Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Who is the expert that agrees with you?
My impression is that just about everybody in the field agrees. Not entirely. But you wouldn’t expect that. The Rob Bennett who existed on May 13, 2002, wouldn’t agree with the Rob Bennett who exists today. I have learned a lot by asking questions and exploring this stuff and talking it over with interested parties for 22 years. So I don’t say that everyone agrees 100 percent. But just about everyone agrees that Shiller’s research taught us all something important and that honest posting re Shiller’s research should be permitted at every site.
Bill Bernstein obviously agrees on the basic question. He said that the safe withdrawal rate in January 2000 was 2 percent, not 4 percent. That’s what I say. John Bogle largely agreed. He put up that post at the Bogleheads forum saying that he could see how valuation-based market timing could work in some circumstances. That was not a full-throated endorsement. But it was a far cry from the Goon position. I think it would be fair to say that Bogle was hoping that he could get a productive discussion started by making that admission (which was a change from things he had said at earlier times). And of course there are lots and lots of others.
People don’t want to be threatened. If you want people to say clearly that they agree, you are going to need to rein in the abusive stuff. People just won’t speak clearly as long as they are subjected to the kind of abuse that you Goons dish out for doing so. But my sense is that just about everyone in the field agrees on the basics, they are just afraid to say it. I am not able to recall even a single time where anyone (this includes you Goons) made a case that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is in error. That’s a remarkable reality. The fact that that has never once happened in 22 years should tell us all something.
My best wishes.
Rob
If you don’t have any followers, then who are you making all these posts for?
Our 22 years of discussions show that 10 percent of the population of investors would like to see honest posting re the last 22 years of peer-reviewed research permitted. If it were, that 10 percent would in time grow to 20 percent and then the 20 percent would become 40 percent and then the 40 percent would become 80 percent. The only thing that has been holding us all back for 22 years now is you Goons.
It’s not right to say that it is only you Goons that are the problem. We have laws and published posting rules in place to protect us from the sorts of tactics you employ to suppress the discussions we need to be having with each other. The real problem is the widespread tolerance among the Normals for your abusive and in some cases criminal behavior.
You Goons are really just extreme manifestations of the thing that has made stock investing risky for as long as there has been a stock market — the Get Rich Quick impulse that resides within all of us. My job as a journalist writing about this story is to understands our Get Rich Quick impulse in as much depth and detail as possible.
That’s why I engage in a limited amount of interactions with you Goons. I am trying to come to a better understanding of where the Buy-and-Hold “idea” comes from so that I can help people to overcome the Get Rich Quick urge that resides within them and that over time causes the CAPE level to get to the dangerous place where it resides today.
Rob