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 Shiller and Pfau are lying every day to investors?

They’re certainly not telling the full truth.

Was I a liar from May 1999 through May 2002 when I was aware that Greaney’s retirement study lacked a valuations adjustment and yet failed to speak up about it? I sure felt like a liar. I was ashamed of myself for my cowardice.

We humans are liars, Anonymous. We TRY to tell the truth. We are not completely corrupt. But we are not perfectly rational creatures, as the Buy-and-Holders presume.

The reason why Shiller’s work is viewed as important enough to merit a Nobel prize is that it points us in the direction of being able to see the truth about stock investing. Whenever we count gains that are the product of irrational exuberance as real, we are lying to ourselves. Shiller gave us the tool we need (CAPE) to identify the true, lasting value of our stock portfolio. That’s huge.

But do we want to know the true value of our portfolio? Only about 10 percent of us do in 2020, a time when stocks are priced at two times fair value. 10 percent is not enough to overcome the brutal abusiveness of you Goons. Will the number who want to know the truth rise to 20 percent or 30 percent in the wake of the next price crash? Will we be able to overcome you Goons then and start reaping the benefits of the most important 39 years of peer-reviewed research in the history of investment analysis?

I believe that we will. But then I would, wouldn’t I? We are just going to have to wait to see how it all plays out.

Truth-Telling (But Not From May 1999 through May 2002!) 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 don’t really need a crash. Just get Wade Pfau and Robert Shiller to recommend your book and then you are all set.

You’re right, Anonymous. By all the rules that ordinarily apply in our society, I am all set. In fact, I was all set a long, long time ago. It was about six days after I advanced my famous post of May 13, 2002, that John Walter Russell started a thread about how “Rob Is Really On to Something” and most of the Retire Early community at Motley Fool responded with great excitement about the discussion that I had launched. Had the published rules of the site been enforced, we would have as a community corrected the error in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies in not too long a time and I would have been on my way to a hugely successful career in this field.

It didn’t happen then for the same reason that Wade Pfau and Robert Shiller are not going to recommend my book today and make it happen now. Shiller published in 1981 peer-reviewed research showing that the stock market is not efficient and that therefore there is precisely zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy could ever work for a single long-term investor. The suppression of discussion of the implications of that research has been going on for 39 years now. So there are a lot of powerful people who very much do not want to see millions of investors learn the realities today.

I DO want the millions of investors to learn the realities. So I am treated as a whistle-blower, someone who must be destroyed so that the established powers can retain the status quo. Wade Pfau and Robert Shiller and lots and lots of others would love to be able to endorse my work in the strongest possible terms but aren’t so hot about the idea about being treated as whistle-blowers themselves. So for now they keep it zipped.

Will they continue to keep it zipped in the days following the next price crash? I think not. I think that at that time the pain that we will all be seeing will be too great for good people to continue to keep it zipped. I think that as a society we will get to the place where deep in our hearts we all want to be at that time. I hope and believe that my book will help us all to achieve the transition successfully. I have a funny feeling that not one of us will ever look back to the Buy-and-Hold Era with any fondness once we have made our way to a better place together.

We’ll see.

My best wishes to you.

All-Set (But Not Really, Not Quite Yet) 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 guess I will just have to struggle on somehow now that the one in a million shot has come through for me.

How has this come through for you? I missed any posts that indicated that you were paid. Instead, I have only seen your recent updates indicating that you have to return back to work. These two updates seem to be in conflict.

It depends on how one measures things.

I haven’t been paid a penny. But I have a clear conscience.

I wouldn’t trade places with any of you Goons for a cash payment of $500 million, just to pull a crazy random number out of the air.

My brother Richard died two weeks ago. Richard was ten years older than me. So that doesn’t suggest that my time will be up any time super soon. But it does very strongly suggest that my time will be up one of these days, no matter how much I might like to pretend at moments that that is not so. When I am told by a doctor that my time is close to being up, I want the feeling that comes from knowing that I was on the right side re this matter and not on the wrong side.

That’s a form of payment in my eyes. A very, very, very big form of payment.

You are free to see things differently.

But I go by what I see when it comes to making decisions as to how I am going to spend any time remaining to me. That’s how it works, Anonymous.

And, yes, I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person all the same. Sending you good wishes doesn’t subtract from my own enjoyment of life in any way. So I am happy to go there. Saying that I 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 would subtract from my enjoyment of life in a big way. So, thanks but no thanks re that one.

My best wishes.

Unpaid But Well Compensated (and Conflict Free) Rob

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site:

My plan has been a huge success, presuming that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research, Sammy.

I definitely have spent down my nest egg. That part of your comment is accurate. But that of course has nothing to do with the merit of the Valuation-Informed Indexing strategy. Had it not been for your abusiveness and the abusiveness of other Buy-and-Hold Goons, I would be a multi-millionaire today. I have attended numerous Financial Blogger Conferences and at each one that I have attended I have spoken to financially successful bloggers who have told me that they regretted the abusiveness that has held me back and that they hoped that things would soon change.

I believe that things will change in the days following the next price crash. I believe that at that time millions of people will be looking for something that works better in the long run than Buy-and-Hold and I will be there with 17 years of solid material to share with them. I will be able to invest all of the money that I earn at that time in stocks selling at prices at which stocks offer amazing long-term returns. So I will be far, far ahead of where I would have been had I never worked up the courage to advance my famous post asking whether it makes sense to take valuations into consideration when calculating the safe withdrawal rate.

I couldn’t be happier than I am with Valuation-Informed Indexing today. I didn’t have all this stuff figured out on the day that I put forward The Post Heard ‘Round the World. I learn new things every week. My knowledge base is now deep enough for me to write a book on the subject (“Investing for Humans: How to Get What Works on Paper to Work in Real Life”), which I expect to finish by the end of the year. If I had ever had any doubts, I would not have spent so many years of my life going deeper and deeper and deeper. Each new thing I learn deepens my conviction that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is important stuff. Valuation-Informed Indexing is the future of investment analysis. I am sure. I want to share it with every investor alive on Planet Earth. I am not just satisfied with the strategy. I am passionately in love with it.

And of course it is not just me. I have a slider that runs across the top of every page of my web site that lists over 200 comments from both experts and ordinary investors praising my work in the most effusive ways possible. Wade Pfau’s conclusion after 16 months of research into the merits of the VII strategy compared to Buy-and-Hold was: “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!” He wouldn’t have said that if he thought that the strategy was a failure. I mean, come on.

YOU say that it is a failure, that’s all. And I think it would be fair to say that you are not exactly the most open-minded person on the planet re this particular subject.

I do wish you all good things, in any event.

Nest-Egg Diminished Rob

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site:

I look at results, Rob. It has been a disaster for you. Despite your attempts, there is no way to spin it any other way.

I did not study investing in school. I have never managed a big mutual fund. I should not know more about this subject that any ordinary investor. Wade Pfau holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton. I should not be able to teach Wade anything about how stock investing works. Yet, when Wade spent 16 months of his life researching my ideas, he told me that he could not sleep at night because he was so excited by what he was learning and concluded that: “Yes, Virginia, Valuation-Informed Indexing works!”

It shouldn’t be possible for something like that to happen. It happened because learning in this field has been suppressed during the long bull market. Bull markets make Buy-and-Hold look good. And Shiller’s advance is a very big one. So it is hard for those on the Buy-and-Hold side of the fence to take it in; it changes their understanding of how stock investing works in scores of different ways. So we have a huge advance that checks out in every way (Shiller was awarded a Nobel prize) that is so far not at all wifely understood or at all fully developed.

That’s a journalist’s dream, Sammy. The job of a journalist is to help people by explaining things to them that they do not yet fully understand. It wouldn’t be possible to imagine a story that helps more people than this one that is as poorly understood as this one. The potential to help people live better lives that exists here is just off the charts.

The obstacles to moving the ball forward are huge too. I don’t say different. I have had my head slammed against a wall on hundreds and hundreds of occasions. It hurts. It hurts a lot.

But someone has to do it. Suppose that Shiller had included in his book a statement that: “Given my finding that valuations affect long-term returns, there is zero chance that the safe withdrawal rate is the same number at all valuation levels — the safe withdrawal rate CHANGES with changes in valuation levels.” It would have made my life a whole lot easier if Shiller had said that in his book and I could just point to the quote rather than having to explain that that conclusion follows logically from words that Shiller really did say in his book. By holding back on that one, Shiller made it harder for me and for all the others (there are lots of us, although not enough of us to get the studies corrected at this time) who believe that the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies are in error.

I have chosen a difficult course for myself. But a course that will likely benefit my fellow humans in very big ways down the road a piece (and that will likely benefit me personally as well since the basic rule re compensation for work done is that the amount of compensation received depends on the amount of value added to the world). I haven’t enjoyed having my head slammed against a wall hundreds of times. But I have been humbled and honored to have been able to have enjoyed the experience of hearing hundreds of people (both ordinary investors and big names) tell me that I am the first person whom they have ever heard talk about stock investing in a way that makes total sense. You can’t buy with any amount of money the feeling of satisfaction that comes from hearing those words hundreds of times.

We all are put on this earth and given a limited number of years to find some purpose for our lives. I believe that I have found mine. Choosing to pursue work that seems likely to benefit the world in a very big way has made my life difficult for a time. You call that a “disaster.” I don’t see it that way. I am grateful that I was given the gift of being able to pursue this opportunity and the talents to pursue it to the extent that I have so far.

If Shiller is right, we all need to come to a better understanding of the far-reaching implications of his research findings. It’s terribly important that we all engage in the discussion needed to do that. So Rob Bennett sincerely believes, you know? So I soldier on.

My best wishes to you.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site:

You were the one to quit your job, right? Have you actively searched for a job since that time? It appears that you have not really taken steps to get a new job. Thus, we can conclude that you only have yourself to blame.

Expecting someone to pay you for your internet rantings is laughable.

It’s not laughable if it turns out that I was right about what I said in my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002, Sammy. It has been 17 years and thousands of people have looked at the Greaney retirement study during that time. Not one has been able to identify a valuations adjustment in it. What does that tell you?

I read an article yesterday by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone titled “The ‘Whistleblower Probably Isn’t: It’s an Insult to Real Whistleblowers to Use the Term With the Ukrainegate Protagonist.” He writes: “I’ve met a lot of whistleblowers, in both the public and private sector. Many end up broke, living in hotels, defamed, (often) divorced, and lucky if they have any kind of job. One I knew got turned down for a waitressing job because her previous employer wouldn’t vouch for her. She had little kids. The common thread in whistleblower stories is loneliness. Typically the employer has direct control over their ability to pursue another job in their profession. Many end up reviled as traitors, thieves, and liars. They often discover after going public that their loved ones have a limited appetite for sharing the ignominy. In virtually all cases, they end up having to start over, both personally and professionally.”

That’s me. That’s my story. I am a whistleblower. I have been made to pay the price that whistleblowers are made to pay.

I blew the whistle on Buy-and-Hold. If it is true that valuations affect long-term returns, then there is precisely zero chance that a Buy-and-Hold strategy could ever work for a single long-term investor. People need to know that. Every investor alive on Planet Earth needs to know that. But there are thousands and thousands of wealthy and powerful and well-connected people who have built their careers around the promotion of Buy-and-Hold and who don’t want to acknowledge that the strategy was discredited by the peer-reviewed research in this field 38 years ago. Those who dare to “cross” them by telling the truth about how stock investing works see their ability to make a living in this field destroyed.

So be it, you know? We live in a good country. We have laws against a lot of this abusive stuff. I believe that in the days following the next price crash, we are going to see a good number of people work up the courage to speak up. From that point forward, we will all live better lives. Deep in their hearts, even the Buy-and-Holders would like to know how to invest effectively for the long run.

That’s my sincere take, in any event. We’ll see.

Whistleblower 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:

Delusions don’t pay the bills. You might want to start that job search earlier, rather than later.

I believe that the transition from Buy-and-Hold to Valuation-Informed Indexing will prove to be the biggest advance in the history of personal finance, Sammy. And I believe that those who put their necks on the line and serve as the pioneers will be compensated handsomely for their efforts. I haven’t received a dime in 17 years, as you know. But I expect to be receiving a whole big bunch of dimes somewhere down the line, presumably in the days following the next price crash when more people will be interested in asking hard questions about the merit of the Buy-and-Hold concept.

Delusions don’t pay the bills. That is so. But I have done a lot to make sure that I am not being influenced by delusions. I put myself out there. I write this column, for one thing. If I get something wrong here, some smart Buy-and-Holder is going to see it and let me know. That’s a check on me. I wrote to 30,000 academic researchers to elicit their feedback. Nearly all of those who responded had only positive things to say. My work has been endorsed by some of the biggest names in the field, people like Rob Arnott and Wade Pfau. How would that be possible if I were not saying something of value?

Even you Goons assure me that I am not delusional in a mixed-up sort of way. If my stuff were delusional, it would not upset you. You would just ignore it. One thing that I can say is that you Goons never, never, never ignore old Farmer Hocus. Why? It’s because you believe in Buy-and-Hold and you cannot bear to experience doubts about it. And my words bring out those doubts. That means that I’m doing something right. I am causing you to think. You very, very, very much don’t want to think about this stuff. But my words cause you to do that from time to time even though you don’t like the idea. Good for me, you know?

No one can be 100 percent sure that he is not being swayed by delusions. Our unhappy fate down here in the Valley of Tears is that we never know for certain. But I can tell you that every signal that I use to check out the merit of things tells me that my work in this area is of great value and not delusional at all.

You delight in your success in blocking me from earning an income for 17 years. If you were confident in your belief in Buy-and-Hold, you wouldn’t feel any need to do something like that. If you possessed a deep confidence, you would take what you could from what I say and leave the rest behind. You can’t. That tells me that there is something wrong with Buy-and-Hold. That tells me that these are issues that every investor on the planet should be looking at.

My best wishes to you.

Rob

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site:

Funny how you avoid talking about your failed retirement plan. Like always, you change the topic by repeating previous lies, that have all been addressed before.

Maybe you should spend your time on your job search.

I’ve done amazing work, Sammy. I have been told so by many big-name experts and also by many ordinary investors. I’ll get compensated for it down the road. People earn big incomes when they add significant value with their work. I have done that. So I will wait for the compensation.

I obviously wish that there had not been a delay. But the delay just shows me how important it is that we open up every site on the internet to honest posting re the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. If people who came before me had stuck to their guns and insisted on their right to post honestly, the things that happened to me never would have happened. So I am helping out the many who will come after me by insisting on MY right to post honestly.

When everyone feels comfortable saying what they believe, we all will be learning like crazy and we all will be better off. Anytime someone gives in to intimidation tactics, we all as a nation take a step back. Anytime someone insists on his or her right to post honestly re the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research, we all as a nation take a step forward.

I am very proud of the work that I have done. Yes, I want to be compensated for it. But getting compensated immediately is not the test of whether work is good or not. The fact that I have not been compensated for such good work shows that the need for people to stand up for themselves is very important in this field. It makes the work more valuable. And I am confident that down the line a bit it will make the compensation paid for that work bigger.

But we’ll see, you know?

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

Rob

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for one of my columns at the Value Walk site:

Wrong again. Everyone can Google your retirement plan, investments and stock crash predictions. The history on each shows massive failure. Of course, like always, you run away from it with your answer by failing to talk about your history. I was actually surprised to see you admit on your own website that you have to go back to work in your 60’s. How about telling the truth here?

Okay, Sammy.

Lots of people work in their sixties. It’s not exactly a death sentence. I feel a lot better working in my sixties than I would if I sold out my friends and said that I now believe that Greaney included a valuations adjustment in the retirement study posted at his web site. I wish that there was no conflict. I wish that I could say the truth about the Greaney study and that I would be applauded for doing so rather than attacked for it. But I would rather be attacked and work in my sixties than sell out my friends and pretend that I see a valuation adjustment in the study.

It’s my life and so it’s my choice. Just as it’s your life and so it’s your choice as to the decisions that you make.

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:

Rob,

Do you have a group of people around you that give you constant feedback and wise council or do you just wing it?

That’s a good question.

I do not have a group of people around me that give me constant feedback and wise counsel. I wish I did. I need that. We all need affirmation from others to maintain the strength required to fight life’s battles. I have a small number of people that I can turn to for occasional feedback and counsel. But the number of those people is small and the number of times that they step in and offer feedback and counsel is small.

You are pointing to something that is a big problem for me. I would describe it as my BIGGEST problem. Affirmation from other humans is like emotional oxygen. None of us could survive very long without oxygen. It wouldn’t matter how physically smart we were or how wealthy we were or anything else. We need oxygen and there’s just no getting around it. Well, in the emotional realm, we need affirmation from other humans that we are good people doing useful work. I see something more than zero of that. But the amount of affirmation that I get from other humans comes perilously close to zero. It is not a healthy situation. It is not a good situation.

I wouldn’t say that I wing it. What I do for affirmation is to read old posts or old articles or old research or whatever. That stuff is amazingly affirmative. It’s not as powerful as hearing a fellow human that I respect say the words “good job!” But according to every rule for how we live life in the United States, the work that I have done has tremendous value. The very fact that it has been suppressed for so long shows that. You Goons wouldn’t bother to suppress my work if you didn’t appreciate its great power. Every abusive word that you put forward affirms me in an important sense. I certainly don’t enjoy being called lots of names. But I know with 100 percent certainty that generating so much flak shows that I have positioned myself directly over the target. Greaney’s retirement study truly does not contain an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. Each new abusive post reassures me that I have been right re that one going back to the morning of May 13, 2002.

I obviously do not enjoy feeling the emotional pain that I have experienced, Anonymous. I hurt. But someone had to do what I have done if as a nation we were ever to go beyond Buy-and-Hold and travel to the far better world that we all will live in once we work up the courage to permit ourselves to discuss the many far-reaching implications of the last 38 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. If others had done it before me, then none of you Goons could ever have laid a glove on me. Say that Shiller had included a sentence in his book stating that: “Since my research shows that valuations affect long-term returns, the numbers in the Buy-and-Hold retirement studies are in error and should be corrected the close of business today.” That would have made my job a lot easier. If I am going to ask Shiller and others to show the courage to say things like that, then I had better work up the courage to say things like that myself, no? So I make a sincere effort to do that, even though it is hard at times.

The rules that apply in the investment advice realm are the opposite of the rules that apply in every other field of human endeavor. In every other field a person who discovered an error that was likely to cause millions of people to suffer horrible life setbacks would be celebrated. I have been intensely celebrated by SOME. But certainly not by most. And, yes, that hurts. A lot. But I wouldn’t say that I wing it. I would say that I push on confident in the basic goodness of the people of the United States. We will figure this one out and we will set things straight. I don’t think it is going to happen until millions of people have suffered failed retirements and hundreds of thousands of businesses have gone under and millions of workers have lost their jobs and our economic system has been shaken and our political system has been shaken. I hate it that it is being done that way. Hate it, hate it, hate it. But I get one vote, like everybody else. So I just have to accept the reality, whether I hate it or not.

I believe that we will make it successfully to the other side. I have faith in our basic goodness as a people. I believe that we are going to have to pick up the pieces in the days following the next price crash and I hope that I will be able to play a big role helping us do that. I don’t hear much ongoing affirmation and I don’t wing it. I take what personal affirmation I can from focusing in on what we are as a people and on how we handle transitions like this in every other field of human endeavor. I try to the best of my ability to understand why we have played it so differently re this particular matter. And I review the comments of the thousands of my fellow community members who have stuck their necks out and expressed a desire that honest posting be permitted and take what comfort I can from that.

I hope that helps a small bit.

My best wishes.

Rarely Affirmed Rob