Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
As said thousands of times, your opinion of what one guy said is not “peer-reviewed research”. Have you ever conducted any kind of research? Do you know how to even run a full retrospective study? What formal education do you have with respect to research in the investment field? You like to put labels on things in which you have no fundamental knowledge or training.
I don’t need any specialized knowledge and traning to be able to read the title of a book, Anonymous. The title of Shiller’s book is “Irrational Exuberance.” Does that sound like a good thing to you? It sounds like a bad thing to me.
If irrational exuberance is a bad thing, then all investors should be working together to limit it to the greatest extent possible. The only way to do that is for investors to lower their stock allocation when prices get out of cotrol and the long-term value proposition of stocks is dimished That’s market timing! Not the bad kind that never works (short-term timing). The good kind that always works because it is price discipline and price discipline has been absolutely essential in every market that ever existed going back to the beginning of time.
Or so my formal education in reading the titles of books informs me.
My best wishes.
Rob
I guess we all just go to the bookstore and read off a title to tell us what to do.
You are a grown man that is acting like a little child with your silly stories.
I definitely think that it would be a plus if you would reflect for a moment on what the title of Shiller’s book signifies, Anonymous. Wouldn’t that be better than hearing me say 10,000 times that I sincerely 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? It seems like an easy enough choice to me.
My best wishes, etc.
Rob
Failing to correct an error in a retirement study for 21 years is irrational. You’re showing with your behavior that Shiller nailed it!
Rob
Failing to see that there is no error results in wasting your time. Shiller never claimed that Greaney made an error. You’re still broke. Fix your error.
Shiller never claimed that Greaney made an error. Shiller isn’t broke. Pfau isn’t broke. Greaney isn’t broke. You are broke, so it appears you need to fix YOUR error.
Failing to see that there is no error results in wasting your time. Shiller never claimed that Greaney made an error. You’re still broke. Fix your error.
In the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, we could elect to drop the intimidation stuff and invite Shiller to tell us whether he believes that, in a world where valuations affect long-term returns, the safe withdrawal rate could always be the same number.
Rob
Shiller never claimed that Greaney made an error. Shiller isn’t broke. Pfau isn’t broke. Greaney isn’t broke. You are broke, so it appears you need to fix YOUR error.
I still believe today that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment.
Rob
“I still believe today that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment.”
You are half way there Rob, now all you have to do is explain why it should have a valuation adjustment.
“ In the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, we could elect to drop the intimidation stuff and invite Shiller to tell us whether he believes that, in a world where valuations affect long-term returns, the safe withdrawal rate could always be the same number.”
In the hours following the next rainbow, we will all run towards the end of the rainbow and see pots of gold that will make us all rich. We can invite Shiller to tell us what he believes about those pots of gold. He must have an opinion, but keeps it held back do to all the intimidation by they market timing/rainbow timing goons.
What does it matter as to what you believe about Greaney versus what everyone else thinks? It also has nothing to do with why you are broke and the rest of us are fine. Greaney could just lie and make you happy. The rest of us could lie to make you happy. Neither would change a thing for you or anyone else.
You are half way there Rob, now all you have to do is explain why it should have a valuation adjustment.
Because Shiller shoswed in his Nobel-prize-winning research that valuations affect long-term returns.
Rob
In the hours following the next rainbow, we will all run towards the end of the rainbow and see pots of gold that will make us all rich. We can invite Shiller to tell us what he believes about those pots of gold. He must have an opinion, but keeps it held back do to all the intimidation by they market timing/rainbow timing goons.
Okay, Anonymous.
I naturally wish you all good things, in any event.
Rob
What does it matter as to what you believe about Greaney versus what everyone else thinks? It also has nothing to do with why you are broke and the rest of us are fine. Greaney could just lie and make you happy. The rest of us could lie to make you happy. Neither would change a thing for you or anyone else.
It matters to me whether I post honestly or not, Anonymous.
Rob
Look at what you said. It is always about you, what you think and what you want. No one cares about your distorted view on “honest” posting. It has nothing to do with actual investing or fixing your poor financial position.
Okay, Anonymous.
Please take good care, old friend.
Rob
The he obvious thing is to just do everything yourself. Do your own study like Greaney and make up any adjustments you want. Create your own investing forum and let people talk about what you want to discuss. Invite Shiller, Pfau and anyone else to post on your forum. Sell your books, reports or whatever else on your website. Buy or sell any investment in any way you see fit.
Outside of that, no one has to do one darn thing just to make you happy.
In the days following the onset of the nxxt Buy-and-Hold Crisis, it may be that there will be many people who will want to make themselves and millions of others happy by encouraging everyone to follow research-based straregies.We’ve already seen thousands of people express a desire that honest posting re the research be permitted at times when the CAPE value was in Cloud KooKoo land. If Shiller is right, then a diminished level of investor emotion (which is what a lower CAPE value signifies) should make us all more capable of making choices that will permit us to live fuller and freer and richer and happier lives. That sounds groovy to me.
We’ll see. Research serves no good purpose unless it is shared. I would like to see the last 42 years of research shared openly at every internet site, without a single exception. I don’t think there should be one disstening voice to that proposal. If Buy-and-Hold was a real thing, its advocates would be confident that it could prevail in open and civil debate. I think it would be fair to say that we are as a nation of people on the threashold of achieving the greatest economic leap forward in our history. Wish us luck!
My best wishes.
Rob
“ I would like to see the last 42 years of research shared openly at every internet site, without a single exception.”
There you go again telling what YOU want. You can peddle your own version of “peer reviewed” whatever on your own website. No one else had to do a darn thing you say. They have the choice of presenting their own views on THEIR websites, just like you do. They have no obligation to serve up a big helping of hocomania just to make you happy.
What is ironic is that you make demands like this, yet you refuse to post on some of the largest internet sites, such as Reddit. You are free to post where site owners don’t care, but don’t expect people to let you do what you want with the sites they own as they decide on their own content.
Before you were permitted to post at any of the sites at which you posted, you were required to agree to follow the published rules of the site. Every site at which I have participated has published rules prohiting the sorts of tactics that have been employed by those posting in “defense” of Mel Lindauer and John Greaney and their efforts to suppress discusssion of the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. Why did you agree to follow the posted rules of the sites if you believe that you have no obligation to do so and no intention of doing so?
Rob
Published rules have nothing to do with actual content that a website owner chooses to have. You make your own decisions on your website and others make their decisions. If you don’t like their content, too bad. They don’t have to please you.
They obviously don’t need to please me. If they needed to please me, every site would have been opened to honest posting re the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research on the afternoon of May 13, 2002.
But all of the site owners obviously have a great interest in facilitating conversations about the peer-reiewed research or else they would not have written the publushed rules in the way they did. They are conflicted. They love, love, love conversations about the peer-reviewed research. But they also love, love, love Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick/the value assigned to their stock portfolio on the their portfolio statement. This is the conflict that as a nation of people we are trying to work out. We like peer-reviewed research. But we also like Get Rich Quick investment strategies. So we get this weird situation where we have published rules saying one thing and board bannings sending a very different message.
Will be the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis tilt things a bit in the direction of permitting honest posting re the research. I think it might. As prices fall and losses accumulate, the pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold “strategy” is going to possess less emotional appeak. At least that’s what I expect to see happen. We’ll see, you know?
Rob
“ They love, love, love conversations about the peer-reviewed research.”
Which is far from what you do when you post. People don’t love, love, love what you do, despite your claims otherwise. They have had every right to ban you and they did, just look you block people. That is why your take on board “rules” is not even relevant.
You can have your own version on what you think is honest, what you think is peer reviewed, what you think is a crisis……….all over here on your board and that were your rights end.
A good number of the site owners loved my steff. The site administrator at the Motley Fool board told me that he thought it would be “ideal” if Greaney permitted honest posting re the research. Bill Sholar set up a separate section of his site for people to talk in peace about Valuation-Informed Indexing. It was only when you Goons threatened to burn his site to the ground that he abandoned the idea of permitting honest, research-based posting. El Supremo said that he wanted me and John Walter Russell to serve as the administators of his site. Again, he relented when the Buy-and-Hold Goon Squad at that site threatned to burn the site to the ground if he permitted honest posting re the research.
Take away the abusive and in some cases crimnal posting and there is simply no problem. You Goons make up about 10 percent of the board communities. About 10 percent are Valuation-Informed Indexers. The other 80 percent are Normals. They are Buy-and-Holders. They aren’t at all thriled to hear that their stock portfolio is worth a lot less than what they have been led by Buy-and-Holders to believe it is worth. But they are fine with honest posting being permitted and can be brought around to the research-based approach in time. Those people matters. You Goons today have an influence on what is said at our boards far greater than what your numbers suggest your influence should be. We need to encourage the site owners to show more courage by enforcing their published site rules in a reasonable way even though it enrages you Goons when they do so.
That’s where I’m coming from re this matter, in any event.
Rob
If board owners really loved your stuff, they would keep you on. They don’t. They are just being polite. They can make whatever decision they want to make with their board and it can be any reason. Period. I actually know why you are banned at several boards and it is not for the reasons you have stated. Regardless, they have the free right to do so and even the Supreme Court has ruled on cases where people have been banned from boards.
No one is holding you back. You can post whatever you want here. You can post whatever you want on boards where they have yet to ban you. You don’t have to like Greaney’s study. You can do your own study and how people how YOU think it should have been done. If you think there are criminal acts, file charges (just be careful of not filing a false police report and end up in trouble). No one is keeping you from doing one single thing. On the other hand, you have no right to demand or tell anyone else what they have to do. Greaney doesn’t have to change his study by close of business, as you have often demanded. No one has to reopen their board to you by close of business. No one has to believe your stories about goons and made up criminal acts.
Frankly, we just don’t care where you are coming from. All you posts are about you and what you want. How many times do you have to be told “no”.
I believe to this day that the Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment. That’s the bottom line.
I wish you all good things, if that helps at all. I am not able to imagine what else I can do for you.
Rob
There again, you go back to what YOU believe, etc. It is not about YOU. Go ahead and do your own version of the Greaney study. If you don’t like it, you fix it how you would like to fix it to make you happy. Your last line doesn’t make sense. You don’t need to do anything for me. I have never asked you to do anything for me. I am telling you that YOU need to do the things you want don’t and stop asking the rest of us to do things for you. We don’t have to and we are not going to do so. End of story.
Okay, Anonymous.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob