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

“And why haven’t you Goons DEMANDED such a statement from Shiller?”

Lots of reasons.

1. Shiller has no idea who you are.
2. If he did know who you are, he would say you’re a nut.
3. When he called you a nut, you would just say he’s being intimidated. Only difference would be the rush you got from him acknowledging your existence. You’d probably send out 30,000 emails bragging about that.
4. Nothing Shiller could possibly say would change my mind about how to invest anyway.
5. Civilized people don’t DEMAND statements from other people

1. Shiller knows what safe withdrawal rates are and Shiller knows what valuations are. That’s what matters.

2) I don’t think Shiller would say that I am a nut. Wade Pfau sure didn’t say that. He researched the issue for a long time and came to the conclusion that “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” Rob Arnott sure didn’t say that I am a nut. He said that my site is right on. He said that he has seen the same intimidation tactics that I have run into and that he finds them deplorable. Bill Shultheis sure didn’t say that I am a nut. He said that he found my site amazing, that he had never seen a site that offered so much great information in one place. Michael Kitces sure didn’t say that I am a nut. We exchanged scores of e-mails and he made clear that he enjoyed the interactions and learned a lot from them. I think that, if you Goons thought that there was anything more than a zero chance that Shiller would say that I was a nut, you would have asked for his comments re these matters a long, long time ago. I mean, come on.

3) If Shiller said that I was a nut, I would report on that here at the blog. If he gave reasons why he thought that, I would explore those. If I found some of his reasoning weak, I would point that out. But I would certainly report what he said. What Shiller says re these matters is news.

4) “Nothing Shiller could possibly say would change my mind about how to invest anyway.” — Um….

5) I think it would be reasonable to demand a statement in this case. There are millions of middle-class retirements at risk. If it really is so that the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies do not contain valuation adjustments, we are going to experience the biggest social catastrophe in U.S. history. There were thousands upon thousands of newspaper articles and web site articles that offered retirement planning advice rooted in the infamous “4 percent rule.” Millions of retirees relied on that Buy-and-Hold retirement advice to their detriment. These people did nothing wrong. They tried to do the responsible thing by checking out what the experts said. They of course had no way of knowing that there were people who knew that the studies were in error but feared saying anything because of what they knew you Goons would do to them if they offered honest comments. If Shiller can do something to help get those studies corrected 15 years after the errors in them became public knowledge, it sure seems to me that he should be doing it.

If you want to just ask rather than to demand, then please ask. You haven’t done that much for 15 years now.

I wonder why.

Rob

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

Please explain how it is a felony when you have posts blocked, but is not a felony when you block posts.

I don’t block posts to keep people from learning about an error that I made in a retirement study.

That’s a big, big, big, big. big, big, big difference.

But, again — it doesn’t matter what I say about it. It’s your jury that will determine the length of your prison sentence. It’s what your jury says about it that matters.

I wish you the best of luck with it, man. But that’s as far as it goes.

Rob

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

Getting mad at us won’t help. No one else is giving you any feedback at all.

You have said that you want to gain followers. Your strategy of endless repetition has gained you zero followers in 15 years. So naturally you believe the solution is even more repetition.

Are you capable of even recognizing the gaping hole in that logic?

I love my country, Anonymous. That’s the bottom line here.

Of course I would like to have lots of followers. But I have zero willingness to cross the felony line to obtain them. If that’s the price that must be paid, I would just as soon not have followers, you know? Such is life.

What happens after the crash? A lot of people who referred to Bernie Madoff “Saint Bernie” before his fund collapsed expressed different feelings toward him after they lost most of their retirement money as a result of his massive act of financial fraud. We saw a little bit of the same sort of thing among Buy-and-Holders in the days following the 2008 crash. It never developed to the same level of disillusion because prices went back up quickly. But what if they don’t go back quickly next time? I think we will see a stronger reaction if that’s how things play out next time. We will need to wait a bit to find out for sure.

What do you want from me? What is it that you would like me to do for you?

If it is on the right side of the felony line, I am in. In two seconds. You won’t need to ask twice.

If it is on the wrong side of the felony line, you would save us both some embarrassment by not asking. I am not exactly flexible when it comes to stuff on the wrong side of the felony line. I think it would be fair to say that I am FAMOUS on the internet for my lack of flexibility re this sort of thing.

Tell me something that I can do for you that is on the right side of the felony line.

Or stop posting.

Or keep doing what you have been doing for 15 years now if that is what makes you happy.

But please understand that it is just not in me to participate in this massive act of financial fraud. I love my country and that runs deep and there is really precisely zero chance that that is ever going to change.

Time will reveal for both of us the story of how it all is going to play out.

Is that not so? Does that not sound at least roughly right?

Rob

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

There are no laws as to whom can post on privately run boards. The board owners decide who can and cannot participate. In fact, this is how you operate. You have deleted the vast majority of posts, which is just pure hypocrisy.

There are laws against financial fraud, Anonymous.

I am not engaging in financial fraud when I delete your insanely abusive posts. You ARE engaging in financial fraud when you seek unjustified board bannings as part of an effort to keep millions of middle-class investors from learning about the errors in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies and the infamous 4-percent rule that followed from them.

You obviously have nothing to worry about from me. I have no power to send you to prison. If you go to prison, it’s going to be because a jury sent you there. I intend to testify honestly when called before your jury. But that’s as far as it goes.

Board owners can decide who can and who cannot participate at their boards SO LONG AS THEIR PURPOSE IS NOT TO ADVANCE A HUGE COVER-UP OF ACTS OF FINANCIAL FRAUD.

Do you think that if Harvey Weinstein said “it is legal to not put someone in a movie” that his jury would buy that story as a legitimate reason for him to threaten to take an actress out of a movie because she did not accede to his sexual demands? I don’t think that one is going to fly for the Weinstein monster. And I don’t think that that one is going to fly for the Lindauer monster or the Greaney monster or the Bogle monster either.

But we’ll see, you know? We will get to watch it all play out together in real time in the days following the next price crash.

Please mark me down as STRONGLY opposed to the smelly financial fraud garbage that we have all seen play out before our eyes over the past 15 years. Please mark me down as strongly OPPOSED to death threats and strongly OPPOSED to demands for unjustified board bannings and strongly OPPOSED to tens of thousands of acts of defamation and strongly OPPOSED to threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs.

I love you man. But I love my freedom too. So nothing that goes to the wrong side of the felony line for this boy. I would be truly grateful if you would try to find somebody else.

Holy moly!

Rob

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

“That’s why I have made this topic my focus. We all need to pull together to get our discussions of this particular topic on the right track.”

This is YOUR topic. That doesn’t mean everyone else has to bend to you. We have heard you say everything 10,000 times and are just plain tired of it. You kept clogging up every thread with the same things. It got to be such a nuisance that there was no choice but to ban you. There really is nothing more to say.

You Goons are 10 percent of the community, Anonymous. Give me a freakin’ break. Buy-and-Holders comprise 90 percent of the community. So I am very much in the minority. But 100 percent of those who participate in community discussions (including you Goons!) agreed to follow the published posting rules and the laws of the United States before they were permitted to post. You are in the majority re the substantive issue but I am in the majority re the procedural issue.

You don’t get to decide what your fellow community members can hear. They can hear whatever they please. They can ask whatever questions they please. If you violate the rules, you get the boot. If you violate the laws of the United States, you end up in a prison cell. I mean. come on.

If you truly believe that there is nothing more to say, stop posting.

You can do as you please. If you submit a comment here that I think might in some way help some of our fellow community members understand how stock investing works, I will approve it. But if you mix in garbage with the good stuff, I will also call you out on the garbage. And, if you submit a comment that is pure garbage, I will of course delete it. That’s my job.

I wish you all good things. But that’s as far as it goes. I care about my fellow community members and I view a failed retirement as a serious life setback. So I intend to continue to post honestly re safe withdrawal rates and scores of other critically important investment-related topics.

I hope that is okay by you. I hope that policy doesn’t “clog up” anything for you. I hope that you don’t get “just plain tired” of me doing that. I hope that you don’t find me a “nuisance” for doing that. I hope that you don’t view acceptance of that reality as “bending to me.”

But, in the event you do, I imagine that I am just going to have to live with that reality. I don’t post dishonestly on the numbers that my friends use to plan their retirements. It just doesn’t happen. Not in 15 years, not in 15 billion years. Not once, not ever. No way. no how. Not this boy.

And when I see retirement studies that my friends are using to plan their retirements that get the numbers wildly wrong, I point out the errors in them. There was a time when I didn’t do that. There was a time when I rationalized my lack of courage in being willing to take on you Goons. There was a time when I kept it zipped, just like lots of other good and smart people do today. I am not proud of that. I am ashamed of that. I sure don’t ever intend to return to my shameful policy of keeping it zipped re the errors in Greaney’s retirement study. Find somebody else, you know? I feel better doing honest work that helps people. A LOT better. Big bucks or no big bucks, that’s the way that I intend to continue to play it.

I really do wish you all good things. But there are limits, you know?

My best wishes to you and yours in any evemt.

Rob

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

“If I have heard the phrase “timing doesn’t work” one time, I have heard it 10,000 times.”

Because it’s in response to the 10,000 times you shrieked “buy and hold doesn’t work!” The repetition is yours. Years and years of mindlessly regurgitating the same talking points. That, more than anything else, is what got you banned from all those sites. You will never accept that life has more than one topic.

I very much accept that life has more than one topic, Anonymous. I posted at the Retire Early board from May 1999 through May 2002 without once saying that “Buy-and-Hold doesn’t work” and I had a great time doing it. There’s no belief on my end that the only topic worth discussing is valuations.

But, yes, valuations is the only topic that I have written about for the past 15 years. That much is so. That’s not because I personally believe it is the only topic of importance. It is because I care deeply about our communities and because I learned through personal experience that valuations is a topic that causes us trouble in a way that no other topic causes us trouble. We need to talk about hundreds of other topics in constructive and effective and positive and life-affirming ways and we do. We do not today talk in constructive and effective and positive and life-affirming ways about valuations. That needs to change.

That’s why I have made this topic my focus. We all need to pull together to get our discussions of this particular topic on the right track. We need to follow the same rules when discussing valuations that we follow when discussing every other topic that we discuss.

You believe in Buy-and-Hold. You believe that the number on your portfolio statement reflects the true value of your portfolio. You believe that a withdrawal rate of 4 percent is perfectly safe at all times.

I believe in Valuation-Informed Indexing. I believe that, at a time when stocks are priced at two times fair value, I need to divide the number on my portfolio by two to know the true, lasting value of that portfolio. I believe that there are some valuation levels at which the safe withdrawal rate is 1.6 percent and some where it is 9 percent and some where it is something between those two.

Can we be friends despite our differences re these matters?

It’s the fact that I even need to ask that question that shows why the valuations issue is different from all the others. If one person on our boards said “I would never retire at age 50, I would get bored” and someone else said “Oh, I think retiring at age 50 would be amazing, I would retire at age 40 if I could,” they could remain friends despite their differences. Some people on the board would agree with the first statement, some would agree with the second and some would hold an opinion somewhere in the middle of those two. But we would see no death threats or board bannings or any of the other stuff in response to an expression of either of those two points of view re an important Retire Early issue.

When it comes to discussions of valuations, a good number of us put our friendships aside and go on the attack when other community members express different points of view. That needs to stop. Valuations isn’t the only important issue but it is certainly an important issue. So we all need to learn what we can about it when opportunities to do so present themselves. To create learning experiences, we all need to express our sincere views on the subject every time it comes up. Those who sincerely believe that the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent need to say that. And those who believe that the safe withdrawal rate varies with changes in valuation levels need to say that. And those on both sides need to always be sure to post in warm and friendly and humble and open-minded ways, ways that encourage others to step up to the plate and express their views as well.

There is not one school of academic thought as to how stock investing works. There are two. There is Buy-and-Hold, which is based on the peer-reviewed research of Nobel-prize-winning economist Eugene Fama. And there is Valuation-Informed Indexing, which is based on the peer-reviewed research of Nobel-prize-winning economist Robert Shiller. Both points of view need to be given daily expression on our boards and blogs. Never should any members of either camp be made to feel unwelcome. We all should be 100 percent united in dealing with the problem if ever there should come a time when one of the members of either camp is made to feel unwelcome. We are all here for the same purpose — to learn. To learn, we all need to be open to hearing the views of every other community member.

I really have heard the phrase “timing doesn’t work” thousands of times. And, no, I didn’t only hear it in response to my phrase “Buy-and-Hold doesn’t work.” I heard it thousands of times in the years before I dared to give voice to my belief that Buy-and-Hold doesn’t work. Buy-and-Holders comprise 90 percent of our board communities. I get the sense that you don’t often think about how dogmatic your phrases sound to the 10 percent of us who hold very, very different views as to how stock investing works.

I don’t want you to say things you don’t believe. That’s the last thing in the world that I would ever want. But I do think that you need to work harder to tolerate the expression of minority views that are sincere and that are rooted in decades of peer-reviewed research. We learn more when our views are challenged than we do when they are supported. All new ideas start out with only one supporter. That was true of Buy-and-Hold once upon a time. There was a time when there was only one person in the world who believed in Buy-and-Hold. Today, the number is in the millions. It might be that that is what is going to happen with Valuation-Informed Indexing. You need to show the idea the respect that it merits despite your personal disagreement.

That’s the deal here. I need to show your ideas respect too. It’s not always easy. I believe strongly that Buy-and-Hold is a big pile of smelly garbage. It is hard at times to resist the urge to say it precisely as I believe it. Perhaps I should pull back a bit when a phrase like that comes to mind. I have friends who believe strongly that Buy-and-Hold is the answer and I might alienate them by using such a phrase.

The tricky part is that these are both number-based strategies. I could make a practice of using soft words when referring to Buy-and-Hold out of deference to my many friends who believe that that strategy is the answer. But what happens when someone asks me what the safe withdrawal rate is at a time when the P/E10 level is 44? If I say “1.6,” that is going to hurt. That’s not a soft number. I cannot talk about a numbers-based strategy without ever mentioning numbers and I obviously need to report the numbers that apply honestly and accurately. So there is a certain amount of hurtful stuff that just comes with the territory here. We all need to be mindful of the sensitivities and do all we can not to upset our fellow community members while also being true to ourselves and doing all in our power to bring about a learning experience for all.

I’m up for the challenge if you Goons — er, you Guys and Gals! — are.

I love my Buy-and-Hold friends, Anonymous. That’s a deep reality here. I go to battle with you in the spirit in which two old dogs who have been fighting each other in fun for their entire lives go to battle with each other. It’s what we do, it’s how we show affection for each other. I get the sense at times that that is not the spirit in which you go to battle with me. Are you my friend? Do you respect my contributions to the various board and blog communities? Are you grateful for the learning experiences that I have facilitated for you?

If the answer to these questions is “no,” then it is not me causing the repetition, it is you. If the answer to these questions is “no,” you are the one causing the problem by using your words not to encourage discussion of important Retire Early stuff but to shut such discussions down. If that’s the case, you should be ashamed of yourself, man. I mean, come on.

If the answer to these questions is “yes,” then let’s get it on! Let’s work it out. Let’s move forward. Tell me what you need to make it happen and I’ll be there for you. Buy-and-Hold believer or no Buy-and-Hold believer, I am always there for a friend.

I hope that helps a small bit.

Rob

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

Is there anyone, other than you, that believes the stories about goons and prison?

It all seems like some kind of childhood fantasy of revenge.

Is there anyone, other than Rose McGowan, who believes the stories about Harvey Weinstein?

Ask that question on September 16, 2017, and you get one answer. Ask that question on October 16, 2017, and you get a very different answer.

The appeal of intimidation tactics is that they produce amazing short-term results. The downside of intimidation tactics is that getting away with stuff that no human should be able to get away with encourages you to go farther and farther out into deeper and deeper waters. When things go bad for those who rely on intimidation tactics, things go really, really, really bad.

Wade Pfau didn’t believe it until it happened to him. Bill Sholar didn;t believe it until it happened to him. El Supremo didn’t believe it until it happened to him. I didn’t believe it until it happened to me. And on and on and on and on and on.

The next crash will scare enough people that we will be able to pull together 10 to go to the New York Times and make the case for a front-page article. Then the dam will burst open and lots of people who keep quiet today because they want to keep safe will come to believe that they need to get to the other side to be safe in the new climate of opinion. We will see something akin to what we are seeing with the Harvey Weinstein story today. New revelations every day, one more horrifying than the next. And lots of voices saying: “How could something like this happen? How is it that so many knew and so few spoke up?”

Or perhaps not, you know? I could be wrong. It’s been known to happen before. If it were happening again, I would probably be the last to know.

I can tell you this much with certainty. You have nothing to fear from me. I have zero power to put anyone in prison and zero desire to obtain such power. So, if anyone is going to prison, it is not going to be on my say-so.

We’ll see how it all plays out, you know? I am never going to be willing to say that I believe that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site contains an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. And you Goons are never going to be willing to come clean re the 15-year cover-up. So we are just going to have to wait to see if public attitudes about this massive act of financial fraud change in the days following the next price crash or not. A change in public attitudes is the only thing that can resolve the matter at this point in the proceedings.

I wish you the best of luck with it, you know? I can do that much and so I do that much. I cannot do more. I cannot say that I believe that Greaney included a valuation adjustment in his study. It’s not in me. Even the thought of doing that goes against everything that I have always aimed to be as human being. That can never happen. Not in 15 years. Not in 15 billion years.

If public opinion doesn’t change, I go down. I won’t regret anything that I have done in any event. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I said that Greaney’s study contains a valuation adjustment. I would rather be able to live with myself and accept whatever consequences follow than not be able to live with myself.

If public opinion changes, you Goons will go down. But it’s not as if coming clean today can stop you from going to prison. I cannot offer that to you and no one else can offer that to you. The length of your prison sentences will depend on how angry people are when they realize what has been done to them. And there’s no way to assess that with certainty. There is no precedent for this situation. There are no comps to look to. I can offer to say things aimed at helping you. But there’ s nothing that I can offer you that is enough to get a deal cut unless I could offer you a Get Out of Jail Free card. And there is no Get Out of Jail Free card for the offering in this particular case.

I wish you all good things, Anonymous. But, yes, there are lots of people who experienced the intimidation and lots of people who are going to talk once they come to believe that there is no other way to keep our economic system from going down. A few people will talk when they come to the conclusion that things are bad enough that they have no other options. And then, after a few have talked, more and more will join in because their fear of talking will diminish once they hear some others doing it and getting away with it. And then, even more will join in because they will want to be on the safe side of the table at a time when the safe thing has become talking rather than not talking. People won’t just be talking in those days, they will be rushing to the front of the room to be sure that the next opportunity to talk goes to them and not to someone else.

Or so this fellow who posts crazy stuff on the internet about how the safe withdrawal rate at the top of the bubble was only 1.6 percent says. Who could every believe anything so crazy?

Unless he was reading in the newspapers about millions of retirements failing and the misery it was causing to every human being alive on the planet.

If some people work up the courage to talk and other people come to believe the stories that are told, then some people will work up the courage to talk and other people will come to believe the stories that are told. If not, then not. Either way, I am ahead of where I would have been had I kept my mouth shut and known that by my silence I had contributed to the greatest economic collapse in U.S. history.

I love my country. I tried. There’s nothing that any of you Goons can ever say about me that can change that. That’s the bottom line here.

I wish you all good things, dear Goon friend.

Rob