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

Rob, for your opinions need to be valid, all of these financial experts either need to be lying, part of a mass conspiracy or not smart enough to have figured things out……………or………….you are wrong.

It’s a combination of those, Anonymous.

We didn’t make a serious effort to figure things out until the mid-1960s. In earlier days, different people had different opinions on how the stock market worked. But it was generally not the subject of sustained and systematic academic study. The Buy-and-Hold Pioneers had the most important breakthroughs in the mid-1960s. It’s only from that point forward that it became reasonable to refer to the study of stock investing as any sort of science.

The Buy-and-Hold Pioneers got one important piece of the puzzle wrong. They showed that short-term timing never works and then jumped to the hasty, false conclusion that long-term timing also does not work. It wasn’t until 1981 that that question was tested by research. Shiller then showed that long-term timing always works and is always required.

From 1981 forward, the experts have been suffering from cognitive dissonance. The idea that timing doesn’t work is a fundamental belief. They are having a very hard time giving that one up. It’s not quite right to say that they are “lying.” They are saying wrong things. They should know that these things are wrong from following the research. But they simply are not able to process what they read in the research. If valuations affect long-term returns, long-term timing is required for any investor hoping to keep his risk profile stable over time. You don’t need to be a genius to see that. But the people who are “experts” in this field are blind to the implications of Shiller’s research because they cannot bear to question the core belief of the investing paradigm around which they have built their careers.

Cognitive dissonance is a real thing, Anonymous. Please check the literature in the field of psychology if you don’t believe me. This is a compelling illustration of the phenomenon. But it is certainly not the first time that we have seen something of this nature take place. It also would help to read the book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” Several of the academics to whom I wrote referred to this book in trying to explain why the implications of Shiller’s revolutionary finding have been ignored for 33 years.

People have a hard time processing really big changes. The shift from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing is a HUGE change. There’s never been a change this big before in this field. So it is taking some time for people to process it. It’s actually HARDER for people who possess a high level of expertise in the field to process the changes. They have more of an emotional stake in the old paradigm.

I don’t feel comfortable saying that there is a “mass conspiracy.” There was never a day when a group of people got together in a smoke-filled room and decided on a plan to keep knowledge of the implications of Shiller’s findings from millions of middle-class investors. But the Buy-and-Hold Mafia is a real thing. Bloggers who push Buy-and-Hold know that they will not be able to persuade their readers to follow their advice if they permit honest commenting at their blogs. Mutual fund companies know that they will not be able to persuade their clients to remain fully invested in stocks if they learn the realities. Stock brokers know that they will make more money in the short term if people don’t learn about what the last 33 years of peer-reviewed research says. Lots of people benefit in the short-term from keeping millions of middle-class investors in ignorance.

And those people have been acting in the self-interest. They are telling untruths. For example, the claim that “long-term timing is not absolutely necessary” is an untruth. Long-term timing is price discipline. It is absolutely required. But the people who tell this untruth believe the untruth themselves, at least to some extent. They know that Shiller published research casting doubt on the fundamental principles of Buy-and-Hold. But they tell themselves that Buy-and-Hold probably kinda, sorta works. These are generally honest people telling untruths in this one particular area because the knowledge that was brought to light by Shiller is knowledge that millions of people wanted very much to ignore for so long as stocks were insanely overpriced.

Not all untruths are spoken by people with an intent to lie. When people said in pre-Civil Rights days that “blacks are better off with the world being the way it is than they would be if they were given equal rights,” many of them believed it on a least one level of consciousness. It wasn’t only whites that said that sort of thing. Many blacks said that sort of thing. There was a level of consciousness on which they wanted to see change (and there is a level of consciousness on which John Bogle wants to understand the implications of Shiller’s findings). But they were afraid to step into a new world; they were more comfortable staying in the old world despite its imperfections.

There’s something between telling truths and telling lies. There’s being too emotionally afraid to bear looking at new truths to be able to bear giving up old ones.

You Goons tell lies. You Goons have told many, many lies. But even you Goons rationalize your lies. You tell yourself that it is okay to tell them because you have to “protect” investors from hearing views that you believe are dangerous.

The Wall Street Con Men tell partial lies. Bogle says that it is not necessary for investors to change their stock allocations by more than 15 percent even when stock valuations reach insanely high levels. The historical return data shows that investors need to change their stock allocations by 60 percent when stock valuations reach insanely high levels. So what Bogle says is certainly not true. But I don’t think it is quite right to call it a “lie” in the way that the word is usually used. Bogle tells himself that 15 percent is enough. He tells himself that we are not going to see another crash anytime soon. He tells himself that the promotion of Buy-and-Hold was not the primary cause of the economic crisis. People tell themselves all kinds of things when they are working hard to ignore discoveries that they find it painful to confront, Anonymous. Humans do this sort of thing ALL THE TIME.

Bogle behaves with a greater level of dishonesty when he fails to respond to my e-mails seeking help with the Lindauer matter. He has a responsibility to take action when he learns that a discussion board with his name on it is being misused in that manner. I am not sure that this act of dishonesty can be excused with references to the cognitive dissonance phenomenon. That’s something that we are going to have to decide as a society. My job is to report the realities with honesty and charity. The decision as to what sorts of consequences will fall on Bogle as a result of that particular act of dishonesty is not mine to make.

That’s my sincere belief as to what is going on. I won’t say that it is not a strange story. I acknowledge that it is mighty strange. But things are not as black and white as you suggest. There is corruption present in our story. But the amount of corruption is not as great as one would intuitively think to be the case on first hearing that “experts” continue to advocate Buy-and-Hold strategies 33 years after peer-reviewed research was published showing that there is zero chance that they could ever work for even a single long-term investor.

These are big changes. And humans have a hard time processing big changes. And there are particular factors present here that makes these particular big changes particularly hard to process. One special factor is that the new understanding evidences itself only in the long term and for a good number of years Buy-and-Holders experienced a powerful amount of positive short-term feedback re the merit of their investing strategy. Another special factor is that the experts do not feel that they have available to them the option of saying that there are two schools of thought that lead to opposite strategic implications. That’s the truth here. But the experts in this field feel that to speak that truth plainly would cause people to question their expertise. A third special factor is that experts who give bad advice can be held financially liable for losses suffered as a result. That makes people in this field reluctant to acknowledge mistakes.

We are in a transition period. Buy-and-Hold is the past. Valuation-Informed Indexing (which is Buy-and-Hold with the Get Rich Quick element removed) is the future. Those are the realities.

Humans are imperfect creatures. It can take time for them them to acknowledge and correct mistakes. That’s another important reality.

We all should be working together to make the transition to the new model as painless as possible for as many people as possible. We should be trying to help heal wounded egos rather than trying to polarize debates and stir up trouble. That’s my sincere recommendation.

The world is not as simple as you once imagined it to be, Anonymous. You cause a lot of pain by ignoring the complexities, both to millions of others and to yourself.

Rob

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

These cover up folks are doing a pretty lousy job, given that you’ve recently admitted that most people do consider valuations when making asset allocation decisions, and there really are no Buy and Hold purists. And the fact that Shiller recently won a Nobel prize.

I agree with you that the cover-up folks are doing a lousy job, Anonymous. That’s why I don’t like to use the word “conspiracy.” The cover-up does possess many of the elements of a conspiracy. I am virtually certain that people are going to use that word to describe it following the next price crash. And I can to some extent see where they would be coming from in using that word. But I have never felt entirely comfortable using the word “conspiracy” to describe what is going on here. I prefer the phrase “cognitive dissonance.” I often say that I am okay with describing it as a “conspiracy of ignorance.”

Your point about Shiller winning the Nobel Prize is right on. That’s not evidence of a conspiracy. It’s strong evidence that this is NOT a conspiracy as that word is generally understood. And there is a lot more evidence pointing in the same direction. I learned about the errors in the Old School SWR studies by reading Bogle’s book. If there were a conspiracy, Bogle would be the leader of it. Why the heck would he be saying things in his book that help to expose the conspiracy? That makes no sense.

Similarly, Bernstein said a long time ago that anyone giving thought to using the Old School SWR studies to plan a retirement would have to be out of his or her mind. That’s not something that someone trying to cover up the errors in the Old School SWR studies would say. Again, it just makes no sense.

The other side of the story is that Bogle has for 12 years now not lifted a finger to help us get the Old School SWR studies corrected, despite what he wrote in his book. Nor has Bernstein, despite what he told us in his e-mailed response to Ataloss’s question as to whether Bernstein thought that the Old School studies were analytically invalid.

This isn’t precisely a conspiracy. But it is something.  There is a LOT of funny business going on. What is this cover-up about?

You are looking in the right direction when you note that few investors follow Buy-and-Hold strategies in a dogmatic fashion. Just about everybody (the exception is Eugene Fama!) acknowledges that valuations matter. Judging by that, you would think that we could all get along just fine, right?

But we are obviously NOT all getting along just fine. I hope you will give me that much.

Why? What the heck is the problem?

The problem is that the middle ground on which most investors live today does not make theoretical sense. Buy-and-Hold makes perfect theoretical sense if the market is efficient. Valuation-Informed Indexing makes perfect theoretical sense if valuations affect long-term returns. Splitting the difference (what you call “Strategy B”) makes no theoretical sense.

Splitting the difference possesses great appeal to most investors. Most investors don’t care about theory. They like Buy-and-Hold. The Buy-and-Hold principles sound entirely sensible to most investors. And most experts endorse Buy-and-Hold. So most investors believe that they should generally follow those principles. But they do not feel comfortable following them in a dogmatic way. They feel that valuations must matter. So they choose to tailor Buy-and-Hold to better fit what their common sense tells them is probably the full truth — They follow Buy-and-Hold principles generally but also occasionally ignore the theory to make small adjustments in their stock allocations as a result of concerns they hold about valuations getting out of control.

That’s the reality today. We do not disagree re the reality.

We disagree about what works.

I believe in the original Buy-and-Hold idea that investors should be rooting their investing strategies in the peer-reviewed research. There is no research showing that valuations kinda, sorta matter and kinda sorta don’t matter. The research shows that, if valuations matter, they matter a whole big bunch. If we really believed that valuations matter and weren’t just paying lip service to the idea while generally holding tight to out belief in Buy-and-Hold principles, we would be looking to the research to determine HOW MUCH to change our allocations in response to changes in valuations.

That’s Valuation-Informed Indexing. That’s what I am arguing for.

I don’t say that you are lying when you say that you consider valuations to a small extent. I think you do that. I think that millions of people do that. I agree with you that MOST investors do that.

I don’t think that’s what works.

I certainly agree that we should be investing with valuations in mind. But I also think that we should be using the historical return data and the peer-reviewed research based on that data to determine HOW MUCH to change our stock allocations in response to valuation shifts.

That’s where the “conspiracy” stuff comes in.

The Buy-and-Holders do not want millions of investors to find out what the research says on this point.

Why?

Because it makes them look really, really bad.

People should have been using the research to determine their stock allocations all along and millions of people have lost huge amounts of money because the “experts” in this field told them that that was not absolutely required or, heaven help us all, perhaps not even a good idea. Those experts understand that they are liable for the losses they caused. They pretend to be “experts.” But they are today 33 years behind in their reading of the peer-reviewed research. Huh?

And, in extreme cases like with you Goons, they are guilty of financial fraud and are likely on their way to prison following the next price crash. That group really, really, really does not want the word getting out about the 12-year (or 33-year if you count back to when Shiller published his breakthrough research) cover-up.

I cannot change these realities, Anonymous. And I sure don’t intend to lie about them. I like to think of myself as an honest person. And, even if I didn’t, there are Post Archives! Old Farmer Hocus being persuaded to tell lies about what has been going on for 12 years now is not in the cards. It would help if you would get that foolish dream out of your head.

I have extended the hand of kindness to all my Buy-and-Hold friends. But I am not in a position to lie about what has been going on for 12 years now and I like to think that I would not be inclined to lie even if I were in a position in which doing so would benefit me.

You need to come clean.

Bogle needs to come clean.

J.D. Roth needs to come clean.

Mike Piper needs to come clean.

And on and on and on.

There is no other way.

I am telling you not just what is best for me and for the millions of middle-class investors. I am telling you what is best for you and for the Wall Street Con Men.

Everything needs to come out in the open. All the lies have to be acknowledged. All the Bans on Honest Posting need to be lifted. All the civil and criminal trials need to be held and brought to completion.

We need to put all this ugly stuff behind us so that we can move on to the wonderful learning experiences that we have been enjoying for 12 years now but that we have not thus far felt that we could share with the millions of middle-class investors because it would upset the Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Goon Squads too much for them to learn the realities. This field does not exist solely for the benefit of the Wall Street Con Men and their Internet Good Squads. It exists in part for the benefit of the millions of middle-class investors who need access to accurate and honest reports on what the peer-reviewed research says to be able to finance their retirements effectively.

Do you see?

What I am describing is what is best for ALL of us. We are all in the same boat. We need to knock off the funny business and begin moving forward TOGETHER.

There are things that can be done to make the transition less painful for the Wall Street Con Men and for you Goons. It makes sense for us to do those things. I am 100 percent happy to help out in any way possible.

BUT WE MUST OPEN UP THIS FIELD TO PEOPLE OF INTEGRITY. AND WE MUST BEGIN LETTING THE PEOPLE IN THIS FIELD WHO POSSESS INTEGRITY AND LONG TO EVIDENCE IT IN THE WORK THEY DO TO DO SO.

We MUST do this. This is NOT optional. This is 100 percent imperative.

Call the support of or indifference to dishonesty a “conspiracy” if that works for you. Call it “cognitive dissonance” if, like me, you are not quite able to accept that so many good and smart people could get themselves involved in so awful and damaging a conspiracy. The terminology you use is not what matters most here. What matters most here is that we bring the funny business to an end.

The funny business must come to an end. That’s the bottom line here. That must happen by the close of business today.

Can I count on your support, my old friend?

Rob

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

Just to be clear, this [my claim that the 12-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School safe-withdrawal-rate studies is the greatest act of financial fraud in the history of the United States] is your belief, and you could be wrong. It’s also something no one else in the world believes.

Every word that I put forward is my belief and could be wrong.

But given that this belief of mine is a sincerely held belief, do you think that it would be right for me to keep it to myself? Do you not think that I should try to help out my friends before events take place that make it too late to help them?

And I don’t think that it is so clear that no one else in the world believes what I say re this point.

No one else publicly says what I say re this point. I give you that one.

But we do not know what people believe in their hearts. There is too much intimidation going on for people to feel safe saying openly what they truly believe.

My guess is that there are others who feel concerns along the lines of those I have expressed. My further guess is that the others do not feel as strongly as I do. My experience is that humans have a hard time coming to hold views that are not socially acceptable. So the people who hold somewhat similar views probably hold them only in watered-down form. I have come to hold them more strongly because I have held these views for some time and because I think about them a lot and because I write about them here at the blog. Those experiences cause me to hold the views more strongly as time passes. So my guess is that no one else holds these views as strongly as I do today. But I believe that some may hold similar concerns while being afraid to give public voice to them.

One big issue here is that investor views CHANGE with changes in portfolio values. Say that no one else holds these views today. But say that a large percentage of the population comes to hold them following a future price crash. What then? We all need to keep in mind that the views that people hold today are not necessarily the views that they will hold tomorrow. Investing is an emotional endeavor. We forget that at out peril.

How did we let things reach this point, Anonymous?

That’s the question that we all should be reflecting on.

Why place ourselves in circumstances in which such things even need to be discussed?

We don’t want to be where we are today.

If you are expressing in your posts today a hint of a desire to take things to a better place, I am 100 percent on board.

I don’t want to see anyone hurt in any way, shape or form. That’s not what I am about.

Rob