Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Fantasy forecasts? You mean like forecasting that you will get a $500 million settlement payment?
Time will tell the tale, Anonymous.
If this was not a matter of great importance, you wouldn’t fight so hard. If the level of fight that you have directed to this matter is a good indicator of its importance, I will be getting a lot more than a $500 million settlement payment.
It’s not only Rob Bennett who will be able to do honest work in this field when this matter is brought to a successful conclusion. Every single person who works in this field will be able to do honest work in future days. And ever single investor in the world will be able to take advantage of the many powerful insights that follow from Shiller’s “revolutionary,” Nobel-prize-winning 1981 findings. Say that there were only 100 million investors in the world. That would be $5 from each of them. I think it would be fair to say that there won’t be one investor in the world not getting a whole lot more than $5 of benefits from being able to have thousands of professionals comment on the last 36 years of peer-reviewed research in this field, which just happens to be the most important 36 years of peer-reviewed research in the history of investing analysis.
We’ll see how it all plays out. But I don’t think it is stretching on my part for me to expect payments of a lot more than $500 million. Not after what we have seen during the first 15 years of The Great Debate As to Whether or Not to Permit Debate on the Last 36 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research. And I cannot help but wonder why it bugs you so much that I may be seeing a $500 million settlement payment on the other side of this. You will be one of those benefiting from the amazing learning experience that we all will be enjoying. Does it hurt you in some way that I will receive a settlement payment of $500 million? Why not wish me luck with it? Why not enjoy the reality that one of your fellow community members received a $500 million settlement payment and that you played a part in it? It’s a pretty darn exciting and amazing reality.
Why not take it even a step farther? I am not the only one who will be seeing a huge financial payoff on the other side of The Big Black Mountain. Why not try to develop some research-based investing insights of your own and receive some finance rewards of your own as a result of Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word), Nobel-prize-winning findings? There’s no law that says that only Rob Bennett can mine these opportunities. The field is open to all. Instead of fretting about how much I will be seeing, you could be directing your energies to seeing that you receive a nice, big payment of your own.
You of course may do as you please. There is no law that says you must reap personal benefits from this. But I do believe that it would be a better use of your limited human energies to employ them making your life better rather than fretting over someone else making his better. Feeling anger over the good fortune of others pulls us down. As a friend, I would rather see you pulled up than pulled down.
These are my sincere thoughts re these terribly important matters, in any event.
I naturally wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.
Rob
Anonymous says
A hundred million people paying you five bucks each? For you, a good year is getting just one person to post an “attaboy Rob” comment. And you haven’t had any good years lately.
Your fantasies are so far detached from reality that it’s amazing you can even focus enough to write this nonsense without drooling. Or maybe you are drooling, thankfully we have no way of knowing.
Anonymous says
Tell you what, Rob. If you can get a couple thousand to give you $5 as a settlement, I will kick in $5 as well. Feel better?
Rob says
Your fantasies are so far detached from reality
My reality is the peer-reviewed research, Anonymous.
So you are right that the distance between me and what is going on in the stock market today is wide. The P/E10 level is in the high 20s. That’s pretty darn far removed from the fair-value, research-based, economic realities over emotional marketing goo-bah P/E10 level of 15.
You think that the irrational exuberance will for the first time in history not fade, leaving all Buy-and-Holders in tears. I think it will fade. I think we will rebuild. I think my stuff will last because it is rooted in something real and not just in marketing slogans. I’d rather have some internet Goons yell at me for a time and at least know that my stuff has staying power. To write stuff that I don’t believe can last would be too depressing.
My best wishes to you in any event.
Rob
Rob says
If you can get a couple thousand to give you $5 as a settlement, I will kick in $5 as well. Feel better?
It’s a start, Anonymous. A few years back you were threatening to kill my wife and children if I didn’t agree to post dishonestly re safe withdrawal rates. Offering to pay me $5 is a step up from that. Now you just need to take that generous feeling to ever more exciting places.
I have always been a friend to you. When I insist on my right to post honestly re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics, I am not just doing that to benefit the millions of middle-class workers whose lives you are in the process of destroying. I am also doing it FOR YOU. You benefit from hearing my honest words. You can conclude that they are silly and dismiss them. That’s on the right side of the line. But even in that case, me posting honestly helped you because it put your mind in gear and created circumstances in which it was called to figure out WHY what I said was silly and thereby increased your confidence in your investing ideas one tiny notch. And that’s a plus. So you should THANK me for insisting on recognition of my right to post honestly.
That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.
Thanks for the offer re the $5 thing. Perhaps in time we will work it up to an offer to hand over $5 million and we will really be getting somewhere. Stranger things have happened in this big old goofy world of ours, my long-time Buy-and-Hold friend.
Rob
Anonymous says
Of course the threat you mention is all part of your fairytale.
Rob says
Of course.
Rob
IHaveTooMuchMoney says
“he most important 36 years of peer-reviewed research in the history of investing analysis.”
And would this be the can’t-miss research that lead you to predict a 60-70% stock drop 4 years ago, when in fact the market has almost doubled, making a lot of people (like me!) rich?
Rob says
If you were confident that you were rich, you wouldn’t be hostile, Too Much. You have doubts. I stir up those doubts. That’s why you’re hostile.
I am not your enemy because I tell you what the research says. Yes, I believe that valuations affect long-term returns. I believe that, if you want to know your true financial status, you need to divide the number on your portfolio statement by two at a time when stocks are priced at two times fair value.
The people in the Madoff fund thought they were rich on the day before the fund collapsed. Those people don’t call the fund manager “Saint Bernie” anymore.
Rob