Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
It didn’t work for you in the long term. In fact, you can’t even name one person in which market timing has worked out.
Price discipline works for every investor who employs it, Anonymous. Ir’s impossible for the rational human mind to imagine any exceptions to that rule.
You don’t subtract for the effect of irrational exuberance when determining the size of your portfolio. That’s what confuses you. Irrational exuberance gains are imaginary gains. They are not real. They disappear into the mist in time.
Rob
My god, you still exist and are posting! I used to see your posts on financial sites from which you were long-ago banned for bad behavior. You’re still stuck in your ranting rut? I followed John Greaney’s advice, retired early 16 years ago, and have been having the best years of my life. I’m financially secure, travel the world, enjoy my hobbies, support good causes, and am surrounded by family, and friends. Basically, I do whatever I want.
You? As far as I can tell, you are bankrupt and your wife dumped you.
I should look up John Greaney as well as the Bogleheads and thank them for their help…except that I have moved on and have more fun things to do.
I continue to believe that the Greaney retirement study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.
Where I’m coming from.
Rob
“ I continue to believe that the Greaney retirement study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.”
And how has that worked out for you? Oh wait, you are broke and divorced. Good job, Rob!
And I can sleep at night.
Rob
Clearly you have no shame.
Or I care about my internet friends and what is likely to happen to their retirement accounts.
Rob
Did you care about what happened to your ex-wife’s retirement account?
Very much so. If we experience another Buy-and-Hold Crisis, she is one of the millions and millions of people who will get hurt by it. I obviously don’t want to see that happen.
The question is — Why do we not apply the same rules that apply in every field other than the investment advice field in the investment advice field as well. That’s what makes sense. In every other field, we apply laws that show that we understand that experts can make mistakes and that those mistakes need to be corrected over time. So we permit honest posting re new research and thereby provide a means for the experts to come to terms with the mistakes that they have made and to develop stronger ideas.
The thing that is really off in the investment advice field is that the non-experts — the people who will be suffering huge losses in the event that the stock market continues to perform in the future somewhat as it always has in the past — tolerate the cover=up. That’s nuts. But they’ve got that Get Rich Quick impulsed residing within them that makes them like Buy-and-Hold, that makes them think that this might be the first time in history when it doesn’t end in tears for everyone.
Can we overcome it? I believe that we are working up to that magic moment. I believe that the arc of history in the personal finance field bends toward rationality. I believe that opening up one large site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research will get us over the line will get us there. At that point, my ex-wife and millions and millions of others will be able to have some confidence that the numbers on their portfolio statements are accurate. I see that as being a huge step forward.
We’ll see.
Rob
You didn’t do anything to help your wife build up a retirement account. She begged you to get a job, but you refused. She doesn’t have any numbers on her portfolio, so it won’t matter what happens in the market.
I did many things to help her. She owns her own home today. That came from money that I provided. She did want me to stop the investing work and get a job that paid an immediate income. That was the source of the conflict between us. A Buy-and-Hold Crisis affects everyone. The huge loss in consumer buying power usually causes an economic collapse and in some cases causes a good bit of political unrest. Buy-and-Hold is a lose/lose/lose/lose/lose.
That’s why the Buy-and-Holders are so strongly opposed to permitting honest posting re the peer-reviewed research. The research shows how dangerous it is for everyone concerned. I’m not a fan.
Rob
“ I did many things to help her. She owns her own home today. That came from money that I provided”
From what money? You haven’t worked in 25 years. Meanwhile, your ex-wife has been working multiple jobs the whole time. Notice you even admit in your last post, like you have done before that she needed you to bring in an income. There is zero excuse for ANYONE to not support his family if you are physically able.
I don’t think that there’s any excuse for anyone who knows about the 44-years cover-up not to do everything in his or her power to bring it to an end. It affects the retirement accounts of millions of people. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing that I was aware of the problem and just let another Buy-and-Hold Crisis take place.
Say that there’s a 1 in 100 chance that what I’ve been saying for 23 years now — that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment — is accurate. After 23 years of this stuff, I personally would put the odds at 99,9999 percent. But let’s say for purposes of discussion that there’s only a 1 percent chance that Greaney got the numbers wrong in his study. If there’s a 1 percent chance, then we should be talking about it at every site on the internet. Greaney isn’t the only person who advanced that loony-tunes 4 percent rule. There are millions of people who put together their retirement plans thinking that that was something real and who need to be advised that it was all just a scam. How do you think that word is going to get out if no one works up the courage to stand up to you Goons. There’s no other way that it could happen.
And look at today’s CAPE level. It’s pretty darn scary. If we had opened every site to honest posting re the research on the afternoon of May 13, 2002, as I proposed at the time, we would obviously never again have to endure such an insanely dangerous CAPE level. We would have people explaining why valuation-based market timing is the key to long-term stock investing success at every site. How do you think we are going to get to that place if we all live in fear of the abusive and sometimes criminal behavior of you Goons? Knowing what I know, I do not feel it would be responsible to fail to do whatever I can do.
I do wish you all good things, in any event.
Rob
All of your “issues” have been addressed thousands of times. Funny thing is you have ignored everyone else. You even ignored your wife and her needs. You are not helping anyone. You are just playing word games to avoid taking responsibility. Look at how that has worked out. You are broke and every has left you (on the internet and in your personal life). Great job, Rob.
Woe is me, Anonymous.
My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, in any event.
Rob
You are always the victim, aren’t you Rob. The whole world has orchestrated a mass conspiracy against you and even your ex-wife is in on this scheme. Poor Rob.
We are all victims of this massive act of financial fraud, Anonymous. We all would be living richer and freer and happier and better lives if every site on the internet had been opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research in this field on May 13, 2002, as I proposed at the time. I is not possible for the Rational human mind to imagine any possible downside, I mean, come on.
Learning is this world one true free lunch. There was a time when we didn’t know all that we needed to know to invest in stocks successfully for the long run. Now we do. Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize for his research because it represented such a huge advance over what came before. Unfortunately, there is a feeling among some Buy-and-Holders that they will not be perceived as super duper experts if people come to learn that they didn’t always know it all. Well, they didn’t. I don’t think that the mistake they made was that big a deal. But the cover-up of the mistake has hurt millions of people and hurts more each day that it continues. We all need to pull together and insist that every site be opened to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research so that we can all move forward together into a better tomorrow.
Where I’m coming from.
Rob
No, we are all not victims. Reasonable people know that they are responsible for their own well being. Making up these silly posts are not helping anyone. It seems your therapist has his work cut out for him.
Anyone who believes that the Greaney retirement study lacks a valuation adjustment must be nutso.
Or maybe it’s okay to believe it so long as you don’t give voice to what you believe in a public place.
Rob
Is there a reason that you have not posted a new blog entry since June 2nd?
Admittedly all your blog entries are just repostings of things that you have said before so it is not like we missing out on anything new.
Do you have any plans to write new material for a blog entry?
One just went up.
There were several days when my internet service was down. And then there were several days when I was traveling. So I fell behind in getting new blog entries scheduled.
There are not enough items for there to continue to be a new item appearing each day for much longer. I will continue to post the items for so long as there are items that I believe add some understanding of the issues at play. My sense is that that might only be for a few more weeks. I almost always use comments from the blog as the content for new blog entries. I do not intend to write fresh material.
Rob
“ I do not intend to write fresh material.”
When did you ever write fresh material? I have never seen anything new.
Valuations affect long-term returns. That’s the story. It’s a pretty darn simple message.
But it’s important. Say that that the alcoholic beverage industry got control of all the driving schools and put out a message that the key to safe driving is always to drink six beers before getting behind the wheel. That would be a catastrophe equal to the catastrophe that we have seen in the investment advice field with this garbage about how there might be some alternate universe in which valuation-based market timing might not be 100 percent required for every investor.
Say that that the alcoholic beverage industry con men didn’t want to acknowledge their mistake. They might say that the explanation for the millions of deaths that they caused is that six beers isn’t really enough, that people need to drink a minimum of eight beers before they can drive a car safely. And on and on like that.
When you make a mistake this big, the best thing to do is to acknowledge it and move on. Covering it up just makes things worse.
My sincere take.
Rob