“Once the Ball Gets Rolling, We Will Build Up More and More Momentum. We All Want to Obtain Higher Returns at Less Risk. The Peer-Reviewed Research That I Co-Authored With Wade Pfau Shows Us How to Do That. We Will Be Talking About That Research at Every Internet Site. When People Get Excited About It, Other Researchers Are Going To Do More Exciting Research. We Will Look Back at How We Acted During These Past 17 Years and Wonder What We Were Thinking.”

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 keep saying that we should all wait to see how things play out. Perhaps you could look into your crystal ball and tell us how you see this all playing out.

I believe that we will see a major price drop within the next year or two or three. That will cause a larger number of people to have doubts about the Buy-and-Hold Model for understanding how stock investing works. Today, 10 percent of the population believes that valuations are important. A major price drop may bring that number up to 20 percent. Once we get to 20 percent, the Buy-and-Holders will not be able to get away with abusive behavior that they employ today to suppress discussion of the far-reaching implications of the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. The national debate re Shiller’s “revolutionary” (his word) research findings that should have been launched in 1981 will finally be launched.

Once the ball gets rolling, we will build up more and more momentum. We all want the same things, Anonymous. We all want to obtain higher returns at less risk. The peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with Wade Pfau shows us how to do that. We will be talking about that research at every discussion board and blog on the internet. And, when people see that research and get excited about it, other researchers are going to jump in and do more exciting research. Things will just get better and better and better. We will look back at how we acted during these past 17 years and wonder what we were thinking.

I believe that, once we get to the other side, we will feel more respect for the Buy-and-Holders than we feel today. Because we will be so happy at what we have learned and, as we examine how we came to learn it, we will see that the Buy-and-Holders played a huge role in helping us get to where we needed to go. Learning experiences help everyone. Moving forward is a win/win/win/win/win. There is no possible downside.

I hope that helps at least a tiny bit.

Rob