Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently put to a discussion being held at the Goon Central board.
An earlier comment of mine stated that: “I have had more than one e-mail recipient tell me that he or she is going to change the course that he or she teaches as a result of what he or she learned from reading my e-mail and then corresponding with me about it. I think it would be fair to say that Jack Bogle has never received a response of that nature to one of his e-mails.” Drip Guy quoted that response and stated: “With all that unfounded and bizarre hubris stuffed into Rob’s belly, one wonders how there is any room for anything else. A very sick man.” I wrote the words set forth below in response to Drip Guy’s comment.
Please read the comments at the “People Are Tallking” section of my site, Drip Guy.
Then please show me some documentation that Jack has ever heard similar things said about him and his work.
Jack is a giant. I personally rank him as the second most important investing analyst alive today (I rank Shiller first). But Jack has never heard people say about his work the things that I have heard numerous people say about my work. Take a look at the e-mails that Wade Pfau sent me during the 16 months when we were co-authoring the most important research published in this field in over 30 years. Wade had a Ph.D. from Princeton. Yet he learned important and true (he checked!) things from me on an almost daily basis. How many things has Jack Bogle ever said that were important and true and yet not known by people who had Ph.D.s? The two cases are not even roughly comparable. I don’t say that this means that I have an IQ. of 150. It doesn’t. The reason why I am 11 years ahead of Jack and all other Buy-and-Holders is that Jack is still trying to “defend” Buy-and-Hold in the Year 2013 while I gave up on the smelly Get Rich Quick garbage on the night of August 27, 2002, when Greaney threatened to kill my wife and children if I continued to post honestly on safe withdrawal rates and 200 Buy-and-Holders gave the thumbs-up to his post. Any investing strategy that makes large numbers of people so emotional that they give the thumbs-up to death threats is an investing strategy that I want no association with. I think it is fair to say that any investing strategy that causes 200 people to give the thumbs-up to death threats is an investing strategy that is 100 percent emotion and that is supported by precisely zero peer-reviewed academic studies (Wade Pfau of course confirmed that this is indeed the case). It ain’t hubris if it is documented, Drip Guy. It is a documented fact that I got the safe withdrawal rate right TEN YEARS before the Wall Street Journal. Which means that I got the safe withdrawal rate right MORE THAN 10 YEARS before Old Saint Jack. Jack has not demanded corrections in the Old School SWR studies TO THIS DAY. I have, Drip Guy. I have. My stuff is real. Jack’s smelly Buy-and-Hold garbage is not. Not today. It ONCE was real. In the days before Shiller’s “revoltionary” (his word) research, Buy-and-Hold was real. But not today. The way it works in scientific endeavors is that the day your stuff is discredited by the RESEARCH is the day you have to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that fits the data. Valuation-Informed Indexing is Buy-and-Hold fixed to fit the data. Your death threats cannot change that. Your board bannings cannot change that. Your tens of thousands of acts of defamation cannot change that. Your threats to get academic researchers fired from their jobs cannot change that. All that your criminal acts of financial fraud can do is to lengthen your prison sentence. The way it is, my long-time abusive-posting friend. I naturally wish you all the best that this life has to offer a person. Rob the Vindicated (1,000 Times Over and in a 100 Percent Documented Way) |
Anonymous says
You are either on drugs or suffering from a severe mental illness. Either way, you are far from reality in so many ways.
Rob says
In contrast, you are 100 percent rational, Anonymous.
You have it all figured out.
Rob
Anonymous says
Rob,
We merely have to look at outcomes. Jack Bogle has had significant acclaim, is well known and highly successful. You, on the otherhand, have been kicked off the popular boards, are widely considered to be unstable and, by tour own admission, have not faired all that well from a financial perspective. By any measure, you are not even fit to tie Jack’s shoes.
Rob says
I disagree, Anonymous.
My friend Jack Bogle told people what they wanted to hear during a wild bull market.
That’s like selling drugs. It’s easy to see how you can become mighty rich in a short amount of time preying on people’s weaknesses in that way. But how do you sleep at night?
I am going to continue posting honestly on safe withdrawal rates and on many other critically important investment-related topics.
I believe it will work out well in the long run.
But you know what? I couldn’t play it the other way if I believed otherwise.
Millions of people’s lives are affected by this. I see the faces of the millions of people whose lives are in the process of being destroyed when Buy-and-Holders demand that I agree to post dioshonestly.
Find someone else, Anonymous. I wasn’t cut out for that sort of “work.”
Rob