Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
We don’t need to entertain your silly hocomania on other people’s websites. You have your own site to say whatever you want.
I believe that we need to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. I don’t see that as being even a tiny bit optional, I see it as being 100 percent imperative.
People are not naturally inclined to practicing valuation-based market timing (price discipline!). We all want something for nothing. We all love the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold stuff. The entire history of the market shows that. We suffer a horrible Buy-and-Hold Crisis and we sweat off of irrational exuberance. But time passes and we start thinking that maybe we should give the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold garbage (no market timing now!) another try. To stop bull markets from developing, we all need to work together to remind ourselves daily of the human suffering that always follows in the wake of a time when the Buy-and-Hold “strategy” is heavily promoted.
I think we can do it. I think that the fact that Shiller’s research showing that valuations affect long-term returns was awarded a Nobel prize was a very good sign. And I liked seeing thousands of our fellow community members express a desire that honest posting re the peer-reviewed research be permitted. I’m not encouraged by today’s CAPE value. That scares me. But I see more good signs than bad. I like to say that the arc of history in the personal finance field bends toward increased rationality. I think that we are in a fundamental sense a good people and that the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis may cause us to open at least one large site to honest posting. We’ll see.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.
Rob
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