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 all these people, such as Wade and Bill Bernstein are lying…..according to Rob Bennett, top investing expert.
I am not an investing expert. I am a journalist. A journalist who discovered a huge story, the story of how the investment advice field has become 100 percent corrupt over the past 39 years.
Everyone in this field lies. Some not by commission but only by omission. The vast majority do not know that they are repeating lies when they pass along to their clients the conventional wisdom. But the reality is that the conventional wisdom was discredited by peer-reviewed research which has since caused its author to be awarded a Nobel prize 39 years ago. If you charge high fees and pass along advice that was discredited 39 years ago, is that not a lie? I of course believe that we should be telling people the unusual circumstances that apply. But we also need to tell people that the stuff that they are hearing about long-term timing/price discipline not working or not being required is a lie. That’s truly dangerous stuff. People need to know the other side of the story.
Everyone in this field is telling lies to one degree or another. Anyone who doesn’t tell lies or at least keep quiet while others tell them is removed. You Goons mention all the time how no one posts here. Why is that? It’s because I told the truth about the Greaney retirement study, that it lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. If we were all thinking clearly, I would have been applauded for pointing that out (I have been applauded by thousands of our fellow community members, but that has not been enough to persuade you Goons to knock off the criminally abusive stuff). If we were all thinking clearly, we would all want to get the numbers in our retirement studies right.
I want to post honestly. And I want all these other people you mention to feel free to post honestly so that I and millions of others can learn from them. For that to happen, we need to stop penalizing those who work up the courage to post honestly and adopt a practice of rewarding them instead. If anyone is going to be penalized, it should be the ones engaging in criminal behavior. Those are all Buy-and-Holders. I wonder why.
Greaney’s study truly does not contain a valuations adjustment. It should be corrected before it causes even more harm and causes his prison sentence to be increased even farther in length than what it would be if his trial were held today.
That’s my sincere take, Anonymous.
I wish you all good things.
Greaney’s One True Friend Rob
Can a person make a diagnosis if they have no medical training? Can a person verify the integrity of a bridge if they are not an engineer?
You are not a financial expert, so you have no credibility.
Robert Shiller holds a Nobel prize in Economics. It’s not possible to have more expertise and credibility than that.
My credibility is in my field of training and experience — journalism. And any journalist worth his salt knows that the side that is engaging in criminal behavior is the side that is working a con.
Rob
Shiller is an expert, you are not. Shiller is not saying what you say. A journalist is not an investment expert.
I am not an investment expert and I do not claim to be one. I am a journalist and one of the things that journalists do is to report on fraud. I noted in May 2002 that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirements begins and the study has not been corrected to this day. That’s fraud.
Shiller’s book is titled “Irrational Exuberance.” If irrational exuberance exists, there is zero chance that the safe withdrawal rate is the same number at all times. It changes depending on how much irrational exuberance is affecting the stock price.
Shiller does not say everything that I say. But he will once we all pull together to do something about the criminal stuff. If you wanted to know what Shiller thought on all these matters, you would knock off the criminal stuff and you could find out.
Rob
“ I am not an investment expert and I do not claim to be one. ”
You make statements that should only come from an investment expert and you make claims about how investing works. You are not reporting. You are rendering an opinion.
I make claims about how stock investing works based on the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. It is my opinion that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research. If I were to say that I believe that Shiller’s research is not legitimate research, I would be engaging in fraud. No thanks, you know?
Rob
No, you are making interpretations. Shiller does not say what you say. Therefore, you are not reporting.
You continuously comment on your “ work” and that you deserve to be paid $500 million for your work. Yet another example that you are not just reporting.
No, you are making interpretations. Shiller does not say what you say. Therefore, you are not reporting.
It is Shiller who has said that there is irrational exuberance, not me. It’s not an interpretation for me to say that. It is reporting.
It is an interpretation for me to say that that means that there is zero chance that the safe withdrawal rate is always the same number. Shiller has not said that and I have reported on why he has not said it — the relentless abuse advanced by Buy-and-Holders at those of us who believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research and who post our honest views about the how-to implications of that research.
Again, if you want to know the extent to which Shiller’s views are in accord with mine, ask him. Knock off all the criminal stuff and just ask him. There is a reason why you have not done that for 18 years now. You don’t want to know. You feel that the chances of Buy-and-Hold remaining dominant for another week or another month or another year are better if people are kept in the dark. I am a journalist. So I naturally do not want to see people kept in the dark. I oppose the 39-year cover-up.
Shiller did something important in 1981, He changed our understanding of how stock investing works in a fundamental way. Now we all need to insist on recognition of our right to post honestly re what his amazing research findings show so that we can all begin living better lives from that point forward.
That’s my sincere take, Anonymous.
Rob
You continuously comment on your “ work” and that you deserve to be paid $500 million for your work. Yet another example that you are not just reporting.
The work that I am referring to is journalism work. I don’t do investment advice work. I do journalism work. I bring things to light. I explain things to people. I expose crimes. Those are journalistic endeavors.
I haven’t been paid a penny for my work for over 18 years now. That is an exceedingly odd reality. Why have I been willing to stick at this so long without receiving compensation for my efforts? Because I see that the need for the work that I do is so great here. We don’t need peer-reviewed research showing that valuations affect long-term returns. We have had that for 39 years. We have thousands of people who would love to be telling people about the implications of Shiller’s amazing research and who are not doing so because they are afraid of the punishments that they would face for exposing the 39-year cover-up. We need to unleash those people. More amazing research is not going to get the job done. There’s only one thing that can get the job done — EXPOSURE of the cover-up. That’s journalism work. That’s what I do.
There will be thousands of people who will come after me who will do amazing work on the investing advice side and who will be compensated in the hundreds of thousands or in some cases perhaps in the millions for doing so. Good for them. But those people will not be doing what I am doing — exposing the cover-up so that all those people can feel free to do the good work that they want to do. It is the cover-up that has been holding back all that amazing work for 39 years now and it is journalism work to expose that cover-up. It is because exposure of the cover-up is of such huge importance that the work that I have done is worth well in exceed of $500 million. Exposure of the cover-up has to come first. It is exposure of the cover-up that permits all the amazing stuff to take place.
After the cover-up has been exposed and we have thousands of people writing about this stuff at every site on the internet, I intend to drop out of the discussions and permit people with more knowledge and experience than me to take over building up the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept. I will probably return to writing about effective saving strategies. Or I may do some work on career-building issues. I would like to write a third book called “The Self-Directed Life: When to Risk All You Have to WIn What You Might Love More.” I am not a guy naturally drawn to the examination of investing issues. I do the investing stuff because I found out about the cover-up (to my great shock and dismay) and I couldn’t see how someone who loves his country would not do everything in his power to help his country out when it found itself in such circumstances.
Does that help?
Rob
When has any journalist been paid $500 million for reporting?
When before has there been a 39-year cover-up of the most important advance in our understanding of how stock investing works in the history of the United States?
If you didn’t think that this was worth a whole big bunch more than $500 million, you wouldn’t fight so hard.
I didn’t go looking for this story. It came to me. Either Greaney’s study contains a valuation adjustment or it doesn’t. In normal circumstances, it wouldn’t take 18 years to settle that one. The fact that it has taken that long tells us that this is a story like no other. It is the story of humans struggling to gain the ability to put reason to use in their understanding of how stock investing works, which will reduce stock investing risk by nearly 70 percent, if the Bennett/Pfau research is on the mark. If that ain’t worth a whole big bunch more than $500 million, I have a hard time thinking what would be.
Rob
There is no cover up. Ask Wade.
Wade will be asked under oath whether or not he believes that there is a valuation adjustment in the Greaney retirement study. I have discussed it with him on numerous occasions. So I know as well as any human being can ever know something what he is going to say.
We’ll see.
Rob