A Rich Life

The Old Ideas on Saving & Investing Don't Work -- Here's What Does

“If the CEO of a Cookie-Manufacturing Company Told You That the Fact That You Have Been Eating Three Boxes of Cookies Every Night for 30 Years and You’re Not Dead Yet Proves That Eating Three Boxes of Cookies Every Night Is “100 Percent Safe,” Would You Believe Him?”

by

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 made the same comments 5 years ago and were wrong.  You made the same comments and were wrong.  You made the same comments 20 years ago and were wrong.  Meanwhile, you think it is reasonable to expect a $500 million windfall for nothing.

I was never wrong. I said that Shiller’s Nobel-prize winning research shows that valuations affect long-term returns. I still say that.

If the ceo of a cookie-manufacturing company told you that the fact that you have been eating three boxes of cookies every night for 30 years and you’re not dead yet proves that eating three boxes of cookies every night is “100 percent safe,” would you believe him?

Rob

“You Don’t Think Your Problem Has Anything To Do With the Fact That You Have Been Unemployed for 25 Years?”

by

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 think your problem has anything to do with the fact that you have been unemployed for 25 years?  Your website indicates that you made the decision to quit your job and you have also posted that you don’t want to get a job since you are still working on the same book for over a decade.  How is this anyone else’s fault but your own?

I do not. I haven’t been unemployed for a single day. I work as a self-employed journalist working to get every site on the internet opened to honest posting re the last 44 years of peer-reviewed research in this field. It’s the most important journalism project of my lifetime and, once I have achieved the goal, it will put me at the top of my field and i will have zero financial problems.

Rob

“You Wouldn’t Expect Everyone to Make the Switch to the Superior Strategy in 24 Hours. People Need to Have Discussions and Ask Questions Before They Feel Comfortable Making the Change.”

by

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

Funny how all the people you talk about are all financially successful, yet you are the only one broke.  Yet some you think people should take your advice.

Any financial issues I have experienced are because of abusive posting on the part of Buy-and-Holders. Buy-and-Holders obviously don’t have to deal with that problem.

Buy-and-Hold was developed in the 1960s. Shiller’s Nobel-price-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns hadn’t yet been published. You wouldn’t expect everyone to make the switch to the superior strategy in 24 hours. People need to have discussions and ask questions before they feel comfortable making the change. Because of the abusiveness of the Buy-and-Holders, that has never happened. We are stuck where we were prior to the publication of Shiller’s amazing research. To move forward (which benefits everyone!), we need to open every site to honest posting re the peer-reviewed research.

I think we will make it in time. I believe that we are a fundamentally good people. We have seen that even many Buy-and-Holders (people like Bernstein and Bogle before he died) see the merit of permitting honest posting.

Rob

“30 Years to Build a Multi-Million Portfolio Is Not Get Rich Quick.”

by

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

30 years to build a multimillion portfolio is not get rich quick.  Meanwhile. Going broke and staying unemployed for 2 decades is insanity.

It is Get Rich Quick if you are counting amounts that are due to irrational exuberance as if they are real. Today stocks are priced at two times their real value. So those counting irrational exuberance as real are pretending that their accumulated wealth is two times what it really is. Is that not a Get Rich Quick approach? Someone with $500,000 of wealth tells himself that he has $1,000,000 and makes financial plans as if that were the case? Huh?

Someone who has been building his portfolio for 30 years has experienced a great deal of real economic gains over the years. None of that is the product of Get Rich Quick thinking. But if he doesn’t make an adjustment for irrational exuberance at a time when valuations are insanely high, that’s extremely dangerous. It’s high-emotion behavior. Someone who hands in a resignation to a high-paying corporate job because he believes that irrational exuberance gains are real is hurting himself in a very serious way.

I believe that we should permit honest posting re the last 44 years of peer-reviewed research at every site. I am not able to imagine any possible downside.

Rob

“The Greaney Retirement Study Hasn’t Been Corrected in 23 Years. There’s No Way That That Could Happen Without a Lot of Funny Business Going Down.”

by

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 have made the allegations of criminal acts, yet you won’t show links to those criminal acts and you won’t file chart. What are you hiding?

All that you have to do is to look at the Greaney retirement study and see if you can find a valuation adjustment in it. There isn’t one. I pointed that out in a post that I put to the Motley Fool board on May 13, 2002. It hasn’t been corrected in 23 years. There’s no way that that could happen without a lot of funny business going down.

That’s the story. We can all live better lives from this point forward by opening every site to honest posting re the last 44 years of peer-reviewed research. Or we can continue to pretend that there’s no need to practice valuation-based market timing when prices begin to get out of hand. I vote for permitting honest posting.

Rob

“The Get Rich Quick Psychology That Causes People to Believe That Their Stock Portfolio Is Worth More Than What the Peer-Reviewed Research Says It Is Worth Also Affects Their Views on Legal Actions.”

by

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 think laws have been broken, then file charges.  Otherwise, we know those are just more made up things.

The Get Rich Quick psychology that causes people to believe that their stock portfolio is worth more than what the peer-reviewed research says it is worth also affects their views on legal actions. When we solve one of these problems, we will have solved all of them. As of today, all that we have is the peer-reviewed research we need to understand what is going on. The next step is to give ourselves permission to discuss it at every internet site. Then we will be on our way to lots of wonderful advances.

Rob

“It Is Just Too Weird to Have One Set of Laws That Applies to Everything Outside of the Investment Advice Field and an Entirely Different Set of Laws that Applies in the Investment Advice Field.”

by

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 do know that this is what the whole discussion is about, right?  We need to have those millions in our account by the time we turn 60.  Being broke in your 60’s is what is the biggest concern.

The purpose of peer-reviewed research is to help us all to build our retirement accounts as big as possible as quickly as possible.

The fact that a good number of Buy-and-Holders are hotly opposed to the discussion of the last 44 years of peer-reviewed research is a very bad sign for Buy-and-Hold. It’s certainly not all Buy-and-Holders that feels that way, it’s about 10 percent who engage in abusive and in come cases criminal behavior. But the 90 percent of Normals have not spoken up strongly enough in opposition to the tactics that you Goons employ to suppress learning experiences.

If Buy-and-Hold were a real thing, we never would have seen a single abusive post. I mean, come on. I don’t say that the Buy-and-Holders always knew that valuation-based market timing was of critical importance. But they certainly knew that Shiller had done something important and that we all should have been discussing the far-reaching implications of his Nobel-prize-winning research going back to the day it was published.

I believe that we are fundamentally a good people. I believe that we will get there. I think it is just too weird to have one sets of laws that applies to everything outside of the investment advice field and an entirely different set of laws that applies in the investment advice field. We’ll see.

Rob

“I Believe That Shiller’s Nobel-Prize-Winning Research Showing that Valuations Affect Long-Term Returns Was Something New.”

by

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

Some of us know how stock investing works.  Unfortunately, broke market timers still haven’t figured it out.  Your assessment has a 20+ year track record of failure.

And there’s zero chance that you could ever learn anything new? All of the peer-reviewed research that we would ever need was published prior to the day the Buy-and-Hold strategy was developed?

I don’t buy it, Anonymous. I believe that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research showing that valuations affect long-term returns was something new. I believe that we need to incorporate that research into our thinking. Take Buy-and-Hold and add the last 44 years of peer-reviewed research and you have Valuation-Informed Indexing.

Rob

“The Peer-Reviewed Research Is Never Going to Fizzle Out.”

by

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

Looks like the land of Hocomania has just fizzled out.

We’re all always going to need to know how stock investing works. The peer-reviewed research is never going to fizzle out.

It’s amazing that Buy-and-Hold remains dominant today, I’ll give you that one. But the behavior we have seen from the Buy-and-Holders has been desperate behavior. That’s not a good sign for the long-term survival of the strategy, in my assessment.

We’ll see.

Rob