Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
<i>We don’t need the details of the divorce. I think we can draw our own conclusions. Just curious to when this happened.</i>
I am not going to go into it.
I will tell you that the first time that there was an issue was the morning of May 17, 2002. It was late the night before when I advanced my apology post. I told her the story. She stiffened. She did not like hearing about the Goon attacks. People do not like that stuff. It is poison. We will have to decide as a nation of people what to do about it.
Rob
So you told her the story. She, like everyone else but you, has never seen any attacks or death threats or any of your allegations about criminal activities. Despite repeated requests for you to show actual proof, you usually just change the topic by repeating your erroneous comments about Greany’s work.
This nonsense has been going on for over 20 years. It is now clear that you purposely lie about Greaney and Pfau and Shiller and everyone else just because you need to have this silly story as a cover for not working a job. What happened at E&Y? Were they getting ready to fire you? Are you unable to function in society and have to live in some alternate Universe? Your last 20 years has been a disaster and it really doesn’t make any sense to rational people. There is something wrong with you. Tell us the real story.
The real story is 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.
It would take you all of five minutes to check it out for yourself.
My best wishes.
Rob
Thousands of people have explained why you are wrong about Greaney’s work.
It would only take you all of five minutes to check it out for yourself.
John Greaney told you to quit your job? John Greaney caused your divorce? John Greaney caused you to lose you house? John Greaney kept you from finishing a book that has taken you about 8 years? John Greaney depleted your savings account? John Greaney told you to get rid of all your stocks?
Thousands of people have explained why you are wrong about Greaney’s work.
It would only take you all of five minutes to check it out for yourself.
A death threat is not an explanation, An act of extortion is not an explanation. And act of defamation is not an explanation. Not in my book.
The behavior of those who have posted in “defense” of Greaney’s retirement study just cause me to be all the stronger in my belief that the study truly does lack a valuation adjustment.
Rob
John Greaney told you to quit your job? John Greaney caused your divorce? John Greaney caused you to lose you house? John Greaney kept you from finishing a book that has taken you about 8 years? John Greaney depleted your savings account? John Greaney told you to get rid of all your stocks?
John Greaney and his goon squad burned the Retire Early board at the Motley fool site to the ground because he did not want people discussing the error in his retirement study and asking him to correct it promtly. That’s the board that I intended to use to spread the word about Valuation-Informed Indexing, the model for understanding how stock investing works thst replaces the Buy-and-Hold Model discredited by Shiller’s Nobel-prizr-winning research. When I finish my book, I will get about the business of replacing that amazing board community so that we can all live better and fuller and richer lives than we ever imagined were possible during the Buy-and-Hold Era.
Valuation-Informed Indexing is Buy-and-Hold corrected to relfect the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. If we were all thinking clearly, there wouldn’t be one person objecting to the idea of correcting errors that have been uncovered by the publication of new peer-reviewed research.
My sincere take.
Rob
The Motley Fool board is not your property, nor did anyone “burn it down”. You also don’t all the other boards that decided to ban you for your poor behavior. You have had 20 years to build your own board community. You have had 20 years to make and sell a book and/or any other materials. You have had 20 years to get another job.
You keep pointing out how your think other people are responsible for your retirement failures, but you don’t take any personal responsibility.
I think I did a very good thing in pointing out the error in the Greaney retirement study, Anonymous. There were people at the Motley Fool board who were using that study as guidance in the construction of their retirement plans. I know. I was there. Some of those people had become friends of mine over the years.
Rob
Except there wasn’t an error. You keep bringing it up and ignoring people that have told you thousands of times as to why you are wrong. Eventually, people get fed up with your inability to listen and your unwillingness to give direct answers. You then take it another step forward by making up stories about death threats, etc. That is simply bad behavior and why you are banned. Just like you block people on your board, others can and do block you from their boards. They are completely justified in doing this.
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all good things, in any event. I would like to think that that would help a tiny bit.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
“ I do wish you all good things, in any event. I would like to think that that would help a tiny bit.”
You didn’t want to help your former wife out just one tiny bit by getting a job and providing for you. Why not?
I told her that I was willing to get a full-time job if she was willing to support me in doing the investing work at nights and on weekends. She was not willing to go along with that.
I would not be able to live with myself if I did not continue to do the investing work in some way. It affects too many people in too serious a way. So I have had to live with some very painful consequences.
I believe that we will all be working together to move forward in our understanding of how stock investing works in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis.
Rob
So now that you are divorced you can go ahead and get that full time job and do your “investing work” during nights and weekends, right?
“I told her that I was willing to get a full-time job if she was willing to support me in doing the investing work at nights and on weekends. She was not willing to go along with that.”
What?? That’s a new twist, which of course paints you as the good guy. For years you said you would look for a job only after you finished that phantom book. A stall tactic which your then-wife quickly saw through.
It’s amazing she hung in with you as long as she did.
So now that you are divorced you can go ahead and get that full time job and do your “investing work” during nights and weekends, right?
I could. But my personal belief is that that is not the right way to go. I offered that compromise as a way to save my marriage. My personal belief is that I need t finish the book before taking on paid employment.
Say that the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis hits in six months. That could take the CAPE value down to 8, That would be devastating to millions of people. If my book is finished, that could help us to keep the CAPE at 17, a big difference. It does not make sense for me personally or for our nation as a whole for me to reduce the odds that I will have the book finsihed when the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis hits in exchange for a few lousy bucks.
I was willing to do it to have a chance to save my marriage. That was different. But that possibility is gone now. I could see taking on full-time paid employment once I finished the book. But finishing the book is the #1 priority. That’s what matters most by heaps and heaps.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
What?? That’s a new twist, which of course paints you as the good guy. For years you said you would look for a job only after you finished that phantom book. A stall tactic which your then-wife quickly saw through.
It’s amazing she hung in with you as long as she did.
Yeah, yeah.
Rob
“I offered that compromise as a way to save my marriage.”
By that point she (like everyone else) had no reason to believe a word you say. Did you send out even one resume? Or even update your resume?
Yeah, yeah.
There was one point at which I updated my resume and sent out a small number of job applications. I accepted a job going door to door for the Census. That was delayed because of Covid. By the time the Covid situation had eased a bit, I no longer believed that it was a good idea to take full-time employment. I am now close enough to finishing the book that I see that as the top priority.
None of this persuades me that Greaney really did include a valuation adjustment in his retirement study.
Rob
“By the time the Covid situation had eased a bit, I no longer believed that it was a good idea to take full-time employment.”
So you believed letting your marriage fail was a better idea. And here you are.
I would have agreed to take on full-time employment had my ex agreed to that compromise. She gets to decide for her, you know? The divorce is the most painful thing that has ever happened to me by a factor of 20. But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t continue to do something re the investing matter, which I think can fairly be descirbed as the most important public policy issue facing our nation today. So things played out as they did.
Rob
It seems the story keeps changing. How about you set up a Q&A on your website with your wife. It would be good to hear her perspective on events. How about that?
I’ll get on that right away, Anonymous.
Please take good care.
Rob