I’ve added Podcast #46 to the “RobCasts” section of the site. It’s called Investing Is a Science (When It Isn’t Science Fiction).
The idea of making the study of investing more scientific is a good one. The idea that we’ve already got it all figured out is a bad one.
Programming Note: I am taking January off [...]
Podcast #46 — Investing Is a Science (When It Isn’t Science Fiction)
Published in February 24th, 2008
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My Calculators
My Google Knols
Favorite RobCasts
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- Buy-and-Hold Cannot Work -- Here's Why
- I Know More About Investing Than John Bogle (and You Can Too!)
- The Coming Revolution in Investing Advice
- The Case Against Valuation-Informed Indexing
- Market Timing -- What Works and What Doesn't
- Passive Investing Is the Most Emotional Investing Approach of All
- When Stock Prices Fall, Where Does the Money Go?
- The Future of Investing
- Fear and Greed and Hope and Love
- Greenspan's Mistake
- Bogle and Valuations
- Investing News Makes Us Dumb
- The Internet Changes Everything
- Investing Ethics: An Oxymoron?
- When Stock Losses Are True Losses and When They Are Not
- It's Not a Conspiracy, It's Cognitive Dissonance
- They Used Our Natural Risk Aversion Against Us
- There Is No Free Lunch! Or Is There?
- Predicting Presidential Success Using P/E10
- The Equity Risk Premium Explained At Last! (Perhaps)
- RIsk Tolerance in the Real World
- Dumb Is Smart, "I Don't Know" Is Powerful
- You Won't Believe the Truth About Stock Investing Until You've Heard it 5,000 Times
- Confidence Limits, Logic Chains and Emotion Waves
- Financial Responsibility Breaks Down When Passive Investing Becomes Popular
- Cash on the Sidelines Often Disappears Into Nothingness
- The How-To of Valuation-Informed Indexing
- Stocks Are Less Risky Than Bonds
- Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires -- And Bull Markets!
- The Time Value of Money in Stocks
- Cash Is a Strategic Asset Class
- Risk Without Risk
- Nine Valuation-Informed-Indexing Portfolio Allocation Strategies
- Why the Stock Market Does Not Set Prices Properly (Even Though Other Markets Do)
- Only Valuations Matter -- Everything Else Is Priced In
- Dollar Cost Averaging Is a Loser Strategy
- The Intrinsic Value of Stocks Is a Secret We Are Keeping from Ourselves
- The Candyland Hypothesis: Why Short-Term Timing Doesn't Work
- Low Stock Prices Are Better Than High Stock Prices
- John Bogle Says Valuation-Informed Indexing Can Work
- The Returns Sequence That Happens to Pop Up Makes a Difference
- True Diversification
- The New Luxuries
- Risk Is Never, Never, Never Good
- The Stock-Return Predictor
- Behavioral Finance 2.0
- 30 Investment Myths in 60 Minutes
- It's Spending That Makes You Rich!
- Deferred Market Efficiency -- What It Is, What It Signifies
- Volatility Is Optional
- The Investor's Scenario Surfer
- The Retirement Risk Evaluator
- Lawsuits, Etc.
- Common Return Patterns -- And What to Do When You See Them
- My Vision
- Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Continued Promotion of Buy-and-Hold Investing
- Why Liberals Should Oppose the Continued Promotion of Buy-and-Hold Investing
Blogroll
- Bad Money Advice
- Brazen Careerist
- Consumerism Commentary
- Early Retirement Extreme
- Financial Samurai
- Frugal Dad
- Get Rich Slowly
- Investing Notes
- Monevator
- Money and Such
- Money Blog Network
- Political Calculations
- Pop Economics
- Quest for Four Pillars
- The Digerati Life
- The Psy-Fi Blog
- Weakonomics
- Wealth Pilgrim
SWR Debate Sites
Favorite Articles
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- The True Cause of the Current Financial Crisis Is Buy-and-Hold Investing
- Buy-and-Hold Investing Doesn't Work -- These Links Prove It!
- Buy-and-Hold Is Dead -- These Studies Prove It!
- Community Comments on Predicting Stock Returns
- The Experts Speak on the Risks of Holding Overvalued Stocks in Retirement
- Community Comments on Using Stock Data to Diminish Retirement Risk
- Using the Risk Evaluator to Develop Retirement Planning Strategies
- 20 Money Management Insights You'll Likely See Only Here
- 20 Dangerous Money Myths -- They Think We're Stupid!
- Why Passion Saving Works
- Rob Bennett's Favorite Saving Advice Sayings
- The Doctor Pepper of Money Sites
- The Taboo on Talking About Money Hurts Us
- Saving for Retirement Is a Dumb Idea
- How to Start Saving Money
- The Dark Side of Compounding Returns
- Unconventional Mid-Life Career Change Tips
- Fears of Those Who Retire Early
- The Late-Start Retirement Plan
- Eight Ways to Budget for Eight Budgeting Personalities
- Seven Types of Spending
- Ten Reasons for Paying Off the Mortgage
- How Did Commonsense Investing Become Controversial?
- The Case for Selling in a Stock-Market Downturn
- Stock Panic Up Close and Personal
- The Future of Behavioral Finance
- My Beef with Bull Markets
- Why Is Today's Investing Advice So Poor?
- If the Random Walk Is Real, the Efficient Market Isn't
- Passive Investing Is Dangerous
- Market Timing -- What Works and What Doesn't
- Investing Research and the Tricky Tricks Used to Trick You
- The Case Against Valuation-Informed Indexing
- Investing Discussion Boards Ban Honest Posting on Valuations!
- Internet Harassment By "Defenders" of the Conventional Retirement Studies
- 20 Investing Insights from the First 54 Months
- Community Comments on The Great Safe Withdrawal Rate Debate
- Bogle and Buffett Go Together Like Chocolate and Peanut Butter
- Investing Experts Are Politicians
- 8 Paths to Financial Independence
- Give Up Television and Grow Rich
- I'm So Bored with Financial Pornography
- The Meaning of Work -- A Love Song
- Financial Infidelity and Financial Intimacy
- Smart Vacations Recharge Your Batteries
- Rob Bennett's Weaknesses as a Money Advisor
- Boy Disease, and How Suze Orman Helps
- Rob Bennett -- What Kinda Guy?
Favorite Blog Entries
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- My E-Mail to Yale Professor Robert Shiller, Author of Irrational Exuberance
- Get Rich Slowly Forum Discusses My Google Knol on the Big Fail of Buy-and-Hold
- My E-Mail to Jason Zweig, Author of the Intelligent Investor Column
- My E-Mail to Justin Fox, Author of The Myth of the Rational Market
- "You Use a Simple Price-to-Earnings Ratio to Help People See the Fraud in the Market"
- Humble Money Experts Are the Best Money Experts
- "It Appears That I've Inadvertently Stumbled Into the Middle of a Religious War"
- "These People -- Good People -- Have Described Your Comments as "Spammy" and "Obnoxious"
- Bogle Says Valuation-Informed Indexing Can Work
- "My Hope Is to Persuade You to Steer the Indexing Revolution to a More Promising Path"
- "My Goal Is To Save What Is Good in the Passive Investing Package by Fixing What Is Bad in It"
- "Holy Toledo! This is Great Stuff" -- The New Coffeehouse Investor Author Bill Schultheis
- "The Delete Button
- "The Right of Contributors to Post Their Sincere Views Must Be Respected"
- "It's Informative, It's Based on Solid Data and It Provides Useful Results"
- "A Large Number of People Will Harm Themselves If They Do Anything Besides Being Passive"
- "An Attitude Born of a Profession That Found Much of Its Growth in the Middle of the 1982-1999 Era"
- "Just How Bad Would Things Have to Get Before You Guys Changed Your Advice?"
- My E-Mail to the Virginia Police re the Campaign of Terror Against Our Board Communities
- "I Want to Launch an Effort to Publicize the Ideas on the Internet"
- "Those Investing In Equities Hold Securities Whose Future Earning Power Is Completely Unpredictable"
- "A Lot of Planners Are Starting To Question Their Passive Investing Beliefs
- "I'm Quite Encouraged With John Russell's Results"
- "There Are Significant Risks Inherent In the Passive Investing Approach That Are Not Understood By Most
- "For People Who Like to Take a 30,000 Foot View of Investing, This Is a Very Handy Little Tool"
- "The Future Cannot Be Predicted Based on Historical Empirical Observations"
- "The Predictor Would Be Better Termed a Reporter"
- "There Is Always a Reasonably Diversified Subset of the Market with Below Average PEs"
- The Rob Bennett Challenge to Passive Investing Enthusiasts
- "I Have Much More Confidence in My Ability to Understand What Is Happening"
- The Bogleheads Wiki Statement on Safe Withdrawal Rates
- I Hope You Suffer
- The Community Toilet Is Overflowing
- Fear Strikes Out
- The Confession Box
- Our Employers Should Encourage Us to Move On
- The Naked Budget
- Putting a Human Face on the "Save the Retirements!" Story
- Internet Porn and Other Wrong Numbers
- The Exceedingly Strange Standards of Investing Research
- "Securities Markets Appear to Be At Least Partially Predictable Afterall"
- "The Truth Has a Way of Emerging Eventually"
- Why I Quote Song Lyrics in My Posts
- Financial WebRing Forum Entertains (Somewhat) Honest Discussion of Valuation-Informed Indexing
- "This Is What Investing Should Be -- Calculated, Deliberate, Confident, Informed and Simple"
- Joke
- Why Is Scott Burns Afraid of Me?
- Scott Burns Distances Himself from the New School SWR Approach
- Scott Burns: "The Whole Idea that There Is a New School of SWRs Reeks of Personal Aggrandizement"
- NYT Discovers P/E10
- Forbes Fires Back at the Goons
- The Terrible Truth About Cute Fuzzy Bunny
- Jack Bogle Started Out as a Little Boy
- You're Smarter Than the Experts
- New York Times Reports on Growing Disgust with the Littler Stinkers
- Non-Money Things You Can Learn By Keeping a Budget
- Jonathan Should Take a Tip from Dustin
- Ball of Confusion
- The Investing Establishment
- Uptight (Everything's Not Allright!)
- Bogle Meets Rocky
- Where the Monkees Went Wrong
Favorites/John’s Site
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- The Valuation-Informed-Indexing Advantage
- They Got It Wrong
- Progress Reports on New School Research
- TIPS Table
- Always Insist on a Baseline
- The 4% Shocker
- Why P/E10?
- Building Blocks
- Using Stock-Return Predictions
- You Can't Count on 7%
- More Than a Number
- Rule of Thumb?
- New Standards for Financial Reporting
- Retirement Planning Insights
- Income Stream Insights
- Letters to the Editor
- Valuation-Informed Indexing
- David Dreman's Blockbuster
- Our Strong Theoretical Foundations
- The Logical Sequence
- Using All of the Data
- Paradoxes and Confusion
- The Stability of Estimates Based on Earnings Yield
- The Story Behind the Numbers
- Mean Reversion Theory
- Mean Reversions Occurs Faster When You Adjust for Valuations
- Stupid Assertions
- S&P500 Dividend Yields
- Why Dividends Are Better
- Why People Ignore Valuations
- The Wrong Lessons
- Denial Is Expensive
- Today's Skill
- Systems Engineering
- Historical Perspective of Benjamin Graham
- Applying P/E10 Outside of the S&P500
- S&P500 Returns
- S&P500 Return Sequences
- First Year Within a Decade with Returns Above 7%, 6%, 5%, and 4%
- Our Roots
Archives I
Archives II
Categories
Social Network
PassionSaving.com
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- Home
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- Return Predictor
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- Scenario Surfer
- Strategy Tester
- Start Me Up
- Upsizing
- Retire Different!
- The Turned-On Budget
- Safe Investing Now!
- Valuation-Informed Indexing
- Banned at Motley Fool!
- Investing for Humans
- Community Rules!
- The Self-Directed Life
- The Million-Dollar Idea
- Middle-Class Millionaires
- Saving Without Sacrifice
- Practical Dreamers
- Heroes and Villains
- Planet Internet
- The Book I Read
- The Book I Wrote
- Contact Rob
People Are Talking
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- "It's Informative, It's Based on Solid Data and It Provides Useful Results" -- Political Calculations Blog
- "A Fascinating Retirement Calculator" -- Financial Planner Michael Kitces
- "You’ve Accomplished Something Radical With Your Idea of Passion Saving. -- "Money, Mission and Meaning" Talk Show Host Mark Michael Lewis
- "Every Detail Shows Rob's Respect for His Information and His Reader."--Audrey Owen, Owner of the Writer's Helper Site
- "The Your Money or Your Life Book for a New Generation" -- Dollar Stretcher Book Reviewer Beatrix Fernandez
- -- "A Newer School of Thought Believes That the Safe Withdrawal Rate Depends on How Stocks Are Priced at the Time You Begin Making Withdrawals" -- Dallas Morning News Columnist Scott Burns
- "This Is a Very Handy Little Tool" -- Market Movers Blogger Felix Salmon
- "A Much Simpler Way to Bring the Valuation Issue to Focus" -- Blogger Karteek Narayanaswamy
- "Meet Three Couples Who Left the Corporate World to Do the Kinds of Work That Satisfied Them" -- MSN Money Columnist Liz Pulliam Weston
- "I Like Rob's Fresh Views and Tips on the Subject of Saving Money" -- The Digerati Life Blog
- "This is Pretty Exciting" -- ABC News
- "A Very Solid Approach to Investing" -- Michael Harr, Founder of Walden Advisors
- "Rob Bennett Has Been on a Tear with One Outstanding RobCast After Another" -- John Walter Russell, Owner of the Early Retirement Planning Insights Site
- "A Refreshing Approach That Offers a Counter to the Prevailing Financial Culture" -- Kevin Mercadante, Owner of the Out of Your Rut Blog
- "This Is What Investing Should Be -- Calculated, Deliberate, Confident, Informed and Simple" -- Aaron Friday, Owner of the Aaron's Blob Blog
- "What Is It With Guys Named Rob? Longtime Index Agitator Rob Arnott Has Now Been Joined on These Pages by a Vanguard Diehard Agitator Named Rob Bennett." -- IndexUniverse.com Publisher Jim Wiandt
- "He Offers a Fresh New Perspective that Will Motivate You to Get on Track With a Solid Savings Plan" -- Lynn Terry, Click Newz Blog
- "I Have Much More Confidence in My Ability to Understand What Is Happening....I Thank You for Your Public Service, and, In Another Dimension, for the Personal Courage It Took to Make It Happen." -- Elizabeth, Site Visitor
- "It Jolted Me from My Preconceived Notions. The More I Read Your Articles (Most of Them Posted About 2007), I Wonder How Right You Have Been About the Excessive Valuations." -- Sam, Site Visitor
- "I Was Hooked on the Idea of [Passive] Index Indexing, But Something Inside Made Me Wonder "Too Good to Be True?" and "What's the Downside?" I Happened on to Your Site and Valuation-Informed Indexing Seems to Make Sense." -- Coleen, Site Visitor
- "The Evidence is Pretty Incontrovertible. Valuation-Informed Indexing...Is Everywhere Superior to Buy-and-Hold Over Ten-Year Periods. -- Norbert Schenkler, Co-Owner of the Financial WebRing Forum
- "Passion Saving Reads Like a Casual Conversation with a Likable Guy Who Wants Nothing More Than to Help Others Experience the Same Joy and Happiness He Has Found" -- Kara, a Passion Saving Reader
- "Your 'Secrets' Look Exactly Like Magic Tricks: Once Revealed, They Look So Simple, Yet You Need Somebody to Show You How It Works."--Kramerizio, Secrets of Retiring Early Reader
- "Rob's Da Man! Never in the History of the Diehards Forum Has One Poster, Always Making Civil and Well Thought-Out Posts, Managed to Irritate So Many Without Anyone Being Able to Articulate a Good Reason As to Why. -- Mephistopheles, Vanguard Diehards Poster
- "The Elegant Simplicity of His Ideas Throughout Warms the Heart and Startles the Brain" -- Tom Gardner, Co-Founder of the Motley Fool Site
- "Mr. Bennett Evidences an Unusual Skill....You'll Have to Buy a Copy....Extraordinary....A Massive Heap of Crap" -- John Greaney, Owner of the Retire Early Home Page Site
- "By Reading All the Information on Your Website I Was Able to Develop a Part of Me I Didn't Know I Would Be Able to Become" -- Javier, Site Visitor
- "Innovative Financial Thinking" -- No Limits, Ladies Blog
- "Holy Toledo! This Is Great Stuff!" -- The New Coffeehouse Portfolio Author Bill Schultheis
- "He Offers Down-to-Earth But Nevertheless Eye-Opening Insights About the Why and the How of Early Retirement" -- Secrets of Retiring Early Reader
- "Challenges Unfounded Assumptions" -- Bill Sholar, Founder of the Early Retirement Forum (Please See Bill's Blurb on the Back Cover of the Book)
- "Seminal" -- Retire Early Home Page Site Owner John Greaney (Pre-May 13, 2002, Version)
- "A Ton of Tremendously Useful Content" -- Network Abundance Radio
- "Your Enthusiasm Is Infectious" -- Ruth, A Passion Saving Reader
- "I Woke Up at 4:00 am and Stared at the Wall for 20 Minutes....Thank You for Doing What You Do" -- Tasha, A Site Visitor
- "It Might Just Give You a New Way of Looking at Saving" -- Kevin Surbaugh, Owner of the Debt Free 4Ever Blog
- "Staying Too Long in a Job Where You Don’t Feel Relevant Takes a Toll, Said Rob Bennett, Who Worked for Years in a Well-Paying Corporate Communications Job Where He Didn’t Have Enough to Do" -- The New York Times
- You Have Started One of the Most Interesting and Stimulating Discussions This Board has Seen in a Long Time" -- Poster at Motley Fool Boards
- It Is Obvious that Rob, in Attempting to Identify New Safe Withdrawal Rate Strategies...Is Goring Your Ox. If Rob Improves on [the] Safe Withdrawal Rate Methodology, the Implication Is Clear: You Are All, Metaphorically, Out of Business" -- Poster at Vanguard Diehards Board
- “I Applaud His Effort to Inject Another Piece of Objectivity Into a Very Complex, Highly Subjective Topic: Making Money in the Market" -- Poster at Vanguard Diehards Board
- "Rob Bennett, the Author of a Book Called Passion Saving, Thinks the Saving Problem Is Partly One of Packaging. So He Prefers to Couch it in the Language of Freedom. -- The Wall Street Journal
- "I've Gone from Shattered Dreams of Early Retirement to Glimpses of Hope to Reassurance from Quantitative Research" -- Patricia, A Site Visitor
- "Some of the Most Helpful and Insightful Market Discussions on the Web Take Place on These Pages" -- A Poster at the Safe Withdrawal Rate Research Group
- "Rob is the Only Person I Know (If Only via Message Board) Who has Completely Opted Out of Participation in the Stock Market Bubble. And You Know What? He Has Benefited Immensely from Doing So." -- Poster at Motley Fool
- "Makes the Subject of Saving Edgy and Fresh" -- Maxine, a Passion Saving Reader
- "I LOVE This Article and Am Proud to be Publishing It!" -- Chuck Yanikoski, Editor of Integrative Advisor and Executive Director of The Association of Integrative Financial and Life Planning
- "Rob….Wow…..Your Response Sent Shivers Up the Ol’ Pilgrim Spine." -- Neal Frankie, Owner of the Wealth Pilgrim Blog
- "I Have Counseled My Clients to Allocate a Percentage to Equities Based Upon Market Valuations....I Feel Like I've Found a Kindred Spirit. Fascinating Web Site." -- Tom Behlmer, Nevada City, CA Financial Planner
- "“After a Quick Look at Your Site, I Realized That Our Web Site Is Founded on a Very Similar Understanding of the Stock Market and Investing in General.... A Simple Age-Based Asset Allocation Formula Is Not Appropriate, and Any Sensible Asset-Allocation Formula Should Combine Both Age/Investment Horizon and Market Valuation Levels.” -- Owner of the www.RationalInvestor.biz Site.
- "I Can Appreciate Rob's Comments.... Buy-and-Hold? For the Most Part, a Long Obsolete Theory." -- Certified Financial Planner Neal Deutsch
- "You Want to be Very, Very Wary of Anything Connected with Rob Bennett, the Most Infamous Troll in the History of Investing Forums on the Internet." -- Alex Fract, owner of the Bogleheads.org Forum
- "His Storied Past Goes Way Back to Many Prominent Forums, Including Bogleheads, Morningstar, EarlyRetirement, and Motley Fool. Some Say He Was Even Instrumental in the Creation of Bogleheads, as They Split from Morningstar to Seek a Better Refuge Against Trolls that Went Unchecked." -- Poster at the Get Rich Slowly Forum
- “I’ve Had My Fill of Those Long-Winded Posts that Include Distortions, Unsubstantiated Claims, Misquotes and Comments Taken Out of Context.” -- Mel Lindauer, Co-Author of The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
- “Sorry Guest, You Are Banned from Posting or Sending Personal Messages on This Forum…. Your IP Address Is on the Abusive Poster List.” -- These Words Appear When I Try to Access the Early Retirement Forum
- "Utterly Brilliant!" -- Secrets of Retiring Early Reader
- "Your Website Is So Enjoyable That It Is Keeping Me From My Research As I Am So Excited That I Have Found Such a Valuable Resource." -- Stuart, A Site Visitor
- "What We're Talking About Here Really...Is Empowerment." -- Wanderer, a Poster at the Motley Fool's Retire Early Board.
- "The Stock Market Valuation Tool on the PassionSaving.com Site...Is Based upon the Principle that Over the Long Term, Stock Market Prices Will Reflect the Ten-Years Earnings Growth of the Underlying Companies. While There May be Blips Here and There, Ultimately Prices Will Return Back to a Common Growth Pattern." -- The Links.com Review of The Stock-Return Predictor
- "We Have Taken the Unusual Step of Banning a Member Based on Expected Behaviour Rather than Actual Behaviour." --The Owners of the Financial WebRing Forum
- What I Don't Understand Is How Rob Can Correspond in Such a Sweet and Polite Way -- Yet He Irritates Me to No End! -- A Poster at the Financial WebRing Forum
- You Go About It in a Manner that is Catastrophically Unproductive by Adding Missionary Zeal that Inflates Your Importance and Demeans Others. The Whole Idea That There is a New School of Safe Withdrawal Rates Reeks of Personal Aggrandizement." -- Dallas Morning News Columnist Scott Burns
- "Inflammatory" -- The Morningtar.com Site Administrator
- “What Warren Buffett Did Was Essentially Quite Close to What Rob Bennett Has Written.... Though We Often Hear Only His ‘Buy-and-Hold Forever’ Mantra, Warren Buffett Has in Fact Been Cleverly Employing the Equivalent of the Rational Investing Model, Incorporating Long-Term Market Timing Based on Valuation of the Market in His Allocation of Money to Stocks.” -- Investing Notes Blog
- "Strategic Asset Allocation...Can Be Done...Maybe Six Times in an Investor’s Lifetime, Three Times When the Market is Stupidly High and Three Times When Stupidly Low.” -- Vanguard Founder John Bogle
- "This Report Offers A Fresh Perspective That Is Rarely Found In Other Financial Literature."Secrets of Retiring Early Reader
- "These People -- Good People -- Have Described Your Comments As Spammy and Obnoxious" -- Mike Piper, Author of the Oblivious Investor Blog
- "The Way I Think About Saving Is I Call It Spending Money at the Freedom Store," Says Bennett. "Just Like You Buy a Product or Buy a Service, You Buy Freedom." -- Bankrate.com
- " 'My Best Year I Saved $88,000, but I Only Did that for a Few Years. When I had Enough to Make this Switch I Handed in My Resignation. My Boss Thought I Was Insane,' Bennett Said." -- Payscale.com
- "Just Found Your Blog/Knol. Unfortunately Learned the Hard Way that Buy-and-Hold Investing Does Not Work." -- Owner of The Cynical Investor Blog
- "Rob Bennett Makes the Claim That Market Timing Based on Aggregate P/E Ratios Can Be a Far More Effective Strategy Than Passive Investing Over Long Horizons (Ten Years or More.) I Am Not in a Position to Evaluate This Claim Empirically But It Is Consistent With Shiller's Analysis and I Can See How It Could Be True." -- Rajiv Sethie, Professor of Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University
- "Retiring Early Was A Concept I Did Not Entertain. I Was Going to Retire at 65 After Putting in 40 Years. Now I Am Glad To Say That All That Has Changed." -- Secrets of Retiring Early Reader
- "In a Couple of Days, I Had Devoured the Entire Book." -- A Passion Saving Reader
- "FIRECalc May Not Be the Last Word on Safe Withdrawal Rates" -- Former Wall Street Journal Columnist Jonathan Clements
- "I Can Certainly Acknowledge and Relate to the Arrogance and Self-Proclaimed Superiority of the Techie View of the World. It Was Not Until I Became More Aware of the Human Side of the Equation, However, that Life Revealed a Broader Value and Potential. I Get What Rob Is Trying to Say." -- Motley Fool Poster
- It Seems to Me That Some on This Board Feel Threatened by the Arrival of Rob and His Ideas. They Feel a Threat to Their Perceived Elite Status." -- Motley Fool Poster
- Rob, For a Long Time, I Wondered If You Were Really a Psychologist Studying Group Dynamics." -- Income and Dividends Board Poster
- "Greaney is Peter, the Rock, Upon Which the Retire Early Movement Was Built and the Forces of Bennett Will Not Overpower It. You Can Think of Yourself as Martin Luther, the Leader of the Reformation, Which Is a Pretty Good Gig Too If You Can Get It." -- Motley Fool Poster
- "It Must Be Remembered That There Is Nothing More Difficult to Plan, More Doubtful of Success, Nor More Dangerous to Manage Than a New System. For the Initiator Has the Enmity of All Who Would Profit By the Preservation of the Old Institution and Merely Lukewarm Defenders in Those Who Gain By the New Ones. " — Niccolò Machiavelli
- "Reading So Many Rob-Riddled Threads Is Like Being Cyberstalked By a Cult Leader on a Perpetual Mission to Recruit His Following. Sickeningly Sweet and Polite, He's a Con-Artist Who's Letting Others Do the Dirty Work for Him.... Hard to Believe? Yes - If You Don't Know What Skillful Passive-Aggressive Power Brokers Are Capable Of." -- Vanguard Diehards Board Poster
- You've Got to Say One Thing for Rob. He Has NEVER Lowered Himself to Ad Hominen Attacks -- Subliminal or Otherwise -- on Any Other Person on This Board. Not Once. Ever. At Least Give Him Credit for That. - Motley Fool Poster
- "Greaney’s Website Is Full of Excellent, Specific Information, While Rob’s Website Is Like Watching Mary Poppins." -- Vanguard Diehards Board Poster
- "He Reminds Me of One of Those Lifesize Inflatable Clown Balloons I Had As a Child. You’d Step On It’s Feet, and Whack the Tar Out of It, and It Would Go Down and Spring Back Up Again Ready for the Next Whack." -- Vanguard Diehards Board Poster
- "I Have Never Seen Rob Show Incivility. No Matter What. Truly Amazing. Either He Is Really the Output of an Artificial Intelligence Program, or the Man's on the Way to Becoming a Saint!" -- Early Retirement Forum Poster
- "I Have Read Everything I Can About Valuation-Informed Indexing, and I Agree With You That Buy-and-Hold Passive Investing Is Extremely Problematic... I Value and Respect the Passion, Hard Work and Research That You Have Put Into This Very Important Issue... I Think What You Are Doing Has Huge Value." -- Carl Richards, Owner of Clearwater Asset Management and Author of the Behavior Gap Blog