Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
A portfolio is worth whatever you can sell it for in the market. No more, no less.
That’s the question under dispute, Sensible.
I agree that FOR THAT ONE DAY that is indeed what it is worth. But, if someone is planning a retirement, he needs to look beyond just what applies for that one particular day. If you are planning a retirement, you should be willing to take into consideration what the peer-reviewed research says re the true and lasting value of a portfolio. If the peer-reviewed research shows that you must take the CAPE value that applies on the day the retirement begins into consideration in calculating the safe withdrawal rate, then you should do that. You obviously get a very different number if you take the peer-reviewed research into consideration than what you get if you just ignore the peer-reviewed research.
I have a hard time seeing why we even have peer-reviewed journals if we are not going to permit people to talk about what the research shows. To my way of thinking, the research only has value to the extent it causes people to change their behavior. How can research change people’s behavior if they don’t feel comfortable talking about what the research shows and asking questions about it and so on?
We permit people to talk about the research in every other field of human behavior. Why do you think that the investment advice field needs to be so special?
Do you see that the price of stocks will change once we begin permitting discussion of the research? Then the price that the portfolio will sell for will be more in line with the real price. Given what you are saying here, that should make you happy. So you should logically be in favor of permitting honest posting re the research. Yes?
Rob
We permit discussions about research. We don’t permit bad behavior like refusing to answer questions, making up stories that are filled with lies, hijacking threads, calling people names, etc.
Pointing out errors in retirement studies. That sort of thing. Nasty stuff.
Rob
Threatening people with prison sentences because they don’t agree with your approach to investing is bad behavior.
I strongly disagree. When you Goons engage in criminal behavior, you put yourselves at risk of someday landing in a prison cell. If we all were thinking clearly about these matters, every single community member would have reacted with shock when Greaney advanced his first death threat. He would not have received a single endorsement of his death threat (the reality is that more than 200 Buy-and-Holders endorsed it). If the site owner at Motley Fool had kicked him off the site when he advanced that death threat, I would have put up a post six months later asking that he be reinstated, he would have agreed to follow the posted rules from that point forward, and all would have been well for everyone.
It’s a small number of community members who engaged in criminal behavior. But it is a large percentage of the community that TOLERATED the abusive and in some cases criminal behavior. That’s Buy-and-Hold. That’s Get Rich Quick. That’s irrational exuberance. The battle being fought is a battle between reason and emotion. Those who follow the emotion-based strategy (Buy-and-Hold) feel vulnerable because there is 43 years of peer-reviewed research discrediting their strategy. They feel at a disadvantage in any discussion that is calm and respectful. So they resort to the use of all sorts of ugly stuff. If Buy-and-Hold were research-based, there would be no Buy-and-Hold Goon Squads.
I consider John Greaney a friend. We had lots of good times together in the days before I pointed out the error in his retirement study (it lacks a valuation adjustment). He doesn’t consider me a friend anymore The friendship goes in only one direction. But I consider him a friend. So, when I see him messing up, I say something,
If I can keep him out of prison, I will do so. I believe that there are things that I can say that will help him out and I will say those things. I wouldn’t bet $1,000 that me saying those things will do the trick at this point, But I will say them all the same. The American people will decide whether they do the trick. The American people will rightly be upset when they see a large portion of their retirement portfolio go “Poof!” in the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. So I always advise my friend to make the record look as good for him as it can possibly look given where things stand today. He doesn’t listen and I of course don’t expect to see him listen at this point. But I feel a need to do the right thing re this matter. And I 100 percent believe that the right thing is to remind him from time to time that engaging in criminal behavior is not the way to go.
My best wishes.
Rob
There you go with the bad behavior. You make claims of criminal acts, yet you don’t provide actual proof with direct links. You just want us to believe everything that you say. We all remember the whole made up death threat saga. If you actually went out and filed a police report, you would be brought up on charges of filing a false report.
I filed a police report.The policeman told me that there would have to be an actual attempt to kill me before they would take action.
He asked me if I believed that you Goons sincerely intended to kill me or not. I said that I believed that you were trying t shut me up. The purpose was intimidation. And of course the purpose was not just to intimidate me, it was to intimidate anyone else who might point out that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment,
That didn’t make it easier on my ex-wife. She was taking care of a newborn at the time, She didn’t like knowing that there were people on the internet saying that they knew where I lived and showing photos of the gun they were going to use to solve the problem.
That’s Buy-and-Hold, you know? It’s not what it is advertised to be. It is promoted as something very different. But that’s Buy-and-Hold at its core. It’s an emotion-based strategy. Research is reason-based. When the research is discussed, it comes into conflict with the Buy-and-Hold stuff and the people who have bet their lives on Buy-and-Hold lose their minds.
I think we need to move on to something better.
Rob
This is yet another reason why you are banned. You make up false allegations of criminal acts/death threats and then you block the posts that point out that you lied about these things. You claim people are trying to shut you up, but you are the actual one that is blocking the conversation.
I’m very bad, Anonymous. Everybody knows it too. That’s the thing.
Rob