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 is a lack of having had the experience of talking things over in a civil and calm and reasoned way.”
You had that chance. Further, everything you have posted on this board was posted a long time ago on the boards that ultimately banned you. You haven’t posted anything new or in a different way on this board vs what you posted on the other boards prior to banning. It is not civil, calm and reasoned when you post it thousands of times while refusing to listen to what others have to say. You always want things to go your way and on your terms. That is not how it works. Like described above, you just go to those same catch phrases of “peer-reviewed” and “honest” posting to somewhat elevate what you have to say.
Sorry, but you have to learn the meaning of the word “no”.
I want things to go according to the published rules of the sites and the laws of the United States. I don’t believe that we can indefinitely have a situation where the laws and social norms that apply in every field of human endeavor other than the investment advice field do not apply in the investing advive field. I believe that we will see a change in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. We’ll see, you know?
In the interim, I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow.
Rob
Except for this board, everyone else follows the laws and social norms. You are widely banned and ignored. Your wife dumped you. The problem is you and your behavior. Until you learn that and fix your problems, nothing will ever change for you.
And the Greaney retirement srudy remains uncorrected 21 years after I publicly pointed out the error in it (it lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins).
Rob
No one else thinks there is an error, so it doesn’t need to be fixed. If you disagree, do your own study.
Funny how you ignore your errors in depleting your savings, losing your house and your wife dumping you.
It will be interesting to see how things play out in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, Anonymous.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, in any event.
Rob
If you had a serious life issue right now and needed $100k to cover the cost, would you be able to do so? Do own a home for your retirement years? Can you afford to go on a retirement trip? How is that playing out for you?
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, Anonymous. I had become friends with a number of the people who posted at the Motley Fool board during the three years before I worked up the courage to point out the error in the study.
That’s where I’m coming from re this thing.
My best wishes.
Rob
The only error that occurred is YOUR retirement plan. It blew up big time. Now you are broke, divorced and without a home. No, Rob, there isn’t going to be any windfall and since you won’t get a job, you will have to troll the dating websites and hope to find some 60+ year old widow that is sitting on a nice big retirement account, pension, etc to help fund YOUR retirement. In short, you need a sugar momma.
Okay, Anonymous.
I do wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow, in any event.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, old friend.
Rob
So when you are asked to pay your bills. You tell them the John Greaney story as to why you can’t pay. Have I got that right?
What do you say when there’s a price crash? Do you say that it just happened, that nobody knows why?
Rob
Of course you won’t answer the question, like always. As to price drops, we can always see the cause. For example 2009/2009 were from sub prime mortgage impact. The silly market timers were in a panic and sold off their stock and us buy and holders snapped up some real bargains. That is why we can see that the top 10% own the vast majority of stock, while market timers have little net worth.
Is there any CAPE level at which stocks no longer represent a bargain according to your perspective on things?
Rob
Is there any level on insanity that will make you finally wake up to reality?
A CAPE vslue of 32 is about as insane as it gets.
We often hit 8 before the end of a Buy-and-Hold Crisis. When we hit 8, the content of my posts won’t change but I believe that the responses that they generate may change, expecially if the 8 remains in place for a long time.
We’ll see, you know?
Rob
Going broke, getting dumped and losing your home, while being 60+ years old and then expecting some magical windfall to come along is about as insane as it gets.
I guess we’re looking at it from different perspectives, Anonymous. I am a research-based guy. So I tend to look at things from a research-based perspective.
You may recall that on the morning of May 13, 2002, I was a Buy-and-Holder. I didn’t give up on Buy-and-Hold until the evening of August 27, 2002, when over 200 Buy-and-Holders endorsed Greaney’s death threats. I knew then that Buy-and-Hold was not truly a research-based strategy, that I had been fooled into believing that.
And here we are.
Rob
Yes, we have different perspectives.
I don’t think it is a good idea to be broke when we are in our 60’s and retired or near retirement.
I don’t think it is a good idea to let your spouse walk out the door because you won’t get a job to pay the bills.
I don’t think it is a good idea to make up stories about criminal acts because it is morally wrong.
I guess that is all just crazy talk to you, right?
I think it is important that people who make errors in retirement studies correct those errors when they learn about them.
Human beings did not come to Planet Earth with an instruction booklet on how stock investing works. We have been learning over time. We achieved a major advance in 1981. We need to give ourselves permission to talk about it and learn from it.
Yes, I think it is crazy talk to suggest that there is something more important than that. Geting every site opened to honest posting re the research is the top priority and there is nothing in a close second place. That’s definitely how I see it.
Rob
Good news. There are no errors in the Greaney study. You know this, however, since thousands of people have told you that for the last 2 decades. All you are really trying to do is avoid talking about the fact that you are over 60 and broke and that your wife left you since you refused to get a job.
Out of all the retirement/investing subjects discussed every day, what is worse than being broke in your retirement without having anyone else to bail you out? That is what all these discussions are about. It is about having a successful retirement and not being broke. You are broke, yet you want to talk about silly scenarios where a bunch of rich people might lose a bit of their money. Just take a look at what all these rich people have done with ever stock market drop. They just keep buying more and making more money, while the poor own less and less. It is just simple statistical fact.
Irrational exuberance isn’t real money.
Rob
I can buy another house, can you? I can go on a European vacation, can you? I can pay for any unforeseen medical bills, can you? My miney seems real enough to buy all that. Can you say the same with your $500 million fantasy money? What can you buy right now?
I believe that some of the money you are talking about is real and that some isn’t. Some is irrational exuberance. I believe that you would be able to plan your financial affairs more effectively if yoi made the adjustment, if you distinguished the real economic-based gains from the temporary irrational exuberance fluff. I believe that every investor should be making that djustment.
Why calculate the safe withdrawal rate at all if you don’t think there is any benefit in calculating it accurately. You say that the safe withdrawal rate is 4 even when an accurate calculation says that it is 2 or 8. Why not just say that it is 20? Couldn’t you brag even more about how smart you are and how rich you are and how much you can retire early if you said it was 20? Why not do that?
You have somehow managed to convice yourself that it is okay to tell yourself the lies that you need to tell yourself to become persuaded that it is 4 but not the lies that you need to tell yourself to become persuaded that it is 20. It doesn’t really bother me what lies you elect to tell yourself. I see that as being your business. But there were thousands of people at the Motley Fool board (and at all the other boards) who wanted to be able to discuss the real numbers, the accurate calculations. I think they should be permitted to do that. The published rules of all the sites permit that and the laws of the United States permit it. So I think they should be permitted to do it whether it makes you feel uneasy about your Buy-and-Hold beliefs or not. You do you and let them do them.
That’s where I’m coming from re this matter, in any event.
My best wishes, etc.
Rob
What portion of my money can I not spend? How much of your $500 million windfall can you spend? Which one of of is telling lies to ourself about money that we have or don’t have?
You shouldn’t spend any of the irrational exuberance. Today’s CAPE value is nearly two times the fair-value CAPE value of 17. So, if you divide the amount reported on your portfolio statement as the value of your portfolio by two, you will have a good estimate of your portfolio’s real and lasting value.
Making that adjustment obviously changes your perception of where you stand and affects your plans re what you need to be doing on a going-forward basis. Given the importance of the adjustment and the fact that so few are performing it today, Shiller’s amazing research findings are something that we should be discussing at every discussion board and blog, without a single exception.
That’s where I’m coming from, Anonymous.
Rob
You said the same thing 5 years ago and 10 years ago and 15 years ago and 20 years ago. Look at how all that worked out for you.
Your interpretation of Shiller’s work led to an “amazing” broke retirement and an “amazing” divorce.
I think it worked out extremely well, Anonymous. I of course hate all the abusive stuff. I’ve said that thousands and thousands of times. But I LOVE the learning stuff. Working through the abusive stuff is the price that anyone who cares about getting stock investing right has to pay in the year 2023 to get to the learning stuff.
So be it, you know? I wish that it wasn’t so. But things are what they are. Getting stock investing right is important. We all need to do what we need to do to get us all to a much better place than we ever even knew existed back in the dreary Buy-and-Hold days. This is an amazing advance. Everyone alive in the United States today has the potential to be living a richer and fuller and freer and better life in coming days. All we need to do to make it happen is to open the package that Shiller presented to us 42 years ago. I vote for doing that.
My best wishes.
Rob
You keep writing about the “next” buy-and-hold crisis. Have there been previous buy-and-hold crises and if so, when did the occur?
There was a Buy-and-Hold Crisis in the early years of the 20th Century.
There was the Great Depression.
There was the stagflation of the 1970s.
And there was the Great Recession of 2008.
Rob
“ I think it worked out extremely well, Anonymous.”
Would Wade Pfau say it worked out extremely well for you? Would Robert Shiller say it worked out extremely well for you? Would you ex-wife and kids say that it worked out extremely well for you? I haven’t seen a single one of them say going broke is a good thing.
What will everyone say in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis? That’s what matters to me. When the CAPE value is 31, that affects people’s thinking about stocks. It’s an artificial experience. I want to express thoughts on stock investing that will stand the test of time.
Rob
You are the one that said it worked out extremely well. Would Wade agree with that? Would Shiller agree with that? Would your ex-wife and kids agree with that?
Wade and Shiller will certainly agree in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. My ex will certainly come to possess a better understanding of why I made the choices that I did at that time. It may be that she will still not agree with those choices. But I am confident that she will come to possess a better understanding of why I made them.
In an ideal world, the people who developed the Buy-and-Hold strategy would never have made the mistake they did. In an ideal world, Shiller would have published his Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns in 1961 rather than in 1981 and there never would have been any problem. In the world we live in, the people who developed Buy-and-Hold were required to take a shot in the dark re the question of whether market timing/price discipline is always 100 percent required for every investor and they made a bad call. That blown call has produced unforunate consequences for every person living in the United States and we are still in the process of getting that mistake corrected today.
The good news is that we all get to live richer and fuller and freer and better lives on the other side of the big black mountain. I sincerely believe that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment. So that is what I say when the subject of safe withdrawal rates turns up in discussions held on the internet. Sue me, you know?
My best wishes, etc.
Rob
“ Wade and Shiller will certainly agree in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. My ex will certainly come to possess a better understanding of why I made the choices that I did at that time. It may be that she will still not agree with those choices. But I am confident that she will come to possess a better understanding of why I made them.”
So what you are saying is that at this point in time, they would not agree with you, but you are hoping all that the sequence of events that you have been talking about for the last 2+ decades will eventually come and everything will fall in line that would make them (as well as everyone else) totally change their minds and agree with you. Is that correct?
Wade agreed with me 100 percent until he was threatened.
Shiller agreed with me 100 percent when he issued his paper in 1996 saying that all investors should practice market timing.
If you made an announcement that the intimindation stuff is in the past and then invited Wade and Shiller to the Bogleheads Forum to discuss market timing, I am confident that both would agree with me. Perhaps not on every small detail. But I am confident that both would say that in general market timing/price discipline is needed and that it is a logical impossibilty that the safe withdrawal rate could be the same number at all valuation levels.
Lots of people need to change their minds. Lots of people still believe in Buy-and-Hold today. But once we open every site to honest posting, we will see more and more make the shift to Valuation-Informed Indexing. We are at 10 percent of the population now even with all of the abusive stuff. Permit honest posting and in six months we will be at 20 percent. Somewhere down the road we will be at 40 percent. To gather momentum re the project of convicing investors of the merit of research-based strategies, we need to open every site to honest posting.
Hope that helps.
Rob
“ Lots of people need to change their minds.”
Because everyone needs to agree with you, including Pfau, Shiller, your wife, etc. Only Rob Bennett knows what is honest. The world just needs to fall in line.
When someone discovers something dramatically new, the world doesn’t flip a switch so that everyone comes around to the new idea in 10 minutes. There has to be a process of questioning and discussing and exploring implications before people feel comfortable moving on to something new. So it’s healthy and normal if people offer different points of view.
But, yes, there should be universal ageement on the need to open every site to honest posting. We all need to follow the laws and norms of our society.
That’s where I’m coming from re this one, Anonymous.
Rob