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

What you are doing isn’t a job and no one asked you to live out this fantasy.

Instead, you are merely a burden to those that have had to support you, including housing.

I think that the work that I am doing is the most important work being done today in the United States and I believe that I will be compensated accordingly in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. Over and over again we have seen people who are viewed as experts in this field make efforts to let their readers and clients know that market timing/price discipline is absolutely essentual but hold back from speaking in clear terms for fear of what the Buy-and-Hold Goon Squads would do to them if they gave voice to simple and obvious research-backed truths. The best exanple is probably William Bernstein, who explained in his book that the conventional safe withdrawal rate studies were off by a full two percentage points at the top of the bubble but then kept it zipped while the discussions about whether honest posting should be permitted raged at the Bogleheads Forum. There is huge levelage in opening every board and blog to honest posting. We are going to be hearing amazing stuff from thousands and thousands of good and smart people in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. I think we well could be looking at the biggest surge of economic growth in our nation’s history (after a horrifying Buy-and-Hold Crisis, to be sure).

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:

“ The entire world agrees with both me and my ex.”

If that were the case, you wouldn’t be broke, banned and divorced.

We’re in a twilight zone in which the world believes two opposite things. Trying to make logical sense of it is like trying to make logical sense of an alcoholic’s choice to continue drinking when all his friends see that it is destroying his life. Addictions do not make sense.

I believe that we will hit bottom in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. Some alcoholics revover and go on to live the best days of their lives.

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 that knows you on a personal level that would also agree with you being rational and your wife being irrational?

I didn’t say that she was irrational. I said that from her perspective what she did was rational. If we were all thinking clearly, we all would want any errors made in retirement studies to be corrected as soon as possible. If we all were thinking clearly, there never would have been a single abusive post, much less any of the criminal stuff. There is no way without her following this stuff closely that she could have imagined that 90 percent of the stuff that went down went down. We have seen some crazy, crazy, crazy stuff.

I said that she was irrational only from my perspective. I had had a front-row seat to everything that has gone down. Please remember that in the days before Greaney launched his Campaingn of Terror aganst the Motley Fool board community, I was a Buy-and-Holder myself. Was I irrational? I don’t think so. I liked it that the strategy was promoted as research-based. I gave up on Buy-and-Hold on the evening ogf August 27, 2002, when Greaney advanced his first dreath threat and it was endrosed by over 200 Buy-and-Holders. That’s enotion, Anonymous. That’s pure emotion. It’s the farthest thing from research that you can get. This entire debate is a debate between research/reason and intimidation/emotion. I today criticized Buy-and-Hold for the same reason that I once endorced it. I endorsed it because I believed that it was supported by reason. When I discovered that it is not, I moved on to something that really is supported by reserarch (Valuation-Informed Indexing).

My ex did not live through what I lived through. If she had, I am confident that she would be 100 percent supportive of evetything thst I have done. I think that the same is true of every site owner who has banned me. I think the same is true of all of the researchers. I even think that that is probably true of you Goons. If we could go back to the afternoon of May 13, 2002, and play it over, I am confident that you Goons would play it differently the second time through. The unfortunate thing is that of course we cannot do that. As the pile of evidence showing that the Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment gets higher and higher, you Goons become more and more entrenched in hyour position. Now it’s not just an error in a retirement study that embarrasses you, it’s a 20-year cover-up of that mistake.

The only way that we can keep things from continuing to get worse is to open every site to honest posting so that things start getting better. You are not going to hear anyone saying that it is rational to fail to correct errors in retirement studies after that happens. The key is opening every site to honest posting so that we can talk through what is best for every single person involved. That’s the rational thing to do.

I hope that that helps a tiny 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:

Yep.  Everyone else has been wrong for the last 20 years and continues to be wrong. Meanwhile, only Rob Bennett is right.  Because of a secret society of goons, Rob Bennett has been kept from the spotlight as the one and only financial guru that has figured it all out.

I’m not the only one. We have seen thousands of our fellow community members express a desire that honest posting re the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research be permitted at every site. Bill Bernstein wrote in his book that the 4 percent rule was wildly off the mark at the top of the bubble. Rob Arnott wrote to me and we had a back-and-forth discussion in which he said that all of my ideas about stock investing check out. Wade Pfau spent 16 months researching my ideas and concluded that: “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” Robert Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize for his research and his book was a best-seller. And on and on and on.

About 10 percent of the population today believes that long-term market timing (price discipline!) is required. Once we open every site to honest posting, I believe that we will be able to get that number up to 20 percent within about six months. It will take much longer to get it to 40 percent but in time we will do it. And then eventually we will get it to 80 percent. We will all be able to live better and fuller and richer lives from that point forward than we ever imagined possible during the Buy-and-Hold Era.

But it needs to be every site permitting honest posting. We all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold impulse residing within us. We would like to believe that market timing is not absolutely required, that for the first time in history we might be able to get away with creating a mountain of irrational exuberance and not pay a terrible price. It has never yet happened and our common sense tells us that it is impossible that it could ever happen. But, like an alcoholic who tells himself that maybe it won’t be such a terrible thing if he takes just one drink, we do very much want to believe it. If we are going to tune out the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold noise, we are going to need to have some people citing the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research at every site we visit.

I believe that we will get there in the days following the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis. It will be interesting to see how things play out.

My best wishes to you.

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:

And you deserve every single board banning when you refuse to listen to others and block posts.

We disagree, Anonymous.

The thing that I most loved about Buy-and-Hold in the days when I was a Buy-and-Holder was the idea that it was rooted in peer-reviewed research. When new research is published, it needs to be incorporated into one’s understanding of the subject matter. I have included everything that is in Buy-and-Hold in Valuation-Informed Indexing with the sole exception of the claim that market timing is not required. I left that out because there is now 41 years of peer-reviewed research showing that it is a false claim.

My best wishes to you.

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:

You are very good at pointing out that the Greaney study doesn’t contain a valuation adjustment. You are much less good at explaining why it needs one.

It needs one because Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research shows that valuations affect long-term returns.

Price discipline is required in every market that ever existed. The only reason why anyone ever thought that it might be different in the stock market is that some economists believed in the Efficient Market Theory in the days before Shiller publushed his research. If the market were efficient, market timing would not be required and Buy-and-Hold would be the ideal strategy. But it’s not. If the market were efficient, there could never be overvaluation or undercaluation. The rational thing would be for investors to price stocks properly. The reason why they do not do that is that they are emotional humans. They like the idea of getting something for nothing. So they push prices up to unsustainable levels. That’s irrational exuberance. That’s the thing that makes stock investing risky.

The Bennett/Pfau research shows that we can reduce stock investing risk by nearly 70 percent by one simple step — encouraging all investors to practice market timing at all times. So long as all investors know to practice market timing, stock prices are self-regulating. When they get too high, informed investors sell a portion of their stocks and that pulls prices back to reasonable levels. When most investors are not practicing market timing/price discipline, prices get out of control and eventually we see a price crash and an economic crisis (because massive amounts of consumer buying power are lost in a price crash).

No market can function without price discipline. In the stock market, price discipline is achieved through market timing. So market timing is absolutely essential.

Stock market risk is not constant, it is variable. The CAPE value tells us how risky stocks are at a given point in time. The safe withdrawal rate is a risk assessment tool. It is not possible to calculate the safe withdrawal rate accurately without looking at the factors affecting risk and the valuation level is by far the most important factor affecting risk. In a world in which valuations affect long-term returns, it is a logical impossibility that anyone could calculate the safe withdrawal rate without taking into consideration the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins.

We have seen safe withdrawal rates as low as 1.6 percent and as high as 9.0 percent. People planning retirements need to know which it is for their particular retirement. Taking valuations into consideration makes it possible to calculate the safe withdrawal rate accurately and honestly and in a research-based way. A researcher who fails to take valuations into consideration is going to get the numbers wildly wrong. Retirement studies that get the numbers wildly wrong hurt people in very serious ways. Investment analysis should be aimed at helping people, not hurting them.

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:

Do you don’t have any current friends, you are broke and divorced, yet you think everyone else is at fault and not you.  Really?

I don’t think everyone else is at fault. I think we all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold impulse residing within us which has caused us to make stock investing more risky than it needs to be for as long as there has been a stock market. And that we were blessed to discover the huge missing piece to the stock investing puzzle when Robert Shiller published his Nobel-prize-winning research in 1981. After seeing how many people were excited to hear about the how-to implications of the new research, I became excited about the life-affirming possibilities of spreading the word all across the internet. So that’s what I am to do.

The nasty stuff advanced by you Goons shows that you too see how big an advance this is. If you didn’t think it was a super big deal, you would just permit honest posting and let people make up their own minds. You’re hurting. And the only way to ease the hurt is for all of us who believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research to not permit ourselves to be intimidated and to assure each other that we have each other’s backs. You’re going to feel better about yourselves when we are all living better and fuller and richer lives. I’m sure!

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:

What’s different about your emotions? It seems to keep you from finishing the book and then getting a job. If the emotions were as you say, why do I still have $6 million+?

If you think you have $6 million and you are a Buy-and-Holder, you don;t have $6 million. It is impossible for a Buy-and-Holder ever to get the numbers right. Buy-and-Holders do not adjust the numbers to reflect the effect of irratonal exuberance, which is a real thing (according to the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research).

All of us have somewhat different emotional reactions to life events as a result of having had different life experiences. My life experiences have led me to believe that it is important for millions of middle-class investors to have access to honest and accurate and resarch-based reports on how stock investing works. The intense hostility direted at my from the Goon segment of the Buy-and-Hold community (about 10 percent of the overall population of Buy-and-Holders) has caused me anguis because it has affected my ability to earn a living for 20 years now.

I don’t think that that’s at all unusual. I think that just about anyone would feel those same feelings of anguish. The thing that is different with me is the strong conviction that someone has to do something to see that the entire internet is opened to honest posting re the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research. There are a good number of others who think that that would be a good thing, But I don’t know of anyone else who feels strongly enough about it to endure the sorts of personal abusse that I have taken on. I think that just goes to my personal life experiences. I chose journalism as a career because I see value in people coming to understand the world around them. My belief that honest posting on the research should be permitted in the investing advice realm is just a paticular manifestation of that general perspective that coming to an understanding of the world around one is a positive.

My best wishes to you.

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 you are not a “numbers guy”, nor capable of technical analysis, you then lack the ability to understand what research really says.  Just because you have flown on a plane, it doesn’t mean you can pilot the aircraft.

I can’t pilot an aircraft. But, if I am flying in a plane and I hear the engine making strange sounds and experience the plane taking sudden dips in altitude, I know enough to be concerned.

I am not a numbers guy. But I don’t need a Ph.D in Economics to know that, in a world in which valuations affect long-term returns (the world we live in, according to Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research), there is presisely zero chance that the safe withdrawal rate is the same number at all valuation levels. It is a logical impossibility.

And I know by the behavior of the Buy-and-Holders that even those who follow the strategy have grave doubts that they are trying to silence in themselves. We should be seeing death threats appear in discussion of stock investing. We should be seeing acts of extortion being used to silence academic researchers who are just trying to advance knowledge and help us all out. We shouldn’t be seeing thousands of acts of defamation or any of the other garbage that we have seen from you Goons. And most of all we shouldn’t be seeing TOLERANCE of such behavior from the thousands of Normals who would never in a million years advance a death threat themselves but who have given recommendations to abusive posts advanced by you Goons (Greaney received over 200 recommendations for his first death threat). That sort of behavior ain’t normal. It’s not a terribly close call.

Buy-and-Hold was developed at a time when we did not have Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research available to us. If Shiller’s research has always been available, the “idea” that market timing (price discipline!) is not always 100 percent required for every investor would never have been seriously entertained by a single rational human being. The “idea” (I put the word in quote marks because the thought that price discilline might not always be 100 percent required is not the product of rational thought but of the Get Rich Quick urge that resides within all of us — Buy-and-Hold is at its core a purely emotion-based strategy, there is nothing research-based about it) that price discipline is not required is obviously preposterous. There are thousands of markets in this world. There has never in the history of Planet Earth been one that could function well without the benefit of price discipline. The 41 years of peer-reviewed research showing that market timing is always 100 percent required for every investor merely CONFIRFMS what anyone with a hint of common sense could have figured out for himself or herself without needing to look at any research.

If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, the Buy-and-Holders would be happy to see challenges raised to it. They would understand that responding to challenges would strengthen their own belief in the strategy and persuade others who had experienced some of the doubts present in the minds of the people raising the challenges. I think it would be fair to say after 20 years of this stuff that those who follow Buy-and-Hold strategies don’t like to hear challenges raised to their strategies one tiny little bit. It’s not a research-based strategy. It’s a strategy that provides emotional relief because it tells people that the numbers on their portfolio statement are real even at times when those numbers are wildly off the mark because of the presenxe of a huge amount of irrational exuberance.

I don’t say that I have a higher I.Q. than you Goons, Anonymous. But I like to think that I have enough common sense to know when I am being conned. Greaney’s claim that a 4 percent withdrawal is always “100 percent safe” is a con. I like the way that Evidence put it. “Nobody” truly believes that the Greaney retirement study contains a valuation adjustment, including Greaney himself, It took Evidence 19 years to work up the courage to advanvce that statement. And — Surprise! Surprise! — even that statement did not prompt our good friend John Greaney to make a correction to his “study.” Not this boy, you know? No freakin’ way, no freakin; how.

Just to be fair, I’ll add a note pointing out that Greaney’s crazy claim that the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent undoubtedly caused a lot of people at the Retire Early board to use lower withdrawal rates than they would have employed had they not been exposed to it. So it helped people. But, no, there is no valuation adjustment in the study. It should have been corrected within 24 hours of the moment that Greaney was made aware of the error contained in it. If Buy-and-Hold were something real, there never would have been a single ban on honest posting at a single discussion board or blog.

I am sure.

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:

“ It was Shiller’s finding that valuations affect long-term returns, not mine. ”

So Shiller gets the $500 million since he did the work.

Shiller did amazing work. You certainly won’t hear me say any different.

But do you know what has happened in the years since Shiller published his Nobel-prize-winning research? We have seen the highest CAPE values in our nation’s history in those days!

We know intellectually today how stock investing works, thanks to Shiller. But that intellectual knowledge will do us no good until we secure the ability to talk about it on every discussion board and blog on the internet. We all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge residing within us. We need to be reminded daily of how dangerous it is. For Shiller’s work to have practical value, we need to open every site on the internet to honest posting re the past 41 years of peer-reviewed research, without a single exception.

My sincere take.

Rob