Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
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
If Shiller told you that you should not use CAPE to time the market, would you finally admit that you are wrong about Shiller’s work? Do you think you know more about investing than Shiller?
That’s a super question.
If Shiller said that, I would tell everyone that he said it. Shiller played such a key role in the development of the Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy that anyone considering the strategy would need to know that he said that if in fact he did.
I would not necessarily say that I was wrong. If Shiller gave a reason for not using CAPE to time the market that I found persuasive, then I would change my mind and I would tell people that I now thought I was wrong about what I believed in the days before Shiller persuaded me. But I doubt Shiller would say anything that would persuade me. In that case, I would continue saying what I believe. I would let people know that Shiller has a different opinion in in fact he said that he did. But I would not say that I thought I was wrong about my own opinion.
I think it would be fair to say that I am the world’s foremost authority on two subjects: (1) The Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy, which I have been developing full-time for over 18 years now; and (2) The efforts by Buy-and-Holders to block millions of middle-class investors who very much want to and need to hear about these ideas from learning about them. Lots of people know lots more than me about all sorts of investing topics. But no one has put in the time and effort on those two that I have. There’s no one in a close second place.
I put the time in because I think those two issues are of immense important. People invest their retirement money in stocks. So we have to find some means of getting information about accurate and honest research-based strategies out to people no matter how bad it makes the Buy-and-Holders feel for us to do that. The process issue is more important than the substance issues. Because, once we solve the process problem, we will have thousands of people making great contributions on the substance side. I won’t be the foremost authority anymore in those days. And that will be a good thing. I SHOULDN’T be the world’s foremost authority on research-based investment strategies. It’s only because of the insanely abusive posting of you Goons that it became possible for me to attain that status.
I very much look forward to seeing Shiller’s book on the how-to aspects of his model for understanding how stock investing works. My guess is that we will be seeing that someday after we all suffer the horrible effects of the next price crash.
Rob
“ But I doubt Shiller would say anything that would persuade me.”
What makes you think that you know more than Shiller? What credentials do you have that says you are qualified to even question the opinions of Shiller?
I publicly pointed out the error in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies on the morning of May 13, 2002. Shiller has not done that as of today. So I am 18 years ahead of him re that one.
I couldn’t have done what I have done without the work that Shiller did before I came on the scene. But Shiller has held back from exploring the how-to implications of his work (it is discussion of the how-to implications that most upsets the Buy-and-Holders). I have not let the Buy-and-Holders keep me back. I learned new things every week. And there are a lot of weeks in 18 years.
It doesn’t take a lot in the way of credentials to take note that a retirement study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. Anyone with a little bit of common sense could have done what I have done. What it takes is the courage to stand up to you Goons. That not too many have. People do not like to see their loved ones threatened. People do not like to see their careers destroyed.
I of course do not like those things either. But I could not stand to see the lives of my friends at the Motley Fool board destroyed by Greaney’s deceptions. And I cannot bear the thought of seeing millions of other lives destroyed in the next price crash. So I stand up to you. The only way forward for all of us is for someone to stand up to you. So I do that. My credential is my love for the millions of middle-class people who need access to information about what the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research teaches us all about how stock investing works in the real world.
And what makes you think that you are qualified to threaten people who believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research?
Rob
Experts with credentials say YOU are wrong about your interpretation of Greaneys work, so you are starting with a false premise.
No one with any credentials has said that they believe that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment. Full truth be told, Greaney himself has not said that. Greaney ought to know what is contained in his own study.
Few have been willing to say flat-out that the Greaney study should be corrected. That’s the problem. That’s why I say that we need to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting. To get people to say that, we are going to have to do something about the death threats and the unjustified board bannings and the acts of extortion and the acts of defamation.
I believe that we will see it happen in the days following the next price crash. I sure hope so!
Rob
No expert has ever agreed with you about Greaney. No expert is currently willing to even speak with you.
A good number have agreed with me. Bill Bernstein said in his book that the safe withdrawal rate is not always 4 percent, that the Buy-and-Hold studies were off by a full two percentage points at the top of the bubble. Wade Pfau said that the Greaney study is “dangerous.” John Bogle did not comment specifically on the safe withdrawal rate issue but he said that he could see how Valuation-Informed Indexing might well work out; if you support Valuation-Informed Indexing, you implicitly support the idea of taking valuations into consideration when calculating the safe withdrawal rate. The Economist magazine had an article saying that many people have lost confidence in the idea that the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent. Todd Tressider stated very strongly that the old studies are in error and gave me full credit for discovering the error and making the case for correction of the studies on the internet. And there have been numerous others.
You are right though that the vast majority of experts get real quiet once they see the death threats and the acts of extortion and the acts of defamation. That sort of thing scares people into silence. That’s why as a nation of people we adopted laws against the use of those sorts of tactics. We need to insist on reasonable enforcement of those laws if we want to advance in our understanding of how stock investing works. I believe that lots of people will be coming forward to do just that in the days following the next price crash. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Rob
No one has ever said they agree with your conclusions about Greaney. Your spin is not convincing anyone. No one has agreed with you that there were any death threats. You are just making it up.
I said that the Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment and should be promptly corrected before it does more damage to more human lives. Wade Pfau looked at it and concluded that the Greaney study is “dangerous.” That’s agreeing with me.
No one has ever said they disagree with me. Greaney himself has not pointed to a section of his study that contains a valuation adjustment. Evidence-Based Investing is the gooniest of goons and he acknowledged a few weeks ago that the Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment. When you’ve lost Evidence….
The problem is the criminal stuff. That is hurting us all in a very serious way. We know how stock investing works today. We have known for 40 years. But we need to be able to talk about what we know for it to do us any good. We all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge residing within us. It takes work to overcome that urge. Anytime someone posts honestly re the peer-reviewed research, that helps us. Anytime someone is intimidated into silenced by your criminal acts, it sends us all backwards.
I believe that we will get the Greaney study corrected in time. But it looks like we are going to see millions of people hurt in very serious ways before we work up the courage to make it happen. It’s a sad situation. But the good news here is 50 times more good and the bad news here is bad. We are poised to experience a huge economic surge. I am looking forward to seeing it (although I obviously am am not looking forward to the ocean of misery that we will be seeing with the next price crash even a little bit).
Rob
Wade pfau wrote an article saying you were wrong. No one has ever said they agreed with you on Greaney. No one has ever agreed with you on death threats or job threats. You made it all up.
You make the same comments on this topic every time, yet we never see anyone come to your support. That speaks volumes.
Wade said that I was wrong after you threatened to destroy his career if he did not say that. For 16 months he worked with me and we communicated om a regular basis. He said that I was 100 percent right about the Greaney study. He said that it was dangerous and should be corrected. He said that he was amazed about how much he learned about stock investing by talking things over with me. He said that he was amazed to learn that timing always works. He expressed hopes that the research we co-authored might get him a Nobel prize. He was so excited about the work we did together that he told me that he could not sleep at night thinking about it.
I made nothing up. And anyone can figure out what is going on by checking to see whether the Greaney study has been corrected or not, It has been 18 years.
The criminal stuff is killing us all. We need to work up the courage to do something about it. Then it is all downhill sledding. I think it will happen in the days following the next price crash. We’ll see.
Rob
You make the same comments on this topic every time, yet we never see anyone come to your support. That speaks volumes.
Will the crash change that? That’s the big question.
I believe that it will. But we are just going to have to wait a bit to find out for sure.
Rob
There is no possibility that all of these people are liars and only Rob Bennett is the truthful one.
Was everyone who believed in the days before Galileo that the earth was the center of the universe a liar?
Most of those people truly believed that the earth was the center. What Galileo said upset them. So they had him silenced.
The vast majority of people who support Buy-and-Hold possess a sincere belief that it works. They are not liars. But there are 10 percent who believe that Shiler’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research. And, if we permitted honest posting, that 10 percent would grow to 20 percent and then to 40 percent and then to 80 percent.
Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize because he showed us something that we did not know before he came along. The fact that we didn’t always know everything there is to know about stock investing doesn’t mean that we were all liars. We did not know. And most of us still do not know. But we COULD know. The peer-reviewed research is available to us today. We could give ourselves permission to talk about it and all live better lives from that point forward. I vote for doing that.
Rob
The experts do not have a lack of knowledge or information. Either all these experts are lying or it is just you lying, I think we all know how to answer that one.
I say that we all — experts and ordinary investors alike — have a lack of UNDERSTANDING. We need as a nation of people to give ourselves permission to discuss Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research at every discussion board and blog on the internet. The more we talk about it and explore it from all possible angles, the surer and firmer will be our appreciation of all the far-reaching implications of his many amazing breakthrough insights.
My sincere take.
Rob