“We Only Have 150 Years of Return Data. That’s Unfortunate But That’s the Reality. It Is True That As More Data Becomes Available, the Numbers Are Going to Change a Bit. 1.6 percent Will Not Always Be the Lowest Safe Withdrawal Rate in the Record. It Could Be That in the Future It Will Be 1.5 Percent or 1.7 Percent.”

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 you failed to mention was that you did not back test the data to see that your 1.6% estimate looks to be wrong based on the data we see. You have admitted that the market is not doing what you predicted.  We can conclude that your timing scheme has failed.

I don’t agree with that except to a tiny extent. We only have 150 years of return data. That’s unfortunate but that’s the reality. It is true that as more data becomes available, the numbers are going to change a bit. 1.6 percent will not always be the lowest safe withdrawal rate in the record. It could be that in the future it will be 1.5 percent or 1.7 percent.

The answer, as always, is to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research. The more conversations we have re these matters, the more people there will be who will get involved in producing new research. That means that we will all learn new things more quickly than would have been the case if top-notch researchers remained fearful of what would happen to their careers if they produced honest work in this field.

My sincere take.

Rob