“There Is a Price to be Paid for Telling the Truth About Stock Investing During an Insane Bull Market”

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

Gee Rob.  You must be right because you have such a massive investment portfolio and you are keynote speaker at every key investment meeting.  Just look at all the comments your followers post on this board.  How do you ever keep up with such a volume?  I guess managing that big pile of money, keeping up with all those speaking engagement and responding to all your fans leaves you no time to go out and get a job.

I posted honestly re what the past 40 years of peer-reviewed research teaches us all about how to calculate the safe withdrawal rate, Anonymous. That’s worth something.

A bull market is a liar’s market. During a bull market, we all get together and say “I’ll pretend that stocks are worth such and such if you will pretend too but we all have to agree to slam anyone who dares to cross us by posting real numbers.” There is a price to be paid for telling the truth about stock investing during an insane bull market and I have paid that price. So be it, you know?

I believe that the day is coming when we will permit honest posting re the past 40 years of research at every discussion board and blog on the internet, without a single exception. I don’t think that we have any choice but to go there. The effects of not going there will just be too horrible, in the event that stocks continue to perform in the future at least somewhat as they always have in the past.

The core dispute is — Are stock investors 100 percent rational or are they at times highly emotional? All that we have seen from the Buy-and-Holders for 19 years now is an insane level of emotion. what does that tell us re the question of whether Shiller is right or not? You know what I think it tells us.

I did right by my fellow community members. That means something to me. So that’s what I did. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, no one would be pressured to pretend that they believe in it. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, the Buy-and-Holders would want people who had doubts about it to express their honest views so that they could hear those challenges and address them.

That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.

I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.

Rob