A Rich Life

The Old Ideas on Saving & Investing Don't Work -- Here's What Does

“That Explains Why I Am Banned at Every Large Investing Site — I Never Had Any Success Convincing People. Makes Sense!”

by

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

You have been completely unable to convince people.  That is why you have no followers posting here.  This is why you are divorced.  That is why you are broke.

That explains why I am banned at every large investing site — I never had any success convincing people.

Makes sense!

Rob

Comments

  1. That quote never mentioned your behavior. It pointed out why you have not been successful with anything. The reasons for your banning are related to your bad behavior. You lie, you call people names, you don’t answer anyone’s direct questions, you hijack threads, etc. If you had only been banned at 1 or 2 websites, then maybe people would wonder if it was justifiable. In your case, you have been consistently banned at all the major boards by different board owners that all came to the same conclusion. Also, if people from those boards actually agreed with you, they would just move over here to this board and follow you here. They don’t, so they just don’t show up. Just look at the lack of traffic to your board.

  2. There’s no traffic at my blog. You’ve got me there, Anonymous.

    And I have been banned at a lot more than one or two places. You’ve got me there too.

    Rob

  3. If you can’t understand or won’t acknowledge your mistakes, you will continue to get nowhere in life. Nothing magical is going to happen.

  4. I don’t think that I am mistaken in my belief that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment. I really do. And I think that the fact that the study has not been corrected in 22 years is a big deal. People use retirement studies to plan retirements. So this is something that as a nation of people we need to come to terms with.

    There’s a sense in which it would be a magical event if we were to open every site to honest posting re the research. We would all get to live better lives from that point forward and there is nothing that we would need to give up (except our self-deceptions) for that to happen. That’s pretty darn magical.

    But there is another sense in which it would be a perfectly normal thing. We have established peer-reviewed journals. The purpose is to encourage the publication of research. Research teaches us things. Often new things. So is it not perfectly normal that we have achieved amazing advances as the result of the publication of Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research? You could look at it that way.

    Shiller’s research is magical. And it represents just the sort of advance that we were hoping to see when we estabished peer-reviewed journals. I think it is entirely possible that there will come a day when we will open every discussion board and blog to honest posting re the last 43 years of peer-reviewed research. I think it is going to happen.

    My guess is that it will happen in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. The dangers of Buy-and-Hold will be a lot more clear then. So people will be less complacent. That will give them the courage to stand up to you Goons.

    We’ll see.

    Rob

  5. You have always said that we need to wait to see how things play out. The fact is that people like us are in our 60’s. It is too late to wait around. Need convincing? Watch this:

    https://youtu.be/kdiyffC_jWQ?si=qT7FqxNKJNzBYddg

    He talks about the average age when retired people have health issues.

    Sorry, but people just can’t keep waiting and waiting and waiting to see if things just work out. Instead, they have to take a path that has been proven time and again to work and that is buy and hold. It has always worked over EVERY 30 year period in history.

  6. Buy-and-Hold has never worked, Anonymous. Wade Pfau and I spent 16 months developing research on this matter, research that was published in a peer-reviewed journal. It shows that investors who fail to engage in valuation-based market timing (price discipline!) thereby greatly diminish their lifetime return while also greatly increasing the risk they take on by investing in stocks. It’s a lose/lose/lose/lose/lose.I believe that we should be discussing that amazing research at every discussion board and blog on the internet.

    Buy-and-Hold always subtracts, it never adds. The rational human mind cannot even imagine a circumstance in which it could be a positive to fail to practice price discipline. It is a logical impossibility.

    My sincere take.

    Rob

  7. It has always worked and even you have admitted it in the past. You said that someday it wouldn’t work and that we should all wait to see how it plays out. Funny how the story just keeps changing and changing.

  8. In a nominal sense, it can work for a time. If you subtract for irrational exuberance, it can never work. If you subtract for irrational exuberance, you are a Valuation-Informed Indexer, not a Buy-and-Holder.

    You treat irrational exuberance as something real, Anonymous. I do not. That’s why we come up with different numbers in every analysis we perform.

    Rob

  9. If you pretend that the stuff you have is worth less than it actually is….

  10. I don’t know what your purpose is in advancing this comment, Sensible. It sounds possible that you are getting at something that is worth examining a tiny bit. But I cannot say for sure.

    I am every bit as opposed to the idea of pretending that your portfolio is worth less than it really us as I am opposed to pretending that it is worth more than it is. I believe that the goal should be to know the real and lasting value of your portfolio. I believe that we all should be working together to eliminate both irrational exuberance and irrational depression. Both hurt investors in very serious ways.

    Given that we are due for a price crash (overdue!), it may be that the irrational depression phenomenon is going to soon become the more relevant problem. That’s scary and maddening. Why would millions of people pretend that their portfolio is worth LESS than it really is? At least with irrational exuberance people, you can say that people are satisfying a desire to get something for nothing.

    It’s another self-destructive emotional urge, one we haven’t seen in evidence in a long time but one that has played a big negative role in earlier times. People come to hate stocks for a time after they have been burned by the Buy-and-Hold stuff. Irrational Depression caused great economic turmoil. At a time when we need to get the economy going again, we are telling ourselves that our accumulated wealth is much less than what it really is, causing the bad economic times to continue longer than they need to.

    It would be so much better just to acknowledge the research-demonstrated realities. But, as with irrational exuberance, doing that would require learning how to pronounce the words “I” and “Was” and “Wrong.” That’s the killer. Practicing price discipline is the key to successful stock investing, Once you get that one wrong by coming to believe that valuation-based market timing is not always 100 percent required, you get yourself onto a path where you are required to believe all sorts of crazy things to keep the thing going.

    It would be better to permit honest posting re the research at every site.

    Rob

  11. You are the one telling everyone else to pretend their portfolios are not worth what they could sell them for today. Even if a normal person’s portfolio is only worth 50% of its current market value and a Valuation Informed Indexer’s is worth double, Anonymous and I (and the other “goons” who appear here) all have far more than you do. We are millionaires. 50 percent of millions is worth a lot more than two times zero.

  12. That comment doesn’t make any sense. A Valuation-Informer Indexer’s portfolio is not worth double its nominal value. His portfolio is also worth half of its real value. Irrational exuberance hurts everyone.

    The difference with Valuation-Informed Indexers is that we acknowledge what the last 43 years of peer-reviewed research shows and take that into consideration when forming investment strategies. So, for example, we would not hand in a resignation from a high-paying corporate job based on some loony-tunes 4 percent rule. We would calculate the safe withdrawal rate accurately and hand on our resignation when it made sense to do so.

    There is no financial benefit to be gained from performing numerical calculations improperly. I mean, please give me a freakin’ break. If irrational exuberance really exists (Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research shows that it does), it needs to be taken into considertation in every decision that an investor makes regarding stock investing. Such a controversial idea!

    Rob

  14. I think that living in reality is better, Sensible. The benefit of research is that it helps you to better understand the realities.

    Irrational exuberance is an illusion. It can make you feel good for a time. But the good feelings are temporary and cause you to make choices that you would not have made had you remained rooted in the realities. I believe that you are better off just accepting the realities. Earning a 6.5 percent real return on your stock investments is just fine.

    Rob

  17. Look at the scoreboard. I’m 40 years old and am a millionaire. You’re pushing 70 and have a $0 portfolio. You could increase your portfolio one thousand-fold and still have less saved up than me. I’ve told you to get a job and save what you can to salvage your dignity but you refuse to acknowledge the fact that you were catastrophically wrong about this.

  18. My scoreboard focuses on the amount of abusive posting vs. the amount of civil, reasoned discussion. If you believed in a deep level what you say about investing, we never would have seen a single abusive post.

    An investing strategy that doesn’t inspire true confidence (bravado is not the same thing) is not for me. One of the things that I love about Buy-and-Hold is the injunction to “Stay the Course.” You can’t Stay the Course if you don;t have true confidence in the strategy.

    How do I know that Buy-and-Holder lack true confidence in their strategy? Look at what has happened through history when the CAPE level reaches the level where it resides today. I collapses. The drop in the CAPE level represents a collapse in confidence among Buy-and-Holders. Their inner doubts come to the surface and we all suffer a lot of pain.

    All of that pain could be avoided by us all just following research-based strategies all along. The only downside is that you miss out on that quick buck you can make by promoting irrational exuberance. The price is too high, in my assessment. Not this boy, you know? I prefer something more stable, something more real, something more humane. Valuation-Informed Indexing doesn’t offer the thrill ride you get from Buy-and-Hold. It only offer far higher returns obtained by taking on far less risk. I’m fine with that.

    Rob

  19. Buy and holders don’t need everyone else to agree with them for their strategy to work. You do. That’s not our problem, it’s yours.

  20. If you didn’t need people to agree with you, there wouldn’t be a ban on honest posting re the peer-reviewed research at every site. That’s the only thing keeping the CAPE value where it is.

    What Shiller showed is that crazy CAPE values never remain in place indefinitely. That’s the difference between real economic gains and irrational exuberance gains. One is permanent, one is temporary. One is economics-based, one is psychology-based.

    I need enough people to agree with to get every site opened to honest posting re the research. The strategy has always worked. The Bennett/Pfau research shows that beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever. What I need is for a way to be opened up for millions of people to learn what the research says. My thought is that that might happen in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. But we’ll see, you know.

    I am not God. I don’t know everything. But if today’s phony gains are backed by nothing more than investor psychology, a change in investor psychology (that’s what a price collapse signifies) might mean that investors will become more open to insisting that those speaking honestly about the peer-reviewed research be permitted to speak. I sure hope so. The would mean better and richer and fuller and happier lives from that point forward for all of us.

    Rob

  21. So if YOUR version of what YOU think is honest posting is allowed, then you think the whole stock market will change? Really? You have had plenty of time to post all over the internet and you have been on all the financial boards out there for a long time before getting banned. Despite your widespread exposure, you didn’t change a single thing in the market.

  22. Absolutely I think that permitting honest posting re the research will change things. That’s why we do research — to learn more and thereby to make our lives better.

    This is no small change. If it were only a small change, Shiller would not have been awarded a Nobel prize and we never would have seen any abusive posting from you Goons.

    It’s true that I posted for a good bit of time before being banned. And it’s true that that wasn’t enough to bring about the change that is needed. But we sure saw a lot of interest. We sure got close. We just need to keep at it. People were investing in stocks for many, many years before Shiller published his Nobel-prize-winning research. People have come to accept lots of misguided notions over the years. And please understand that permitting honest posting re the research would cause a price crash and people would lose lots of nominal wealth. That’s a big disincentive for permitting honest posting.

    That’s why I think we may see good things in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. That disincentive will not longer apply. So perhaps then we will be able to move forward as a nation of people. Again, I certainly hope so.

    Rob

  23. But others don’t agree that you are being honest, nor do they think you consider all the research given the success of buy and hold and the failure of market timing. You haven’t convinced anyone, despite your hundreds of thousands of posts during the last several decades. You NEVER got close, so what you are saying is just delusional.

  24. So let’s say during the next so-called “buy and hold crisis” (which is not actually caused by buy and hold) the critical number of people needed by you actually do convert and become members of your Valuation Informed Indexing cult. Us buy & holders already have millions, you currently have $0. Whatever we lose we stand to gain far more during any market recovery because unlike you we are not starting from $0.

  25. Thousands of people didn’t express a desire that honest posting re the peer-reviewed research be permitted for no good reason. It’s a lot to ask people to stand up in the fact of death threats and acts of defamation and acts of extortion and demands for unjustified board bannings. The question is whether as a nation of people we will insist that that stuff be reminded in in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis.

    I believe that we will. I don’t believe that it is possible to have one set of laws for every field outside of the investment advice field and another set of laws for the investment advice field indefinitely. I think we are going to find our way to a very, very, very good place. All of the evidence that I have seen outside of the Goon stuff points in that direction.

    Rob

  26. So let’s say during the next so-called “buy and hold crisis” (which is not actually caused by buy and hold) the critical number of people needed by you actually do convert and become members of your Valuation Informed Indexing cult. Us buy & holders already have millions, you currently have $0. Whatever we lose we stand to gain far more during any market recovery because unlike you we are not starting from $0.

    Once every site has been opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research, I will be compensated for the journalism work that I have been doing for the past 22 years, Sensible. That will put me hundreds of millions ahead of you. Then I will invest that amount pursuant to research-based strategies, putting me even further ahead.

    Research is a good thing. Research is our friend.

    Rob

  27. So for VII to be successful, people must make money from journalistic endeavors. Got it.

  29. And you have such a blockbuster track record at being a journalist, right? The money has just been pouring in from all the reports and books you have written.

    You might as well say that you will be making millions in your new career as professional baseball player. The only of success in both of these scenarios is about the same for you.

  30. A saying that is repeated over and over again among journalists is that: “When you are getting hit with a lot of flak, you know that you are flying straight over the targets.” No one has attracted the amount of flak that I have seen aimed at me over the past 22 years. It’s not an even remotely close call. I mean, come on.

    Rob

  31. Bernie Madoff got a lot of flack. I guess he was flying over the same targets as you.

  33. I guess when people agree with you, it means you are right and when people disagree with you, that also means you are right……….that is your logic.

  34. If Greaney truly believed that his retirement study contained a valuation adjustment, he would have pointed to the page containing it on the afternoon of May 13, 2002. There would be no reason to play it any other way.

    Rob