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

So now you do agree that the account is worth today what it says. But,  in your world, once the stock drops, it will never recover. Got it.

No, it is not worth what it says. But there are people who will pay you that amount because there is a Ban on Honest Posting re the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research that has blocked most of us from coming to a good understanding of the far-reaching implications of Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research. Once we open ever internet site to honest posting, we will never see the CAPE level rise this high again.

It is wonderful that we now know for the first time in history how stock investing works in the real world. But that knowledge doesn’t help us in a practical sense until as a society we give ourselves permission to talk about it. Alcoholics know that drinking is destroying their lives in about 10 different ways. It is often the case that they cannot overcome their addiction until they join a 12-step group where they hear about the dangers of the addiction from other people on a regular basis. We cannot overcome our addiction to Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold investing strategies by ourselves. We need to hear about the dangers of Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold strategies from lots of other people on a daily basis.

Saying that there is no harm from going with a pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold approach because someday in the future stock prices will go up again is like saying that there is no harm from losing your family and your job and your health to a drinking addiction because someday in the future you may be able to get another job and a new family and recover your health. We all get only so many years to live and so many years to finance our retirements. Giving up many of those years by following a pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold approach is a huge negative.

Investment advisors should not be encouraging a pure Get Rich Quick approach. They should be encouraging investors to take the peer-reviewed research into consideration. But of course they are not going to do this until as a society we begin enforcing the laws against extortion and threats of physical violence the same in the investing advice field as we do in all other fields of human endeavor.

My sincere take.

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 value of anything is based on how much someone is willing to pay you for something at that given time.    To say otherwise, would be untrue.  You have no knowledge of what anyone else owns in their portfolio, but you make broad sweeping statements as if you are an authority.   Unfortunately for you, your track record has taken away any credibility you think you might have.

Markets don’t work when access to a free flow of information is blocked, Anonymous. If we permitted honest posting re the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research, investors would act in their self-interest and engage in market timing and today’s CAPE would be somewhere near 16. You cannot say how much someone is willing to pay when you deny that person the information he needs to make an informed purchasing decision.

My sincere take.

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 call it pretend just to make yourself feel better after missing out on the bull market enjoyed by the Buy and Hold crowd.  Meanwhile VII investors now have to work much longer to make up for the poor performance.

I call it pretend because I believe it is pretend. I don’t view irrational exuberance as something you can “miss out on.” I view irrational exuberance as something you try like heck to AVOID.

I naturally wish you all good things.

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 said that Buy and Hold never worked.  If that is the case, we would have had mostly retirement failures.  If you knew how investing worked (with VII) of course you should be wealthy.  Now you seem to be saying something totally different.

I never said either of those things.

Going with a Buy-and-Hold strategy is always a negative because Buy-and-Holders refuse to engage in market timing and market timing is essential if you want to keep your risk profile constant over time. But just because you use a sub-optimal strategy doesn’t mean that you can never retire. It means that it is going to take you longer and you are going to be taking on unnecessary risk.

The other side of the story is that, if you are willing to engage in market timing (to practice price discipline!), you will earn higher returns while taking on less risk. That doesn’t mean that you are going to be wealthy. It means that you are going to do better than if you had followed a strategy that does not call for market timing.

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:

Each of those points have been addressed and shown as to how you are wrong with your interpretations. If you really had things lined up as you say, you would have thousands of people posting here at your website, showing their support.

Anyone who expresses strong support knows that his family members will be threatened with bodily harm and that his career will be threatened, just as we saw with Wade Pfau and John Walter Russell and Microlepsis and John D. Craig and on and on and on.

Those are desperate tactics, Anonymous. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, the Buy-and-Holders would WELCOME challenges to their thinking. They would see the challenges as opportunities to nail things down in their own heads. The insane defensiveness that we have seen for 19 years tells us that the Buy-and-Holders themselves have grave doubts about the “idea” that there is no need to practice price discipline (market timing!) when buying stocks. I mean. come on.

The fact that the Buy-and-Holders are so defensive is no reason for those of us who believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research not to spread the word to others about what we believe. I see it just the other way around, The insane defensiveness of the Buy-and-Holders shows why it is absolutely imperative that we do all we can to spread the word before this long-discredited “strategy” (Buy-and-Hold is in truth a marketing gimmick, not a strategy) does even more harm to even more people.

That’s my sincere take, in any event.

I naturally wish you all good things.

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:

“One significant difference between Shiller and me is that he directs a lot of energy to describing the “narratives” that investors use to form their stock-buying decisions.”

No, the significant difference is that he has an education in this field and knows what he is talking about. You do not.

If you believe that Shiller knows what he is talking about, then you should urge Greaney to correct the error in the retirement study posted at his web site. The title of Shiller’s book is: “Irrational Exuberance.”

My best wishes.

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 even a few things you say were true, why have you failed to get just one single person to come on here and say that you are right?

Because, if someone says that one of the things that I say is right, they know that they will be led by logic to saying that all of the things that I say are right. That puts them in the position of saying that the thousands of powerful and wealthy and well-connected people who have been promoting the Buy-and-Hold concept for many years got it wrong and caused great financial pain for millions of people. If Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research, it was the promotion of Buy-and-Hold that served as the primary cause of the 2008 economic crisis. How do you think it makes the Buy-and-Holders feel to hear someone say that? What do you think the career prospects are of someone who angers that many powerful and wealth and well-connected people?

The national debate re whether or not market timing is required should have been launched in 1981, when Shiller published his peer-reviewed research showing that there is precisely zero chance that an investment strategy that does not require market timing could ever work for a single long-term investor. Had it been done that way, the ideas that I talk about at this site would have gradually spread throughout the world and gotten slowly more popular over time and would probably be the dominant ideas today. The problem is that Shiller’s core finding was so at odds with the conventional thinking of the time (if the market were efficient, market timing would be a bad idea) that people’s minds just couldn’t take it in. People in this field suffered cognitive dissonance.

Which meant that they continued to promote the Buy-and-Hold idea that market timing is not required. The longer that continued, the harder it became to come clean. Now that the cover-up has continued for 40 years, it would look very, very very bad for the Buy-and-Holders for someone just t give voice to the obvious research-proven realities. So we are stuck.

We wont get unstuck by continuing to live in fear of you Goons. Those of us who believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research need to work up the courage to speak honestly. On safe withdrawal rates and on scores of other critically important investment-related topics. There is no other way to get to the place where we all want to be deep in our hearts, a place where we all can take advantage of all the research available to us, both the pre-1981 research and the post-1980 research, and live richer and fuller lives from that point forward.

It shouldn’t take 19 years to determine whether or not 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, Anonymous. I mean, come on.

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 experts do not have a lack of knowledge or information. Either all these experts are lying or it is just you lying, I think we all know how to answer that one.

I say that we all — experts and ordinary investors alike — have a lack of UNDERSTANDING. We need as a nation of people to give ourselves permission to discuss Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research at every discussion board and blog on the internet. The more we talk about it and explore it from all possible angles, the surer and firmer will be our appreciation of all the far-reaching implications of his many amazing breakthrough insights.

My sincere take.

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:

No one has ever said they agree with your conclusions about Greaney. Your spin is not convincing anyone. No one has agreed with you that there were any death threats. You are just making it up.

I said that the Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment and should be promptly corrected before it does more damage to more human lives. Wade Pfau looked at it and concluded that the Greaney study is “dangerous.” That’s agreeing with me.

No one has ever said they disagree with me. Greaney himself has not pointed to a section of his study that contains a valuation adjustment. Evidence-Based Investing is the gooniest of goons and he acknowledged a few weeks ago that the Greaney study lacks a valuation adjustment. When you’ve lost Evidence….

The problem is the criminal stuff. That is hurting us all in a very serious way. We know how stock investing works today. We have known for 40 years. But we need to be able to talk about what we know for it to do us any good. We all have a Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold urge residing within us. It takes work to overcome that urge. Anytime someone posts honestly re the peer-reviewed research, that helps us. Anytime someone is intimidated into silenced by your criminal acts, it sends us all backwards.

I believe that we will get the Greaney study corrected in time. But it looks like we are going to see millions of people hurt in very serious ways before we work up the courage to make it happen. It’s a sad situation. But the good news here is 50 times more good and the bad news here is bad. We are poised to experience a huge economic surge. I am looking forward to seeing it (although I obviously am am not looking forward to the ocean of misery that we will be seeing with the next price crash even a little 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:

Millions of portfolios show that you are wrong.

Today they do.

And the entire history of the market shows that today’s CAPE value needs to be taken into consideration to know what those portfolios will show tomorrow.

Irrational exuberance is real. Acting together as a society we can rein it in. Not one of us has the power to do that acting alone. This is a group project. This is why we need to feel free to talk about what the research shows, Learning the realities of stock investing is empowering.

Rob