“I Don’t Think That Those People Are Engaged in Fraud Because I Don’t Think That They Are Aware of the Problems With the Studies. We Need to Have a National Debate re These Matters So That Everyone Knows About the Problems with the Studies that Yielded the 4 Percent Rule.”

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

Uh oh, Rob. There is a SWR discussion going on without any mention of you, VII or CAPE. these people are banking on their cotton candy nothingness. You better jump in there and rescue them from this fraud.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/investing/3036136-kitces-4-swr-sequence-risk.html

Thanks for the link, Anonymous.

I don’t think that those people are engaged in fraud because I don’t think that they are aware of the problems with the studies. We need to have a national debate re these matters so that everyone knows about the problems with the studies that yielded the 4 percent rule. The fraud is when people like you engage in abusive behavior to block those discussions from taking place.If you were truly confident that the Buy-and-Hold studies were legitimate, you would have no problem with letting people engage in civil and reasoned debate.

Bill Bernstein doesn’t think that the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent. Nor does Wade Pfau. Nor does Rob Arnott. Nor does Todd Tressider. Nor did John Walter Russell. Even Bill Bengen lost confidence in the 4 percent rule in the days following the 2008 crash. Please mark me down as agreeing with all those people. I think that the studies claiming that the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent are dangerous and should be corrected. At the very least honest posting should be permitted at every site so that those who would not follow the 4 percent rule if they knew the case against it could be alerted to the dangers before their lives are ruined.

My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.

Rob