Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to another blog entry at this site:
But how much of the paper did you actually write? Did you actually write any of it or do you claim to be the author of all material that talks about long term stock timing based on valuations or emotions?
Wade wrote all of the words that appear in the paper.
I don’t claim to be the author of all material that talks about long-term timing based on valuations/emotions.
Robert Shiller is the person who published (in 1981) the research showing that there is zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy can ever work for even a single long-term investor. John Bogle incorporated Shiller’s findings into material that appeared in the book “Common Sense on Mutual Funds.” That material showed that the the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies got the numbers wildly wrong. I reported on that reality on the morning of May 13, 2002.
Hundreds of my fellow community members expressed great excitement over the discussion that followed as a result of my now-famous post. But a number of Buy-and-Holders vowed to shut down the discussion, indicating that they would be willing to burn the entire board to the ground if that is what it took. They followed through on their threats. I was amazed to see what I saw. So I looked around for other sites at which the implications of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) findings were being discussed in depth. I discovered that there were none! So I made a decision to devote the remaining years of my life to making this site the central repository of information and insights relating to the first TRUE research-based model for understanding how stock investing works.
Shiller had not given his model a name. So I did that. I first called it “Rational Investing” but I made a change later to “Valuation-Informed Indexing.” I spent years of my life developing five powerful calculators that exist nowhere else on the internet. I recorded 200 podcasts exploring every aspect of the new model in great depth. I wrote 100 full-length articles on VII and thousands of blog entries and guest blog entries. I published three weekly columns at other sites. I helped John Walter Russell in his research, which I think it would be fair to say is the most important research that has ever been done in this field. My knowledge base naturally over time grew deeper and deeper and deeper. I think it would be fair to say that today I am the world’s leading expert on the question of why Buy-and-Hold strategies are so dangerous and on why our discovery that it is necessary to take valuations into consideration when making any strategic choice is the most important breakthrough in the history of investing analysis.
It’s clear that the fact that I have reached such a high level of expertise in this field bothers you Goons a great deal. I cannot help it, Laugh. I am a highly reluctant investing expert! If others want to take over the top spot, I am 100 percent happy to give up the spotlight. I am not at the top today because I possess the most I.Q. points. There are lots of people with many more I.Q. points still pushing the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage. Is that my fault?
The deal here is that anyone who possesses a desire to pass me and get to the top will need to stand up to you Goons. I think it would be fair to say that not too many care to take on the job this sunny Fall morning. I WANT TO SEE THAT HAPPEN. I don’t like carrying the responsibilities that come with being in the top spot. I do not have the education or background needed to hold this spot. If you know of someone who longs to take over the top spot, please tell that person that he or she may do so with my blessing. That’s part of what I was trying to groom Wade for. Why the heck do you think I spent so much time giving complete answers to his every question? He showed a little bit of backbone and I thought he might be a good fit for the job. He was too. Until you Goons came on the scene and threatened to send defamatory e-mails to his employer in an effort to get him fired from his job.
You hear me talking about your prison sentence all the time, Laugh. THIS IS WHY.
Once your prison sentence is announced, that will go viral and then Bogle will feel pressure to give his “I Was Wrong” speech. Once Jack gives that speech, no one is going to be afraid to post honestly about safe withdrawal rates or hundreds of other investment-related topics. We are going to be deluged in good, solid, research-based, life-affirming investing advice. I will not be #1 anymore. EVERYONE in the field will be saying the things that I have been saying for 11 years now. So I will not be so special anymore. I will not stand out so much anymore.
We obviously agree that that would be a very good thing. Right?
Now –
How do we make it happen?
It seems to me that you need to go to prison for it to happen. Wade is not going to do honest research again until he feels that it is safe to do so. There are thousands of other researchers in this field who would love to be doing honest research but who do not feel safe doing so and who are not willing to see their careers destroyed just to help out the millions of middle-class people who very, very much need access to honest research in this field. How the heck you do your propose that we persuade these people to step forward?
I say that we can do it by getting Bogle to give his speech. And I say that we can persuade Bogle to give his speech by putting you Goons in prison.
Do you have a different idea as to how we can get to the same place, a place where we all obviously want to be?
If you do, I would sure like to hear it.
My claim is that I have been working harder than anyone else alive on Planet Earth to get corrections made to the errors in the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies for 11 years now. I DID NOT START OUT SEEKING THIS DISTINCTION AND I DO NOT PARTICULARLY WANT TO RETAIN IT. But my exhortations to thousands of people possessing more I.Q. points than I possess have thus far not born good fruit. If you know the secret to getting these people to work up the courage to stand up to you Goons, I would sure like to hear it.
Until then, I remain your humble servant and the leading expert on how stock investing works alive on Planet Earth today (only because I am the only one dumb enough to insist on my right to post honestly despite the brutally abusive tactics employed by the Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Goon Squads to keep the findings of the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research from being shared with the millions of middle-class people who very, very much need to know about them).
Yowsa!
Rob
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