I’ve posted Entry #501 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called Why I Describe the Buy-and-Hold Strategy As a Get Rich Quick Scheme.
Juicy Excerpt: That desire to push stock prices up beyond the levels where they would reside if only economic realities were considered is the Get Rich Quick urge that lives within all of us to get something for nothing. We don’t like to admit that we possess this emotional weakness. But Shiller’s research shows that we do. We are surely better off admitting it and dealing with it than ignoring it.
Expecting a $500 million windfall to support a retirement would be a get rich quick scheme. Saving for 40 years is not getting rich quick.
It’s not the saving-for-40-years part that is a Get Rich Quick scheme. It’s the failing-to-divide-by-two part (despite 39 years of peer-reviewed research showing that this is required) part. Whenever I criticize Buy-and-Hold, that is what I am talking about. I am a big fan of everything else in Buy-and-Hold, which I have demonstrated by incorporating everything else in Buy-and-Hold into the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept. It is this idea that it is not necessary to practice market timing/price discipline that causes all the trouble.
You call the $500 million settlement payment a “windfall.” I do not. The $500 million is the amount that will be paid to me to compensate me for the criminal acts that were engaged in to stop me from being compensated on an ongoing basis for the important work that I have been doing for 18 years now. If that work were not of huge value, you Goons would never have engaged in a single criminal act. So your own behavior shows that the $500 million is not a “windfall” but just compensation for services rendered.
I will say “thank you” when I obtain the $500 million, just as I would had I received just compensation for my work starting on May 13, 2002. But I will not offer any apologies for the efforts I undertake to receive that amount. It is a good thing when people are compensated justly for services they have rendered. If it turns out that Greaney really did fail to include a valuation adjustment in his retirement study, as I indicated in my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002, that’s something that every investor on the planet needs to know.
The value that I have added to the world by working up the courage to call him out on his b.s. is worth a whole big bunch more than $500 million. I have agreed to accept a $500 million payment because I would like to put all the ugliness behind us and see Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexes working together in future days to help everyone to learn all they can about this stock investing business. It’s worth it to me to accept a smaller number than I might obtain through the legal system to get everyone on “both sides” working together in harmony.
My best wishes.
Rob
I have yet to Shiller say that people should divide by 2. Secondly, I haven’t seen one single criminal act. Feel free to post a link to Shiller saying to divide by 2 and feel free to post links to the specific criminal acts you speak of.
By the way, I think my work is worth $1 Trillion. When should I expect to get my check?
I have never heard Shiller say that people need to divide by two either.
My take is that everyone alive should want to know whether he believes that this is required or not. So we should all be doing everything in our power to find out. If we permitted honest posting at every site, he would tell us and we would all be better off. Even those who didn’t believe that what he said was right would be better off because they would be better informed.
This is the entire story. Shiller gave us all an amazing gift with his Nobel-prize-winning research. But to open that gift, we need to permit honest posting at every site. So I am 100 percent in favor of doing that.
Rob
Why do you keep saying “honest posting” when what you are asking for is unfettered posting. You want to say what you want to say, anywhere and at anytime. Correct? Please clarify if you mean this to be something differently. Also, please comment as to why you do not allow the same on your website.
I want to post what I sincerely believe about stock investing at every site that permits posting about stock investing. That’s absolutely correct. I want that for everyone else (Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers alike) as well, of course.
I do not permit death threats and other abusive garbage for the same reason why I advocate for honest posting. Honest posting helps us all to learn, which I view as a positive. Death threats and other abusive garbage subtract from the learning experience because they intimidate people from offering their sincere views. So I OPPOSE that sort of thing.
Rob
Some consider your posting abusive, so they ban you.
You ban posts that are not abusive and I have never seen a single person that has posted a death threat.
It comes down to you wanting to post what you want, whenever and wherever you want, but you do not allow the same on your website.
When research was published showing that smoking causes cancer, the tobacco companies considered that abusive and did everything in their power to stop people from learning about it. They in essence banned discussion of the new research.
As a nation we overcame that b.s. in time. I believe that we will see the same happen in the investing realm. When that happens, I will be able to point to thousands and thousands and thousands of posts in my file showing that I had been advocating that honest posting be permitted going back to the morning of May 13, 2002. I have done everything that a person could possibly do.
Rob
That is not why you are banned. You are banned as you hijack threads, don’t provide supporting data behind claims, you refuse to answer questions and you do not comply with what board owners ask of you.
To the opposite, you ban posts that are not abusive and address the subjects in the thread.
There is no consistency to your positions.
Can you give us examples of what you consider abusive posting on this website and what was specifically said that compelled you to block posts.
Can you give us examples of what you consider abusive posting on this website and what was specifically said that compelled you to block posts.
That is not why you are banned. You are banned as you hijack threads, don’t provide supporting data behind claims, you refuse to answer questions and you do not comply with what board owners ask of you.
To the opposite, you ban posts that are not abusive and address the subjects in the thread.
There is no consistency to your positions.
There are thousands of threads at this blog in which I interact with you Goons. If, in the days following the next price crash, there are millions of people trying to understand why most of their life savings vanished into the air, they can read through those threads and see if they can pick up the idea. I am 100 percent confident that any halfway reasonable person who takes even a brief look at those threads at a time when he or she is not longer suffering from irrational exuberance, he or she will get it.
There’s also a way to avoid even looking at the threads. Look at the retirement study posted at John Greany’s web site. See if you can identify the valuation adjustment in it. If you cannot find one, think how much abusive posting it would take to keep the cover-up going for 18 years. Now you get it. Now you know.
It’s a scam, Anonymous. It’s not a hidden scam. It’s a scam taking place in full public view. I don’t think that it started out as a scam. And I don’t think that the people working the scam are aware that it is a scam. But it’s a scam all the same. The damage that it will do to millions of investors is just as serious whether the people working the scam are aware that that is what it is or not.
The reason why Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize is that he made us aware of the scam at the core of the stock investing project that since the first stock market was formed has made stocks a far more risky asset class than it needs to be. Now we are free of 70 percent of the risk of stock investing — intellectually. The next step is to become free of 70 percent of the risk of stock investing in a practical real-world sense. To achieve that, we need to open every discussion board and blog to honest posting re the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. I strongly urge that we take that amazing step forward by the close of business today (although what I have seen over the first 18 years of our discussions tells me that we are probably not going to pull it off until we all come together in the days following the next price crash).
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, in any event.
Rob
” I am 100 percent confident that any halfway reasonable person who takes even a brief look at those threads at a time when he or she is not longer suffering from irrational exuberance, he or she will get it.”
A reasonable person would not just look at your website. They will look at what is also listed on other websites for a more balanced view and that history does not look good for you.
I certainly would want people to look at multiple websites. Anyone who looks only at my web site is a darn fool. Please feel free to quote me.
I don’t agree with your suggestion that other web sites will be telling a different story. I could see how different sites could tell different stories re the substantive matters. That’s to be expected and that’s healthy. But I do not believe that in the days following the next price crash there will be too many arguing that the Ban on Honest Posting was a good thing. I believe that we are all going to pull together re that one. And, once we have agreement re that one, good stuff will just naturally follow re all the rest.
My best and warmest wishes.
Rob
“I don’t agree with your suggestion that other web sites will be telling a different story.”
The other websites tell a much different story. Would you like me to post some links?
You can’t provide links today for what they will be saying in the days following the next price crash.
Irrational exuberance messes with people’s minds. That’s the entire point.
We need for the irrational exuberance to dissipate a bit so that we can all regain our ability to think clearly re these matters.
Rob
“You can’t provide links today for what they will be saying in the days following the next price crash.”
I don’t have a time machine. How can I, or anyone else, provide a link for something in the future. What I can do is post a link on what has happened and what people have said. The other websites do not paint a favorable picture of you and what you have said.
Shiller provided us all a means to see into the future. That’s why he was awarded a Nobel prize. That’s why I argue that we should be permitted to discuss his research findings at every web site.
You cannot tell whether a retirement plan is safe or not without taking a look into the future. You cannot know what stock allocation to go with without taking a look into the fuure.
The Buy-and-Holders are taking a look into the future when they say that this will be the first time in history that investors who failed to practice market timing/price discipline will end up okay. So we all make an effort to look into the future. The difference is that some of us use peer-reviewed research as a guide and some of us just take a purely emotional approach. The purely emotional approach has the edge at a time when irrational exuberance is at insane levels. But, if Shiller is right, those days will not last forever.
None of these websites of which you speak has offered a screenshot of the page of the Greaney study containing a valuation adjustment. I wonder why.
Rob
“Shiller provided us all a means to see into the future.”
Shiller says he doesn’t know the future and advised against using CAPE for timing. You are the one making the claim, not Shiller. Your repeated timing predictions all failed, so it is clear that you could not see into the future.
Shiller titled his book Irrational Exuberance. If Irrational Exuberance exists, then risk is obviously not constant but variable and any investor who wants to keep his risk profile constant over time MUST engage in market timing.
If you wanted to know what Shiller truly believes, you would just drop all the criminal stuff and ASK HIM.
My sincere take.
Rob
Shiller specifically said to NOT time the market. I am not aware of anyone that alleges something criminal, other than you.
Shiller published an entire paper in July 1996 advocating market timing. His entire book makes the case for market timing. If you believed that there was a 10 percent chance that he would not advocate market timing if the question were put directly to him, you would put the question directly to him. If you really wanted to know whether market timing works or not, you never would have threatened Wade Pfau.
You want to suppress discussion of the 39 years of peer-reviewed research showing that market timing is required, that’s all. Even John Bogle said that he could see how Valuation-Informed Indexing could work. When you’ve lost John Bogle….
Rob