On October 24, I sent my article “Buy-and-Hold Is Dangerous” to the Quillette.com site for possible publication there. The article is an 11,300-word summary of my experiences of the past 16 years trying to get the word out about the errors in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies and about the dangers of the Buy-and-Hold Model in general, focusing on the public policy aspects of the question (rather than on the investment advice side of the story).
Set forth below is the text of my e-mail to the editors at Quillette.com:
Quillette Editors:
The primary purpose of this article (“Buy-and-Hold Is Dangerous”) is not to make the case against Buy-and-Hold as an investment strategy. It is to point out the harm that the relentless promotion of this long discredited model for understanding how stock investing works is doing from a public policy standpoint. For example, Robert Shiller explains in his book “Irrational Exuberance” that it was the bull market of the late 1990s, which was brought on by the widespread price indifference encouraged by Buy-and-Hold, that served as the primary cause of the economic crisis of 2008. And prices are high enough today to justify concerns that we will be seeing a repeat of that crisis in not too long a time.
“The article is an 11,300-word summary”
I wonder did they even read beyond that phrase? The idea that 11,300 words is a summary suggests that the writer is unable to state his case succinctly.
On the Quillette site I cut and pasted a couple of the recent articles in the Politics section into Word and got a word count for both articles between 3 – 4 thousand words. Did you do any research to see what the typical article length is at that site?
When you had your tax writing career did you ever have to meet a word limit for your articles?
It’s a super long article. I certainly don’t say different. Even 4,000 words is long for the internet. So Quillette was one of my best bets. I worked hard to get the length down. It couldn’t be done. I only address one issue — Why we need to launch a National Debate on the challenge that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research presents to Buy-and-Hold. There’s nothing in there about how to invest or anything like that. But I did want to at least include a brief reference to all of the issues that need to be raised as part of an argument that we need to launch a national debate. It is not possible to achieve that goal in less than 11,300 words. I’ve re-read the article every day since I finished it. I have never been able to identify a single wasted word in it. It’s concise for what it does and the job that it does is a job that very much needs to be done. So I don’t apologize for the length.
The length will make it hard to find a publisher. I have zero doubt re that one. If someone were to say “oh, we will publish only this section” or “we will publish the entire thing but in several parts” or whatever, I am of course fine with that. But I did not want to leave out any issue that is key to the thesis of the article — that we need to launch a national debate. I have had a good number of discussions with my boy Timothy about these issues. He is very smart and he gets most of this. I know because he asks lots of good questions. But one day I was shocked because he asked a question that revealed that he lacked an understanding of a key part of the story. That’s when I decided to write the article. I wanted to be able to point people to one place where they could hear the entire story (in the fewest number of words possible) re the most important question, the need to launch a national debate. It would have been missing the point to have left something out.
So no apologies re the length although I certainly acknowledge that the length presents practical problems re finding a publisher. I can state the case succinctly by saying “We need to launch a national debate re the far-reaching implications of Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research findings.” That’s the story being told. The problem with saying it that way is that for most people it goes in one ear and out the other. They think: “Yeah, national debate, sure, why not?” That doesn’t get the job done. This is for people who don’t see that this is such a big deal or who find it hard to understand why, given the importance of the issues, we haven’t already seen a national debate take place. If you are one of those, you will appreciate that the article touches on all the key issues because the thorough treatment will aid your understanding of where things stand. If you are not one of those, this article is not for you.
I think it is an amazing article. I couldn’t be more thrilled with how it turned out. It was a very hard article to write. But I got there in the end.
I think that there’s a good chance that I will not find a publisher, partly because of the length but also for several other reasons. If I don’t, I will eventually post the thing at my own site. But I don’t intend to do that anytime soon. I would prefer to have someone else publish it.
I am also sending it to non-publishers. If I see an article at the National Review (my favorite conservative site) or the Atlantic (my favorite liberal site) and the author gives his e-mail address, I will send it to that person. That’s another way of getting the word out. It’s a painfully slow and inefficient way. But you never know. Even someone who never writes on investing might know someone who does. Anytime you are connecting with other humans, there is a chance that good things will happen. And I could see sending it to Quillette for another try after the next price crash. If the same person looks at it, she might say: “Oh, I remember this from before, now I get why it is so important!” If that’s the way it works, then that’s the way it works. My job is to get stuff out there. I need to leave it to others re how to react to what I put out there.
I’ll mention one issue that was a struggle for me because my sense is that it is a particular concern of you Goons. Up until the last draft, I did not mention the matter of criminal prosecutions taking place after the next crash. People hate that stuff. It is an unpleasant subject to talk about. So I didn’t want to go there. In the end, though, I didn’t feel that I was telling the full story if I didn’t include at least a brief mention of that aspect of the story. So I added a brief mention. I always talk about the article on the front page of the New York Times that I believe will bring the nasty side of this to an end. I asked myself: Would I expect the New York Times article to mention the issue of criminal prosecutions? It needs to mention that. We cannot close the door on the ugly side of this matter without coming clean as a society re all that sort of thing and further cover-ups do not help us come clean. So I decided that I needed to go there and I did. I think that I made the right call.
Again, though, mentioning that sort of thing will make it hard to find a publisher. Lots of places are not going to want to go there. So I didn’t let my desire for publication rule me as to how to write the article. I did everything that I could do to make the article publishable (it is an amazing story and the accumulation of detail is stunning when taken in in a single sitting) while not compromising re what needs to be done to tell the story that needs to be told. I accept that it may not get published, or that it may not get published until after the onset of the next price crash. But I feel comfortable that I did my part to the best of my ability and that now it is up to the rest of the world to do what it needs to do to get this story before lots of people’s eyes.
As always, it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Thanks for your interest and for your expression of your concerns, Evidence. Wish me luck!
Take care, man.
Verbose (But Not Really!) Rob
“If I don’t, I will eventually post the thing at my own site. But I don’t intend to do that anytime soon.”
You could do that today if you chose to.
The only person holding back publication of this article is you.
That is the great thing about the internet, it is very easy to publish stuff.
But you have to make that choice yourself, no one else can do it for you.
If the article is as good and important as you say it is then it should be published by close of business today. I see no possible downside.
There’s a mountain of material already here at this site. People using this site to learn about these matters have plenty to work with.
I am trying to reach people who don’t know about this site. It makes sense to try to get it published elsewhere. The article picks up credibility points if someone else sees fit to publish it.
Now — there will come a point when I will want it out there under whatever circumstances I can get it out there. The arrangement of the words is new. Reading the article conveys the essential points in far less time than it would take to take them in reading materials already at the site. So at some point I will just break down and publish it here if I cannot find another site to take it. But my strong preference is to have it published elsewhere. So I am going to give that one a good shot before going the self-publish route.
Anyway, we will see what happens.
New People Reaching Rob
“I think that there’s a good chance that I will not find a publisher”
Many times on reading your site I find myself thinking “Rob Bennett really doesn’t get it”.
However on this occasion I am delighted to be able to report that I thought “Rob Bennett sometimes does get it”
Okay, Evidence.
Please take good care.
Goon-Approved Rob
“The article explains who I am and how I came to be the world’s leading expert on the 37-year cover-up of the dangers of the Buy-and-Hold Model.”
So you wrote a long winded article about how great you think you are with an expectation that someone might be interested in publishing your self promotion of your greatness.
That’s certainly not how I see it, Anonymous.
I have made an amazing contribution to the field, there’s no question about that. People use safe withdrawal rate studies to plan retirements. A failed retirement is a serious life setback. There are thousands of people who have looked at the Greaney retirement study over the past 16 years. Not one has been able to identify a valuations adjustment in his study. So what I said in my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002, has stood up to scrutiny. A LOT of scrutiny.
So, yes, I have done something great. Good for me, you know? But I sure have not ever done anything to try to negate the huge accomplishments of lots of other great people. I have said all along that Greaney’s study was a big advance over the safe withdrawal rate analyses that came before it. So Greaney is also great, no? I have said that I learned about the error in Greaney’s study by reading Bogle’s book and that there would be no Valuation-Informed Indexing without Bogle’s many amazing contributions having come first. So Bogle too is also great, no? My aim in opening every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting on the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research in this field is to bring more attention to Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research. So I obviously think that Shiller is great too, no? I told Wade Pfau that he was “insane” to work with you Goons because he was well-positioned to be awarded a Nobel prize for the research that I prepared with him. So I obviously think that Wade is great too. no?
Lots of people are great. So why do we see friction in our discussions and why did we recently live though an economic crisis although we now have available to us the research findings that would permit us to put economic crises behind us if only we would explore their implications? It’s because some of us (you Goons!) so much want to be sure that no one recognizes my greatness that you were willing to burn numerous discussion board communities to the ground and to bring on another economic crisis and even to go to prison to stop that from happening. Huh? What the f?
The problem here is not that I did something great in pointing out the error in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies. The problem is that a bunch of Buy-and-Holders have become so defensive about an error that they made many years ago that they are willing to do absolutely anything to keep the word from getting out. And it is of course going to get out anyway. When the next price crash arrives, we are going to see millions of people lose 50 percent of their life savings. Do you seriously think that they are not going to ask questions? I think they are going to ask question. And I think that you Goons are going to look back then and wonder what drove you to engage in such insane behavior.
I don’t apologize for discovering and then pointing out to people the error in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies. I think it would be fair to say that that was my finest moment. It took a lot of courage to do that. And it is something that very much needed to be done. If Greaney had been thinking clearly, he would have thanked me. If he had been thinking clearly, he would have recalled that his reason for creating his study was to help people and that he obviously was not helping people by getting the number so wildly wrong. So he would have been grateful to me for pointing out the error and helping him to get it right.
I did something great. Lots of people did. We all should celebrate that. We should all resolve to do everything in our power to bring the death threats and the demands for unjustified board bannings and the thousands of acts of defamation and the threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs to a full and complete stop by the close of business today and then to just celebrate our collective greatness in doing our part to create and develop and promote the first true research-based model for understanding how stock investing works. Yes?
My sincere take.
The Truly Great (and the Happy and Full-Throated Recognizer of Other True Greats) Rob
“I have made an amazing contribution to the field, there’s no question about that.“
Wrong. There not a single person alive that has said those words, other than you. Spare us the B.S. about how you think people have given you praise.
A) Academic Researcher Wade Pfau’s Statements Showing Interest In and Confidence in Rob Bennett’s Work
1) “I do cite you and John Walter Russell in my paper as the earliest and strongest advocates of this approach [New School safe-withdrawal-rate research].
2) “Are you aware of Shiller offering asset allocation advice based on PE10? …. If you read Rob Bennett’s stuff carefully, I think he did provide an important contribution in terms of describing a way for PE10 to guide asset allocation for long-term conservative investors. I also think he was right on the issue of safe withdrawal rates.” — Posted at the Bogleheads Forum discussion board.
3) “I am also extremely grateful to Rob Bennett for motivating this topic and contributing his experience and encouragement.” — Written in Acknowledgments section of Wade’s breakthrough research paper.
4)”You deserve much of the credit as the whole idea of Valuation-Informed Indexing belongs to you.”
5) “I definitely need to cite some of your work as the founder of Valuation-Informed Indexing, as I have not found anyone else who can lay claim to that. Shiller pointed out the predictive power of PE10 but never discussed how to incorporate it into asset allocation, as far as I know.”
B) Academic Researcher Wade Pfau’s Statements on the Superiority of Valuation-Informed Indexing Over Buy-and-Hold
1) “What you see in the top part of the graph for each year is the amount of wealth accumulated after 30 years for someone following Buy-and-Hold against someone following Valuation-Informed Indexing….Valuation-Informed Indexing provides more wealth for 102 of the 110 rolling 30-year periods, while Buy-and-Hold did better in 8 of the periods.”
2) “I will take steps in my final paper to test a wide variety of assumptions about asset allocation, valuation-based decision rules, whether the period is 10, 20, 30, or 40 years, lump-sum vs. dollar-cost averaging, and so on, and to show that the results are quite robust to changes in any of these assumptions.”
3) “Any data mining that I am doing is in favor of buy-and-hold, not in favor of market timing.”
4) “The findings for “market timing” are so robust anyway, that it hardly matters how we do it.”
5) “The maximum drawdown from market timing is much less. That is how far the portfolio drops from past highs to current lows. The Buy-and-Holder once experienced a 60.96% drop, whereas the worst drop for market timing was 24.16%.”
6) “Market timing provides signficantly higher returns at a comparable level of risk.”
7) “The market timer enjoys a far less risky strategy.”
8) “On a risk-adjusted basis, market-timing strategies provide comparable returns as a 100 percent stocks Buy-and-Hold strategy but with substantially less risk. Meanwhile, market timing provides comparable risks and the same average asset allocation as a 50/50 fixed allocation strategy, but with much higher returns.”
9) “If everyone increased exposure after a market fall and vice versa, then this would dampen out the big swings in the market aggregates, and we might get shallower boom/bust cycles.”
10) ““‘I’m excited about this, as depending on what you have already done, I think I can design a study using the Shiller data to provide historical simulations of Valuation-Informed Indexing strategies against fixed Buy-and-Hold strategies and also lifecycle strategies (declining allocation to stocks as one ages). If Valuation-Informed Indexing consistently outperforms fixed and lifecycle strategies, then the proof is in the pudding so to speak. Given how well valuations help to explain withdrawal rates, I think there is a lot of potential for this topic.”
11) “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing Works!”
12) “It makes complete sense to have an equity allocation that is in some way flexible. Having a completely inelastic demand for equities is a bit bonkers; no-one acts that way with life’s other important commodities.”
13) “I wrote up the programs to test your Valuation-Informed Indexing strategies against Buy-and-Hold, and I must say that the results look very promising…. I am quite excited about the findings so far. As you say in the podcast, Valuation-Informed Indexing should beat Buy-and-Hold about 90 percent of the time, and I am getting results that support this for various strategies.”
14) “I have been toying with the idea of sending the paper to the Journal of Finance, which is the most prestigious journal in academic finance.”
15) “Now that I am accounting for risk, I am even more amazed by how well Valuation-Informed Indexing works.”
16) You shouldn’t be too excited with great wealth accumulations if they happened due to unusually high valuations, and low wealth accumulations shouldn’t be as scary if valuations are also quite low.”
17) “My idea is to show many different tables with results over the whole period for returns and risks. Valuation-Informed Indexing always provides more returns for often less risk.”
18) “No matter what I try, Valuation-Informed Indexing will still perform better in 85-95% of cases for 30 years.”
19) “I have a new figure for showing this as well. And a nice figure showing the outperformance percentages across rolling periods of lengths between 1 and 40 years. I think it is all quite persuasive.”
20) “You haven’t seen anything yet! This was just the secondary study. I’m still working on the main one!”
C) Academic Researcher Wade Pfau’s Statements of Incredulity That He Was the First Academic Researcher to Examine the Valuation-Informed Indexing Strategy
1) ” I know that there is an extensive literature about the predictability of long-term stock returns dating back to Campbell and Shiller’s work in the mid-1990s. I also know that there is an extensive literature about short-term market timing strategies…. But my question is about LONG-TERM market timing strategies. In other words, using market timing over periods of at least 10 years to obtain better returns than a Buy-and-Hold strategy. The literature seems slim.”
2) “Let me just explain a bit more why I posted about this here. Valuation-Informed Indexing has had critics for years, but until Norbert did it in 2008, nobody seemed to have provided a serious investigation of it. I just couldn’t understand why. And that bothered me.”
3) “Two papers by Fisher and Statman are still all I can find that provide evidence against long-term market timing.”
4) “I’m so confused by why Fisher and Statman didn’t consider risk in their idiot switching tests. Valuation-Informed Indexing is much less risky by pretty much any standard I consider. I must wonder… did I make a mistake somewhere? Why haven’t academics already published research about this?”
D) Academic Researcher Wade Pfau’s Statements on the Dangers of the Conventional Retirement Planning Advice
1) “The traditional approach to retirement planning (as described on pages 10 and 11 of The Bogleheads’ Guide to Retirement Planning, for example) is counterproductive and possibly damaging.”
2) “Retirees now frequently base their retirement decisions on the portfolio success rates found in research such as the Trinity study…. This is not the information that current and prospective retirees need for making their withdrawal rate decisions.”
3) “This article provides favorable evidence based on the historical record for long-term conservative investors to obtain improved retirement planning outcomes (lower savings rates, higher withdrawal rates) using valuation-based asset allocation strategies.”
4) Wade sent me a link to an article in Business Week that was published more than eight years after my post pointing out the errors in the Old School retirement studies and which he characterized as “quite sympathetic to the point you were trying to make all along”.
5) “Though I was only trying to do an Old School safe-withdrawal-rate study, all that I ended up doing was showing in a different way what you had been saying all along: the safe withdrawal rate changes with valuations.”
6) “Valuations are the driving factor. ”
7) “This is similar to your drunk driving analogy, which I agree with.” The discredited but uncorrected retirement studies find that in most circumstances a 4 percent withdrawal rate provides a huge cushion for the retiree using it. However, in each of the three cases in history when stocks reached insanely high price levels, retirements using a 4 percent withdrawal came within a whisker of failing. To say that this shows that a 4 percent withdrawal is “100 percent safe” (these words are used in the Greaney study) for a retirement beginning at a time of insanely high price levels is like saying that driving drunk is “100 percent safe” because 97 sober drivers drove their cars 20 miles without incident while 3 drunk drivers were paralyzed for life in car accidents but did not die. The fact that 4 percent only worked by a whisker in the cases in which valuations were high at the beginning of the retirement shows that a 4 percent withdrawal is high-risk at times of high valuations, not that it is “100 percent safe.”
8) ” Actually, this issue shouldn’t really even be all that controversial. It’s just common sense that the probabilities from the Trinity study shouldn’t be interpreted as forward-looking probabilities for new retirees.”
9) Naturally, I am finding that Valuation-Informed Indexing can allow you to reach a wealth target with a lower savings rate, use a higher withdrawal rate, and also have a lower “safe” savings rate, than a fixed allocation.
E) Academic Researcher Wade Pfau’s Statements Showing His Concerns that Continuing to Report Honestly on the Investing Realities in the Face of the “Hostile Environment” for Doing So Created by Buy-and-Holders Would Harm His Career
1) “I was trying to pay tribute to your accomplishments in what I knew would be a hostile environment.”
2) “Valuations and long-term investors is a somewhat controversial topic.” Wade posted these words to his blog in October 2011 as his explanation of why he was abandoning his plan of doing further research on the superiority of Valuation-Informed Indexing strategies over Buy-and-Hold strategies. He had told me in earlier days that “You ain’t see nothing yet!” when I praised his breakthrough research in this area. After his flip to the dark side, Wade removed the page containing this blog entry from his site.
3) “We have both read and met to discuss your paper. Unfortunately, we did not find the paper’s incremental contribution to the academic finance literature, assuming the analysis proved to be correct, rose to the level that we are seeking for papers in the JFR. Thus sending the paper to a reviewer would be inefficient.” These words are from an academic journal’s “desk reject” of Wade’s breakthrough research.
4) ) ““ I was discouraged when I first received the “desk reject” by the editors of the same journal that published the Fisher and Statman paper. I realized that I didn’t have a chance with one of the top journals.”
5) “I think I should stay publicly quiet for a while, as I really don’t want anyone sending messages about any topics to officials at my university.”
6) I don’t want them [the Goons] working behind the scenes to derail me.”
7) “I did warn the editor of the Journal of Financial Planning that they may receive some ‘hate mail‘ after I mentioned your name in the safe savings rate paper.”
It will be interesting to see what the members of your jury say re this matter in the days following the next price crash, Anonymous.
I do wish you all good things, in any event. I hope that that helps at least a small bit.
B.S. Generating Rob
Once again, it is all your own self promotion. Notice that not one supporter will post at your website.
That’s what needs to change, Anonymous.
There should be no punishment for posting honestly. We all benefit from honest posting. So we should enforce the laws against financial fraud and the published rules of all the sites.
Why don’t we?
It’s that darned Get Rich Quick urge messing us up again. We rationalize. We say to ourselves “well, those laws are good laws but I sure don’t like hearing about that research that shows that I need to divide the number on my portfolio statement by two to know the true and lasting value of my holdings, so I am okay with there being an exception in this case.”
The battle between Buy-and-Hold and Valuation-Informed Indexing is a battle between emotion and reason. Shiller brought our understanding of how stock investing works up to a higher level by showing how going the purely emotional route hurts us in the end.
Will we realize the benefits of Shiller’s amazing work in the days following the next price crash? I sure hope so. I sure think so.
We’ll see, you know? I think that’s going to make all the difference. People won’t be able to rationalize anymore once they have experienced the losses. At that point, rationalizations no longer will serve a purpose. When all else fails, I think we will turn to the peer-reviewed research.
The entire reason why I once was a Buy-and-Holder is that I believe in science and Buy-and-Hold is promoted as a research-based approach. It was on the night of August 27, 2002, when Greaney put forward his first death threat and 200 of my Buy-and-Hold friends endorsed it that I knew that Buy-and-Hold was pure emotion and I left it behind. I think that lots of people are going to be interested in a true research-based approach in the days following the next crash. Then I will have no problem with site visitors. I will have thousands of them.
Think about it this way. What do you think the P/E10 value would be if we permitted honest posting on the peer-reviewed research at every site? It would be at fair-value levels, no? People would invest rationally if they could learn what the research says. We couldn’t keep the P/E10 level where it is today if we told people what they need to know to invest rationally.
Today’s P/E10 level tells us that we are suffering from temporary insanity as investors, does it not? Well, how popular do you think that a site that talks about the first true research-based approach is going to be at a time when most of us are suffering from temporary insanity? Not too popular, right? Now, how much do you think that will change when we see with our own eyes how much it hurts us to go with a purely emotional approach? I think it will change a lot. But we are going to have to wait a bit to find out for sure.
Does all of that not follow?
Self-Promoting Rob
Your supporters are free to post at your website. In fact, they can stay anonymous if they wish, yet no one does.
Yet before the death threats and the demands for unjustified board bannings and the thousands of acts of defamation and the threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs, I was seeing a huge positive reaction. Gee, I wonder if the criminal stuff might have been a turn-off.
If you didn’t see how big this was, you wouldn’t have been willing to go to the wrong side of the law. Please give me a freakin’ break, Anonymous.
Anything that I do to help you out that is on the right side of the felony line, I’m there in three seconds and you won’t have to ask a second time. Anything on the wrong side of the felony line, I won’t take a look at, not in 16 years and not in 16 billion years.
I hope that works for you. I wish you the best of luck with it, in any event.
Felony-Free Rob
“Yet before the death threats and the demands for unjustified board bannings and the thousands of acts of defamation and the threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs, I was seeing a huge positive reaction. Gee, I wonder if the criminal stuff might have been a turn-off.”
There is zero evidence of any death threats or job threats. All the boards that have banned you have been well justified. With that said, there is not one single thing that has ever kept any of your supporters from posting at this site. If they were really afraid (which you have made up), they could just post anonymously. The lack of comments speak volumes.
I would say that the lack of anyone being able to identify a valuation adjustment in the Greaney study speaks volumes, Anonymous.
Thousands of people have looked at his study over the past 16 years.
Please explain.
Observant Rob
“I would say that the lack of anyone being able to identify a valuation adjustment in the Greaney study speaks volumes, Anonymous.”
That has already been addressed thousands of times, including an excellent article by Wade Pfau that explained how you are wrong.
Your whole website is nothing but fake news from a fake journalist.
We disagree.
Are you okay with having a jury decide the matter in the days following the next price crash?
I am not willing to say that I believe that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment. And the level of abusiveness from you Goons is so high that I cannot persuade others — including Wade, who spoke out against the abusiveness on numerous occasions until he became convinced that his career would be destroyed if he continued to do so — to take effective action.
So it seems to me that we are stuck with the jury system as our last-resort means of resolving these matters. I am happy to say or do anything that I can to put you Goons in the best possible light short of committing fraud myself (which I obviously would be doing if I said that I believe that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment).
So I hope that you are okay with waiting to see how things play out. My strong sense is that you are going to have to do so whether you are okay with the idea or not. I am pretty darn set in my refusal to say that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment. I enjoy my freedom. The prison thing has zero appeal to me.
My best and warmest wishes to you.
Fake Journalist Rob
“We disagree.
Are you okay with having a jury decide the matter in the days following the next price crash?”
Of course you disagree as you are a fake journalist posting fake news. There is no jury either. That is also fake news.
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all good things, in any event.
Fake News Pushin’ Rob
You are free to counter what I say. Just post a link to the death threats or Jobs threats and you can prove your points. In fact, if you do so, I will be first in line to ask for your reinstatement on every board on the Internet. Otherwise, your inability to do so will just prove my point.
Every word that I have written for the past 16 years counters what you say, Anonymous.
And thousands of people have told me that they love my stuff. Many have told me that I am the first person who has written about stock investing in a way that makes complete sense to them.
But few are willing to say that sort of thing publicly after you direct death threats at them or threats of career destruction at them. That’s unfortunate in the extreme. It makes me want to cry.
Will it change in the days following the next price crash? I sure think so. I think that at that point people will be sufficiently scared about what will be happening to our economic system that they will work up the courage to speak up regardless of what you Goons do. At that point we will all be able to pull together and find our way to a far better understanding of how stock investing works that most of us possess today.
The good news is 50 times more good than the bad news is bad. That’s the bottom line here. Shiller truly published “revolutionary” (his word) research findings in 1981. We all (including you Goons!) will be taking advantage of his breakthrough insights in days to come. We just need to hang on and live through one more price crash/economic crisis. Then we are home free.
My sincere take.
Link-Posting Fool Rob
Here’s a link:
http://arichlife.passionsaving.com/
Self-Linking Rob
So, you don’t have any links to any death threats or job threats. We are just to take your word for it.
I will answer any questions that are put to me during your trial. The members of your jury will have access to all of the materials at this site.
Does that work for you, Anonymous?
Jury-Helpful Rob
Like I said, you have no links to any death threats or job threats.
I provided a link to the site just a few comments up, Anonymous.
I re-checked and it’s still there.
I mean, come on.
Link-Checking Rob
“I provided a link to the site just a few comments up, Anonymous.“
It is just a link to your comments and not to any death threats or job threats.
If you spend 20 minutes reading the materials at the site, you’ll know what the problem is, Anonymous. I am 100 percent sure.
Or you could just check out Greaney’s study. It should take you all of ten minutes to determine whether it contains a valuation adjustment.
It’s been 16 years. That obviously couldn’t happen without a whole big bunch of funny business going down.
My best wishes.
Making It All Easy Peasy Rob
“If you spend 20 minutes reading the materials at the site, you’ll know what the problem is, Anonymous. I am 100 percent sure.”
Yes, I see the problem. You make a bunch of claims that lack facts and/or proof. Basically, you make things up.
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors, in any event.
Please take good care, my dear Goon friend.
Factless Claim-Maker and General Maker-Upper of Things Rob
“I do wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors, in any event.”
Wish for good luck is not a plan, Rob. It clearly hasn’t worked for you.
All the same, I do wish you the best of luck in all your future life endeavors.
Hang in there, man.
Good-Luck-Wisher and All-Around Dumb, Bad Guy Rob
It is just shocking that people would ask for proof about death threats and job threats versus just taking your word for it.
I have a comment earlier in this discussion thread in which I list a very large number of statements that Wade Pfau made about me and about Valuation-Informed Indexing in the days before you Goons threatened to destroy his career if he continued doing honest work. For any reasonable person that tells the tale 500 times over.
For a Goon who was involved in the job threats nothing tells the tale. But it is not going to be your fellow Goons who will be sitting on your jury, Anonymous. It is going to be Normals. That’s not good for you. Because the Normals are going to get it, especially in the days following the next price crash. You saw the Normals starting to get it more and more even in the days before the crash. Otherwise, you never would have engaged in the behavior in which you engaged.
Our system has means to deal with situations like this. I believe in our system. So I am just going to let it play out, If I am able to bring the abusive stuff to an end before the crash, I obviously will do that. That would be super. I put the odds of that at about 20 percent, given what I have seen. But if we cannot bring the abusive stuff to a full and complete stop prior to the crash, we certainly will be able to do so afterwards. So we will do that. Lots more people will suffer that way. But I have done everything that I can do. We are still a lot better off coming to terms with the realities after the crash than we would be if we did not come to terms with them even then. I will do the best that I am able to do, no more and no less.
As I have noted on many occasions, it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
My best wishes.
System Believer Rob