My point is that 1) You came bursting into the discussion claiming an insight which we have zero evidence that you actually originated and which we have evidence that you got the insight from Bernstein, 2) You demanded thanks for that 'insight', 3) You berated people for not giving thanks and for not telling everyone that you are #1 and right, 4) This directly led to your board now having a population of 2 +/- the occasional passerby.
You are wrong about much of what you say here,
BenSolar.
1) I will put up a long post someday at the SWR board going into detail on what insights I offered first, what insights Bernstein offered first, and on what points the two of us have always been in agreement. I don't have time to prepare that post today. But it is simple common sense to see that, if I was saying nothing new, there would not have been tens of thousands of posts written in response to my May 13, 2002, post. At one point defenders of the conventional methodology were saying that my views sounded so strange that they were "irrational" and "loony." Now the claim is that they were so obvious that everyone knew all about them for years before me posting them. It can't be both. The reality is that defenders of the conventional methodology will say just about anything to avoid having to say what is true, that I got it right in my May 13, 2002, post and that the defenders of the conventional methodology got it wrong.
If what I had been saying is something that everyone knew yeara ago, people would have just offered a reference to the appropriate Bernstein quote, and said "thanks for reminding of us that,
hocus. You don't generate tens of thousands of posts by reiterating something that someone else has been saying for years and that everyone already knows about. I mean, come on.
2) I did not "demand" thanks. I requested it. There was a lot of friction on the board at the time as a result of the
Ataloss word game posts. My sense was that there were a number of posters looking for a way to defuse the tension that did not require that they directly ask <b<ataloss to stop the nonsense. I thought that <b<JWR1945's statement that the data vindicated me in my claims offered everyone a great opportunity to solve the problem with minimal muss and fuss.
If several posters came forward with the appropriate thanks to me for hanging in there so long defending the insight that had finally been vindicated by the numbers guy (it had been vindicated conceptually a long time before that), it might well have brought all the friction to an end. I thought it was a great opportunity for the board, and I think it is a shame that you and some others pissed it away,
BenSolar What is it you think you gained by not thanking me for hanging in there and defending the insight all that time?
3) I berated no one. I berate no one today. I say that you made a mistake. I say that
wanderer made a mistake,. I say that
raddr made a mistake. Is saying that you made a mistake berating you? If you are that sensitive to criticism, how are we supposed to use a message board to learn togegether. Do you believe that the three of you are incapable of ever making a mistake?
4) The board has a population of two, but there have been more earth-shaking insights posted at that board in its first few months than have been posted at any other board I have ever heard of that early into its existence. We need to get more posters for the board to succeed in the long term, and I think that we will be able to do that when I have some time free up to address the problem. I don't expect that to happen until next year. But the board has been a smashing success thus far. The fact that you feel a need to berate it reveals where your head is at re this matter, and it is not a good place, in my view.
My poll was titled "SWR: adjust for high valuation, or at least note risk?" And the current tally is 9 yes, 1 no, 4 other/undecided. It was posted June 4th in an attempt to stop this endless 'Great Debate' junk.
I don't doubt that that was your intent,
BenSolar. You have been making efforts to find a compromise between truth and falsehood on this matter for a long time now. I think these efforts of yours are in vain. At some point I think you are going to have to recognize that these attempts at splitting the difference do not work.
The SWR is a data-based construct. Either the conventional methodology studies get the number right or they get it wrong. You simply must accept this. The idea of studies is to get the number right, not to get it wrong, When a mthodology always gets the number wrong, it is time to junk that methodology. Really.
Ataloss had a poll in which he asked whether people thought that the conventional methodology was invalid, and the vote was just as strong in that poll that they methodology was not invalid as it was in yours that an adjustment is needed for valuation. So what good does this acceptance of the idea that valuation requires an adjustment do us? The goal is to have the conventional methodology declared invalid, and we are just not there yet, depsite the results of your poll. We are not even all that close, from the looks of things.
The study is not invalid in the normal sense of the word.
The methodology of the study is invalid in every possible sense of the word. It generates the wrong number every single time (except for the rare case in which the number is 4 percent just by pure coincidence). And there are times when it produces a number so far out of the ballpark that it causes a plan to be off by $1.5 million. That's not invalid? What in heck would you want to see before you would declare a methodology invalid?
His research in no way showed the Trinity study to be invalid, any more than the graph that intercst published years ago showed that.
Here are links to two posts by
JWR1945.
http://www.nofeeboards.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1224
In this one, he states that: " The Great SWR Debate is over. hocus has won. The technical evidence supporting this assertion is rock solid. "
and
http://www.nofeeboards.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1217
In this one, he states: "In a very real sense, the traditional Safe Withdrawal Rates based on historical sequences are not valid for estimating any individual Year's Safe Withdrawal Rate."
JWR1945's views on SWRs are not precisely in accord with my own. But I have no problem saying that his views are reasonable. I do not find your views reasonable,
BenSolar.
Intercst got the number wrong in a study that he posted to the FIRE community, and he refused to correct the error when it was pointed out to him. And your response is to say, "yes, the number is way off, but analysts should just go on misleading investors on this point, it is up to the investors using the studies to know that the authors are just kidding around when they say that they looked at the data re what is safe, and it is up to the investors themselves to study the data if they want to know what the SWR really is."
What????
If all the burden is on the people using the studies to figure out various adjustments so that they know what the number is, what is the point of having researchers prepare studies. Why not just ask the researchers to look a the data and report the correct number in the first place. Doesn't that make a lot more sense than this idea that you have that researchers should report the wrong number and investors should go about the business of determining the right number by making a series of adjustments?
It is up to the researcher performing the analysis to make a reaosonable effort to get the numbers right. Once a methodology has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt to always produce the wrong answer to the question posed, it is time to retire that methodology to the trashbin of history. That's my take, anyway, and I am confident that I can convince a lot of the big names in the field that that take is correct and that yours is dangerously misguided.
People who read studies that purport to be based on historical data have a right to trust that the people who prepared those studies actually took the data into account--not some of it, all of it. Researchers are human like the rest of us. When they make mistakes, we should forgive them for it. But the process of forgiveness cannot begin until the researchers are willing to own up to the mistakes that they have made and to the financial damage that was done to the people who took their false claims seriously.
Many people who aspire to achieve financial independence early in life have suffered serious life setbacks as a result of this invalid methodology, and it seems likely that many more will suffer serious life setbacks from it in days to come. I am going to do what I can to bury this methodology so that it never does any more harm to people making use of the the SWR analytical tool. I love the SWR concept. I think it is a tool of great power. I hate studies that get it wrong and cause retirement plans to go bust as a result.
I'm only one person, but I am going to fight hard. I believe that in a year's time there will be a good number of others fighting alongside me on this. Perhaps you will thank me then,
BenSolar. Perhaps not. Either way, I am going to continue to lead the fight. It is the most important work that anyone concerned about the future of the FIRE movement can do, in my view.
I invite anyone looking for an exciting challenge to join
JWR1945 and me in the work we are doing at the SWR board. We have only just begun, so this is a chance to get in on the ground floor before the rush hits. I don't think that anyone who signs up for the adventure will ever live to regret doing so. The feeling of satisfaction that comes from knowing that you have helped hundreds or even thousands of people achieve financial independence years earlier than they otherwise could have hoped to is worth more than money can buy. At least that's been my experience.