Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
You want to work together? Really? That means you to listen to what others say, yet you don’t. What is your real definition of “working together” in your eyes?
To work together, we all need to have enough respect for each other to post our honest views. If someone sincerely believes that Buy-and-Hold is a good strategy, he should say that. If someone sincerely believes that Buy-and-Hold is a dangerous strategy, he should say that. I respect you for saying that Buy-and-Hold is a good strategy (although I obviously do not agree). I do not believe that you respect me for saying that Buy-and-Hold is a dangerous strategy.
Rob
“ I do not believe that you respect me for saying that Buy-and-Hold is a dangerous strategy.”
Wrong. The reason I don’t respect you is that you don’t listen to others, you delete their posts, you are abusive to many people and you failed to financially support your family (resulting in divorce).
It’s pure coincidence that you never said any of those things about me in the days before I pointed out the error in the Greaney retirement study and it’s been non-stop abuse from you toward me since I pointed out the error. Call me madcap but I believe that my decision to point out the error in the retirement study had something to do with your current attitude toward me.
And the error in the study is a Buy-and-Hold thing. If Greaney were not a Buy-and-Holder, he never would have dreamed of putting out a safe withdrawal rate study that did not include a valuation adjustment. It was that crazy Efficient Market Theory thing that lots of smart people believed in at the time the Buy-and-Hold strategy was being dseveloped that causes the train to go off the track. The 41-year cover-up of the error (Shiller publihsed his Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns in 1981) made things 50 times worse. That’s the cause of the intensity, the feeling that there’s a need to cover-up the cover-up.
My sincere take.
And my best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Your false response proves that you don’t listen.
Okay.
I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, in any event.
Rob
What is funny is that you ignore what is being said, yet you know the points are valid as you will ultimately say “We will have to wait and see how it all plays out”. Well, here we are 20 years later. We have seen how it plays out. The buy and holders have done well while you have depleted our savings, lost your house and divorced your wife. While you dreamed of a day where your detractors would be broke and in prison, the rest of us were hoping you would save your retire by getting a job and saving your house and marriage. Tell us again as to who was abusive.
I don’t agree with any of that, Anonymous.
The Bennett/Pfau research shows that market timing (Valuation-Informed Indexing) has been producing far superior results to Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold for 150 years now. For 20 years now you have been claiming that it is just the opposite but on every single occasion on which you have made the claim you have failed to take irrational exuberance into consideration when presenting your “proof.” Gee, I wonder why it turns out that way!
I believe that stocks will continue to perform in the future at least somewhat as they have always performed in the past (that is, that there will continue to be terrible consewuences that will follow from failing to engage in market timingprice discipline). Yes, I say that we will have to wait a bit to find out for sure. Because we don’t know everything today. So it is not a good idea to become too dogmatic about things. But my personal belief is that stocks will probably continue to perforn in the future at least somewhat as they always have in the past.
My really, really, really strong belief is that we should be permitting honest posting re the peer-reviewed research at every discussion board and blog, without a single exception. I am pretty darn dogmatic re that one. Because it is by hearing other voices that you learn about your mistakes. And learning about one’s mistakes is a key part of any project in which you try to discover the truth about a particular subject. I consider it a tragedy that the Buy-and-Holders came to believe that it was better to suppress discussion of the last 41 years of reseach than to acknowledge a mistake that they made in the 1960s and that was brought to light in 1981.
My best wishes to you and yours.
Rob
“ I don’t agree with any of that, Anonymous.”
Yes you do agree with that when we look at your previous responses. You have already told us that you depleted your savings and are divorced and we see in the land records that you lost your house. You acknowledge that bu6 and holders have made a lot of money, but you say that we will lose it one day.
I say that much of the money that Buy-and-Holders claim to have “made” is irrational exuberance. Unlike genuine economic-based gains, it has no lasting significance and should not be counted when making retirement plans.
Rob
Despite your claims, all your predictions have failed. Look at where you are now. I jus5 don’t know how you can fix things at this point.
As a nation, we are on the verge of the greatest surge in economic growth in our history, Anonymous. That’s what matters. Can you imagine what it would be like to live in a nation in which the same laws that apply in every field of human endeavor other than the investment advice field applied in the investment advice field as well? The good news here is 50 times more good than the bad news here is bad.
My sincere take.
Rob