“One of the Things That Shiller’s Nobel-Prize-Winning Research Shows Is That It Is Very Hard to Think Clearly About Stock Investing.”

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

There have already been thousands of discussions on why you are wrong about Greaney’s work.  It has been pointed out for 20 years.  What more don’t you understand that you think there needs to be a discussion. What hasn’t been answered for you?  What are you unclear about?  Is it your lack of education and training in the space that is making it so difficult for you?

For starters, I believe that the error in the Greaney retirement study (it lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins) should be corrected. People use retirement studies to plan retirements. If your model for understanding how stock investing works is so messed up that it causes you to get the numnbers in retirement studies wrong, then there is something terribly wrong with your model.

There are all kinds of amazing things that follow from that. But getting errors in retirement studies corrected is the very first step in getting to a much better place. If we were all thinking clearly, there would be a 100 percent consensus re that one. There wouldn’t be on voice of dissent.

Unfortunately, one of the things that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research shows is that it is very hard to think clearly about stock investing. We all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge residing within us that trips us up over and over, That’s why I frequently argue that we should permit honest posting re the peer-reviewed research at every site. The more we hear about what the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research says, the less inclined we are to fall for the pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold stuff.

My sincere take.

Rob