A Rich Life

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

“ Where you go seriously off track is in blocking millions of others who would like to hear both sides of the story and then make their own decisions re what they are comfortable doing.”

Millions want to hear your story? Really? You can’t even get one person to come here asking you for information/advice. Also, why should any other board owner have an obligation to let post whatever you want? Every board owner controls their content. What is do special about you versus the other 300+ million Americans.

All of the sites have published posting rules. They should follow them. Most sites prohibit death threats. So, if one group of posters advances death threats with the aim of blocking discussion of the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research in this field, the site owner should remove the group advancing the death threats, not the people posting their sincere views at whom the death threats are aimed.

John Walter Russell referred to the current state of play at investing sites as “mob rule.” The Buy-and-Holders got there first. Buy-and-Hold was developed in the 1960s and Shiller did not publish his Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns until 1981. If everything is decided by majority vote, then the Buy-and-Holders can block people from learning about the new research indefinitely. That hurts us all. We all need to know how stock investing works in the real world. We need to know about both the pre-1981 research (Buy-and-Hold) and the post-1980 research (Valuation-Informed Indexing).

When posting honestly re the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research is banned at the behest of the Buy-and-Holders, people viewing the boards to gain a sense of what works in stock investing get a distorted view of the realities. Since they never hear about the new research, they come to believe that everyone who has examined these matters has come to believe that Buy-and-Hold (no market timing!) is a reasonable strategy. Nothing could be father from the truth. People need to know the realities. They need to hear both sides of the story to be able to form reasonable assessments of their own.

Even Evidence-Based Investing (one of the generals in Greaney’s Goon Army) now acknowledges that the Greaney retirement study lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement takes place. People should be pointing that out every time someone refers to the Greaney study’s claim that the safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent. When people don’t hear that objection, they assume that the study might be legitimate research. No site owner should be supporting such deceptions on so important a matter. A failed retirement is a serious life setback.

If Motley Fool would have banned Greaney on the day he advanced his first death threat (August 27, 2002), the world would today be 19 years ahead of where it in fact is in its understanding of how stock investing works in the real world. That would be a very, very, very good thing for each and every one of us. The site should have followed its published posting rules rather than just have gone with the easier way to turn a quick buck (Buy-and-Hold and indeed all Get Rich Quick “strategies” are highly popular at times when stock valuations are at dangerously high levels).

That is my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event, my dear Goon friend.

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:

“Even Evidence-Based Investing recently said that he does not believe that Greaney included a valuation adjustment in his study.”

That is an accurate description of my position.

“I applaud Evidence for acknowledging that Greaney got the number wrong in his study. “

That is not an accurate description of my position.

My position is the same as yours

“We agree that Greaney calculated properly the rate that survived all existing 30-year historical time-periods.”

If you wish to see an estimate of future rates that survive then you need to produce that calculation yourself or find others to produce that calculation for you.

I was suggesting that we have that discussion at the Retire Early board when I advanced my May 13, 2002, post. We saw a huge positive response to that suggestion. A large number of my fellow community members thanked me for starting the most exciting and helpful discussion ever held in that community. John Walter Russell spent eight years of his life working on that question and on related questions. Russell and I created a calculator together dealing with it. Wade Pfau devoted 16 months of his life to developing research with me on issues relating to it and we had that research published in a peer-reviewed journal. The interest in having the discussion is very intense and very widespread.

However, as strong as that interest is, the fear of you Goons is even stronger. People do not feel comfortable hearing death threats directed at their loved ones. People do not like to hear demands for unjustified board bannings directed at them. They do not like to see thousands of acts of defamation aimed at them. They do not like to see acts of extortion directed at academic researchers who have worked with them.

When as a society we work up the courage to stand up to you Goons, all of our problems re these matters will be in the past. I expect to see this happen in the days following the next price crash, when people will be able to see with their own eyes how much the widespread promotion of a pure Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold investment strategy eventually hurts each and every one of us. I am not God. I could be wrong. But my sincere expectation is that the next price crash is going to open a lot of people’s eyes and cause enough of us to stand up to your Goons that we all will be able together to make the transition from Buy-and-Hold to the first true research-based investment strategy.

We’ll see.

My best and warmest wishes to you, Evidence.

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:

How many death threats have you received?  When was the last one?  Where is the evidence?  What other criminal activities have occurred and where is the proof?

The death threats are only one of many types of intimidation tactics that have been employed by you Goons, Anonymous. We have seen demands for unjustified board bannings. We have seens thousands of acts of defamation. We have seen acts of extortion aimed at silencing academic researchers who dared to “cross” the Buy-and-Holders by publishing honest research. And on and on.

The proof is that the error in the Greaney retirement study has not been corrected to this day. People use retirement studies to plan retirements. The normal thing would be for the author of a retirement study that was found to be in error to correct the study within 24 hours of the moment that an error in it was brought to his attention. For Greaney, that was on the morning of May 13, 2002. And the second normal thing would be, in the event that the author of a retirement study found to be in error failed to correct his study within 24 hours, every responsible person who learned of the matter would insist that he do so. Motley Fool should not have banned me, it should have banned Greaney. It’s the same with Morningstar. And with the Early Retirement Forum. And with the Get Rich Slowly blog. And on and on and on and on.

It does not take 19 years to determine whether or not a retirement study contains an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. It shouldn’t take more than 19 minutes.

If there haven’t been criminal acts of intimidation, including death threats and lots of other nasty stuff, how could it be that the Greaney retirement study has gone uncorrected for 19 years? Even Evidence-Based Investing, one of the generals in Greaney’s Goon army, now acknowledges that the study lacks a valuation adjustment. But he offers no explanation of why the study has not been corrected. That ain’t normal, Anonymous. The only possible explanation is a mountain of intimidation tactics.

I wouldn’t have believed what we have seen if you had told me on the morning of May 13, 2002. I expected Greaney to react to my post in an abusive manner. But I believed that he would be reined in within two or three days. No one could have anticipated what we have seen. But here we are. Now we have to cover up not only the error in the study and the error in the Buy-and-Hold Model that caused Greaney to make the error in the study and the errors in all the other Buy-and-Hold retirement studies but also the intimidation tactics, including death threats, that we employed to keep more people from learning about the error in the study and insisting that it be corrected.

Not this boy, you know? The normal and healthy thing would have been for a national debate on the far-reaching implications of Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research to have been launched in 1981, when the research was published. I believe that the advance achieved by Shiller was so huge that many suffered cognitive dissonance and failed to incorporate Shiller’s findings in their understanding of how stock investing works. Then, when something came up showing the dangers of Buy-and-Hold, they went into cover-up mode. Today we are dealing with the cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up.

It’s not a healthy situation. If stocks continue to perform in the future anything at all as they always have in the past, we will see in not too long a time an economic crisis that will do great harm to millions of people. Harm that would have been avoided if we had launched that national debate in 1981 or even in 2002. I say that we need to launch the long-deferred national debate by the open of business on Friday morning, if not sooner. That is my sincere take. I think this 40-year cover-up is killing us, you Goons as much as the rest of us.

We are all in this together. We all need to know how stock investing works in the real world. We should all be doing everything in our power to see that we all enjoy an amazing learning experience together. Or so this trouble-making Rob Bennett fellow sincerely believes.

I think that I did a good thing when I worked up the courage to go public re the error in the Greaney retirement study. I see it as my finest moment. I showed in that moment beyond any doubt whatsoever that I was Greaney’s friend. The normal reaction of someone who learns that he has made an error in a retirement study is to THANK the person who brought the error to his attention and thereby spared him further embarrassment.

That’s my sincere take re these terribly important matters, in any event.

My best and warmest wishes to you and yours.

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>Sure, I’ll join you. I can hide out in this piddly unknown site and post insane bullshit. I’ll even delete comments if you let me. That appears to cover everything in your power.</i>

Do you think it would have been better if I hadn’t pointed out the error in the study?

Rob