Set forth below is text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
There has never been a buy and hold crisis. In fact, buy and hold has always worked. We have a market timing crisis where people get in and out of the market and cause chaos. Further, we have never seen a successful outcome from any market timer and you, yourself, have had a complete retirement failure while pushing a timing scheme.
Okay, Anonymous.
I don’t agree. But I do wish you well.
Rob
You don’t agree, but the evidence shows that you’re wrong. Your own life shows that you are wrong. I’m a millionaire at 40. Over the past six months my gains have been more than you take home from Social Security over several years. I’m now far ahead of you even though you, a self proclaimed expert in this stuff, are past retirement age and I’m just now hitting middle age.
And yet every time I take a look at the Greaney retirement study, I am unable to find a valuation adjustment in it. I can’t help but wonder why.
My best wishes, etc.
Rob
By the time I’m 59.5 I expect to have more than $5 million (in today’s money) in retirement accounts. With planned expenses sitting at a luxurious $10,000 (in today’s money) per month that leaves a lot of room for error. The idea is that the excess can be split between taxable investments, a donor-advised fund which would be spent after death, direct charitable contributions, and any “donations” to the grandkids’ education or whatever. This means we’d start at ~$80K per year of “extra” funds and add another +/- $40K per year when we start drawing Social Security. Plans can of course change, but can you see how my retirement strategy is local and yours wasn’t? Can you see how my approach not only secures myself but puts me in a position to leave the world a better place than I found it?
I do not.
The Bennett/Pfau research shows that, whatever you end up with at the end of your investing lifetime, you would have ended up with more had you followed a research-based strategy. Price discipline always adds, it never subtracts.
Rob
My plan is logical, yours is not.
Source: I’m a millionaire and you are not and never have been one, despite the fact that you made far more money per-year 25+ years ago not even adjusting your income for inflation.
Whatever.
I’m not a millionaire today. But I will become a millionaire times 500 on the day when we decide as a nation of people to open every internet site to honest posting re the last 43 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.
That’s pretty darn cool. By opening the internet to honest posting re the research I am helping millions of people to live better and richer and freer and fuller lives. There are lots of things that a person can do with his or her life that help people and that bring in money. But I am not able to think of anything that would help more people and bring in more money than opening every site to honest posting re the research. So that’s where I direct my energies.
Call me madcap, you know?
Rob
If you timing scheme really worked, you should have already been a millionaire…………yet you are not. You are broke……….which means you made bad decisions. If I was broke, you would say the same thing.
You’ve turned yourself into the Willy Loman of personal finance gurus. Get a job and salvage what’s left of your life and retirement.
The fact that there’s widespread resistance to the message of the last 43 years of peer-reviewed research shows why it is so important that every site be opened to honest posting. Investors don’t naturally engage in clear thinking about stocks. They are drawn to Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies. That’s why there have always been bull markets. To make rational choices, they need to be reminded what the research shows at every site they visit.
Would you have told Martin Luther King in the mid-60s that “not everyone has adopted your ideas just yet, you should thrown in the towel.” Sometimes breakthrough idea will take time to win people over. As a general rule, the more powerful the idea, the longer it takes to catch on.
Rob
You’ve turned yourself into the Willy Loman of personal finance gurus. Get a job and salvage what’s left of your life and retirement.
What a predicklement I find myself in!
If only there were some means to figure out FOR SURE whether or not the Greaney retirement study contains a valuation adjustment. If only we had some reason to believe that it won’t take another 22 years.
Rob
There is and never has been any resistance to any peer reviewed research. There has been resistance to people who lie, tell stories and can’t behave in a normal way.
Yeah, yeah.
Rob
Okay. Tell us where Shiller, Pfau or anyone else has been banned from the investment forums. The only person widely banned is you. That tells us the problem is more with you and your behavior, versus specific messages or strategy.
If Shiller and Pfau and everyone else felt free to express their sincerely held views at every site, there never would have been the tiniest bit of controversy about my statement that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment and needs to be promptly corrected. It’s been 22 years, Anonymous.
Rob
They are able to express their opinions freely and they do so. There is no controversy about your statements with respect to Greaney. People merely don’t agree with you and you don’t like the answer. It goes beyond just that. People don’t believe your comments about criminal acts. People don’t like the fact that you don’t answer questions. People don’t like the fact that you call respected people names (like con-men). People don’t like the fact that you failed to financially support your wife (now ex-wife ) and family. People don’t like your harassment of well respected members of the financial community.
Bottom line is that there is no value in what you say. Instead, you fit the category of a nuisance and why should you be tolerated? You haven’t earned respect or consideration. Thus, you are banned.
“People” do not feel that way. Only you Goons do. You are 10 percent of the population of the boards. You should permit all the rest of us to have the discussions that we have indicated we would like to engage in in peace. The published rules of every site permit that and you had to agree to follow those rules before you were permitted to advance your first post.
Where I’m coming from.
Rob
I don’t see anyone coming to your board looking to engage in discussions with you Rob. It doesn’t appear that you follow published rules Rob. The only problem with the banning is that many of the board operators took too long to ban you after your very lengthy poor behavior (lying, refusing to answer questions, name calling, etc.).
Speaking of “honest” posting, when are you going to update your bio?
I follow the published rules.
I sincerely believe that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment. There were people at the Motley Fool board who used that study to plan their retirement.
Rob
Go ahead and play Matlock. File papers to take Bogleheads to court right now. Be prepared to demonstrate that
1) you were not in violation of their published rules
and
2) that they have no right to ban you when you were not in violation of their published rules
Get on with it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmjQ5yJBiho
The people of the United States will decide the matter, Sensible.
In the past, people’s attitudes toward stock investing has changed when we experienced a Buy-and-Hold Crisis. We have seen the CAPE value drop from a level of two times fair value to a level of one-half fair value. That’s a big change! When we see a change like that, I will recommend opening every site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research, without a single exception.
We can talk as a nation of people about both civil and criminal prosecutions at that time. My policy is to be as honest as possible without crossing the line and becoming uncharitable while also being as charitable as possible without crossing the line and becoming dishonest.
I hope that that helps at least a tiny bit.
Rob
As a distinguished non-lawyer with a Master’s degree in law you should understand that if they are not in violation of current law then there’s nothing that can be done after the next crash or “buy and hold crisis”. Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional. Do you oppose the United States constitution as it is currently written? If they’re in violation of any laws then get to it. File the complaint. If you have standing and if they violated any laws, then you’d surely win.
Um….
Rob
It’s not healthy go on babbling nonsense for 22 years while forcing your wife to take on 5 jobs and your then-teenaged kids to work part-time while you did nothing to earn money for the family. You keep claiming that these Bogleheads have committed crimes against the people of the US and also specifically against you, for having the temerity to “post honestly” on discussion boards. You’re the one claiming that crimes were committed on a daily basis. If you’re the victim of a crime then do something, otherwise stop complaining.
I’m definitely complaining.I strongly believe that we need to open every site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research, without a single exception.
There are three things that I do today other than complaining: (1) I’m writing a book; (2) It write a weekly column; and (3) I respond to comments posed at the blog.
I believe that in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis, every internet site will be opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. When that happens, I will be posting at as many sites as possible. Once we have brought enough people up to speed, I will feel okay about bowing out and getting back to posting about effective saving strategies, which is what I did before I worked up the courage to point out the error in the Greaney retirement study on the morning of May 13, 2002.
That’s where things stand at this point in the proceedings.
Rob
You choose to complain at places where no one sees you. Literally no one comes here to support you. It’s just me and a few others who disagree with you who ever post here. God forbid your kids and ex-wife might be seeing your posts. Let’s be super generous and assume 20 additional people see your content in a given year. Even if they see it they don’t care enough to share you stuff on social media, so your work goes nowhere.. What good does all of this do, especially considering the alleged crimes that were committed? Why not take the criminals to court? Why not personally take your work and post it to popular websites like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter? I think I know why.
I have done lots of other things over the past 22 years. I’ve posted at the Bogleheads Forum. I’ve posted at Motley Fool. I’ve posted at the Early Retirement Forum. I’ve posted at the FIRE board. And on and on.
Thousands of people at those sites expressed a desire that honest posting re the peer-reviewed research be permitted. You Goons didn’t care. You continued with the abusive and in some cases criminal stuff.
I think that there’s a chance that the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis may help us all to turn this thing around. I sure hope so, you know?
Rob
I’ve only ever interacted with you here and at the Best of Hocomania Forum, yet you lump me in with the “goons” who you claim to be guilty of criminal behavior. Go ahead and press charges. See where that gets you.
Okay, Sensible.
My best wishes to you and yours, in any event.
Rob
“ The people of the United States will decide the matter, Sensible.”
They have already decided, Rob. That is why they don’t come here. They are not interested in what you have to say. They don’t believe what you say. If they agreed with you, then they would be here.
Okay.
Rob
If you ex-wife agreed with you, she wouldn’t have divorced you. If Wade Pfau agreed with you, he wouldn’t have stopped talking to you. If Robert Shiller agreed with you, he would reach out to you. See how that works in the normal world?
If we had opened every site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research on the afternoon of May 13, 2002, as I proposed at the time, we might all be Valuation-Informed Indexers today. The CAPE value certainly would not be 36.
Rob