Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site:
And there you go with yet another long winded post to try and distract as well as avoid the subject. You made up the 10% number. You also have no supporters. Your comment section here and on your own boards have zero comments, other than critics. You claim people are too afraid to post and THAT is what is silly.
Here are fifteen comments that people have made about my work, out of hundreds that I could cite:
1) “I Can Appreciate Rob’s Comments….Buy-and-Hold? For the Most Part, a Long Obsolete Theory.” Neal Deutsch, Certified Financial Planner.
2) “Rob’s Arguments in Favor of Value Investing Actually Make a Lot of Sense in a Way That Should Make Any Rational Buy-and-Holder Uncomfortable.” Pop Economics Blog.
3) “Rob Bennett Says that Market Timing Based on Aggregate P/E Ratios Can Be a Far More Effective Strategy. This Claim Is Consistent With Shiller’s Analysis and I Can See How It Might Be So.” Rajiv Segthi, Economics Professor at Columbia University.
4) “FIRECalc May Not Be the Last Word on Safe Withdrawal Rates.” Jonathan Clements, Wall Street Journal.
5) “In Rob Bennett’s Case, He Was Banned for No Known Listed Forum Policy. Except His Viewpoint Was Different From Other Bogleheads and He Was Perceived As a Threat.” Investor Junkie Blog.
6) “I Am Intrigued By Your Ideas.” Adam Butler, Portfolio Manager.
7) “The Calculators on Your Site Are Great Resources. It Amazes Me How So Many People Can Say ‘Valuations Matter,’ Yet in the Next Breath, They’ll Say That We Should Ignore Valuations.” John Marlowe, Logistics Analyst at Hess Corporation.
8) “His Approach Is Both Mathematically Rigorous and Easy to Understand.” Online Investing AI Blog.
9) “I Certainly Have Seen the Academic Profession Squelching Unfashionable Ideas and Have Often Been on the Wrong Side of It. Kuhn Shows How Most Pathbreaking Scientific Ideas Are Rejected At First, Usually for Decades.” Carol Osler, Brandeis International Business School.
10) “Rob Bennett Was an Early Pioneer in 3rd Generation Modeling by Advocating (Through Various Online Forums) that Withdrawal Rates Must Be Adjusted for Market Valuations Consistent with Research by Campbell and Shiller.” Todd Tresidder, Financial Mentor Blog.
11) “I Am Fascinated by the Growing Body of Research That Revolves Around the P/E10 Ratio by Robert Shiller, Doug Short, Wade Pfau, Michael Kitces, John Hussman, Crestmont Research. Jim Otat, Mike Philbrick, Adam Butler and Rob Bennett.” Kay Conheady in Advisor Perspectives.
12) “A Safe Withdrawal Rate Is Very Dependent on the Valuation of the Stock Market on the Retirement Date.” Economist Magazine.
13) “I Have Read Everything I Can About Valuation-Informed Indexing. Buy-and-Hold Is Extremely Problematic. I Respect the Passion, Hard Work and Research That You Have Put Into This Very Important Issue. Your Work Has Huge Value.” Carl Richards, Owner of Clearwater Asset Management.
14) “The World of Personal Finance Blogging Needs More Rob Bennetts. He’s Passionate. He’s Intelligent. He’s Writing Things That Go Against the Grain.” Financial Uproar Blog.
15) “The Wealth Management Industry Seems Intent on Containing This Discussion for Fear Clients Might Discover that the Emperor Has No Clothes.” Adam Butler, Portfolio Manager.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, Sammy.
Rob
When was the last time you had a supporter that commented on this website on a regular basis?
Outside of John Walter Russell, I don’t recall ever having one.
But there have been thousands of people who have at other sites expressed a desire that I and others be permitted to post honestly re what the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field teaches us all about how stock investing works in the real world. Take away the criminal stuff that you Goons have employed to suppress discussion of the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field and Valuation-Informed Indexing, not Buy-and-Hold, would be the dominant model for understanding how stock investing works.
If Motley Fool had removed John Greaney from its site on the evening of August 27, 2002, we would not as a nation have experienced the economic crisis of 2008. Hundreds of thousands of businesses would not have gone under and millions of workers would not have been thrown out of their jobs. We would not have seen political frictions increase on both the right and the left.
There has never been a researcher holding a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton who spent 16 months of his life studying what the academic literature says about market timing to conclude: “Yes, Virginia, Buy-and-Hold works!” I wonder why.
Rob
“ Outside of John Walter Russell, I don’t recall ever having one.”
That speaks volumes. If those thousands were real, your comments section would be full of supporters.
It definitely says something of great importance. We agree re that much.
The thousands are real. People who want to know can go back to the boards where the comments were made and read them.
But you are wrong in saying that, if the comments are real, there would necessarily be lots of people commenting here. That’s a comment that has intuitive appeal. You would think it would work that way. But I can think of lots of other cases where there was a Social Taboo against saying something and things that you would ordinarily think would be said were not said.
We just had a verdict on Harvey Weinstein this week. Lots and lots of people knew what he was doing for many years. You would ordinarily think that they would have spoken up. But they did not. Why?
Weinstein was a powerful man People were afraid to speak up. And the more people there were who failed to speak up, the more fearful all the others became to do so. So we have this crazy situation where a man committed horrible crimes for many years and lots and lots of people who knew about it said nothing.
That’s the story in the stock investing realm. Our Wall Street Con Men friends are wealthy and powerful and well-connected people. It takes a lot of courage to speak honestly about what the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research teaches us about how stock investing works. The that is paid for telling the truth re these matters is very, very, very high. So not too many people have the courage to do it. And that of course makes it worse for all the others who would like to give it a try.
In the event that stocks continue to perform in the future anything at all as they always have in the past, we are going to see an ocean of pain in coming years. The question is — Will that cause some people to throw caution to the wind and just tell the truth regardless of the criminal acts that you Goons will employ to silence them? I think it will. I think that, as things get worse, a number will work up the courage to speak honestly and then them doing that will give others the courage to do the same and then things will just get better and better and better for all of us.
I know for sure that I want to be on the side of the honest posters, not on the side of you Goons. I like you Goons. But I think that you have hurt millions of people (including yourselves most of all) with your criminal behavior. So I want to be on the side of those trying to overcome you, not on the side of you Goons in doing the crazy things you do that are making all of our lives worse.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. That much is for sure.
Rob
I have read the boards. There are not thousands.
There are thousands.
There are hundreds who offered comments directly supporting me. Things like “Post on, hocus!” And “why not let hocus post?” And “he is the first person to write about stock investing that makes complete sense to me.” I have an article at this site that I wrote very early on in this saga that contained over 100 such comments. That was only a small sample of them. The total number was certainly in the hundreds.
And there were also people who recommended those posts. Some of them received hundreds of recommendations. A recommendation of a post saying that Rob should be permitted to post is an expression of a desire that honest posting be permitted. So we have certainly seen thousands express a desire that honest posting be permitted.
If there are thousands that feel this way just at the few discussion boards at which I have participated, then the total number who would feel this way in the entire investing population is certainly in the millions.
Valuation-Informed Indexers are certainly in the minority today. We are outnumbered today by 10 to 1. That much is so. But that doesn’t justify a Ban on Honest Posting. We might have 100 percent support but for the Ban on Honest Posting. There’s no way to know how much this would grow until we lift the ban. Every new idea in the history of the world started with one believer and then the one became two and then over time two million and then over more time two-hundred million. One of the reasons why as a society we have enacted laws against extortion and against death threats and against fraud is that we want new ideas to be able to grow. We need to enforce the laws that apply in every field of human endeavor other than the investment advice field to see how much this will grow when U.S. law is enforced.
I think it will grow a lot. I don’t think that Valuation-Informed Indexers will become a majority until after prices fall hard. But I think we would see a lot of growth even without a price drop if U.S. laws were enforced. And then, after the next price drop, I think we may well become a majority. I have doubts that we will ever have 100 percent support. But I could imagine Valuation-Informed Indexing becoming the dominant model for understanding how stock investing works. And that would be a very, very big deal.
Anyway, it’s up to the American people to decide how far this goes, not some group of internet Goons. That’s my sincere take.
Rob
All these claims about hundreds and thousands, yet nobody here. That tells us all we need to know.
The way that I would put it is: An error in a retirement study is pointed out on the morning of May 13, 2002, and it has not been corrected to this day. That tells us all we need to know.
The Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge resides within each and every one of us and it exerts a very strong emotional pull. Is that a reason to give up trying to give people the tools they need to resist it? I sure don’t think so. I think that that tells us how important it is that we continue to do everything in our power to get people the tools they need.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
It tells us you have wasted the last 2 decades. You should be spending your time looking for a job.
It tells us that this is the most important public policy issue facing the United States today. Have you considered what it would mean if it turns out that I was right re what I said in my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002, that Greaney’s retirement study really does lack an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins? Greaney’s study is not the only retirement study that lacks a valuation adjustment. There were thousands of newspaper articles that advised aspiring retirees to employ the 4 percent rule. Millions of retirees have plans in place making use of that rule. A failed retirement is a serious life setback.
Everyone should be working this. Even Buy-and-Holders should he helping to get a national debate launched. I believe that more people will be standing up to you Goons in the days following the next price crash. We’ll see.
Rob
Can you show us a single 30 year period in which a 4% withdrawal rate did not work?
Of course not.
What I can show is that there is 39 years of peer-reviewed research showing that valuations affect what is safe and that, if valuations are considered in the calculation, the safe withdrawal rate for those who retired in early 2000 is revealed to be 1.6 percent, not 4.0 percent. We should have been telling that to people who were putting together retirement plans at the time. A failed retirement is a serious life setback.
If someone drives drunk three times and gets in an accident each time but is still alive, is it reasonable to conclude that driving drunk is “100 percent safe” (Greaney’s phrase). I say “no.” That’s the situation we have with the 4 percent rule. We have three complete bull/bear cycle on records and 150 years of historical return data. A 4 percent withdrawal is super, super, super safe at times when valuations are at reasonable levels or at low levels. A withdrawal all the way up to 9 percent is safe when stocks are priced as they were in 1982. But 4 percent barely squeaked by for retirees who employed it for retirements that began when stocks were priced as they were just prior to the onset of the 1929 crash and the Great Depression that followed from it. For a retiree to have only $1 remaining in his portfolio after 30 years does not show that his plan was “100 percent safe.” It shows that it was insanely risky. And of course the risk of a 4 percent withdrawal was much greater in 2000 than it was in 1929 since the CAPE value was much, much higher.
In the days before you Goons threatened to get Wade Pfau fired from his job if he continued doing honest work in this field, he endorsed my drunk driving analog. Would he do so today? Probably not. He is afraid of what the Buy-and-Holders would do to him if he returned to speaking honestly re these matters. I think that that is unfortunate in the extreme. Extortion is a crime in the United States. It is a felony. That means prison time. I believe that the same laws that apply in discussions of every other subject discussed in the United States should apply in discussions of stock investing as well. Call me madcap.
The fact that “defenders” of Buy-and-Hold feel that they need to engage in criminal acts to keep discussion of the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field suppressed shows how desperate the case for Buy-and-Hold has become as the mountain of evidence showing that long-term market timing is always 100 percent required for every stock investor has grown larger and larger.
My best wishes.
Mountain Builder Rob
“ Of course not.”
That’s all we needed to know.
Okay, Anonymous.
Rob
There are no supporters on your very own website. There is no one other there TODAY that says they support you or your positions.
I wish that there were thousands posting here every day, Anonymous. There are not. So what would you have me do?
Do you think that there are going to be thousands posting here tomorrow if I agree to say that I believe there is a valuation adjustment in the Greaney study? I sure don’t. It seems to me that the problem going back to the first day is that most people lack the courage to stand up to your insanely abusive posting tactics. Me trying to appease you is not going to make it better. It would make it worse.
We are all in this together, We all want to know how investing works in the real world. We all need to pull together and stand up to you Goons. Each time one more of us does that, it makes it easier for all the others who want to do it to do it too. Each one of us fails in his courage, it makes it harder for all the others. The opposite of what we all want to see.
My sincere take.
Community Guy Rob
If you had facts to back up what you say, you would have followers. When you make stuff up and lie about things, you won’t get supporters.
If you had not seen many people supporting me, you never would have engaged in a single criminal act. That’s desperation.
Greaney’s study contains no valuation adjustment. I am sure.
Rob
The made up crap about criminal acts is just one example.
As to John Greaney, Wade Pfau already explained why you were wrong on that issue.
The explanation offered was not Wade’s words. It was Greaney’s words. How did that happen?
Rob
You are wrong. It was Wade’s words posted on his own website.
It was posted on Wade’s site. I’ll give you that one.
Rob
You should be focused on getting a job and supporting your family instead of playing your childish word games.
Got it, Anonymous.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, in any event.
Rob