Comments on: It’s just not true

By: Timbeaux

Timbeaux — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:17:00 +0000

Analyzing meaningless data doen’t change the fact that it’s meaningless. Defending it however, does provide further evidence that Hitler was right on the mark with his "big lie" theory. The Lancet should have made the number a million, then it would never have needed to worry about defending it at all.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 03:39:00 +0000

Perhaps, but one with a surprisingly astute grasp of econometrics.

By: Timbeaux

Timbeaux — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 03:24:00 +0000

"You do realise that by using past returns to predict future returns, you’re extrapolating, don’t you? I mean, you don’t, of course you don’t; I’m just fuckin’ with ya."

Hmmm….you really are a gibbering idiot.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:36:00 +0000

to do with extrapolating quetionaire's, which is equivalent to heresay

You do realise that by using past returns to predict future returns, you're extrapolating, don't you? I mean, you don't, of course you don't; I'm just fuckin' with ya.

By: Timbeaux

Timbeaux — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:18:00 +0000

"Non-overlapping periods"? What drivel is that? Do people live in non-overlapping periods? Any 30-year period you want to select nimwit, there’s about 70 to choose from if you need a little help with your math. And my reservation about the Lancet study had absolutely nothing to do with sample size, as you are well aware. It had to do with extrapolating quetionaire’s, which is equivalent to heresay. If you’ve ever been to the ME, you’d know that the level of personal integrity is about as low as you’ll find in any area on Earth. Lying is so ingrained into the culture that even finding an honest man is a challenge. Bottom line, no hard data equals no friggin’ confidence whatsoever, and would make the whole damn thing a meaningless exercise if getting the truth was what the researchers were after in the first place. But it wasn’t, they merely wanted corroboration of their pre-determined conclusions to propangandize their point of view. And guess what, they managed to find it. AMAZING! That you could honestly defend such sloppiness says a lot.

Simon, this is not an all-or-nothing plan, and employers get no benefits or incintives whatsoever. It is merely a diversion of a small portion of the FICA tax into a separtely invested account.

By: European Loser

European Loser — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:01:00 +0000

It doesn’t matter if the reforms work or not – the purity of the idea is what matters.

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:26:00 +0000

Timbeaux – the ‘mis-selling scandal’ wasn’t to do with private employer pension funds; many of these were contracted out, but they were usually defined-benefit at the time, so they were quite secure (unless the company wound up, but that’s a separate scandal). The change in the law allowed employees to opt out of the employer scheme and put the money into a personal pension – a separately-held, separately-run private account like the one you’re referring to. And of course it worked well for some of the people who were financially savvy, but a lot of the people who weren’t so clued up chose to opt out of their secure company DB scheme and into a high-charge personal pension which considerably reduced their retirement savings. Eventually, as the article says, the government had to order compensation for those that had been ripped off, to the tune of £12 billion.

The problem lay in the government’s dogmatic insistence that a market for personal pensions was bound to work like the textbooks said it should, but in financial services there’s obviously a big information problem, and the salesmen exploited it. I’d be surprised if the US system avoided this.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 03:50:00 +0000

(I only ask this because you were the bugger who, in the context of the Lancet study, thought that a sample of 7800 Iraqis was much too small to give meaningful results)

By: dsquared

dsquared — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 03:49:00 +0000

30-year long-term equity investing has not had a single period with less than an 8% annual return in over 100 years

How many non-overlapping 30 year periods are there in 100 years?

By: Timbeaux

Timbeaux — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:12:00 +0000

Whatever works, Andrew. Too proud?

Simon, it reads like Parlaiment let you get swindled with their back-door privatization, setting private employer pension funds as an exemption. It invites corporate cheating, since they’re holding the money AND getting the tax break. This won’t work that way at all, it’s going to work like a 401(k), a separately-held, separately-run, and fully transferrable private account. It follows you, not the company, you just have to move it around in line with the rules. Their isn’t a finacial group worth it’s salt around here that would try to charge 30% fees on retirement accounts, they would count themselves lucky if they made it to jail two steps ahead of the lynch-mob. But all this really doesn’t matter, the general attitude here is that if you’re depending on your FICA taxes to keep you warm in your winter years, you’re just a plain idiot. That, and corporate-run retirement is a dinosaur, everything about retirement investing is moving to on your own. 30-year long-term equity investing has not had a single period with less than an 8% annual return in over 100 years. I’ll keep my money and do a helluva lot better with it than some bureaucrat, thankyouverymuch.