Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Like the example given before, it is like saying my car doesn’t have a microwave oven and then wanting to open all boards on the internet to honest posting posting that discusses all the aspects of using a microwave oven in your car.
If my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002, had been about microwave ovens, we wouldn’t have seen scores of our fellow community members saying that I had launched the most exciting discussion ever held in the history of that board.
Rob
Your post wasn’t famous and you exaggerate community members reaction. At the end of the thread, you apologized for being wrong. You can’t rewrite history.
The post was certainly famous. There had never been a post in the history of the Retire Early board that generated a reaction even 1/20th as strong as the reaction that we saw to that one. When I attended my first FinCon events, I had people coming up to me in the hallways saying “So YOU’RE that guy!” Here we are 20 years later and you’re still talking about it. That’s famous!
I don;t exaggerate community reaction even a tiny bit. It was 10 percent that wanted to hear more about Valuation-Informed Indexing. That was so in every board community. If you opened up a large community today to honest posting, you would get something in the vicinity of 10 percent finding merit in it. I’ve seen the same basic pattern repeat too many times to believe different.
I did indeed apologize for being wrong. That just shows how strong the social pressure is to go along with Buy-and-Hold. I’m not proud of it. I am ashamed of it. But one good thing about the experience is that it helps me to understand what others are going through when they fail to stand up to you Goons. We humans are social creatures. We have something deep inside us that makes us not want to be pariahs. That’s how you get bull market. You couldn’t have a bull market survive for very long if we all didn’t have something deep inside us that makes us want to go along with the majority. We eventually all break down and become a part of the mob. That’s why bull markets are so destructive.
My sincere take.
Rob
We can all read the thread. Exaggeration is your middle name.
Okay, Anonymous.
Rob
You are such a famous and popular guy, yet you can’t get even one supporter here.
It’s not fair!
How popular do you think the people were who called for racial equality in small Southern towns in the 1950s were?
We all want to live better lives. We all want higher returns while taking on less risk. We all want to do away with these horrible economic crises that for some strange reason always follow time-period in which the Buy-and-Hold “strategy” has become popular. But not too many of us feel comfortable saying those three magic words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.” So for the time-being we are stuck in this awful place where Goons like you call the tune. Yuck, you know?
We are close, Anonymous. 10 percent is not a majority. But 10 percent is a significant percentage of the population. 10 percent of investors is tens of millions of people. I think that the next price crash might pull that up to 20 percent and then we will be off to the races. I don’t think that you Goons will be able to stop the History Train from moving forward once we get to 20 percent. And I don’t think that there will be too many looking back with the fondness to the Buy-and-Hold Era once we have all experienced something 20 times better. “Oh, I so much miss inaccurate safe withdrawal rate studies! Oh, to go back to the days when you never knew when you were going to see half of your lifetime savings disappear into smoke!”
I think we are a good people and that we will move forward when the pain of going with the pure Get Rich Quick./Buy-and-Hold approach becomes too great to us to continue making excuses for not doing so. But we’ll see, you know. I don’t get them all right. I could be wrong. But I don’t think I am, you know?
My best wishes to you and yours, in any event.
Rob
“But not too many of us feel comfortable saying those three magic words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.””
You have resisted using those words for almost 20 years now.
I don’t think that I am wrong about market timing. But I acknowledge that I COULD be. We all engage in self-deception. So the person who is wrong is often the last one to see it. The sensible way to deal with that reality is to permit all community members to post their honest views and hope that following that procedure permits the truth to reveal itself in time.
I am SURE! (just joking)
My best wishes to you, Evidence.
Rob
There is an easy way to tell if you are wrong. 10 years is considered long term. If you look back at your financial condition and predictions from 10 years ago, how well have you done since then? I was right and am doing great. How about you?
If you count the $500 million that I will receive for leading the charge for Valuation-Informed Indexing (Buy-and-Hold with market timing added to the mix) for 20 years, I am far ahead financiallyy.
If you don’t count the $500 million, you are showing an insane level of bias. Say that there is just a i in 100 chance that the Greaney retirement study really does lack a valuation adjustment, just as I have been saying for 20 years now. If that’s so, then the 20-year cover-up is the most important public policy issue before out nation today. It was not only people at the Retire Early board who were using the 4 percent rule to plan their retirements. That rule was frequently cited in newspaper articles on how to construct a retirement plan. There were MILLIONS of people who were taken in by it. A failed retirement is a serious life setback. I had every intention of getting ALL of the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies corrected after Greaney corrected his study.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow, Anonymous.
Rob
“ If you don’t count the $500 million, you are showing an insane level of bias. ”
We can all make up insane stories of riches, but we can only measure what we actually have.
“ If you don’t count the $500 million, you are showing an insane level of bias.”
Are you able to pay your bills with that $500 million dream? It’s only real if it shows up in your bank account. It would be insane to plan a retirement around something you don’t have.
Rob,
You have a greater chance of winning the Powerball lottery versus getting the $500 million. The odds of that are 1 in 292 million. Would you count that in your numbers?
We can all make up insane stories of riches, but we can only measure what we actually have.
I have Evidence saying that he believes that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment.
Rob
You have a greater chance of winning the Powerball lottery versus getting the $500 million. The odds of that are 1 in 292 million. Would you count that in your numbers?
The odds of Evidence being willing to say that he believes that the Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment if he truly believed that it contained a valuation adjustment are LESS than 1 in 292 million.
My sincere take.
Rob
“ I have Evidence saying that he believes that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment.”
You miss the important part. Evidence, like everyone else but you, says it doesn’t NEED a valuation adjustment. You don’t even understand why.
I believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-wining research showing that valuations affect long-term returns is legitimate research.
Do you?
Rob
Yet you ignore what Evidence REALLY said about Greaney’s work. Why do you leave that part out?
He has said on numerous occasions that he does not believe that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment.
You are referring to the fact that he sometimes adds some language about hot dog stands. Aspiring retirees do not need to know about hot dog stands. They need to know whether Greaney got the numbers wrong in his retirement study. I posted honestly re that matter in my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002. Hence the Greaney Goon freak-out that has continued to this day.
My best wishes, etc.
Rob
“ If you count the $500 million that I will receive for leading the charge for Valuation-Informed Indexing (Buy-and-Hold with market timing added to the mix) for 20 years, I am far ahead financiallyy.”
You have a better chance of being the next starting pitcher for the New York Yankees versus getting even one dime of that $500 million.
You have a better chance of being the next starting pitcher for the New York Yankees versus getting even one dime of that $500 million.
So you say, Anonymous. What do you think my chances were on the morning of May 13, 2002, of finding an academic researcher with a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton who was willing to devote 16 months of his life to researching my ideas on how stock investing works and to conclude at the end of that research project that: “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!”
Rob
“ So you say, Anonymous. What do you think my chances were on the morning of May 13, 2002, of finding an academic researcher with a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton who was willing to devote 16 months of his life to researching my ideas on how stock investing works and to conclude at the end of that research project that: “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!””
Wade Pfau does not push timing schemes. Look at his website. You have a track record of misquoting people and/or outright lying about what they said (just like you have done with Evidence). Notice that Wade will not talk to you and how you make up stories about him being threatened. Many of us have talked to Wade and know of the damage you have caused him. Wade never “devoted” his life, as you put it. Here was merely communicating with you and then after going through your typical pattern of Hocomania, he realized you are a nutjob.
If Wade had never been threatened for promoting market timing, he would still be doing it today. He was so excited by what he learned from his research that he told me that he couldn’t sleep at night. He didn’t say that he was excited about Valuation-informed Indexing one time, he said it dozens of times. And all that Valuation-Informed Indexing is is Buy-and-Hold with market timing added. That the entire story.
That’s the entire 20 years. We made a mistake as a society back in the 1960s in jumping to the hasty conclusion that market timing might not always be 100 percent required (there was peer-reviewed research showing that one form of market timing, short-term timing, doesn’t work) and then research was published showing that long-term timing always works and is always required and then we spent 40 years covering up the error so that we don’t need to say those horrible words “I” and “Was’ and “Wrong.”
I think that we are a good people. I think that we will make it to the other side. And I believe that Wade Pfau will be back with the good guys advocating market timing (price discipline!) once he sees that it is safe to do so.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
Wade said he was never threatened. You keep making claims, yet never provide the links showing proof. No one is buying the garbage you are trying to sell.
A simple way to prove that what I am saying is so is to take a look at the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site and see whether you can find a valuation adjustment in it. I pointed out the error in a post that I put to a Motley Fool discussion board on the morning of May 13, 2002.
My best wishes.
Rob
” Say that there is just a i in 100 chance that the Greaney retirement study really does lack a valuation adjustment, just as I have been saying for 20 years now.”
But there isn’t a 1 in 100 chance that it lacks a valuation adjustment, there is a 100 in 100 chance that it lacks a valuation adjustment.
You have admitted that Greaney’s study accurately calculated the inflation adjusted withdrawal rate that survived all periods in the historical record.
You’ll get no argument from me re anything you say in that comment, Evidence.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
“You’ll get no argument from me re anything you say in that comment, Evidence.”
But what we will get from you is endless repetition about Greaney’s study not containing valuation adjustments.
Despite the fact that no-one ever claimed it did.
Greaney claimed that his study identified the safe withdrawal rate. Why lie about such a thing? A failed retirement is a serious life setback.
My sincere take.
Rob
“Why lie about such a thing?”
He didn’t lie. You are just upset that you haven’t been able to persuade anyone to adopt your terminology.
Okay. Well, please mark me down as saying that Greaney should have corrected the error in the study within 24 hours of the moment that it was brought to his attention.
I naturally wish you all good things, in any event.
Rob