Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
“What I say is that the Greaney retirement study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.”
Everyone agrees.
No-one has ever claimed that the Greaney retirement study contains a valuation adjustment.
I am glad to hear that everyone agrees that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment, Evidence.
Can you please explain why Greaney has not to this day correscted the study?
Can you also please explain why everyone has not insisted that he do so?
People use retirement studies to plan retirements, do they not? It is important to use the right numbers in retirement planning, is it not?
After 19 years of this, I know that you are not going to give a straight answer. I ask anyway because it would be super helpful if you did. Those two questions are the entire deal. In every field of human endeavor other than the investing advice filed, experts make an effort to give correct answers and the people asking the questions appreciate that effort. I think it would be fair to say that we have not seen much appreciation for correct answers in this field over the past 19 years. There have been exceptions. About 10 percent of the population of investors has evidenced a GREAT appreciation for correct answers. But the other 90 percent either tolerates incorrect answers or endorses them enthusiastically. I believe that we all need to work together to see this change. I think that we need to apply the same cultural norms that work so well in all other fields of human endeavor in the investment advice realm as well.
That is my sincere take.
I naturally wish you all good things.
Rob
Can you explain why people need to be answering the same question for 19 years?
Because as a nation we are stuck in place. Out understanding of how stock investing works changed in a fundamental way in 1981. We went from thinking that market timing doesn’t work to seeing that it is always 100 percent required. A national debate re the far-reaching implications of Shiller’s amazing research should have been launched at that time. It didn’t happen. I believe that the advance was so huge that people couldn’t process it. Cognitive dissonance made it impossible for us all to begin improving our lives.
It’s even worse today. There’s now a 40-year cover-up to take into consideration. If the Buy-and-Holders were reluctant to acknowledge their mistakes when I was discovered in the peer-reviewed research, they are really, really, really reluctant to acknowledge it now. Those who appreciate what the research says understand that the continued promotion of Buy-and-Hold (no market timing!) is going to cause a fifth economic crisis. But what are they supposed to do about it? If they give voice to their honest beliefs, the Buy-and-Hold Goon Squads will destroy their careers and threaten to murder their loved ones. Most of us have elected to keep it zipped for the time-being.
I believe that the ocean of human misery that we will see following the next price crash may help some of us to work up the courage to stand up to you Goons. Then we all get to live better lives from that point forward. But for the time being we are trapped. It’s sad as sad can be. But the good news here is 50 times more good than the bad news here is bad. Think of how good it is going to be for all of us when the same laws that apply in every field of human endeavor other than the investment advice field apply in the investment advice field. Higher returns! Less risk! For each and every one of us! Just like the peer-reviewed research that I co-authored with Wade Pfau shows! I have a funny feeling that there won’t be one person on the planet who will not agree that it was worth the wait.
Fair enough?
Rob
“ Fair enough?”
No, because you are wrong and it has been explained to you thousands of times.
“I am going to murder your wife and children if you continue to point out 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” is not an explanation. It is an act of intimidation. Not at all the same thing.
Rob