Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Why hasn’t Shiller partnered up with you to take down this mass conspiracy and expose all of these liars?
No matter who you ask about, the answer is going to be the same, Anonymous. Shiller is much like Bernstein. And Bernstein is much like Bogle. And Bogle is much like Bennett (remember that I didn’t speak up about the errors that I knew about in Greaney’s study for three years).
And on and on and on. We are all human. And so we all seek social approval. We all want to be liked. Tell people that they need to divide the amount on their portfolio statement by two to know the true and lasting value of their holdings and you are not going to be liked. So we all engage in this lying thing. It’s what we humans do when it comes to stock investing.
You use the phrase “expose all these liars” as if the liars were the exception, as if lying about stock investing were not the norm. Have you checked the P/E10 value lately? To price stocks improperly is to lie about their value, is it not? For stocks to be as overpriced as they are today, we pretty much all have to be big-time liars, no? Does that not follow?
Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize because he pointed out the path to being more honest about stock investing. Being more honest would help us all. Humans are liars. We all feel an inclination to lie about these sorts of things. But humans also love truth. Both things are so. We invest more effectively when we tell the truth. So Shiller did a wonderful thing by showing us how we lie and by providing us the tool we need (P/E10) to become more truthful about stock investing.
Why does Shiller not play it the way I do? Why is he not more blunt?
I think that he feels that he can be more effective by telling people what they need to know to figure out the truth while not saying things so clearly as to stir up their rage. I say things clearly. But very, very few people hear my words. Because you Goons have seen to it that I am banned at every major investing site on the internet. So Shiller’s soft approach to telling the truth has had 100,000 times the impact of my more direct and clear approach.
I didn’t wake up one day and declare “Oh, I know what I will do, I will take Shiller’s soft pronouncements and state them more directly and more clearly.” I ended up doing that because of the circumstances in which I was placed. If Shiller is right that valuations affect long-term returns (he is), then Greaney’s claim that the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent has put many people on a path to suffering failed retirements — thousands of people who were friends of mine at the Retire Early board and who thought that his retirement study was legitimate and millions who I have never met but who followed similar studies and retirement articles based on those studies that would have been corrected had Greaney not engaged in the abusive behavior that he engaged in to stop people from learning about the errors in those studies.
I was not going to get Grreaney’s study corrected by following Shiller’s soft approach. I tried. My May 13, 2002, post didn’t even say that Greaey got the numbers wrong. That first post just asked a question — Should we take valuations into consideration? That’s pretty darn soft. Greaney’s reaction was not so soft. So I was forced to respond with something a bit more clear and direct. And here we are.
The soft approach is more popular. People LIKE Get Rich Quick. People LIKE Buy-and-Hold. Lots of people don’t want to be told about the 37 years of peer-reviewed research showing that it is a logical impossibility that Buy-and-Hold could ever work for a single long-term investor. Shiller doesn’t endorse Buy-and-Hold. So the Buy-and-Holders do not consider him a friend. But he avoids stating things in the direct and clear way that I often state them and thus he is perceived as less of a threat by our Buy-and-Hold friends than I am. Shiller is disliked but tolerated. I am outright hated.
Not by everyone. I am loved by the 10 percent who already have serious doubts about Buy-and-Hold and who would like to explore those doubts. And I am tolerated by most Buy-and-Holders. But I am hated by the Goons, the most intense Buy-and-Holders, a group that comprises about 10 percent of the population of Buy-and-Holders. And the much larger number of Buy-and-Holders who do not love me or hate me but only tolerate me hate the ugliness that appears before them when the Goons go after me and end up voting in favor of bans when they see no other way to bring the ugliness to an end.
The proper way to bring the ugliness to an end is to ban the Goons when they violate the rules of the boards and indeed the laws of the United States. That’s the answer. But most humans are afraid to speak up in opposition to anyone who is on the side of the majority. It’s a scary thing to do. So the Goons for the time being hold a veto power over what can be said on the internet about how stock investing works.
That needs to change.
Shiller’s soft approach hasn’t gotten the job done. The Buy-and-Hold retirement studies have not been corrected to this day. So soft isn’t doing the job. Those of us who understand what the last 37 years of peer-reviewed research is telling us need to try some new things. We need to be respectful. We need to be warm and friendly. We need to be grateful for the many powerful insights that were supplied by our Buy-and-Hold friends. But we do need to get the job done. We do need to provide access to honest and accurate reports re what the peer-reviewed research really says about safe withdrawal rates and about scores of other critically important investment-related topics.
That’s my job. That’s what I do.
I want Shiller to partner with me. 100 percent. In ordinary circumstances, he would be happy to do it. These are not ordinary circumstances. He will do it if you Goons calm down. But I have a funny feeling that he is not going to do it until he sees some evidence of calming. You could provide him the reassurances he needs to hear and we could all get about the business of doing some wonderful things. Or we could wait until after the next crash, when Jack Bogle himself will see the need to move forward so clearly that he will step forward and give the speech that we all need to hear to break this spell that we are under.
I will play it however you want to play it. I won’t travel to the wrong side of the felony line, obviously. But I am up for anything that is even remotely reasonable. Just tell me what it is that you want and I will be there for you.
My very strong hunch is that we are going to have to wait for Bogle’s speech in the days following the next price crash. It’s s shame that we have to wait. I hate that reality. But it appears to me that it is a reality all the same. I am pretty much resigned to it at this point in the proceedings.
Once Bogle gives his speech and it is written up on the front page of the New York Times, we will all be working together. Shiller will be part of the effort then. Obviously.
We will all be exposing those darn human liars who in the past have made stock investing 10 times more risky than it needs to be by telling all those awful Buy-and-Hold lies. And we will all live better and richer (in every sense of the word) lives from that point forward.
Given that humans lie about everything they do and that it is only humans who buy stocks, humans obviously lie about stocks. Do you think it is a better approach to pretend that humans become 100 percent rational creatures when buying stocks and thus get all the numbers we use to inform our investing strategies wildly wrong or do you think it would be better to acknowledge that we are inclined to tell a lot of lies and to develop tools that we can all use to rein in the lying a bit? You can probably guess at this point in the proceedings which approach I favor.
Sound good?
Does that help at all?
Human Liar (and Human Liar Exposer) Rob
“Once Bogle gives his speech and it is written up on the front page of the New York Times, we will all be working together.”
Oops. Well, that didn’t work.
A big difference between you Goons and me is that you live in fear. I look forward to The Speech. You Goons dread the prospect of seeing millions of people freed to hear what they need to hear. I wouldn’t trade places with you for $500 million, just to pull a crazy number out of the air.
Bogle was the person best positioned to do it because he is perceived as the king of Buy-and-Hold. If he gave a speech telling Buy-and-Holders that they need to be more open-minded re the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in this field, it would be pretty darn hard for them to reject what he was saying. But there are others who can do the job.
Shiller can do it. That Nobel prize gives him a lot of credibility, even among Buy-and-Holders, who are obviously suspicious of him. Shiller also has an amazingly affable personality. I think that would help him build bridges to “the other side.” If Shiller speaks out, people in the middle will pick up on what he is saying and at least a good percentage of Buy-and-Holders will listen. That group will eventually persuade the others to soften their opposition to discussion of the last 38 years of research.
Buffett could do it. He is respected by all camps. Buffett has said lots of positive things about Bogle. So he would be heard by Buy-and-Holders. And Buffett is a value investor. He obviously understands the importance of Shiller’s message although he rarely speaks about the far-reaching implications of Shiller’s research. Buffett is too big a figure in this field to be ignored.
Pfau could do it. Wade does not have the same level of influence as Bogle did or as Buffett or Shiller do. But Wade has a very, very compelling story to tell. He is obviously a strong Valuation-Informed Indexer in his heart. But he has always bent over backwards to applaud Buy-and-Holders for their many powerful and legitimate insights. So he has credibility on both “sides.” And Wade’s personal story tells the tale that needs to be told better than any research paper ever could. The paper that I co-authored with Wade is the most important research paper published in this field in three decades. He meant for that paper to benefit every investor alive. Your threats have denied a valuable resource to millions of people in desperate need of it. When Wade tells that story, it is going to go viral. It is by taking this thing viral that we make the world a better place in some very important ways.
Bernstein could do it. Bernstein is, like Bogle was, widely respected and loved by Buy-and-Holders. But Chapter Two of Bernstein’s book is the best concise statement of the case for Valuation-Informed Indexing that I have ever read. So Bernstein can obviously cover both sides of the story. So he can make things happen here.
Losing Bogle hurts. In many ways. Without question. But we are going to move on. And we can do so without Bogle. We obviously will be citing Bogle’s writings, which strongly endorse the key principle of Valuation-Informed Indexing — using peer-reviewed research as a guide to how to invest. So we’re fine. I just wish that SOMEONE would step forward and make that speech that we need to hear to turn things in a positive direction. I am not expecting to hear it until the days following the next price crash. But I obviously would like to be pleasantly surprised to hear it by the close of business today.
My best wishes.
Rob
“The paper that I co-authored with Wade is the most important research paper published in this field in three decades.”
Wade is obviously being stubborn. Why don’t you, as the co-author, submit that paper to the New York Times?
“I just wish that SOMEONE would step forward and make that speech”
Those other guys were already big in 2008-09, and they said nothing against buy-and-hold. Maybe you should pull up your Big Boy pants and start taking some responsibility for your own results, rather than always blaming other people for not doing what you want.
Why don’t you, as the co-author, submit that paper to the New York Times?
Why didn’t the women who were assaulted by Bill Cosby tell their story to the New York Times when the assaults happened? Why didn’t the women who were assaulted by Harvey Weinstein tell their story to the New York Times when the assaults happened?
We all live in communities. I can’t make all the good stuff happen by myself, I wish that I could, Wade is not being stubborn. He has seen enough of the bad stuff to believe that, had he gone with me to the Times, we still might not have gotten the article published and instead his career would have been destroyed. Enough people know the basic story that it is ready to explode (like the Weinstein story did) once there are some signs that it has become safe to tell it. We are not quite there yet. I (and lots and lots of other people) obviously will be speaking to the Times (and lots and lots of other people) when we are there. My guess is that that will be in the days following the next price crash.
Those other guys were already big in 2008-09, and they said nothing against buy-and-hold.
You are right about that. I think that was as unfortunate as unfortunate can be. I think that they should have spoken out. Shiller predicted the 2008 economic crisis in his book and we should have seen lots of articles examining how we knew that crisis was coming and what we needed to do to insure that we didn’t see a repeat (we needed to stop promoting the Buy-and-Hold strategy). It didn’t happen, Alarmingly enough, What I want to see happen doesn’t always happen in this big, old, goofy world of ours. Perhaps you’ve noticed.
The lowest CAPE value that we saw following the 2008 crash was 13. Had we gone down to 8 (as we have at the end of the three earlier bull/bear cycles in the historical record) and then remained there for perhaps five years, I think that people would have spoken out. People want to feel safe before they speak out. When investors become disillusioned with Buy-and-Hold, people will feel safe talking about what the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research tells us about how stock investing works in the real world.
Today, there are millions of investors whose lives are riding on the validity of Buy-and-Hold. They cannot bear to hear what the research says. People who are perceived to be experts in this field make mountains of money pushing the smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage. Most of them don’t like the idea of giving up that meal ticket. People respond to financial incentives, you know. As of now, there is a HUGE financial incentive to just pretend that the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in this field does not exist, to leave it to someone else to take the hits that you Goons and others like you deliver to anyone who works up the courage to post honestly re the peer-reviewed research.
I’ve done my part 500 times over, you know? There is no one who has worked this as hard as I have worked it. There is no one in a close second place. I will continue to do my part. But the reality is that I am going to need some help if I am going to succeed in getting this message out. I believe that that help will arrive in the days following the next price crash, when the appeal of Get Rich Quick strategies will be much diminished from what it is today. I’ve got lots of material to share with all interested parties (including prosecutors!) at that time.
If I can do it sooner, I will. If Wade were to send me an e-mail today saying that he wants to go public now, I would team up with him. But I don’t think that it is realistic to think that I am going to be able to break through without some help prior to the next price crash. So I am largely in waiting mode (except for writing the book, which will obviously be a big help in making the case to journalists and all others when the day arrives when people are more open to hearing the case and giving it serious consideration).
I am out to change the world, Anonymous. My experiences of the past 17 years have shown me that it very, very, very much needs changing. But I suffer no illusions that I am going to be able to change the world by myself, This is a group project. When there is a group to work with, I will be working it hard. Until then, my focus is on writing the book and writing my weekly column and responding to comments advanced by you Goons and sending the “Buy-and-Hold Is Dangerous” article to various parties. I believe that that is the sensible way to proceed at this time.
Wish me luck!
Big-Boy-Pants-Wearing Rob
I am not really following. Are you comparing yourself to women who were assaulted by bill cosby?
And are you saying that they were correct to not come forward?
Yes, I am making the comparison. Cosby committed terrible crimes. He deserves to be in prison.
I wish that the women would have come forward immediately after the crimes were committed just as I wish that every single person who witnessed the crimes that you Goons have committed would have come forward immediately. I certainly understand why the women did not come forward. Cosby was a powerful person and there is often a big price to be paid for coming forward about crimes committed by powerful people. We saw the same phenomenon play out when Wade Pfau became afraid of what would be done to him if he sought to have your threats against him prosecuted. Would Bogle have helped? Or would Bogle have kept his mouth shut in support of you Goons? We know which way Wade moved. So we know he had doubts about how much he could count on Bogle’s help.
The financial fraud thing is a very big deal. I would say that 70 percent of the problem with investment advice today is just ignorance. I mean no dig by that. Humankind is born in ignorance. Shiller provided us a big piece of the puzzle in 1981 and his research could have been put to use dispelling lots of ignorance. But that doesn’t mean that the people who remain in ignorance today are to blame for their condition. We all learn by talking things over. And you Goons have been working hard for a long time to make sure that the price for dispelling ignorance in this field is very high. So millions of people know less than they want to know and less than they need to know.
Another 20 percent of the problem is cognitive dissonance. The experts cannot plead ignorance. They are paid to know about stuff like Shiller’s research. So they possess at least a surface understanding of it. But cognitive dissonance makes it hard for them to develop a fuller understanding. Cognitive dissonance is a very real thing. I think it is a terrible mistake to attribute mistakes that the experts make to fraud when there is a chance that it may instead by attributable to cognitive dissonance. The charitable thing to do is to attribute it to cognitive dissonance if there is any possibility whatsoever that that is the real cause. I don’t call something “fraud” until I see clear evidence of bad intent — death threats or demands for unjustified board bannings or thousands of acts of defamation or threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs. Even in those cases, cognitive dissonance is usually the cause of the mistaken position. But in those cases you clearly have fraud at work too in regard to the cover-up of the mistake.
I would say that outright fraud is 10 percent of the problem. It’s a relatively small percentage. But it is a small percentage that causes a huge amount of human misery. Ignorance is an unfortunate reality but it is just one of those things. The full reality is that we all should be jumping for joy that Shiller provided us the means to overcome our ignorance 38 years ago. We are all on the road to becoming far more effective investors. It’s a shame that the vast majority of us remain stuck in a pre-1981 understanding of how stock investing works. But the trend line is looking very positive.
Cognitive dissonance is hurting us more than ignorance. If it were not for the cognitive dissonance, we could clear up the ignorance in no time. It certainly would not take 38 years to get the word out re how stock investing works in the real world! But cognitive dissonance is a real thing and I think we just have to accept that, however long it takes for the experts in this field to overcome their cognitive dissonance, that’s how long it takes. We need to do what we can to keep things moving forward. But we should not make harsh judgments in cases in which they are not 100 percent justified and required.
The fraud stuff is different. It is the fraud stuff that permits both the ignorance and the cognitive dissonance to do us so much harm. We can dispel the ignorance and we can dispel the cognitive dissonance. And it should not take all that much time to make the good stuff happen. But we cannot get to first base until we come together as a people and adopt a 100 percent firm position re the financial fraud garbage. That’s 100 percent critical. That’s the entire ball of wax. Our laws against financial fraud are good and necessary laws. We need to enforce them.
That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.
Rob
“Wade Pfau became afraid”
Nobody asked about Wade. The question was why YOU didn’t send the Bennett/Pfau paper to the New York Times. You blithered some nonsense about Cosby victims. So you didn’t send it because you’re a victim? Because you’re scared? Guess you’re not quite ready for those big boy pants.
I answered the question up above, Anonymous.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.
A-Scared Rob
No you didn’t. Not unless the answer is “cognitive dissonance”, which isn’t an answer.
Since you won’t answer, here’s another question. Does your 11,000 word article have a link to Wade’s paper? If not, why would you fail to include a link to “the most important research paper published in this field in three decades.”
If no one bends to your will to give “the speech”, what is Plan B?
Does your 11,000 word article have a link to Wade’s paper? If not, why would you fail to include a link to “the most important research paper published in this field in three decades.”
It does not contain a link. It discusses the findings. The purpose is to get people to help deal with the Buy-and-Hold Crisis. If hearing about the findings gets them interested enough to ask for a link, I obviously will provide one. Or they can come to the site and obtain a link. Once people are interested, the sky is the limit. The key is getting people interested.
Rob
If no one bends to your will to give “the speech”, what is Plan B?
To continue my efforts to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics.
I love my country, Anonymous. That’s the bottom line here. That always been the bottom line here, going back to the morning of May 13, 2002.
Rob
“To continue my efforts to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics.”
And how is that working out for you? Time for plan C?
On the content side, I have achieved a level of success 500 times greater than the highest level that I ever thought that I could achieve if everything in my life worked out in the best way possible.
On the process side, it has been the biggest and most catastrophic failure that I have ever encountered or even imagined.
Does that help at least a tiny bit?
Mixed Results Rob
So, by any objective measure, it has been a “catastrophic failure.”
I agree. Well said.
“If hearing about the findings gets them interested enough to ask for a link, I obviously will provide one.”
Now there’s the worlds biggest “If”.
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all good things, in any event.
Rob
You mentioned content and process, but failed to mention outcomes. Isn’t outcomes the most important factor?
I haven’t yet opened every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics. That outcome has proven elusive.
But I have my name on the most important piece of peer-reviewed research published in this field in the past 30 years. That’s a five-star outcome.
It’s still a mixed result.
Rob
“But I have my name on the most important piece of peer-reviewed research published in this field in the past 30 years. That’s a five-star outcome.”
And how much money have you made from that?
I haven’t made a dime, Anonymous.
But I should have made a lot.
There are hundreds of other people who are aware of what the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in this field teaches us all about how stock investing works in the real world who would like to be helping us all out and making money doing it. But they are holding back because they have seen how Buy-and-Holders react to people who do honest work in this field. I want those people helping out. I want them making money. I want to see the acts of financial fraud that have been employed by Buy-and-Holders to stop millions of people from learning what they need to learn to come to a full and complete stop by the close of business tomorrow.
That’s the deal here. I want the massive act of financial fraud to be exposed and you want it to continue. We are working at cross purposes.
I want to be able to make money doing honest work and I want lots and lots and lots of others to be able to do the same. For that to happen, we need to come together as a society and bring an end to the death threats and to the demands for unjustified board bannings and to the thousands of acts of defamation and to the threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs. Financial fraud is a crime in the United States. It is a felony. It is my intent to bring this massive act of financial fraud to a full and complete stop.
Does all of that not make perfect sense?
Rob