Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
If you provided documented proof of the death threats and job threats, you would have thousands of people flocking to your website in support. To the opposite, you don’t have anyone here in support. That speaks volumes.
You could have said that about race relations in the South in the 1950s.
Big changes are hard to achieve. Sometimes they are 100 percent necessary and yet hard to achieve.
I believe that a 50 percent price crash that wipes out much of the life savings of millions of people will provide more of us with the courage that we need to stand up to you Goons. It will be interesting to see how things play out.
I like it that the American people have 39 years of peer-reviewed research on their side and a Nobel prize on their side and the published rules for participation at every site on the internet on their side and the comments of thousands of our fellow community members on their side and the Bennett/Pfau peer-reviewed research on the huge benefits of market timing on their side and a best-selling book (Irrational Exuberance) on their side and a new and exciting form of economics (Behavioral Finance) on their side and common sense (price discipline is 100 percent necessary in every other market that ever existed) on their side. I’ll go with all that.
My best and warmest wishes to you, dear Goon friend.
Rob
“It will be interesting to see how things play out.”
It has been 24 years, which has been long enough to see things “play out” and it didn’t turn out like you said it would. You have to stop blaming everyone else for your retirement failure.
It’s only been 14 years since things began playing out in ways that you would not anticipate by looking at the historical return data. Shiller published a paper in 1996 saying that prices would fall hard within 10 years. So you cannot say that things did not play out as expected up until 2006. From 2006 forward, yes. So it’s 14 years.
So the stock market behaved one way from 1870 through 2006 and then in a different way from 2006 through 2020. That’s 136 years for Valuation-Informed Indexing and 14 years for Buy-and-Hold. I’m going with Valuation-Informed Indexing.
I don’t want to suppress discussion by Buy-and-Holders. I think that we need to hear both sides, Maybe the Buy-and-Holders are right. I sure don’t think so. But I don’t think you can ever say for sure. So I want them participating in the discussions held at every site on the internet. But I want the Valuation-Informed Indexers participating as well.
That’s my sincere take, Anonymous.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
14 years of not working out doesn’t look good for someone in their late 50’s or early 60’s. It is just too late. With that said, it really is 24 years for you as that is when you publicly claim to have gotten out of the market and we see where you are at today.
Those 14 years would have played out very differently if we had been permitting honest posting re the last 39 years of peer-reviewed research all that time. Investors want to invest effectively. Permit them to learn what they need to learn to do that and they will do it. Had most investors been practicing market timing all along, we would not have experienced this horrible time to own stocks. All of our problems are rooted in the Ban on Honest Posting, which I have been opposing since the morning of May 13, 2002.
Shiller didn’t hurt us by showing us for the first time how stock investing really works. He helped us That’s why he was awarded a Nobel prize. Yes, it has been a horrible time to own stocks. But that’s not Shiller’s fault and it is not my fault It is the fault of the Buy-and-Holders. They have to acknowledge their mistake in thinking that the market is efficient. Or, at the very bare minimum, they need to acknowledge the POSSIBILITY that they made a mistake and agree to letting millions of people hear about both academic models for understanding how stock investing works.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
First of all, you have had plenty of time and formats to spread your opinions. Your problem hasn’t been getting your message out. Your problem is that you can’t get the investment community to agree with you. Secondly, your version of what you call “honest” posting is different than what most consider if the definition of that term. Third, millions of people don’t have to change why and how they buy stocks just to make you happy. You keep talking about Shiller saying how stocks work, yet you don’t agree with his comments. For example, he has continued to make statements, including comments in the last month, about staying in the stock market. Either Shiller is lying or else you are misrepresenting what he is saying.
We don’t know precisely what Shiller believes because he has not been questioned in depth re what he believes. I believe that we should be questioning him in depth re what he believes.
Is the safe withdrawal rate the same number at all times or is it a number that is higher when valucations are low and lower when valustions are high? I am not aware of Shiller ever directly addressing that point. I say that, if Shiller’s research is klegitimate, the safe withdrawal rate must change with changes in valuations. We should all want to know what Shiller believes. The best way to find out is to ask him.
My sincere take.
Rob
We don’t need to ask Shiller anything. We can read. You should try it sometime.
I read the title of his book, Anonymous. It is “Irrational Exuberance.” If there is such a thing as irrational exuberance, stock investing risk is not constant but variable; risk is greater when there is more irrational exuberance. If risk is variable, it is a logical impossibility that the safe withdrawal rate is always the same number (since the safe withdrawal rate is a risk assessment tool). So I do not say that I believe that the safe withdrawal rate is always the same number.
I believe that Shiller will say the same if you ask him. I encourage you to ask him. It’s a question that every investor on the planet should want to know the answer to. If the safe withdrawal rate studies are in error, that’s huge. There are millions of investors who have used those studies to plan their retirements and a failed retirement is a serious life setback. So we all should want to know what Shiller thinks. And the only way to find out is to ask him.
Shiller will be happy to tell you what he thinks if you promise not to threaten him. It is the threats from the Buy-and-Holders that have been holding back progress in this field for 39 years now. People do not like to be threatened. That is why as a society we have enacted laws against it.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
One title does not apply to every situation and timeframe. It’s funny how you ignore everything else Shiller says.
The concept of irrational exuberance affects every aspect of the stock investing story, Anonymous. Every single thing. If the market is efficient, as was believed to be the case in the days when Buy-and-Hold was being developed, we can trust the numbers on our portfolio statement. In that case, it is economic realities that determine stock prices and we can plan retirements based on those numbers. But if Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate, then those numbers are not real. They are largely the product of temporary investor mood swings, and we need to distinguish what’s real from what’s irrational exuberance to have any hope of being able to plan our financial futures effectively.
I don’t ignore everything else Shiller says. What I say is that we should be permitting discussion of what Shiller says at every site on the internet. What he said changes our understanding of how stock investing works in a fundamental way. Let’s all put our minds together and work together in a constructive spirit to advance our understanding of this critically important subject.
Does Shiller believe that the safe withdrawal rate is always the same number or does he believe that it is a number that changes with changes in valuations? We all should want to know the answer to that question. I said what I think 18 years ago, I think that Shiller would have said what he thinks by now if it weren’t for the criminal stuff we have seen coming from the Buy-and-Hold side of the table. I say that we should all pull together to bring the criminal stuff to a full and complete stop so that we can all learn at long last what Shiller believes re this matter. Then we should continue the discussions in the hopes of learning what thousands of others will have to say when they are permitted to speak without fear of having their careers destroyed or seeing their loved ones threatened.
There is not one school of academic thought as to how stock investing works. There are two. We have heard advocates of the Buy-and-Hold school thousands and thousands and thousands of times. Advocacy of the Valuation-Informed Indexing school is today banned at every large investing site on the internet. That ban is holding us back. The most important public policy matter before us today is the launching of the national debate that will bring that ban to a full and complete stop and insure that the same laws that apply in every field of endeavor other than the investment advice field will apply in the investment advice field as well.
Does all of that not make perfect sense?
Rob
“ What I say is that we should be permitting discussion of what Shiller says at every site on the internet.”
There is plenty of exposure to what Shiller says. You have also had more than sufficient exposure of your comments. We do not need constant repeating of the same material as it is already out there and easily accessible. The problem is that you cannot accept the answers you have been given, nor are you willing to take the blame for your own actions.
The Greaney retirement study has not been corrected to this day, Anonymous.
Also, we all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold impulse residing within us. We need to be reminded daily of the dangers of the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold approach if we are to overcome that impulse.
Rob