Outside of about 10 people, I dont think anybody gives a rat's ass.
Say that the Trinity study had never been done. We would all today be planning to take 7 percent withdrawals from our high-percentage stock portfolios, would we not?
The Trinity study (the grand-daddy of conventional SWR studies) changed how informed investors think about withdrawal rates. That study told us something we didn't know before it was issued, and people became able to construct more effective Retire Early strategies as a result.
I submit that the same will ultimately be seen to be true of the data-based SWR tool that JWR1945 and I have developed together. I have worked with this tool for over eight years now, and it is the most powerful tool for discovering effective investing strategies that I have ever discovered. I believe that, like the conventional SWR methodology, this advance in our knowledge of what the historical data says re what is safe is going to allow many thousands of people to achieve safe retirements years sooner.
I am today blocked in what I can tell you about the tool, however. There are hundreds of posts that I have written and never posted. Why? Because we cannot reach agreement on the ABCs of SWR analysis. It is a fundamental principle of SWR analysis that you must look to the historical data to determine what it safe. If I am going to explain how the tool works, I need to be able to have people on board on that basic assumption.
Every time in the past that I have started to explain how the tool works, I have had someone break in and say something to the effect of "Oh, no, the historical data doesn't say that the SWR for stocks is 2 percent, it says 4 percent." If we cannot agree on what the data says, how can we possibly get to the point of discussing strategies that follow from having an informed understanding of what the data says?
We are stuck. If we had never heard the phrase "safe withdrawal rate" before, we would be open to learning all sorts of wonderful things about how to invest more effectively. But we have heard the phrase before, and we have accepted some mistaken ideas as to what the phrase signifies.
I believe that in time we need to get over what we heard about SWRs in the past. There was a time when the conventional methodology was state of the art, when the insights it provided were the best insights to be had. Those days are past. We need to find a way to move forward so that we can begin discussing new and even more exciting insights.
I believe that we are going to make it. I don't believe that we are going to make it this week or this month. I think we all just need to mull over this question from time to time, and over time try to come up with creative and constructive ideas for helping us to get out of the ditch we now find ourselves in on this issue.
The debate should not be about personalities. That sort of stuff is nonsense. I am pretty sure that just about everyone here agrees with me on that. What matters is the subtance, what we can learn about the board project if we can find a way to talk about the SWR topic clearly and accurately and precisely. People of good will who put their minds together to find a way to make it happen will figure out a way to do so. My suggestion for now is that we all just hang in there and continue to do the best that we possibly can until some smart individual steps forward and provides us with the way of proceeding that we need to find to make real progress with this thing.
Make sense?
Say that the Trinity study had never been done. We would all today be planning to take 7 percent withdrawals from our high-percentage stock portfolios, would we not?
The Trinity study (the grand-daddy of conventional SWR studies) changed how informed investors think about withdrawal rates. That study told us something we didn't know before it was issued, and people became able to construct more effective Retire Early strategies as a result.
I submit that the same will ultimately be seen to be true of the data-based SWR tool that JWR1945 and I have developed together. I have worked with this tool for over eight years now, and it is the most powerful tool for discovering effective investing strategies that I have ever discovered. I believe that, like the conventional SWR methodology, this advance in our knowledge of what the historical data says re what is safe is going to allow many thousands of people to achieve safe retirements years sooner.
I am today blocked in what I can tell you about the tool, however. There are hundreds of posts that I have written and never posted. Why? Because we cannot reach agreement on the ABCs of SWR analysis. It is a fundamental principle of SWR analysis that you must look to the historical data to determine what it safe. If I am going to explain how the tool works, I need to be able to have people on board on that basic assumption.
Every time in the past that I have started to explain how the tool works, I have had someone break in and say something to the effect of "Oh, no, the historical data doesn't say that the SWR for stocks is 2 percent, it says 4 percent." If we cannot agree on what the data says, how can we possibly get to the point of discussing strategies that follow from having an informed understanding of what the data says?
We are stuck. If we had never heard the phrase "safe withdrawal rate" before, we would be open to learning all sorts of wonderful things about how to invest more effectively. But we have heard the phrase before, and we have accepted some mistaken ideas as to what the phrase signifies.
I believe that in time we need to get over what we heard about SWRs in the past. There was a time when the conventional methodology was state of the art, when the insights it provided were the best insights to be had. Those days are past. We need to find a way to move forward so that we can begin discussing new and even more exciting insights.
I believe that we are going to make it. I don't believe that we are going to make it this week or this month. I think we all just need to mull over this question from time to time, and over time try to come up with creative and constructive ideas for helping us to get out of the ditch we now find ourselves in on this issue.
The debate should not be about personalities. That sort of stuff is nonsense. I am pretty sure that just about everyone here agrees with me on that. What matters is the subtance, what we can learn about the board project if we can find a way to talk about the SWR topic clearly and accurately and precisely. People of good will who put their minds together to find a way to make it happen will figure out a way to do so. My suggestion for now is that we all just hang in there and continue to do the best that we possibly can until some smart individual steps forward and provides us with the way of proceeding that we need to find to make real progress with this thing.
Make sense?
