Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
It doesn’t matter what the question is. The answer is always the same. Which is what makes this odd site so pointless.
What color is the sky?
Shiller! Greaney! Honest posting!
If irrational exuberance is a real thing, you need to take it into consideration in every decision that you make about stock investing.
Shiller changed our understanding of how stock investing works in a fundamental way. That’s the story.
Once enough of us insist that honest posting be permitted (and encouraged!) at every internet site, we will all be living better and richer lives from that point forward. Good for us, you know?
Rob
We are only a few days away from August. Will you be announcing the completion of your book and the start of your job search?
The book will not be finished by August 1. My new deadline is the end of the year.
Rob
Does that mean the job search is delayed as well?
Yes.
Writing the book is my job. I view it as the most important job that anyone in the United States is working today. The Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold stuff is killing us as a society. We all should be working together to move on. Writing the book is my contribution. I want to be sure to do what I can.
Rob
How will you then pay the bills?
I have enough put aside to pay the bills for some time. And of course I expect to receive huge compensation ($500 million) after we experience the next price crash and realize from the horrors of the experience that widespread promotion of the pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold “strategy” is not such a hot idea. My view is that the key to being well-compensated financially is doing work that adds great value to the world. It would be hard to think of anything that adds more value than making it possible for people to plan effectively for their retirement. That’s doubly so when opposition to the spreading of the knowledge that is required is so fierce.
If my stuff did not offer amazing value to the world, you Goons would not have devoted 19 years of your lives to holding me back. So even your abusive behavior tells the story that most needs to be told. It’s not easy money that I am making, that’s for sure. There are thousands of easier ways to turn a buck. But, if you are looking to do good in the world while also earning an amazing amount of compensation, I don’t think you will ever come across a bigger opportunity than taking on the project of opening every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the past 40 years of peer-reviewed research in the investment advice field.
Rob
“My new deadline is the end of the year.”
As with so many things, you have a weak grasp on the concept of “deadline”. Deadlines have consequences for being missed. The book is more along the lines of a new years resolution. Something you briefly pay lip service to, and then fail to deliver, as everyone expects.
I have a poor record re the self-imposed deadlines for completion of the book. The other side of the story is that no one else has written a book telling this story. So I am ahead of every other soul residing on Planet Earth today. When you look at it that way, it doesn’t sound so bad.
It’s not an intellectually difficult project. It is an EMOTIONALLY difficult project. Say that I were to get everything that I want by the close of business tomorrow. A reporter from the New York Times says that he wants to publish a ten-part series on the front page detailing the 40-year cover-up and describing all of the criminal stuff that we have seen and telling people about the amazing how-to implications of Shiller’s Nobel prize-winning research. Sounds pretty good for me. right? What would happen? We would see an economic crises, perhaps a Second Great Depression.
That’s what makes this so hard. My job as the person writing this up is to make the best possible case for Valuation-Informed Indexing. I should want the sentences to be hard-hitting. But, if they do their job of persuading millions of middle-class investors of the merit of following a research-based investment strategy, there are almost certainly going to cause an economic crisis. I don’t want to cause an economic crises! So there is a part of me that holds back, that doesn’t want to go there. I think that that’s true of everyone. We want to tell the truth. But, given the spot that the relentless promotion of Buy-and-Hold has put us in, we also do NOT want to tell the truth.
So it has been a hard journey. I think it will end up being worth it 50 times over, though. I doubt that there will be one person who will be wishing that we could go back to the Buy-and-Hold days once we have opened every site on the internet to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. The transition is very, very, very difficult. But the end point will be well worth all the trouble.
Or so this fellow who often forgets to take his meds sincerely believes, in any event.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Obviously it’s too emotionally difficult to ever be done. Obviously you go weeks or months without writing a word. So why do you keep broadcasting these meaningless deadlines? Just say you’ll get around to it someday. Like, by December 2040 for sure.
It’s tough. But I believe that I will get it done.
We’ll see.
Take care, my dear Goon friend.
Rob
“I have enough put aside to pay the bills for some time.”
So now you say that you don’t really need to work? What changed?
I have always said that I would get a job after the book is finished.
It would be insane to throw away a $500 million payday to get s small amount of money coming in a few months sooner.
What matters here is getting every discussion board and blog on the internet opened to honest posting re the past 40 years of peer-reviewed research in this field, without a single exception. I do that and I am one of the richest people on planet Earth. I fail to do that and I am pretty much screwed. Everything else is of tiny significance compared to that.
And that’s always been the case. This is not a news flash. I never would have let things get to a place where I was banned from the Motley Fool board if I didn’t think that it was a matter of critical importance that millions of middle-class investors be provided access to accurate and honest information re the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.
Rob
You plan on getting $500 million from the book? If that is the case, why work at all?
I am hoping you can explain how you actually get the $500 million. What has to happen and who will be giving you the $500 million? Is this now coming from anticipated book sales?
You plan on getting $500 million from the book? If that is the case, why work at all?
Once I have the check in hand, I will be working to spread the word re Valuation-Informed Indexing.
We are obviously facing exceedingly strange circumstances where we have a group of internet goons engaging in criminal behavior to stop millions of investors from learning about peer-reviewed research that they very much need to know about and that they have expressed a desire to know about. So long as that remains the case, it makes perfect sense to earn some income until the price crash arrives and every site is opened to honest posting. The entire thing is crazy, from start to finish. We all benefit from knowing how stock investing works. But in these circumstances I see nothing odd about bringing in some money so long as that effort does not interfere with the project that matters — opening every site on the internet to honest posting re the past 40 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.
A better question is — Why did you elect to engage in criminal behavior because someone on the internet has a different opinion about what works in stock investing and thousands of people expressed a great interest in hearing what that person had to say? That’s the weird one.
Rob
I am hoping you can explain how you actually get the $500 million. What has to happen and who will be giving you the $500 million? Is this now coming from anticipated book sales?
You knew the answers to this one on the morning of May 13, 20032, or else you never would have engaged in a single criminal act.
For a group of internet goons to invest 19 years of their lives to blocking people from hearing an investing message that they have expressed a desire to hear, there must be value in that message of a lot more than $500 million. That ain’t normal behavior.
We agree on the value of the message. Our dispute is that I want to provide to people the message that they have expressed a desire to hear while you want to block them from hearing it. I believe that, in the days following the next price crash, the demand for the message will become great enough that you will not be able to suppress it any longer.
We’ll see.
Rob
Do you really think anyone is stupid enough to believe even one thing you say anymore. You have burned very bridge and have destroyed any credibility you thought you might have one had.
If there hadn’t been lots of people (about 10 percent of the population of community members) who said that I was the first person who they ever heard who described how stock investing works in a way that made complete sense, you never would have insisted that I be banned from every board. If large numbers of posters did not find Valuation-Informed Indexing as very exciting, you would not have seen me as a threat.
I will continue posting honestly. Re safe withdrawal rates and re scores of other critically important investment-related topics.
My best wishes.
Rob