A Rich Life

The Old Ideas on Saving & Investing Don't Work -- Here's What Does

Comments

  1. In the event that you Goons are interested in helping out, I would be grateful if you could spell out in a little more detail what you were saying in the comment below (which I deleted from the discussion thread):

    In reality PE10 is able to account for roughly 40% of future stock prices. And even then it cannot be used as a timing device. Only in HocoWorld is there a 1 to 1 relationship between PE10 and stock price and that relationship is absolute at all points in time.

    I liked these two sentences at the time I deleted the comment. I voted for deletion because of the other material in the comment. My mind has returned to consideration of these two sentences on several occasions. I am thinking of writing a column that would address the points made in the two sentences. But of course I want to be as informed as precisely as possible re what is really being said and I am not 100 percent clear re either of the two points.

    Can you say where the “40 percent” number comes from?

    What is meant by “one to one relationship” and by “absolute at all points in time.” I have a sense re what is being referred to here. But the precise meaning of the phrases is not clear to me. Perhaps you could give an illustration of the point being made.

    If you are able to help, I would be grateful. If not, I of course understand.

    Don’t let the bad guys get you down.

    Rob

  2. You are the expert on PE10, so you should be able to answer the question yourself, right???

  3. I can answer the question. I certainly am not asking for your help in figuring out the answer to the question.

    I am leaning toward writing a column on the question in which I will supply my answer to it. I can do that without your help. But I am not 100 percent sure that I precisely and fully understand what you were getting at. If that remains the case, it is possible that the column will answer a slightly different question that the one you intended to ask. No one will die. I can live with that. Perhaps the question that I ask will be a better one that the one that you intended to ask.

    But I didn’t see any harm in seeking clarification of the question and thereby assuring that I answer the question that was in your mind when you put the comment forward.

    I hope that helps a bit.

    Rob

  4. Does it matter what anyone else says? You tend to ignore it and then tell all of us what you have deemed to be the one and only conclusion.

  5. The odds that the column is going to be pro-VII are probably close to 100 percent, Anonymous. That’s what I do. I am an evangelist for VII. People who write columns usually express their own views in those columns. My view is that Buy-and-Hold is dangerous and discredited and that VII is the future and the biggest advance in the history of personal finance. So in that limited sense, yes, I am going to “ignore” what you write what I believe to be the truth.

    But the world is not so black-and-white a place as you often make it out to be. The deleted comment said that P/E10 explains 40 percent of the stock price. I don’t dismiss that out of hand. I am not sure that it is so. It is possible that I will disagree with that statement. But it is possible that I will agree with it or that I will at least agree that it is not an unreasonable estimate.

    Do you see?

    We do not agree on the core question. I am a Valuation-Informed Indexer and you are a Buy-and-Holder. It is possible that will change one day but it is probably more likely that it never will. We are on different sides re the core question. Whachagonnado?

    It doesn’t mean that we need to be enemies. People who disagree on a core question act in friendly ways to each other all the time. Say that I like the Phillies and you like the Red Sox and that we are trying to work out a trade between the two teams. You and I might have different assessments of the value of various players. But there might also be some common ground. You might say “we would never trade our Player x for your Player y.” I might come back and say “is there any player on your team that you WOULD be willing to give up for our Player Y?” You might name three and it might be that I would agree to taking one of the three. We have a trade! Even though we are on “different sides.”

    My intent in writing the column will be to advance the VII cause. That’s what I do. I don’t apologize for it. I am not trying to hide it.

    But I like to think that the question was at least in part a sincere one. One of the purposes of the column is to respond to sincere questions held by those who don’t believe in VII. I am doing a better job is I respond to your real question rather than one that I imagined you held. So I would benefit from some clarification.

    You don’t have to give it. If you don’t, I’ll give the thing my best shot and live with whatever comes of it. But if you clarify, it might mean that you will get a column that will provide more help to you than the one that I would have written if I did not have that clarification in hand before writing it. So I put the request out there and leave it to you to decide how to respond.

    I care about you Goons. I have learned from you and I expect to continue to learn from you. I want to give you every opportunity to learn from me too. So I seek clarification on a point that I think may possess some significance. I doubt very much that we are going to end up agreeing on all points. But a clarification might help us identify some tiny bit of common ground that we would otherwise not be aware of.

    Please take good care.

    Rob

  6. Your last post demonstrates why you are banned at boards. You have your own opinion on a subject and that is all you want to talk about. You want your point to dominate above all else. You talk, but you don’t listen.

  7. I listen to every word you say, Anonymous. I often do not agree with what I hear. That’s something different.

    I want every poster in every community to state his or her honest view without fear of what will be done to him as a consequence of doing so. Buy-and-Holders intimidate Valuation-Informed Indexers on a daily basis. There is not one case that I can recall in which a Valuation-Informed Indexer even tried to intimidate a Buy-and-Holder. The result is that Valuation-Informed Indexers engage in self-censorship. They pull their punches. They state things only one-third as strong as they feel them so as not to enrage their Buy-and-Hold friends with clear expressions of their sincere beliefs. Yucko!

    This is why Buy-and-Hold remains dominant 36 years after the peer-reviewed research was published showing that there is precisely zero chance that it could ever work for a single investor either in this galaxy or in a different one located far, far away. The ordinary way in which advances are achieved is that new ideas are put forward and they gradually win over a small number of skeptics and then some momentum begins to build and then one day the idea that was once held by only a small number has become the newly dominant paradigm. That’s what I want to see happen with Valuation-Informed Indexing. It’s not going to happen unless all of those of us who believe that the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research is legitimate start working up some backbone and insisting on recognition of our right to post our sincere views just as we believe them, no chaser whatsoever.

    I don’t see Buy-and-Holders holding back on stating their sincere views out of worry that they might hurt the precious feelings of the Valuation-Informed Indexers by doing so. The Buy-and-Holders say what they believe and they say it often and they say it strongly and they say it without apology. That’s what I do from the other side of the table. I show respect for my Buy-and-Hold friends. I express gratitude for what I have learned from them. I show an appreciation for their many positive contributions. But I don’t say “Mother, may I?” when I advance a post. I say what I believe. My readers can decide for themselves whether they find my words persuasive or not. They don’t need you Goons limiting what they can hear with your death threats and your demands for unjustified board bannings and your tens of thousands of acts of defamation and your threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs. That stuff is garbage. And, yes, a good bit of it is criminal behavior. Find someone else, you know? That sort of thing is not my particular cup of tea.

    All of this is non-negotiable, Anonymous. Any community member who fails to insist on his right to post honestly is not helping the community learning experience. If I pull my punches because of what I fear you Goons will do to me, I am doing so to be able to make a buck myself and selling out the community that I should be serving. No thanks. I intend to make plenty of bucks playing this game. But I intend to do it HONESTLY. I have never once in 15 years given two seconds of thought to the idea of playing it any other way. If you are waiting for that one to change, you are going to be waiting a long, long, long, long time. I naturally wish you the best of luck with it.

    Posts with my name on them express my views. Always. No exceptions. The way it should be. The way it must be. The way it will be.

    I wear my bans as a badge of honor, my good friend. Anyone who is informed about the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field and posts honestly is going to get banned at any place that permits posting by Buy-and-Holders in the year 2017. That’s how desperate the Buy-and-Hold position has become after 36 years of cover-ups. So be it, you know? Your brutal intimidation tactics have cleared the field of competitors. You have done great harm to a country that I love. But I expect to make a cool $500 million from this work, or a good bit more in the event that the Wall Street Con Men turn down my settlement offer. That’s how our system works. I believe in our system. I love my country and I will accept the result that it produces in the process by which we move from the failed Buy-and-Hold Model to the first true research-backed model, Valuation-Informed Indexing.

    That’s where I am coming from in any event, Goon friend.

    I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.

    Rob

  8. “I wear my bans as a badge of honor”

    Only a narcissist would say that. Someone so convinced of his own superiority that he ignores social rules of behavior.

    It must be frustrating to see all us idiots fail to appreciate your greatness.

  9. I’m not convinced of my own superiority, Anonymous. Please note that I often state that “I could be wrong, it has happened before and, if it were happening again, I probably would be the last to know.” Those aren’t the words of a narcissist. Those are words of humility. Please point me to one time in which one of you Goons has put forward similar words. It has never happened. Every word out of your mouths is Dogma That May Not Be Questioned. That’s the source of the friction. Your dogmas have been challenged by 36 years of peer-reviewed research and I am personally persuaded (flawed human that I am) that the research is legitimate.

    I don’t ignore social rules of behavior. I have never advanced a single death threat. I have never demanded a single unjustified board banning. I have never engaged in a single act of defamation. I have never threatened a single academic researcher with a single job loss. It is you Goons who ignore the norms of social behavior. You have gotten away with it because most investors follow Buy-and-Hold strategies and are counting on the Pretend Gains to finance their old-age retirements. Get Rich Quick strategies always have an edge in the short term because of their emotional appeal. I have a funny feeling that we will be seeing the ordinary rules of social behavior appled in the investing field following the next price crash. But we will have to wait a bit to find out for sure how things play out. I certainly will never offer any objection to reasonable enforcment of the normal rules of social interaction. We will all certainly start learning a lot more when that happens.

    The way that I would put it is to say that it is frustrating that you Goons fail to appreciate the greatness of the U.S. economic system and the U.S. political system. The U.S. market has for 145 years been generating an average return of 6.5 percent real. Those returns are not automatic. They come because our society has always permitted new ideas to take over for failed old ideas. If we have reached a point where the people who have gained power and wealth as a result of their promotion of now failed ideas can block all others from learning about the powerful new ideas because they want to keep the bucks in their own pockets, those days of 6.5 percent returns are over and we will all be going down together.

    I don’t believe that that’s where we stand. I believe that VII will prevail in the days following the next crash and we will all see once again the wisdom of a system that puts all ideas to the challenge of sincere and informed questioning. If Buy-and-Hold were a legitimate strategy, we never would have seen a single death threat. The behavior of you Goons is one of the surest signs imaginable that this “idea” has failed. It hasn’t been buried yet. But an idea that can only be defended with death threats is an idea that should not be defended at all.

    The greatness is in our economic system and in our political system. I do my part. But nothing that I have done is something that couldn’t have been done by hundreds of others had they been placed in similar circumstances. I did what I have done as an act of love. Fortunately for me, our system offers great financial rewards to those who act out of love in such circumstances. Good for me, you know? The work that I have done is very, very, very important. I certainly don’t say different. But it’s not some super-high I.Q. that makes me special. What makes me special is that I believe that all of the thousands of people who have worked up the courage to stand up to you Goons count. I care about those people and I have zero intention of letting them down. And our system wisely rewards those who take such a position because in the long run those of us who do so end up helping us all out in very big ways.

    That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event, my good friend.

    Rob

  12. More precisely, you’re a passive aggressive narcissist. You don’t constantly bray “I am as important as Bogle” (although you did say that) but you completely ignore anything anyone else says. Your response to everything is yet another litany of your tired talking points. That is not socially acceptable behavior.

  13. I’ve never ignored a single word that you have said, Anonymous. I listen to them all and I try to figure out what drives them. I see that as my job. I have written numerous columns either responding to things that you Goons have said or exploring the psychological pain that you evidence in your posts. That’s not agreeing with you. Not by a long shot. But it is sure not ignoring you. I wouldn’t be talking things over with you here if I were ignoring you.

    My behavior is socially acceptable and socially encouraged in every field of human endeavor other than the investing advice field. This field is poisoned by the corruption that has come to dominate it in the Buy-and-Hold years. The pre-1981 research was in error. We learned that in 1981. By that time an entire industry had already been built pushing the in-error approach. That industry has for 36 years made it a practice to crush anyone who dares to “cross” it by posting honestly on the peer-reviewed research showing the dangers of Buy-and-Hold. I am 100 percent convinced that people will take a fresh look at things following the next price crash and that people will at that time find my behavior about 20,000 times more socially acceptable than yours. We’ll see.

    In any event, I am 100 percent incapable of saying that Greaney’s retirement study contains an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins or of denying that there is now 36 years of peer-reviewed research showing that such an adjustment is required. You and your Goon pals are responsible for the hundreds of billions of dollars of losses that are in the process of evidencing themselves as a result of the 15-year cover-up. I don’t want to touch that act of financial fraud with a 10-billion foot pole. So I will wait to see how things play out.

    I wish you all good things. That much I can do. And that much I do. I just was not cut out for the financial fraud stuff. I think you are just going to have to come to an acceptance of that obvious reality.

    Rob

  15. On the surface, I agree.

    But the fact that my behavior is permitted and encouraged by the published rules of every site at which I have participated and that the behavior of you Goons is prohibited at every site tells a different story. That one is a mystery. And the solution to the mystery is that Get Rich Quick strategies mess with people’s minds. Our true beliefs as a society are reflected in the published rules of all the sites. Our behavior as a society does not today match our true beliefs. But I believe that we will as a society be bringing our behavior into conformity with our true beliefs following the next price crash, when the Get Rich Quick spell is broken.

    Bull markets are caused by the entire society, Anonymous. We all contribute to them. The bans are part of that. The bans that we see at discussion boards and blogs reflect a much larger phenomenon. Shiller published his “revolutionary” (his word) research in 1981. All stock advisors know about it, right? So why do they act as if this research doesn’t exist? Because there is social pressure not to do anything to undermine the bull market prices. That same social pressure evidences itself in the bans.

    You are pointing to a realituy that took place at one point in time and acting as if it is a forever-so reality. I don’t think it is a forever-so reality. What keeps Buy-and-Hold going is the high prices that remain in place to this day. When those prices fall, support for Buy-and-Hold will disappear. Then people will want to talk about the last 36 years of research. It will be you Goons that will be banned, not those of us who try to post honestly.

    It all comes down to what happens following the next price crash. I saw what happened to Bernie Madoff after his fund collapsed. People who loved, loved, loved him came to hate, hate, hate him when their retirement savings disappeared. And we saw the same thing at the Bogleheads Forum following the 2008 crash. People who swore they would never, never, never sell in a market downturn said they were going to sell in this market downturn. Support for Buy-and-Hold was fading fast in a way that it never had in the earlier years of the Great Debate. And then prices jumped back upward and the loss of support stalled out.

    If prices only go down for a few months, Buy-and-Hold will remain dominant. But if prices remain low for 10 years or so, as they have in the wake of all earlier Buy-and-Hold crises, I believe that people will open their minds to hearing about the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research and we will be able to bury Buy-and-Hold 30 feet in the ground, where it can do no further harm to humans and other living things.

    Personally, I am 100 percent certain that this will happen. But I thought that the smear campaign led by Greaney against me would only continue for two or three days and then the community would shut it down because they would be able to see that the numbers and the research supported me. Even freakin’ Bill Bernstein, one of their Buy-and-Hold heroes, supported me! I was wrong re that one. That tells me that it is at least theoretically possible that I am wrong re this one too. So you can’t go just by what I say. We are going to have to watch to see how it all plays out.

    Does that work for you?

    Rob

  16. The reason you are banned at boards has nothing to do with anything Shiller has said or done. Merely, it is your behavior.

  17. Yes and no.

    The thing that Buy-and-Holders cannot bear to hear is that they made a mistake.

    Shiller SHOWS that they made a mistake. But he never says a word about the how-to aspects of stock investing. He thereby permits the Buy-and-Holders to ignore him. They might not like him. But they don’t hate him. He doesn’t matter that much to them.

    I write about all the aspects of the question that Shiller avoids. I take Shiller’s research and ask “What does this mean re the how-to aspects of stock investing?” That’s what people read investing materials to learn. So that’s what I provide. I spell things out clearly. That drives the Buy-and-Holders freakin’ mad.

    If that’s what you mean by “bad behavior” then, yes, I am guilty of bad behavior. But in no other field of human endeavor would it be considered bad behavior to be clear about things. In every other field, that is considered a good thing, a plus.

    I didn’t get you addicted to Buy-and-Hold, Anoymous. I didn’t cause your pain. That was Bogle. Had Bogle come clean in 1981, everyone would have known long before Greaney came along that it’s not possible to calculate the safe withdrawal rate without taking valuations into consideration and there never would have been any problem.

    I want to be clear, Anonymous. I aim to be clear. We all learn more when people on both sides strive to be as clear as possible. The fact that clarity causes you so much pain is a bad sign for your investment strategy.

    Bad behavior again, right?

    I say it because I think it is something you need to hear. Your friends don’t always tell you what you want to hear, they sometimes tell you things you need to hear that no one else will dare say to you.

    I am clear about the negatives of Buy-and-Hold FOR A REASON. I plead guilty to bad behavior in that regard.

    Rob

  18. I pointed out on the morning of May 13, 2002, that Greaney got the numbers wrong in the retirement study posted at his web site.

    Good behavior or bad behavior in your view?

    My view is that that was very good behavior. Probably the bravest and most loving thing that I have ever done in my lifetime. We wouldn’t have learned any of the hundreds of things that we have learned over the past 15 years if I had not worked up the courage to advance that fateful post. Now THAT’S good behavior.

    Rob

  19. The community determines what is bad behavior, not the individual. The community decided that your behavior was unacceptable. Therefore, you were banned.

  20. Communities formed the rules that apply at all of our boards. And communities enacted the laws against financial fraud. And communities sent Bernie Madoff to prison.

    Communities make mistakes. And communities fix their mistakes.

    Communities build bull markets. And communities suffer the effects of bull markets.

    I feel better being on the right side of the law. I believe that millions of good people comprise our U.S. communities. And I believe they have expressed their deep beliefs in our laws. It is those community beliefs that matter most in the long run.

    Rob

  21. One community may make a mistake. Maybe even two or three. But when all of them are making the same mistake, the problem is not the communities. It’s the narcissist who considers himself superior to the communities, refusing to even consider the notion that he’s the problem.

  22. Are you okay with waiting to see what happens following the next price crash. Following the crash, we are going to need to put our economic system and our political system back together. We are going to need to come to terms with the mistakes that our communities made that kept us from seeing the rewards of the wonderful things our communities did (like awarding Robert Shiller a Nobel prize for his “revolutionary” (his word) research).

    Our communities are not all bad, Anonymous. Are communities have done a lot of amazing, good things. I don’t think it makes sense to throw away those amazing. good things because we are imperfect people and we made some mistakes along the way (mistakes explaining by our weakness for Get Rich Quick schemes). I show my love for our communities by sticking with them through the hard times.

    I have a funny feeling that our communities will see the need to correct their mistakes following the next pricr crash. It is my hope and expectation that we will all pull together at that time. I expect to be working side by side with my good friend Jack Bogle at that time. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if I were working side by side with a good number of my Goon friends as well.

    That’s the future, Anonymous. Working together is the future. I refuse to get pulled down by your negativity. I see a very bright future for all of us and it is my intent to do what I can to bring it on as quickly as possible and to enjoy it to the fullest when it arrives. I am not capable of even imagining any other way of playing it.

    I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person. But I am not even a tiny bit up for crossing the felony line. When it comes to that sort of smelly garbage, I would be truly grateful if you would try to find somebody else.

    Does all of that not make good sense?

    And the way that I would say it is that I consider the laws of the United States and the posting rules of all of the various communities and the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research and the thousands of community members who have expressed a desire that honest posting be permitted and the academic researchers who have trained for years to be able to produce good and honest research and long to be able to share such work with all of us for our benefit to be superior to a small band of internet Goons who have been able to gain a temporary advantage over all of us by resorting to the most abusive tactics in the history of the internet. You Goons are not our communities. If you were our communities, the rules of every board and blog would not prohibit the use of the tactics that you have employed to keep us from having the discussions that we very much want to have and the laws of the United States would not provide for you to go to prison following the next price crash. Your version of the story just does not make even a tiny bit of sense.

    I wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors. But please leave me out of the criminal ones.

    Under your way of thinking about things, Bernie Madoff was a hero because so many people for a time signed up for his fund. No. Bernie Madoff. No. Bernie Madoff was a loser. Someone who cannot achieve successs in his community while showing respect for the laws of that community is a loser. I don’t have to exploit people’s emotional weaknesses to achieve success. I can do it just posting honestly re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. I think I’ll keep doing it that way.

    I don’t consider myself superior to the communities. But I certainly consider the communities superior to the gang of Goons that have temporarily captured them by exploiting their emotional weaknesses. It is my intent to free the communities. If you don’t think that I can do it, just watch as events play out. I am 100 percent sure re how things are going to turn out in the end.

    But I could be wrong. We are going to have to watch the actual events play out to know for sure. I don’t see other way to settle the matter.

    My best wishes to you.

    Rob

  23. You are right that I have never considered the possibility that I am the problem. I have read the comments of the thousands of community members who have expressed a desire that honest posting the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research be permitted. Those people matter to me.

    They don’t comprise a majority today. That’s why the communities have gotten on the wrong track. The idea of letting the minority speak is a counter-intuitive one. But it is the key idea behind the success of both our economic and political systems. When we temporarily forget the importance of that idea, we hurt ourselves in a very big way.

    I have considered the possibility that I am wrong in every thing I say. The beauty of our core social belief that the minority has an equal right to speak as the majority is that it doesn’t matter if I am right or wrong. If I am wrong in every thing I say, granting me an equal opportunity to speak will eventually show to all that I am wrong and thereby strengthen the hand of the majority, which is what we all want if I am in the wrong.

    We cannot go wrong as a society so long as we follow our core belief that the minority always has an equal opportunity to speak. We will return to core principles when the Pretend Dollars generated by the tall tales told by the Get Rich Quickers disappear into thin air, leaving us all in a lot of necessary pain.

    At least that’s Rob Bennett’s sincere belief re how events will transpire in coming days and weeks and months and years. But what does Rob Bennett know, you know? I am some guy who figured out how to post stuff to the internet, nothing more and nothing less.

    Time will tell the tale.None of us has power over time. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I had crossed the felony line somewhere in the course of events. Not this boy. I will stick with the things that I believe and accept the consequences that time dishes out. If things come to look a little shaky for a few moments here and there, then things begin to look a little shaky for a few moments here and there. It happens, you know? This is not the first time in the course of history that such a thing has happened.

    The board bannings were bad news. But I have a funny feeling that the board bannings are not going to be given headline treatment when our little saga is written up in the history books. The headline is that we now know how to calculate safe withdrawal rates ACCURATELY. That’s what matters. Our boards were formed to help us learn things. And learning how to calculate safe withdrawal rates accurately has proven to be a huge advance.

    And none of it would have happened had I not worked up the courage to push the “Post” button on the morning of May 13, 2002., I still have clear recall of the moment that I did so. I checked every thing over for the 50th time and then I took a deep breath and then I pushed the button. I think it would be fair to say that that button push changed the world in a very positive way (not immediately, but ultimately).

    Good for me, you know? It doesn’t make me superior. But it sure makes me happy. And it sure makes me honored. And I have a funny feeling that a few paces down the road it sure is going to make me rich.

    Let time do its thing, man. Time is bigger than either of us. Time knows where it is headed and time is going to do its thing regradless of any complaints advanced by the likes of you or me. I wish you the best of luck with it, old friend.

    Rob

  24. When a normal person experiences an undesirable outcome (such as a ban) he asks himself “What did I do wrong?” That kind of introspection is healthy. It leads to personal growth.

    When a narcissist experiences an undesirable outcome, he blames others (Goons). He is incapable of introspection, and therefore incapable of personal growth.

  25. So if an intruder enter your house and does harm to your family, you should reflect back on what you did wrong?

    No.

    I am not the fellow who got the numbers wrong in a retirement study that I posted to my web site. That was the other guy.

    I am the fellow who POINTED OUT THE ERROR to his friends in a retirement planning community. I have a funny feeling that I know how this one is going to play out in the end.

    I wish you the best of luck with it, however. I hope that helps a tiny bit, old friend.

    Rob

  26. Rob,

    Let’s look at two examples of your behavior. You continue to mention your post of May 2002. You have an opinion of what happened and others have another opinion. Regardless of those opinions, here you are still talking about it 15 years later in thread after thread. Despite the world moving on, you haven’t. You keep filling up threads about it.

    The next sample is your assertion that Wade’s job was threatened. There is no eveidence it was threatened. You refuse to offer proof, which is your responsibility as the person making the claim. Wade himself even explained (the supposed victim) that you made it up. On top of all that, you continue to repeat the claim year after year instead of just moving on.

    People have no interest in talking about your issues for over a decade. Your refusal to do otherwise just shows more bad behavior.

  27. I am going to continue posting honestly both on the safe withdrawal rate question and on the Wade Pfau question, Anonymous. I have never once given two seconds of consideration to the possibility of playing it any other way.

    We will have to see how things play out following the next price crash. There are no other realistic options open to us at this point in the proceedings.

    Yes?

    Rob

  28. And something that constitutes “bad behavior” in the eyes of someone working a con and fearful of going to prison does not necessarily constitute bad behavior in the eyes of millions of middle-class investors interested in learning the realities of stock investing as revealed by the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research.

    I acknowledge that my insistence that every poster has the right to post honestly is “bad” for the Buy-and-Holders. I am trying to point out the dangers of Buy-and-Hold. I am seeking to expose the con.

    Do you see?

    Rob

  29. And after the next crash, you’ll say wait for the one after that. You can’t move on, even if you wanted to. That would be an admission of error, which to you is absolutely unacceptable. This stopped being about VII or investing years ago. It’s only about being right. You will still be muttering about Wade and Greaney decades from now in the nursing home.

  30. I don’t think that I’ll be saying that Greaney’s retirement study contains an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins, that much is fair to say.

    It’s not so much that I feel a need to be right, it’s that I feel a need to be honest. I have said many times that I am one of the flawed humans and that it’s possible that I am wrong in everything that I have ever said about stock investing. I have no objection if those words are put in the signature line of every post I advance. I think it’s healthy for people to know that they cannot go by what I say.

    But so long as I do not believe that Greaney’s study contains a valuation adjustment, I have to say that. Re that one I have precisely zero give. It would be dishonest for me to say that I believe there’s a valuation adjustment in that study when thousands of people have looked at it and not one has ever found one.

    My best and wamrest wishes to you.

    Rob

  31. I don’t like to think that I’ll spend my nursing home days muttering about Wade and Greaney.

    But that’s one step up from muttering about myself and about how I sold out my community in response to intimidation tactics applied by a small group of internet Goons.

    Wade has to live Wade’s life and Greaney has to live Greaney’s life. And I have to live my life. I don’t feel one tiny bit comfortable crossing the felony line. I love my country. That runs deep. That’s not the sort of thing that changes because some internet Goon crosses your path.

    My sincere take.

    Rob

  32. You really lack any sense of self awareness. You obsess in these issues because you were humiliated. Get over it.

  33. You just don’t get it. No one cares what Greaney said 15 years ago. If Greaney came out today and said spending 4% in retirement leaves you with enough after 30 years to buy a palace of gold filled with purple unicorns, still no one would care. This is only about your personal demons, and man, they are nasty buggers.

  34. You really lack any sense of self awareness. You obsess in these issues because you were humiliated. Get over it.

    Okay, Anonymous.

    Rob

  35. No one cares what Greaney said 15 years ago.

    I agree that no one cares what Greaney said. But people sure care about the safe withdrawal rate. The positive reaction to my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002, was like nothing we had ever seen before. I lost count of how many of my fellow community members thanked me effusively for launching the most exciting debate we had ever seen at that board.

    Greaney cared about THAT. It was that huge positive reaction that set him off and brought on his death threats. And people certainly cared about the death threats. Most community members had never seen anything like it. People were scared and they shut up. Wade Pfau spent years earning his Ph.D. and had two small children to take care of at the time you Goons threatened (with Jack Bogle’s implicit support) to get him fired from his job. Wade was not wrong to care about his family. Our community was wrong not to come to his aid when you Goons threatened him.

    I would of course love to talk only about the substantive issues. That’s what I care about. That’s what all of my fellow community members care about. That’s what matters. That’s the future.

    But we cannot talk about the substantive issues until we do something about the massive act of financial fraud, Anonymous. You Goons would be 100 percent happy to permit honest posting if we had a way to go back to the morning of May 13, 2002, and have a do-over. But none of us have a way to arrange for that. So for you Goons permitting discussion of the substantive issues means going to prison for a long time. I cannot change that and you cannot change that. So as a community we have to deal with the financial fraud stuff before we can get to the stuff we all really care about.

    It’s going to happen following the next price crash. It’s one thing to know intellectually that continued promotion of a pure Get Rich Quick approach is going to bring on an economic crisis. It’s something else to see the faces of the millions of people who will experience failed retirements and who will lose their businesses or their jobs. My Buy-and-Hold friends are good people. They want to take this to a good place. They are afraid of you Goons, so for now they hold back, hoping that someone else will be the one to do the right thing. Following the next crash, they are going to work up the courage to do the job that we all know deep in our hearts should have been done on the afternoon of May 13, 2002, when it could have been done without anyone having to go to prison as a result.

    I am 100 percent sure, Anonymous.

    I naturally wish you all the best that thus life has to offer a person.

    Rob

  36. “I am 100 percent sure”

    And I am 100 percent sure that everything you just wrote is factually untrue. Except in what Wade called your “imaginary world”.

    Nursing home workers yet to be born will someday be asking “Who’s Greaney?”

  37. I don’t have a particular hang-up re Greaney.

    I talk about “Goons” all the time and of course Greaney is the lead Goon. But I certainly don’t think that Greaney could have pulled this off on his own. Greaney is just the outlier case of a phenomenon that affects every single human. We all have a Get Rich Quick urge within us. Most of us try to hide it. So we don’t go around threatening to kill people and all this sort of thing. Greaney is remarkably unreserved in his evidencing of his Get Rich Quick urge and of all the negative emotions that go with it. But he is not someone who plotted this all out or something like that. He’s one guy. Our problem is very, very much a community problem.

    Bogle is more responsible for what has happened than Greaney is, in my assessment. Bogle has of course never once put forward a death threat. But Bogle TOLERATES death threats when they are put forward by Linduaer and that sends a signal to the many people who have great respect for Bogle’s many true accomplishments that that sort of behavior is okay in the investing realm. The Goons gain their power from the acceptance of people like Bogle. Without Bogle’s tolerance (and the tolerance of lots of other people in positions of authority — I don’t mean to suggest that it is only Bogle), there would be no Goons.

    So this is not a Greaney issue. Greaney got the ball rolling. Greaney was the first abusive poster and he was indeed insanely abusive. But that is only the small part of the story. The big part of the story is that lots of otherwise normal people TOLERATED Greaney’s death threats. That’s Buy-and-Hold. That’s Get Rich Quick. That’s an economic crisis. That’s a massive act of financial fraud.

    The problem is not Greaney himself. It is the Get Rich Quick urge that resides within all of us that causes us to TOLERATE the Greaney’s of this world. We don’t tolerate them in any other fields of human endeavor. But different rules apply in the investing realm. Why? because we want to continue to believe in the illusion that our stock portfolios are worth two times what the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research shows they are worth and the Greaney’s of this world help protect that illusion for us.

    I see it as the job of all investment advisors to help us pop these illusions, to protect investors from their Get Rich Quick urges. Greaney is not the problem, Greaney is just a good symbol of the problem. The problem is the Get Rich Quick urge that is the source of Greaney’s power and popularity. Take the Get Rich Quick urge away and Greaney is no longer an issue.

    My aim is to help millions of middle-class investors get past their Get Rich Quick urges. Greaney is just some internet Goon who is working the other side of the table.

    Rob