Of tainted history, data torture, and faux SWR's

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raddr
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Of tainted history, data torture, and faux SWR's

Post by raddr »

Just when I thought the historical data could take no more abuse, the TMF REHP's leader comes up with this gratuitious analysis:

The 'Mother-Of-All' Safe Withdrawal Studies

http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=18295011

This is a study of SWR's is based on examining each month as a start date, not just January. The study is a complete waste of time as we'll get into in a minute. The author's self-congratulatory conclusion is:

This should disspell the notion that there is a 2% withdrawal rate hiding somewhere in the Ides of March or the dog days of August. As expected, a retirement starting on September 16, 1929 is the worst it gets.

Don't bother wading through the data in this latest numerical torture test, I'll save you the trouble. Here's the smoking gun:

Looking at month-to-month retirement pay out periods other than January-to-January greatly expands the number of periods examined. There are 102 30-Year pay out periods from 1871 to 2002. Looking at each of the 12 months of the year separately means we examined (102 x 12 = 1224) 1224 separate overlapping pay out periods. Despite more than 10 times the amount of data, the 30-Year historical withdrawal rate only varied from 3.94% to 4.32% around the January-to-January value of 4.12%. That's not much difference.

Well duh The "10 times amount of data" is hogwash. In fact there is almost no additional data added to the study other than a little information with regard to intra-year volatility.

When you look at the yearly data you have 102 data points. Each point is tainted by severe data overlap. For example, each 30 year period consists of 29 points in common with the adjacent data point and only one new point. Thus, each point is 29/30 or 96.6% dependent on the adjacent points rendering each 30-year point almost worthless for statistical analysis which requires independent data points. When you use monthly data you get 10-12 times more data points but they are 10-12 times more dependent on each other. For 30-year periods each point is 359/360 or 99.7% dependent on its neighbor! So yeah, you have a bunch more points but they each tell you a bunch less. This is why I haven't bothered to do the monthly analysis myself.

The fact that there is slight lowering of the "safe" withdrawal rate is not surprising since there is a tiny bit of additional information added by using monthly data but it really doesn't change things much since we are still looking at the same 130 years.

The problem is not that January may have been the wrong month to have been looked at. It is that a 130 year time frame has only 4 nonoverlapping independent 30-year periods which is way too little to get any reliable SWR, especially since we are interested in the data at the extreme edge of the analysis, i.e. the lower edge SWR. This is the statistical equivalent of trying to figure out a baseball player's lifetime batting average by observing only 4 at-bats. Then to try and carry it out to multiple decimal places is even more absurd.

In the above-referenced REHP thread one fawning admirer observes, then pleads:

Very nice, intercst. It's too bad that you have to go through all these contortions to protect your reputation. Besides, I thought you were retired <g>.

If anyone has posting priveledges at the No Fee site, I suggest they post these URLs.

Already done! Glad to be of service. :wink: Just don't expect to find any vindication for the data torture.
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Post by andrew61 »

raddr,

Please help me out. I'm kind of lost here -- I thought one of the main objections raised on this board regarding the SWR studies was that they didn't include enough data points to be statistically valid. Now that the TMF REHP's leader has added more data points, it appears that what he did wasn't quite what you guys had in mind.

My question: Just how would you have constructed these studies differently in order to obtain what you would regard as better, more complete data? If the new data added doesn't cut it in your eyes, then what does?

I'm also not sure why the "overlap" of most of the 30-year periods covered in the studies detracts from the studies' value. Starting one's retirement only a few years earlier or later can lead to dramatically different results, despite the overlap -- no?

For example, compare a 30-year retirement period starting at the end of 1929 to a 30-year retirement period starting at the end of 1932. The overlap of those two periods -- in terms of "data points" -- is some 90 percent, yet aren't the terminal values of the portfolio drastically different (assuming one started in both cases with the same initial portfolio value and maintained the 75/25 allocation throughout)?

You refer to "independent" data points which you say are required for proper statistical analysis. How would you apply that concept to be specific to the SWR studies? Please realize that I'm no statistician or mathematician, but I'm trying to understand just what the objections to the SWR studies are, and I still don't quite get it.
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ataloss
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Post by ataloss »

Is intercst saying that it is impossible that a future 30 year swr will be in the 2% range? William Bernstein seems to think that future returns will be lower and that 2% would be safe. Bogle, Buffett and others seem to be predicting low stock returns. If we truly had hundreds of independent data points supporting a 4% swr I would be more comfortable. Since p/e ratios became higher than ever before, I don't see why other never-before events like a 2% swr would be impossible. In fact, with stock valuations at previously unattained levels during the bubble I would think that it would be likely that future returns would be low.
Have fun.

Ataloss
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Post by hocus »

Please realize that I'm no statistician or mathematician, but I'm trying to understand just what the objections to the SWR studies are, and I still don't quite get it.

Andrew61:

Looking at these two links might help:

http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=17775322

and

http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=17775982

The first link notes Datasnooper's charge that there are only four independent data points examined in the intercst study, not 130, and that four data points do not provide a statistially valid result. In the second link, intercst acknowledges that this is so. He knows that his study does not tell investors investing today the true safe withdrawal rate. He's just joshin' with us all a little when he says otherwise on internet discussion boards.

As for what to do given that the intercst study doesn't provide the right answer, my thought is that aspiring early retirees should look at all the data bearing on the question that is currently available. Not all of the data needed is available, so no one can give a definitive final answer to the question of what is the true safe withdrawal rate. But it's possible by looking at all the data that is available to come up with an answer a lot closer to the mark than the one given in the intercst study.

There is no one safe withdrawal rate anyway. The true SWR varies from time to time and from investor to investor. What we need to do is accumulate all the relevant data, ask hard questions about it, and obtain as good a fix on the question as is possible at this time. You are not going to know a number that is "100 percent safe" for at least another two or three decades, if ever, in my estimation.

But you can learn a lot more about the realities of SWRs by adding to what you know from the intercst study rather than by accepting that study as the final word on the subject. My approach is to make use of what the intercst study reveals from its treatment of the aspects of the question it examines, and then factor in as best as possible for all the many aspects of the question that study ignores.
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Post by raddr »

Hi Andrew,

I'm kind of lost here -- I thought one of the main objections raised on this board regarding the SWR studies was that they didn't include enough data points to be statistically valid. Now that the TMF REHP's leader has added more data points, it appears that what he did wasn't quite what you guys had in mind.

Good question. The fact that he added more data points really means little or nothing since he is essentially taking the same data and just slicing it up more. A good analogy, I think, would be slicing a pie. You can slice it into 2 pieces or 20 pieces but you still have the same pie. The extra data points do you no good unless they are derived from new data.

My question: Just how would you have constructed these studies differently in order to obtain what you would regard as better, more complete data? If the new data added doesn't cut it in your eyes, then what does?

I really have no problem with the study's construction, just the interpretation. I haven't checked all of his SWR's for 30, 40, or more years but I have no doubt that the historical data is accurate as far as it goes. The problem is that he, and others, are trying to make way too much out of a very limited data set. IOW, saying something like "the 100% safe withdrawal rate for a 30 year period is 3.94%" is ridiculous. It may have been safe in the past but if history is even the slightest bit different going forward, which is a vitual certainty, then the SWR could be very different. I did a study earlier showing that if you randomly swapped only 2 years out of the last 130 and kept the other 128 exdactly the same the SWR could've been less than 3% rather than 4%:

http://nofeeboards.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=119

I'm also not sure why the "overlap" of most of the 30-year periods covered in the studies detracts from the studies' value. Starting one's retirement only a few years earlier or later can lead to dramatically different results, despite the overlap -- no?

For example, compare a 30-year retirement period starting at the end of 1929 to a 30-year retirement period starting at the end of 1932. The overlap of those two periods -- in terms of "data points" -- is some 90 percent, yet aren't the terminal values of the portfolio drastically different (assuming one started in both cases with the same initial portfolio value and maintained the 75/25 allocation throughout)?

Good observation. This just points out the fallacy in trying to determine a SWR with too much precision. The fact that there is a significant difference in two SWR determinations despite the two periods sharing 90% of the data means to me that if they shared no data then the dispersion of historical SWRs would be even more extreme. IOW, if you had 100 nonoverlapping data points the dispersion of SWRs would likely be from something like 2 or 2.5% up to 12 or 13% rather than the rather 4-10% dispersion you get with the overlapped data. This makes a big difference at the margins of the data which is where the SWR lies.

Unfortunately, we'll need another 3000 years of market of history to get 100 nonoverlapped data points for 30 year payout periods. :wink:


You refer to "independent" data points which you say are required for proper statistical analysis. How would you apply that concept to be specific to the SWR studies? Please realize that I'm no statistician or mathematician, but I'm trying to understand just what the objections to the SWR studies are, and I still don't quite get it.

The only way you get independent data points is with nonoverlapped periods which means you only have 3 or 4 points to work with - way too few to do you any good, statistically speaking.

The bottom line to me is that going forward no one really knows what the SWR will be. I think that the data would support something in the range of, say, 2-5% at current market valuations. Trying to get a more precise number from limited historical data is IMO silly. Thinking that 4% is "safe" going forward just because it was in the limited past is very dangerous thinking.
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Post by BenSolar »

I don't think it is quite a complete waste of time, but the 'It's all been looked at, now' tone is not helpful. I fully agree that the implied precision of two decimal places is absurd.

I'm glad to have those figures out, though. I think that the move, from a 'historical' 30 year SWR of 4.3 (as he used to calculate it, or 4.26 to be precise :roll:) to 4.1 as he currently calculates the January figure, to 3.9 when you start from Sept 16, 1929, is a slightly significant one.

One thing that is in the data, but is not in the study, is how the so-called 'optimal' stock/FI allocation changes with these new data points. Looking at the Sept start date and a 30 year withdrawal, you improve the h-SWR up to 4.0% by switching to a 50/50 distribution.

That points to an important consideration: when you are considering the worst case scenarios, diversification becomes more and more important. Not a lesson that you hear from intercst, eh?
ataloss wrote: Is intercst saying that it is impossible that a future 30 year swr will be in the 2% range?


No, he won't let you pin him down to that. If you try to, he always goes into his 'catastrophe' defense: i.e. an asteroid can always hit, then your SWR is 0.
andrew61 wrote: The overlap of those two periods -- in terms of "data points" -- is some 90 percent, yet aren't the terminal values of the portfolio drastically different


I think that there is definitely some validity to this point. The h-SWRs are less correlated than looking strictly at # of years overlapping might indicate. However, I believe that some have looked at the correlation of h-SWRs year to year, and there is a strong correlation. (Anyone know a good link?) I bet that once you get out to where they are sharing 1/2 their years or less there is little correlation.

This would be useful to study further, I think. Maybe we have the equivalent of 10, 20 or more independent 30 year periods instead of just 3 or 4.

Just some thoughts.
B.
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for." - Epicurus
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Post by hocus »

One thing that is in the data, but is not in the study, is how the so-called 'optimal' stock/FI allocation changes with these new data points. Looking at the Sept start date and a 30 year withdrawal, you improve the h-SWR up to 4.0% by switching to a 50/50 distribution. That points to an important consideration: when you are considering the worst case scenarios, diversification becomes more and more important.

BenSolar:

I think this is an outstanding point. It was lost to a lot of people on the old board because, when you brought it up, there were a bunch of junk posts put up to distract people's attention. All analytical roads seem to head to this same conclusion, that diversification is key. It's amazing how he was able to look at data that is screaming out one conclusion and use it for so long in support of a completely contrary conclusion (that it is "optimal" to avoid diversification).

Maybe we have the equivalent of 10, 20 or more independent 30 year periods instead of just 3 or 4.

I don't understand the statistical realities well enough to have a strong personal opinion on this question. My inclination, however, is to presume that raddr and datasnooper know what they are talking about. I also think it is significant that intercst himself acknowledged the problem of insufficient independent data points when the datasnooper comment was quoted to him. I hope we will be able to explore this particular question in a bit more depth in days to come.
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Post by raddr »

Hi Ben,

However, I believe that some have looked at the correlation of h-SWRs year to year, and there is a strong correlation. (Anyone know a good link?) I bet that once you get out to where they are sharing 1/2 their years or less there is little correlation.

This would be useful to study further, I think. Maybe we have the equivalent of 10, 20 or more independent 30 year periods instead of just 3 or 4.

I think I was the one who put out the year-to-year correlation numbers. You are right that the correlations decrease as less data points are shared. The SWR autocorrelations look like this (yearly data, 30 yr. periods): 1: 0.88
3: 0.64
5: 0.40
10: -0.14
15: -0.40
20: -0.27
30: 0.09

As you can see, the autocorrelations go negative around year 10, peak somewhere around year 15 then gradually move to essentially zero at year 30 as you would expect. I suspect that the fairly strong negative autocorrelation at year 15 is probably due to mean reversion though I can't prove it.

Bottom line: there is less data dependency the farther out you get but it is still there.

Maybe we have the equivalent of 10, 20 or more independent 30 year periods instead of just 3 or 4.

This was discussed a while back and IIRC I thought that we probably had the informational content equivalency of about 10-12 "independent" data points since clearly the data doesn't completely overlap. Even still, this is pitifully few data points for any type of statistical analysis, particularly at the edges. Using my earlier analogy, this would be like trying to figure out a player's batting average - in bad years only (the equivalent of the SWR) - from observing only 10-12 at bats.
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Post by BenSolar »

Crud, just lost a post to a 'Page cannot be displayed' error when I went to preview. :(Oh well ... briefly recreated below.

Hi hocus and raddr.

hocus wrote:
I don't understand the statistical realities well enough to have a strong personal opinion on this question. My inclination, however, is to presume that raddr and datasnooper know what they are talking about. I hope we will be able to explore this particular question in a bit more depth in days to come.


I definitely agree that there is a problem. I'm interested in looking into the issue more though. I'm no stats expert either ...

raddr wrote:
As you can see, the autocorrelations go negative around year 10, peak somewhere around year 15 then gradually move to essentially zero at year 30 as you would expect. I suspect that the fairly strong negative autocorrelation at year 15 is probably due to mean reversion though I can't prove it.


Very interesting. I'd be interested in seeing graph chart of those autocorrelations by year out if you could produce one pretty easily, but don't bother if it's any trouble. Very interesting how you get the persistent negative autocorrelation in later years.
This was discussed a while back and IIRC I thought that we probably had the informational content equivalency of about 10-12 "independent" data points since clearly the data doesn't completely overlap.


Was that discussion on the MSn Index funds board? I may go dig it up. Was the 10-12 data point estimate pretty much a rough guess? Or do you know of statistical methodology that can be brought to bear on this issue? Of course even if it is the equivalent of 25-30 independent points, that is still too small a number to be confident with.

Thanks,
Ben
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for." - Epicurus
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Post by JWR1945 »

Andrew61

There are several ways to back up what raddr and the others have said. One way to understand what is going on is to use dory36's safe withdrawal rate calculator at: www.capn-bill.com/fire/ It is easy to use. It uses the same information as the Retire Early Home Page calculator (but without the new monthly breakouts). Look at the detailed results for a variety of withdrawal rates and time periods. Use 4.5%, 5%, 6% withdrawal rates, withdrawal periods of 30, 40 and 50 years and stock allocations of 50%, 65% and 80%.

The results are clear and visual. Failures are in red. Failures are grouped together. They are not randomly distributed. They cluster around the early 1900s, the Great Depression years (1929 and the 1930s) and the 1960s and early 1970s. I do not know the details about the early 1900s. It is easy to identify the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. It is also easy to recognize the effects of the high inflation/stagflation years.

Adding to raddr's pie analogy, consider two sets of data. In the first set you record stock prices every minute inside of a single 5-hour period. That has 300 data points. In the second set you use weekly stock prices published in Barron's over a 5-year period. That has 260 data points. The information in each set is different. It is not simply 300 data points versus 260.

Various safe withdrawal rate approaches and their calculators are complementary. I have already posted an overview on this board with my post FAQ starter kit. I wrote that in support of hocus's the Safe Withdrawal Rate investigations. They are scheduled to start in mid-January of next year.

As for making projections in this era of historically high valuations, I prefer to rely on stock market earnings (using Professor Shiller's ten-year averages and reflected in his P/E10 data). My hypothesis (i.e., guess) is that stock market earnings support the true safety of withdrawal rates. The peak of the historical range of the SP500 P/E10 ratio is just below 25. There have been only a couple of brief exceptions prior to the 1990s. My hypothesis is that the actual safe withdrawal rate will be close to (25/the current SP500 P/E10 value when over 25)*(the historically based numbers around 4%). That is, the earnings (averaged over the last ten years) that support a 4% withdrawal rate correspond to a P/E10 of 25.

Here is another thought. The SP500 P/E10 peaked at 44 in 2000. If my hypothesis is correct, a safe withdrawal rate for 2000 would have been around 2.3%.

This is just one of the many issues that we will address next month.

Have fun.

John R.
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Post by BenSolar »

JWR1945 wrote:
As for making projections in this era of historically high valuations, I prefer to rely on stock market earnings (using Professor Shiller's ten-year averages and reflected in his P/E10 data). My hypothesis (i.e., guess) is that stock market earnings support the true safety of withdrawal rates.


And I just wanted to say "Me too!".

Ben
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for." - Epicurus
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Post by raddr »

I'd be interested in seeing graph chart of those autocorrelations by year out if you could produce one pretty easily, but don't bother if it's any trouble.

Unfortunately, it would be pretty hard to do. :cry: I don't have an automated way to calculate the data - I had to do the few points presented by hand. :wink:

Was that discussion on the MSn Index funds board? I may go dig it up. Was the 10-12 data point estimate pretty much a rough guess?

I can't remember if it was at this board or at MSN. And yes, it is definitely is a rough guess. :)


Or do you know of statistical methodology that can be brought to bear on this issue?

No, I don't. That's the problem with overlapping data.

Of course even if it is the equivalent of 25-30 independent points, that is still too small a number to be confident with.

Bingo
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Post by raddr »

To further address the question of how significant a few data points are I did a little experiment. I postulated that we could take the SWR from either every 8th or 5th starting year for a 30 year pay out period starting in 1871 which yields 13 and 19 data points, respectively, which we will treat as "independent" even though there is still a lot of data overlap.

Applying the t-test to both sets of data points I get:

13 points (every 8th year SWR starting 1872):

9.5%
7.9%
6.9%
6.4%
6.1%
5.1%
9.4%
5.8%
5.5%
8.5%
8.8%
5.5%
4.5%

mean = 6.64% (5.4-7.8% = 95% confidence level for the mean)

19 points (every 5th year SWR starting 1876):

9.1%
7.5%
7.0%
6.7%
6.4%
5.6%
4.7%
4.8%
5.7%
10.0%
7.5%
5.0%
5.5%
7.5%
7.8%
9.5%
6.1%
5.4%
4.3%

mean = 6.62% (5.8-7.4% = 95% confidence level for the mean)

I then ran two 1000-period simulations centered at the upper and lower confidence bounds for each distribution set. For example, for the 13 point set above I calibrated my simulator to yield average SWRs of 5.4% and 7.8% respectively. This yields failure rates of 28% and 1.5% for 4% annual withdrawals, respectively.

For the 19 point set I calibrated my simulator to yield average SWRs of 5.8% and 7.4% respectively. This yields failure rates of 21% and 1.7% for 4% annual withdrawals, respectively.

What does this mean? With these few data points the future failure probability at a 4%withdrawal is probably somewhere between 1-2% and 20-30% if you can treat these data points as independent. IOW, even if we ignore the data overlap past the 5 or 8 year mark in each 30 year period and future market rates of return and volatility stay about the same then the failure rate at the lower limits of the probability distribution (i.e. the SWR) would be between about 1% and 30%. If rates of return or volatility are not the same going forward (highly likely) then the range of probabilities would be even greater. We need MANY more years of data to get any kind of reasonable accuracy in determining a SWR!
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Post by hocus »

Even if we ignore the data overlap past the 5 or 8 year mark in each 30 year period and future market rates of return and volatility stay about the same then the failure rate at the lower limits of the probability distribution (i.e. the SWR) would be between about 1% and 30%. If rates of return or volatility are not the same going forward (highly likely) then the range of probabilities would be even greater. We need MANY more years of data to get any kind of reasonable accuracy in determining a SWR!

raddr:

Where have you been all my life?

I'm heading over to the Motley Fool site to see if there is a way that I could put your admission fee on my credit card. That way, you will at least have the option of posting at the REHP board for the next 12 months. The decision whether to do so will remain yours, of course, but I get sick thinking that a crummy $30 might be standing in the way of the community over there gaining access to this sort of insight.
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Post by wanderer »

hocus -

having to pay to share what i learned as a big 5 auditor, expat and successful FIer on the express schedule (12 yrs) is reallly irritating. in the process bringing additional eyes to that gentleman's site is not what i would do with my free time. i say, make 'em come here... es, get your trigger finger ready...:wink:

wanderer
regards,

wanderer

The field has eyes / the wood has ears / I will see / be silent and hear
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Post by hocus »

in the process bringing additional eyes to that gentleman's site is not what i would do with my free time.

Wanderer:

There is a flaw in your logic. The site does not belong to the gentleman you are referring to here. It belongs to the community that congregates there. If you congregate there, it belongs to you!

I say, make 'em come here

I see no downside to inviting them to come here. ElSupremo has created a wonderful resource for us, and I much appreciate it. At least with this board available, we don't have to worry that the tactics being practiced at the REHP board are going to leave people with no place whatsoever to learn what they need to learn. If the REHP board continues to sink, this one will continue to rise. That's a good thing.

But the best thing is to arrange things so that both boards rise. That's what I want to see happen, and I am going to try in months to come to convince some people here to help me with this little project of mine. I'll never propose anything that will take anything away from this place, which is quickly becoming a most valuable resource in its own right. But I do believe that there are things that a TMF board, run according to TMF posting rules, can add to the equation, and I could use some help in trying to transform today's daydream into tomorrow's reality.

raddr: I have learned that I need your first name, last name, and e-mail address to pay you up at TMF. I'll change my profile here to allow you to send me an e-mail with that information. Please do so promptly so that I won't be forced to resort to any rough stuff (a joke!).
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Post by raddr »

hocus,

Thanks for your very nice remarks and TMF membership offer. I must, however, decline rejoining TMF. Recently I signed up for the 30 free trial to see what was going on over there and, frankly, I was appalled. Not only did I see ridiculous attacks on you as a person but on others as well. In addition there is so much OT nonsense and marxist propaganda, well, I just can't stand to look at it much more. There are still posts worth reading over there but I don't feel like spending time wading through the mess to find them.

I truly believe that the cream of the crop from the REHP are posting here now. I very much enjoy being able to put up posts like I've done in this thread and not be personally attacked, ridiculed with asteroid comments, demagoguery, condescension, etc.

Mind you I'm not one who ducks debate. In fact I'd be bored silly if everyone agreed with me and didn't challenge me with questions and comments but I want it to be done the way it is done here, with respect and professionalism. I don't do well when personally attacked and simply won't tolerate it.

You are welcome to post links at TMF to anything I post here at NFB and anyone who wants can come over here to discuss the issues in an adult manner under the watchful eye of our fearless leader, ES. :wink:

I admire your allegiance to TMF especially considering what they've put you through. I agree with wanderer that we've got such a good thing going here that we can do just fine on our own. I'd love to see any of the civil posters at TMF come here and get in on a great discussion forum.
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Post by hocus »

I agree with wanderer that we've got such a good thing going here that we can do just fine on our own.

OK, that's fair enough, raddr.

But I'll get you in the end.
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Post by ElSupremo »

Greetings FIRE boarders:)

What an excellent thread! While I will be happy if I can retire at all,:wink: this is just great stuff!

wanderer:
es, get your trigger finger ready...


I was born ready baby! :wink:By the way, I never thought the middle east was a monument. I just always thought it was in the middle! :?

raddr:
Your last few posts pretty much sum up what I've tried to accomplish with this site. Don't ever doubt the appreciation I have for your help in getting this thing off the ground. Anything I would try to write here would be pathetic compared to what you really deserve so I'll just say THANKS!

Hocus:
OK, that's fair enough, raddr.
But I'll get you in the end.


You'll have to pry him out of my cold dead hands!!! :x

I hereby grant the FIRE board legendary status at NFB. I'll change our welcome message appropriately. I never spent much time at the REHP. Now I see what I've been missing! :D
"The best things in life are FREE!"

www.nofeeboards.com
raddr
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Joined: Mon Nov 25, 2002 3:25 am
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Post by raddr »

ES,

Don't ever doubt the appreciation I have for your help in getting this thing off the ground. Anything I would try to write here would be pathetic compared to what you really deserve so I'll just say THANKS!

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you starting the MSN site and wanderer ("super recruiter" :wink:) inviting me over. The above words, coming from you especially, made my day :D

What makes this site so special is the high standards you expect from anyone who posts here. The vast majority of internet discussion boards (not just the REHP) quickly become dominated by a few trolls who just like to irritate others and disrupt meaningful discussions.

I had all but given up on finding a FIRE board where a high level exchange of ideas could take place until you graciously allowed us to have one on the MSN Index board and then here. It takes a board moderator who enforces proper adult behavior to make something like this work. You're the hero here ES. Thanks for giving us a proper home!
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