Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
So all these thousands of people that have expressed a desire to hear from you and about VII on all these other websites won’t do the same on this website even though they can post here anonymously?
That’s correct. Those people are not today Valuation-Informed Indexers. They have a mild interest in it. If people could talk about it at sites at which they participate, they would occasionally listen in and occasionally ask a question or two. In time, some of them would become Valuation-Informed Indexers. In more time, the number that did that would increase. Eventually, Valuation-Informed Indexing would become the dominant model for understanding how stock investing works.
It has to begin with opening one large site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. That’s the only way it could ever. People are not going to just wake up one morning and say “starting today, I believe entirely new things about how stock investing works.” We need to permit people to hear both sides and eventually they will come around.
Research is not self-executing. Shiller advanced our understanding of how stock investing works in a major way. But people do not change their views just because research is published in a journal. People need to be able to explore the how-implications of the research that is published for that research to have a positive effect on people’s lives. We need to open every site to honest posting by the close of business today, if not a good bit sooner.
My sincere take.
Rob
“ It has to begin with opening one large site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research.”
No one agrees with your opinion as to what constitutes honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. It is merely your opinions. People have heard your opinions. They are tired of having to listen to you repeating the same thing thousands of times. They are tired of you refusing to answer questions. They are tired of you making up false claims. They are tired of asking you to back up comments with actual facts and proof.
What you want is for people to let you post what you want on THEIR websites. Just like you block posts on your website, they are allowed to do the same. They are not forced to let you use their platform to further your opinions.
Are you okay with waiting to see what happens in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis?
Rob
We just waiting 20 years and watched all of your predictions fail. Now we are in retirement. It is too late.
Okay.
Rob
20 years ago I had a net worth of something like negative $40K. Today I’m a millionaire, I’m still saving, and I plan to work for another 19 years. During this entire period of time you’ve done nothing to improve your life of anyone else’s.
The Bennett/Pfau research shows that, however you have done, you would have done better had you been following a research-based strategy. We have 150 years of stock market history available to us for examination For that entire time, investors who practiced price discipline (valuation-based market timing!) earned higher returns while taking on less risk than did Buy-and-Holders. That’s investor heaven. It’s not even possible to imagine a circumstance in which it could be a negative for an investor to keep his risk profile constant over time.
Either valuations affect long-term returns or they do not. Shiller’s research shows that they do. I believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research. So I need to say that whenever the topic of safe withdrawal rates turns up in discussions of stock investing held on the internet.
Shiller’s research was a major advance. That’s why he was awarded a Nobel prize. We should be talking about the far-reaching how-to implications at every site, without a single exception. We should be celebrating the advance, not quarelling about whether honest posting should be permitted or not.
Advances in understanding are a good thing. What’s going on is that the Buy-and-Holders don’t want to say the words “I” and “was” and “wrong”. Are we going to continue with that forever? Never move forward because there was once a time when we didn’t know all there was to know about how stock investing works and we took a wild shot in the dark and it turned out to be wrong and it makes some of us feel funny for people to learn that we are capable of making mistakes? I think we need to move forward. I believe that it will become even more clear that that is the case in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis.
But we’ll see, you know.
In the meantime, I wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person, Sensible.
Rob
Sensible would have clearly been worse off if he followed VII. Even you admit that when you say that the stock market is overvalued (which means the stock market went much higher than you expected). You can’t have it both ways, Rob.
It’s possible that he could be better off for a time just in terms of the numbers. It’s not possible that he could be better off on a risk-adjusted basis.
That’s what irrational exuberance is all about. It’s about doing crazy stuff, irrational stuff. I am saying that we all should be permitted to talk about the rational thing to do (which is revealed by the peer-reviewed research) at every site, without a single exception. People would still be permitted to do irrational stuff, under my proposal. But they would be permitted to hear both sides and make up their own mind. That’s what the published site rules and indeed the laws of the United States provide.
That’s a different world than the one that we are living in today, a better world. The purpose of research is to point us toward better ones, to help us to achieve advances. Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research did that in a big way. I am not willing to pretend that Shiller’s research does not exist when I post to discussion boards and blogs. I am happy that this amazing advance in understanding was achieved. I love the idea of sharing it with my friends.
I don’t think that you can have it both ways. Buy-and-Holders say that investors should look at the research. But then, when research is published showing that they made a mistake, they ignore that research. The Buy-and-Holders should discuss Shiller’s research findings in a calm and reasoned manner and make whatever changes in their strategy are required as a result of it.
Learning new things through research is a positive.
My sincere take.
Rob
“It’s not even possible to imagine a circumstance in which it could be a negative for an investor to keep his risk profile constant over time.”
We’re at passionsaving.com. You are Rob Bennett. You are the living embodiment of a failed retirement that is directly attributable to Valuation Informed Indexing.
Okay, Sensible.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
Asking people to continue waiting around is not an option. Look at how many of us have retired in the last few years. You and me are both in our 60’s. We are now at the point where we are utilizing our retirement funds to fulfill the plans we put in place back in our working days. Do you expect all of us 60+ year olds to just keep sitting around year after year waiting for your plan to finally work so that we can fund our retirement? Of course not. We need that money now. The buy and holders are ready and have been able to fund their planned purchases but you want your fellow VII to keep waiting around for their big payday to come.
Price discipline (valuation-based market timing) has been working since 1870. There’s nothing to wait for. It’s impossible for the rational mind to imagine any circumstances in which it would stop working. This is what the Bennett/Pfau research was all about. If you didn’t appreciate on some level of consciousness what an advance the last 43 years of peer-reviewed research represents, we never would have seen a single abusive post or a single criminal act.
Rob
VII has never worked for even one person. Look at you. Your plan laid out in 2002 was already off track in your 2005 update and you said that your VII returns would exceed the S&P500, so you were not worried that you would make up for being off plan. Here we are, 19 years later and we see that this did not happen and you are broke.
In your post at 8:44 am, you said we should wait to see how it plays out, yet in your post at 3:10 pm, you said that there is nothing to wait for. So which is it, Rob?
Valuation-Informed Indexing has always worked and it is not possible for the rational human mind to imagine circumstances in which it would not work. The thing that we need to wait for is for investors to learn about it. We need to open every site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. If Shiller is right that it is investor emotionalism that is responsible for today’s high prices, a hard drop in those prices might well cause the emotionalism to subside enough for us to see a number of sites opened to honest posting re the research. Once that happens, we are on our way to a very good place.
Rob