OK, I have to address the question of terminology.
VTI wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 7:58 pm...You're betting that interest rates will fall (and fall soon). Isn't that market timing?...
No, it isn't. Staying the course is
not market timing. You know that Bogleheads say not to time the market, so you have created a personal definition of "market timing" in order to criticize an investment strategy you don't like. But it isn't market timing.
From 9/2007 through 8/2008, stocks were
definitely paying less than bonds:
Could someone have said back then, "buying any stocks is timing the market... as long as stocks pay less than bonds?"
I don't think so. Personally, over that time period, I continued to make automatic purchases of stocks and bonds in the same proportions as before, by virtue of my automatic 401(k) contributions. That wasn't market timing.
"Market timing" would have consisted of
changing asset allocation--and not just new contributions, but existing holdings--in response to changes in relative performance. Specifically, someone who liquidated their stocks and went to cash would have been market timing. I know someone who did just that, but, unfortunately for him, he did it in August, 2008.
Why did I stop at September, 2008? Because that's when I was laid off from my job, and, yes, I discontinued my investing program while I was unemployed.
But, no. Maintaining an stable investment program in the face of changing relative investment performance may be wise or it may be foolish, but it is not "market timing."
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness; Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.