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

“ When a large and well-respected law firm that wants to take the case on a contingency basis contacts me, I will sit down with them and see what they have to say.”

Which means this will never happen.

I think it will happen, Anonymous. But we will just have to wait and see.

It was surely never going to happen for so long as no one worked up the courage to stand up to you Goons. I put the wheels in motion with my famous post from the morning of May 13, 2002. It’s not going to happen unless a few others work up the courage to do similar bold things. I think we are going to see that. I think it is going to take an ocean of human misery to bring it on, which is as unfortunate as all get-out. But I do believe that as a nation of people we are all eventually going to get to the place where deep in our hearts we all (including you Goons, incredibly enough) want to be.

The only part that I control is the part that I play in the working out of the saga. And I did my part. I worked up the courage to push the “Send” button on that famous post. And for 20 years now I have stood by my contention that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site lacks an adjustment for the valuation level that applies on the day the retirement begins. So I’m clean. And that’s all that is within a person’s ambit of power.

I naturally wish you all good things, regardless of what investment strategy you elect to pursue for yourself.

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:

“ Never before has the CAPE value risen so high and then remained at insanely high levels for so extended a period of time. ”

In short, stock went up way more than what you predicted.

Stock prices rose higher than I expected and remained at high levels longer than I expected. That much is certainly so.

The point of dispute is — Was that a good thing for stock investors or a bad thing?

If the market is efficient (as it was widely believed to be in the days when the Buy-and-Hold strategy was being developed) it was a very good thing. If the market is efficient, then the stock prices reflects a reasoned assessment of the realities. A high stock price results from a high level of productivity. High levels of productivity permit us all to live better lives. So we all should rejoice when stock prices rise.

If valuations affect long-term returns (as Shiller showed with his Nobel-prize-winning research), it was a very bad thing. If valuations affect long-term returns, any price increases beyond those justified by the economic realities (that is, any price increases beyond those that produce a fair-value CAPE level of 17) are the product of investor emotionalism and will not last. They are the product of irrational exuberance. Price increases that do not last are a negative because they mislead investors as to the amount of their accumulated wealth. They cause them to save less and to spend more than they can afford to spend, They bring on failed retirements and business failures because consumer spending contacts when millions of investors suffer the price crash that inevitably follows a period of out-of-control irrational exuberance.

I prefer to know the true value of my stock portfolio. I think we should be permitting honest posting re the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research at every site on the internet, without a single exception. I view the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research in this field as the most important 41 years of peer-reviewed research in the history of investment analysis. I would like to see us all working together every day to bring the CAPE level down to a reasonable level and to keep it there.

My best wishes to you, 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:

1. “There’s no news in knowing that 4 percent is not always safe.”

   When the creator of the 4% rule says 4% is no longer safe, in the friggin Wall Street Journal, it’s huge news. Many times more people saw that article than Bernstein’s obscure twenty year old book. Thousands of times more people than saw Greaney’s study. Millions of times more than remember Greaney’s study (pretty much only you and Greaney.)

   But to you, it’s all meh. Funny how you always have an excuse for taking no action yourself. You accept no personal responsibility for anything or anyone. It’s always “we have to…” meaning other people. When are you, Rob Bennett, going to do something more than make a note for yet another unseen ValueWalk repetition?

   The Wall Street Journal had an article saying that the 4 percent rule is in error many years ago. I had a friend (Brian) at my last corporate job and we had discussed safe withdrawal rates when we worked there together. This was before I ever posted to Motley Fool. He was a Buy-and-Holder. He told me in a friendly way that I was nuts.

   When he saw the article in the Wall Street Journal saying that I had been right all along, he gave me a call. I told him about the bans. He was shocked. He said that he was going to put up a post at the Bogleheads Forum telling the story. I told him that he would be banned if he did. He made a bet with me that he would not be banned. Of course he was banned within 30 seconds of advancing the post.

   It’s not hard to calculate these numbers accurately, Miasma. If this were any other field of human endeavor, we could get all the errors corrected in 15 minutes. The problem is that in the field of stock investing people WANT to be told lies. If the experts report the numbers honestly and accurately, they lose their jobs. So they feel a lot of pressure to either pretend that they believe in the Buy-and-Hold stuff or to actually force themselves to believe it.

   Will it change in the days following the next price crash? That’s the question.

   Do you want to take a bet on whether Greaney corrects his study as a result of this latest Wall Street Journal article? I know which side of that bet I want to be on.

   I’m happy that Bengen is telling at least some of the truth re this matter. But it is going to take more than one somewhat accurate article to get that CAPE value down to a reasonable level. People believe things that they hear over and over again. And the steady drumbeat of the Buy-and-Holders is not going to be drowned out by a single somewhat accurate article in the Wall Street Journal. If we opened every site to honest posting, we would see real change. One article will be ignored by all the people making money pushing the Buy-and-Hold garbage.

   I am happy to see anything honest appear. But I have been doing this too long to believe that one article is going to change the world. If it was that easy, Bernstein’s book would have changed the world back in May 2002.

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 have THOUSANDS of supporters, go ask them to do what you want.  Meanwhile, you won’t even open up YOUR website to people wanting to make what they think are “honest” posts.

I’ve asked them. I did that all the time when I was posting at the various boards.

Having thousands of people interested in learning about the last 41 years of peer-reviewed research isn’t anything close to having a majority of investors wanting to hear the case against Buy-and-Hold. The vast majority would prefer to believe that the numbers on their portfolio statement are real. That’s the entire problems. The vast majority of investors prefers not to know how stock investing works. Nothing could be more clear.

The majority of alcoholics prefer to remain alcoholics, you know? I don’t think it follows that we should not provide services helping people to overcome alcoholism. I think we should provide such services. If it makes the alcoholics uncomfortable to hear that such services exist, that’s just too darn bad. I don’t think we should force people to take advantage of such services (except where that is done as part of a court proceeding). But I think that it is a good thing for such services to be available to people. Alcoholism is a trap and people need access to ways to overcome it when they make up their minds to do so. The same is true of Buy-and-Hold (price indifferent) investing strategies.

Just because I believe that we should open every site to honest posting doesn’t mean that I believe that site owners should not place limits on what can be said at their sites. I absolutely believe that there should be limits. John Greaney wouldn’t be looking forward to a long prison sentence today if Motley Fool had enforced its site rules in a reasonable manner by banning him the first time he advanced a death threat. I sent the site administrator there an email suggesting that they do just that. I believe that every community member who viewed the guy as a friend should have done the same and I said so at the board. Site restrictions are very much needed. Bans on honest posting re the peer-reviewed research are a huge negative.

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 it’s so obvious, why hasn’t the study been corrected to this day?”
No correction was needed. You have been told that. Why do you keep asking the same question when you already know the answer?

Say that there is a one-in-a-hundred chance that the Greaney retirement study really does lack a valuation adjustment — just as I indicated in my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002. If that’s the case, then we should be discussing the matter at every discussion board and blog on the internet. It’s not even possible to imagine a public policy concern of greater import. This affects every last one of us.

The next Buy-and-Hold Crisis is 100 percent avoidable. Not today, i suppose. We are going to experience a big recession any way you look at it (presuming that Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research). But, had Greaney corrected his study on the afternoon of May 13, 2002, we would have put the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold stuff behind us a long time ago.

And, even now, we could diminish the horrors of the next Buy-and-Hold Crisis by opening every site to honest posting by the close of business today. Prices don’t usually drop only to fair-value levels at the end of a bull/bear cycle. Irrational exuberance is replaced by irrational depression and prices drop to one-half of fair-value levels. If that happens, we are all in the soup. But if we get the word out about the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research, people will know that they should be buying stocks like crazy when prices drop to such insanely low levels and that could very well be the thing that turns the situation around. But we need to begin getting the word out now if we are going to expect people to act on it in the days following the next price crash.

My feeble human brain is not able to imagine any downside.

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:

“Long-term market timing has worked every single time it has been tried. The Bennett/Pfau peer-reviewed research shows that beyond any doubt whatsoever.”

As the science fiction author, Larry Niven, said “Any damn fool can predict the past.”

That’s fair.

I cannot say for certain that stocks are going to continue to perform in the future somewhat as they always have in the past. Maybe they will. Maybe they will not.

But I sure don’t think it would hurt people to know about how they have always performed in the past. It’s an important point of information for all investors. And about 10 percent of all the board communities has expressed a desire to be able to hear what the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research says. I think they should be able to do so.

There’s certainly a chance that Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold will fail yet one more time. When that happens, how will things go for those who engaged in criminal behavior to block people from hearing what the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research teaches us? My guess is: “Not so good.” Whereas, if U.S. laws and had been followed and people had been able to hear both sides of the story, people would just conclude that the Buy-and-Holders had given it their best shot and happened to get it wrong, no biggie.

It is my sincerely and strongly held view that permitting honest posting re the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research is best for everyone, Valuation-Informed Indexers and Buy-and-Holders alike. Call me madcap.

My best and warmest wishes to you and yours, 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:

You are the only one making threats and calling people names.

You Goons consider it a threat when I say that I do not believe that the retirement study posted at John Greaney’s web site contains a valuation adjustment.

The only threat is to the Buy-and-Hold Model for understanding how stock investing works.

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:

Over the last 20 years approximately how many internet sites have you opened to honest posting about the last 40 years of peer-reviewed research in this field?

Say that there are 1,000 investing sites. I don’t know the actual number. For purposes of discussion, let’s say that it is 1,000. It has been 20 years and we have not yet secured one. Going by that, it would take 20,000 years to have the entire internet opened to honest posting on the last 40 years of research.

It doesn’t work that way. It is clear that many, many site owners want to open their sites to honest posting. Even a good number of those that have banned it have also expressed a desire to permit it. Motley Fool told me that they thought it would be “ideal” if Greaney permitted honest posting. El Supremo at NoFeeBoards.com said at one time that he was thinking of making me and John Walter Russell the moderators at his site. Bill Scholar had that thing where he was going to permit honest posting at one section of his site and ban it at the other sections. People loved that idea. People were very excited when he announced that. If you Goons had not threatened to burn his entire site to the ground if he went ahead with that, out troubles would have soon been over.

People want to see that it is possible to make money with a site permitting honest posting. Having just one site that permits honest posting and that makes money will be the turning point. It has taken 20 years so far to get the first one. But the second one will not take 20 years. It will take perhaps one additional year. There will be so much amazing discussion at that site that other site owners will want to copy the concept. Someone will jump in after not too much time. Then the third one will come in even less additional time. And then we are off to the races. In not too much more additional time, every site on the internet will be permitting honest posting.

The intimidation stuff scares people. That’s why you Goons employ it. But the use of intimidation is a desperation tactics, You turn to it because you know that you have no intellectual case.It’s a Hail Mary pass sort of thing. It astounds me that it has worked so long. But I don’t think it is going to continue to work following the next price crash. I believe that after we see the ocean of human misery that always follows a time in which Buy-and-Hold becomes popular, at least one site owner will work up the courage to open his site to honest posting. Then everyone will see how much interest there is in these ideas and a second one will follow in not too much time. Then it will just grow and grow.

Finding the first one has been very hard. That’s for sure. But the potential here is just off the charts. So I think we have to soldier on. Shiller’s work, as amazing as it is, does not achieve any good purpose if people cannot talk about it. The CAPE is higher than it has ever been. Shiller’s research has not changed the psychology of stock investors. For that to happen, we need to open every site to honest posting. And to achieve that goal, we first need to open ONE large site to honest posting.

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:

My Tesla Model 3 lacks a microwave oven. Should every discussion board and blog on the internet be discussing it?

Getting the numbers right in retirement studies is important. People use retirement studies to plan retirements. An investing discussion board that forbids the discussion of errors in retirement studies has failed in its mission.

If Shiller’s Nobel-prize-winning research is legitimate research (I sincerely believe that it is), then it “revolutionizes” (Shiller’s word) the entire field of investment analysis. We have as a society been for 40 years now working up the courage to begin reaping the benefits of that revolutionary advance in a practical real-world sense. We are not quite there yet. But we are close. I believe that one more Buy-and-Hold Crisis will push us over the goal line.

Again, we’ll see.

Again, 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:

If irrational doom is real, market timers will be left with depleted savings

We are all hurt by any form of irrationality that becomes widespread. This is why I believe that we should all permit (and encourage!) discussion of the peer-reviewed research (all of it, not just the research that existed as of 1980).

The purpose of research is to help us to see through irrationality.None of us is perfectly able to do so individually. Some of us are irrational in our exuberance, some of us are irrational in our doom. I believe that permitting widespread discussion of the research would help us to collectively work our way to a calmer, better informed place.

Buy-and-Holders understand things that Valuation-Informed Indexers do not and Valuation-Informed Indexers know things that Buy-and-Holders do not. We are all in this together. We all want the same things. So we should all we happy to help those with difference perspectives and in turn to be helped by them.That’s where I am coming from, in any event, Anonymous.

Rob