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

Can you name just one person in the past three years that has publicly supported you?

Can you name one idea in the history of the United States that its backers determined could only be “defended” through the use of criminal acts that turned out to be a winner?

If there had been no criminal acts, we might have had 50,000 people speak out in support of Valuation-Informed Indexing. Or it might be 500,000 people. Or 5 million. Or 50 million. Or 500 million. We won’t know until we try doing this without the criminal stuff.

There are good reasons why we have laws against death threats and against extortion and against defamation. That sort of stuff scares people. Scare people and they stop saying what they really believe. If we all were thinking clearly, we would want EVERYONE to say what they really believe. That’s how we all get to engage in the best possible learning experience.

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 question, which you ignored with that babbling, was “What support, if any, have you had in the last 5 years?”

Obviously the correct answer is “None.”

Every day that the Greaney retirement study goes uncorrected is more support for Valuation-Informed Indexing. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, every Buy-and-Holder would want to know about any errors that they made and they would want to correct them within 24 hours of learning about them. The fact that the Greaney study was not corrected yesterday is highly significant evidence of the dangers of going with a pure Get Rich Quick approach. If it is not corrected again today, that will be even more evidence.

It was 19 years ago when I pointed out the error in the study. That’s a LOT of support. Holy moly!

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:

I cannot believe that someone like you that spends so much time on making posts, has such little knowledge as to the subject matter.  Don’t you wonder why you can’t get any support here?

I have an amazing amount of support. That’s been true going back to the first day. There were scores of people at the Motley Fool site saying: “Thanks, Rob, for starting the most exciting discussion we have ever seen.” If I didn’t have a great amount of support, you never would have engaged in a single criminal act to hold me back. I mean. come on.

Now — the fact that there are lots of people who want to hear what the research says doesn’t mean that there are lots of people who want to participate in discussions in which the lives of their loves one are threatened by Buy-and-Holders who want to see the Buy-and-Hold Era continue a little while longer. But criminal acts are desperation moves. The fact that you have behaved as you have over the past 19 years shows that Buy-and-Hold is hanging on by its fingernails.

What happens after the next price crash? I think that people start asking questions. And then those of us who believe that Robert Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research provide the answers. And then we all begin living richer and fuller lives from that point forward. We’ll see, you know?

I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer regardless of what investment strategy you elect to follow, Anonymous. Hang in there, man.

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’s not my name that is important. It’s knowing how stock investing works that is important.”

I know of no one who knows less about how stock investing works than you. So if it’s so important to share correct information, we need to ban the lunatics who think staying out of stocks for 25 years was a wise decision.

Luckily, that’s exactly what happened.

Okay, Anonymous.

I am going to continue to say that I do not believe that 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.

I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person regardless of what investment strategies you elect to follow.

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:

Everyone’s ideas are out there.  Your opinion doesn’t count any more than anyone else, and there is no obligation to allow you to have free reign on anyone else’s board, just like you don’t allow it on your board.

No.

My opinion certainly doesn’t count more than anyone else’s. I obviously agree with that much.

But every site owner absolutely has an obligation to take action when people seeking to “defend” the Greaney retirement study engage in criminal acts (threats of violence, extortion, etc.) to suppress discussion of the error he made in it (he failed to include a valuation adjustment). People discussed the Greaney study at the old Motley Fool board on a daily basis. People handed in resignations from high-paying corporate jobs because of what Greaney said in that study. Everyone who was aware of the error was under an obligation to point it out. When people are intimidated into silence through the use of criminal acts, it plants a false impression in the minds of all community members. They think: “The study must be accurate given that no one is saying that it is not.” There would have been LOTS of people pointing out the error if no intimidation tactics had been employed.

I believe that the same laws that apply in every field of human endeavor outside of the investment advice field should apply in the investment advice field as well. That is my sincere take.

My best and warmest wishes to you and yous, Anonymous.

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:

So we can expect to find your book in the fiction section.

Next to Greaney’s safe-withdrawal-rate study.

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:

So you think your VII campaign should come before your family.  Got it.

If you found out about the 911 attacks before they happened and you felt that there was some risk to your family if you went to the authorities, would you have kept your mouth shut?

If you did, would you be able to sleep at night from that point forward?

Rob

Set forth below is the text of a question that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site, followed by the response posted by one of my Goon friends:

Please provide the records showing what percentage of Buy-and-Holders stuck with their high stock allocation the last time the CAPE value dropped to 8. Common sense tells us that Valuation-Informed Indexers are far better positioned to stay the course since they are always careful to engage in whatever amount of market timing is required to keep their risk profile constant over time.

By definition, that would be 100%. Given the buy and holder started with $6 million, he has plenty in the bond/cd allocation that he doesn’t have to do anything with the stock, except for keep buying and making more money on the dips, just like he has for the last 2 decades.

 

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 don’t think a single person alive would take your market timing portfolio over my buy, hold and rebalance portfolio.

We disagree.

I think it’s telling that you are the one who insists that the Ban on Honest Posting re the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research remain in place while I argue that it should be lifted. I have had many people tell me that I am the first person they have come across that talks about stock investing in a way that makes complete sense. If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, the Buy-and-Holders would welcome the challenges to it that I bring to the table. The defensiveness shows that even the Buy-and-Holders do not have strong confidence in their strategy. They very, very, very much want to believe. But it is such a struggle for them to do so that they feel compelled either to engage in criminal behavior to block discussion of the peer-reviewed research or in many more cases to tolerate criminal behavior on the part of others. Not good.

That’s my sincere take, Anonymous.

I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person.

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 market does not stay in the valley, nor can you predict the timing of the valley.  It didn’t work for you and you missed out on the largest Bull market we have ever seen.  Your retirement failed.

Telling someone that he “missed out on the largest bull market we have ever seen” is like telling him that he “missed out on the largest nuclear war that we have ever seen” They don’t call it a bull market unless it contains a mountain of irrational exuberance. Irrational exuberance is not backed by anything of economic significance, just runaway investor emotions. So it doesn’t last. It is Pretend Money. Investors want to believe in the Pretend Money. They become addicted to it and defensive when they hear challenges to its reality advanced to them. Believing in irrational exuberance makes financial planning impossible. It is a huge wealth destroyer. Please spare me from excessive participation in out-of-control bull markets.

Stocks produce genuine economic gains of 6.5 percent real per year. I can live with that. I feel no great desire for the pretend, emotional, bull market, Buy-and-Hold stuff.

Stay the Course!

Rob