Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
“I believe 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.”
Did you lie on that thread when you admitted you were wrong and apologized? Was Wade Pfau wrong when he also corrected you?
I had no intention to deceive when I posted my apology. I was suffering from cognitive dissonance. I strongly believed that the Greaney study lacked a valuation adjustment. I had checked it many times before I put up my famous post saying that it did not. But scores of people whom I respected and considered friends were telling me that I was wrong and the board community, which I loved, was being torn apart at the seams. I somehow persuaded myself that I might be wrong and that an apology was in order.
Yes, Wade was wrong when he said what he said. What he said was absolutely idiotic. He said that Greaney had solved the problem on the first day when he said that anyone who wanted to take a lower withdrawal rate could do so. That was of course never the issue in dispute. The issue was whether those of us who believed that a valuations adjustment was required to get the number right should be permitted to say that. Greany understood that, if people became aware of the error in the study, they would lose confidence in it and he did not want that to happen. I don’t believe that Wade came up with those words on his own. I believe that he was afraid that you Goons would do damage to his career (he told me this) and so he agreed to sign on to words that Greaney composed that he obviously did not think had anything to do with the problems we experienced.
Rob
Once again, the research shows that your timing scheme doesn’t work like you say it does.
https://retirementresearcher.com/can-time-risk-premiums/
I don’t buy it, Anonymous. I certainly think that articles like that should be published and that investors should take them into consideration when setting their stock allocation. But the Bennett.Pfau research shows that market timing has been working for as far back as we have good records of stock prices. Market timing (price discipline!) always reduces risk dramatically while also always increasing return dramatically.
I believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research. So that’s what I say that I believe. I believe that we should be permitting honest posting re the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research at every discussion board and blog on the internet, without a single exception.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
It doesn’t matter what you think. You can’t argue with facts and numbers just because you don’t like what it says. If you notice, it was mentioned on Wade’s website.
It matters what I think when it is my name going on a post. If I say things that I do not believe, that’s financial fraud. Not freakin’ interested. If I truly believed that Greaney included a valuation adjustment in the retirement study posted at his web site, I would say that. I truly believe that his study LACKS a valuation adjustment. So that’s what I say instead.
I believe that we should bring all the criminal stuff to a full and complete stuff by the close of business today so that people like Wade felt 100 percent free to post their sincere thoughts. Wade looked at the Greaney study and concluded that it is “dangerous.” I think he’s right.
My best wishes.
Rob