Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
Let’s say that Shiller changes his mind and tells people that we should time the market with CAPE and then he gets rich from people buying his books with this new message………..but then you are still ignored and you don’t earn a single dime from all this. Are you okay with that outcome?
I wouldn’t be happy about it. But I could live with it. I see it as a better outcome than having to live with myself in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis knowing that I could have helped my friends by speaking out about the error in the Greaney retirement study but that I failed to do so because I was afraid of what you Goons would do in response.
None of us get everything we want in this life. We have to make choices. We have to try to choose the best option presented to us.
Rob
What specifically would anyone be paying you for? Did you do a study? Are they buying a book? Are you doing consulting work? Are you managing portfolios?
I’m reporting on the 44-year suppression of discussion of the how-to implications of Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns. It’s one of the most important public policy issues facing the United States today. Once I have opened every site on the internet to honest posting re the research, we will all be living the richer and fuller and freer and better lives that we should have begin living in 1981.
It’s called progress, Anonymous. This is what research is all about. Rarely are the results this astounding. But sometimes you just get lucky.
My best wishes.
Rob
You are telling people your opinions. Everyone does that every day. That wasn’t the question. Again, what would people be paying you for? You don’t have anything to sell. You never had a business set up when you quit your job and after your job you didn’t do anything either.
Everyone does that every day in every field of human endeavor outside of the investment advice field. That’s certainly true. And it’s important that we do that. People make mistakes. So long as we follow the practice that you are describing, those mistakes can be corrected as new information becomes available. That’s what we need to see happen in the investment advice field. The “idea” that valuation-based market timing might not always be 100 percent required for every investor is the most dangerous mistake ever made in personal finance. We learned 44 years ago that it was a mistake. Now we need to get it corrected.
How do you think we are going to pull that off without opening every site to honest posting re the last 44 years of peer-reviewed research? There is no other way to get the job done.
Stock investing matters. People invest in stocks to finance their retirements. It happens all the time.
Rob
Once again, you avoid answering the question: what would people be paying you for: you have nothing to sell and you have no services to offer that people want.
If you didn’t think that there is a huge market for honest, accurate, research-based investment advice, you wouldn’t have devoted the last 23 years of your life to suppressing discussion of the last 44 years of peer-reviewed research in this field.
I mean, come on.
Rob
You say you have a number of people that agreed with you and supported you in the past. How come not a single person asked to pay you for your advice is you think there is value in what you are doing?
Investing is a serious business. Valuation-Informed Indexing is a huge change from Buy-and-Hold. It’s a huge advance but people need to be sure of that before making the change. We need to provide lots of opportunities for people to ask lots of questions and to become gradually accepting of the new, research-based realities.
In any event, I am not looking for people to pay me for advice. I am a journalist, not an investment advisor. There is obviously huge money to be made here as a journalist. People need to know how to invest in stocks. But I have no interest in becoming an investment advisor. My job is to tell the story of what the last 44 years of peer-reviewed research teaches us all about how stock investing works in the real world and about how discussion of these realities has been suppressed for 44 years now. Our discussions have shown that lots of people who work in this field would love to feel free to do honest work. They will take over the investment advice side of things once every site has been opened to honest posting and they feel free to give voice to their sincere views in public settings.
Rob
Before, you said it was advice. Now you say you are expecting to be paid as a journalist. What are you selling as a journalist? A book? A report? You still won’t answer the question.
I’ll do the journalism work that needs to be done.
I pointed out an error in a retirement study on the morning of May 13, 2002, and that study has not been corrected to this day. I think it would be fair to say that there is a mountain of work that urgently needs to be done in this field. I’ll do what I can do.
I’m selling what journalists always sell — a better understanding of the world around us. Had we been discussing the how-to implications of Shiller’s amazing research at every site ever since the day it was published, not one person at the Motley Fool site would have placed any confidence in the Greaney retirement study. That’s the world that we should all want to live in, a world in which the ethical standards that apply in every field other than the investment advice field apply in the investment advice field as well.
I think that stock investing matter. It matters enough that we should all want to get it right. I felt like a creep during those three years when I was afraid to point out the error. Now I don’t feel like a creep. It’s clear from our discussions that a good number of the experts in this field who are afraid to speak out today feel like creeps as a result. I don’t want them to feel like creeps either. I want to see us all benefit from Shiller’s amazing research findings. If we are not going to permit the discussion of peer-reviewed research, why even have peer-reviewed journals?
The leverage here is completely off the charts.
Rob
You made some money from a report on soapbox.com about 25 years ago
You made a few posts on Motley Fool that got 100+ likes
You self published a book a short time later which does not seem to have sold well
You have spent about the last 20 years trying to write your second book and seem no closer to finishing it now than you were when you started
You let some very small successes around the time of the Motley Fool irrational exuberance boom (when we were all going to retire early by investing in the Foolish Four) lead you to believe that you could make 10s of thousands of dollars as a writer.
You refused to examine the evidence since then that showed clearly that that was not going to happen.
You should have gotten a paying job which would have meant that your family was much better off and you wouldn’t have had to sell your home.
You know the $500 million nonsense is never going to happen.
In fact it is likely that you will not make any money from your finance related writing and you know this too.
But your ego does not let you admit this.
You have mentioned a brother in the past that you were still in contact with (I don’t recall any other family mentions other than your wife and boys).
Does he think that you made the right life choices?
Steven does not support my choices.
He loves me. He shows concern for me. We watch football and baseball games together.
But, when I told him about my correspondence with Rob Arnott, he said that: “The difference is that Arnott has a life.”
And one time I asked if I could stay at his house for a few days and his response was that he would impose only one condition, that I promise not to talk about stock investing.
Rob
“that I promise not to talk about stock investing.”
that would suggest that you are, in real life, very much like you come across online.
Were you able to comply with that condition?
““The difference is that Arnott has a life.””
Based on ages that you have previously mentioned here, I would assume that the boys are adults and making their own way in the world and we know you are divorced. Other than this blog what else constitutes your life at the moment?
I complied with the condition.
I do all the normal things. I walk for an hour every day. I watch movies. I read. I go on dates. I make meals. I watch baseball games.t i
But it’s certainly true that I spend a lot of time thinking about the investing stuff. I’ve made it my life’s work. I think it is important. I want to get it right. I think every day about parts that puzzle me, trying to figure things out and trying to identify the best way to present things so that people will be persuaded.
Rob
“trying to identify the best way to present things so that people will be persuaded.”
And how has that been working for you?
I persuaded people on the first day, Evidence. There were a number of posts thanking me for starting the most important discussion ever held in the history of the Motley Fool board.
Persuading people has never been a problem. The problem is the abusive posting and criminal behavior from the Buy-and-Hold side of the table. It’s only 10 percent of the population of investors that has been persuaded as of today. But, so long as the 90 percent either posts abusively or tolerates abusive posting, the 10 percent generally keeps quiet. Once we take action re the abusive posting, it’s all downhill sledding. But that’s the critical first step.
I still want to say things in the best way that I can. That’s the job.
Rob
If you persuaded people, they would be here posting and supporting you.
I have only persuaded a small number. On numerous earlier occasions, I have laid down a challenge. I am confident that. once we open every internet site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research, I will be able to get the percentage of the investing population following Valuation-Informed Indexing strategies up to 20 percent.
Our Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold impulse has a strong influence on us. But our discussions show that many of us have a strong desire to learn what the peer-reviewed research says as well. We humans are not perfect creatures. But we are not 100 percent corrupt. We are a mixed bag. We can do good. But sometimes we need laws to protect us from the sorts of individuals who have elected to put up posts in “defense” of Mel Lindauer and John Greaney.
I would permit honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. I think that’s the answer. I know it is!
Rob
Yet this small number (that you claim) won’t post here in support of you.
Just because you claim something is “honest”, doesn’t mean that it is so. People decide for themselves as to what they believe is honest.
“I would permit honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. I think that’s the answer. I know it is!”
Would you permit posting about Shiller’s 1981 paper “”Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?” and Wade Pfau’s paper “Revisiting the Fisher and Statman Study on Market Timing” at this site?
If I posted links to those papers and asked questions about those papers would you permit that reply to appear in your blog or would you block it so that you don’t have to answer questions?
“Just because you claim something is “honest”, doesn’t mean that it is so. People decide for themselves as to what they believe is honest.”
I believe that the human misery that we all see play out in front of us during the next Buy-and-Hild Crisis may cause enough of us to change our minds re whether the peer-reviewed research can be discussed to get every site opened to honest posting. I don’t deny that the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold impulse is within us all. I just don’t believe that it will always remain as dominant as today’s CAPE value shows it is today.
Things change. Sometimes for the better.
We’ll see.
Rob
Would you permit posting about Shiller’s 1981 paper “”Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?” and Wade Pfau’s paper “Revisiting the Fisher and Statman Study on Market Timing” at this site?
If I posted links to those papers and asked questions about those papers would you permit that reply to appear in your blog or would you block it so that you don’t have to answer questions?
I’d permit a little bit of that sort of thing. For the discussions to be fruitful, we would need to hear a good number of different perspectives. That’s not possible at this site because your abusive posting has driven away all the posters who like to see civil and reasoned discussion (that’s 90 percent of us).
We will be able to do that sort of thing at the Bogleheads Forum once it has been opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. I don’t expect to see that prior to the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis.
My best wishes.
Rob
“I’d permit a little bit of that sort of thing.”
That sort of thing?
You claim that Shiller’s research and Wade Pfau’s research needs to be talked about everywhere all the time but the most you will permit here is “a little bit of that sort of thing”
This highlights your hypocrisy. You complain endlessly about the ban on honest posting but show no willingness to allow honest posting here.
“For the discussions to be fruitful, we would need to hear a good number of different perspectives.”
“a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, if you are not willing to take that first single step how can you possibly complete the thousand mile journey?
If I ask a question about the studies and you answer that question how can that be a bad thing.
If ask ask a follow-up question, or multiple follow-up questions how can that be a bad thing. Maybe “anonymous” will join in. I think I spotted someone else post here a while back. If you are unwilling to host honest posting here, why should any other board permit you to post?
Who is this “90 percent”? Got a link?
It’s a bad thing because it’s a waste of time unless you go into the discussion with good intent. If you had good intent, you would want to see every site on the internet opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research.
Rob
“ I’d permit a little bit of that sort of thing.”
Do you would still block things. Of course, that is okay. It applies to every website. People allowed you to post things, but eventually blocked you. People have the right to control their website. You might not agree with their opinions, but you have to live with it. You are not the one that decides what is @honest”. You are not the one that decides the content of other people boards and your “fraud” thing is a farce. Just keep spinning your stories here and stop demanding the world to bend to your will.
Who is this “90 percent”? Got a link?
Why do you think it is that every site at which I have participated has published rules prohibiting the tactics that we have seen employed by you Goons. You Goons are a small minority. T
The Buy-and-Holders are the majority and it’s not even a close call.But you Goons are outliers.
Rob
“ It’s a bad thing because it’s a waste of time unless you go into the discussion with good intent. If you had good intent, you would want to see every site on the internet opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research.”
And this is why you are blocked. You waste time and are dishonest.
Do you would still block things. Of course, that is okay. It applies to every website. People allowed you to post things, but eventually blocked you. People have the right to control their website. You might not agree with their opinions, but you have to live with it. You are not the one that decides what is @honest”. You are not the one that decides the content of other people boards and your “fraud” thing is a farce. Just keep spinning your stories here and stop demanding the world to bend to your will.
The people of the United States will decide what fraud is in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis.
Rob
And this is why you are blocked. You waste time and are dishonest.
Okay, Anonymous.
Rob