“Shiller Revolutionized the Field or He Did Nothing.”

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

You only learn by reading your own words?  So you really aren’t interested in posting anywhere else on the internet, right?

No. That’s not even close to being true. I learn by thinking. It’s when my own thoughts come into contact with different thoughts offered by others that I learn. That’s why I say that I would be an amazing learning experience if you Goons had any interest in engaging in civil discussion, But I gave up thining that that was a possibility a long time ago. Every now and again, however, you just can’t help yourselves. Those moments are gold. I put up with all of the garbage to be able to enjoy those rare moments when you permit something real to show through the Goon persona.

If I learned about some place on the internet where people were having a discussion about how Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research overturns our old understanding of how stock investing works in a fundamental way, then, sure, I would want to be a part of that. The comment that Sensible put up re the Reddit discussion does not suggest even a tiny bit that that is what is going on over there. So, no thanks, you know? Shiller revolutionized the field or he did nothing. He didn’t show that the old safe withdrawal rare calculations are a little off. He showed that they are wildly wrong. A showing that valuations affect long-term returns is not a small advance over a belief that the market is efficient (that market timing is not required). It is the biggest advance in the history of personal finance. To benefit from the advance (to make the changes that we need to make so that we can all live fuller and better and richer lives from this point forward), we need to talk about the how-to implications of Shiller’s amazing research findings in realisitc ways.

I am happy to talk to anybody. But I am not going to pretend that I believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is only a small advance. That would be dishonest. I have had many of those sorts of discussions in the past and they ultimately lead nowhere. To obtain the benefits that Shiller’s amazing research promises, we need to be able to let in that we did not always know everything there is to know about this subject and that the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research is the most important 41 years of peer-reviewed research in the history of investment analysis. Those are the discussions that matter. We have already squandered 41 years. Engaging in silly discussions of whether Shiller achieved some small advance just causes us to squander more time that we should be devoting to learning how we all can live fuller and better and richer lives by making the shift to the first true research-based investment strategy.

Rob