Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
You’re not saving anyone from a failed retirement. In fact, you haven’t even saved yourself.
I don’t think that anyone can make judgments about these matters for other people. I believe that you are okay with the 4 percent rule. So I am fine with it if you reject everything that I have ever said. But I have had HUNDREDS of people tell me that they love my stuff. I have had people tell me that I am the first person whom they have ever read who makes full sense out of stock investing. I have had big-name experts endorse my work. So I believe strongly that it is for each community member to decide whether to go with the 4 percent rule or to go with an approach to the calculation of safe withdrawal rates that includes consideration of the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.
You are in the majority. There is no question about that one. But the published rules of all the boards do not say “those in the majority may say what they please but those holding minority positions must get permussion from the majority before speaking.” The laws of our country reject that formulation and all of the social norms of our country reject that formulation. I love my country. So I go with the laws of my country and the social norms of my country.
I have not been able to obtain the support of enough others who believe in the laws of our country and in the social norms of our country to overcome the criminally abusive behavior of you Goons. So here we are. But is that going to continue to remain the case after the next price crash, when we may see millions of people lose large percentages of their life savings? I don’t think so. I think that more people are going to speak up in support of the laws of our country and in support of the social norms of our country at that time. And then we will be off to the races.
Shiller’s ideas about how stock investing works are new ideas. They have been around for a time — 38 years. But in the grand scheme of things they have only been around for 38 years. And there has never in that 38 years been a time when a bull/bear cycle came to an end and people saw the enormous pain that inevitably follows when large numbers of people are persuaded to follow Buy-and-Hold strategies. If Shiller is right, we are going to experience that within the next year or two or three. I think that that is going to change things. We are just going to have to wait a bit to find out for sure.
There is no way for a new idea to grow other than for it to be widely discussed. That’s how it has happened in every case in history in which a new idea over time became popular. If there had never been any intimidation coming from the Buy-and-Hold side of the table, I believe that Valuation-Informed Indexing would be the dominant model today. That’s not the world that we live in. There has been intimidation. And Valuation-Informed Indexing is very much the minority-view model. I want that to change. The only way that it can ever change is for people who believe in it to refuse to post dishonestly, we have to stand up to the intimidation, try to not permit it to frighten us. So that’s what I try to do. I try to do myself what I am asking many others to do.
That’s the story here. I do not believe that John Greaney included a valuations adjustment in the retirement study that he posed at his site. So I say that. You Goons don’t want me to say that and so you employ intimidation tactics to shut me up. I do my best to ignore those tactics and just say what I believe. And that pattern just repeats over and over and over and over again.
I do not want to post dishonesty. Do not.
You do not want me to post honestly. Do not.
I cannot get enough people to object to your criminal acts of intimidation to achieve my goals. So you have prevailed for now.
I believe that I will be able to get more people to speak up after millions have suffered horribly for following a pure Get Rich Quick approach. We are going to have to wait a bit to see how that one plays out.
That’s the deal. That was the deal on the afternoon of May 13, 2002. The essential realities of this matter have never changed in 17 years. We are going to have to wait for the next price crash to take place to see if they are going to change in the future.
My best wishes.
Rob
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