Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
“ When a large and well-respected law firm that wants to take the case on a contingency basis contacts me, I will sit down with them and see what they have to say.”
Which means this will never happen.
I think it will happen, Anonymous. But we will just have to wait and see.
It was surely never going to happen for so long as no one worked up the courage to stand up to you Goons. I put the wheels in motion with my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002. It’s not going to happen unless a few others work up the courage to do similar bold things. I think we are going to see that. I think it is going to take an ocean of human misery to bring it on, which is as unfortunate as all get-out. But I do believe that as a nation of people we are all eventually going to get to the place where deep in our hearts we all (including you Goons, incredibly enough) want to be.
The only part that I control is the part that I play in the working out of the saga. And I did my part. I worked up the courage to push the “Send” button on that famous post. And for 20 years now I have stood by my contention 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. So I’m clean. And that’s all that is within a person’s ambit of power.
I naturally wish you all good things, regardless of what investment strategy you elect to pursue for yourself.
Rob
“ I think it will happen, Anonymous. But we will just have to wait and see.”
It has been 20 years and you are now 65 years old. It’s too late. Money is not going to drop out of the sky. You need money now.
Woe is me. What a predicklement.
Rob
If a buy and holder was 65 years old and had inadequate savings, what would you say then? You keep talking about failed retirements. Is that only applicable to buy and holders?
If the Buy-and-Holder had inadequate savings because a gang of Valuation-Informed Indexers had been engaging in criminal behavior for 20 years to keep thousands of investors who had indicated that they wanted to hear his message from doing so, I would say that those Goons should knock off the funny business and thereby limit the length of their prison sentences a bit.
Rob
I guess you should knock off the criminal behavior then, Rob. After all, the only death threat I can find is the one you made.
Okay, Anonymous. I’ll keep that thought in mind.
Rob
If Robert Shillervor Wade Pfau had depleted their savings, would you tell them to get a job?
I dealt with a situation not too far removed from the one you are describing when you threatened to send defamatory emails to Wade’s employer in an effort to get him fired from his job if he continued to do entirely honest work in this field. He told me that he was afraid that his employer would not care who was right, his employer would just want to being an end to the “controversy” and would fire him if that is what it took to do it. Wade was looking to the future and seeing that to continue to do entirely honest work could well deplete his savings in time.
I didn’t tell him to live in fear. I told him that I thought he would be “insane” to give in to you Goons. It’s not that I was unsympathetic to his plight. I was of course sympathetic. He had worked very hard for many years to attain the stature that he had attained in his field. Why should he have to give that all up because some internet Goon had gotten an important number wrong in a study he had posted to the internet.
My view is that we all live in a society that has laws against people engaging in the sorts of tactics that you Goons have employed to keep people from learning about the error in the Greaney study and that, to feel comfortable continuing to live in that society, we need to show respect for those laws. If I say that I believe that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment, then I am obviously engaging in fraud. There are thounsands of posts with my name on them saying that I believe that the Greaney study LACKS a valuation adjustment. Financial fraud is a crime in the United States. It is a felony. That means prison time. Thanks but no thanks, you know?
We all need to make a living. So I obviously want Shiller and Pfau to be able to make money. I understand that you Goons have demonstrated a power to deny people like me and Wade the ability to make a living if we post our honest views on the internet. I say that all of the people who believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research need to stick together and continue to post honestly regardless of what criminal behavior you Goons engage in.
There is a saying — be the change that you are hoping to see. I think that’s the way to go. Yes, it takes some courage to continue to post honestly in the face of your threats to murder my loved ones and all the rest. But how else are things going to change. I want to be able to sleep at night, I want to enjoy peace of mind. I cannot have that if I pretend that I believe that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment. So I do what I need to do despite the strange and unfortunate circumstances that apply at this moment of time.
I am grateful that I live in a society in which the tactics that you Goons employ are not tolerated as a matter of law. They are tolerated as a practical reality only in the investment advice field. Every American citizen who is thinking clearly should want to change that as soon as possible, both the Valuation-Informed Indexers and the Buy-and-Holders. When we zip it to appease you Goons, we empower you. That’s the worst possible choice for every single person affected by these matters (including you Goons!). That ain’t the way.
I am sure.
My best and warmest wishes to you, Anonymous.
Rob
Wade was never threatened and he has said so. You lie so much that I think you ultimately believe your own lies. Just disgusting.
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow, in any event.
Rob
A wise man once said” You go about it in a manner that is catastrophically unproductive by adding missionary zeal that inflates your importance and demeans others. The whole idea that there is a new school of Safe Withdrawal Rates reeks of personal aggrandizement.”
To bad you ignored him.
I think that there is a new school of safe withdrawal rate analysis. I believe that, if valuation affect long-term returns (as Shiller showed is the case with his Nobel-prize-winning research), then there is precisely zero chance that the safe withdrawal rate is the same number at all valuation levels. It is a number that CHANGES with changes in valuation levels. That’s something new that we learned by doing the research.
Of course we need to as a nation of people give ourselves permission to discuss the amazing how-to implications of the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research. The research doesn’t by its mere existence make us all better investors. We need to talk these things over amongst ourselves to enjoy the learning experience that to our good fortune is now available to us.
I ignored Scott Burns because I think he was wrong re that one. I believe that all of us who care about the future of our country should be doing everything in our power to get every discussion board and blog on the internet opened to honest posting re the past 41 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. That would be a catastrophically productive thing to pull off, in my assessment.
My best wishes to you and yours.
Rob
The internet is already open to honest posting, except for this website. Get help, sicko.
Yeah, yeah.
Rob
An obese person shouldn’t be giving weight loss advice. An alcoholic shouldn’t be giving advice on being sober. A broke guy shouldn’t be giving investment advice.
I think that someone who is so emotional about stock investing that he engsages in criminal behavior to block the discussion of 41 years of peer-reviewed research shouldn’t be claiming that his approach is rational.
Each investor can make his own decision re the other matter. I don’t claim to be a multi-millionaire. If you had not engaged in criminal behavior to block people from hearing what I had to say, I would be. Many, many times over. I think that many people could look at that and say “that’s good enough for me.” But it’s up to the individual investors. I cannot decide for them what they should take into consideration and you cannot decide for them what they should take into consideration.
The fact that it is only Buy-and-Holders who have engaged in criminal behavior is telling, in my assessment. It is always the Valuation-Informed Indexers saying that we should talk about the peer-reviewed research and the Buy-and-Holders objecting to that idea. That’s the thing that matters to me — is there research supporting the strategy? I would say that I would not follow somebody who does not have research and wouldn’t worry so much whether he is a multi-millionarire or not. But I think it is up the individual investor to make that call.
Rob
There is nothing criminal about banning you from boards for any reason. In your case it was also well justified given your bad behavior. As you recall, there was even a board dedicated to documenting your bad behavior. You have to be a real screw up to have a board like that dedicated to your actions.
I agree that it’s an amazing thing. I don’t agree that I’m a screw-up.
I think the screw-up is within the human heart. We all have a desire for something for nothing and Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies play into that. Now we have 41 years of peer-reviewed research taking us in a different direction, a reality-based direction, and we can all live better lives as a result. But the thought of giving up the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold fantasies is very scary. So we are having a hard time making the transition.
I don’t think that we should force people to make the transition. I think we should expose people both to the pre-1981 stuff and the post-1981 stuff and let them make up their own minds. That idea scares the bejeebers out of a lot of Buy-and-Holders. I believe that it is that desperate need to cling to the Get Rich Quick fantasy that is the real screw-up thing here. But we’ll have to see how things play out to figure out in an ultimate sense whether that is so or not.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
Everyone thinks they are right and you can keep shopping around for someone that finally tells you what you want to hear, just to make you feel good about yourself. You need a group of subject matter experts to either confirm or dispute your positions and you can’t just cherry-pick a few comments and spin them to fit your point of view. Beyond that, like any other scientific approach, we can look at outcomes.
Ask yourself if you have a group of experts in your field that publicly back what you say and do? Are your outcomes what you predicted when you set out a plan? Did you see weaknesses along the way and make adjustments?
If the Buy-and-Holders did what you are saying here, every site on the internet would be open to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research.
Shiller is obviously not saying what the Buy-and-Holders say. He wouldn;t have been awarded a Nobel prize for just being one more person saying the same thing. If the market were efficient, irrational exuberance wouldn’t be a thing.
If the Buy-and-Holders were really interested in science, they would want to know how the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research changes our understanding of how stock investing works in the real world. Instead, we get death threats and defamation and acts of extortion. That ain’t science. That’s the OPPOSITE of science.
I was a Buy-and-Holder myself once upon a time. I gave it up on the evening of August 27, 2002.
The thing that the Buy-and-Holders were most right about is that people should be using the peer-reviewed research as their guide.
My sincere take.
Rob
“ If the Buy-and-Holders did what you are saying here, every site on the internet would be open to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research.”
It is. Sites are not open to bad behavior.
Buy-and-Holders consider it bad behavior to point out that the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies lack a valuation adjustment.
In any other field of human endeavor, pointing out an error in a study people are using to plan their lives would be considered wonderful behavior. In the old days, the Buy-and-Holder thought that the peer-reviewed research should be taken into consideration when making investment decisions. In 1981, it suddenly became “bad behavior.” I wonder why.
Rob
Everyone else is always wrong, right Rob? Last I checked, you are the one with the depleted savings.
Not everyone is wrong. The thousands of our fellow community members who expressed a desire that honest posting re the peer-reviewed research be permitted at every discussion board and blog are right. The people who awardeed Shiller a Nobel prize for his amazing research are right. The people who joined together to adopt laws making it a felony to advance death threats or to engage in extortion are right. Wade Pfau was right when he declared after 16 months of research that: “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!”
The Buy-and-Holders were wrong when they concluded (before Shiller’s research was published) that it might not be necessary for every stock investor to engage in market timing (price discipline!) at all times. The sooner they acknowledge their error, the better it will be for every person living on Planet Earth. It won’t happen by all of the Valuation-Informed Indexers living in fear of you Goons.
Rob
You have no supporters and no money, but you somehow think that telling the same lies is the way to go. Unbelievable.
Call me mdcap, Anonymous.
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow, in any event.
Rob
“ I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow, in any event.”
Really? You wish me the best, yet you tell me I will lose my money and be in prison because of some delusional fantasy you have. Get a grip on reality.
I believe that the odds are good that you will end up in a prison cell in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis But I intend to do everything in my power to see that that prison sentence is as short as possible given the circumstances that apply.
I believe that the best argument I have available to me is that, had Greaney’s study not existed, lots of people at the Motley Fool board would have been using a withdrawal rate HIGHER than 4 percent. The Greaney study got the number wrong. But he got closer than what a lot of people who were not exposed to the study were thinking at the time was the number. I believe that the members of your jury may be inclineed to show a liitle mercy after taking that reality into consideration.
We’ll see.
Rob
You are sick. You need to get help.
Because I sincerely believe 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 and because after three years I worked up the courage to say so because I saw the damage that failing to say so was doing to the board community.
Rob
Sadly, your response is more of the same.
Every post since the one that I advanced on the morning of May 13, 2002, has been more of the same. I truly do not believe that the Greaney retirement study contains a valuation adjustment. So I stick with that. I checked pretty darn carefully before I hit the “Send” button on that one.
Rob
You believe you have come up with one of the most significant findings in our life time. You believe there has been a mass conspiracy against you. You believe that thousands of people are in support of you’ve though they have never said so, but are just too afraid to post anonymously. You believe that after some huge market crash that congress will conduct an investigation, which will lead to stories in The New York Times and, ultimately, catapult you to a major public figure leading the way to solving the world’s financial crisis. You believe that many leading law firms will then compete to take on your case and that you will either settle for a modest $500 million payment or take it through courts for Billions and make you one of the wealthiest people alive today. You believe that leading experts will want put you to be the keynote speaker at leading investment conferences. You believe that all those people that have disagreed with you in the past will lose all or most of their money and will spend much of their remaining days in prison unless you intervene in a manner to reduce their time locked up. You believe that all of the community boards will be turned over to you and that you will lead these boars or some kind of consortium and that market timing will be the key discussion point on ALL boards.
Have I got all that right? Did I miss anything or fail to clarify anything?
It was Shiller’s finding that valuations affect long-term returns, not mine. There is a reason why that research finding caused him to be awarded a Nobel prize in Economics. That finding changes everything that we once thought we knew about stock investing. There were once smart people who believed that it is not necessaery for all investors to practice market timing (price discipline!) at all times. If valuations affect long-term returns, stock investing risk is not stable but variable. Investors who wish to maintain the same risk profile over time have no choice but to practice market timing. There is no other way to get the job done.
My contribution has been to for 20 years (and counting) lead the effort to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the paat 41 years of peer-reviwed resarch, without a single exception. As amazing as it is, Shiller’s research by itself accomplshes nothing. We have seen higher CAPE values in the days since publication of his research than we saw in the days before its publication. For the research to make all of our lives better, we need as a nation to give ourselves permission to examine its far-reaching how-to implications at every site on the internet. The goal is to overcome the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge that resides within every one of us. It takes regular reminders of the long-term dangers of Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold to do that.
The conspiracy is not against Rob Bennett per se. The conspiracy is against human rationality. Shiller pointed us to a grown-up way to invest, a rational way. a true research-based way. When that way catches on, there will be no more bull markets or bear markets or economic crises. Because Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies will no longer be popular. Shiller’s research findings are a threat to the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold approach to thinking about the stock investing project. Rationality/research/logic/common sense is a threat to the emotional ways of thinking about this project. The conspiracy is a condpiracy of ignorance. It is like the conspiracy against healthy eating habits. Everyone knows that it is better to have a healthy diet. But there is a conspiracy of ignorance leading them in a different direction.
The boards will not be turned over to me. They will be turned over to the people who post at them. Yes, I will be able to post my honest views. But everyone else will as well. People who believe in Buy-and-Hold will be able to post their honest views as well. They will not be able to engage in criminal behavior to intimidate those who believe that Shiller’s research findings are legitimate. The same laws that apply in every other field of human behavior will be made applicable in the investing advice realm as well. And we will all get to live far better and richer lives from that point forward as a result.
Make sense?
Rob
“ My contribution has been to for 20 years (and counting) lead the effort to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the paat 41 years of peer-reviwed resarch, without a single exception.”
20 years spinning the same lie.
The thing that you refer to as a “lie” is my belief that valuations affect long-term returns. There is now 41 years of peer-reviewed research showing that is a reality. Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize for his research showing that to be a reality. It is my sincere belief that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research.
Rob
You lie in every post. Take the last one, for example. Your opinion on what one guy said does not constitute 41 years of peer reviewed research.
Okay, Anonymous.
Rob