You got it wrong. You imputed thoughts and opinions that do not exist. I have made this recommendation all along. Not only do I recommend downloading the report (it only cost $5.00) but hocus has endorsed that recommendation for a long time. It goes back almost to May 13, 2002.
It is a fine report. It is useful as a stand alone document. Where you run into trouble is in the claims based upon that report. Many such claims are outrageous. But the report it self is very much worth reading. It contains some valuable information. hocus has said similar things many times in the past. Again, it has to do with the application of the study, not the study itself. Let's not lose our objectivity.
JWR I have to object to this (in a forum where my post can't be deleted for lack of groupthink.)
I have devoted 6 months of my life to arguing with hocus that Trinity and REHP were valid studies but that fully accepting that application of the resultant number to the future was questionable. Clearly I am an idiot for making the point repeatedly to hocus as if the same hadn't been done endlessly on REHP until his abrupt exit from that forum.
You said:
ataloss has confused the definition of Safe Withdrawal Rates with their context and applications. It is quite difficult to come up with a useful and precise definition. It is critically important to avoid a variety of pathological cases. The points of contention have already been addressed. 7/22
I said:
Here we differ. I maintain that the trinity study, rehp study and others were valid (that is they contain no errors) but that with changes in expected returns mean that we should not blindly apply these historically safe withdrawal rates to the future. 7/22
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Not only do I recommend downloading the report (it only cost $5.00) but hocus has endorsed that recommendation for a long time.
hocus, have you actually read any of the original studies? I read the intercst study when I first came to the TMF board in 1999. I haven't read any others since. Hocus 7/19/03
You don't need to read the studies to gain a good sense of how the methodology works. I don't understand the details of how these things are put together. I couldn't put one together myself if you offered me $1 million to do so. But I think I have a good sense of how the conventional methodology works in a conceptual sense. All of my claims are rooted in a belief that the concepts being applied are wrongheaded, not that some particular researcher got a detail wrong here or there. Hocus 7/23/03
I have admitted to not speaking or understanding hocusian discourse. Probably a deficiency on my part. I didn't understand him to be recommending reading the studies.
Then there is this astonishing indication that hocus has no idea of the methodology of the historical studies that he has been criticizing:
What the conventional analysis tells you, I believe, is the average SWR over a long period of time. If you properly calculated all the SWRs for each of the past 100 years, added them together, and then divideded by 100, I believe that the number you would get would be something close to 4. I guess it's good to know that number. But that number is not the SWR as defiined for purposes of SWR analysis.
Hocus 7/21/03
Have fun.
Ataloss