Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
“ It has always worked.”
That is all you needed to say.
“ People need to know that. A failed retirement is a serious life setback. “
Totally agree. You are a good example of a failed retirement. You should be telling people where you went wrong, so that they don’t repeat your errors. That would be offering true value to your readers versus all this nonsense you have been doing up to this point.
“ I had become friends with a lot of the people who participated in the Motley Fool community.”
What friends? You chased everyone away.
“That is all you needed to say.”
No. If all that I had ever said was “it has always worked,” there never would have been any controversy. It was the stuff that I said after that that got me banned. When I say that we need to open every site to honest posting, it;’s the stuff that I said after that that I am talking about. We need to be warning people about the dangers of the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies. Saying “it has always worked” doesn’t do the job. It is not even a remotely close call.
“What friends? You chased everyone away.”
This is half true and half false.
The single biggest thing that drove people away was the abusive posting by you Goons. That sickened people.
There were hundreds of people who said that my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002, started the most exciting debate ever held at the board. I certainly didn’t drive those people away. I gave those people exactly what they were looking for at that board.
But there were indeed a number of people who didn’t enjoy hearing what I had to say. I don’t mean just Goons. The Goons hate me with a burning hate. But there were a number of non-hater Normals who did not enjoy hearing what I had to say. That’s not because I said anything inappropriate or that I said what I said in an inappropriate way. That’s because there had never heard what I was saying from anyone else and because I was telling them that it was going to take them longer to be prepared to begin their retirements than they had come to believe was the case by listening to others.
It is not the job of people working in this field just to pump out a lot of happy talk. Yes, that makes you popular, and, yes, that makes you rich. But planning one’s retirement is a serious business. Those who do not take the job seriously are not our friends even if they are telling us what we want to hear. There comes a time when you have to tell people the truth even if it hurts them a bit for them to hear it.
Greaney’s retirement study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. I checked numerous times before I put forward that famous post of May 13, 2002. I have noticed that in the 18 years since not one time has Greaney put forward a screen shot showing where the valuation adjustment is in the study, I cannot help but wonder if that is because I was right in what I said in my famous post of the May 13, 2002, there really is no valuation adjustment in the study.
The answer re the people who got upset by the true thing that I said is not for me to stop posting honestly. The answer is for everyone who works in this field to begin posting honestly re what the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research teaches us all about how stock investing works in this field, When that happens, no one will be surprised or upset when someone like me points out that the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies get the numbers wildly wrong.
If we are not going to permit the safe withdrawal rate to be calculated properly, we should just not bother calculating it at all. Inaccurate calculations ultimately do more harm than good. I don’t think that Buy-and-Hold started out as a scam. But that is what it is today. Prior to 1981, it was just a mistake that was made because all of the research needed to know the realities had not yet been published, Today, Buy-and-Hold is a scam. The fact that the Buy-and-Holders got the numbers wrong is a small thing today. The much bigger problem today is that, because the Buy-and-Holders do not want people to know about the 39-year cover-up of their error, they have engaged in criminal behavior to stop anyone else from reporting accurate numbers. Not good.
My sincere take.
Accurate Calculating (But Hopeful That One of His Friends Will Let Him Know If This Ever Turns Out Not to Be the Case!) Rob
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