“The People Who Hold Degrees Make Money Due to the Public’s Perception of Their Expertise in That Model. If Shiller’s Nobel-Prize-Winning Research Is Legitimate, Then the Last Thing in the World That You Want to See in an Investment Adviser Is Expertise in Buy-and-Hold. That’s Expertise in What Doesn’t Work. I Lack That Sort of “Expertise.” Good for Me.”

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:

Do you have any degree in the investment field? Do you have any degree with respect to research or statistical analysis? Do you have a track record of investing success?

The answer to all those questions are “no”. Any attempt from you to tell people what they should do in retirement investment is fraud. You should be the one fixing YOUR problems instead of telling everyone else what you think they should do.

I do not have a relevant degree. That’s a plus. Shiller’s research discredits the dominant academic model for understanding stock investing (Buy-and-Hold). The people who hold degrees make money due to the public’s perception of their expertise in that model. If Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate, then the last thing in the world that you want to see in an investment adviser is expertise in Buy-and-Hold. That’s expertise in what doesn’t work. I lack that sort of “expertise.” Good for me.

If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, Buy-and-Holders would welcome new research findings and challenges from people who don’t hold degrees. The reactions that we have seen from Buy-and-Holders show us that the “strategy” is just a marketing gimmick, a money- making thing. Buy-and-Holders tell people that irrational exuberance gains are just as good as real gains, making effective financial planning impossible. Boo, baby. Not this boy, you know?

Rob