Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
The Motley Fool board is not your property, nor did anyone “burn it down”. You also don’t own 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
So, in the last 20 years, all you have done is point out something that is not really an error (despite you ignoring what everyone has said) and that is it. It takes you 20 years to keep repeating the same one-liner. Really? That is all you have managed to do?
Valuations matter. That’s it. That’s the entire story, Anonymous.
It’s a very, very, very, very important story.
Adding market timing/price discipline to the mix permits investors to employ rationality when buying stocks. Rationality is a weighing of pros and cons. It’s the consideration of stock prices (market timing) that permits a weighing of the pros and cons of buying stocks. Take that element out of it and you can fool yourself into believing that stocks always offer the same value` proposition. That’s how you get bull markets and then bear markets and then economic crises and then political unrest.
Valuations matter. Rationality matters. Market timing matters.
That’s it. That’s a lot.
Rob
“ Valuations matter. Rationality matters. Market timing matters.
That’s it. That’s a lot.”
Even though you rarely respond to the questions answer, I still give the courtesy of addressing your point. So, to the above comment, it is RESULTS that matter. This is what pays the bills. Valuation is merely analysis of where you think it might go. It might be higher or it might be lower, so we look at results to know who was right. We can only spend what we currently have. The grocery store doesn’t care about your opinions on Greaney or Shiller or Pfau.
Long-term results are what really matter, not the short-term stuff that you get from creating mountains of irrational exuberance.
I see all the difference in the world between economic-growth gains and irrational exuberance gains. I say that we should count only economic growth gains when forming our retirement plans. Counting the irrational exubernce stuff is likely to lead to a disaster down the road a bit.
That’s my sincere take, Anonymous.
Rob
“ Long-term results are what really matter, not the short-term stuff that you get from creating mountains of irrational exuberance.”
What are you talking about. Of course it is long term. It took me 30 years to get over $6 million. It took you 20 years to deplete your savings.
You need to take a look at Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research and the Bennett/Pfau research, which is a follow-up to it. Anonymous. Irrational exuberance does not last. It is phony baloney stuff. Not good.
Rob
You just said that long term results matter. When you were previously asked as to what long term meant, you said 10 years. It took me 30 years to get those results. It is obviously long term results. The “phony baloney stuff” is just a bunch of talking points. Talking points are not facts. Results are facts.
You are saying that you obtained the results over 30 years. But you are not correcting for the amount of irrational exuberance in the market price today. You need tio do that to have real numbers.
If you calculate the real numbers after the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, when the irrational exuberance will have disappeared, you will find that you would have done better by just going with a rational, research-based (market timing included!) approach, That’s what Wade Pfau and I did with the research that we co-authored that showed that for 150 years now Valuation-Informed Indexing has been provided results FAR superior to those provided by Buy-and-Hold, As Wade concluded after devoting 16 months of his life to the study of my investing ideas, “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” Treating irrational exuberance as something real hold you back.
Rob
“But you are not correcting for the amount of irrational exuberance in the market price today.”
You are broke, Anonymous isn’t. No amount of correcting of irrational exuberance will alter that.
Anonymous hasn’t had a gang of internet Goons engaging in abusive and criminal behavior for 20 years to block him from being able to earn a living because he posted honestly about an error in s retirement study posted at the web site of a Goon pal of theirs. It makes a difference.
If Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, advocates of the strategy would invite challenges to it, not do everything in their power to suppress them. It was when 200 Buy-and-Holders endorsed Greaney’s first death threat that I knew that this stuff was garbage. Advocates of true research-based strategies just do not behave that way. I had been a Buy-and-Holder until then because I liked the idea that it was research-based. It was on the night of that first death threat that I gave up on Buy-and-Hold and began work on developing something better and real, Valuation-Informed Indexing, the first true research-based investing strategy.
Science is science and death threats are death threats and never to two shall meet. I believe in science. I do not believe in Buy-and-Hold (at least not as it is advocated today — I very much believe in the original concept, which included an endorsement of the idea of following the peer-reviewed research).
Rob
For the record, Rob, I’ve only known about you for 6 or 7, maybe 8 years. At some point I came across a comment of yours, looked you up, and found the (now-defunct) Hoco-playpen board. I’ve engaged in no criminal behavior and do not recall seeing any criminal behavior from the others.
I’m going to leave that one for the jury system to determine, Sensible.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
Is there anyone but you, Rob, that has said that they have seen any criminal activity? If so, who would that be?
What matters is what a jury says.
As a nation of people we need to work our way from a place where honest posting re the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research is banned at every site to a place where we are all living the better lives that that resesarch promises. We all want the same thing. There’s not one person alive who doesn’t want to know how to invest effectively. So what is holding us back? It’s the 41-year cover-up. It’s so horrible a reality that the Buy-and-Holders cannot bear to acknowledge it. If Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research were published today, we would be celebrating our good fortune at every site on the internet. But it wasn’t published today, it was published 41 years ago. How do we tell the story of what works in stock investing without telling the story of the 41-year cover-up? We cannot bear to tell that story. And we also cannot bear the thought of enduring another Buy-and-Hold Crisis. What a prediclement!
I’m keeping my eyes on the prize, Anonymous. The prize is opening every site on the internet to honest posting re the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research. How we get there is not my primary concern. I don’t intend to seek prison sentences. But, if getting every site opened to honest posting requires telling the story, then I am going to tell the story. I am indifferent to whether there are prison sentences. But I am not indifferent to getting every site opened to honest posting.
If I tell the story in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis and there are people who are pissed off about the money they lost and they demand prison sentences, I am not going to play dumb and say “oh, no, no cause for prison sentences here.” Madoff went to prison. This is 500 times bigger than Madoff. If I say “no cause for prison sentences here,” I lose all credibility. There are things that I can say that I believe will reduce those prison sentences a bit and it is my intent to say those things. I cannot promise to you that my efforts in that direction are going to prevail. People are obviously going to be very pissed off. I can’t say that I wouldn’t be demanding prison sentences if I were in their shoes. So I am not going to insult them by playing dumb.
I will do what I can to help you out. That’s all that I can promise. I think that there are some things that I can say that may help a bit. But I cannot say that I have great confidence that the things that I can say will turn the tide. It’s going to come down to how angry people are. I am thinking that they will be pretty darn angry. But there has never been a situation like this before. So no one can know in advance precisely how things will play out. We will just have to wait and see. I wish you the best of luck with it. I’m sorry if that doesn’t sound like much. But I am not in circumstances that make it possible for me to offer much more.
Rob
In short, no one else has seen any of these criminal acts that YOU claim happened. Got it.
Whatever gets you through the night, Anonymous,
I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow.
Rob
Taking 30 years to build up $6.3 million is a get rich quick scheme? Really?
It is.
Not entirely. Most of the wealth you have accumulated over that time is real. The U.S. economy is a highly productive economy. Buying stocks permits you to participate in this awesome wealth creation machine. So far, so good. All of that is wonderful.
But the part where you count irrational exuberance gains as real is not wonderful at all. That part is both self-destrucitve and destructive of our economic and political system when it is widely promoted as a research-based “strategy.” There is nothing “strategic” about counting irrational exuberance gains as real, thereby getting the numbers wildly wrong in safe withdrawal rate studies. The people who congregated at the Motley Fool board to learn about how to put together Retire Early plans had every right in the world to be able to talk about the 41 years of peer-reviewed research showing that it is impossible to calculate the safe withdrawal rate accurately without taking valuatiions into consideration. It is an obvious good to get the numbers right in retirement studies. There shouldn’t be any “controversy” over this.
So why is there?
The problem is that in the 1960s. when the Buy-and-Hold concept was being developed, Shiller had not yet published his Nobel-prize-winning research showing that market timing is always 100 percent required for every investor. The people developing Buy-and-Hold had to take a shot in the dark on some matters. There is solid research showing that short-term timing does not work. These people jumped to the hasty conclusion that, since short-term timing doesn’t work, maybe no form of timing is 100 percent required. So the genuine and helpful finding that short-term timing does not work became transformed into the loony tunes and harmful and 100 percent false claim that timing doesn’t. So, today, if people try to help investors out by telling them about the research showing how important it is to engage in long-term timing, Buy-and-Hold Goon Squads go into freak-out mode and threaten to murder their loved ones and destroy their careers and so forth because it makes the Buy-and-Holders look bad to show people that they are 41 years behind in their reading of the peer-reviewed research.
Otherwise kind and intelligent people have learned to keep it zipped re the collosal error made by the Buy-and-Holders. The result is that today’s CAPE value is 30. The fair-value CAPE value is 17. So every stock portfolio is today priced at nearly two times its fair value. People who think they have accumulated $1,000,000 in reality have accumulated only something more than $500,000. People who think that they have accumulated $200,000 have in reality only accumulated something more than $100,000, And so on and on. What do you think will happen when trillions of dollars of spending power disappears into the mist (irrational exuberance always disappears into the mist — there has never been one exception in the history of the U.S. market)? Those millions of people will cut back on spending. We will see millions of failed retirements. Hundreds of thoudsands of businesses going under. Millions of people thrown out of work. A dramatic increase in political frictions.
For what?
So that the Buy-and-Holders who made the colossal error back in the 1960s never have to learn how to pronounce those horrible (in their eyes — but in reality these words are tremendously empowering, they permit one to do better work in the future than one had ever been able to do in the past) word “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.” That’s. That’s the only possible “benefit” to anyone resulting from the internet-wide ban on honest posting re the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.
Irrational exuberance is the product of Get Rich Quick thinking. 100 percent. The U.S. economc system is a dynamo and stocks are an amazing asset class. But the relentless promotion of the pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold “strategy” for investing in stocks is killing us as a nation. We should urge the Buy-and-Holders to acknowledge their colossal error and thereby to open up the possibility for thousands and thousands of good and intelligent people to make important contributions in this field. We would all benefit from those contributions. We would all live better lives as a result of them. There should be no “controversy” over whether ot not those people should be permitted to make them.
That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.
My best and warmest wishes to you, Anonymous.
Rob
You kept telling me for the last 10 years that I would lose half my money and that you would far exceed the stock market returns. Instead, my money grew substantially higher, while you depleted your savings. It seems my strategy worked and yours failed, based on results. Sorry, but words don’t pay the bills.
I say that it is long-term results that matter. The Bennett/Pfau research shows that Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold has a very poor track record. One thing that I absolutely love about Buy-and-Hold is the idea that investors should take what the peer-reviewed research says into consideration. That’s why I alwsys practice price discipline/market timing.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
30 years is long term. I have $6.3 million. You have nothing. As you said, long term results mattered. My strategy worked. Your strategy failed. As you said, results matter.
30 years is long term. I have $6.3 million. You have nothing. As you said, long term results mattered. My strategy worked. Your strategy failed. As you said, results matter
When I receive a $500 million settlement check, I will be far, far, far ahead of you in a financial sense, Anonymous. I mean, come on.
Rob
“When I receive a $500 million settlement check, ”
The probability that you receive a $500 million settlement check is about the same as the probability of you meeting one of your book completion deadlines.
The probability that you receive a $500 million settlement check is about the same as the probability of you meeting one of your book completion deadlines.
Okay, Evidence.
My best wishes to you and yours.
Rob
“ When I receive a $500 million settlement check, I will be far, far, far ahead of you in a financial sense, Anonymous. I mean, come on.”
We are talking about results, Rob. How much of that have you received?
Here is Boo’s election website
https://www.milanformayor.com/boo-bennett
“What experience do I offer?
Perseverance in the face of adversity! In my recent past, I found myself with a bag of lemons — as life sometimes gives us. After being a stay-at-home mom for well over a dozen years, I re-entered the formal labor force to support my family.
I presently hold six jobs. I do custodial work for several town enterprises, I labor (with love) tending vegetables and herbs at Abernathy & Spencer Garden Center, I water lawns, pet sit for vacationing neighbors, and work as an independent contractor selling advertising for the Blue Ridge Leader newspaper. ”
I think we can work out what she means by “Perseverance in the face of adversity! In my recent past, I found myself with a bag of lemons”. Her reaction, 6 jobs to support her family!! Bravo.
It beats offering to go back to work at some undetermined time in the future.
We are talking about results, Rob. How much of that have you received?
I’ve done the work that earned me the money, Anonymous. Wade Pfau devoted 16 months of his life to studying my investing ideas. He concluded that: “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informeed Indexing works!” Once every discussion board and blog on the internet has been opened to honest posting re the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research in this field, Valuation-Informed Indexing will be helping millions of people to live far better, fuller and richer lives. Have you ever made a contribution like that?
Rob
Here is Boo’s election website
https://www.milanformayor.com/boo-bennett
“What experience do I offer?
Perseverance in the face of adversity! In my recent past, I found myself with a bag of lemons — as life sometimes gives us. After being a stay-at-home mom for well over a dozen years, I re-entered the formal labor force to support my family.
I presently hold six jobs. I do custodial work for several town enterprises, I labor (with love) tending vegetables and herbs at Abernathy & Spencer Garden Center, I water lawns, pet sit for vacationing neighbors, and work as an independent contractor selling advertising for the Blue Ridge Leader newspaper. ”
I think we can work out what she means by “Perseverance in the face of adversity! In my recent past, I found myself with a bag of lemons”. Her reaction, 6 jobs to support her family!! Bravo.
It beats offering to go back to work at some undetermined time in the future.
She was dealt lemons. Everyone in the United States has been dealt lemons. Stocks are today priced to deliver another Buy-and-Hold Crisis within the next year or two ot three. Do you know how many people will need to take on second and third jobs when that happens? I am the person who has been saying for 20 years now that we need to open every site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. Once we do that, we will never again see a CAPE value like the one we have today. So the problem will be solved. If I had the $500 million in hand today, Boo obviously would never have had to take on any extra jobs. The problem is the abusive posting.
Shiller’s research is wonderful. We all should be grateful that we are alive at a time when the stock investing puzzle has been solved (the Bennett/Pfau research shows that an investor can reduce the risk of stock investing by nearly 70 percent by being willing to engage in market timing/price discipline — we haven’t seen the benefits of Shiller’s research yet because we are not stressing the importance of market timing at every site just yet but we could start doing so any time we choose). We need as a nation of people to work up the courage to do something about the abusive posting).
That’s important. The work that I do is necessary work. If you wanted it to earn mountains of money, it would be warning mountains of money. Each time someone permits himself to be silenced by you Goons, it makes it harder for all the rest of us who want to do honest work in this field. I want to take it the other way. I want every person who works in this field to feel comfortable posting with complete honesty re the research. Yes that has meant that I have had to pay a big financial price for 20 years now. Working together, we could bring that to an end. We need to do something about the abusive posting.
Rob
“Stocks are today priced to deliver another Buy-and-Hold Crisis within the next year or two ot three.”
You have been saying that for at least a year or two or three.
Unfortunately for you even if it does happen it will be too late. You don’t seem to have enough money to take advantage of low stock prices.
You just make terrible assumptions.
You assumed that selling 1 report on soapbox meant you would continue to make money in a similar manner.
You assumed that when you said back in the day that you would be willing to flip hamburgers if necessary you wouldn’t have to make good on that promise.
You assumed that the market would drop low enough while you still had money that you would be able to load up on stock at bargain basement prices.
You assumed that if you wrote a book (which you did) you would be able to earn much more than you did with your soapbox report.
You assumed that if you started to write a second book that you would get it finished at some point.
You assumed that your wife would put up with your catastrophically unproductive internet trolling career instead of getting a real job.
You assumed that if you kept repeating the same arguments that got rejected repeatedly you would eventually find someone to agree.
You assumed that if you offered to go back to work, but spend every evening and weekend trolling the internet that would be acceptable to your wife.
(I haven’t said anything about the $500 million assumption because I am fairly sure not even you believe that.)
All those assumptions were wrong.
They have added up to a failed retirement.
I’m still willing to flip hamburgers if that’s what it takes. I would rather flip hamburgers than sell out my friends.
I have found thousands of people to agree with my arguments:
http://www.passionsaving.com/investing-discussion-boards.html
When every site has been opened to honest posting, the number will be in the millions. That translates ino moutains of money for the person who developed the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept. I have a 20-year head-start on everybody else. The shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing is the biggest advance in the history of personal finance. Robert Shiller wasn’t awarded a Nobel prize because he has a nice haircut.
Rob
“I’m still willing to flip hamburgers if that’s what it takes”
You are good at saying that.
Not so good at doing it.
I’ve been paying a price for not being willing to post dishonestly about stock investing for 20 years, Evidence. If things get to the point where I need to flip burgers, I’ll do it. Things aren’t at that point. But I would feel better flipping burgers knowing that I had the courage to tell my friends that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site lacks a valuation adjustment than I would feel making a six-figure income and knowing that I kept it zipped re the error in the Greaney study because I knew what you Goons would do to me if I gave voice to the obvious truth about it.
Even you acknowledged in your famous post from late 2021 (my favorite Goon post ever!) that the Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment. Has Greaney ever told you that he agrees with you? Have you ever asked him? It seems to me that that would be a construtive thing to do. You said in your famous post that even Greaney himself agrees that the study lacks a valuation adjustment. But in 20 years I have never heard Greaney say that. Why do you think that is?
Rob
“ If things get to the point where I need to flip burgers, I’ll do it. Things aren’t at that point. ”
Based on the comments from your ex-wife, it got way beyond that point. She had to take on 6 jobs.
“ Even you acknowledged in your famous post from late 2021 (my favorite Goon pose ever!) that the Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment. Has Greaney ever said that he agrees with you? Have you ever asked him? It seems to me that that would be a construtive thing to do. You said in your famous post that even Greaney himself agrees that the study lacks a valuation adjustment. But in 20 years I have never heard Greaney say that. Why do you think that is?”
As said thousands of times, it never needed an adjustment to begin with, just like my Tesla doesn’t need a microwave oven. You don’t have to agree with it, but why do you keep asking the question when we already gave you our answer over and over again?
You haven’t responded to the issue of whether the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment “over and over again.” It’s true that Evidence responded in his famous post from late 2021. But that was a breakthrough. The usual response in the 19 years before that was some form of abusiveness aimed at shutting the discussion down or changing the subject. I applaud Evidence for the breakthrough. That was super. I’d like to hear Greaney’s response to what Evidence said. Evidence says that Greaney agrees but hearing Evidence say it is not the same as hearing Greaney say it. Greaney is the author of the study. He should know whether it contains a valuation adjustment or not. I think it would be helpful if he went on the record with his position on that one.
Each time Evidence has stated correctly and helpfully that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment, I have asked him whether he believes that Robert Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns is legitimate research. He has never responsed to that question. You have responded with this thing about a Tesla not needing a microwave oven but that doesn’t tell us whether you believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research, which is the matter in dispute. If Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research, then Greaney’s study is in error. I believe that Shiller’s research is legitimate. So I am compelled to note the lack of a valuation adjustment in the Greaney study when the subject of safe withdrawwal rates turns up in discussions held on the internet. Does that not follow?
The reason why you talk about microwave ovens rather than respond to the question is that to answer the question makes the error in the Buy-and-Hold criticism of market timing (price discipline!) obvious. There is a lot at stake in these discussions. We humans all have a deep love for Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies residing within us. It’s Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold thinking that permits us to build imaginary mountains of irrational-exuberance-based wealth and to fool ourselves into believing that it would be prudent to leave our jobs many years earlier than what the peer-reviewed research shows would be prudent. Irrational exuberance is the fantasy and the “idea” that market timing/price discipline might not always be 100 percent required is the means to keeping the fantasy going for a time. The reason why there is a good bit of opposition to discussion of the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research is that the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research is a fantasy killer. The last 41 years of peer-reviewed research reveals the realities so hated by Buy-and-Holders/Get Rich Quickers. I am a research guy. That’s why you hate me so much.
As a nation of people we do not hate reality. We are not super crazy about it. We love Buy-and-Hold. Today’s CAPE value shoews that. But as a nation of people we permitted Shiller to publish his research and we made his book a best-seller and we awarded Shiller a Nobel prize and we advanced thoudsands of posts during the first 20 years of The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Denate expressing a desire that honest posting be permitted at every site. As a nation of people we are conflicted. We love us some Get Rich Quick stock invevesting strategies but most of us possess at least a dim awareness of the dangers of going full Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold. The turning point will be when we insist that every discussion board and blog be opened to honest posting re the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research, without a single exception. At that point, there will be a counter to all the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold happy talk and those of us who want to work to keep stock prices at reasonable levels will at least have something to work with.
I think that will be an amazing day, a second Independence Day for the people of the United States. We will be gaining independence from the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge that resides within all of us and which has been holding us back since the first stock market opened for business (the Bennett/Pfau research shows that an investor can reduce the risk of stock investing by nearly 70 percent just by opening up to the need always to practice market timing/price discipline when buying stocks).
I think that Evidence is right re the Greaany study. But I’d like to hear Greaney say it. It makes everything more clear. And the more clear people get re all this stuff, the better off we all will be, in my sincere assessment. Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold lives in the dark. Call it out and it shrivels up and dies. No one makles a conscious and thoughtful and well-considered decision to destroy his hopes to achieve financial freedom as early in life as possible.
Rob
“ I think that Evidence is right re the Greaany study. But I’d like to hear Greaney say it. It makes everything more clear. And the more clear people get re all this stuff, the better off we all will be, in my sincere assessment. Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold lives in the dark. Call it out and it shrivels up and dies. No one makles a conscious and thoughtful and well-considered to destroy his hopes to achieve financial freedom as early in life as possible.”
Evidence has answered it, just like everyone else. One more time: IT DOESN’T NEED IT.
Now, why didn’t you get the burger flipping job instead of making your wife get 6 jobs to pay the bills?
Do you believe that Robert Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns is legitimate research?
If not, why not?
Rob
Yes but it also doesn’t work anymore and I don’t think it was adequately tested out of sample. Due to a number of changes the average p/e has more or less permanently shifted.
Rob – you literally read like an insane version of chat gpt.
Okay. Now we at least have something that is kinda sorta within the realm of reason. That’s progress.
I believe that stocks will continue to perform in the future at least somewhat as they have always performed in the past. It is certainly the case that today’s CAPE value is a good bit higher than what we usually see. But there is no reason to conclude that that’s a permanent situation. There have been many cases in the past in which stock prices have TEMPORARILY traveled to insanely high levels and then returned to reasonable levels or continued dropping to much lower than reasonable levels. It’s all part of the phenomenon that Shiller calls “irrational exuberance.” We will all know more when we see how low prices fall in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis and how long they remain at those lower levels once they fall to them. If irrational exuberance is truly still a thing, that is going to show up in the shifts in stock prices that we all see as time goes on.
Have i ever given the slightest indication tht I would object if you said during board discussions that you believe that Shiller’s research “doesn’t work anymore”? I believe it still works. So I 100 percent need to say that in all comments that I offer. But I have zero doubt that, if you say in response to my comments indicating that I believe that Shiller’s research still works that you don’t believe that it does, you are going to see lots of people agree with you. Fine, you know? It’s all part of the wonderful game.
Some people believe one thing, other people believe another thing. That’s why they call them DISCUSSION boards. People with different perspectives DISCUSS their differences and see if they can learn something about the other point of view by talking things over a bit. That’s the board project. At the old Motley Fool board. And at every board I have posted at during the first 20 years of the discussions.
Maybe I’m wrong. It’s been known to happen. If it turns out that I am wrong about something, and we permit honest posting, as I strongly believe we should, that is going to come out in time. And of course it works the other way around too. If the Buy-and-Holders got something wrong back in the 1960s when they were puttiing their strategy together and we permit honest posting, that is going to come out in the discussions and we are all going to learn from them.
No death threats. No unjustified board bannings. No extortion. No thousands of acts of defamation. None of the Goon garbage that has been holding us all back for 20 years now. None of that should ever happen. You have one point of view re how stock investing works, I have another. All. good. That’s what makes for a good DISCUSSION. A good civil, reasoned, friendly, respectful discussion.
That’s where I am coming from, Anon. I don’t agree with you re a few things. But I don’t hate you. I am happy to talk things over with you from time to time. And with others. Some who will no doubt agree with you. Some who will agree with me.
And I naturally wish all of those people the best that life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategy they elect to follow.
Rob