Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
We have discussed the made up death threats story and your error on Greaney’s work. Why keep repeating it.
The thing that we should be talking about is the amazing how-to implications of Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research findings. We should be talking about that on every internet site every day.
The intimidtion stuff comes up because the reality is that we are NOT talking about the how-to implications of Shiller’s research at every site. I noted that Greaney’s retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment and the Buy-and-Holders freaked out. Lots of people wanted to talk about the point that I had raised. We had hundreds of people saying: “Thanks, Rob, you have started the most important discussion in the history of the board!”. But some of the more dogmatic Buy-and-Holders were not so thrilled. They saw that, if as a community we acknowledged that the Greaney study was in error, the entire Buy-and-Hold house of cards would come tumbling to the ground. So they advanced all sorts of intimidation stuff to suppress this very important discussion.
What we have had for 20 years is not the Great Debate proper. What we have has is a Debate About Having a Debate. I believe that in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, we will develop the courage as a nation of people to move on to the debate proper. From that point forward, we will all live better lives in scores of different ways.
Does the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site contain an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins or does it not? I believe that it does not. That is my sincere take re this terribkly important matter.
My best and warmest wishes to you, Anonymous.
Rob
Every website should be open to discussions on dancing bears. Every website should be open to discussions on alien robots.
Gimmie my $500 million dollars. I earned it with my valuable work. You should be going to prison. My 41 years of Nobel Prize winning research is to rule everything and everyone. We need to get past the big black mountain of VII.
………………….sorry……….suffering from a breakout of hocomania………
There is indeed a sense in which I believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research should “rule everything and everyone.: I certainly don’t think that everyone should be required to follow a Valuaton-Informed Indexing strategy. That’s a personal choice, But I think that everyone should be required to hear about what the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research says. If you elect to tune it out, that’s fine. But you can’t elect to tune it out for others. Once the research is published, it becomes part of the world that we all live in and anyone who cares to discuss it may do so. Each investor gets to make his own decision as to what strategy he will follow. But no one gets to decide for all others what research can be discussed. Not under U.S. law.
There was a time when women couldn’t be doctors. Thje field was closed to them. I see it as a big advance that that is no longer the case. People can still decide for themselves whether they will hire a male doctor or a female doctor. That’s a personal choice. But women are now able to enter the field and to demonstrate their abilities. So it is now more of a fair game. It was not appropriate for males to say “this is a high-paying field and we don’t want any cimpetition so we are going to keep the field closed to women.” That’s garbage, in my assessment. That’s what the Buy-and-Holders do when they say “the benefits of market timing cannot be discussed, we make money touting Buy-and-Hold strategies and we do not think we will be able to maintain our dominance in the field if discussion of the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research is permitted.” That’s garbage. If you cannot effectively defend your strategy within the limits of U.S. law, your strategy is not worth defending. It is discredited and out of date. Investors need to know that.
That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.
Rob