I’ve 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.
Yesterday’s blog entry reported on my e-mail correspondence with Economics Professor Valeriy Zakamulin. Set forth below is my response to the e-mail detailed in yesterday’s report:
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Valeriy:
The Pink Unicorn says
Rob,
You give an example as to someone having an account worth $600k going to $200k. Since you are the expert here who knows more than Jack Bogle, Warren Buffet, etc., you must be an incredibly successful investor. So, tell all your readers as to what your financial net worth was when you retired for E&Y and what it is today.
Rob says
Bernie Madoff was an extremely wealthy man on the day before his financial fraud was exposed, Pink.
Does it follow that Madoff was the investing expert that everyone should have been listening to?
I don’t think it follows.
Yes, practicing financial fraud on a massive scale can make a person very, very, very rich. BUT ONLY FOR A TIME.
Practice financial fraud on a massive scale and down the road a piece you end up in prison. This boy is NOT INTERESTED. Not even a tiny bit.
Once we open the internet up to honest posting on what the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research tells us about how stock investing really works, I think it is fair to say that I will be a very wealthy man indeed. A fair enough statement?
I won’t be wealthy only in dollar terms. I will be wealthy both in dollar terms and in the satisfaction that comes with knowing that I did not give in to pressures to betray my fellow community members as a means of pulling in all that wealth. I will be a very wealthy man who earned that wealth honestly.
That’s the way I want to do it, Pink. That’s the ONLY way I am open to doing it.
I naturally wish you all good things, my long-time Goon friend.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
By your non answer, an educated reader can assume that you are not doing too well at this point (unless you factor in some kind of windfall, like an inheritance or similiar one time gain).
You see, Rob, results matter. Otherwise, it is just a bunch of hot air.
Rob says
I will continue posting honestly all the same, Pink.
My best wishes to you.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
So, if people follow your path and don’t succeed, I guess they could always sue you, as that is your plan for future financial success.
Rob says
My plan for future success is to help the millions of middle-class people who have been denied the information they need to learn how to invest successfully, Pink.
That information should never have been denied to us in the first place.
Ask me whether the Buy-and-Hold pioneers are smart and I will say “yes.” Ask me whether they are hard-working and I will say “yes.” Ask me whether they are good people in most respects and I will say “yes.” Ask me whether I respect and admire them and feel gratitude to them for all I have learned from them and I will say “yes.”
But —
Ask me whether they have made a terrible mistake by failing to speak up about the Campaign of Terror against our board and blog communities that has been led by Mel Linduaer and John Greaney for 11 years now and I will also say “yes.”
The lawsuits help us all, Pink. When the lawsuits are announced, the news will go viral. That’s the end of the Old School SWR studies. That’s the end of Buy-and-Hold. That’s the end of the Campaign of Terror. That’s the end of the Ban on Honest Posting. That’s the end of the economic crisis.
Filing those lawsuits is a win/win/win/win/win. It is not even possible for any rational human to imagine a downside.
Now we just need to get a few big names to speak out against what happened to Wade Pfau and the time will be ripe to file the lawsuits.
We are all grateful for any help you can offer.
Please take good care.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
Rob,
I do agree with one thing you said in this last post as follows:
“Now we just need to get a few big names to speak out against what happened to Wade Pfau and the time will be ripe to file the lawsuits.”
Wade has helped us identify that person who Is causing him the most harm. Here is a section of an email that was posted with Wade’s own words:
“The reality is that though I may have for a brief moment got a bit too caught up in YOUR drama, I do not have any fears about the Goons.
The reality is that you are causing me 1000x more career damage than the Goons ever could have by filling Google with so much nonsense about me, and sharing embarrassing private details such as my overly ambitious journal submission strategies, etc. Those in particular are highly private. People don’t publicly share where they submit articles to unless those articles are accepted. You’ve violated my trust in so many countless ways and yet you still proclaim to be my friend.”
Yes, Rob, we do agree that action needs to be taken with that person that is damaging his career…………..and that person is you, Rob
Rob says
You’ve quoted Wade accurately, Pink.
Please take good care.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
Correction, Rob. I have quoted both of you correctly.
Rob says
But you haven’t helped the millions of middle-class people who need accurate and honest information re what the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research says about how to achieve long-term investing success.
So I’m not buying what you’re selling.
I’m afraid that you’re going to have to try to find someone else, Pink.
I wish you all the best in any event.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
And you, Rob, believe you can save everyone from pending doom, despite the fact that you have no track record of financial success? Secondly, you want to bring them honest information when you send out your little article on Wade, when you are lying about him.
Rob says
We ALL should be working hard to save ourselves from economic collapse, Pink. I’d like to be working with my good friend Jack Bogle to achieve that goal. And with my good friend Bill Bernstein. And with my good friend Larry Swedroe. And on and on.
I can extend the hand of friendship to all these people. I cannot compel them to accept. That part is on them, Pink.
I believe that Jack’s heart will melt when he sees the financial misery that will follow from the next price crash. I believe we will pull things back from the brink. And I believe that, once we move on from the flawed first-draft effort at a research-based strategy (Buy-and-Hold) to the first true research-based strategy (Valuation-Informed Indexing), we will be on our way to the greatest period of growth in U.S. history.
You know what. Pink?
When people are looking back years from now to the time when all these powerful investing insights were developed, no one is going to be thinking about or commenting about the ugly tactics employed by you Goons. That stuff is temporary and will all be blown away in the wind. People will be talking about the advances in our understanding of how stock investing works for many decades to come. That’s the cool stuff. That’s the stuff that really matters.
Don’t let the bad guys get you down, man.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
Are Jack, Bill and Larry your “good friends” just like Wade is? If it is true that you retired with only $400k, it sounds like you are the one that needs saving. You have some significant fundamental flaws that hurt your credibility. When you get called out on the carpet, you first evade and then you give long winded, repetitive posts to make up for the shortcomings and when all else fails, you just delete the posts.
Rob, just do a quick search of your past interactions. In almost every thread, you try and dominate all conversations. Your posts make up 80% of the content. You rarely consider others comments unless it furthers your position or if you can use it to distort a conversation. I was reading through some old FMF posts the other night and noticed a thread that you jumped in on. Most FMF threads get 20 or less comments. In this one, it quickly passed 100 and FMF shut it down. You seemed to be demanding a guest post and then the debate started. The volume of your posts were huge, like always, and in the course of 24 hours, you turned a mild supporter (Apex) into a detractor.
Do want to change perceptions? If so I suggest you do the following:
Make massive apologies (starting with Wade)
Establish credibility (it is earned, not given away)
Listen 90% of the time, and comment less than 10% of the time- note the percentage of conversation on other blogs.
Be humble
Don’t insult your audience
Rob says
Yes, we’re all good friends.
We’re all working to achieve the same sorts of goals. We all learn from each other (when things are proceeding correctly).
Why wouldn’t we be friends?
Rob
Rob says
I’m not going to be making any apologies, Pink.
There’s one exception. I am willing to apologize for waiting too long to put forward the post that I put forward on the morning of May 13, 2002. That was wrong.
Outside of that, apologizing is the worst possible thing I could do.
It’s not a problem that Buy-and-Holders and Valuation-Informed Indexers do not agree. That’s a good thing. That’s healthy. For so long as we disagree, the Buy-and-Holders can keep the Valuation-Informed Indexers honest and the Valuation-Informed Indexers can keep the Buy-and-Holders honest. We all benefit from being exposed to the other point of view on a regular basis.
The problem we have is that the Buy-and-Holders got used to being dominant during the insane bull years. They made so much money in so little time that they began thinking that they knew it all. They became arrogant, and, worse, got away with it. They became accustomed to shouting down other points of view. Yuck!
The Buy-and-Holders are responsible for their own bad behavior, Pink. But you know what? The Valuation-Informed Indexers played a role in causing the messed-up situation we have today too.
The Valuation-Informed Indexers failed to speak up when they should have spoken up. Buy-and-Holders advanced death threats and most of the Valuation-Informed Indexers (but not me!) tolerated it. That was wrong. And it didn’t just hurt the Valuation-Informed Indexers. It hurt the Buy-and-Holders too. It led them to believe that behavior that is 100 percent intolerable might be tolerated.
No!
That’s the thing that we all very much want to change deep in our hearts.
I’ll apologize if I get something wrong. That’s a very, very different story.
But I am not going to apologize because I discovered the errors in the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies. That discovery helped everybody. In some part of their consciousness, the Buy-and-Holders want to get the numbers right. My post helped them do that. So no apologies for the exceedingly helpful and brave post of May 13, 2002.
Rob
Rob says
Your posts make up 80% of the content.
It is because everyone is afraid to post honestly about investing matters that my posts stand out so much, Pink.
Once we open up the boards and blogs to honest posting, my stuff will no longer cause such a stir.
And that will be a very, very, very positive thing.
I look forward to seeing that happen.
Rob
Rob says
Be humble
I’m not the one who learned that he got an important number wrong in a retirement study and who has failed to correct the error for 11 years, Pink.
That’s the other guy.
Rob
Rob says
Don’t insult your audience
Do you think that I insult my good friend Jack Bogle when I work on the presumption that he wants to make whatever changes he needs to make in Buy-and-Hold for it to work in the real world?
I sure don’t.
I think I would be insulting him in a very big way if I presumed otherwise.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
Your responses show why you will have no respect and no credibility. You will continue to make your blathering comments and will continue to be mocked , just like you have for the past decade.
The Pink Unicorn says
Rob,
Just remember what Einstein gave as the definition of insanity.
Rob says
If you thought I lacked credibility, you would never have demanded that I banned from so many boards, Pink.
Give me a friggin’ break.
You don’t demand that someone be banned for no reason!
Rob
Rob says
Just remember what Einstein gave as the definition of insanity.
Backatcha, my old friend. we’ve BOTH been doing the same thing over and over again for the past 11 years.
The reason why I am so confident is that I have looked at what has happened to Buy-and-Hold strategies in the wake of the three earlier economic crises they caused.
It’s not a pretty picture, Pink.
People love Get Rich Quick on the way up. Point conceded.
They hate after they have seen their life savings wiped out.
So this is a case where conditions change over time. Get Rich Quick strategies sell during insane bull markets.
They don’t sell in Great Depressions.
The world is going to be turning around for you Goons over the course of the next few years. I am your best friend in the world for trying to help you find a little bit of shelter from the storm.
Take care, man.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
Rob,
Just more lies from you. I never banned you from any board, but I support their right to do so. Based on what I have read, you deserved to be banned. You just want a soap box and you can’t manage to have normal conversations. Secondly, I have not been around for the 11 years you continue to allege. Third, you have no credentials or track record that would give you any credibility.
I am further convinced that you are truly suffering a mental disorder.
Rob says
I’m a terrible person, Pink.
Everybody knows it too.
That’s the thing.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
You talk too much and listen too little and you will see the same lack of success that you have seen for 11 years.
Rob says
So long as, when I talk, the things I say are honest, I can go to sleep at night, Pink.
That matters, in my book.
I wish you all good things.
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
Rob,
You prove my points so well and your comments about being “honest” are just words.
Rob says
Okay.
Rob