Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Your wife: You don’t listen
Your priest: You don’t listen
WadePfau: You don’t listen
Robert Shiller: You don’t listen
The rest of the investment community: You don’t listen
Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research showsing that valuations affect long-term returns: You don’t listen
A CAPE value of 28: You don’t listen
Thousands of our fellow community members expressing a desire that honest posting be permitted: You don’t listen
The Bennett/Pfau research showing that market timing is 70 percent of what it takes to achieve long-term stock investing success: You don’t listen
Common sense, which tells us that there is nothing on this planet avaiable for purcahse that is worth buying at any price: You don’t listen
150 years of stock market history, which is the source material for both Shiller’s research and the Bennett/Pfau research: You don’t listen
Your own behavior showing that the Buy-and-Hold case is such a desperate one that it cannot be defending without death threats and acts of extortion: You don’t listen
Bill Bernsteins book in which even a long-time Buy-and-Holder says that the safe withdrawal rate was 2 percent at the top of the bubble: You don’t listen
The published rules of every site at which you post, which prohibit the behavior that you have employed to suppress discussion on the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research and that show that we are fundamentally a good people who will in time figure out way to permit discussion of the peer-reviewed research — You don’t listen
Books like “The Grapes of Wrath,” which examine in some depth the ocean of human misery the always results from the widespread promotion of the pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold “strategy — You don’t listen
Evidence-Based Investing, a general in Greaney’s Goon army, who has now acknowledged in several comments that the Greanet retirement study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins — You don’t listen
The deafening silence of Greaney himself in the wake of Evidence’s posts, suggesting strongly that Greaney himself does not know how to make a case that his study does contain a valuation adjustment — You don’t listen
The laws of the United States that make it a felony to advance death threats or to engage in acts of extortion — You don’t listen
Your conscience, which tells you that errors in retirement studies should be corrected within 24 hours of the moment they are discovered — You don’t listen
My ex-wife and my priest and Wade Pfau and Robert Shiller all live in the same country that I do. They all want the same things that I do. They will all be arguing in opposition to the pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategy in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. By posting honestly today, I assure that I will be able to sleep at night and that I will be able to look all of those people in the eye in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. Can you say the same?
Rob
I have over $6 million. You are broke. Who is REALLY listening?
I was the first one in our community to work up the courage to to publicly comment on the error in the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site. I’d rather be able to say that I was true to my friends than that I have $6 million.
I believe that in the end I will wind up with a whole big bunch more than $6 million. So I don’t believe that one has to choose one or the other in this life. I think it is enirely possible to be true to one’s friends and to also make big bunches of money. But, if you were to ask as a hypothetical which I would choose if I could only have one, I would rather be true to my friends. I like the peace of mind that that gives me more than I would like the peace of mind that would come from having $6 million (which would also be a considerable amount of peace of mind, to be sure).
My conrats to you on the $6 million. Even if that gets cut in half during the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, $3 million is a big bunch of money and will permit you to enjoy all sorts of super stuff in this life. I’ll do my best to struggle along somehow on the much smaller amount that I possess (plus those warm feelings that come from knowing that I have been true to my friends).
My best and warmest wishes to you.
Rob
If what you said was true, you would have the $6 million and I would be broke. That is not what happened. We all make choices and those choices have consequences that then lead to outcomes.
That’s like a drunk telling a friend who is suggesting that he sober up that “hey, I’m laughing a lot more than you are, you are the one who has to make a change.” The peer-reviewed research doesn’t just look at how things look when stock prices are insanely high. It looks at what happens in the long run. That’s a very, very, very different story.
Rob
The drunk guy is the one that is broke.
I think that the drunk guy is the guy who engages in criminal behavior to stop from having to be exposed to what the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research says. I say “my best and warmest wishes to you and yours” or something to that effect in every comment. Drunk guys aren’t able to do something like that. They don’t have enough control of their emotions to accept that there are people in the world who have different beliefs than their own and to be calm and respectful and friendly in their dealings with such people.
We have never once seen the sort of behavior we see coming from you Goons on a daily basis evidencing itself on the Valuation-Informed Indexing side. It only evidences itself from the Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick side. Gee, I wonder why?
Rob