Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
As it stands today, no one in the investment community will talk to you, your savings are depleted and your wife divorced you. Despite all this, you somehow won’t admit you have been wrong. My question is this: what scenario would have to occur for you to finally admit you are wrong? Is there any scenario or will you just continue with the same response saying that you “ want to see how things turn out”?
You cite the abusive stuff and its effects over and over and over again as if that supports the Buy-and-Hold case, I see it just the other way around. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, we never would have seen a single abusive post, much less any of the criminal stuff. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, Buy-and-Holders could be friends with Valuation-Informed Indexers.
They could post at the same board communities without any friction evidencing itself. There would be disagreements. Disagreements are healthy. They generate learning experiences. But there would never be any abusive stuff. There would never be any board bannings. There would never be any depleted savings. There would never be any divorces. There would be people having fun together learning about an important subject.
Point me to a site where Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers post together on a daily basis in peace. I am not aware of any such site. If there is one, I want to go there and post there and enjoy the learning experiences that I would be able to enjoy there.
I don’t trust anything that is said at a site at which people of all opinions do not feel free to post their honest views. There’s too much of a danger at such a place of groupthink setting in. That’s what I see going on at all of the big investing sites. Buy-and-Hold groupthink has taken over. The people who participate are smart enough. But they are only hearing one side of the story. So the same perspective gets reinforced over and over and over again. It’s not healthy.
There’s nothing that could be said at that kind of site that could persuade me. I once was a Buy-and-Holder myself because I believed that Buy-and-Hold was science. When I saw the intimidation tactics tolerated at the Retire Early board after I pointed out the error in the Greaney retirement study, I knew that Buy-and-Hold was not real. It’s an emotion-based strategy. Investors create irrational exuberance by failing to practice market timing/price discipline and then they become defensive about the phony gains that they have created for themselves.
Something has to break that cycle. The only thing that could break it is to permit honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. Permitting honest posting re the peer-reviewed research would keep people honest. It would be hard for them to let their emotions get too out of control because each time they crossed a line there would be people pointing out the dangers of doing that.
That’s what I need to see. I doubt very much that everything that I have said is right. What are the chances of that given the number of things I have said? I want to learn where I have made mistakes and develop a better understanding. But I cannot trust things being said by people engaging in intimidation. The use of intimidation tactics tells me that those people do not have confidence themselves in what they are saying. People don’t engage in intimidation when they are confident of what they are saying.
We need to normalize investing discussions. We need to apply the same laws that apply in every field other than the investing advice field in the investing advice field as well. There is no amount of intimidation that will persuade me. I need to see civil and reasoned discussion of the how-to implications of the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. The stuff that is your greatest fear is the stuff that I need to see to be persuaded that there’s merit in what you are saying.
My best and warmest wishes to you.
Rob
“Point me to a site where Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers post together on a daily basis in peace.”
Reddit Dot Com is one site. There are numerous financial communities including personalfinance, financialindependence, and investing. You can even create your own community as you see fit. People will surely challenge your views on investing but you should not fear challenges. Iron sharpens iron, right? One could also create his own website, as you’ve done, but we can see how that turned out. Try Reddit, Rob.
I’m going to finish the book first so that I have something to hand to people who express an interest in being able to go through the entire story in one place. I’ll give Reddit a try after I have finished the book. But one of the things that I am going to say at Reddit is that we need to open every site on the internet to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research in this field. The more people we have participating in the discussions, the quicker progress will be made and the better life will be for each and every one of us. I see it as a win/win/win. I am not even able to imagine any possible downside.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
You can also try the reddit “conspiracy” page.
Thanks for the tip, Sensible. I think of it as a conspiracy of ignorance. We all have something inside us that wants to believe that magical thinking can pay off, that there really might be some magical, mystical alternate universe where market timing/price discipline might not be 100 percent required for every investor. Because we are capable of rationality and common sense, we have to supress discussions of the research-proven realities to maintain confidence in the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold illusions. But we are capable of becoming more effective and more rational investors with the help of discussions with all of our fellow investors who can point out to us how going pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold has alaways turned out in the past.
We are not a perfect people. But we have lots of good in us. The key is making use of the laws we have to protect us from the sorts of individuals who have put up posts in “defense” of Mel Lindauer and John Greaney so that we can all learn the things we need to learn about this important subject.
Wish us luck!
Rob
People will surely challenge your views on investing but you should not fear challenges. Iron sharpens iron, right?
I sure hope that this one turns out to be true!
Rob
They’re having a discussion about SWD and those who retired in the year 2000 right now. Now’s the time for you to jump in, Rob!
https://old.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/10dyws4/swr_performance_for_people_who_retired_in_2000/
I am not going to jump in (I might begin doing that sort of thing after I have finished the book). But I left the link up in the unlikely event that someone stops by here who would like to take a look at the thread.
Rob
They’re talking about people like you who retired in the year 2000 and acknowledge that the SWR for those who retired in the year 2000 was not 4%. Isn’t this the kind of “honest discussion” you claim isn’t permitted?
It’s certainly progress that there are people saying that. That’s great news.
Why has it taken 20 years to get to this point. Isn’t the basic idea (that valuations were insanely high in 2000 and so the SWR couldn’t possibly be the same number that it was at times of reasonable valuations) pretty darn obvious?
Isn’t a core principle of Buy-and-Hold that investment decisions should be rooted in research (it was certainly that principle that attracted me to Buy-and-Hold in the days when I was a Buy-and-Holder)? Shiller’s research showing that valuations affect long-term returns was published in 1981. Why has it taken 41 years for this very simple idea to be reflected in discussions at the Raddit board? Shouldn’t we all be trying to figure out what the heck is going on?
Why has Greaney not corrected his study. If he agrees with that they are saying at Reddit, shouldn’t he include language stating that in his study? If he does not agree, shouldn’t he include language saying why? Shouldn’t he want any readers of the study to know that there are people who do not believe that he did the calculations properly? Is there any good reason why the author of a retirement study would want to cover something like that up?
I believe that we are on the threshold of the biggest advance in our understanding of this subject matter ever achieved. Intellectually, we have been there for 41 years now. But, for Shiller’s amazing research to provide the benefits that it promises to provide, we need to TALK ABOUT IT at every single site without any intimidation tactics whatsoever being imposed to suppress the discussion of the new research findings.
That’s where I am coming from in any event, Sensible.
Rob
“ I am not going to jump in (I might begin doing that sort of thing after I have finished the book).”
Which means you will never jump in. You haven’t done anything in the last 20 years. You haven’t worked, you haven’t started your own forum. You haven’t finished a book or anything else that you can sell. Your solution is that you think everyone one else has to do things and that they should just send you money.
We need to open every discussion board and blog to honest posting re the past 41 years of peer-reviewed research, Anonymous. That’s pretty darn basic. You are going to see amazing, positive contributions from THOUSANDS of different people once every site has been opened to honest posting. People need to feel safe or they just are not going to be willing to advance helpful contributions. Our laws against death threats and defamation and fraud and extortion are good and necessary laws.
My sincere take.
Rob
Your posting is not honest. But let’s say everyone decides that you can post whatever you want to their website. It doesn’t change a thing. You are broke and it won’t give you an income. Everyone else will keep doing their thing, just like they have after reading your repetitive nonsense. Don’t believe it? Just go to any currently open board, like Reddit or City data. Post all you want and see what happens. It will just be more of the same and you will not earn a dime.
We need to have national recognition of the 20-year (or 41-year if you go back to when Shiller published his Nobel-prize-winning research) cover-up. There needs to be a series of articles on the front page of the New York Times that tell the entire story from beginning to end.
We should have launched a national debate on the how-to implications of Shiller’s amazing research on the day it was published. Had that happened, we would today be 41 years ahead of where we are today in our understanding of how stock investing works. We can’t get the 41 years back. Sadly, that’s gone. But we need to recreate the spirit of excitment about the discovery that Shiller made, that valuations affect long-term returns, that stock investing risk is not stable but varible, that market timing is always 100 percent required for every investor, that the safe withdrawal rate is a number that changes with changes in valuations.
The problem that we are facing is that, the longer the cover-up continues, the harder it becomes to pull that off. In the early days, the Buy-and-Holders were just embarrased for people to learn about the mistake they made., Now, it is 50 times worse. They are looking at civil and criminal penalties for participating in a 41-year cover-up. It’s not a good situation.
But it obviously does not get any better as the length of the cover-up is extended. The best that we can do today is to bring it to an end after 41 years. To let it continue into a 42nd year would be a catastrophe. So we all need to pull together and do what needs to be done. I did my part on the morning of May 13, 2002, you know? What have you done to help out, Anonymous?
My best wishes. But, I mean, come on.
Rob
There’s no cover up at reddit, which is one of the most visited websites. My link proved it.
But why only Reddit, Sensible? Shouldn’t we be seeing honest posting at every site? We saw thousands of people at just a small number of discussion boards and blog express a desire that honest posting be permitted. That translates into millions in the general population of investors. Why aren’t there thousands and thousands of experts serving those millions of people?
If we had been permitting honest posting at every site all along, there would have been no surprise when I pointed out the error in the Greaney retirement study. But there clearly was a lot of surprise. Full truth be told, there were some who said that they didn’t believe that the Greaney study needed to be corrected. Full truth be told, I can recall some of you Goons still saying things along those lines pretty darn recently. Plesse explain. What do you think is going on?
Are the people at Reddit talking about the massive cover-up? We are not going to overcome it unless we first up the courage to talk about it? Is that not so? It has continud for so long because people are afraid to call it out. Can we all pull together and agree to call out fraud in this field whenever we see it? Would that not be a perfectly sensible way to proceed at this point?
Rob
I do not visit every site. What problems I do see appear to be related to political polarization. There’s no shortage of places to freely post crackpot opinions on personal finance.
I don’t visit every site either. But I view it as a pretty darn serious problem that the error in the Greaney retirement study has remained uncorrected for 20 years after it was brought to public attention. I think it would be fair to say that as a nation of people we need to figure out how the heck something like that could happen. Do you view it as a crackpot opinion that errors in retirement studies should be corrected within 24 hours of the moment that the authors of those studies are made aware of them?
Rob
If you look at reddit or firecalc people acknowledge that a 95% risk may be there, the reddit people admit that you may need to make adjustments which may include getting a job. That’s part of life. Do you blame Greaney for your failed retirement?
I don’t understand the comment. Are you saying that there’s a 95 percent chance the retirement will succeed or a 95 percent chance that it will fail? A retirement with a 95 percent chance of failing is not even remotely safe. If you are saying that a retirement calling for a 4 percent withdrawal that began in 2000 had a 95 percent chance of working out, that’s not even close to being so.
The entire purpose of safe withdrawal rate analysis is to tell people the rate that they can use if they do not want to have to go back to work. If you’re willing to go back to work, you could go with a 20 percent withdrawal. Then, when the retirement fails, just go back to work and live off your earnings. The idea is to calculate what withdrawal rate you could take and be virtually certain that you would NOT need to go back to work (assuming that stocks continued to perform in the future somewhat as they have always performed in the past). That number sure wasn’t 4 percent or anything close to it in 2000. The safe withdrawal rate in 2000 was 1.6 percent. Why not report the numbers accurately?
Rob
Obviously I meant 95 percent safe. That’s 5 percent unsafe. 95 percent is safe enough for a lot of people, but you should be willing to make adjustments to avoid the pitfalls of the 5 percent. The reddit people understand the risks.
A withdrawal rate that has a 95 percent chance of working out (presuming that stocks continue to perform in the future somewhat as they always have in the past) is certainly safe. I agree that it’s not as a practical matter possible to do better than that. If the people at Reddit believe that a 4 percent withdrawal rate was 95 percent safe for retirements that began in January 2000 (when the CAPE value was 44), then, no, they do not understand the risks AT ALL.
That’s why I always say that we need to open every discussion board and blog to honest posting re the past 41 years of peer-reviewed research, without a single exception. 10 percent of the population believes that Shiller’s Nobel prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns is legitimate research. Drop all abusive posting aimed at those who post about what the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research teaches us all about how stock investing works in the real world and you will get more of those people participating in the discussions and they will be more frank in their obserrvations when they do. Over time, it will all begin to click for you and you will become a more effective investor. There will be none of the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold garbage clouding up your thinking process. You will be free!
Or so Rob Bennett sincewrely believes, in any event.
My best wishes.
Rob
How risky is it to be over 60 with no savings? How risky is it to be broke and unemployed? How risky is it to not have a spouse that can help support you when you don’t bring in an income? The vast majority of stocks are held by rich people. That is a known fact. You act like you are all worried about a bunch of rich people, when you are broke. But we all know this is a sham. You are perpetuating a story as an excuse not to work. If you really believed what you said, you would have finished multiple books by now to “educate” all of us rich idiots.
If you think the reddit people need to understand things better then why don’t you try to explain things to them? Why stick to posting in places where no one will see your posts?
I think the reddit people understand the risks better than you did when you chose to retire. There could, of course, be some lurkers there who aren’t “numbers” guys but it’s not like they can blame others if they pull the trigger and refuse to make adjustments when their plans go awry.
How risky is it to be over 60 with no savings? How risky is it to be broke and unemployed? How risky is it to not have a spouse that can help support you when you don’t bring in an income? The vast majority of stocks are held by rich people. That is a known fact. You act like you are all worried about a bunch of rich people, when you are broke. But we all know this is a sham. You are perpetuating a story as an excuse not to work. If you really believed what you said, you would have finished multiple books by now to “educate” all of us rich idiots.
I care about rich people and poor people and middle-class people alike. I identify more with middle-class people because that’s what I’ve always been. But I have some concern for all of the humans. We all get hurt in a Buy-and-Hold Crisis, Anonymous, even people who don’t own stocks. Read the Grapes of Wrath. Or watch the movie. Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick is a nasty piece of business. I am happy that we now have 41 years of peer-reviewed research that helps us to appreicate its dangers (so long as we are sure to give ourselveds permission to talk about it at every discussion board and blog, without a single exception.
Going by pure logic, I agree with you that I should have finished my book by now. I do think it’s important. So I should just stick at it until it is finished., But you know what? Being isolated from all the other humans is a hard business for any of us humans. It hurts. It hurts a lot. If I had never been banned from any boards or blogs, I would have finished the book years ago. I kick myself over it a little bit. But not too much. Do you know what I tell myself? I tell myself that no one else has written this book in the 41 years since Shiller published his amazing, Nobel-prize-winning research. No one else has been willing to endure the emotional pain associated with taking on this project. So I gues it takes what it takes. If it takes a bit longer to complete than another book project would, so be it. It’s because it is such a difficult project to complete that it is so important that I stick at it.
I’m almost there. I would say 80 percent. I would be grateful if you would wish me luck.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
If you think the reddit people need to understand things better then why don’t you try to explain things to them? Why stick to posting in places where no one will see your posts?
I think the reddit people understand the risks better than you did when you chose to retire. There could, of course, be some lurkers there who aren’t “numbers” guys but it’s not like they can blame others if they pull the trigger and refuse to make adjustments when their plans go awry.
Finishing the book is a higher priority. I don’t want to get pulled into anything that would take time away from that. I could see going there after I finish the book. I probably will do that.
Rob
If the book is a priority, why are you posting here and on ValueWalk? If finishing the book was important, why would you let it be several years overdue?
I learn a lot by writing my columns at Value Walk. I learn a little by interacting with you Goons.
I haven’t “let” the book take as long as it has. It’s not a choice. It is an emotionally difficult task to explain the realities of stock investing at a time when millions of people are trying very hard to ignore them. That’s why nobody else has written this book in the 41 years since Shiller published his amazing, breakthrough research. It takes as long as it takes. i go to battle with the monster of irrational exuberance every day. I am closer to finishing the first book exploring the far-reaching how-to implications of Shiller’s research than anyone else alive, including Shiller. That’s no small thing, Anonymous. I am 80 percent done. I’ll get there in not too much more time.
Wish me luck!
Rob