Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
"A new study finds that the average investor in all U.S. stock funds earned 3.7% annually over the past 30 years—a period in which the S&P 500 stock index returned 11.1% annually."
I find that very hard to believe. You'd have to work very hard to do that.
Pretty dumb. They were buying BEAT yesterday because Apple was buying Beats audio and apparently many were buying BEAT (completely different company) without bothering to look if it was actually the same company. This is definitely not the first (or second) time this has happened.
Old w(h)ine, new bottle. The simple truth is that most people invest emotionally rather than factually. They also have bills to pay. Has anyone here put aside any investment with the intent of leaving it there for the next 20 years much less 30? Maybe but not likely. There will always be those who chase and those who buy high and sell low. Not everyone has Warren Buffett's checking account to fall back on when the market tanks. Life goes on.
"A new study finds that the average investor in all U.S. stock funds earned 3.7% annually over the past 30 years—a period in which the S&P 500 stock index returned 11.1% annually."
I find that very hard to believe. You'd have to work very hard to do that.
+++++++++++ It is amazing. I guess investors would have had to pile in during 1999 and Jan-March 2000, when sentiment was exuberant.... then sell out towards the latter part of 2002 after they had lost 40+%; buy back in during 2007 when the fear of the 2000-2002 bear market had waned and greed rose again......sell during the last half of 2008 when sentiment got very pessimistic....and stay out until 2012 or 2013 when sentiment picked up again
Same old indexology propaganda with flawed metrics. Amusing in this case that the article itself points out the criticisms of the metric as if the "fairness" by doing so gives it validity to make the usual indexology argument. The metric including the M* investor returns are fundamentally flawed as I have pointed out several times before
They have no information on why funds flowed in or out and just use net flows/assets for computation. Garbage in, garbage out. That sets up the kind of false result exemplified in the above linked post.
It is more interesting to look at why this kind of evangelization persists. After all, we know anecdotally people do all kinds of dumb things, right?
As an analogy, we also know that some people "sin" according to the tenets of any religion. But that is quite different from proclaiming everybody is a sinner (or most are).
These things persist for precisely the same reason "sin" and "repentence" is so necessary for organized religions (as opposed to spiritualism or personal faith). It is the means of influence over and control of the masses. Organized religion preys on the fears and insecurities of the average person by defining "sin" and its "consequences".
The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves and then offer a path of "repentance" that will save them if they follow the religion. This is a very powerful mind control tool. In addition, by casting the society at large as sinners, it makes people feel good about themselves. After all, they are not as bad as the masses, right?
Indexology uses the same trick. Convince people that they are "sinning" in their investing, make them feel they cannot win this way, point to the other "sinners", imply that most people are sinners and perhaps they are too and then offer up the indexing as the repentence.
You can easily spot indexologists as easily as you can spot Jehovah's witnesses. The message always has the "people are dumb in their investing, if you think you are better, perhaps you are just overconfident or ignorant, here is how I found my salvation" and this is repeated over and over again with liberal use of logical fallacies to make the same point.
Index funds have all kinds of great uses and can be used wisely as part of a portfolio. Just as active funds can be. Trading by emotion is bad but this doesn't mean all trading is bad or that all trading is necessarily via emotion (see the sinner imperative and false logic above). Without trading, we would have no price discovery and no markets. Traders make a lot of money over dumb investors. But the latter include indexologists too!
Smart investors are those that reject these forms of religious control, get to know themselves (unfortunately the Dunning-Kruger effect might be a problem here but that seems to be more of a problem for the Indexology witnesses than for an average investor who is more insecure than confident), get to critically analyze and think about information, and leverage their specific advantages (analytical ability or available capital or risk tolerance or lack of liquidity constraints or whatever) to maximize the returns for themselves.
Dumb investors are those that fall for the religious rhetoric.
Old w(h)ine, new bottle. The simple truth is that most people invest emotionally rather than factually. They also have bills to pay. Has anyone here put aside any investment with the intent of leaving it there for the next 20 years much less 30? Maybe but not likely. There will always be those who chase and those who buy high and sell low. Not everyone has Warren Buffett's checking account to fall back on when the market tanks. Life goes on.
I agree with the majority of what you've said. I do have several investments that I'd like to hold for a couple decades, in particular the railroads. Australian co Graincorp is another.
Agree that many fund investors end up harming themselves by chasing hot funds and than selling at precisely the wrong time. The fact that most investors lag the return of the funds they own is pretty well known. However, the statement from the article I quoted earlier seems impossible to substantiate - and is probably flawed.
To begin with, how are they quantifying those "average" investors? Does somebody who owned a fund for a week and than changed his mind and sold carry the same weight as somebody who has owned a fund for 20 years? Do members of investment clubs, who invest perhaps a few hundred dollars apiece, count as much as the guy with 100K invested on his own?
And, how are they defining "U.S. stock funds"? Does this exclude funds with international holdings? Or those with bonds in their mix? Or, are they referring only to the country where the management company resides? In that case, it should be noted that many U.S. fund managers (like PIMCO) are actually foreign owned.
While a valid point about investor behavior is made, the statistical assumptions on which it is based seem suspect.
Same old indexology propaganda with flawed metrics. Amusing in this case that the article itself points out the criticisms of the metric as if the "fairness" by doing so gives it validity to make the usual indexology argument. The metric including the M* investor returns are fundamentally flawed as I have pointed out several times before
The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves and then offer a path of "repentance" that will save them if they follow the religion. This is a very powerful mind control tool. In addition, by casting the society at large as sinners, it makes people feel good about themselves. After all, they are not as bad as the masses, right?
Now who am I to object to a good anti-clerical rant like this (or is it an anti-religious rant in general which you try to weasel out of by way of the occasional disingenuous qualification)? However, the above leaves me confused:
In the second sentence you say, "This is a very powerful mind control tool." The first sentence says, "The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves..." The third sentence says, "...it makes people feel good about themselves." I'm wondering, is it a good mind control tool because it makes people feel bad/insecure about themselves or is it a good mind control tool because it accomplishes the opposite by making people feel good about themselves?
It seems that no matter what it does it manages to be a good mind control tool. On second thought, perhaps this is a good analogy on the misuse of logic by index fanatics and their ilk.
FYI, this comment is provided by someone who is not a member of any organized religion. I do, however, see possible alternate explanations for the idea that all men are sinners to the one given by cman. The attempt at an accurate description of reality comes to mind.
Now who am I to object to a good anti-clerical rant like this (or is it an anti-religious rant in general which you try to weasel out of by way of the occasional disingenuous qualification)?
Obviously, someone whose use of logic is limited to asking the equivalent of "are you trying to weasel out of the charge of beating your wife?"
It is called begging the question.
However, the above leaves me confused:
In the second sentence you say, "This is a very powerful mind control tool." The first sentence says, "The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves..." The third sentence says, "...it makes people feel good about themselves." I'm wondering, is it a good mind control tool because it makes people feel bad/insecure about themselves or is it a good mind control tool because it accomplishes the opposite by making people feel good about themselves?
Since the subject of those statements refer to different aspects of the control, I can see how a superficial reading can be confusing. Perhaps an analogy to the beauty products industry which uses the same mind control can avoid those automatic comprehension blockers to realize what was actually said than what selective quoting can obscure.
Exploiting your insecurities by putting up unrealistic beauty image examples to make you feel bad about yourself is the first step in this mind control. The offering of a solution that is guaranteed to improve your image significantly and so makes you feel better about yourself is the next step. Keeping you hooked on using it by reinforcing that you are better off than most in your situation now (obviously not those earlier examples and hiding that you are doing the same to everyone else relatively) and so making you feel better as long as you are using it is what sustains it.
It seems that no matter what it does it manages to be a good mind control tool. On second thought, perhaps this is a good analogy on the misuse of logic by index fanatics and their ilk.
Putting up a straw argument to knock down and begging the question are the misuse of logic in evidence here.
FYI, this comment is provided by someone who is not a member of any organized religion. I do, however, see possible alternate explanations for the idea that all men are sinners to the one given by cman. The attempt at an accurate description of reality comes to mind.
Whether you are a member or not is irrelevant to the soundness of an argument unless you routinely use that to discredit opposing arguments in which case I understand why you prefer to state it explicitly. However, claiming to have alternatives, suggesting that such alternatives are the reality without actually stating the alternative explanation can be construed as a "weaseling out" argument.
Geez Vert, I must be incredibly dense or just plain dumb. Probably both. Anyway I just thought that cman's initial comment was a simple analogy and a darn good one at that. Preying on people's fears is almost always a definite gotcha.
Same old indexology propaganda with flawed metrics. Amusing in this case that the article itself points out the criticisms of the metric as if the "fairness" by doing so gives it validity to make the usual indexology argument. The metric including the M* investor returns are fundamentally flawed as I have pointed out several times before
They have no information on why funds flowed in or out and just use net flows/assets for computation. Garbage in, garbage out. That sets up the kind of false result exemplified in the above linked post.
It is more interesting to look at why this kind of evangelization persists. After all, we know anecdotally people do all kinds of dumb things, right?
As an analogy, we also know that some people "sin" according to the tenets of any religion. But that is quite different from proclaiming everybody is a sinner (or most are).
These things persist for precisely the same reason "sin" and "repentence" is so necessary for organized religions (as opposed to spiritualism or personal faith). It is the means of influence over and control of the masses. Organized religion preys on the fears and insecurities of the average person by defining "sin" and its "consequences".
The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves and then offer a path of "repentance" that will save them if they follow the religion. This is a very powerful mind control tool. In addition, by casting the society at large as sinners, it makes people feel good about themselves. After all, they are not as bad as the masses, right?
Indexology uses the same trick. Convince people that they are "sinning" in their investing, make them feel they cannot win this way, point to the other "sinners", imply that most people are sinners and perhaps they are too and then offer up the indexing as the repentence.
You can easily spot indexologists as easily as you can spot Jehovah's witnesses. The message always has the "people are dumb in their investing, if you think you are better, perhaps you are just overconfident or ignorant, here is how I found my salvation" and this is repeated over and over again with liberal use of logical fallacies to make the same point.
Index funds have all kinds of great uses and can be used wisely as part of a portfolio. Just as active funds can be. Trading by emotion is bad but this doesn't mean all trading is bad or that all trading is necessarily via emotion (see the sinner imperative and false logic above). Without trading, we would have no price discovery and no markets. Traders make a lot of money over dumb investors. But the latter include indexologists too!
Smart investors are those that reject these forms of religious control, get to know themselves (unfortunately the Dunning-Kruger effect might be a problem here but that seems to be more of a problem for the Indexology witnesses than for an average investor who is more insecure than confident), get to critically analyze and think about information, and leverage their specific advantages (analytical ability or available capital or risk tolerance or lack of liquidity constraints or whatever) to maximize the returns for themselves.
Dumb investors are those that fall for the religious rhetoric.
There is no logical argument here, there are only assertions.
"These things persist for precisely the same reason that 'sin' and 'repentance' is so necessary for organized religions (as opposed to spiritualism or personal faith)." That is an assertion, not a logical argument. No empirical evidence is suggested. You put scare quotes around sin and repentance so what exactly you mean by them here is unknown. You continue, "It is the means of influence over and control of the masses." That is another assertion, not a logical argument. "Organized religion preys on the fears and insecurities of the average person by defining 'sin' and its 'consequences'. That is another assertion. It is not a logical argument. Its empirical meaning is uncertain given that there are many organized religions but no one "Organized religion", and if you mean all organized religions are one in this again the scare quotes around sin and consequences make it unclear what you are talking about. Again no attempt is made to define anything.
"The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves and then off a path of 'repentance' that will save them if they follow the religion." Another assertion, not a logical argument. No attempt at any empirical proof. Scare quotes around repentance making it unclear what is meant by that. No attempt to define it. "This is a very powerful mind control tool." A stronger form of the previous assertion. It's not a logical argument, no empirical proof given or suggested beyond your assertion. "In addition, by casting the society at large as sinners, it makes people feel good about themselves." Another assertion. Not a logical argument, no empirical evidence given. "After all, they are not as bad as the masses, right?" I don't know, are they?
Now who am I to object to a good anti-clerical rant like this (or is it an anti-religious rant in general which you try to weasel out of by way of the occasional disingenuous qualification)?
Obviously, someone whose use of logic is limited to asking the equivalent of "are you trying to weasel out of the charge of beating your wife?"
It is called begging the question.
However, the above leaves me confused:
In the second sentence you say, "This is a very powerful mind control tool." The first sentence says, "The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves..." The third sentence says, "...it makes people feel good about themselves." I'm wondering, is it a good mind control tool because it makes people feel bad/insecure about themselves or is it a good mind control tool because it accomplishes the opposite by making people feel good about themselves?
Since the subject of those statements refer to different aspects of the control, I can see how a superficial reading can be confusing. Perhaps an analogy to the beauty products industry which uses the same mind control can avoid those automatic comprehension blockers to realize what was actually said than what selective quoting can obscure.
Exploiting your insecurities by putting up unrealistic beauty image examples to make you feel bad about yourself is the first step in this mind control. The offering of a solution that is guaranteed to improve your image significantly and so makes you feel better about yourself is the next step. Keeping you hooked on using it by reinforcing that you are better off than most in your situation now (obviously not those earlier examples and hiding that you are doing the same to everyone else relatively) and so making you feel better as long as you are using it is what sustains it.
It seems that no matter what it does it manages to be a good mind control tool. On second thought, perhaps this is a good analogy on the misuse of logic by index fanatics and their ilk.
Putting up a straw argument to knock down and begging the question are the misuse of logic in evidence here.
FYI, this comment is provided by someone who is not a member of any organized religion. I do, however, see possible alternate explanations for the idea that all men are sinners to the one given by cman. The attempt at an accurate description of reality comes to mind.
Whether you are a member or not is irrelevant to the soundness of an argument unless you routinely use that to discredit opposing arguments in which case I understand why you prefer to state it explicitly. However, claiming to have alternatives, suggesting that such alternatives are the reality without actually stating the alternative explanation can be construed as a "weaseling out" argument.
This is tedious for me more than anyone else who goes through it. There was no question, only assertions, so there were no questions for me to beg. Changing the assertions to speculative beauty products does, indeed, change nothing, I agree about that. I'm pointing out that these are all assertions, not logical nor empirical arguments. I don't consider that a Straw Man. I never even hinted that my not being a member of any organized religion was any proof of the validity of what I was saying, the idea of mentioning it was to show that this was no special pleading on my part. Finally, the doctrine of Original Sin is the orthodox opinion of Christianity (I didn't say it was the universal opinion), it must be held by a billion people or so, and I can hardly believe that anyone would deny that there are alternative explanations as to why these things (sin and repentance) are said to exist.
It is quite amusing but also sad to see the results of not having a common framework just like language for two people to propose ideas, thoughts, opinions and inferences and discuss or debate them. It is like not using a common language to speak in to debate an idea. It does explain the level of political discourse in the country. Wish logic could be taught in school along with language to everybody not just to people in the debating club.
Logic is a framework that reasonable people agree on to speak in based on the common understanding and agreement that use of illogic or logical fallacies does not promote truth or understanding as they lead to nonsensical conclusions. Greeks were smart enough to show that logic was independent of any particular idea or topic and so one didn't have to accept a particular idea or opinion to agree to use of logic. Only that contradictions and inconsistencies are bad regardless of where they were found.
Forums like this promote exchange of opinions, commentary, views, experiences, data, etc. Opinions can be valid or invalid. If you disagree with an idea or a thought, as two reasonable people might, you can disagree with it. Just saying I disagree doesn't promote any more understanding, so one can either show with a logical argument why the opinion you are disagreeing with is based on a logical fallacy or can provide a contrasting opinion which presumably does not have its own logical fallacies which would make it invalid. See the thread on the L/S funds for exchange of ideas, opinions and arguments and disagreements between reasonable people all of which can be subjected to a scrutiny of any logical fallacy if one disagrees.
Pointing out logical fallacies IF they exist is the easiest way to debunk an opinion, view or inference because it makes the assertion or opinion or thought invalid. Similarly, if one disagrees with you, you can point out the logical fallacies of that rebuttal to show why it is invalid. This is the common framework reasonable people agree on to have a reasonable exchange of ideas. Without it, there is no reasonable dialog possible.
I posted my views and opinions on the topic. It included a pointer to an argument of why I think the metric is flawed by pointing to a simplified example where the framework would provide a nonsensical conclusion. This is how you debate an idea. One can, of course, try to find a logical fallacy in that argument to rebut.
Similarly, I posted my views on why these kinds of false metrics and conclusions drawn from it exist. That view can be valid or invalid. You can disagree with it and provide an alternative view that is equally valid/invalid or you can show that I am using a logical fallacy in arriving at my view.
For example, one might hypothetically challenge that the analogy is flawed because the article is talking about average person while I am using a universal quantifier of all for sinners and so it is conflating two different things. That is a valid logical argument. Doesn't necessarily mean it is correct. I can provide a logical argument as to why that is not false equivalence in this case and so on. This is how reasonable discussions and debates go each not resorting to logical fallacies.
You, very much like another resident I had an exchange with earlier, unfortunately resort to a form of argumentation that is full of logical fallacies. Whether it is from a lack of understanding of a common framework or intentional to obfuscate the issue does not matter. Perhaps, one is used to the one sided ranting in echo chambers that is never challenged as to its logic and so one never gets into that habit.
Your posts demonstrate a number of these common false argumentation. A common one is to say, "so what it is just an opinion" as if to imply that it is wrong because of it or that any other opinion is also equally valid. This is not logical. That says nothing about validity or invalidity of opinions. One can agree to disagree on opinions, of course. One doesn't need to resort to logical fallacies.
The cheapest and most common fallacy is the ad hominem argument. Trying to discredit the person in some way is the simplest one. The reason calling someone an idiot to discount the opinion is a fallacy because even idiots can have valid opinions.
You attempted to frame my view as a rant against all of religion as a starting rhetoric. That is illogical for two reasons. One, even if I was ranting against all of religion that says nothing as to whether the view was valid or not. Even rants can be valid. Of course, your reason to do so was to imply that somehow it was invalid because I am perhaps an anti-religion bigot. That is a common rhetoric in trash talking but not a logical one. In addition, you framed it by assuming what you were impugning and asking if I was weaseling out of it via ingenious means (that you assumed was so). This is a well known logical fallacy called begging the question with the common example being the question "have you stopped beating your wife?".
I rebutted your rhetoric by pointing out the logical fallacy in doing so.
Since you use such false rhetoric in your own arguments, it is not surprising that you explicitly mention that you are not a member of organized religion to imply some validity to your rebuttal or perhaps in the circles you debate in you expect your opponent to use the same false logic of accusing you of being a religious nut to rebut your rebuttal. Hence the need for the disclaimer. I just pointed out that in reasonable circles that statement neither makes your point valid or invalid and so irrelevant.
Finally, another logical fallacy in your last post or rather several of them in the same statement. The fact that a view is held by billions of people says nothing about whether it is true or valid. A very large number of people believed the sun goes around the earth. Fallacy number one. You state that because such a belief exists there must be an alternative explanation for why they exist. The latter doesn't follow logically from the former. There may be no other explanation and people may still believe it. Just because, a large number of people believe the holocaust didn't happen doesn't establish that there are alternate explanations of the event. Doesn't matter even if all non Jews who form the majority don't believe that. Fallacy number two.
The concept of "sin" and "repentance" (in quotes because they refer to the generic concept rather than as defined by any specific religion) exist in some form or the other in every major organized religion. My view is that its purpose is to provide control to the religious organization over people. Just as not eating pigs or beef or on particular days had a reason behind it but became a doctrine. I find the same technique in any domain that assumes characteristics of a religion.
You are free to disagree with it, of course. But this poor argumentation at the level of political street talk that explicitly rejects the common framework of logic using well known and understood fallacies is unfortunate. Makes any reasonable discussion or exchange of ideas impractical.
If you want to realize how many logical fallacies you use in your argumentation or actually want to provide a rational rebuttal by pointing out these kinds of fallacies, you might want to visit any of the sites like
Now who am I to object to a good anti-clerical rant like this (or is it an anti-religious rant in general which you try to weasel out of by way of the occasional disingenuous qualification)?
Obviously, someone whose use of logic is limited to asking the equivalent of "are you trying to weasel out of the charge of beating your wife?"
It is called begging the question.
However, the above leaves me confused:
In the second sentence you say, "This is a very powerful mind control tool." The first sentence says, "The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves..." The third sentence says, "...it makes people feel good about themselves." I'm wondering, is it a good mind control tool because it makes people feel bad/insecure about themselves or is it a good mind control tool because it accomplishes the opposite by making people feel good about themselves?
Since the subject of those statements refer to different aspects of the control, I can see how a superficial reading can be confusing. Perhaps an analogy to the beauty products industry which uses the same mind control can avoid those automatic comprehension blockers to realize what was actually said than what selective quoting can obscure.
Exploiting your insecurities by putting up unrealistic beauty image examples to make you feel bad about yourself is the first step in this mind control. The offering of a solution that is guaranteed to improve your image significantly and so makes you feel better about yourself is the next step. Keeping you hooked on using it by reinforcing that you are better off than most in your situation now (obviously not those earlier examples and hiding that you are doing the same to everyone else relatively) and so making you feel better as long as you are using it is what sustains it.
It seems that no matter what it does it manages to be a good mind control tool. On second thought, perhaps this is a good analogy on the misuse of logic by index fanatics and their ilk.
Putting up a straw argument to knock down and begging the question are the misuse of logic in evidence here.
FYI, this comment is provided by someone who is not a member of any organized religion. I do, however, see possible alternate explanations for the idea that all men are sinners to the one given by cman. The attempt at an accurate description of reality comes to mind.
Whether you are a member or not is irrelevant to the soundness of an argument unless you routinely use that to discredit opposing arguments in which case I understand why you prefer to state it explicitly. However, claiming to have alternatives, suggesting that such alternatives are the reality without actually stating the alternative explanation can be construed as a "weaseling out" argument.
First, I'm imposing a three post limit on myself to any topic, which I admit will be met with the exclamation: 'That's three posts too many!" by some. So this is it for me. If you want to reply further you should address it to readers in general for I won't be here.
I did read your last post and it's obvious that repetition has set in. You spend half of it noting that you analyzed and referenced your analysis of the original subject, some paper on investors' returns, I believe. I never read the paper and didn't comment on it or your analysis of it at all. However, since that's the only thing you gave any analysis on, I can see why you'd start concentrating on it now.
I point out you make assertions when you get to your religious analogy and analyze nothing. You're utterly silent about that, preferring to repeat yourself at length about my street tactics and rhetorical fallacies. Fine.
You originally said: "These things persist for precisely the same reason 'sin' and 'repentance' is so necessary for organized religion (as opposed to spiritualism or personal faith)." You bring up the distinction between organized religion and personal faith, yet the second I mention that I'm not a participant in organized religion your own distinction becomes a matter of opprobrium, and you incoherently start complaining that it "is irrelevant to the soundness of an argument" despite the fact that I never suggested that it was relevant to the soundness of an argument, and "unless you routinely use that to discredit opposing arguments", which is ridiculous since whether or not I routinely use it is completely irrelevant to its lack of validity. I didn't notice that before so I mention it here. To complete my street tactics, if I ever needed to ask whether your qualifications about spirituality and personal faith were serious, you answered it well. Thanks.
Again, you seem to believe that it's necessary for me to prove some alternative to something that you merely assert with no proof or analysis at all must be true in order to say that there are alternatives to your assertions. That billions of people believe something is no proof that it's true, but it is a great indication that there are alternatives to your unanalyzed, unproven assertions.
This is actually a very good thread to illustrate the problems with discourse.
It is like talking to a street fighter who goes into a boxing ring, tries to hit below the belt and when it is pointed out, keeps saying but you are all just hitting.
I used to think people used these tactics intentionally but interactions like this convince me that it is hard wired than intentional that the alternative is not even in the radar.
Mark agrees with the analogy and you don't. That is fine.
An expressed view or an idea or a comment is indeed an assertion not unlike someone saying "this is a good fund". It may be an empty statement or there may be a good rationale behind it.
The distinction being repeated between the "hitting below the belt" (are you sure you are not trying to peddle this fund family? the fund has billions in assets so there must be something good with it unlike what you are saying, etc) to disagree vs disagreeing with the assertion (I don't think this is a good fund because X) is so utterly lost despite repetition that we might as well be talking different languages. Luckily, most people have an innate sense of this in most informed groups and don't have to be taught. Unfortunately, the Internet has given voice even when that isn't true.
So, no more repetition is necessary.
At least, it will serve to help people filter the future posts accordingly based on their opinions of this exchange.
Well, if any MRO reader is considering giving the spouse (or significant other) a good beating, now would be a good time to do it (preferably after the precedent of them upsiding your head with a cast iron skillet, 'cause they "don't like your tone.") Really, I should think no weaseling would be necessary. At trial, you will have only to present this MRO thread, and state that you read the entire "discourse" just prior to the alleged altercation (about which your memory will be rather foggy), and a diminished capacity defense will most assuredly guarantee an acquittal!
Comments
I find that very hard to believe. You'd have to work very hard to do that.
It is amazing.
I guess investors would have had to pile in during 1999 and Jan-March 2000, when sentiment was exuberant.... then sell out towards the latter part of 2002 after they had lost 40+%; buy back in during 2007 when the fear of the 2000-2002 bear market had waned and greed rose again......sell during the last half of 2008 when sentiment got very pessimistic....and stay out until 2012 or 2013 when sentiment picked up again
mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/38066/#Comment_38066
They have no information on why funds flowed in or out and just use net flows/assets for computation. Garbage in, garbage out. That sets up the kind of false result exemplified in the above linked post.
It is more interesting to look at why this kind of evangelization persists. After all, we know anecdotally people do all kinds of dumb things, right?
As an analogy, we also know that some people "sin" according to the tenets of any religion. But that is quite different from proclaiming everybody is a sinner (or most are).
These things persist for precisely the same reason "sin" and "repentence" is so necessary for organized religions (as opposed to spiritualism or personal faith). It is the means of influence over and control of the masses. Organized religion preys on the fears and insecurities of the average person by defining "sin" and its "consequences".
The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves and then offer a path of "repentance" that will save them if they follow the religion. This is a very powerful mind control tool. In addition, by casting the society at large as sinners, it makes people feel good about themselves. After all, they are not as bad as the masses, right?
Indexology uses the same trick. Convince people that they are "sinning" in their investing, make them feel they cannot win this way, point to the other "sinners", imply that most people are sinners and perhaps they are too and then offer up the indexing as the repentence.
You can easily spot indexologists as easily as you can spot Jehovah's witnesses. The message always has the "people are dumb in their investing, if you think you are better, perhaps you are just overconfident or ignorant, here is how I found my salvation" and this is repeated over and over again with liberal use of logical fallacies to make the same point.
Index funds have all kinds of great uses and can be used wisely as part of a portfolio. Just as active funds can be. Trading by emotion is bad but this doesn't mean all trading is bad or that all trading is necessarily via emotion (see the sinner imperative and false logic above). Without trading, we would have no price discovery and no markets. Traders make a lot of money over dumb investors. But the latter include indexologists too!
Smart investors are those that reject these forms of religious control, get to know themselves (unfortunately the Dunning-Kruger effect might be a problem here but that seems to be more of a problem for the Indexology witnesses than for an average investor who is more insecure than confident), get to critically analyze and think about information, and leverage their specific advantages (analytical ability or available capital or risk tolerance or lack of liquidity constraints or whatever) to maximize the returns for themselves.
Dumb investors are those that fall for the religious rhetoric.
To begin with, how are they quantifying those "average" investors? Does somebody who owned a fund for a week and than changed his mind and sold carry the same weight as somebody who has owned a fund for 20 years? Do members of investment clubs, who invest perhaps a few hundred dollars apiece, count as much as the guy with 100K invested on his own?
And, how are they defining "U.S. stock funds"? Does this exclude funds with international holdings? Or those with bonds in their mix? Or, are they referring only to the country where the management company resides? In that case, it should be noted that many U.S. fund managers (like PIMCO) are actually foreign owned.
While a valid point about investor behavior is made, the statistical assumptions on which it is based seem suspect.
In the second sentence you say, "This is a very powerful mind control tool." The first sentence says, "The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves..." The third sentence says, "...it makes people feel good about themselves." I'm wondering, is it a good mind control tool because it makes people feel bad/insecure about themselves or is it a good mind control tool because it accomplishes the opposite by making people feel good about themselves?
It seems that no matter what it does it manages to be a good mind control tool. On second thought, perhaps this is a good analogy on the misuse of logic by index fanatics and their ilk.
FYI, this comment is provided by someone who is not a member of any organized religion. I do, however, see possible alternate explanations for the idea that all men are sinners to the one given by cman. The attempt at an accurate description of reality comes to mind.
It is called begging the question. Since the subject of those statements refer to different aspects of the control, I can see how a superficial reading can be confusing. Perhaps an analogy to the beauty products industry which uses the same mind control can avoid those automatic comprehension blockers to realize what was actually said than what selective quoting can obscure.
Exploiting your insecurities by putting up unrealistic beauty image examples to make you feel bad about yourself is the first step in this mind control. The offering of a solution that is guaranteed to improve your image significantly and so makes you feel better about yourself is the next step. Keeping you hooked on using it by reinforcing that you are better off than most in your situation now (obviously not those earlier examples and hiding that you are doing the same to everyone else relatively) and so making you feel better as long as you are using it is what sustains it. Putting up a straw argument to knock down and begging the question are the misuse of logic in evidence here. Whether you are a member or not is irrelevant to the soundness of an argument unless you routinely use that to discredit opposing arguments in which case I understand why you prefer to state it explicitly. However, claiming to have alternatives, suggesting that such alternatives are the reality without actually stating the alternative explanation can be construed as a "weaseling out" argument.
"These things persist for precisely the same reason that 'sin' and 'repentance' is so necessary for organized religions (as opposed to spiritualism or personal faith)." That is an assertion, not a logical argument. No empirical evidence is suggested. You put scare quotes around sin and repentance so what exactly you mean by them here is unknown. You continue, "It is the means of influence over and control of the masses." That is another assertion, not a logical argument. "Organized religion preys on the fears and insecurities of the average person by defining 'sin' and its 'consequences'. That is another assertion. It is not a logical argument. Its empirical meaning is uncertain given that there are many organized religions but no one "Organized religion", and if you mean all organized religions are one in this again the scare quotes around sin and consequences make it unclear what you are talking about. Again no attempt is made to define anything.
"The idea is to make people feel bad/insecure about themselves and then off a path of 'repentance' that will save them if they follow the religion." Another assertion, not a logical argument. No attempt at any empirical proof. Scare quotes around repentance making it unclear what is meant by that. No attempt to define it. "This is a very powerful mind control tool." A stronger form of the previous assertion. It's not a logical argument, no empirical proof given or suggested beyond your assertion. "In addition, by casting the society at large as sinners, it makes people feel good about themselves." Another assertion. Not a logical argument, no empirical evidence given. "After all, they are not as bad as the masses, right?" I don't know, are they?
Lest I be accused of taking out of context:
This is tedious for me more than anyone else who goes through it. There was no question, only assertions, so there were no questions for me to beg. Changing the assertions to speculative beauty products does, indeed, change nothing, I agree about that. I'm pointing out that these are all assertions, not logical nor empirical arguments. I don't consider that a Straw Man. I never even hinted that my not being a member of any organized religion was any proof of the validity of what I was saying, the idea of mentioning it was to show that this was no special pleading on my part. Finally, the doctrine of Original Sin is the orthodox opinion of Christianity (I didn't say it was the universal opinion), it must be held by a billion people or so, and I can hardly believe that anyone would deny that there are alternative explanations as to why these things (sin and repentance) are said to exist.
Logic is a framework that reasonable people agree on to speak in based on the common understanding and agreement that use of illogic or logical fallacies does not promote truth or understanding as they lead to nonsensical conclusions. Greeks were smart enough to show that logic was independent of any particular idea or topic and so one didn't have to accept a particular idea or opinion to agree to use of logic. Only that contradictions and inconsistencies are bad regardless of where they were found.
Forums like this promote exchange of opinions, commentary, views, experiences, data, etc. Opinions can be valid or invalid. If you disagree with an idea or a thought, as two reasonable people might, you can disagree with it. Just saying I disagree doesn't promote any more understanding, so one can either show with a logical argument why the opinion you are disagreeing with is based on a logical fallacy or can provide a contrasting opinion which presumably does not have its own logical fallacies which would make it invalid. See the thread on the L/S funds for exchange of ideas, opinions and arguments and disagreements between reasonable people all of which can be subjected to a scrutiny of any logical fallacy if one disagrees.
Pointing out logical fallacies IF they exist is the easiest way to debunk an opinion, view or inference because it makes the assertion or opinion or thought invalid. Similarly, if one disagrees with you, you can point out the logical fallacies of that rebuttal to show why it is invalid. This is the common framework reasonable people agree on to have a reasonable exchange of ideas. Without it, there is no reasonable dialog possible.
I posted my views and opinions on the topic. It included a pointer to an argument of why I think the metric is flawed by pointing to a simplified example where the framework would provide a nonsensical conclusion. This is how you debate an idea. One can, of course, try to find a logical fallacy in that argument to rebut.
Similarly, I posted my views on why these kinds of false metrics and conclusions drawn from it exist. That view can be valid or invalid. You can disagree with it and provide an alternative view that is equally valid/invalid or you can show that I am using a logical fallacy in arriving at my view.
For example, one might hypothetically challenge that the analogy is flawed because the article is talking about average person while I am using a universal quantifier of all for sinners and so it is conflating two different things. That is a valid logical argument. Doesn't necessarily mean it is correct. I can provide a logical argument as to why that is not false equivalence in this case and so on. This is how reasonable discussions and debates go each not resorting to logical fallacies.
You, very much like another resident I had an exchange with earlier, unfortunately resort to a form of argumentation that is full of logical fallacies. Whether it is from a lack of understanding of a common framework or intentional to obfuscate the issue does not matter. Perhaps, one is used to the one sided ranting in echo chambers that is never challenged as to its logic and so one never gets into that habit.
Your posts demonstrate a number of these common false argumentation. A common one is to say, "so what it is just an opinion" as if to imply that it is wrong because of it or that any other opinion is also equally valid. This is not logical. That says nothing about validity or invalidity of opinions. One can agree to disagree on opinions, of course. One doesn't need to resort to logical fallacies.
The cheapest and most common fallacy is the ad hominem argument. Trying to discredit the person in some way is the simplest one. The reason calling someone an idiot to discount the opinion is a fallacy because even idiots can have valid opinions.
You attempted to frame my view as a rant against all of religion as a starting rhetoric. That is illogical for two reasons. One, even if I was ranting against all of religion that says nothing as to whether the view was valid or not. Even rants can be valid. Of course, your reason to do so was to imply that somehow it was invalid because I am perhaps an anti-religion bigot. That is a common rhetoric in trash talking but not a logical one. In addition, you framed it by assuming what you were impugning and asking if I was weaseling out of it via ingenious means (that you assumed was so). This is a well known logical fallacy called begging the question with the common example being the question "have you stopped beating your wife?".
I rebutted your rhetoric by pointing out the logical fallacy in doing so.
Since you use such false rhetoric in your own arguments, it is not surprising that you explicitly mention that you are not a member of organized religion to imply some validity to your rebuttal or perhaps in the circles you debate in you expect your opponent to use the same false logic of accusing you of being a religious nut to rebut your rebuttal. Hence the need for the disclaimer. I just pointed out that in reasonable circles that statement neither makes your point valid or invalid and so irrelevant.
Finally, another logical fallacy in your last post or rather several of them in the same statement. The fact that a view is held by billions of people says nothing about whether it is true or valid. A very large number of people believed the sun goes around the earth. Fallacy number one. You state that because such a belief exists there must be an alternative explanation for why they exist. The latter doesn't follow logically from the former. There may be no other explanation and people may still believe it. Just because, a large number of people believe the holocaust didn't happen doesn't establish that there are alternate explanations of the event. Doesn't matter even if all non Jews who form the majority don't believe that. Fallacy number two.
The concept of "sin" and "repentance" (in quotes because they refer to the generic concept rather than as defined by any specific religion) exist in some form or the other in every major organized religion. My view is that its purpose is to provide control to the religious organization over people. Just as not eating pigs or beef or on particular days had a reason behind it but became a doctrine. I find the same technique in any domain that assumes characteristics of a religion.
You are free to disagree with it, of course. But this poor argumentation at the level of political street talk that explicitly rejects the common framework of logic using well known and understood fallacies is unfortunate. Makes any reasonable discussion or exchange of ideas impractical.
If you want to realize how many logical fallacies you use in your argumentation or actually want to provide a rational rebuttal by pointing out these kinds of fallacies, you might want to visit any of the sites like
A Glossary of Logical Fallacies
Or not...
I did read your last post and it's obvious that repetition has set in. You spend half of it noting that you analyzed and referenced your analysis of the original subject, some paper on investors' returns, I believe. I never read the paper and didn't comment on it or your analysis of it at all. However, since that's the only thing you gave any analysis on, I can see why you'd start concentrating on it now.
I point out you make assertions when you get to your religious analogy and analyze nothing. You're utterly silent about that, preferring to repeat yourself at length about my street tactics and rhetorical fallacies. Fine.
You originally said: "These things persist for precisely the same reason 'sin' and 'repentance' is so necessary for organized religion (as opposed to spiritualism or personal faith)." You bring up the distinction between organized religion and personal faith, yet the second I mention that I'm not a participant in organized religion your own distinction becomes a matter of opprobrium, and you incoherently start complaining that it "is irrelevant to the soundness of an argument" despite the fact that I never suggested that it was relevant to the soundness of an argument, and "unless you routinely use that to discredit opposing arguments", which is ridiculous since whether or not I routinely use it is completely irrelevant to its lack of validity. I didn't notice that before so I mention it here. To complete my street tactics, if I ever needed to ask whether your qualifications about spirituality and personal faith were serious, you answered it well. Thanks.
Again, you seem to believe that it's necessary for me to prove some alternative to something that you merely assert with no proof or analysis at all must be true in order to say that there are alternatives to your assertions. That billions of people believe something is no proof that it's true, but it is a great indication that there are alternatives to your unanalyzed, unproven assertions.
Good day.
It is like talking to a street fighter who goes into a boxing ring, tries to hit below the belt and when it is pointed out, keeps saying but you are all just hitting.
I used to think people used these tactics intentionally but interactions like this convince me that it is hard wired than intentional that the alternative is not even in the radar.
Mark agrees with the analogy and you don't. That is fine.
An expressed view or an idea or a comment is indeed an assertion not unlike someone saying "this is a good fund". It may be an empty statement or there may be a good rationale behind it.
The distinction being repeated between the "hitting below the belt" (are you sure you are not trying to peddle this fund family? the fund has billions in assets so there must be something good with it unlike what you are saying, etc) to disagree vs disagreeing with the assertion (I don't think this is a good fund because X) is so utterly lost despite repetition that we might as well be talking different languages. Luckily, most people have an innate sense of this in most informed groups and don't have to be taught. Unfortunately, the Internet has given voice even when that isn't true.
So, no more repetition is necessary.
At least, it will serve to help people filter the future posts accordingly based on their opinions of this exchange.