Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
So Shiller and Pfau are lying every day to investors?
They’re certainly not telling the full truth.
Was I a liar from May 1999 through May 2002 when I was aware that Greaney’s retirement study lacked a valuations adjustment and yet failed to speak up about it? I sure felt like a liar. I was ashamed of myself for my cowardice.
We humans are liars, Anonymous. We TRY to tell the truth. We are not completely corrupt. But we are not perfectly rational creatures, as the Buy-and-Holders presume.
The reason why Shiller’s work is viewed as important enough to merit a Nobel prize is that it points us in the direction of being able to see the truth about stock investing. Whenever we count gains that are the product of irrational exuberance as real, we are lying to ourselves. Shiller gave us the tool we need (CAPE) to identify the true, lasting value of our stock portfolio. That’s huge.
But do we want to know the true value of our portfolio? Only about 10 percent of us do in 2020, a time when stocks are priced at two times fair value. 10 percent is not enough to overcome the brutal abusiveness of you Goons. Will the number who want to know the truth rise to 20 percent or 30 percent in the wake of the next price crash? Will we be able to overcome you Goons then and start reaping the benefits of the most important 39 years of peer-reviewed research in the history of investment analysis?
I believe that we will. But then I would, wouldn’t I? We are just going to have to wait to see how it all plays out.
Truth-Telling (But Not From May 1999 through May 2002!) Rob
Anonymous says
“They’re certainly not telling the full truth.”
Which means you are calling them liars. Got it.
Rob says
We’re all liars, Anonymous. It’s human nature. We want what we want. And when what we want comes into conflict with what we can tell is true, we tell lies. This is what humans do.
Do you think that in the days when black people did not have equal rights that people deep down inside thought that was okay? I don’t. On some level of consciousness, they knew. But they didn’t have the courage to speak up. They knew what would happen to them if they did. So they lied. Both to themselves and to others.
Human beings are not ONLY liars. We are truth tellers too. We are drawn to the truth as much as we are drawn to lies. The wonderful thing is that Shiller has provided us the tools we need to start seeing the truth about stock investing. That’s a huge advance.
That’s my sincere take, in any event. I like the truth-telling side of the humans. I understand the lying side. I have sympathy for why we sometimes play it that way. But I like it when we work up the courage to tell the truth. And I think that that is where we are headed in the investing realm.
We’ll see.
Pro-Human (But Sometimes Critical of the Humans Out of Concern for Them) Rob
Anonymous says
“We’re all liars, Anonymous. It’s human nature. We want what we want. And when what we want comes into conflict with what we can tell is true, we tell lies. This is what humans do”
Read those words to yourself everyday and then evaluate your wasted actions and words over the last two decades.
Rob says
I ask you to review the Greaney study to see if you can locate a valuations adjustment in it. You haven’t been able to find one for 18 years now. I do not believe that you are going to be able to find one in the next 18 minutes or the next 18 days or the next 18 months or the next 18 years or the next 18 billion years.
That’s my sincere take, Anonymous.
Fraud Buster Rob
Anonymous says
A number of people are having a good laugh about your website over on another board. You are too busy trying to rewrite your bad history from 18 years ago, while the rest of the world is talking about present times. You might want to jump over there and try and set them straight.
Rob says
If people are laughing at someone because he pointed out an error in a retirement study that a lot of his friends thought was real, they have their own problems. I am proud of what I did. The only part that I am ashamed of is that I did not speak up sooner.
And the fact that Greaney’s retirement study has not been corrected in the 18 years since he became aware of the error in it tells a bigger story. It’s one thing for there to be an outlier personality like Greaney. It’s something else for lots of Normals to be tolerant of the behavior that we have seen from him and his Goon friends. That behavior and the widespread tolerance of it shows that Shiller was right — stock investing is a highly emotional endeavor.
If you love this country, you want to do something about that. You want to open up all the good that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winnng research promised to provide us all. Laugh if you like, but I offer no apologies for devoting my life to that cause.
It will be interesting to see how it all works out. I hope that in the days after we have seen every discussion board and blog opened to honest posting re the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research, I will be able to have a beer with the people we are laughing and laugh with them out of joy rather than out of some sick desire to feel superior to others.
John Lennon had a line about this sort of thing:
“What in the world are you thinking of —
Laughing in the face of love?”
My sincere take.
Laughter (But a Different Kind of Laughter) Loving Rob
Anonymous says
They are laughing even more at your response filled with lies. Better set them straight.
Rob says
I don’t see it as my job to set people like that straight, Anonymous. My experience in life tells me that the world at large sets people like that straight in good time. And my experience in life further tells me that, when the world at large sets people like that straight it usually does so in a way that makes me feel sympathy for how things have gone down for them. So I try to make it a practice just to wish the best for them and to do whatever I can to lend them a hand when opportunities to do so present themselves to me.
But you knew that.
Hang in there, man. It gets better. A LOT better.
Turn-the-Other-Cheek Rob
Anonymous says
But you said this is your job.
Rob says
It’s my job to open every investing discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field, without a single exception. That’s something different. It’s not my job to set anybody straight. Each person who wants to be set straight can set himself or herself straight. Each person who does not want to be set straight is not going to be set straight by anything that I say. I have never gotten involved in the sort of thing that you are bringing up here and I think it would be a mistake if I ever did. That sort of thing is just not my particular cup of tea.
Sticks-to-the-Knitting Rob