. Yes, that means that I am their friend, whether they acknowledge it at the moment or not. Your true friend is the person who cares about you, not the person who flatters you.
I will continue to act in a way that shows loyalty to my friends. Both my Valuation-Informed Indexing friends and my Buy-and-Hold friends.
I wish you well.
Rob, the True Friend of Those Who Are Feeling Hurt Over Seeing a Once Promising Idea Die Before Their Eyes
An investor who is out of the market during a time-period when the market is providing huge losses only needs to earn a zero return with his non-market investments to be far ahead of those invested in the market.
Exactly. The only way one investor can beat the market is if another investor loses to the market.
So the overall effect is that collectively their efforts will fall behind the market to the extent of their overall expenses, which are minimised by Buy and Hold.
The only way one investor can beat the market is if another investor loses to the market.
No. These words suggest that stock investing is a zero-sum game. It is not.
Overvaluation hurts us all.
Those who remain in stocks at times of overvaluation see losses and fall behind on their efforts to finance their retirements.
Those who do not remain in stocks are forced out of what is generally the best asset class. I earn 3.5 percent real with my TIPS. But, if stocks were not overpriced, I would be earning 6.5 percent real in stocks. 6.5 percent real is better than 3.5 percent real.
You lose. I lose. Everyone loses.
How do we change this?
We permit honest posting.
Fama’s mistake was in believing that what should be so (the market should be efficient) automatically is so. But it wouldn’t take much to really make it so.
What it would take is a lifting of the Ban on Honest Posting.
Investors cannot invest effectively if they do not have access to accurate information. Once the Ban is lifted, we will all know how to invest effectively. Naturally, we will all do so. That means that stocks will never become overpriced again. That means that stocks will become an effectively risk-free asset class. While still providing the same wonderful returns they always provided during the years when they were a crazy-risk asset class.
Advances in knowledge are a free lunch. We are damn fools not to take advantage of advances in knowledge.
If Shiller had published his revolutionary research in 1971 instead of 1981, the name of the famous book would have been: A Valuation-Informed Walk Down Wall Street.
He didn’t. So some people made a mistake. Those people have not wanted to admit that mistake for 32 years now. So we are now in the early years of the worst economic crisis in U.S. history.
Our collective unwillingness to demand a correction of this mistake is killing us. The mistake must be corrected. Correction of the mistake is not optional. It is imperative.
The mistake is the Ban on Honest Posting. We need to open the internet up to honest posting on SWRs and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. Then we will all know how to invest effectively. Then we will all do so. Then Buy-and-Hold really will work. It won’t matter whether we call it Buy-and-Hold or Valuation-Informed Indexing. What will matter is that it will be the first true research-based strategy and it will work and our retirement plans will not fail.
We are the luckiest generation of investors who ever walked the face of Planet Earth.
We need to stop the quarreling and get about the business of being thankful to have been able to live at the time when all the pieces were put together and we all gained the ability to obtain very high returns at minimal risk. That’s Investor Heaven! That’s what the Buy-and-Hold Project was all about when it was initiated.
My best wishes to you.
Rob the Optimistic
So, let me get this straight. Rob has made Wade P the basis for his entire campaign on SWR’s. However, we hear directly from Wade that he says Rob hasn’t offered a valid correction to the SWR question and that income strategies go much further than SWRs (even though Rob has based his entire existence on this issue. Rob believes his position will save the world from financial calamity, yet he refuses to answer direct questions as to his financial returns.
Sounds like a rehash of the snake oil salesmen from the old west.
Rob – should you have a change of mind and can actually provide factual evidence (not links to your own comments) on the above issues, we are here to let you explain yourself. If you can’t, then we have our answer as to your statements being of a fraudulent nature.
I’ve continue to post honestly on safe withdrawal rates and many other critically important investment-related topics, Deleted.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors.
Rob the Honest
Not according to the quote from Wade.
I’m prepared to go to trial with what I’ve got in the can today, Deleted.
And every day support for honest posting grows a wee bit and support for you Goons drops a wee bit.
You do the math.
Rob the Numbers Guy
How Rob operates
(1) Make an assertion, but offer no supporting evidence
(2) When asked for evidence, point to the existing assertion as evidence
Trebor
I offered no supporting evidence for my assertion that the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies got the numbers wildly wrong.
That’s why the Wall Street Journal, Smart Money, the Economist, the Financial Mentor site and about 15 other top news organizations have all published articles in the past year or two saying that I was right all along.
That makes sense, Trebor.
Rob the Vindicated
Rob,
Can you please post the links to the articles that mention your name and give you credit.
I pointed out the errors in the Old School SWR studies in a post that I put to the Motley Fool site on the morning of May 13, 2002, Pink.
The Buy-and-Hold Mafia elected to use its wealth and power to keep those errors covered up.
Million of middle-class Americans are in the process of suffering failed retirements as a result.
That’s financial fraud. That’s a felony. Those who participated in the cover-up will be going to prison for a long time.
The Financial Mentor site gave me credit. The others did not. So the others are still participating in a cover-up.
That’s not my doing.
I have told those sites that they SHOULD be giving me credit.
I cannot force them to do so. I can mention it. That’s as far as it goes.
My warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob, the Leading Voice Saying that We All Should Be Working Together to Bring the 11-Year Cover-Up of the Errors in the Old School SWR Studies to a Complete and Total Stop By the Close of Business Today
So you don’t have any links and what you said is false since the publications did not say that you are right.
Secondly, the major cause of the retirement shortfall is the low savings rate. You are misleading people by saying it is the SWR calculation. It seems to me that you are committing financial fraud (your definition). Since you are covering this up, you should be going to prison (by your definition).
Rob,
What is the average US household income? What is the average retirement savings account balance as a whole and also by age group? What is the average US personal savings rate?
After answering that, please show the math as to how you figure that SWR is the cause of the shortfall versus the savings rate. Please show your math as making an unsupported claim means that you don’t know.
So you don’t have any links and what you said is false since the publications did not say that you are right.
There are tens of thousands of posts showing that it was me who discovered the errors in the retirement studies, Pink.
There are also tens of thousands showing that you and others posting in “defense” of Lindauer and Greaney (and Bogle?) did all they could to cover-up the errors and still are doing so today.
Those are the people who will be going to prison following the next crash.
My job is to do what I can to limit those prison sentences. The ugly stuff is tearing us apart as a nation.
I’ll continue to do what I can and to hope for the best. You will continue to act like a Goon. So it goes, man. I don’t control you.
I wish you all good things.
Rob the Non-Controller
What is the average US household income?
It’s higher for those not in prison than it is for those in prison, Pink.
Going to prison for financial fraud is a negative for those seeking early financial freedom.
I am sure.
My best wishes to you and yours.
Rob the Advocate of Avoiding a Long Prison Term
So you can’t show your math to defend your position. That is financial fraud, by your definition, Rob. I guess your letting us know you are going to prison.
I guess so, Pink.
Rob the Future Prison Dweller
Hey Rob, check out this article:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/retirement-shortfall-may-top-14-172251890.html
Notice the problem? Lack of savings. Just what I have been telling you, yet you ignore it. You continue to talk about SWR being the main problem for middle class Americans. When you have minimal savings, it doesn’t matter if the SWR is 4%, 6% or whatever. There is such a small amount of money, the average American will blow through the cash in no time flat.
You, as much as anyone else, should know that this is a problem given the low amount of money you had when you entered retirement.
You’re not going to prison as a result of the low savings rate, Pink. You are going to prison as a result of your participation in the 11-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies.
It is my job to keep the number who are going to prison as limited as possible. I don’t do that by talking about the low savings rate. I do that by pointing out the errors in the Old School studies and the abusive tactics that have been used to cover up those errors for 11 years now.
Once the prison terms are announced, all the bad stuff is over. Yes, we will still have that darn low savings rate. But we won’t have an economic crisis. We will have an economic boom. And we won’t have to worry about more people putting up posts in “defense” of Mel Lindauer and John Greaney after the announcement of the prison terms.
So that is my focus.
I wish you all good things.
Rob the Prison-Term Focused
Yeah, Pink is going to prison for posting comments to your site on the impact of low-savings rates. Yeah, that is going to happen. Is it your plan to round up anyone and everyone who disagrees with you or might have annoyed you in some way and send them to prison? Do you have some secret plan to control the thoughts of people everywhere as well?
You are truly a sad and petulant creature worthy of only pity. I hope you are able to turn your life around and find some meaning in it beyond making wholly unsupported claims designed only to puff up your own sense of self importance and making ad hominem attacks on whatever internet sites that are still foolish enough to have you.
I’ll continue to post honestly on safe withdrawal rates and on many other critically important investment-related topics, Trebor.
I wish you and yours all good things.
Rob the Sad and Petulant Creature Worthy of Only Pity
Rob,
The facts continue to show that middle class American’s will fall short in retirement due to low savings. You continue to preach that is a result of an error in SWR calculations and you are wrong. Even beyond that fact that the low savings rate is the main problem, people have addressed SWRs over and over again. They (including the often posted Wade comment) show that you have missed the mark on that as well.
Your entire diatribe is built around the fact that the vast majority of the popular financial communities got sick and tired of your behavior and ended up banning you because of that. The facts are crystal clear.
Your stupid prison and lawsuit threats are preposterous and merely make you look even more foolish to the point where people truly believe you have significant mental issues.
You keep posting the same garbage over and over again, claiming that you are honest, but that is far from the fact. You can’t back up your comments with any proof and you dismiss everyone that actually links to verified facts with links. On top of all that, you can look at this very site, to which YOU control, and see that you do not have a loyal group of followers due to your constant lies and continued pattern of poor behavior.
Good stuff, Pink.
Truly outstanding!
Rob the Goof