Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
“The trouble started when I tried posting at his site, I pointed out in some of my comments that other sites continued to report the safe withdrawal rate inaccurately and described some of the abusive tactics that had been employed to keep the people who read these sites from being informed about the errors in the Buy-and-Hold studies.”
In other words you didn’t want to discuss investing matters at Todd’s site.
You wanted to make the discussion about you and your history at other sites.
The ban on honest posting re the peer-reviewed research is an investing matter, Evidence. In two important ways.
One. There were people at the Motley Fool board who believed that the Greaney study was legitimate. There shouldn’t be one person on the planet who doesn’t want them to be informed of the error in his study (it lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins). There were people in that board community who used the Greaney study as guidance in planning their retirement. I was there.
Two. The publication of Shillers research launched a revolutionary advance in our understanding of how stock investing works. We should all want knowledge to advance as qucickly as possible since every advance achieved helps every laat one of us to live a better and fuller and richer and freer life. There are a lot of smart people posting at all of the sites at which honest posting re the research is now banned. There is huge leverage to be gained by opening all of those sites to honest posting by thje close of business today, if not a good bit sooner.
That’s where I am coming from re this one, in any event.
Rob
Again, you are making it about YOU. It is what YOU think is an error (which it is not). It is what YOUthink is peer reviewed research. It is YOU that thinks every board owner should let YOU post whatever YOU want.
I defintely believe that the Greaney retirement study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.
And I definitely believe that it is the crazy reactions from Buy-and-Holders to my letting people know about the error in the Greaney study that explains today’s scary CAPE value of 31. If lots of people posted warnings on a daily basis as the CAPE value got higher and higher, we would never have another bull marker or another bear market or another economic crisis. All of these things are connected and it is when we permit irrational exuberance to get out of control that as a nation of people we cause these things to take place. The only way to rein in irrational exuberance is with market timing and Buy-and-Hold DISCOURAGES market timing. Buy-and-Hold is a price-indifferent strategy.
That’s my sincere take. We need to flip it. We need to encourage market timing/price discipline at all times and at all places if we want to always keep the CAPE value at a reasonable level and to avoid future bull markets and bear markets and economic crisies. I am banned at so many places because it upsets Buy-and-Holders when I say that. Buy-and-Holders want to believe that their phony baloney irrational ecxuberance gains are real and, when I cite what the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research reveals about how the stock market works in the real world, it makes them feel uncomfortable and they lash out or at least tolerate lashing out by the Buy-and-Hold goons in the community.
That’s where I’m coming from re this thing, Anonymous. My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Thanks for proving my point.
Okay, Anonymous.
Rob
Doesn’t it bother you that you never accomplished anything? Don’t you feel that you have wasted your life trying to get revenge on people that made you look silly (like Greaney and those you call goons)? Don’t you feel ashamed that you have to make up stories as a cover for your failures?
It is too late to save your retirement, but not too late to at least fix the problems described.
Does it bother you that the Greaney retirement study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins?
It bothers me that it took me three years to work up the courage to say that in public. Every insight that I have mined over the past 21 years began with me working up the courage to give voice to that one and then noting the reaction of Buy-and-Holders to it.
Rob
None of us are bothered by Greaney’s study because it has no error. No adjustment needed in a retrospective study. Anyone with scientific training understands the difference between retrospective and prospective.
The people who used the study were using it to structure plams for retirements that would take place in the future. I had become friends with a number of those people. I felt a need to post honestly that the study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.
If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, there would not have beern a single person speaking in support of the idea of a ban on honest posting. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, every Buy-and-Holder would want to see the far-reaching how-to implications of Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research explored at every site on the internet, without a single exception.
Buy-and-Hold is not a real thing. I believe that it started out as an attempt to develop somethong real. But Shiller’s amazing research was not available at the time that Buy-and-Hold was developed. so they made a mistake in tbinking that market timing might not be absolutely required. Now we need to as a nation of people get about the business of correcting the mistake and moving forward to a better understanding of how stock investing works than we ever imagined was possible back in the Buy-and-Hold days. We need to open every site to honest posting re the research, as I first proposed on the afternoon of May 13, 2002.
That’s where I’m coming from re this one, in any event.
Rob
Since the time you have been pushing your timing scheme, how have retirements gone for those that followed your advice vs buy and hold? If they took your advice, it has been a disaster. Meanwhile, those that followed Greaney have done exceptionally well.
The purpose of a safe withdrawal rate study is not to help people get higher returns on their investments. The purpose is to tell them how much they can safely withdraw from their portfolio each year in retirement. Tne Greaney study does not take valuations into consideration and gets the numbers wildly wrong.
If stocks continue to perform in the future somewhat as they have always performed in the past, the 4 percent rule will cause millions of failed retirements in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. Is Greaney going to compensate people for the losses they suffer because they believes that he was shooting straight when he told them that a 4 percent withdtawal is “100 percent safe” regardless of the valuation level thatn applies on the day that the retirement begins.
I am glad to be able to say that I have been for 21 years now telling people that the Greaney study gets the numbers wildly wrong. I believe that Greaney should have corrected his study within 24 hours of the moment that the error in it (it lacks a valuation adjustment) was broughjt to his attention. You Goonjs say that I engaged in “bad behavior” by pointing out the error in the study. I see it as my finest moment. If we were all thinking clearly, thjere would not be one person (Buy-and-Hlders included) who woiuld sau that it is a good idea to keep it zipped re an error in a study that people are using to plan theor retirement.
Buy-and-Hold is what sells (for so long as irrational exuberwanxe remains oiut of contro;l). Valuatyion-Informed Indexing is what works.
My sincwre take.
Rob
“ The purpose of a safe withdrawal rate study is not to help people get higher returns on their investments. The purpose is to tell them how much they can safely withdraw from their portfolio each year in retirement. Tne Greaney study does not take valuations into consideration and gets the numbers wildly wrong.”
They are linked and if you don’t understand that, you need to find something else to do with your time. Your track record speaks volumes about your lack of knowledge.
I agree that they are linked. But you cannot use the returns obtained when irrational exuberance is so out of control that the CAPE value reached 31 to reveal what will be safe when we are in the midst of another Buy-and-Hold Crisis. An accurately calculateed safe withdrawal rate study works in both sorts of situations. The Greaney study reveals what is safe in world in which there is no irrational exuberance, a world in which the market is efficient. Shiller discredited the Efficient Market Theory in his amazing Nobel-prize-winning ressearch
I believe that we should permit honest posting re the research in this field.
Rob
That’s what you said 20 years ago. That is what you said 15 years ago. That is what you said 10 years ago. ……and so on. Look at how that worked out. You were selling this hand in glove with VII. What a disaster. It is a good thing you were banned before causing more damage.
Bull markets are bad news. They always hurt investors. The best thing for investors is for stocks to always be priced at their real value. Ton achieve that little dream, we all need to practice market timing when prices begin to get out of control to pull them back to where they should be. Market timing is the enemy of irrational exuberance. Market timing is the stock investor’s best friend.
Investors need to be ENCOURAGED to practice market timing. Their natural inclination is to buy into the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold stuff. So we need to open every site to honest posting re the research if we wsnt to keep prices at reasonable levels and bring an end to bull markets and bear markets and economic crisies.
That’s where I’m coming from re this one, in any event.
Rob
It is bad news for market timers. Any 60 year old that followed your market timing advice has a completely ruined retirement. We live in a free market. You can buy stock or choose not to. You have no right to dictate how people decide to invest. Instead, we merely measure the winners from the losers. I chose not to be broke. You chose otherwise. It’s over. We are beyond the point that things can be fixed for you.
Okay, Anonymous.
My best wishes to you and yours.
Rob
You treat all this like a silly game. It is not. This is as serious as a heart attack. When you turn 60, it is too late. No one cares about your fragile ego.
It’s cereal business.You get no argument from me.
Rob