Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Is there anyone in the investment world that is considered to be a thought leader or expert that will even speak with you anymore?
There’s no one who speaks with me, Anonymous.
That’s the problem. Say that everyone who believes that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research posted honestly every day all over the internet. If that were the case, Wade Pfau would not have been intimidated by the acts of extortion that you Goons employed to shut him up. So there were people who censored themselves before Wade came on the scene that made him feel unsafe to stand up to you Goons. And now that he capitulated to your criminal tactics, there have been people who came after him who kept THEIR mouths shuts. The longer the cover-up continues, the harder it becomes to overcome it. The longer the cover-up continues, the more people there are who would be upset to see it exposed.
It’s been 40 years. So we have gotten ourselves into quite the pickle. But it’s not as if this is going to get easier by having the cover-up extended to 41 years. If each of us had insisted on our right to post honestly going back to the first day, things would have gone better for every single person affected by these matters. The answer is not to throw your hands up in the air and go along with the cover-up. The answer is to insist on your right to post honestly, as we all should have been doing all along.
Do you see?
Rob
“There’s no one who speaks with me, Anonymous.”
The problem is either you, or it is everyone else (mass conspiracy). Which is more likely?
The problem is human nature. We all want something for nothing, We all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge residing within us. It takes a lot of effort to rein it in. If we were all thinking clearly, we would insist that those working in the investment advice field devote 70 percent of their efforts to helping us to understand the dangers of Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold. But of course the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge causes us to love, love, love Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold. So we often celebrate irrational exuberance rather than disdaining it.
All that said, we are close. Shiller’s research was published in a peer-reviewed journal. His book was a best-seller. He was awarded a Nobel prize. We have seen thousands of our fellow community members express a desire that honest posting re the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research be permitted at every discussion board and blog on the internet. We have a common-sense desire to know what the research says that is not quite as strong as our Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge but that is also quite strong and that would clearly end up being much stronger if it could be fortified in a daily basis by honest posting at every internet site.
I believe that our common sense desire to know what the research says will overcome out destructive Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge in the days following the next price crash, when we can see with our own eyes just how much human misery can be caused by letting our Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge run wild.
The battle is being fought within the minds and hearts of each investor. We all have minds that help us to see the benefit of following the peer-reviewed research. And we all have emotions that cause Buy-and-Hold strategies to appear to possess more appeal for the length of an insane bull market. I believe that this sage will have a happy ending. But we will have to wait until the insane bull market comes to an end to know for sure.
Fair enough?
Rob
So you are saying the mass conspiracy is more likely. Got it.
I am saying that the humans are flawed creatures, that much is certainly fair to say.
I am also saying the Shiller’s Nobel=prize-winning research shows us how to overcome some of our flaws and thereby to live far better and richer (in every sense of the word) lives in the future than we have ever been able to live in the past. I say that we should permit discussion of his amazing research findings at every site on the internet, without a single exception.
And I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow.
Rob
Cuz we all jest toooo stupid and need to edumacate ourselves, right?
Are all the people who have bad diets and die of heart attacks stupid?
Are all the people who smoke and get cancer stupid?
Are all the people who drive drunk and end up in the hospital stupid?
Yes, we are stupid. And we are also smart. We had to be pretty darn smart to award Shiller a Nobel prize for his amazing research, did we not. I prefer to focus on the things that we have done that are smart over the things that we have done that are stupid. I would open every internet site to honest posting. I would like to buy the “idea” that market timing is not required in the Graveyard of Failed Marketing Gimmicks. We are smart enough to see through. But it makes us more vulnerable to the marketing pitch when we never hear the “idea” being challenged.
Rob
Not everyone has a bad diet. Only some. Not everyone smokes. Only some. Not everyone drives drunk. Only some. Yet everyone but you is stupid when it comes to investing. Got it.
Not so. Our 19 years of discussions show that 10 percent of the population of investors believes that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research. And they are 100 percent happy to help us come to a better understanding of the subject of stock investing PROVIDED that the laws of the United States are enforced in the same manner in the investing advice realm as they are in every other realm of human endeavor. That means no death threats and no demands for unjustified board bannings and no thousands of acts of defamation and no acts of extortion directed at academic researchers who “cross” the Buy-and-Holders by doing honest research.
The criminal stuff scares people. To move forward, we need to decide as a society to do something about the Buy-and-Hold Goon problem. I believe it will happen in the days following the next price crash. I sure hope so.
Fair enough?
Rob
So 90% are stupid. Okay, where are the 10%? Why are they not here backing you up? Why are they not on the other boards promoting VII? 10% would be hundreds of thousands of people, if not in the millions. Should we at least see a few thousand promoting VII? How do you explain the remaining 90% all being dumb as well?
90 percent are today uninformed, They wouldn’t remain uniformed for long if we opened every site on the internet to honest posting. Saying that they are “stupid” is blaming the victims. That 90 percent doesn’t want to remain uniformed. They remain uninformed today because of the criminal behavior of you Goons.
If we opened every site to honest posting, we would indeed have thousands of people promoting Valuation-Informed Indexing and then hundreds of thousands and then millions. We need to start by permitting honest posting at a single site. Freakin’ John Bogle was afraid of you Goons, He had a post saying that he could see how Valuation-Informed Indexing could work. Why didn’t he post that a second time and then a third and then a fourth? Like everybody else, he was afraid of what Mel Limdauer and his Goon Squad would do to him if he posted his sincere thoughts. People who live in the United States are not accustomed to seeing the lives of their loved ones threatened. It is scary behavior.
Rob
“ They remain uninformed today because of the criminal behavior of you Goons.”
So a handful of people you call goons can outwit their millions of people you say are uninformed. They would have to be stupid to have that happen. There is no other explanation when just thinking about the size of that group.
Are people who eat too many carbs stupid?
Are people who smoke stupid?
Are people who drink too much stupid?
These people want to believe in Buy-and-Hold. Their hopes for retirement are riding on it. The the investor who needs $1 million to retire and who has $900,000 in his portfolio according to the Buy-and-Hold numbers. He is thinking that he just might make it, A few more years of saving and good returns and he is there. Now say that Valuation-Informed Indexing becomes the dominant model and he comes to understand that the true value of his portfolio is $400,000, not $900,000. That guy has a very, very, very strong incentive to believe in Buy-and-Hold no matter how much if defies common sense to believe that this is the only market that ever existed in which price discipline is not 100 percent required,
That guy us not stupid, He is vulnerable. He is scared about bis financial future.
Should we be exploiting his vulnerabilities by making money of it? Or should we permit the guy to hear about the last 40 years of research in this field and make up his own mind as to whether to go with a pure Get Rich Quick approach to stock investing or not? You know what I think.
Rob
With your 90% estimate, they are either stupid or it is a mass conspiracy. Pick one.
Uh Oh. New research says that Rob Bennett’s VII strategy is flawed.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/the-price-to-earnings-ratio-is-flawed-as-a-stock-market-indicator-this-is-how-to-make-it-more-accurate/ar-AAMtFVI
With your 90% estimate, they are either stupid or it is a mass conspiracy. Pick one.
I say that they’re humans. They are imperfect creatures. But they are working on it.
Rob
Uh Oh. New research says that Rob Bennett’s VII strategy is flawed.
There’s nothing to “uh oh” about. I say that we should be permitting honest posting by everyone, Valuation-Informed Indexers and Buy-and-Holders alike, That’s how we all learn together.
Rob
“There’s nothing to “uh oh” about. I say that we should be permitting honest posting by everyone, Valuation-Informed Indexers and Buy-and-Holders alike, That’s how we all learn together.”
Didn’t you read it? It was based on peer-reviewed research? Aren’t they posting honestly?
I think they’re posting honestly. We all are biased a bit by our core beliefs. One group will interpret a piece of research one way and another will interpret it a little differently. That’s healthy. That’s how you gradually work your way to the truth over time. We need to follow that procedure in the investment advice field. There are millions of people who believe in Buy-and-Hold and they seem to be without fail smart people. So we want them participating in discussions, advancing articles like that one. That’s a big plus, It is ALSO a big plus to have Valuation-Informed Indexers challenging them, causing them to sharpen their thinking over time.
That’s what works. I am sure.
A nice bonus is that no one ends up going to prison following a price crash.
Do you see?
Rob
We stoopid poeple are lucki to have sooper smart Rob Bennett to edumucate us morons on investing.
Yeah, yeah,
My view is that we are all lucky to have each other. So long as we all respect the right of all the rest of us to post honestly, we all get to enjoy a great learning experience which over time permits us to live better and richer and more fulfilled lives. Good for us, you know?
My best wishes to you, Anonymous.
Rob
Out of the ENTIRE investment community, we have 10% that are the smart ones that understand VII, but are too scared to say anything as they fear these so called and unknown “goons”. Then we have the remaining 90% that are the stupid and uniformed members of the investment community that Rob needs full and unfettered access to the entire internet so that he can properly educate them. Got it.
Death threats are not normal, Anonymous.
Demands for unjustified board bannings are not normal.
Thousands of acts of defamation are not normal.
Acts of extortion aimed at academic researchers who “cross” the Buy-and-Holders by doing honest work are not normal.
Yes, people are scared. Most people have never seen these sorts of things before.
If all of these people had a complete understanding of the implications of Shiller’s research, they would speak up anyway. But they do not. To gain a complete understanding, you need to talk things over with other interested parties. And that is the very thing that the Buy-and-Holders will not tolerate.
If things were on the up-and-Up, Greaney would have corrected his retirement study within 24 hours of learning of the error he made in it. That would be the normal thing. The fact that the study has not been corrected in 19 years tells you that some very strange stuff is going on in the investment advice field. If we get past the ugly stuff following the next price crash, we will see the greatest economic boon in U.S. history. If we can’t get past the ugly stuff even then, we may see our economic system go down altogether. Out system cannot survive indefinitely if we do not provide some access to accurate and honest information on how stock investing works to millions of middle-class investors. I think we will pull if off after the crash. We’ll see.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours in any event, my dear Goon friend.
Rob
Here you are, over the age of 60, living in the land of make believe with the silly stories on death threat, etc. Meanwhile, you are run through savings and have destroyed your social security benefits by avoiding work. You have no relevant work experience as you haven’t had a job in about 2 decades, so any job your could possibly land would pay a very minimum income. To provide for retirement, your plan revolves around some fantasy of a $500 million windfall.
Yet here you are preaching to everyone about investing for retirement. Really????
I believe that we need to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. The fact that I have been denied an income for 19 years because I “crossed” the Buy-and-Holders by posting honestly re the error in the Greaney retirement study shows how important it is that we all insist on our right to post honestly. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, the Buy-and-Holders would WELCOME challenges to their ideas.
The fact that someone could be denied an income for 19 years solely for posting honestly re an error in a Buy-and-Hold retirement study is very scary stuff. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, there never would have been any “controversy” re any of this. The Greaney study would have been corrected IMMEDIATELY.
That is my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.
My best wishes to you.
Rob