A Rich Life

The Old Ideas on Saving & Investing Don't Work -- Here's What Does

“What Will Happen Once We Have Opened Every Discussion Board and Blog on the Internet to Honest Posting re the Last 42 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research, Without a Single Exception? Will There Be Even One Person in This Field NOT Talking to Me Then?”

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

Does Scott Burns talk to you now? Nope. Does Wade Pfau talk to you now? Nope. Does anyone else from the investment community talk to you now? Nope.

No, we are not in this together. No, there is no one that supports you.

What will happen once we have opened every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research, without a single exception? Will there be even one person in this field NOT talking to me then?

Rob

“”You’ve Said That 10,000 Times. I Heard You the First 10,000 Times. I Don’t See Any Particular Need for You to Say It 10,000 Additional Times.”

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

“You’ve said that 10,000 times. I heard you the first 10,000 times. I don’t see any particular need for you to say it 10,000 additional times.”

Right back atcha Rob.

Fair enough.

Rob

“The Peer-Reviewed Research Looks at the Entire History of the Stock Market While Your Scoreboard Is How Things Feel at a Moment in Time When Irrational Exuberance Is Out of Control and the CAPE Value Is Scary High.”

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

People often argue about which sports team is better.  We know that someone is right and someone is wrong.  Games have a scoreboard for a reason.  Look at your outcome. You are broke.  Outcomes tell us who is right and who is wrong.

The last 42 years of peer-reviewed research is the more important scoreboard, Anonymous. The difference is that the peer-reviewed research looks at the entire history of the stock market while your scoreboard is how things feel at a moment in time when irrational exuberance is out of control and the CAPE value is scary high.

Rob

“I Don’t Need Any Specialized Knowledge and Training To Be Able to Read the Title of a Book. The Title of Shiller’s Book is ‘Irrational Exuberance.’ Does That Sound Like a Good Thing to You?”

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

As said thousands of times, your opinion of what one guy said is not “peer-reviewed research”.  Have you ever conducted any kind of research?  Do you know how to even run a full retrospective study?  What formal education do you have with respect to research in the investment field?  You like to put labels on things in which you have no fundamental knowledge or training.

I don’t need any specialized knowledge and traning to be able to read the title of a book, Anonymous. The title of Shiller’s book is “Irrational Exuberance.” Does that sound like a good thing to you? It sounds like a bad thing to me.

If irrational exuberance is a bad thing, then all investors should be working together to limit it to the greatest extent possible. The only way to do that is for investors to lower their stock allocation when prices get out of cotrol and the long-term value proposition of stocks is dimished That’s market timing! Not the bad kind that never works (short-term timing). The good kind that always works because it is price discipline and price discipline has been absolutely essential in every market that ever existed going back to the beginning of time.

Or so my formal education in reading the titles of books informs me.

My best wishes.

Rob

Valuation-Informed Indexing #672: Buy-and-Hold Is a Price-Indifferent Strategy — That’s Not Good!

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I’ve posted Entry #672 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called Buy-and-Hold Is a Price-Indifferent Strategy — That’s Not Good!

Juicy Excerpt: Shiller’s book is titled “Irrational Exuberance.” The first word of the term gives the game away. Irrational exuberance is not a good thing. As bad as it is, we all should be united in trying to put an end to it whenever it appears. You put an end to irrational exuberance by noticing when prices get too high and by uniting as a nation of people to pull them back down to reasonable levels. Um – hello, advocates of price-indifferent strategies!

 

” I Was a Buy-and-Holder Because I Had Heard That Buy-and-Holders Believed in Using the Peer-Reviewed Research As Guidance on How to Invest.”

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

“ I think that the best way to describe the situation we face is that it is a conspiracy of ignorance. ”

Everyone is a stupid idiot, other than Rob Bennett.

Thousands have expressed a desire to be able to learn about the research, Anonymous. They’re not stupid idiots if they possess a desire to learn.

And please recall that I was a Buy-and-Holders once upon a time. I don’t think that that made me a stupid idiot. I was a Buy-and-Holder because I had heard that Buy-and-Holders believed in using the peer-reviewed research as guidance on how to invest. I think the Buy-and-Holders got that one right. So I don’t think it made me a stupid idiot that I once thought it was a sound strategy.

Rob

“The Vast Majority of Buy-and-Holders Doesn’t Even Know About the Error They Made. The Vast Majority of Buy-and-Holders Follows Buy-and-Hold Strategies Themselves. Are They Engaging in a Conspiracy Against Themselves? Does That Not Seem a Little Far-Fetched?”

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

I guess it is all one big mass conspiracy targeting Rob Bennett.

I certainly wouldn’t put it that way.

Humankind did not come to Planet Earth with a book of instructions telling us how stock investing works. We have had to learn on the fly. Fortunately for those of us alive today, the biggest advance in our understanding was achieved 42 years ago, when Shiller published his Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns. If only he had published that research in 1961 instead of in 1981, there never would have been a Buy-and-Hold and no one would have ever even considered the possibility that long-term timing might not always be 100 percent required for every investor. But there was a gap there when the Buy-and-Holders has to take a wild guess as to how things worked and they happened to guess wrong. Now there’s embarrassment over the mistake that they made and a widespread feeling that, since the cover-up has been going on for 42 years, it’s best just to let it continue indefinitely.

Is that a conspiracy?

The vast majority of Buy-and-Holders don’t even know about the error they made. The vast majority of Buy-and-Holders follow Buy-and-Hold strategies themselves. Are they engaging in a conspiracy against themselves? Does that not seem a little far-fetched?

I think that the best way to describe the situation we face is that it is a conspiracy of ignorance. We have achieved this huge advance which will begin enhance the life of every person on the planet as soon as we give outselves permission to talk about it. It takes some courage to do that because there is a group that is intensely hostile to the idea of people learning about the advance. They have seen how excited people get about it when they hear about it and so they cannot stand for people to hear about it. If you want to say that that group (you Goons) are participating in a conspiracy, fine. It would be fair to say that. But you Goons make up about 10 percent of the population of Buy-and-Holders. The vast majority have a desire to learn about the research-based realtiies. They are just afraid of what they have seen coming from the Goon side of the table.

I believe that we will work it out as a nation of people in the days and years following the onset of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. I sure hope so!

We’ll see, you know? I hate it that we have delayed our ability to enjoy all the benefits of the advance for 21 years now. That’s an awful reality. But the good we have seen over the first 21 years of our discussions has been 20 times more good than the bad that we have seen has been bad. I remain confident that we will as a nation of people work it all out in an amazingly positive way down the road a bit.

My best wishes to you.

Rob

“I Believe That All Investors Should Have the OPPORTINITY to Hear About the Last 42 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research in This Field.”

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

Your problem is that you don’t care about what other people think and/or believe.  You want people to listen to you, but you don’t listen to anyone else.  That part of your behavior issue on the boards that got you kicked off.  You clearly didn’t even care about what your wife had to say and now you are divorced.

I care about what other people think and believe.

It doesn’t particularly concern me whether people listen to what I say or not. I believe that all investors should have the OPPORTINITY to hear about the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. I don’t see it as my busienss whether they buy into that message or not. It’s fine with me if they do and it’s fine with me if they don’t. It’s important to me that that message not be prohibited at even a single site. I believe that every investor should be able to hear it and decide for himself or herself how to respond to it. I strongly oppose efforts to suppress discussion of the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research. No one should be able to decide for someone else what he or she should be able to hear. Tune out the message of the research for yourself if you like but permit others to decide for themselves how to invest their retirement money after hearing both sides of the story.

The problem is the 42-year cover-up. If there had never been a Buy-and-Hold, we would all be Valuation-Informed Indexers today. We all want the same things, We all want to know how to invest effectively. Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research shows us how, So it’s all good. The only problem is that we did not always know how the market works and people came up with this idea that market timing might not always be required and promted it. Then, when we discovered that long-term market timing is absolutely essential, they felt that it made them look bad that they had gotten it wrong. So the cover-up began. Now that we are 42 years down the road, it sounds really, really bad to acknowledge the realities.

It’s not going to make things better for anyone to extend the cover-up even longer. So I am 100 percent in favor of permitting honest posting at every site. The problem for the Buy-and-Holders is that there has never been any reason to believe that market timing isn’t always required. That was based on the Efficient Market Theory, which was discredited by Shiller’s research. So the Buy-and-Holders have nothing of substance to offer in suutpport of their position. That’s why we see all this urgliness insteasd. If there were any research supporting the ideas that long-term market timing doesn’t work or isn’t always 100 percent required, the Buy-and-Holders would have advanced it many years ago. There’s just nothing there. So we get all this shouting and nastiness. I believe that we should all just move on to the strategy that would help us all to live better and fuller and richer and freer lives. Call me madcap.

That’s where I’m coming from re this one, Anonymous.

Rob

“Do You Think That I Should Lie About My Belief? Should I Say That It Appears to Me That the Greaney Retirement Study Contains a Valuation Adjustment Even Though My Sincere Belief Is That It Lacks One?”

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

“By the way, your opinion of what one guy said is not ‘peer-reviewed research’.”

Do you think that I should lie about my belief? Should I say that it appears to me that the Greaney retirement study contains a valuation adjustment even though my sincere belief is that it lacks one?

I think that getting the numbers right in retirement studies is an important matter. I think that I should say what I sincerely believe. I think that we all should follow that practice.

Rob

Buy-and-Hold Goon to Rob: “You Clearly Haven’t Had an Issue of Getting Your message Out There. It Is Simply a Fact That You Just Don’t Have People Willing to Support the Message As You Haven’t Changed Minds. Thus, It Is Not a Message Exposure Issue. It Is an Acceptance (Lack Thereof) Issue.”

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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 you add up all the viewers from each of those formats, it would easily be in the millions.  Even taking a more conservative number, it would still be in the hundreds of thousands and not just a handful of people.  Certainly with that large of a number, you can most often find a small percentage of people that will become a follower/believer in almost all cases.  Yet you don’t even have one single person that is willing to support you, despite you spending 20 years of your life creating an enormous footprint on the internet.  You clearly haven’t had an issue of getting your message out there.  It is simply a fact that you just don’t have people willing to support the message as you haven’t changed minds.  Thus, it is not a message exposure issue.  It is an acceptance (lack thereof) issue.

I’ve had 10 percent of the population of investors show intense interest in my ideas about stock investing at every discussion board at which I have posted. That’s been so going back to the first day. If the interest in Valuation-Informed Indexing were not super strong, you Goons would never have sought a ban on honest posting at even a single site. You see the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research as a huge threat to Buy-and-Hold because the last 42 years of peer-reviewed research IS a big threat to Buy-and-Hold. Valuation-Informed Indexing is the superior strategy. And it’s not even a remotely close call.

My sincere take.

Rob