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 felt intense social prssure to conform”
I don’t think you have ever “conformed” to anything. If you did, you would not be broadly banned from the investment community, nor would you be broke or divorced.
I’ve conformed to U.S. law, Anonymous. I’ve conformed to what the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research teaches us all about how stock investing works in the real world. I’ve conformed to the expressed wishes of thousands of our fellow community members who have indicated a desire to see honest posting re the peer-reviewed research permitted at every site.
Rob
Do you or your ex-wife regret getting a divorce?
I regret it profoundly, It’s the worst thing that ever happened in my life and there’s nothing in a close second place.
My ex is certainly not happy about it. I think she feels that she had no choice but to go down that path.
Rob
Do you regret it enough to say that you made the wrong decision?
No.
I live in a nation of people. Many of those people have helped me live a better life. Doctors. Scientists. Teachers. Policemen. On and on and on and on. I would not be able to sleep at night if I sold those people out. I sincerely believe that the Greaney retirement study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.
I am 100 percent certain that my ex would feel the same way about it if she had studied these matters as closely as I have and knew what I know. She knows that there is some funny business going on. But she does not know the full extent of it. It is hard for anyone who has not devoted themselves full time to these matters to appreciate the realities. I know that I did not appreciate them on the morning of May 13, 2002. It’s a hard-to-believe story. But a very, very. very important one. For me to stop talking about it would make it worse. We need more people talking about this story, not fewer.
Rob
Just like you, Ted Kaczynski thought he was right along as well. We see how that played out.
Does John Greaney think that he is right? Does Mel Linmdauer think that he is right?
I don’t agree with Lindauer or Greaney on safe withdraal rates. But I say that the Valuation-Informed Indexers and the Buy-and-Holders should interact with each other in a spirit of friendship and respect. It seems to me that that is the anti-Kacynski position.
Rob
It matters more as to whom the investment community believes and supports. John and Mel have broad support…….while you have none. It seems to me that you are the one that followed the path of Ted Kaczynski.
I have enjoyed tons of support at every community at which I have appeared (never a majority, usually about 10 percent support) prior to when the abusive (and sometimes criminal posting has appeared from the Buy-and-Holders. That’s why you Goons always become abusive. You have never been able to imagine a scenario in which Buy-and-Hold prevails in civil and reasoned debate.
Why do I have a funny feeling that that strategy may not work so well in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis?
We’ll see.
Rob
You don’t have any support here, despite people’s ability to post anonymously/. Why is that?
Why do I have a funny feeling that your strategy will never work and you will always be broke?
Nobody knows that this site exists. To get thousands of people posting here, we need to open every other site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed resesearch and bring them here.
If you hadn’t seen with your own eyes how people are persuaded when they are able to talk over what the peer-reviewed research says, you would never have advanced a single abusive post. You believe as strongly as I do that permitting honest posting re the last 42 years of peer-reviewed reseaech would mean the end of Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick. We all want to believe in Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick. But it gets harder and harder to pull off the more we are exposed to discussion of the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research.
It all comes down to whether the American people are deep down inside a good and intelligent people. I believe that we are. If we were an entirely corrupt people, we would have shut down all the peer-reviewed journals years ago and Shiller would never have been awarded a Nobel prize. We have seen some bad stuff over the first 21 years of our discussions. But the good stuff we have seen outnumbers the bad stuff by a 20 to 1 ratio. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Rob
“ Nobody knows that this site exists. ”
If you were as popular as you say, then they know it exists. If you need more exposure, there are hundreds of sites you can post on right now, including the largest site, Reddit.
I’ve posted at lots of places. Buy-and-Holders/Get Rich Quickers make up 90 percent of the board community everywhere today. The CAPE value today is 30. How do you think that happened? That’s Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick in action.
What I need is nogt exposure. Shiller’s book is carred in most libraries and most bookstores. That is massive exposure. What I need is the ability to have calm, reespectful discussions about the last 42 years or peer-reviewed research, with no abusiveness or criminal behavior whatsoever. When people are able to get their questions answered and to explore differengt angles, they come around gradually. Not immediately, gradually. That’s what gets the job done. Death threats and acts of extortion are poison to the efforts of millions of people to learn how stock investing works in the real world.
It all comes down to whether the ocean of human misery we all see play out before us in the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis will persuade a larger number of us that we should permit honest posting re the peer-reviewed research at every site. We are now at 10 percent. I believe that getting to 20 percent would get us over the hump. I believe that we are going to pull it off. There’s no way to know for sure because there’s never been a situation like this before, But I have seen too many people show an interest in learning the realities of stock investing to believe that we will not eventually work our way as a nation of people to a far better place. I believe that we are standing on the threshold of achieving some amazing advances.
Wish us all luck!
Rob
“ I’ve posted at lots of places.”
And there is your answer. In general, people are either not interested or don’t agree, despite your spin. You can’t handle how you are wrong and you act like the world owes you something.
The problem is not with other people, it is you. You have no ability to self reflect.
There’s a small number (10 percent) that desperately wants discussion of the last 42 years of peer-revieweed research to be prohibited, That’s you Goons. There’s 10 percent that are interested in participating on civil and reasoned discussions but have a distaste for the ugliness that you Goons bring to the table and who check out when they see too much of that stuff. There’s 80 percent (the Normal) who are Buy-and-Holders today because they have never heard the other side of the story but who could be persuaded to become Valuation-Informed Indexers over time. It would take a good bit of time for that to happen.
The world doesn’t owe me something. The world owes the world something. Every new idea started with one person believing in it. Then it was two. Then 20. Then 200. Then 2,000. Then 2 million. And so on. The world has adopted laws and conventions to assure that that process of discovery of new ways of doing things takes place because it has seen on so many occasions how important it is. Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research represents a sea change in our understanding of how stock investing works. It points us to a place where we can all retire many years sooner and where ee can sll live richer and fuller and better lives than we ever imagined possible in the Buy-and-Hold Era. I can deal with that.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, in any event.
Rob
What you claim is 42 years of peer-reviewed research is only a talking point and far from the truth. Research includes EVERYTHING and not just your opinion of what one guy said. You just use it as a talking point. Same goes for your “10 percent” number.
You use the same canned lines over and over again and then us all what other people have to do and how you have done so much (which is not true).
Your words are all hollow and meaningless.
Okay, Anonymous. I do wish you all good things regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow, in any event.
Rob
“ The world doesn’t owe me something.”
Which means your $500 million is made up and that you need to get a job to EARN money vs expecting to have someone handing it to you.
I’ve earned the money, Anonymous. We wouldn’t have seen thousands of our fellow community members expressing a desire that honest posting re the peer-reviewed research be permitted if there weren’t great value in it. And you never would have advanced a single abusive post if you hadn’t seen that widespread desire up close and personal. I mean, come on.
Rob
You haven’t earned anything. You earn something when you have an agreement with another party for your goods and services and then you complete what was asked for.
There are millions and millions of people who need access to honest, research-based information on how stock investing works in the real world (hint: valuations affect long-term returns). I have made in crystal clear for 21 years now that I am happy to supply them with that information, which would obviously put hundreds of millions in profits into my pocket. The only thing that has stopped these transactions from taking place for those 21 years is the insanely abusive and in some cases criminal behavior of you Goons. Gee, I wonder how this is going to play out in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, which the entire historical record shows is likely to destroy millions of lives. Some of this investing stuff is so hard to figure out!
I wish you all good things, Anonymous. I will do everything in my power to help you out. There are limits to my powers. I can’t say that i believe that Greaney included a valuation adjustment in his study or I am guilty of financial fraud myself and I go to prison too. But I will do what I can and we will just have to watch it all play out. I believe that we are fundmentally a good people and that we are going to see some truly amazing advances in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. I certainly hope so! But we’ll see, you know?
My best wishes to you and yours, in any event.
Rob
Names one person who wants to buy something from you right now.
Name one who doesn’t.
No one can say for sure until we have opened every site to honest posting re the research and we see what happens.
But none of you Goons would have posted abusively if you hadn’t seen huge potential for the Valuation-Informed Indexing. To advance death threats and engage in acts of extortion just isn’t normal behavior. If you thought that there was any more than a zero chance that Valuation-Informed Indexing would eventiually surpase Buy-and-Hold in popularity, you just would have adopted a “live and let live” attitude, as required by every site to which you posted. There has to be some explanation for your behavior.
Rob
“ Name one who doesn’t.”
Everyone. If anyone else reading this disagrees, they are welcome to post here and say they are ready to buy what you are selling. To this point, no one has been asking you for something to buy.
Are you okay if I just continue posting honestly re the peer-reviewed research and we wait to see how things play out in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis?
Rob
You say that you have all these friends and that you have talked to thousands. If that is the case, go sell them something.
Everybody in the United States is my friend. If that were so, we wouldn’t have acted as a nation of people to male death threats and acts of extortion against the law.
Is it their fault that we humans were born with a weakness for Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies and need regular discussion of the peer-reviewed research to overcome our self-destructive urges?
I have a funny feeling that I won’t have any problems finding lots of people to buy my stuff once ever site has been opened to honest posting re the peer-reviwed research.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
If you really had something of value, someone with capital would ask to buy you out or partner with you. Even if someone thought you would hit even 1% of your number, they would jump in. No one has offered you a dime. You don’t have anything of any value whatsoever.
Wade Pfau devoted 16 months of his life to researching my ideas on stock investing and concluded that: “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” Rob Arnott reviewed my site and conclucded that everything that I say checks out. John Walter Russell spent eight years of his life researching my ideas without receiving a dime of compensation. If there had never been any abusive or criminal posting, I would have seen nunerous wealthy people partner with me. The entire point of the bans is that they keep people from hearing about me so that doesn;t happen.
I believe that it will happen in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. It is of course your fear of seeing it happen that explains your insanely abusive behavior. If you sincerely believed that Greaney’s study contained a valuation adjustment, you would have posted a link to the page containing the valuation adjustment many years ago.
Rob
Wade Pfau doesn’t promote VII. He promotes a bucket strategy. Rob Arnott and his firm use a weighted stock index system. JWR is no longer with us, so we can’t see what he is recommending. I don’t recall seeing any of these people asking to buy you out or invest with you. If these people really thought you had value, we would have seen something of confirmation in what they did or do with their money and recommendations.
Join with me to work to open every site to honest posting re the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research and you’ll see it. You’ll see it from Wade Pfau and from Rob Arnott and from thousands of others. Without honest posting, there is no way to spread knowledge of new research findings and thus no means of correcting mistakes. It is absolutely essential. I think it’s the answer.
I know it is!
Rob