Why would you be scared?

MOST of us are scared, What.

Shiller published his research showing that Buy-and-Hold can never work in the long run in 1981. Bogle to this day continues to advocate Buy-and-Hold. Is Bogle not scared of the reaction he would see from investors he has misled (not intentionally at first, but still…) if he were to start telling the truth about what the research says? It sure seems to me that he is.

My best wishes to you.

Rob

You may be trying to be helpful but I think actually BEING helpful is beyond you

Of course I am trying to be helpful. I have been trying to be helpful for 10 years.

The two things standing in my way are:

1) The unwillingness of “experts” like Bogle and Bernstein and Burns and Swedroe to acknowledge the mistakes they made in the days when they believed in Buy-and-Hold; and

2) The threats and disruptions of the Linduaerheads and the Greaney Goons.

You often note that I do not see many comments posted at this blog. I have argued that Bogle needs to give an “I Was Wrong” speech and that the speech should be written up on the front page of the New York Times. Say that Bogle gave that speech and that he explained that he learned about the problems with Buy-and-Hold from my postings at the Bogleheads Forum and that this was reported on the front page of the New York Times. Would that not help me get the number of daily readers I need to see hundreds of comments appearing at this blog each day? It sure seems to me that it would.

I’m doing my part, What. I’m working it hard. The problem has been that Bogle has not been doing his part and Bernstein has not been doing his part and Burns has not been doing his part and Swedroe has not been doing his part and lots of others have not been doing their part.

We are all in this together, my man. There is not one person alive who benefits from seeing the economic crisis turn into the Second Great Depression. We should all be working together. I would like to see a new and more constructive and more positive and more life-affirming attitude on the part of the Buy-and-Holders beginning at the close of business today, if not sooner.

Does all that not make all the sense in the world, my old friend?

Rob

“There are Post Archives. As Casey Stengel used to say, you could look it up!”

Indeed you could.

Here you go

The data that turned up for 1969 concerned me. As I read the data, it appeared to me that had I made an 80 percent stock allocation in 1969, I would now (31 years later) have lost all of my investment and be bankrupt. Is that true? It’s possible that I don’t understand how the calculator works, but that result was disturbing to me. The actual portflio figure that the calculator gave was that I would now have a negative $31,035. I don’t understand the concept of a negative portfolio value. That’s what makes me a little uncertain as to whether I am reading the results correctly.