2012 October 26

Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to the Goon Central board:

The article re Wade Pfau makes the case re the dangers of Buy-and-Hold in an extremely powerful way.The case is so powerful that people cannot bear to hear it. Gary North is no Buy-and-Holder. But even Gary North could not bear to hear this message. This is a hard one to take.

When I send those e-mails, I hurt people’s feelings and I cause people to hate me. It takes courage to do that.

That’s why no one else has done it. I am not smarter than John Bogle. I have more courage than John Bogle. A better way of saying it is that I have been forced to DEVELOP more courage than John Bogle. I didn’t act with courage prior to May 13, 2002. I was like everybody else, trying hard not to offend even though my intellect told me that staying at the same stock allocation when valuations went to insanely dangerous levels was irresponsible and foolish. I was forced to put forward the post when the Greaney Goons attacked Wanderer and I was left with no other way of defending the integrity of “my” Retire Early board. Then the Goons attacked me and all other honestzzz posters and I was forced to develop even more courage.

I wish I could just get those darn e-mails out without feeling such emotional anguish over it.

It doesn’t work that way.

I have been doing this for 10 years. It has always been hard. Hard, hard, hard. I always get the job done sooner or later, however. I MUST do the job. I will not pretend that it doesn’t hurt to have people ignore me and hate me and mock me and all the rest. It hurts. But I will not let that stop me. I will do right by my community and work up the courage needed to get this difficult job done to the best of my ability.

That’s myzzz sincere take re this important matter, in any event.

I wish you all the best possible luck in all your future endeavors. Please take good care.

Rob