I’ve posted Entry #471 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called The Mathematics of Investing Is Not Difficult, But It Is Flat-Out Intolerable.
Juicy Excerpt: I am a big fan of the following quote from Rob Arnott regarding true value of stocks: “Returns are for the most part a matter of simple arithmetic…. Much of our industry seems fearful of basic arithmetic of this sort.” These are such strange words. The experts in the investment advice field are fearful of simple arithmetic. That cannot be so. Yet I know from personal experience that it is so. So it is an exciting reality that Arnott worked up the courage to tell it like it is.
It’s January 1st, Rob! That means it is time for the job search to begin? What kind of job do you think you might get? What are your search plans?
I began the job search about a week ago.
I don’t have any particular expectations. My belief is that, if you devote your life energies to adding value to the world, the world rewards you for the effort. Not always immediately, but in some way and at some time the rewards come if you choose a life-affirming path. My career story is an exceedingly unusual one. So it is hard to form expectations. But I try to wake up each morning excited about what the new day will bring into my life.
We’ll see.
My best wishes to you.
Rob the Searcher
What kind of job do you think you want to do?
The work that I most want to do and the work that adds the most value to the world (and that thus would provide the largest income to me) is to spread the word about Valuation-Informed Indexing to every investor alive on the planet. Your criminal behavior has blocked me from earning an income doing that important work for nearly 18 years now. But I have a funny feeling that the American people will be acting as one to put you Goons in prison in the days following the next price crash. That will solve the problem.
In the meantime, I will look for work that fills a need and re which I have some talent to offer. I will certainly give my best efforts to whatever I commit myself to. I have a funny feeling that things will all work out for the best in the end.
My best wishes to you.
Work-Loving Rob
You better hope that your prospective employers don’t look at your social media record.
I am of course exceedingly proud of the work that I have been doing for the past 18 years. It is the most important work being done in the United States today. We all need to know how stock investing works and opening up the possibility of engaging in honest discussion of the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research is an essential first step to getting where deep in our hearts we all want to go.
There are some employers who would hold it against me that the work has not yet been financially rewarding to me. There are some who have their lives riding on the viability of the Buy-and-Hold Model who will be personally offended that I have been arguing for the first true research-based approach. But there are others who will excited to see the huge advance that we have achieved as a people as a result of the 39 years of peer-reviewed research and who will encourage me to work harder or even to offer their own help.
The world is full of good people, Anonymous. It’s also full of flawed people. That’s also true. But just because we have shown that we are flawed does not mean that we do not have a lot of good in us. When I am called to testify, I will be saying that even you Goons have shown on more than one occasion that you have some good buried deep inside. Beat that, you know? If you Goons have some good in you, think of what the Normals have inside them. And most potential employers are Normals.
I will soldier on. I have taken my share of hits and I probably have more coming. But I am keeping my eyes on the prize.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Social Media Sinner (or Saint?) Rob