Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Why do we need to ask questions of Shiller? We have read what he has said. He clearly states to not time the market using CAPE and he was right. Face it, he does not agree with you and you don’t like it. Wade Pfau also disagreed with you and look at what you did to him. It is no wonder no one wants to talk to you. You don’t listen.
I think we should be discussing Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research at every discussion board and blog on the internet, without a single exception. We need to figure this stock investing thing out. In every other market, price discipline is absolutely essential. There was a thought for some time that the stock market was the sole exception. In the stock market, price discipline is achieved through market timing and there was research published showing that one form of market timing, short-term timing, does not work. So the idea became popular the no form of market timing is required (or that timing might not even work!). Shiller was awarded the Nobel prize for showing that this is not so, that the stock market is like every other market that ever existed, that price discipline is 100 percent required, that market timing always works.
The problem is the 39-year cover-up. Now that Shiller’s research findings have been covered up for 39 years, it has become very hard for us as a society to expose the error made by the Buy-and-Holders. If we just learned today that market timing always works and is always required, we would all be jumping up and down over our good fortune at finally coming to understand how stock investing works in the real world. But the Buy-and-Holders have been saying the opposite for 39 years now. It makes them look very, very, very bad for the people to learn what the research says. Our Wall Street Con Men friends are powerful and wealthy and well-connected people. So they have the ability to intimidate those who would like to speak up into silence. Not good.
I think this needs to come out. I think that our Wall Street Con Men friends will feel a lot better about themselves after we have opened the entire internet to honest posting. Our Wall Street Con Men friends are human beings first. They want to see the work they do help people. They want to gain the freedom to do honest work again and they want to see everyone else gain that freedom. But they are afraid of you Goons and of the gooniness that resides within all the rest of us that evidences itself whenever we are exposed to evidence that the entire Buy-and-Hold thing is a scam. No one likes to see the lives of their loved ones threatened. No one likes to see their career threatened. We need as a society to stand up for those seeking to post honestly. That’s the entire deal. Then we will all be free to learn what we need to learn and to live better and richer lives from that point forward.
Wade Pfau devoted 16 months of his life trying to find an iota of peer-reviewed research showing that long-term market timing might not work. He came up empty-handed. He declared: “Yes, Virgina, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” He should be permitted to say what he believes about how stock investing works to every investor on the planet without having to fear that his career will be destroyed by Buy-and-Holders if he does so. So should ever other academic researcher. People make mistakes. The Buy-and-Holders made a mistake when they concluded that market timing is not always 100 percent required. We need to get that mistake corrected. The safety of all of our retirement accounts depends on it.
My sincere take.
And my best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Calling people names, like Con Men (which you also did to John Bogle) is yet another example as to why people don’t take you seriously. Calling people goons is another examples. It is similar to how people call people names based on their race, gender, religious beliefs, etc.
I love John Bogle. I have devoted the last 18 years of my life to developing the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept. It is 90 percent John Bogle, 10 percent Robert Shiller. The only thing in there that is not John Bogle is the idea that market timing always works and is always 100 percent required, which comes from Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research. Now that 10 percent has huge impact. In terms of impact, it is 70 percent of the story. So it would be fair also to say that VII is 70 percent Shiller and 30 percent Bogle. But anyway you look at it, I obviously have the greatest possible respect and affection for Bogle. I think the guy is a giant. I love the guy.
Now —
Bogle posted at the same discussion board at which Mel Linduaer posted. Bogle himself acknowledged that Valuation-Informed Indexing can work, which I thought was wonderful. And he saw hundreds of community members express a desire that honest posting be permitted. And he also saw Lindauer’s criminal behavior to stop that from happening. Did he do anything about it? Did he speak up?
What would you call someone who failed to speak up? Bogle’s failure to speak up is part of the story and so something has to be said about it. Had Bogle spoken up, Wade Pfau would not have been afraid to stand up to Lindaurer and every site on the internet today would be opened to honest posting re the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. You can’t tell the story of stock investing in the year 2020 without telling the story of how people like John Bogle failed to stand up to people like Mel Lindauer. We are in this fix as a society and we will have to get out of it as a society. We are not going to get out of it by failing to note how Bogle failed to stand up to Lindauer. That’s the thing that has been holding us back for years now.
If you want to say thst Bogle was afraid to speak up because he had seen what Lindauer and his Goon squad had done to others who had worked up the courage to post honestly, I am fine with that. I am certain that Bogle loved his family members and did not want to see them threatened. But the full reality here is that each of us affects all the others when we either work up the courage to stand up to a Mel Lindaur or to fail to do so. Bogle failed to do so on numerous occasions and that had a big effect on lots of others. Bogle’s failure to stand up to Lindauer does not take away his many incredible contributions. But it is a reality all the same and a very powerful negative reality. Bogle was a great man who messed up when he saw threats being made against people who spoke in support of research-based strategies. He took on the role of a con man because he was afraid to say what he himself truly believed. It is a story that is sad beyond belief.
Our laws against financial fraud and against death threats and against extortion are good and necessary laws. Those laws need to be enforced in a reasonable manner. What happened to Bogle is just one of many of the negative consequences that we have seen follow from our failure as a nation to insist on reasonable enforcement of our laws in the investing advice field.
That’s my sincere take, in any event, Anonymous.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.
Rob