Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Do you think your wife and kids enjoyed suffering because of you?
My ex certainly did not. That one is easy.
My older boy told me that he never wished that he had a different dad. He was not even a tiny bit happy about the divorce. But he believes that I am right about stock investing and he admires me for having stood up for what is right. He just would like to see his mother and his father back together.
The younger boy isn’t too emotionally invested in it. He loves his mom and his dad and his brother but he lives his own life and he is happy. It’s not a super biggie for him.
No one enjoys suffering. But say that you were a soldier and you were sent on a mission that put your life at risk. Would you say “I won’t go because it will hurt my family if I get killed?” Sometimes there are bigger things at stake than one’s own family. There are millions and millions of people who will get hurt in the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. I think I have a responsibility to do what I can. I can’t just keep my mouth shut given the amount of human misery that we are talking about. I think we all should be doing what we can.
I love my family. But I also love my country, you know? I don’t like having to choose between the two. But we are all dealt the cards that we are dealt. I am happy to praise the Buy-and-Holders to the sky if that would help. The only thing that I am not willing to do is to say that I believe that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment. You Goons are not willing to accept anything less than that. So here we are.
Rob
“The only thing that I am not willing to do is to say that I believe that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment. You Goons are not willing to accept anything less than that.”
No one wants you to say that and no one has ever asked you to say that.
If you can tell me what you want me to say, I can tell you whether I am able to say it or not.
Rob
Here is what I want you to say
“No one has ever asked me to say that the Greaney study contains a valuation adjustment”
If that is not true, you could point us to where someone did ask you to say that.
You’re clearly unhappy about something, Evidence. All of the abusive stuff started on the day that I pointed out the error in the Greaney study. I have a funny feeling that that was not pure coincidence. When I pointed out the error (it lacks a valuation adjustment), people started losing confidence in the study. That what what caused Greaney to flip out. He wants people to believe in the study.
Rob
“If you can tell me what you want me to say, I can tell you whether I am able to say it or not.”
I told you what I wanted you to say, however you didn’t tell me whether you are able to say it or not.
I can say that no one has asked me to say that the Greaney retirement study contains a valuation adjustment. But I cannot say that the study has been corrected in the 22 years since I pointed out the error in it.
Rob
“I can say that no one has asked me to say that the Greaney retirement study contains a valuation adjustment.”
Excellent.
We all knew that already, it is good that you have finally admitted it.
Though I am sure that won’t stop you telling us that you will never make such a statement, even though no one has ever asked you to.
It is a line you trot out whenever you can’t answer a question that has been posed to you, or when you can’t refute an argument that someone has made.
Okay, Evidence.
Rob
I have something else that I want you to say. Just admit that no one else, other than you, has said Greaney made an error.
That I cannot say. Wade Pfau told me that he thought that the Greaney study was “dangerous.” John Walter Russell researched the matter in depth and concluded that: “The Safe Withdrawal Rate debate is over. Hocus has won.” William Bernstein wrote in his book that the safe withdrawal rate at the top of the bubble was 2 percent. Hundreds of our fellow community members advanced comments in which they expressed a desire that honest posting re the peer-reviewed research be permitted, which shows that they at least believed that the questions of whether the Greaney retirement study is in error should be explored. And of course the behavior of you Goons for 22 years now shows that you don’t believe that the Greaney retirement study contains a valuation adjustment any more than I do. 100 percent of the evidence that we have seen over the first 22 years of our discussions shows that the Greaney study is in error and 0 percent show that the study contains a valuation adjustment.
My best wishes to you, Anonymous.
You confuse two things into thinking they are related. You say that Greaney’s study does not contain a valuation adjustment and then make the claim that this is an error. Those are two separate points. It is like the analogy of Tesla’s not having microwave ovens. Of course a Tesla does not have a microwave oven, yet that, by default, does not make an error anymore than your comments about Greaney’s study.
Do you believe that Robert Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns is legitimate research?
Rob
Quoting Robert Shiller: “It has come down into the low 30s,” he said. “It kind of puts us where we were in other times in history that were relatively extreme.”
“But you know, the stock market has performed very well over the last 100 years,” he added. “I like to look at long-term time horizons. And so when it’s highly priced, it doesn’t necessarily make it a horrible investment.”
What would he be saying if on the afternoon of May 13, 2002, we had opened every site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research and today we had 40 percent of the investing population practicing market timing/price discipline instead of just 10 percent? I think he would still say something along the lines of what he said in the words you quoted. But I think he would balance those words with descriptions of the horrible life setbacks that we have experienced on every earlier occasion when we permitted the CAPE value to rise to where it is today. And that would make a big difference. People need to hear both sides of the story.
Greaney could have told people that 4 percent if the Historical Surviving Withdrawal Rate, not the Safe Withdrawal Rate. That’s obviously so and that would have solved the entire problem because then he would have been making an accurate statement. All of the abusiveness is because he wants to trick people into believing that the two are the same thing and that there is no need to consider the dangers of using the Historical Surviving Withdrawal Rate in one’s retirement plan at a time of high valuations.
We all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold impulse within us that makes us want to fool ourselves in that way and, when people are afraid to post about the peer-reviewed research, that Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold impulse gets so out of control that we end up with a CAPE value of 32. We need to permit honest posting to keep our Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold impulse in check.
That’s where I’m coming from, Anonymous. When Bernstein says that, to get higher returns, you need to take on more risk, he is repeating a Buy-and-Hold dogma. Shiller discredited that dogma. If valuations affect long-term returns, there’s a way to increase returns while also diminishing risk — keeping valuations in mind at all times.
That’s Valuation-Informed Indexing. That’s the first true research-based approach to stock investing. What the Buy-and-Holders missed is that investors are highly emotional creatures and are not capable of making purely rational choices without a lot of help.
Emotional investors are capable of confusing the Safe Withdrawal Rate and Historical Surviving Withdrawal Rate concepts. They are not at all the same but we humans are capable of tricking ourselves into believing that they are. We need to permit honest posting re the research to become capable of doing better.
Rob
When did Shiller say that Greaney made an error? When did Bernstein say that Greaney made an error? When did Pfau say that Greaney made an error? Answer: Never.
It is becoming more obvious that you didn’t really quit your job. You were getting forced out. You probably didn’t listen to your boss or co-workers just like you don’t listen to anyone else.
Shiller said it when he published research showing the valuations affect long-term returns. The Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment.
Bernstein said it when he said that the safe withdrawal rate at the top of the bubble was 2 percent. The Greaney study says that it is always 4 percent.
Pfau said it when he described the Greaney study as “dangerous.”
Greaney should have corrected his study within 24 hours of the moment when the error was brought to his attention. If we were all capable of thinking clearly about stock investing, there wouldn’t have been one person who would have said otherwise. The fact that the study has gone uncorrected for 22 years since my famous post pointing out the error in it shows just how dangerous it is for investors to adopt a pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold mindset.
That’s where I’m coming from re this matter, in any event.
Rob
Not a single one of them said he made an error. Only you and look at where you are at. Flat Broke.
My best wishes to you and yours, Anonymous.
Rob
My best wishes to your ex-wife and kids. They deserved a better life.
They’ll live better lives once we have acted as a nation of people to open every site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. Spend some time looking at the human misery we have brought on with earlier Buy-and-Hold Crises and you’ll come to see why that’s so important. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t at least do everything I can to see that every site is opened to honest posting re the research. I love my family, yes. But I love my country too. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t need to choose between the two.
Please take good care.
Rob
That is just a bunch of b.s. All you have done is continue to spin a story to keep from getting a job and supporter like you should have.
We all have to live with our own consciences, Anonymous. I couldn’t live with mine if I failed to do everything in my power to help the millions of people who will be hurt in very serious ways in the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. There were people at the Motley Fool board who considered the Greaney study a legitimate piece of research. I know this. I was there. I had come to consider some of those people friends. For every person at that board who were hurt by the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold thinking behind that study, there are a million in the full community of investors positioned to be hurt today. I can’t just forget that, you know?
My family has suffered. I don’t say different. Buy my family members live in a nation of people. No man is an island. The same impulses that make me care about what happens to the members of my family make me care about the millions who will be hurt in the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis as well. Those people matter too. Not as much to me as my family members. But there are millions of them. I think that as a nation of people we have made a terrible mistake to decide to ignore the suffering those people are likely to experience as the result of our collective willingness to tolerate the CAPE value that applies today.
That’s where I am coming from re this matter, in any event.
Rob
You are not helping anyone, let alone your claim about helping millions. You have been wasting your time with the same repetitive posts that are worthless.
I don’t agree, Anonymous. I believe that I learn some little thing every day about a very important subject. I wouldn’t have been able to write the book that I am writing today in April 2002. Working up the courage to advance that famous post changed my life. I don’t regret it. I regret parts of it, obviously. Going down that path led me to times of great pain. But it also educated me about a very important subject and I hope to be able to give back to the world the things that I have learned in days to come. We’ll see, you know?
Rob
The book is worthless as it is just a repeat of what you have already posted here. You haven’t gotten any traction here, so a book changes nothing.
The major themes have all appeared here. The advantage of having it in book form is that it is organized so that it flows as a narrative. The ideas flow out of me effortlessly. Organizing the material is hard work.
Self-publishing the book is not going to change a thing. What I think may bring on change is the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. That will permit people to see up close and personal the downside of going with a pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategy. At that point I believe the book will have value because it will supply a complete and clear statement of the case in favor of research-based strategies.
It’s will be important that people be exposed to that case at that time. We are now at a CAPE of 32. It usually drops to 8 during a Buy-and-Hold Crisis. If we acted rationally, it would never drop below 17. That’s a big difference. We are not going to want to see more wealth destroyed at that time.
And it will reduce feelings of panic for people to understand what happened.
Rob
“Self-publishing the book is not going to change a thing.”
Are you actually going to get physical copies printed or just publish it as an ebook.
I’m going to get physical copies printed. I’m old-fashioned. I’m planning to do it in paperback.
Rob
“ It’s will be important that people be exposed to that case at that time. We are now at a CAPE of 32. It usually drops to 8 during a Buy-and-Hold Crisis. If we acted rationally, it would never drop below 17. That’s a big difference. We are not going to want to see more wealth destroyed at that time.”
Those market drop predictions you made really worked out great for you, right?????
How has the ban on honest posting re the peer-reviewed research worked out for you? Today’s CAPE value is 32.
Rob
There has never been a ban on honest (truthful) posting. Only bans on bad behavior. I have over $7 million. How much do you currently have in your accounts?
In a world in which pointing out an error in a retirement study is considered bad behavior, there is a ban on honest posting.
Rob
Ignoring what other people said is bad behavior. Making up claims about criminal acts is bad behavior. Calling people names is bad behavior. Not giving answers to questions is bad behavior. Hijacking threads is bad behavior.
Pointing out an error in a retirement study (the Greaney study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins) is good behavior.
Rob
Ignoring other people telling you why you are wrong about Greaney is bad behavior. You are not the dictator of the world.
I definitely do not believe that I am the dictator of the world and I definitely have zero desire to be that. But I also definitely believe that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment.
Rob
Of course you see yourself as a dictator. You have already demonstrated that you think only your opinion matters.
My opinion definitely matters a lot in posts that have my name on them. To express an opinion other than my own in those posts is dishonest.
My sincere take.
Rob