I have been sending e-mails to numerous people letting them know about my article reporting on The Silencing of Academic Researcher Wade Pfau by the Buy-and-Hold Mafia. Set forth below are reports on five responses.
1) Alain Lempereur, Director of Graduate Programs in Coexistence and Conflict at Harvard Law School, wrote: “Thank you for sharing this with me. I read the piece last week. It is not easy to work on this kind of topic. I can testify too. I was in a business school before…”
I responded: “Thanks for taking the time to read the article and thanks for your response. It certainly has not been an easy 10 years. But I do think we are starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. I have to point people to the bad stuff to help them make sense of the story. But I also try to emphasize that the good here outweighs the bad by at least 10 to 1. An argument can be made that the good and the bad are connected. People are upset because it hits them that they have wasted opportunities. That’s why things get on the wrong track. But it is because the opportunities are so great that the emotional pain is so intense. As people become better able to take advantage of the opportunities, the good will come to dominate. I bet that the people who replaced cars with horses ran into this sort of problem. We just don’t hear about the foot-draggers today. The bad stuff is forgotten in time and the good stuff gets better and better and better. Or so I tell myself, in any event. Don’t let the bad guys get you down, man.”
2) Rifat Yilmaz wrote: “What do you want me to do with this?”
I responded: “There’s no particular call to action. I learned about the problem by posting honestly about stock investing on the internet. I was amazed to see what Buy-and-Holders did to block discussions (I also interacted with many investors who wanted to learn the realities). I believe that it was the promotion of Buy-and-Hold that caused the economic crisis. The numbers show that. We are all affected by this economic crisis and we all will be affected in more serious ways when it gets worse. I feel that it is urgent to get the message out and the ordinary means of doing so have all been blocked for me. My thought is that we all should do what we can. Perhaps you can share the link with some friends when they express concerns about where the economy is headed. That would certainly help. My belief is that it is only by getting other people involved that we can work up the courage as a society to deal with the problem. The Buy-and-Holders are smart and good and hard-working people. They are in intense emotional pain. The good news is that, if we melt their hearts, we can all begin working together to take things in a very positive direction indeed. We know things today about how stock investing works that no generation that came before us knew! I hope that all makes at least a tiny bit of sense. Please stay positive, please get involved to whatever small extent seems practical in your circumstances and please wish us all luck as we continue as a society down this highly promising but more-than-a-little-scary path that we are on today.”
3) Shelley Marshall, a Senior Lecturer at Monash University, wrote: “Thanks for sharing, Rob. I’ll look forward to reading your paper.”
I responded: “Thanks for your response. I just wanted to be sure that you understood that the paper that I worked on with Wade has already been published in a peer-reviewed journal. It is here: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/29448/ It is written in that dry style that academics favor (Not me! We journalists play it a very different way!). But the implications are far-reaching indeed. The graphic on Page 11 suggests that an investor can reduce risk by 70 percent by taking valuations into consideration when setting his or her stock allocation. My best wishes to you.”
4) Vikram D. Amar, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of California Davis School of Law, wrote: “Thanks. This is not really up my alley but I wish you the best.”
5) Michal Gilad, wrote: “I am a little confused. What is the purpose of the review? This is by no means my area of specialty.”
I responded: Thanks for your response. I understand that it is not your area of specialty. In some respects that is a positive. People in this field feel limited in what they can say. Their careers are at stake. I am not seeking any particular response from you. I am letting various people know about this. The economic crisis affects us all in a big way. We all need to be thinking about how as a society we can overcome it. We all can help in different ways. Perhaps you have friends who are interested in the subject and you can share the link with them. Each of us can make a small difference and in the end lots of small differences can added together make a big difference. I hope that makes at least a little bit of sense.”
feed twitter twitter facebook