“Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold Lives in the Dark. Call It Out and It Shrivels Up and Dies. No One Makes a Conscious and Thoughtful and Well-Considered Decision to Destroy His Hopes to Achieve Financial Freedom As Early in Life As Possible.”

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

“ 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 makes a conscious and thoughtful and well-considered decision to destroy his hopes to achieve financial freedom as early in life as possible.

Rob