Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
No one needs to agree and/or believe your opinions as to what constitutes all of the historical peer-reviewed research and what it actually says and means.
You are free to believe whatever you want to believe, but your entire message is around what you want everyone else to do. You are not free to demand that others give you access to their platform. You are not free to demand that someone change their study to correct some kind of “error” you think this person has made, despite others not agreeing. You are not free to demand that others have to pay you compensation for what you think you should get, when no one has actually agreed to pay you anything. You are not free to make up allegations and expect others to believe it when you have not provided any direct evidence of criminal activity.
It’s not an “allegation” for me to point out that the retirement study posted at John Greney’s web site lacks aan adjustment for the valuaation level that applies on the day that the rettirement begins. Evidence-Based Investing is one of the generals in Greaney’s Goon Army. Evidence said in his famous post from late 2021 that “nobody” truly believes that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment, “including Greaney himself.” I don’t feel that Evidence was making an ellegation. I say that he was stating a simple fact.
Do you think it would have been better if I had kept it zipped re the error in the study? I am ashamed that I did not speak up sooner. A number of people who posted at the Motley Fool board had become friends of mine over the years. They were using the Greaney study for help in planning their retirements.
Do you think I was being fair to Greaney during the three years when I was too afraid of what he would do to me if I pointed out the error to speak up? I feel that I failed him (and the entire Retire Early community) during those three years. I began to feel better about myself when I worked up the courage to post honestly. Which version of Rob Bennett do you like better, the one who sold out his friends to appease you Goons or the one who worked up the couage to do the right thing?
Rob
As Evidence recommended, do your own study if you don’t like Greaney’s work.
Every investor needs to feel free to have whatever discussions he or she wants to have to determine his or her best strategy. There should be no abusive posting. There should be no death threats. There should be no demands for unjustified board bannings. There should be no acts of extortion aimed at suppressing the efforts of academic researchers to publish honest, accurate research.
We never see any of that sort of thing used to advance Valuation-Informed Indexing. We only see it used to advance Buy-and-Hold. That’s because Buy-and-Hold is the strategy that discouages market timing/price discipline. Any market will become dysfunctional in time if price discipline is not practiced regularly. All that Shiller showed (not that it is not a super big deal) is that the stock market is just like every other market that has ever existed, price discipline/market timing is always 100 percent required.
The only teason why Greaney does not want to see people talking about the research is that his study lacks a valuation adjustment. His study makes an implict statement that market timing/price disciplne is not required. He of course is not able to come up with any rational argument for how that could be so. So he engages in all of this abusive behavior instead. I believe that we should be permitting honest discussion of the peer-reviewed research at every site. I think that’s the answer.
I know it is!
Rob
It has been talked about thousands of times. You just don’t like the answers. Thus, do your own study. No one, including Greaney has to do a thing for you.
I would like you to have posts on your board everyday discussing the merits of microwaves in Tesla’s, but I understand you don’t feel the need to do so and you also shouldn’t be compelled to allow anyone to discuss it on your board since it belongs to you. Instead, if I want it discussed , I should create my own board and do my own studies regarding microwaves in Tesla’s.
The error in the Greaney retirement study (it lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins) has never been discussed in a civil and reasoned way. I pointed out the error. There were thousands of people who expressed an interest in having the discussion. But you Goons always injected yourself into the threads in an abusive way and that drove away most of the Normal, who are only willing to participate in the discussions if they are held in a civl and reasoned way, pursuant to the published rules of the sites and pursuant to the laws of the United States (no death threats, etc.).
I didn’t write the laws of the United States. I didn;t write the published rules of all the sites. So we are not taling about what I want. We are talking about what every member of every community wants. We all agreed to follow the publushed rules before we were permitted to post. That includes you Goons. You obviously didn’t mean it when it comes to Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies. But you did agree to follow the rules. And I believe that the site administrators should hold you to your promise.
When a site owner permits abusive posting to suppress honest and civil discussion of the peer-reviewed research because he favors a Get Rich Quick strategy that cannot survive open examintion of its flaws, he is participating in an act of fraud. Community members see that a retirement study is beging regularly discussed and that no one is pointing out errors in it and he comes to believe that that means that there are no errors in it. The site owner doesn’t announce that “oh, none of the rules that govern discussion here apply when someone is pushing a pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold approach or a study implicityl supporting such an approach,” he just lets things happen as they happen, That’s how we get bull markets. That’s how we get loony tune retirement studies that say that the safe withdrawal rate is the same number at all valuation levels. That’s how we get economic crises. All of these things happen because we all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold impulse within us and out only protection from it is the peer-reviewed research and so those of us who have our retirement hopes pinned to a pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold sttrategy very, very, very much don’t want to see honest, civil, reasoned discussion of the research at any of the boards.
I want to see honest, civil, reasoned discussion at EVERY board. I failed to speak up about the error in the Greaney study for three years because I was afraid of whst you Goons would do to me if I posted honestly. I eventually worked up the courage ro point out the error and I have never looked back. I think we should be talking about the dangers of Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies at every board. It is the only protection we all have against the irrational exuberance that has been making stock investing risky for as long as there has been a stock market.
That’s where I’m coming from re this one, Anonymous.
If you want to go pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold yourself, thats your business. You do not have the right to decide that question for other community members. Each community member has the right to hear about all of the research and to make up his or her own mind. Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research exists. We all have a right to discuss it and not to be harrassed or intimidated for doing so. I believe that that research is legitimate research. So I say that. I offer no apologies for doing so.
Rob
Like I said, you don’t like the responses. No one has to agree with you just to make you happy. Further, you make matters worse when you make up stories like death threats, etc. You just want to keep the story going to make is seem like there is some unsettlement matter keeping you from doing any work.
Whatever you want, do it yourself. We are not here for your bidding.
What I am going to do is to continue saying that I believe that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. We will decide as a nation of people in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis whether or not to open every discussion board and blog to honest posting re the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research. I think we should do that. I believe we will. But whether it actually happens or not we will have to wait a bit to find out.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, in any event.
Rob
You will continue to say the same things because you want the story to keep going on and on and on. You need it to stay this way because then you can use it as an excuse for not getting job. You can use it as an excuse for why your are broke. You can use it as an excuse for why you got divorced. You can use it as an excuse for why people don’t talk to you. You are not capable to taking the blame for anything and you are not capable of acting like a responsible adult.
Okay, Anonymous.
I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person in any event. I’d like to think that that would help at least a tiny bit.
Rob
Feel free to prove me wrong by getting a job. Prove me wrong by making up with your ex-wife.
Okay, Anonymous.
Rob
…….or perhaps no one will hire you and your ex-wife won’t talk to you and you have no choice but to keep the fake stories going.
Woe is me, Anonymous.
Please take good care.
Rob
You don’t think it is bad to be broke in your 60’s and no job prospects?
I think it was bad that for three years I was afraid to point out the error in the Greaney retirement study. I overcame my fear on the mornong of May 13, 2002, and now I am free. That part feels good.
That part feels wonderful. I would like to see as many people as possible come to experience that feeling.
Rob
“ Do you think it would have been better if I had kept it zipped re the error in the study? ”
Yes, because you know there is no error and you have been told that thousands of times. Instead, you keep repeating it and acting like it hasn’t been addressed. If you kept it “zipped”, then people think you know how to have a proper conversation.
Whatever, Anonymous.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob