Frustrated with idiots

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Frustrated with idiots

Post by Indices » Mon Sep 05, 2011 6:09 pm

On this other forum I frequent (you may have heard of it), there is a belief that stock returns will outpace all other asset classes forever. How f***ing stupid do you have to be to believe that? Has the world gone mad? Very frustrating.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by moda0306 » Mon Sep 05, 2011 7:04 pm

Even if they're right, hedging with PP assets seems to be the best way to actually calm the volatility of your portfolio AND increase returns.  Gold is one phenominal way to hold a small amount of something to "calm" your stock portfolio where it would often take a lot more short-term bonds or cash.  

The PP demonstrates Modern Portfolio Theory at its best.

If one were to own 50% stocks and 50% bonds from 1971 until today and rebalance annually, they'd have had much less volatility and would have about 11.5% return, which is more than either of them on their own.

Saying that stocks will do better in the long run is like saying the Quarterback is the most important position in football.  You may be correct (but if you really thought about it may realize it's a bit presumtuous and probably irrelevent given our most lucrative timeframe in life), but putting Brett Favre at every position is a recipe for failure.  

While most applications of it are probably flawed, understanding and conceptualizing the principle of Modern Portfoli Theory is one of the building blocks to successful investing.
Last edited by moda0306 on Mon Sep 05, 2011 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by Indices » Mon Sep 05, 2011 7:50 pm

I just am amazed that such a simple premise, that the future is totally unknowable, is too hard for people on THAT forum to comprehend. It is really bizarre to me. One person said that I randomly picked 50 per cent for no apparent reason. Can someone possibly be that stupid? And most people THAT forum have graduate degrees. Really unbelievable.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by FarmerD » Mon Sep 05, 2011 8:46 pm

Indices wrote: On this other forum I frequent (you may have heard of it), there is a belief that stock returns will outpace all other asset classes forever. How f***ing stupid do you have to be to believe that? Has the world gone mad? Very frustrating.
They are correct of course.  For example, From 1929 - 1932 you would have lost about 80% of your money.  Twenty five years later, you would have made it back and by the 1970's an all stock portfolio would probably have beaten other asset classes. 

So yes, over any 40 year moving period, they are correct ;)
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by Indices » Mon Sep 05, 2011 8:58 pm

FarmerD wrote:
Indices wrote: On this other forum I frequent (you may have heard of it), there is a belief that stock returns will outpace all other asset classes forever. How f***ing stupid do you have to be to believe that? Has the world gone mad? Very frustrating.
They are correct of course.  For example, From 1929 - 1932 you would have lost about 80% of your money.  Twenty five years later, you would have made it back and by the 1970's an all stock portfolio would probably have beaten other asset classes. 

So yes, over any 40 year moving period, they are correct ;)
That is another concern I laid out. Even if I am wrong, history has shown it is possible to have decades of poor returns from stocks until a bull market return. An investor cannot wait 40 years for healthy returns to his stocks again.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by Tortoise » Mon Sep 05, 2011 9:14 pm

Indices wrote: Can someone possibly be that stupid? And most people THAT forum have graduate degrees. Really unbelievable.
Most of the time, formal education serves more to solidify dogma rather than sharpen critical thinking ability.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by Gumby » Mon Sep 05, 2011 9:17 pm

I'm not entirely sure its their faults. The retail investing industry depends on everyone being brainwashed into a certain kind of investment strategy. The media just passes the brainwashing along.

Think about it... If you're an investment advisor, and you're selling fees and management, you're not going to suggest that your clients take 5%, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% of their wealth and put in into instruments that don't generate any fees are you? Of course not.
Last edited by Gumby on Mon Sep 05, 2011 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by MediumTex » Mon Sep 05, 2011 11:55 pm

Gumby wrote: I'm not entirely sure its their faults. The retail investing industry depends on everyone being brainwashed into a certain kind of investment strategy. The media just passes the brainwashing along.
People believe what they want to believe.

Reality often doesn't play that large a role in shaping beliefs.

It takes a long time to fully absorb this concept (it took me a long time anyway).

When I was younger I imagined that I would grow into a type of shared group rationality that I could enjoy with other mature people who had successfully purged their minds of dumb thoughts.

What I have found instead is that life for many people is like peeling an onion made up of nothing but layer after layer of irrational beliefs and ideas.  It has no end and there is never any real progress in breaking out of certain counterproductive habits of thought.

I believe that the genius of modern advertising is in fully understanding and exploiting the process I am describing above.  They understand that if something is delivered cleverly enough, many people really will believe just about anything (including that stocks are always the best investment).  Until such people are really ready to hear something outside of their own habitual way of thinking, many good ideas will strike them as nonsense.  As an example, the ease with which bright people can dismiss the PP always surprises me.  I can tell that the concept never even has a chance to get traction.  It just hits the wall of their mind and bounces off, leaving no impression at all.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by stone » Tue Sep 06, 2011 3:16 am

Medium Tex, is there any common thread to the people that the PP does appeal to? We seem to be a refreshingly diverse bunch on here or am I wrong about that? It is the first non-cash way of saving that I've given a go to but clearly you are very experienced with financial stuff. One thing that has struck me is that I haven't got the impression that many of us work in the finance industry. I was reassured to read HB-reader say that he used to work for the US Treasury. That suggests that at least one person who has professional insight holds a PP. I was slightly spooked by the idea that PP holders are a small clique with a wrong headed group think. Perhaps the issue is that people who can be bothered to look into how finance works tend to be people who want a gambling buzz and so the PP does not appeal to them. The PP meets the aspirations of the vast majority of savers who don't want a gambling buzz BUT such people typically have better things to do than to look under the lid of finance and so just stay in cash or get ripped off by financial advisors or whatever.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by FarmerD » Tue Sep 06, 2011 8:22 am

MediumTex wrote:
When I was younger I imagined that I would grow into a type of shared group rationality that I could enjoy with other mature people who had successfully purged their minds of dumb thoughts.

What I have found instead is that life for many people is like peeling an onion made up of nothing but layer after layer of irrational beliefs and ideas.  It has no end and there is never any real progress in breaking out of certain counterproductive habits of thought.
I used to believe in what I was taught in high school, college, grad school, the evening news, etc.  In the past 10 years or so, my faith in modern medicine has been shattered.  My understanding of history has been turned upside down.  My old beliefs of economics and investing has changed radically.  My faith in environmental science is gone.  My trust in any kind of expert opinion no longer exists. 
When you start looking behind the scenes objectively and logically, looking at the evidence, you conclude most of what you've been taught is little more than opinion and advertising masquerading as "fact.".  For example, after my deployment to the Middle East, I was diagnosed as a Type 1 diabetic.  I was told to adopt a diet low in fat and high in whole grains.  This idea is pushed by pharma and their bought off spokesmen like the AMA and the ADA.  Yet even a small amount of research debunks this.  Result: I tossed all my medications and insulin, went low carb, and I now have normal blood sugars.  I could give many other examples.
 
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by Indices » Tue Sep 06, 2011 8:33 am

I expected more out of THAT forum. I thought the idea of equal weighting of assets was pretty reasonable. Otherwise how would the permanent portfolio work?
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by stone » Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:07 am

Farmer D, I'm fascinated by your low carb cure for typeI diabetes. Why does pharma push whole grains? How does pharma gain? What does your doctor say about it?
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by stone » Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:12 am

Farmer D, I just googled and got: "Due to failure to achieve control twenty-two patients with type 1 diabetes with symptomatic fluctuating blood glucose started on a diet limited to 70-90 g carbohydrates per day and were taught to match the insulin doses accordingly. The caloric requirements were covered by an increased intake of protein and fat. The purpose was to reduce the blood glucose fluctuations, the rate of hypoglycaemia and to improve HbA1c. After three and 12 months the rate of hypoglycaemia was significantly lowered from 2.9 + 2.0 to 0.2 + 0.3 and 0.5 + 0.5 episodes per week respectively. The HbA1c level was significantly lowered from 7.5 + 0.9 % to 6.4 + 0.7 % after three months and was till after 12 months 6.4 + 0.8 %. The meal insulin requirements were reduced from 21.1 + 6.7 I.U./day to 12.7 + 3.5 I.U./day and 12.4 + 2.6 I.U./day after three and 12 months respectively.
Furthermore the triglyceride level was significantly lowered whereas the levels for total cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol were unchanged. Conclusion: the present report shows that a 70-90 g carbohydrate diet is a feasible long-term alternative in the treatment of type 1 diabetes and leads to improved glycaemic control."

I guess that is the kind of stuff that persuaded you. What baffles me is that Pharma goes against this. Insulin is off patent isn't it?
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by Gumby » Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:06 am

MediumTex wrote:I believe that the genius of modern advertising is in fully understanding and exploiting the process I am describing above.  They understand that if something is delivered cleverly enough, many people really will believe just about anything
Merrill Lynch Commercial (Ogilvy and Mather in 1971)
EF Hutton Commercial (70s-80s)
Smith Barney Commercial (80s)
Dean Witter Commercial (1990)

Now, imagine of this kind of ridiculous advertising/brainwashing on 3 or 4 generations of American families — compounded by media reports and books on how to harness the retail investment industry. Your grandfather believes stocks are the best long-term investment. Your father believes stocks are the best long-term investment. Everything we read and watch says that stocks are the best long-term investment. It's hard to break out of that. With each crisis, investors feel more and more confused — causing them to seek market gurus and investment houses even more. And all the retail investment industry has to do is keep the cycle of brainwashing going to keep people coming back for more.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by stone » Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:20 am

Gumby, is it the complexity of stocks combined with the apparent tangibility that makes them the chosen vector for the finance industry? There are seemingly endless opaque ways in which the finance industry can profit from selling stocks to retail customers.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by Gumby » Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:32 am

stone wrote: Gumby, is it the complexity of stocks combined with the apparent tangibility that makes them the chosen vector for the finance industry? There are seemingly endless opaque ways in which the finance industry can profit from selling stocks to retail customers.
I'm no expert in this area...and even if I were, my opinion wouldn't be worth anything. :) But, I think from an advertising perspective, stocks are probably easier to sell to investors. When you sell stocks to investors, you're selling them a piece of America and all it promises. You're selling a chance to shape your future and make it more enjoyable — a way to provide for your family. It's extremely romantic, fantastical, mysterious and tangible. Stocks go "up," which is easy to comprehend. But they are scary and tough, so you either need advice or a complex means to access them. Compare that to Bonds and it gets more confusing. (Oddly enough, Bonds used to be heavily advertised in the first half of the 20th century — not so much anymore.)
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by Indices » Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:35 am

Gumby wrote:
stone wrote: Gumby, is it the complexity of stocks combined with the apparent tangibility that makes them the chosen vector for the finance industry? There are seemingly endless opaque ways in which the finance industry can profit from selling stocks to retail customers.
I'm no expert in this area...and even if I were, my opinion wouldn't be worth anything. :) But, I think from an advertising perspective, stocks are probably easier to sell to investors. When you sell stocks to investors, you're selling them a piece of America and all it promises. You're selling a chance to shape your future and make it more enjoyable — a way to provide for your family. It's extremely romantic, fantastical, mysterious and tangible. Stocks go "up," which is easy to comprehend. But they are scary and tough, so you either need advice or a complex means to access them. Compare that to Bonds and it gets more confusing. (Oddly enough, Bonds used to be heavily advertised in the first half of the 20th century — not so much anymore.)
Stocks are really exciting because they've produced good returns for so many past decades, since the late 40s. If you read John Bogle's book Commonsense on Mutual Funds, it's about 90 per cent stocks with only a passing mention of bonds. People are just enamored with stocks and have created myths around their ability to create wealth and returns.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by Gumby » Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:40 am

Indices wrote:
Gumby wrote:
stone wrote: Gumby, is it the complexity of stocks combined with the apparent tangibility that makes them the chosen vector for the finance industry? There are seemingly endless opaque ways in which the finance industry can profit from selling stocks to retail customers.
I'm no expert in this area...and even if I were, my opinion wouldn't be worth anything. :) But, I think from an advertising perspective, stocks are probably easier to sell to investors. When you sell stocks to investors, you're selling them a piece of America and all it promises. You're selling a chance to shape your future and make it more enjoyable — a way to provide for your family. It's extremely romantic, fantastical, mysterious and tangible. Stocks go "up," which is easy to comprehend. But they are scary and tough, so you either need advice or a complex means to access them. Compare that to Bonds and it gets more confusing. (Oddly enough, Bonds used to be heavily advertised in the first half of the 20th century — not so much anymore.)
Stocks are really exciting because they've produced good returns for so many past decades, since the late 40s. If you read John Bogle's book Commonsense on Mutual Funds, it's about 90 per cent stocks with only a passing mention of bonds. People are just enamored with stocks and have created myths around their ability to create wealth and returns.
Isn't it a bit self fulfilling? When you convince an entire generation of Baby Boomers to invest their wealth in the stock market, guess what happens? It goes up.

...until it doesn't.

The fact is that none of us will never be able to convince the mainstream investors that there are pitfalls to the strategies they've been sold. I read opinions like this...


NYTimes: Why It Shouldn’t Have Been a Lost Decade for Investors

...and I see that people still believe that as long as they can stomach "painful losses," they'll be ok.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by moda0306 » Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:49 am

I recently (when 30 years were yielding 4.4%) was talking to an "asset manager" that uses a blue-chip dividend stock strategy to serve his clients.

He was a smart, honest guy, but at the time thought stocks were a really good deal right now and that bonds looked pretty awful.  Somehow, he had a very low p/e calculated for the S&P at the time, but I didn't dig in onto exactly how many years back he was using for earnings.

I very much disagreed with him, but didn't say anything.  Suffice it to say, he's probably lost at least a bit on his bet, recently.

He also had not-so-kind things to say about Modern Portfolio Theory, thinking he could do much better with "safe stock picking."

I really would like to talk to him again, though I'm sure he'd still have confidence in his strategy.  I think some people get a certain degree of tunnel vision that severely limits their perspective on certain issues that are obvious to people with different experiences.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by FarmerD » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:05 am

stone wrote: Farmer D, I'm fascinated by your low carb cure for typeI diabetes. Why does pharma push whole grains? How does pharma gain? What does your doctor say about it?

In all honesty, despite the opinion of the entire internal medicine department at Wilford Hall Medical Center, I think I'm a type 2 diabetic.

About a year ago, I told my internal medicine doctor I had tossed all my meds.  He was visibly angry at me for doing this - then he pulled up my last round of blood tests.  He almost fell out of his chair.  I then presented his a 10 page bullet paper detailing all my research from the Journal of the American Medical Association, New England Journal of medicine, various websites, etc.  Too his credit he kept an open mind.  He now hands out my paper to his patients.  He also now uses Dr William Bernstein's "Diabetes Solution" as his reference.

If you like I can email you a copy of my paper and you can judge it's validity for yourself. 


To answer your questions quickly:  Whole wheat raises your blood sugar higher and faster than a Snickers bar.  Pharma doesn't want you to control your blood suagr using diet.  They want you to use pharmaceuticals.  Most diabetes drugs are quite dangerous and don't work very well anyway. 
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by stone » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:16 am

FarmerD, I'm not a diabetic but I'm just curious about medicine in general. It is great that you have controlled your diabetes so well. I'm also impressed that your doctor had such an open minded reaction. I wonder whether things would work better if there was no marketing by pharma. Doctors want to use the best drugs. They would find out about good drugs without pharma marketing. It would also save pharma a lot of money. I heard that marketing costs them as much as drug development. I think part of the problem is that corporations don't simply want to be profitable, they want to be bigger. That doesn't make any rational sense but that is the way of the world.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by FarmerD » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:17 am

stone wrote:
I guess that is the kind of stuff that persuaded you. What baffles me is that Pharma goes against this. Insulin is off patent isn't it?
I can show you a dozen studies similiar to this (and I do in my bullet paper).  In one of the main biochemistry texbooks used in medical schools, diabetes is defined in the following way:  "Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disorder of carbohydrate intolerance"

As I often say, while the "official" organizations like the American Diabetes Association, the American heart Association, and the USDA dominate the message provided to mainstream Americans, to those of us who know better, they have become irrelevant. You can see how obviously boneheaded their advice is. I'd go so far as to say that, if you want diabetes, follow the American Diabetes Association diet. If you have diabetes, and you'd like to accelerate complications like kidney disease, heart disease, and neuropathy, then follow the American Diabetes Association diet.- Dr William Davis, Cardiologist
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2008/ ... .html 
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by stone » Tue Sep 06, 2011 11:38 am

Farmer D, I checked out that blog. It is shocking. It seems hard to understand why the US medical insurance companies don't root out that nonsense. Is it possible that they too want people to be sicker?
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by EM2 » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:10 pm

Farmer D

Richard Bernstein, whom I discovered accidentally, probably saved my life.  His own story is fascinating--he's a T1 diabetic himself and was destined to die fairly soon of kidney disease when the first small glucometers became available to hospital emergency rooms (in the 1980's).  An engineer, he bought one and used it to systematically study the effects of various foods on his blood sugar.  He found he could best control his glucose with around 30 grams of carb a day.  No one in the ADA would listen to him, so at the age of 46, he went to medical school, thinking if he had the credentials his discovery would be accepted. Not so, unfortunately. Probably because of the fears of fat--it's necessary to make up the bulk of calories with fat when carbs are used only minimally. 

The comment of his that absolutely convinced me was "small inputs, small errors."  With the ADA- recommended 300 grams of carb a day, there is absolutely no way to accurately match insulin to glucose.  Since hypos are more dangerous than high glucose in the short run, high carb is considered safer.  However, with very small inputs of carb, you can accurately hold your blood sugar to a narrow band, and essentially have normal blood sugar most of the time.  And if you make a mistake, it will be a small and non life-threatening one. 

Thanks so much for bringing this up. I never talk about this with anyone since nobody would be able to understand my eating 70-80% of calories as fat.  At 70, I'm in way, way better health than I was twenty years ago.  And I have none of the common physical problems of my age cohort.
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Re: Frustrated with idiots

Post by MediumTex » Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:14 pm

stone wrote: Farmer D, I checked out that blog. It is shocking. It seems hard to understand why the US medical insurance companies don't root out that nonsense. Is it possible that they too want people to be sicker?
Drug dealers do not want people to ever stop doing drugs.

The medical insurance companies seem to be convinced that it's better to pay $4.00 for a prescription that you don't need than to pay $400 for a medical procedure that you don't need.  The idea of promoting the concept that you don't need anything sort of goes against their ethic of making sure everyone always has some sort of illness, because if they didn't there would be no need for insurance companies, doctors or the pharmaceutical industry.

There is a Chinese saying along the lines of: "No one knows the greatest doctor in the world because his patients are never sick."  Unfortunately, few people seem to grasp the wisdom of this line of thinking.

Most of modern medicine is a cynical scam--we live a lifestyle that makes us sick and then we go to a medical establishment that refuses to treat the real underlying illnesses (i.e., chronic stress, poor diet, and risky behaviors such as alcohol consumption and smoking), but only focuses on symptoms (i.e., diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, depression and anxiety).
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