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 believe you have come up with one of the most significant findings in our life time. You believe there has been a mass conspiracy against you. You believe that thousands of people are in support of you’ve though they have never said so, but are just too afraid to post anonymously. You believe that after some huge market crash that congress will conduct an investigation, which will lead to stories in The New York Times and, ultimately, catapult you to a major public figure leading the way to solving the world’s financial crisis. You believe that many leading law firms will then compete to take on your case and that you will either settle for a modest $500 million payment or take it through courts for Billions and make you one of the wealthiest people alive today. You believe that leading experts will want put you to be the keynote speaker at leading investment conferences. You believe that all those people that have disagreed with you in the past will lose all or most of their money and will spend much of their remaining days in prison unless you intervene in a manner to reduce their time locked up. You believe that all of the community boards will be turned over to you and that you will lead these boars or some kind of consortium and that market timing will be the key discussion point on ALL boards.
Have I got all that right? Did I miss anything or fail to clarify anything?

It was Shiller’s finding that valuations affect long-term returns, not mine. There is a reason why that research finding caused him to be awarded a Nobel prize in Economics. That finding changes everything that we once thought we knew about stock investing. There were once smart people who believed that it is not necessaery for all investors to practice market timing (price discipline!) at all times. If valuations affect long-term returns, stock investing risk is not stable but variable. Investors who wish to maintain the same risk profile over time have no choice but to practice market timing. There is no other way to get the job done.

My contribution has been to for 20 years (and counting) lead the effort to open every discussion board and blog on the internet to honest posting re the paat 41 years of peer-reviwed resarch, without a single exception. As amazing as it is, Shiller’s research by itself accomplshes nothing. We have seen higher CAPE values in the days since publication of his research than we saw in the days before its publication. For the research to make all of our lives better, we need as a nation to give ourselves permission to examine its far-reaching how-to implications at every site on the internet. The goal is to overcome the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge that resides within every one of us. It takes regular reminders of the long-term dangers of Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold to do that.

The conspiracy is not against Rob Bennett per se. The conspiracy is against human rationality. Shiller pointed us to a grown-up way to invest, a rational way. a true research-based way. When that way catches on, there will be no more bull markets or bear markets or economic crises. Because Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies will no longer be popular. Shiller’s research findings are a threat to the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold approach to thinking about the stock investing project. Rationality/research/logic/common sense is a threat to the emotional ways of thinking about this project. The conspiracy is a condpiracy of ignorance. It is like the conspiracy against healthy eating habits. Everyone knows that it is better to have a healthy diet. But there is a conspiracy of ignorance leading them in a different direction.

The boards will not be turned over to me. They will be turned over to the people who post at them. Yes, I will be able to post my honest views. But everyone else will as well. People who believe in Buy-and-Hold will be able to post their honest views as well. They will not be able to engage in criminal behavior to intimidate those who believe that Shiller’s research findings are legitimate. The same laws that apply in every other field of human behavior will be made applicable in the investing advice realm as well. And we will all get to live far better and richer lives from that point forward as a result.

Make sense?

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:

A wise man once said” You go about it in a manner that is catastrophically unproductive by adding missionary zeal that inflates your importance and demeans others. The whole idea that there is a new school of Safe Withdrawal Rates reeks of personal aggrandizement.”

To bad you ignored him.

I think that there is a new school of safe withdrawal rate analysis. I believe that, if valuations affect long-term returns (as Shiller showed is the case with his Nobel-prize-winning research), then there is precisely zero chance that the safe withdrawal rate is the same number at all valuation levels. It is a number that CHANGES with changes in valuation levels. That’s something new that we learned by doing the research.

Of course we need to as a nation of people give ourselves permission to discuss the amazing how-to implications of the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research. The research doesn’t by its mere existence make us all better investors. We need to talk these things over amongst ourselves to enjoy the learning experience that to our good fortune is now available to us.

I ignored Scott Burns because I think he was wrong re that one. I believe that all of us who care about the future of our country should be doing everything in our power to get every discussion board and blog on the internet opened to honest posting re the past 41 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. That would be a catastrophically productive thing to pull off, in my assessment.

My best wishes to you and yours.

Rob