I’ve posted Entry #97 to my weekly Investing: The New Rules column at the Death by 1,000 Papercuts site. It’s called “Hocomania”: The Word, the Phenomenon and Now — The Coffee Cup!
Juicy Excerpt: My posts on investing discussion boards created such a stir that they had to create an entry for the Urban Dictionary to describe the phenomenon. The word is: “hocomania.”They call it “hocomania” because for a long time I used the screen-name “hocus” when posting on boards. My posts pointing out the dangers of the Buy-and-Hold strategy often caused otherwise normal Buy-and-Holders to go nutso berserko. Hence, the “mania” suffix.
Drip Guy says
Rob sounded a lot like internet hacker group “Anonymous” when in 2005, he established this manifesto:
“My intent is to use a new board not only to permit the sharing of ideas on financial independence, but also for the purpose of building a community that will be used to take over control of the REHP board.”
http://www.retireearlyhomepage.com/hocomania.html
Uh…. so it’s pretty much “Occupy REHP,” Rob?
So…. how’s that working out for you?
Rob says
It’s working out wonderfully for all of us, Drip Guy.
Take a look around the site and discover some of the powerful insights that we have developed by working together on this stuff.
The internet is a powerful communications medium. People have been saying that for a long time. This proves the case.
Please take care, my long-time abusive-posting friend.
Rob
what says
lol, building a community to take over other message boads!
Classic Bennett wackyness.
“Take a look around the site and discover some of the powerful insights that we have developed by working together on this stuff.”
Well, besides the fact that there are no powerful insights – this site is definitely devoid of community.
Rob says
Well, besides the fact that there are no powerful insights – this site is definitely devoid of community.
We’ve got insights coming out our ears here, What.
The community part could use some beefing up. I’ll give you that one.
I’m working on it! I’m working on it!
Rob
Rob says
lol, building a community to take over other message boads!
What’s the alternative, What?
I leave my friends to the Lindauerheads and Greaney Goons?
Not this boy.
Please try to find someone else.
Rob
what says
Find someone else to…laugh at?
I am sure you (or maybe someone with a less mushy head) can find a better alternative to ‘taking over Internet message boards’.
This is just too cute.
Rob says
Find someone else to…laugh at?
What you really should do is find an investment strategy that provides you with enough confidence in your financial future that you don’t feel a need to laugh at anyone, What.
I am sure you (or maybe someone with a less mushy head) can find a better alternative to ‘taking over Internet message boards’.
I’ll applaud anyone who comes up with anything that gets the job done, What.
Buy-and-Hold has put us in an economic crisis. People are hurting. The work we have done on the internet over the past 10 years shows us the way out. We all should be proud of that work. We all should be happy that we have found a better way. We all should bow our heads and say a prayer of thanks that we happen to be alive at the time in history when we have been so blessed as to achieve these advances.
Laughing at people doesn’t help us achieve our goals, What. It is wasted energy. And it rots our souls. No good.
This is just too cute.
This is an exceedingly strange comment.
The Old School SWR studies have caused thousands of your fellow community members to suffer failed retirements. And your conclusion is that the situation is “too cute.”
I don’t see it that way. Not even a tiny bit.
I will continue to post honestly re SWRs and many other critically important investment-related topics.
I wish you the best.
Rob
what says
Laughing at someone is not related to investing strategy.
Who are these 1000s of community members? It seems they exist only in your mind.
Rob says
Laughing at someone is not related to investing strategy.
Your laugher is not a mirthful laughter, What.
It is a tactic. It is defamation. It is actionable. It has destroyed many board communities, held back the advancement of knowledge of how stock investing works for many years, and injected a great deal of poison into your soul.
Stop laughing, man!
Or learn how to laugh in a positive and warm and loving way.
Rob
Rob says
Who are these 1000s of community members? It seems they exist only in your mind.
No. There are thousands of community members who have over the course of the ten years expressed a desire that honest posting be permitted.
You can see a small sample of the best comments by looking to the left side of this page.
If we have found thousands of people who possess a desire to learn the realities of stock investing just at our few board communities, we know that the total number of middle-class people interested in our work numbers in the millions.
That’s good stuff. What. That’s exciting stuff.
Hate will not win in the end. Love will win in the end
So I predict! So it will be!
Rob
what says
How come 0 out of those thousands post at your site? I guess their ‘interest’ wasn’t too serious?
Rob says
Sister Mary Margaret explained it best, What —
It’s a mystery!
Rob
what says
Really? It seems pretty straightforward to me. There are no 1000s of people. The only people here are those that mock you and you are here alone with your rants and associated nonsense conspiracy theories.
Rob says
The only people here are those that mock you and you are here alone with your rants and associated nonsense conspiracy theories.
Scott Burns told us that the reason why the “experts” in this field have held back from reporting the truth about safe withdrawal rates (and much else) is that “it is information most people don’t want to hear” (for so long as stock prices remain at insanely dangerous levels).
Is Scott part of the conspiracy, What?
I don’t think so.
I think he was telling us something important.
We need to have these people telling us what we need to hear about stocks, not what we want to hear about them. We all want to hear Get Rich Quick. But Get RIch Quick is killing us.
Rob
Drip Guy says
Rob lied and lied and lied: “Scott Burns told us that the reason why the “experts” in this field have held back from reporting the truth about safe withdrawal rates (and much else) is that “it is information most people don’t want to hear” (for so long as stock prices remain at insanely dangerous levels).”
He did not say that, Rob.
How many times do you have to be told?
Rob says
Anyone who cares to can check out himself or herself what Scott said, Drip Guy. I have posted the link to his words at numerous places on this site.
Take care, My Goon Friend.
Rob
Drip Guy says
Rob persisted in his attempts to bend facts to his own liking: “Anyone who cares to can check out himself or herself what Scott said, Drip Guy.”
Rob, it’s very simple, especially for someone claiming familiarity with the professional methods of formal reportage: Simply take the EXACT and COMPLETE quote that *you* think encompasses the complete statement that YOU claim Burns is making, and re-post it in it’s entirety, and without your own editorializing, so that it’s context cannot be misconstrued by anyone.
The answer as to why you can’t and won’t do that is obvious — there is no snippet of his small enough, nor large enough, to make it stand alone and still appear to say what you CLAIM Burns has said.
He did NOT EVER say that his or other’s jobs were threatened for speaking honestly on withdrawal rates. He. Did. Not. Say. It.
And yet, if one Googles the snippet that you often do include (“information they don’t want to hear”), and Burns name, one does not get a direct link to Burns article in the first ten or 15 pages of results. Instead, one gets link after link, place after place, of YOU blathering endlessly the same LIE about what you apparently wish he had said, and have claimed so often that you even appear to believe it. You have so completely spammed his name and that phrase that getting to the original (as I illustrated earlier) is dang near impossible.
Just more evidence that you are a compulsively unproductive sick and twisted individual.
Rob says
You have so completely spammed his name and that phrase that getting to the original (as I illustrated earlier) is dang near impossible.
Another community member was able to track it down, Drip Guy.
It said what I always said it said.
That’s what matters, so far as I am concerned.
That should settle it, in my assessment.
Any reasonable person who has any doubts should just look at the man’s own words.
I wish you the best, in any event
Rob