Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Can you show us the research that proves your allegations of death threats? Can you show us the research behind getting a $500 million dollar windfall?
The fact that the Greaney retirement study hasn’t been corrected to this day proves it, Anonymous. Are you able to imagine a scenario in which a retirement study is not corrected for 18 years after the error in it becomes public knowledge and where there have not been death threats and other criminal acts used to block discussion of the error? It is not possible for the rational human mind to imagine such a scenario. Anyone who wants to know what happened knows that there were death threats and other criminal acts.
And, yes, that’s a kind of “research” into how stock investing works. The Buy-and-Holders think of research as involving rows of numbers. That’s how research into rational stuff looks. But what Shiller showed is that stock investing is not a 100 percent rational thing, it is instead at times a highly emotional thing. Say that reason is 50 percent of stock investing and that emotion is 50 percent. Then half of your research should be looking at reason-based stuff (this is the sort of research that the Buy-and-Holders favor) and half of your research should be looking at emotion-based stuff.
A showing that a retirement study has not been corrected for 18 years after the error in it became public knowledge is the kind of “research” that Shiller showed we need to do if we are to come to a full understanding of how stock investing works. We need to get over this thing of believing that reason-based research tells the full story. It does not. The emotional stuff plays a big role. And we need to look at things like death threats and acts of extortion to get a grip on how the emotional stuff is affecting us all.
Shiller changed out understanding of how stock investing works in a fundamental way. It is because his work is so important and so revolutionary that we are having a hard time incorporating it into our thought processes. But we need to do it. Stock investing affects all of our lives. We need as a society to come up with some way of providing access to honest and accurate reports re safe withdrawal rates and re scores of other critically important investment=related topics. That means coming to terms with the death threats and all the rest. Stuff that is not rational. Stuff that is emotional. Emotional stuff that matters every bit as much as the rational stuff.
That’s the future of investment analysis. Shiller showed us what we need to do to get the numbers right for the first time in history and we all need to pull together to figure out what we need to do to make that dream a reality.
I don’t know where you came up with this idea that the $500 million is a “windfall.” That’s the amount that I have agreed to settle for so that we can leave the lawsuits behind and just enjoy working together to help everyone alive on the planet lead better lives than they were able to live in the pre-Shiller era. The way you calculate that number is just to look at what I would have earned with my work if there had never been a criminal act holding me back from opening every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 30 years of peer-reviewed research.
Do you know how many businesses went under in the Buy-and-Hold Crisis of 2008? Save those businesses from going under and right there you’ve got a lot more than $500 million produced. So I don’t expect to have too much trouble supporting the $500 million number. This is the biggest advance in the personal finance field in the history of our nation and there is nothing else in a close second place. I mean, come on.
Rob
When you post such delusional garbage, how do you expect anyone to take you seriously.
I am willing to settle for $800 million and I would have no trouble supporting my number as well. We can all make up our own reality.
I don’t think it’s delusional, Anonymous.
As a nation, we’ve gotten ourselves into a fix. There was a time when the academics thought that the market was efficient. If that were so, Buy-and-Hold would be the ideal strategy. Shiller showed in 1981 that it is not so. A national debate should have been launched on the far-reaching implications of his research findings at that time. It didn’t happen. Conditions were perfect for a widespread case of cognitive dissonance. Shiller’s findings changed everything that we once thought we knew about how stock investing works. Here we are in 2000. If it was hard for the Buy-and-Holders to acknowledge their error back in 1981, it is really,really, really hard for them to do it in 2000, after a 39-year cover-up of such an important matter.
So as a nation we are doing a lot of crazy stuff. Greaney went into panic mode when I pointed out the error in his retirement study and hundreds of our fellow community members said that I had started the most exciting discussion ever held at the Retire Early board. So he put forward his death threats to shut me up. And then Motley Fool made matters worse by backing Greaney over me (Greaney was of course the more popular poster because he was pushing a pure Get Rich Quick approach to stock investing and I was not). And then we continued seeing things like that happen for 18 years.
It cannot continue. Millions of people need access to honest and accurate research-based investment advice. If we see millions of failed retirements and hundreds of thousands of failed businesses in the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, as we will if Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research turns out to be legitimate research, we are not just going to see an economic crisis but a political crisis.The cover-up cannot continue indefinitely. People can today go to the internet to learn about all sorts of approaches to stock investing, with the one big exception being the approach that is consistent with the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. Huh? Today’s reality is just not a viable long-term reality.
Is the situation crazy as all get-out. Of course.Obviously.
But there is nothing delusional about taking note of the situation that exists and trying to get it fixed. Anyone who has any doubts about what I say can just check the Greaney study to see if it contains a valuation adjustment. What does it say about the investment advice field that a study that people use to plan their retirements has not been corrected in the 18 years since the error in it was brought to public attention? Is my claim that the study lacks a valuation adjustment a delusion? You know who agreed a few weeks ago that the study lacks a valuation adjustment? Evidence-Based Investing. One of gooniest of the goons. Hmmmm.
I wish it was all a delusion, Anonymous. I wish that we had launched a national debate on Shiller’s research back in 1981, as we should have. But the reality is that it didn’t happen. And me pretending that there is a valuation adjustment in the study is not going to change things for the batter. When I insist on recognition of my right to post honestly, I make it a little easier for everyone else who would like to post honestly to do so. When I give in to pressures not to post honestly, I make it harder for all the others who would like to post honestly to do so. Guess which effect I want to achieve?
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
I am willing to settle for $800 million and I would have no trouble supporting my number as well. We can all make up our own reality.
Then go for it, Anonymous. Knock yourself out.
I am going to continue saying that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. If I say that I believe that the study contains a valuation adjustment, then I am guilty of financial fraud myself. Not freakin’ interested. Not my particular cup of tea. Not this boy.
I wish you all the best.
Rob
“ Then go for it, Anonymous. Knock yourself out.”
Okay. I will file right after you. When do you plan to file your lawsuits?
I believe that the entire internet will be opened to honest posting in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. At that point,I will express an interest in bringing some lawsuits and will interview the law firms that contact me to determine which one seems best suited for the task.
Wish me luck!
I of course wish you the best of luck in your endeavors as well, Anonymous.
Rob